The Insiders Read Online Free PDF Page B

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