The Insiders

"A slave auction—yeah!"

Other people took up the clapping, and Francie began to laugh. Her face looked swollen and vapid, and Eve wondered miserably if she were capable of realizing what was going on. God, this couldn't be happening!

Brant Newcomb's hair glinted like dull gold as he moved closer to Francie, his hand ripping away what was left of her blouse to expose her breasts—large and ripe for a girl her age.

"Guess most of you here know Francie already— she's quite a chick, ready for anything. Those who don't know Francie can come up here and take a close look. Remember, our girl's up for grabs this evening. Any one of you can have what she's got to offer, so let's hear the bidding!"

Jerry, laughing, whispered to Francie, and she began a slow weaving of her body, beginning to slide her skirt down over her hips. Eve gasped with outrage when she saw the welts on the girl's buttocks and thighs.

"I bid fifty," someone said hoarsely.

Brant must have tired almost immediately of the game he had started.

"Done—

and she's all yours, Derek buddy," he said quickly, his voice sounding bored. "Don't forget to give her the dough after you get her out of town, but be sure she earns it first."

Someone began to titter, but Francie's voice, shrill, hysterical, cut through all the other sounds and voices.

"Hey, no! No, that's not enough bread. Goddam you, anyway, Brant Newcomb, I won't go with him. Told you already, I'm going to stay with you."

"I'll throw in a couple of thousand extra myself, sweetheart, and you go with Derek here like a good, quiet girl. He'll take you to his commune in New Mexico, and you'll find it's a whole new experience for you— won't she, Derek?"

Brant had moved back, grinning, and the bearded young man who had pushed past Eve caught Francie by the waist, pulling her off the makeshift platform.

"Hell, no! I'm not going off to any old New Mexico— I'm staying right here. Let go of me!" Francie yelled, her nails raking at the man's face.

He slapped her, the blow sounding like a small explosion. It knocked her backward onto the coffee table, where she lay sprawled out, her legs outspread obscenely. Eve could hear Brant laugh as he threw a wad of bills at Francie, heard the girl scream curses at him even as she grabbed for the money, clutching it to her bare breasts with greedy fingers.

Derek pulled Francie to her feet, and someone handed him an Indian blanket. In spite of her struggles and screams of rage, he began to wrap it around her squirming body, pinning her arms against her chest, as if it had been a straightjacket. Some of the other men who stood close by helped him. Eve could hear their laughter and their coarse comments.

It had all been like something thrown from a projector onto a movie screen—it just wasn't possible that this was really happening, here in the same room with her! Suddenly recovering from her disbelieving, frozen immobility, Eve began to push and fight her way through the crowd of people that seemed to hem her in.

"This isn't true, any of it!" she exclaimed aloud, and a man glanced at her curiously.

"You never been to one of these 'partouzes' before, doll? Stick around and we'll make even wilder things happen, you and I "

His hands reached under her skirt, pawing, but she managed to elude him, almost running now. She could see Francie again, being carried out of the room by Derek, half-smothered by the blanket, but still struggling. There was a flurry of cheers and lewd remarks as one of Francie's flailing bare legs knocked another man off balance.

Another minute and Francie would be gone—she'd never catch up with them. How could she, with not even a car to follow them in?

Eve forgot everything but her own anger at what she had just witnessed, and her frustration at not being able to do anything about it.

"Francie! Bring her back in here, you crazy, irresponsible fool!"

She screamed it as loud as she could, not caring who heard, hoping only that the man would hear her voice over the yells and catcalls of this gang of maniacs.

Eve grabbed at the arm of someone who loomed in her way, shutting Derek and Francie out from her view.

"Please, stop them! Francie's only seventeen—and anyway, it's nothing but kidnapping, and he'll get in trouble, too! Please..."

Her words trailed away as Brant Newcomb's fingers closed around her arm, stopping her, freezing her.

She felt suddenly isolated on an island alone with him —encapsulated within the sea of faces and voices that swirled like a rising and falling tide around them.

He had said nothing. His mouth smiled at her without humor, and his eyes stayed cold, chilly blue, showing neither feeling nor emotion.

"Will you let me go!" she whispered to him, without knowing why she felt impelled to whisper. "You must be insane to think that you—even you—can get away with something like this. Francie is—she's a human being, or don't you understand that? You can't just auction her off as if—"