The Insiders (4 page)

Stella had never questioned the fact that she didn't really enjoy doing "that" with her husband. She wasn't
supposed
to, was she? It was something a woman submitted to, when the man was her husband. Kevin was kind enough to her, and this was what she had expected from marriage. She did not question the fact that he never tried to caress or arouse her—just rolled onto her and off her, and then they'd both fall asleep. The only time it had hurt was the very first time, and of course she had expected that.

They might have gone on that way forever, except that Mim happened to them. Kevin's big sister, the one his family hardly ever talked about because she had run away from home to make herself a
somebody;
landing a job on TV, making herself a home somewhere on the West Coast. Mim had become something of a legend in their hometown.

Mim just happened to be visiting the city where Kevin attended college, and what could be more natural than her staying with them? If Kevin's acceptance of Mim was a trifle stony-faced, Stella had thought nothing of it. Kevin had always been the quiet type, and of late he seemed to have become quieter than ever—in fact, she hardly ever saw him anymore. She worked all day, of course, and he was having to study very hard so he could get good grades—this was the
only
reason he spent so much time at the library. She must fight back that devil-instinct that suggested to her that the blonde assistant librarian might have something to do with it.

Then—Mim. An invasion; perfumed, long swinging hair, pale face with big made-up eyes. Kevin became quieter than ever and stayed away more after Mim arrived, but Stella blossomed. Stella loved Mim, loved to hear of the life Mim led and the people she met in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Mim was beautiful, fascinating. Stella felt she could listen to Mim talk for hours, watching those expressive eyes and hands, loving it when Mim's soft fingers touched her arm or cheek fleetingly. Even when she was in bed with Kevin she was aware of Mim's presence on the living-room couch, wishing she could be out there talking to Mim or just
listening
—sitting on the rug as they sometimes did, with their shoulders touching.

It was very hot that particular summer, a moist heat; and their apartment had no air conditioning. Stella fainted at work one afternoon, and they sent her home early. She thought she was going to faint again when she walked into the hot, sticky little apartment.

Miraculously, she found Mim there. Mim had planned to go shopping, meeting some people she had to interview, but it had turned too hot, and so here was Mim lying on the couch, reading—wearing the briefest bikini she possessed.

As Stella came in the door, half-staggering, Mim caught her—made her get undressed right down to her bra and panties. Then, because the bra was so tight, Mim took that off, too, in spite of Stella's shy, halfhearted protests.

"Come and sit over here, baby—I've got the fan turned so the breeze hits the couch, see? There's just
us
in here! You've got such lovely breasts, Stella. Bet Kevin loves them all the time...."

Mim's soft hands stroked her lightly, and Stella felt a sudden,
different
kind of thrill shoot up through her whole body. No—Kevin never did
that
to her. Mim talked soothingly to her, soft fingers tracing patterns on Stella's gold-tinted skin. Oh, it felt beautiful! Mim's hands cupped, molded, teased.... Stella closed her eyes. They were lying on the couch together now, and it was really too hot to move. Besides—did she really want to move?

"Take your panties off, too, luv—let's get you all cooled off, huh?" Mim's voice had gurgles of laughter in it—or was it something else? Stella lifted her hips, letting Mim slide the panties down and off her body. How cool it felt now; how cool Mim's fingers felt against her skin.

"Let me massage your shoulders for you, Stella; you look too tense. Turn over—yes, like that."

Mm, that was good! Did she say the words aloud? Afterward she thought she might have. Why else would Kevin have jumped to the conclusion he did, walking in on them lying that way?

Suddenly, the apartment seemed to explode with his anger and the words he flung at them both.

"You! Dirty lesbian! I thought maybe seeing that doctor had cured you by now, turned you into a normal woman, but he didn't, did he, and now you—and you, you bitch, my wife! I always did guess there was something wrong with you, Stella, I knew it. No one could be as pure as you pretended to be. You were a virgin for me because you preferred making out with the
girls,
isn't that it?"

His voice had an ugly, hysterical ring. Now he grabbed for Stella, jerking her off the couch and onto the floor, and then back up onto her feet, holding her arm with one hand while he slapped her mercilessly.

"No, Kevin, no!"

Both she and Mim saying it at the same time, making him even wilder.

"Dirty, cold, frigid les! Never giving, always lying there, stiff. And I tried to be patient with you, gentle. What a laugh!
I
'm going to give you something to remember, now—both of you. Because you're going to watch, Mim, dear. Else
I
'll spread the story of what
I
just saw as far as it will go. Your career will be finished then, sister—
you'll
be finished."

Her head throbbing and spinning from his slaps, her face starting to swell, Stella could do nothing to stop him as he pushed her ahead of him and into their bedroom. She felt him shove her roughly onto the bed and tried to struggle, sobbing hysterically. Again she heard Mim crying out for him to stop.

"Liars—lying, unnatural bitches, both of you! Just don't scream too loud, or everyone's going to find out what's been going on between you two while I've been working my ass off," Kevin advised, his voice rough and hoarse.

Stella had to He there and watch him as he took his pants off, took the belt out of them. She turned over as she saw him coming, muffling her screams of fear and horror, and then he was beating her. She wrapped her arms around her pillow and stifled her pain-filled screams in it while her body struggled and twisted, trying to avoid the blows that kept coming and coming mercilessly until she was in an agony of hurt, throbbing and stinging all over.

When he was through beating her, he threw the belt at Mim, who was kneeling crouched in a comer of the room, sobbing, her hands over her eyes. Only half-conscious now, Stella felt him turn her over; she lay there not able to move as his weight came down on her and he raped her, pulling her legs apart and upward. He seemed bigger than he had ever been, she was dry, and she could feel him tearing his way up inside her, battering into her vitals. She screamed out loud, and his hand slammed down across her mouth, cutting her lip and loosening her teeth. She could feel herself bleeding, and that must have made it easier for him because soon he discharged himself inside her and at last she felt him leave her.

From very far away Stella heard his voice, threatening, cruel.

"Be out of here by the time I get back—both of you. You got two hours, that's all. And you better not contest the divorce, bitch. Get out—and I don't want to hear anything from either of you "again, understand?"

She heard him go stamping out of the apartment, but she couldn't move, couldn't stop her own cries of pain. Oh, God, what pain!

Mim washed her protesting body gently. Mim kissed her all over, stinging her cuts with salty tears. And Mim, her mouth and fingers so very gentle, gave Stella her first orgasm, there on Kevin's bed.

Afterward, leaving most of her clothes behind, Stella let Mim take her away. They went to Los Angeles first, and Stella became beautiful again as the bruises healed. Mim taught her things she hadn't dreamed about, even bought her books to read, and gradually she began to understand about Mim and about herself.

Never again would she let a man touch her, never! She didn't care what they called her; she was going to be like Mim, accepting herself for what she was, accepting her own needs.

That's what she thought at first, until the ugliness of the looks and sly little innuendos and the feeling of merely existing on the fringes of life began to get through to her. Stella still wanted no part of men, but she did want to be accepted by other people. After months of protests and tears and arguments, Mim said at last that she understood; and it was Mim who had helped her get the job. "I suppose I owe you something, after what I caused," Mim said, her big eyes sad and pleading. Somehow, from somewhere, Stella had found the strength to resist that pleading. She had grown tired of Mim, in any case. Never again would she let someone dominate her completely.

The telephone rang
, sending shock waves through Stella's body. She closed her eyes for an instant before she answered the insistent ringing. This was the
present;
both Kevin and Mim were tucked safely in the past. She picked up the phone, hoping it wouldn't be Marti.

But it wasn't Marti; it was David Zimmer.

"Stella, I won't be in this morning—looks like we're going to be tied up in court for quite a while yet. Be an angel and get my correspondence all sorted out, would you? Answer whatever you can, leave the rest for me."

"Yes, Mr. Zimmer. Will you be in this afternoon?"

"I expect to be, sure. After lunch, though. Hold the fort, honey."

She hung up and looked quizzically at the phone. David was being very free with expressions of endearment lately. Could that mean—well, why not? He had told her frankly some time ago that she was a beautiful woman, and he liked to be around beautiful women. Maybe he was leading up to asking her out. God, Marti would go crazy with jealous anger. And Eve—oh, Eve would almost die.

Stella wondered if Eve knew that
she
was the one who'd confided to David that Marti had once made love to Eve.
Once,
only once, Marti had said. And that had been very long ago, almost in the nature of an experiment—never repeated. She had pretended to David that she was jealous because of Marti, but really —really it had been because she was mad at Eve. Eve had acted like a snotty bitch, and it served Eve right.

The trouble with Eve was that she was dumb and not experienced enough in the fine art of playing games. Eve had allowed herself to fall in love with David, and that made her vulnerable. Loving was one thing; being
in
love was another. Being in love was being weak, letting someone else get the upper hand. That wouldn't happen with Stella. No one was going to hurt her again, not
ever.

Stella rolled a sheet of long paper into her typewriter and started to type. Might as well get this will out of the way and have it ready for David to read through when he came back in.

A few minutes later, she was glad that she had been busy, because her door opened without any preliminary knock and Gloria Reardon walked in, carrying a magazine and some papers.

"Hello, Stella. David must keep you awfully busy. You're always working, and always so
quiet!"

Stella smiled up at Gloria, but her mind worked fast. Gloria was up to something, but what? Had she heard anything? Had David said anything? David was the only person who knew about Marti....

"I have some files here that Howard wants David to look over. I'll just leave them on his desk where he can find them, shall I?"

Gloria went through the door that led into David's office without waiting for Stella to reply; and a few seconds later she came sailing out again, a smile on her face. Stella noticed again, with a stab of envy, that Gloria really was quite beautiful. And her clothes! They were the most expensive that Stella had ever seen anyone wear, close up. Not only did Gloria dress beautifully; she had quite a figure as well. It was no wonder that Howard Hansen was said to have more than just a business relationship with Gloria. How, Stella, wondered, did Mr. Hansen take Gloria's obvious fondness for David Zimmer?

Stella would have been surprised if she had known that this was exactly what Gloria intended to discuss with Howard Hansen.

Hansen was a tall, slender, man with piercing gray eyes and sparse blond hair. In his late forties, he was soft-spoken and rather gentle in manner until he stood up in a courtroom, and then he could cut a witness to pieces with the lash of his voice and words. He had once been told that he should have been an actor; diffidently, Howard had replied that the practice of law brought him more money and the knowledge needed to invest it.

Howard Hansen had been a man of few weaknesses until he had met Gloria, the young English widow of an ex-client. Recently widowed himself, Hansen had been on a European trip to dispel his loneliness, when he met her. They had found several things in common.

After he had gotten to know her well, he had discovered that she was not only willing but happy to cater to all his secret sexual desires, thus obviating his regular hiring of highly paid call girls. She had introduced him to the orgy scene in London, Rome, Hamburg—she had even taught him a few things he had never heard of. He had wondered why she had not turned her talents into the channels to which they were best suited and become a courtesan, but she had told him, laughing, that she preferred the cloak of respectability, of anonymity.

Howard had brought Gloria back to California with him—she had said London had begun to bore her. Neither of them felt ready for marriage yet, so Gloria had been given a position in Howard's office, which gave her an excuse to be a part of Howard"s life. They understood each other and had very few secrets from each other. It made for a very satisfactory arrangement, generally.

After she left David Zimmer's office, Gloria came back to Hansen's plush office and, without asking, fixed them each a martini. Very dry. She saw Howard raise an eyebrow at her, but he said nothing, waiting for her to tell him whatever she had on her mind.

After she'd brought the drinks over, Gloria arranged her body on the couch that ran the length of one wall. Every movement she made was deliberately seductive, but Howard knew that at this moment she was not trying to seduce him—she had practiced the rites of seduction for so long that they had become second nature with her.

"I left the latest issue of
Stud
on David's desk. It had his girl friend's picture in it—centerfold."

With Howard, Gloria was herself, direct and abrupt. And he was glad of it.

"I thought she was an ex-girl friend, thanks to you. Or to us, I should have said."

"Howie, you know damned well he's still carrying a torch! Why else would he have gotten so mad at her, just because he found Archer in her bed? My God, you'd have thought she was his wife, the way he fussed."

"So you didn't expect him to get quite that upset. You just thought he'd be annoyed enough to play 'what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.' Does it matter at this point?"