Chapter 9

Ellen was glad when she heard the sound of the car engine leaving the house even though she knew it only brought the time closer when she would be, without a doubt, subjected to more indignities at the hands of her captors. But the man with the briefcase had brought more fear into her than ever would have been possible had she merely been sequestered with these criminals alone. Suddenly she had an image in her mind of what the outside world would be if political assassinations were permitted to go unchecked and unsolved; and it didn't look good. It would be a world of steadily mounting chaos where the strongest ruled the weak, and where the law of the land would become the savage rule of survival of the fittest. Right now the wanton abuse of her body and her loss of complete self-respect seemed almost inconsequential in comparison to what they were about to do tomorrow; yet she knew that when the moment came, and she had to submit to them once more, she would react with as much revulsion as she had before... because it was happening to her! A rape was here and now! And there was no way of escaping the humiliation... especially with these men.

"Why dontcha make yaself comfortable, honey?" she heard Sylvia ask Billy in an obsequious tone. "Maybe I can fix ya somethin' to eat."

"Goddamnit, just get me some whiskey and leave me alone, will ya?" he answered gruffly, weary, uncertain, and still angry at the discussion he had had with the overbearing stranger.

The others sat quietly and averted their gaze from Billy, knowing that it would be sheer idiocy to cross their gang leader at this moment. They knew what he was capable of doing, and were fearful that he might erupt into an uncontrollable violence after he had been rather abruptly put in place so many different times during the long day. He had been humiliated and beaten at his own game, and now he was momentarily reduced to the same level as the other men. That would mean that he would try to assert himself more vigorously than he ever had before; after all, he was now challenged on all sides, and a cornered animal has no choice other than to fight violently for its life.

Ellen sat and watched Billy extend his glass for Sylvia to fill it to the brim. Time seemed to stand still in the warehouse, the afternoon had worn into the lazy summer half-light of early evening. The rain had stopped and over the hazy skyline of the nearby city a burnished sunset glow lit up the horizon. Soon it would be night, and Ellen's fear of what the men planned to do to her next began to grow. Cash, Pop and Vito were crouched down next to the wall at the far end of the room; they had begun shooting craps, and with each crack of the dice Ellen felt as though a new verdict or further confirmation of her ravishment was being sealed. Once Vito stared back at her, and Ellen caught a sliver of light that glittered up from the evilly swirling depths of lust in his eye. The silence was ominous, and the intermittent sounds of Billy pouring himself more whisky and the dice clattering against the wall only made it all the more frightening.

The thought struck Ellen that the dice playing, the drinking, and even that vile expression of animal lust she had experienced last night and undoubtedly would be subjugated to again, were expressions of a deep inner fear that embraced each of the four men. Death was near, it was inescapable, and if they couldn't out-run it, then they could at least blind themselves to its approach. Even Sylvia seemed to be aware of it, and she sat silently drinking alongside Billy, her movements strangely tranquil, almost a mirror image of the gang leader's gestures of quiet desperation. Slowly the silence seemed to break with the growing chatter from the men crouched near the wall, and Ellen sensed that plans for the night were being made again. Occasional furtive glances were shot up towards her seated figure, and she tried to make herself as stiff and unobtrusive looking as possible. She was grateful for the glass of whiskey Billy had poured for her earlier, and now she sipped from it, feeling it course through her veins and relaxing her somewhat. Then, suddenly, she remembered the dog; and for some reason, she shuddered at the thought of the huge animal lying in watchful repose at its master's feet.

She wanted to blot it out: she just couldn't stand the sight of the animal. If she tried to escape, he would stop her!

As if sensing her thoughts, Rex raised his head and stared at her.

But the strange irrational feeling subsided as quickly as it had come upon her, and she was left to handle more realistic considerations of how she was going to avoid further attacks from the four criminals. She hoped beyond hope that Billy would make some kind of sign to assure her that she would be his for the evening. The thought of him possessing her was not pleasant, but it was preferable to her other alternatives. She knew too that she had been on his mind. If he took her tonight he would have the wrath of the gang girl to deal with, and if he didn't, he knew he had to give her to the others. Her eyes wandered across the room to the soiled mattress where Cash and Pop had raped and ravaged her, kneading her body into tortured balls of humiliated flesh the night before. And now she found herself muttering a silent prayer--a silent pleading that Billy wouldn't let them do that to her again.

"It's getting late. Don't you think we oughta head to bed, honey?" Sylvia's voice suddenly broke through the heavy silence.

The gang leader remained morosely silent, but the others responded by moving away from their crap game and facing Billy and his former girlfriend.

"If you want to have Sylvia tonight, there ain't no reason, it seems to me, we can't have a go at little Miss Sweet Pussy here one more time," Cash said, and grinned at the laughter he had provoked from Vito and Pop.

Billy looked up at him and for the first time since the meeting had ended several hours earlier smiled.

"Well, there's been a change of plans, Cash, old boy," Billy said thickly, the alcohol he had drunk obviously affecting his speech. "She's sleeping in my bed tonight!"

Ellen felt her heart plunge into her throat. Yes, it was happening, and she just couldn't believe that this was going on right before her own eyes. It wasn't much, but she wouldn't be raped by all four of the gunmen again, at least tonight.

"Billy, Billy," Sylvia cried out, a sound of pain erupting from her throat. "What are you doing? We've been together so long. You can't do this to me."

"Shut up," he said angrily without looking at her. "When I say the word, don't you or nobody question it."

"Please Billy, I been waiting for you so long, and now you go and do this thing to me!"

"Shut up, I said," Billy snarled and slapped her hard across the face. "You heard my decision. You should have thought about it earlier, when you were giving Pete O'Hara one of your special blow jobs and fucking half the raunchy turds in his gang."

"Billy! You can't do this to me," she screeched, "I won't let you."

There was a moment of pause, deadly in its silence, then Billy spoke again. "I'm tired of your goddamn complaints." He turned and looked at the men, a sardonic look in his eyes. Then he cast his gaze back toward the enraged contorted face of the gang girl and grinned. "I'm making you guys a little present."

A loud wail of protest came out of Sylvia's mouth. What Billy intended to do at this moment was only too clear, and she shook her head from side to side in disbelief. The gang leader and his former girlfriend stared at each other for an instant, then Billy shrugged and waved his hand toward the ferret-like little convict in a gesture of indifference. "You've been waitin' a long time, Vito. Go to it! She's all yours! Do what you want to her. Leave a little something for the other boys. Maybe you should teach her a little discipline."

A shock ran through the room. Vito, like a weasel after a rabbit, responded immediately, bounding across the room and covering the distance between himself and Sylvia in a single leap. He landed on her stomach and crushed her flat to the floor. Sylvia wrenched her voluptuously tall body and kicked her legs out futilely on either side of him, but the speed and suddenness of his attack were too great for her, and she lay writhing and screaming obscenities beneath his already humping body without the slightest chance of escape.

Vito clung to her, saliva running lewdly from the corners of his mouth, and his greasy hair falling over his eyes; he looked like a bird of prey ready to devour its helpless, fear-stricken victim in a savage feast. He had been denied a part in the proceedings too long, and his near-insane emotions had built to an explosive peak of anger and unbearable frustration. He had thought that he might finally get his chance at Ellen tonight, but in a way this was even better, he considered, recalling how Sylvia had teased and flirted with him safe in the knowledge that he wouldn't dare touch her because she belonged to Billy. Then there had been her statement earlier in day about his being a "little creep." He would pay her back a thousandfold for each insult, for each suggestive smile she had given him, and for each prick-teasing touch to his arm that had driven him half-crazy with a lust that he had known he couldn't possibly satiate while Billy was leader.

But now her situation had changed, and their roles were reversed, the prize of the leader's girl lay utterly prostrate and helpless beneath him. He had permission to do anything he wanted to the slut. Billy no longer cared what happened to her and had even chosen that she be taken first by Vito whom she had tormented and tortured for so long.

Ellen watched in horror from her position on the end of the mattress where she sat next to Billy's chair. She wanted to help the poor defenseless girl, but could not. No one, even Billy, could have torn the lust-crazed Vito from the sensuous young brunette's body, now. Ellen realized that she was just as helpless and vulnerable as Sylvia, and the knowledge increased her fear and dread at the horrible spectacle transpiring in front of her.

She watched as Vito pulled the face of the girl to him and mashed his thin, spittle-covered lips down hard on her gaping mouth. The kiss was hard and brutal and the girl tossed her head in an attempt to wrench her mouth out from under his, but the movement carried through with a force that sent her head rattling against the floorboards.

Sylvia grunted in startled pain from the shock and then incoherent mumblings of panic began pouring from her lips, and she tried once again to escape as she looked up at Vito's evil little face so contorted with murderous rage and violence. She screamed and then her breath stopped short as she saw the attack coming-- his palm swinging in a wide arc over her exposed face. The blow came down hard, and her head hit against the floor again with a loud thud. He slapped her rapidly about half a dozen times until her shrill screaming ceased. Ellen thought that surely the girl must be unconscious, and Vito must have thought the same for he began unhooking his pants. Sylvia's head rebounded off the floor and she succeeded in scrambling to her knees in a burst of energy that only fear can bring.

"Billy, please, help me, baby," the girl screamed in a frantic voice.

Vito's second series of slaps came from the side and landed on the kneeling girl's face in a loud sound of hard flesh hitting soft flesh; the force of his blows sent her flying backwards halfway across the room, where she thudded against the wall.

From her position on the mattress, Ellen watched in disbelief and utter dismay. It didn't seem possible that Vito could treat the girl as roughly as he did or that Billy would allow it, but she could see with her own eyes that it was true. She shuddered to think that the same murderous treatment by the gang could well be applied to her at any moment if she didn't cooperate.

Vito lurched across the room and dragged his half-conscious victim back across the floor until the couple were once again directly in front of Ellen and Billy. He slapped Sylvia again, and Cash and Pop smiled uncertainly from the distance of the other side of the room. They knew that their turn with the proud, arrogantly tormenting bitch would come soon and, although they were as ready as Vito to turn their long pent-up resentment and lust on her in revenge for the haughty way she had treated them, they still did not want the merchandise harmed.

The dark-haired girl was barely conscious now, and Ellen watched in stunned disgust as Vito's beady eyes greedily surveyed the feast spread before him. Then he began ripping the clothes off her sensually limp young body as rapidly as possible. Cash and Pop moved closer from across the room until they hovered directly over the couple, their eyes gleaming with lewd desire. This is the way it had looked last night, Ellen thought, when it was me on the floor.

Vito's long bony fingers curled around the collar of the girl's dress, then with a sudden rip he tore the entire front of her dress from her upper torso, exposing the luscious fullness of her large, nakedly firm breasts with their quivering, pink-areoled nipples that had stiffened into hardness upon contact with the air.

Sylvia started into full consciousness at the sudden assault and once again attempted to pull herself to her knees, but Vito used his foot to brutally shove her back to the floor, yanking both the dress and her sheer bikini panties off her long, slenderly tapered legs in a quick savage movement. The voluptuous brunette lay totally exposed and defenselessly naked underneath him now, her ripe curvaceous body contrasting dramatically with his ferret-like form.

There was no resistance left in the gang girl, but Vito didn't let up his animal-like attack for a minute. The sex-crazed little convict clawed and pulled like a madman at her softly quivering breasts and wide, firm-fleshed buttocks. He pulled at the poor girl's brown, berry-like nipples as though he were attempting to tear them off, causing her to shriek continuously in pain. Then he sprang to an obscene sitting position on her tautly writhing abdomen and curled his fingers around her small wasp-like waist in a vicious grip that brought tears of fright even to Ellen's gaping eyes.