The Insiders

"I had a friend, a physician, check on you while you were still out. He said you're going to be okay."

His voice was still even, but his eyes, flicking over her, had a strange and unrecognizable look in their depths.

She shrank into herself, mistrusting him, fearing him, suddenly wishing she could cover her body from his eyes even now.

"Goddammit, you should have been sensible!" he said suddenly. "The stuff I had the man put in your drink earlier on was supposed to turn you on and take care of all your damn stupid inhibitions, but I guess he miscalculated. So things got out of hand—I didn't mean for them to go as far as they did, but we were all pretty high, and you were supposed to be, too."

She winced at his offhandedly contemptuous tone. A stammer in her voice, she said, "You—you have to take by force? And what all of you did to me—was it just for kicks? Is that the only way you can make it with a woman? Is your appetite so jaded it has to be rape, or a—a gang-bang?"

He leaned over and slapped her coldly and deliberately. The pain brought tears to her eyes, but it helped clear her head, too. It gave her some pitiful measure of satisfaction to know that her words seemed to have gotten to him, and now, suddenly unafraid, she couldn't stop.

"Did what I just said hit home, Brant Newcomb? Did it get under your hide, you bastard? And what is behind the mask, anyway, man or—or fag?"

No, she wasn't afraid of him now. What more could he do to her? She could see the angry flush that came up under his bronze skin, and was glad she had finally

made him react. Was that what his real problem was, that he was a closet homosexual, trying to hide his real tendencies from the world by acting the satyr? Was that part of the reason that he seemed to hate and despise women? She said so aloud. "Is that why you're a sadist? Do you have to put women down?"

He stood up, and for a moment she thought crazily that he was going to fall upon her and rend her—finish what he and his friends had started.

But his voice, when he spoke, was very controlled, very quiet.

"I think you're trying to provoke me into fucking you again, baby, and I really don't want to any longer. There were too many others just now, and even I can be fastidious sometimes."

He walked away from the bed to a concealed closet in one of the paneled walls and came back carrying her coat.

"I'm sorry, but this is all you have left to wear. I'll buy you a new dress to make up for the one I ripped off you." He handed her the coat "Get up and put it on, and I'll take you home."

Somehow, she found her voice. "I don't want—" she began, but his voice cut across hers.

"I don't give a damn what you don't want, Eve. I said I was taking you home, and I am. Either you come with me, or I have to figure that you enjoyed what happened a few hours ago and want more. I can always call some of my friends back, you know. Or would you prefer someone different?"

She could not help shivering. The look in his eyes made her afraid all over again. Hating him, hating her own weakness, she sat up. Her head starting whirling dizzily. Remembering something she had read somewhere, she lowered her head to her knees and hoped the faintness would go away.

"You—I'm not going to let you get away with this, you know," she said unevenly. "I'll go to the police— the DA—someone!"

His voice sounded bored, almost weary.

"Ah, you're full of shit, doll. Is that the worst you can do? Once you're capable of thinking straight, though, I don't think you'll do anything. I bet you've forgotten all the pictures we took. We even made a movie, close-ups and all, and I'm sure you're very, very photogenic, even under those circumstances. Now, how would you feel if a lot of other people got to see some of those pictures? Your family, for instance—your boyfriend, whose spying you were doing last night. And of course all the other beautiful people you work with. The underground press would really have a field day. Is that what you want, luv?"

While he'd been talking, Eve had been thinking of the pictures. Oh, God! How could she have forgotten that part of the horror? She felt sick, remembering the flashes, the lights hot on her body—people taking pictures, laughing while the others opened her, examined her body minutely and intimately, touched and fucked her as if she'd been a thing without feeling, a toy for their amusement. And the worst part had been the way they had looked inside her, violating her with their probing eyes and fingers, using her without pity or humanity.

Eve had to force herself to look up at him.

"I hope you drop dead. I'd like to kill you myself. I hope I never have to set eyes on you again!"

He recognized the venom as well as the defeat in her voice, and smiled coldly. But his eyes still held the same measuring look that had puzzled her earlier.

She tried to stand, but she was so dizzy that he had to help her—politely wrapping the coat around her shaking body and even buttoning it up for her while she swayed against him involuntarily. He stood so close to her! If only her hands weren't so nerveless and would do what she wanted them to do; if only she had a weapon—she'd have killed him! She wanted to slap his face with all the force she could muster, to leave deep, bloody tracks in it with her nails, marring its perfection. But her hands felt as if they had weights attached to them, and her mind kept trying to escape from her weak and aching body.

Observing her, noticing the way she shied away from his touch, Brant Newcomb could not help feeling a grudging land of admiration for her guts and stubbornness as well as, he admitted with surprise, a sudden spurt of desire for her body. But this time for her willing body, not the way it had been tonight. Maybe if the gang had not burst in when they had, he might have gotten to her after all—made her his casual possession, like countless other women before her, starting with Syl. Yes, always starting with Syl. His usual goddam nightmare, his one weakness. Fighting with himself, he pressed his fingers into Eve's arm as he started to help her walk outside, and felt her flinch. But she said nothing, would not even look at him. Well, what did he expect? She had just been gang-raped and had fought them all, all the way, he remembered with annoyance. She was a stubborn bitch, but it was only natural that she should hate and mistrust him.

They went down in the elevator to his garage in silence, and he helped her into the car he would use tonight—one of the three he kept there. She flinched away from his touch again, so he deliberately lingered over it, letting his fingers close over her thigh after she was sitting beside him, and hearing her gasp of pain and rage.

Sliding into the seat next to her, he wondered if she'd really try to do anything about what had happened, and grinned mirthlessly to himself. Like hell she would! Now that he had pictures of her and she knew it, all he had to do was remind her occasionally, and she'd be good and manageable, just like the rest of them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

BRANT THE MANIPULATOR! He was good at that. Manipulating people, using them—especially women. Never a woman yet that he hadn't been able to control and to break, even Syl—shit, no more thoughts of Syl! He'd paid a shrink for three years of analysis to be rid of Syl and his memories of her—and what few hang-ups and self-doubts he had left by then. And since Syl, he had discovered so many things! Money talks, he had found. Money talks loudest and laughs last. He could buy anything and anyone he pleased, get away with practically anything he wanted to get away with, with all his damned money. Anything at all...