There had been a few times when she thought she was going to pass out. Wondering whether she could really stand it. Wondering whether she could survive it as the same person. Julie still wondered about that. Had she remained the same person? She seemed to be. Things were a little out of focus right now, and she supposed she was in shock to some degree. Still, she seemed to be the same Julie who had walked into that bedroom a while ago.
So she had been raped. She had been possessed by an ape of a man who cared nothing about her except as a piece of flesh, an organism he presumably found attractive. It wasn't the kind of experience she would have chosen for herself, and it wasn't something she would recommend to other women, but she had lived through it. And her husband and baby were still alive. That had been her choice: whether to hold onto her honor, to use an old-fashioned term, or to let her family hold onto life. There hadn't been any contest. They were all in for a rough time, of course. And maybe this crew intended to kill them no matter what they did. At any rate, every extra moment they stayed alive was worth something. And those moments might lead to something.
They might lead to escape, or rescue. It was their job to stay alive, now, for as long as possible. And to help each other stay alive. If that meant that Julie had to go to bed with that slimy bastard then she'd have to find some way to live with herself afterwards. And with her husband, of course.
She found some bacon and eggs in the refrigerator and put on a pot of coffee. The man who had just raped her, Max, sat in the kitchen with the rifle across his lap, watching her with a smile. The others remained in the living room, standing guard over Jim.
It was awkward, trying to work with one hand, while she held the robe closed with the other. Max sat and grinned at her attempt, and finally said, "I just fucked you, honey. And I'm going to fuck you again. Isn't it a little silly to be coy with me?"
He was right, of course. It was silly. But it was a link with decency, something that allowed her to hold on with her fingernails to the woman she had always been.
While the bacon was frying in its own fat, she thought about Jim. It had been rougher on him than on her, probably. No, she told herself. That was maudlin sentimentality. It hadn't been rougher on him than on her. But she had no doubt that it had been rougher than hell for all that. A man like Jim wasn't built for this kind of thing, this helplessness.
He was built for action. And right now action wasn't called for. That was why she had helped them, telling them where the rope was. Jim would have let them beat him to a pulp before he'd have bent that much. And that was foolish because they were in the driver's seat at the moment. The only tack that made any sense was to follow orders and offer no resistance until a chance came, if it did. Resistance at this point would only cause them all to be killed. And so, no matter how hard it might be on him emotionally, Jim was better off, they all were better off, while he was tied up and under guard.
She set the table, very much aware of his threatening nearness while she did it. It just wasn't possible to perform that job with one hand. The robe hung open, and Max grinned his appreciation at the sight of her body, exposed in front. It made her blush for a moment, but then Julie felt a surge of defiance. She walked back to the stove, and continued to work, leaving the robe to its own devices. But it was a poor way to show defiance. The bastard was enjoying it, and he knew how embarrassed she was. What kind of man was it, she wondered, who could enjoy a woman's embarrassment and humiliation, her disgust, the way a normal man would enjoy her pleasure?
Whatever kind of a man he was, he was better than the animal in the living room, with the body of an orangutan and a brain to match. It wasn't a very good position to be in, but Max was her White Hope. Her protector, and the protector of her baby.
"Do you want me to take the food in there to them?" she asked when it was ready. She had set the table without thinking.
"No, they can come in here. It's been a long time since any of us have eaten at a real, honest-to-God table. You go tell them it's on."
She closed the robe about her, holding it at waist and throat, and went into the living room. The big one grinned at her like a dumb animal, and the other didn't look much better.
"You better bring asshole here," he said to his anthropoid friend. Then Butch got up from the couch and hauled Jim to his feet. He picked him up again, the way he had done before, and they all went into the kitchen.
"Sit down, guys, enjoy yourselves," Max said.
"Our little hostess here is very generous. You wouldn't believe how hospitable she can be."
Julie thought she would die of humiliation. She felt the flush creep up from her neck, and she had to fight to keep from looking at Jim, Butch set him on the floor near the table, and in plain sight. They took places at the table and speared food from platters to their own plates. Butch ate like an animal, and Pete wasn't much better. Only Max, of the three of them, seemed to have been taught some kind of manners. He seemed a little more cultured than the others in a lot of ways.
They had her fetch and carry, and she had to cook more food for them. In the course of things she had to forget about modesty. The robe hung open, and she noticed Pete and Butch staring at her body as they had stared at the food when they first sat down. She made a half-hearted attempt to hold it closed again, but they had her jumping too fast, and she had the feeling that they meant it that way.
"You know," Pete slid when he had finished his third helping of bacon and eggs, "speaking of hospitality, I could use some of it myself. When are you gonna put the little lady up for grabs, Max?"
Julie felt something icy dash through her belly, and down into her legs. She had known that this moment would come, of course, but she had managed to keep from thinking about it so far. She stood stiffly, waiting to hear what Max would say.
"I'm not going to," Max said. He said it calmly, and with a touch of humor in his voice. Pete looked at him for a moment, and Butch even stopped eating and stared at him, too.
"Would you mind running through that again, old buddy?" Pete asked.
"I'm not going to share the blonde with you guys," Max said obligingly. He was smiling, apparently having a good time. But Pete didn't think much of his idea.
"We both been in stir as long as you have and longer, Max. If there's a woman to be had, I figure we're entitled."
"So do I."
"Talk sense, will you?"
"If there's just one woman available, I figure you're entitled to share her with me. But there's going to be more than one woman available. And since I'm the guy who planned this whole thing, I figure I've got a right to one of the women all for myself. I happen to like Blondie here."
"That's just fine. Now where's the other woman?"
"She's coming tomorrow." As he spoke Julie couldn't help looking down at Jim, sitting on the floor. He stared up at her for a moment in surprise, and she thought she saw a touch of disgust in his expression. She wanted to say, I hod to tell him. I had to. What good would it have done to hold out on him? But of course she couldn't say anything to him. She looked away, at a blank spot on the wall.
"Blondie's little sister," Max went on. "She's coming to spend the summer here. So nobody is going to miss her. Not as long as we're going to be here, that is. I figure Blondie is mine, and the little sister is yours to share."
"You wouldn't shit your old buddies, would you, Max?" Pete asked quietly. "This wouldn't be something just so's you can keep the blonde all to yourself, would it?"
"Fuck no, I'd be stupid to pull something like that. We've got away clean so far because we've worked together on this escape. We've worked smoothly, you think I'm going to jeopardize something that important just to get private fucking rights with this cunt?"
"Okay," Pete said. "I guess you wouldn't at that. When did you say the new broad is comin'?"
"Tomorrow."
"I guess I can stand to do without a piece of ass for one more night," Pete said.
Julie started picking up the dishes. There was a strip of bacon left on the platter, and Butch grabbed it in his fingers and gobbled it down. He grinned at her like an ape. The sight of him made Julie queasy. And the conversation between Max and Pete sent a surge of panic through her. Rape would be horrible enough for Sally. But to be subjected to this animal! Sally was a young, sweet kid. She wouldn't be able to tolerate something like that. She'd lose her mind. Something had to be done to stop that from happening.
Don't kid yourself, Julie thought as she piled the dishes in the sink. What can you do to stop it? Sally is just going to have to take her chances.
"Don't bother to wash the dishes," Max ordered when she started to run hot water into the sink. "You can do that tomorrow. The night was made for other things."
Julie felt like crying, but she had cried enough tonight. There was a time to stop crying and learn to adjust to conditions. She nodded mutely, ignoring the snickers from the other two men. She kept herself from looking at Jim. He was still trussed up and in the same spot. He was looking at his own legs now, and she had the impression that he had withdrawn into his own mind a little.
Hugging the robe about her, Julie preceded Max from the kitchen to the bedroom. She turned down the bed at his command. Apparently they were to sleep together all night. She felt a weakness in her knees at the thought. The first encounter had been a brutal rape, in which she had been coerced into cooperating. This was too much like having an affair. It made bile rise in her throat to think of it, but, of course, she wasn't going to try anything. She was going to do as she was told.
She slipped under the blankets and slid over to the side of the bed against the wall. Max lay next to her, blocking her with his body. "If you have to get up for any reason during the night," he said, "you just tell me. If I catch you trying to get up while I'm sleeping, I'll slap the shit out of you. Understand?"
"Yes, sir."
He slipped his gun under the mattress on his side, where his weight would bear on it. As he put it there he looked at Julie meaningfully. The thought that she would make a try for the gun was such a weird thought it almost made her smile. She wouldn't know the first thing a out using it, and even if she could kill him with it, what good would it be? She wouldn't be able to get past those other two. And Max was her only protection from them.
Her belly was as tight as a drum now. She could feel the heat of his body next to her in the bed. She could feel little tickling sensations from his body hair as he moved against her in the normal course of settling down. Then he turned toward her and suddenly snapped the covers down, baring her clear to her knees. She gasped and started and lay completely still. She felt as though she would vomit from fear and embarrassment. Max grinned. "Come here," he said, holding out his arms.
It took her a moment to work up the nerve, but she slid toward him, coming to rest against his body. Their forms interlocked, and she could feel his bristly face against her cheek at the same moment that his belly, hard and muscular pressed against hers. Julie's breasts flattened against his massive chest. This was it. Now it happened again. His cock was stiff and erect against her, prodding one thigh.
Max kissed her, delving into her mouth with luxurious slowness, deliberate insolence. It was as though he were using the kiss to tell her that she was his property. His arms were around her, and his hands moved up and down her back and over her shoulders and her ass, squeezing and patting with pleasure.
It wasn't that she didn't still feel fear and disgust. She did. And it wasn't that she wouldn't have given almost anything to be able to get out of that bed, because she would have. But it was a physical sensation after all, Julie told herself, and something she couldn't help. She couldn't be blamed for that. You couldn't blame someone for a physical sensation over which she has no control.
It was a heat in her loins, a softening inside of her, as desire seeped through her body with the insistence of an underground spring finding its own path. Her thighs became warm and heavy, and she felt a weakness fill her muscles. Her eyes grew heavy-lidded.
He could tell what he was doing to her, of course. She knew that. There was no use trying to hide that from him. He was an experienced man, and he had told her that she was the type who wouldn't be able to help feeling pleasure. "A good fuck", he had called her. She had denied it then and had fought against the realization in her own mind that she was just that. But it was true. It was true, but so what? It had nothing to do with her. Nothing to do with the collection of beliefs and ideas that made up her personality. It was physical, nothing more. Any man, in these circumstances, would have been able to excite these feelings in any normal woman. It was something she couldn't help.
His hands continued their movements, slipping around to knead her breasts and slide with familiarity over her belly and down into the tangle, of hair at her cunt. She felt little thrills, little sharp pleasures that wouldn't be denied, and she tried to hide them at first, but it was no use. He was kissing her at the same time, moving his lips over her face and neck and shoulders, licking her skin with his tongue like a cat. The dampness of his spit on her was cool and exciting. Her legs writhed in a spasm of involuntary motion. Max laughed, deep in his throat, and rolled over her, pressing her to her back. She realized that her legs hall parted for him, automatically, without her knowledge. It was almost as though they had shared a bed for years. The thought hammered at Julie's mind like a horrid battering ram.
They were good together!
No. No, that couldn't be. She wouldn't accept that.
It was just a physical sensation, something she couldn't help, something that had nothing to do with her as a person.
Max took his cock in his hands and centered it on her slit. Julie closed her eyes tightly waiting for him to push in.
When be did the sensation sent a thrill over her frame, a quick fit of motion. She gasped and almost cried out.
The connection made, Max lay on her, his weight pressing her body into the mattress. Julie felt a submissive feeling that he couldn't help liking. She felt pinned down by his weight, owned by it, possessed. He was much heavier than Jim.
Oh, God, why had she thought of that?
It wasn't like it was with Jim. It wasn't something you could even compare. One was a love act, the other was rape, something she submitted to out of fear for herself and those she loved. How could you compare the two things. There just wasn't any way. She banished the thought by throwing herself completely into the sensations that were beginning to sweep over her as Max started his movements. She didn't hold back this time, as she had the first time. She let her hips have their way, moving in unison and counterpoint with Max's, and she embraced him, holding him tightly against her. There wasn't any use trying to pretend that he wasn't getting to her. He obviously knew better. And allowing the pleasures to fill her and wash through her might make it a little easier.
The pleasure, the tingling and tickling of joy in her loins grew stronger, and spread up into her ribcage and her breasts, and even in her arms, and down into her thighs and calves. Her knees locked, and her ankles tightened as she thrust her feet down and curled her toes with the power of the pleasure. Their bodies accelerated, the slapping of their bellies filling the room.
"Oh, God!" Her own voice assailed her ears, and she didn't care about it, didn't care about hiding her feelings any longer. "Oh, Jesus," she shrieked. "Yes! Oh, God, yes!"
Then it was like an explosion in her head, so powerful she lost all contact with the room and the world and anything outside of their two bodies, and the stiff organ massaging her insides with insistent force. And she felt his seed boil into her, and she bit down on his shoulder for a moment, and raked her nails across his back, and then she cried out again as the peak give way to a greater peak, an intensity she had never known before.
She lay next to him quietly, too shocked by her own reaction to his lovemaking to cry about it, even. This was more than he had expected from her, surely. It was more than she had ever had with Jim. She had to admit to herself now. She had responded to this son-of-a-bitch in a way her husband had never been able to bring about.
"You're better that I thought," Max said, stroking her thigh lightly. "I think you're better than you knew, huh?" He laughed.
"All right, you bastard," Julie hissed. "So I liked it. But that doesn't mean I didn't hate it, too."
"No, it doesn't," Max agreed, amusement heavy in his voice. "But as time goes by, sweets, and you get more used to it, the hating is going to get less and the liking is going to get more and more."
He knew how to hit below the belt, she thought with grudging admiration. If he was trying to humiliate her with his statements, he was good at it.
"Thanks a lot," she said, and started to cry.
"Oh, shit. Face it baby. We're all animals. We like to eat and we like to fuck because that's the way the nerves are strung together. It's no different with us than it would be with a couple of dogs. Better, maybe, because we're more sensitive animals than dogs are. But not really different. The sooner you face up to that the better you're going to come out of this."
"You're enjoying humiliating me. And my husband. Would an animal be able to enjoy what you're doing to him? Making him sit in there knowing what's going on between us?"
"As I said, we're more sensitive than the other animals. We enjoy some things they don't." There was a touch of anger in his voice, as though her reproachful words had stung him a bit. "Now, I'm going to enjoy something the animals don't do at all, sweety. Just to show you who's in charge of things here."
"I know who's in charge," Julie said. She felt a surge of panic. She didn't know what he had in mind, but it had to he something particularly unpleasant from her point of view, if he meant it to show her he was boss.
"I don't think you do. I think you need a little lesson, Julie. A little something to teach you not to be critical. Tell me, just how good a sex life have you had with Jim or whatever his name is?"
"I don't know what you mean. We've had a good sex life."
"I mean what have you done for him? Anything special?"
"No." She regretted the denial as soon as it was out of her mouth. It was too quick, too vehement. It told him just what he had meant to find out.
"Well, you're going to be a better wife when I get through with you, sweets, because I'm going to teach you a thing or two about pleasing a man. Farmer Brown in there ought to thank me for what I'm going to teach you."
"Please," Julie began, and then, realizing the futility of it, she asked tiredly, "what do you want me to do?"
"Haven't you guessed? You seem like a pretty hip chick. You must know about things even if you've never done them. I want you to French me, sweet-heart."
She closed her eyes a moment. This would take about everything she could muster. But, of course, she had expected it to come sooner or later. A man like Max couldn't be expected to forego something like that when he had a woman at his disposal.
"I don't know anything about doing that," she said. "You'll have to-to teach me." She almost choked on the words. Max laughed with obvious enjoyment.
"Nothing to it, baby. I can teach you everything you need to know in a couple of moments. After that it's just a matter of practice. And I'll be sure you get plenty of that." He had been leaning on one elbow while he talked to her. Now he lay back, lacing his fingers behind his head. "Scoot down there, sweety."
Julie moved reluctantly, placing herself on a level with his abdomen. The organ was already beginning to stir and stiffen. He was a bull, she thought. But she supposed most men would be, after spending years in prison. At his direction she took his prick in her hands, holding it gingerly. Touching a man's prick had never seemed particularly unpleasant when it was Jim's, and it didn't seem particularly unpleasant with Max, except that this time she was facing it, looking at it. This was something different from anything she had ever done before. Different and dirty. She uttered a short prayer for strength to do what had to be done. She felt clammy with nervous sweat.
"Now you lean down and lick the head of it," Max told her in an elaborately casual voice. "You lick it all over, ending up on the crown because that's the most sensitive part. Then you lick the shaft, too. There's no particular order of things. You just do everything you can to turn me on. You kiss my belly and my balls, you lick my crotch, you do anything you can think of. Then, when you figure you've brought me far enough alone, you move your lips over the head of my cock, back and forth, until I'm about to come. Then you take the whole thing in your mouth, or as much of it as you can, and you suck and lick until I go off. When I come, you swallow it. All of it. Understand?"
"Y-yes. I understand."
"Good. Then stop stalling."
She bent down and forced herself to touch her tongue to the tip of the organ. It was salty tasting, so much so it almost burned her tongue. She felt a gag reflex, but it wasn't bad yet. She choked it down and touched her tongue to the erect cock again. The taste didn't seem quite as bad on the second try. She tried to turn off her mind as she moved the tip of her tongue over the head of the prick, covering it with saliva. Max began to make little grunting noises, so she knew she was doing something right. Disgust welled up in her, and she had to exercise all her will power to keep from stopping. She licked and licked, until her tongue began to feel sore. She moved to the crown, as he had told her, and worked on that until she had him pitching and clenching his jaws with little fits of pleasure. Then she worked her way down the side of the shaft. She remembered what he had said, and paused to kiss his belly and his balls and lick his crotch. Tears flooded her eyes and ran down her face, but she managed to keep at what she was doing, working by touch. She couldn't see any more. She licked his crotch, tasting sweat there. The hair of his thighs scratched her face.
She detected a pitching in his belly, and she knew that he was nearing his climax. She steeled herself for the final indignity and pursed her lips, moving them over the head of his cock. She rocked her body slightly, working her lips over the head of the cock until the pitching in his belly and his cock reached the point that told her his orgasm was imminent.
The cock was large, and expanded now to its full, erect size. Julie managed to get most of it in her mouth, but it pressed against her throat, gagging her. She fought down the reflex and sucked and licked for all she was worth. The sooner she could get him to go off, she realized, the sooner it would be over. Then he came in a giant glob that almost choked her. It happened fast, and she swallowed automatically, before she had time to think. Max let out a yell and his body went through a giant spasm as he hit his climax, and then he lay still.
Julie sank from her kneeling position to her side, lying quite still. She felt emotionally drained and disgusted with what she had done. She'd had no choice, she told herself. She kept telling herself that over and over again.
"That wasn't bad," Max said. "For a first time. But there is one thing. From now on, keep your head tilted up this way as much as you can. I like to watch your face while you do it."