talk, she was too stunned by the rapid change in ambience to do anything but hold tight. Then, as soon as he left, the dam burst and her feelings flooded through her with uncontrolled force. In such a short period of time she had been captured, drugged, fucked in the ass, fist-fucked, and had murdered a man by biting his cock off, and all of it had flowed with a sort of surrealistic ease that threatened to pull away all the pinnings of what she ordinarily considered reality.
She finally finished trembling and staggered into the bathroom where she treated herself to a very long, hot soak, a shampoo, and then brushed her teeth, rinsed her mouth, and brushed out her hair until she had regained some modicum of normal identity. She went into the closet and found a soft linen bathrobe which she put on. On the night table next to the bed she found a pack of Pall Mall, her brand of choice and habit, and a flashy lighter. She lay down, lit up, and sank contentedly into the soft springiness of the mattress.
She was into her second cigarette and the beginning of a sense of calm when there was a light tapping on the door. Constance was a woman of high survival instincts, which meant she spent no time on foolish meandering over questions to which she didn’t know the answer. Things would be made clear or they wouldn’t; meanwhile, the major issue was to center herself, to become one with her new environment.
She thought it was Robert at the door and called out, “Come in,” without hesitation. But when the door opened, she was more than a little surprised to find three beautiful women standing there, each scantily dressed. For an instant she feared they might be coming in to “get” her, but their vibes were friendly. She pushed herself up on the bed and smiled.
“Come in,” she repeated.
The three women moved in slowly, like cats sniffing out a new territory. Then, seemingly satisfied that the place was safe, they closed the door behind them and fanned out to approach Constance from three sides, to end by sitting in a semicircle around her on the bed.
“Hi,” said the one to her right. “I’m Sally.” She was a woman of about nineteen, blond hair down to her waist, gently cupped breasts, and a wide, lush mouth.
“Sally Carter, Sioux City, Iowa,” Constance said. “Disappeared, May 23.”
The woman gasped.
Constance turned to the other two. Madge Campbell, Five Corners, New Mexico, and Sheila Dean, Moon City, Colorado. The first woman was a dark-skinned beauty of Indian extraction. Very short, a lean, hard body with disproportionately large and soft breasts. Sheila was a freckle-faced redhead, seventeen years old, with the abashed look of the perpetual virgin setting her green eyes at complete variance with the dirty-girl body under them, a broad, fleshy, simmering torso with the slight musky odor of randiness always hanging over it.
Constance smiled complaisantly. “I’m a reporter,” she said. “I began to learn about the disappearances of young women all around the country. And I wrote an article about it. Maybe that’s why I got grabbed. Anyway, I’ve seen all your pictures and know your stories.”
She paused. “My name is Constance, by the way, and I’d like to ask, where the fuck am I and what the fuck’s going on?”
The three women started talking all at once, but Constance silenced them and pointed to Madge, who seemed to be the most adult of the group.
“I don’t know too much,” Madge said. “I got kidnapped and chloroformed and when I woke up, three guys were fucking me at once. I tried to pull out but somebody slapped me and I was injected and put under again. Since then I’ve been on call about four times a week for the past three weeks. It’s about an eight-hour stint, and sometimes it’s easy and sometimes you get put through changes that turn your hair grey. And on off-duty hours I can take it easy and pretty much do what I want.” She nodded at the other two. “Their stories