The Insiders

"Ah, Eve, you disappoint me! You're putting on an act and pretending—I had expected better from you. You struck me as being—well, intelligent, at least." As an afterthought he added softly, "I didn't invite you here tonight, sweetie, remember? You came of your own free will. And I got to thinking—now, why else would you come to my party except to get laid? Especially after we'd already discussed it at our last meeting."

He ran the fingers of one hand gently down the side of her face, and she shuddered with distaste, pulling her head back sharply.

But at the same time, she felt herself almost hypnotized by his cold, empty eyes, unable to speak. Sensing her turmoil and taking it as a kind of surrender, he began to smile.

"You do want to get screwed, don't you, Eve Mason? That's why you came, isn't it? There's no need to act embarrassed about it, baby—I don't mean to boast, but this kind of thing has happened before. You, however— I've wanted you, too, for a long time. But hurry up now, I have other guests to attend to."

At the back of her mind, she realized that he seemed to be deliberately taunting her. She heard herself stammer, "I won't—I don't," and wondered dimly why, when she tried to speak, the words wouldn't come out right.

His fingers tightened, drawing a stifled cry of protest from her.

"You will, and you do. You'll want it, Eve. And I'm going to have you in any event—you already know that, don't you?' His voice hardened as he continued, "Stop playing silly games, doll. Let's forget all the pointless preliminaries for a change. Or are you Francie's type? Is it rape you desire? Perhaps you enjoy being hurt first, is that it?"

He had her by both arms now, pulling her toward him. His eyes seemed to burn into hers like blue frost-fire, but his voice remained even and polite, heightening her feeling of unreality.

"Stop it," she whimpered. "Let go of me! You can't— I won't let you touch me. You're wrong, wrong! I'm not like Francie!"

Her words sounded pitifully inadequate even to herself, and he laughed, tightening his hold on her arms until she winced, crying out

"Ahh! Stop hurting me!"

He made his voice exaggeratedly patient.

"Eve, it's too late to stop anything. If you want it to be rape, then I guess I can oblige you. If you won't take your clothes off by yourself, then I'll rip them off your cringing body. Will that turn you on, honey? Is that one of the things you enjoy having done to you?"

Inexorably, ignoring her struggles and her protests, he forced her closer to him while his hands slipped down her arms until one was clamped around her waist, pulling her up against his body. She felt stifled, suffocated! With his free hand under her chin, he forced her face up to meet his and began to kiss her brutally and thoroughly, his cruel, hurtful fingers pressing on either side of her mouth now until he had forced it open and she felt bis tongue ravage it.

Sobbing, whimpering, Eve tried-to push him away from her, but he was like a rock—obdurate, hard, and unyielding—and she was compelled to endure his kissing with her head strained back, her mind starting to whirl strangely so that she thought back with sudden panic to the drink he had given her earlier. God, suppose he'd had the bartender put something in it, some kind of drug that was now making her dizzy, taking the strength away from her arms and legs, leaving her weak and helpless? She felt as if her head were floating in space, detached from her body. She felt the taste and texture of his tongue, his lips, his teeth pressed against her lips, hurting her.

Suddenly and silently, while he continued to kiss her bruised and open mouth, Eve felt his hands go up to the neck of her dress and rip it downward.

She tried to cry out against the pressure of his hps and plundering tongue. She felt that she was going to faint, and then his mouth left hers and he pushed her backward. As she started to fall helplessly, he grabbed at the front of her dress, tearing it, pulling her toward him again. Within a minute he had contrived to strip her naked except for her pantyhose, and she began to shiver, feeling the air cool on her body.

He meant it, then. He actually intended to rape her —he had not merely been trying to frighten her.

Disjointed thoughts, words, phrases tumbled around in Eve's mind. This is something out of a scary novel. David, save me! How could I have underestimated this man so, after all the warnings, after the feeling I had about him. This is a nightmare. Wake me up somebody! David? She had said it so often, his name was her talisman.

She moved backward now—warily, fearfully, like a terrified trapped animal.

"Don't—please—this has gone beyond a— Stop it, I won't let you—"

He laughed. His eyes, she thought, looked like polished stones, reflecting the fight. She had seen cats look at her that way with unreadable feline eyes. She noticed then that whatever drug he had used had enlarged his pupils, so that his eyes looked more violet than blue.

He made no move to come at her this time; he was standing there watching her, with his hands now at his belt—strong, capable-looking fingers moving so quickly and efficiently as he started to undress.

"That's better, Eve Mason," he said softly, "that's much better. You really do have a beautiful body, don't you? Francie kept telling me you were too skinny, but you're not, under your clothes. Be a good girl now, and take off those pantyhose, too, won't you?"

Goaded by his words, and suddenly finding some strength left in her legs, Eve whirled and started to run desperately for the door. She had reached it, was actually turning the handle, when he caught up with her and held her immobilized against his body from behind. He chuckled softly in her ear while his hands moved slowly and insolently down her cringing body, squeezing her breasts, pressing between her legs, making her squirm and begin to cry with shame and fear and anger while she attempted to flail at him with her hands.

He held her—and after a while, the drug, whatever he had had put in her drink, made her so weak and dizzy that he must have felt her weakness and turned her around to face him. Without warning, then, his hand lashed out at her, slapping her backhanded—first one side of her face and then the other.

Eve heard her own scream of pain echo in her ears as she instinctively brought her hands up to her face. While she swayed on her feet, she could feel, with helpless anger, how he tore away her last shred of protection, the thin nylon ripping under his fingers.

He pushed her backward, holding "her shoulders, and us she felt the edge of the bed behind her knees, she fell back onto the bed as he meant her to do. The lights blinded her, and above her a mirror reflected her own too-pale body back at her until his body covered it.

Eve started to struggle as soon as she felt his weight on her. Panic-stricken, she began to claw and tear at him with her nails, seeing his eyes at last register some emotion—surprise? Had he really expected her to succumb easily?

"No!" she screamed again. "I won't, damn you, I won't, I won't!" She kept repeating the words through bruised lips, not even caring when he slapped her again, sharply and impatiently.