Chapter 9

"Get ready."

"Oh." Gwen rolled painfully over to her side and tried to open her puffed eyes. Her shoulders and back ached. She pushed herself up on one elbow and forced her eyes open. Allen was throwing socks and shorts into a small bag.

"Get your ass in gear, Gwen. It's Friday."

"Friday?" She tried to move her legs, but a throbbing pain in her crotch made her stiffen. She reached down and felt the tender, battered flesh around her vagina.

"Yeah, Friday. We're going up to see Sybil and Bob. Now come on." His voice was restless and his hands shook as he tried to snap the suitcase closed.

"Hurry the fuck up," he yelled, his eyes smoldering, his biceps twitching hysterically.

"I can't move," she mumbled, closing her eyes and falling back against the mattress.

"Get up." Allen pulled her roughly to her feet. Her joints felt like they were on fire as her knees buckled and she fell against him.

"Please, Allen? Let me sleep?"

"No. Sybil wants us up there by six. She's having some guests over. Some beautiful people she told me about."

He stared at the wall, his eyes glazed, his mouth twitching.

"I don't want to go. I want to sleep."

Grumbling, Allen lifted her and carried her to the bathroom where he sat her in the tub and turned the shower on. The cold water pelted her skin, wetting her hair and trickling icily down her nose and chin. Allen picked up a bar of soap and gruffly rubbed it over her skin and then pushed her head under the steaming water.

"Now, get ready. Put some make-up on and look presentable." He clomped out of the room, leaving her sitting limply in the cold shower.

Gwen slept most of the way to Santa Monica. It was a restless, discomforting sleep filled with the bitter memories of the previous week. She fought the thoughts, trying to think of them as beautiful, but the throbbing aches coming from nearly every spot on her body made the struggle difficult.

Her hair was still damp as she walked stiffly behind Allen to the McCusker's house. She had covered the bruises on her face and neck with makeup, but couldn't hide them from her mind.

"Hello, handsome."

Sybil met them at the door. She wore a see-through house- dress revealing her smooth, tanned flesh, her dark patch of triangular pubic hair, her long, squash-shaped breasts with their proud, protruding nipples. Bob skulked in the living room, not at all happy with the visitors.

"Gwen, you look lovely, dear," Sybil lied, noticing the woman's haggard face and her matted hair clinging to the sides of her face under her scarf.

"Thank you," Gwen stammered, shuffling her feet and feeling uncomfortable.

Sybil laced her arms around Allen's neck and ground herself against him as she kissed him.

"I've missed that, Allen," she whispered.

"Me too."

Sybil broke away from Allen's tight grip and led them into the living room. Bob stood near the repaired stereo, a fatuous look on his face.

"Well, say hello to our lovely guests, Robert."

"Hello," Bob said, turning toward the stereo and fiddling with the knobs.

"Hey, I see you got it fixed, old boy." Allen marched over and slapped Bob on the back. "Looks as good as ever. Sorry about that, again."

Bob grunted.

"Still a little pissed?" Allen poked him in the ribs and laughed.

Bob wheeled away. "Hello, Gwen."

"Hi." She reached up and touched her tender cheek where Allen had hit her two nights ago.

"Say, you look like you've been partying all night."

"You bet we have," Allen boasted, grabbing Sybil by the waist and pulling her against him. "Good friend Sybil here taught us a few tricks that were really wild." He pressed his slobbering mouth against Sybil's and forced his tongue into her mouth.

"Easy, Rover," she said, pushing him away. "Let's not rush things."

"Just happy to see everyone," he answered, slapping her hard on the buttocks. Bob clenched his fist and took a long draw from his drink.

"How is everything, Gwen?" Bob spoke quietly to the disheveled-looking woman next to him.

"Fine. Fine." Her voice quavered and she pulled at her fingers nervously.

"Is everything all right?"

"Yes. Fine."

"Is every thing still beautiful." His voice was hesitant.

Gwen's eyes flicked furtively from side to side.

"I... yes... I think so... I'm glad to be here, if that's what you mean."

Bob sighed and sat back. "You remember what happened last time you were here?"

She shook her head, trying to recall a particular incident. "No. Just that we loved each other, as we l always do."

"That's right."

"How's the golf game?" She didn't care about the answer, she just wanted to rid herself of the loud buzzing in her mind, to wash away the detached sensation that overcame her as she watched Allen and Sybil pawing each other across the room.

"Not bad. Has Allen been loving you?"

She lowered her head and looked at her chipped fingernails. "Yes."

"Did it hurt, when he loved you?"

She bit her lip and looked at Allen's hands as they cupped Sybil's blossoming buttocks.

"No. I love him. When you love, nothing hurts." The words came out automatically. They weren't true, but she couldn't say that he had hurt her, that she remembered the pain and soreness, the curses and the interminable attacks Allen had made upon her the past week.

"That's good," Bob said, sinking back and crossing his legs. "It's important, very important, that you only feel love-nothing else."

"I understand." But she didn't. She didn't understand why she was saying the things she had said. She didn't understand why Sybil was fawning over Allen's penis and laughing as he pinched her breasts and made her squeal. She didn't understand why Bob sat like a lamp, not looking at his wife with another man.

"We have some interesting guests coming over this evening," Sybil said, pulling Allen to the couch by his penis. His hand was cupped between her legs, fondling her vagina through the wide fishnet material. "I think you'll all enjoy them, especially you, Gwen. I invited them especially for you."

Her wide mouth curved into a mischievous smile.

"Right, Robert?"

Bob didn't say anything. He glared up at Sybil and felt like lashing out at her with his fist, beating her against the wall until she was bloody. But he didn't, for he knew that's what she wanted. She would enjoy every smash of his fist against her, cry in ecstasy as his knuckles crunched into her face. No, it was better to let someone else do it. It was better to keep his distance and only watch. For he knew his wife was as vicious as the men she chose to mate with, and that she always won in the long run... always.

Allen was drunk, running around the house chasing Sybil, telling crude jokes to the couples who had come a half-hour ago.

The guests seemed to be watching Allen as if he were a phenomenon captured suddenly in their laboratory. Occasionally, they looked at Gwen and tried to engage her in nonsensical chatter, but she was elusive and quiet, watching, as the others were, her husband's infantile antics as he played the role of the party buffoon.

Allen had no inhibitions. He jumped around the room mimicking a frog and telling the onlookers how he raped a poor unsuspecting princess who thought he was a prince in disguise. They laughed, encouraging him to play more ludicrous roles.

Bob sat disconcerted in the corner, looking more at the liquor in his glass and at Gwen, than at the jester and his court.

"Come on now, everybody, it's time for the main event," Sybil called, waving at the guests to press close around her. "Gwen? Come on, Gwen."

Her joints creaking, Gwen stood and joined the group. She felt the eyes staring at her, roving over her thin body. She saw the tongues lick out and slide across the lips. She saw the hands opening and closing, opening and closing.

"These are my friends, Gwen. They want to help love you as we have." Sybil paused and reached behind her, grabbing Allen's penis and squeezing it as she watched Gwen's expression.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes. I think so." She pulled at her fingers.

She could hear the heavy-set man next to her breathing coarsely. A thin, rail of a woman with bony, birdlike hands pressed her finger against her hollow cheek and stared at Gwen through dark, blemished eyes.

"These are all beautiful people, too, Gwen." Sybil's hand swept around in a circle. "They love you. I asked them to, for me."

"That was nice of you."

"I did it because I love you, baby," Sybil said, pursing her lips and laying a hand on Gwen's shoulder. "Now. I want you to let these wonderful people undress you and then love you. Just shut your eyes and enjoy their love, Gwen. It is a deep love, as ours is."

Sybil's cat-and-mouse smile skidded across her face.

"I won't be here with you, Gwen. Your husband and I are going to enjoy our love together in the bedroom. You don't need me here. Just remember that these people love you, they want you very deeply to love them. Will you do that for me?"

"Yes."

"Good." Sybil pulled her close and kissed her, rubbing her hands up and down Gwen's back.

"Come on, bitch," Allen interrupted, pulling Sybil away.

"I'll see you later, Gwen. Have a good time."

Sybil shrank away.

As instructed, Gwen closed her eyes. First, there was one hand and then another and another. They pulled at her clothes, ripping them off her confused body. She stood naked, her eyes pinched shut, trying to think of things wonderful, beautiful. But she only saw the red, botched images of her eyelids.

Hands gripped her breasts and thighs and she felt herself being lifted and carried through the air. Voices laughed beneath her, hands probed at her vagina and mouth. She felt the skinny, tough fingers of the woman she had noticed pry her lips apart and push the shaft into her mouth.