The Insiders

Someone held a small silver spoon under her nose, trying to make her snort up the white, powdery substance it contained. She screamed and felt her lips and tongue grow numb as it spilled.

Hands pulled at her legs, dragging them so widely apart that she screamed again with agony. A man knelt on the bed, his fingers incongruously gentle as he held her labia open. His voice sounded slurred, and she suddenly knew him even in the middle of her nightmare— Brant Newcomb!

"I want you all to see what I discovered. Isn't she beautiful? Jer, why don't you zoom in and get a close-up of the sweetest cunt in the world."

"Damn you, Brant Newcomb, damn you, damn you!" she sobbed until some other man, kneeling over her head, pushed his penis into her mouth, gagging her, making her retch.

Their hands and mouth and stiff, thrusting cocks were everywhere on her body—hurting her, invading her, ravaging her, while she shuddered and cringed and made choked, terrified animal noises in her throat.

It was no use, they kept telling her; no use fighting, no use struggling like an insane creature. Why didn't she give in and have a good time like everyone else? Couldn't she see that they were trying to teach her how to have fun?

Eve wondered vaguely, with the part of her mind that was still capable of reasoning, why she didn't yield, give in like they said, let them do whatever it was they wanted to do with her. She had been screwed before, abused before, and maybe if she did stop fighting them, their cruel game might lose some of-its savor. But she caiddn't stop—couldn't stop her biting, kicking, and

clawing; her screams of fear and almost witless panic.

She continued to struggle and thrash about, so that they had to hold her down, cursing at her stubbornness. Another man thrust his penis in her mouth, and she bit down on it, hearing his yell of pain and shock, and feeling in her turn the pain of his hand slamming across her breasts.

"Bitch! Goddam bitch!"

Someone laughed.

"So keep your pecker out of her mouth, then. There's other ways."

There were other ways, and they tried them all, while her awareness of what was happening and kept on happening began to come in patches now as her brain tried to detach itself from her bruised and violated body.

But by now she wasn't the only one—she was the center of a monstrous orgy, a tangle of bodies, male and female, copulating around her and across her and over her and everywhere else in the room. Reflected in the mirrors, they looked like a mass of writhing, squirming snakes.

Eve struggled to breathe, to remain human, to proclaim her humanity and her individuality—to survive.

Were they still taking pictures and making their dirty movies? The white, bright lights had changed into flashing kaleidoscope colors that seemed to well and surge and glow around her with herself in their center, being sucked down into a Hell peopled with writhing, joined bodies—ugly, hurting—Dante's Inferno come to life. A nightmare! Worse than a nightmare because she couldn't escape merely by waking up—she was trapped, caught up in it, part of it.

But it couldn't be happening, couldn't be real—you read about this kind of thing, but it didn't happen, not to her, not to Eve Mason, Dave's girl.... People didn't really do these things to other people; you read about it, talked about it, watched X-rated movies, but you stayed outside of the nightmare—didn't you? Didn't you?

Hell it was, and the voice of the serpent whispered in her ear again. She had been on the point of escaping, detaching herself completely, and then Brant Newcomb's voice brought reality sharply and painfully back.

"Eve, damn you, will you stop trying to fight it? Even Francie had more sense than you. It's too late, baby, you can't stop it, so why don't you join—join in the fun, Eve. Come on, lie still for me and let me fuck you. Don't you know I've wanted to fuck you from the very first time? Stop fighting me, and I'll make it good for you—god dam you, stop fighting!"

Mindless, wordless, she shook her head at him, against his insidious words. Someone, straddling her body, grabbed her ankles and pulled them upward and back while Brant knelt between her spread thighs. She felt herself an offering, a sacrifice to the old pagan gods —wasn't this the way primitive tribes raped captured maidens?

Suddenly, she felt him drive himself deep inside her —deeper than any of the others had gone. She felt him battering up against the opening to her womb, and the pain was so great that she screamed, over and over again, until she fainted—with her screams still echoing in her ears.

CHAPTER TWENTY

EVE CAME FLOATING BACK to consciousness again, and she was still in bed. But a different bed this time, in a different room. Brant's bed? Brant's room? Horror washed over her all over again when she saw him there, sitting on the side of the bed, watching her.

There was no one else there now, but she was still defenselessly naked, and she hurt all over when she moved. Her body started to struggle again involuntarily. He put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her down against the pillows, and she wanted to scream again.

"You don't have to go on fighting. They've all gone home, and the party's over." His voice was even, betraying no emotion.

"Oh, dear God!" she said aloud in a ragged whisper. She stared at him, seeing his beautiful, corrupt face. Her mind was still freewheeling from the drug he must have given her, and she felt as if she were floating, without sensation. Numb inside and out.

"Hardly apropos," he said dryly, making the unreality sharpen. "Didn't you know I'm the Devil?"

Her subconscious mind believed him somehow, and she could feel herself shrink away, bits of long-ago trivia drifting back int

o her mind. Didn't they use forked, pointing fingers to ward off the Devil? Or, in later times, a crucifix?

Why don't I wear one any longer? She brought her hand up to touch her bare neck in a curiously childish, forlorn gesture.