Chapter 11

Sandy wished now that she had not answered the knock on her apartment door, but she had thought the caller was probably one of her customers instead of Rifter.

"What do you want?" she said, stepping aside as he strolled cockily into the room.

He squinted his eyes at her, suddenly becoming suspicious at her attitude. "What the hell do you mean, what do I want?" He sat down in a chair by the window and lit a cigarette. "We've got business to settle, right?" He took a deep drag on his cigarette and shot a thin stream of smoke at her, dagger-like. "We still have to figure out how to get Brenda up to Charles Stern's suite in the morning and time it so that he'll catch Frank in the act. Right?"

Sandy looked at her watch. It was almost eight o'clock in the evening. If things went the way she had planned, Brenda was being raped right then. It was already too late for Rifter to do anything about it. She might as well tell him the truth, "I've already made arrangements for that," she said, trying to make her voice nonchalant. "Brenda went up to his suite an hour ago."

Rifter sprang out of his chair, his face a livid mask of anger. "You bitch. You know as well as I do that Charles is not flying back until morning."

"So?"

"So that means they won't get caught, stupid."

"I never intended that they get caught. All I ever wanted was to convince Brenda to go back to her hometown and stay there."

Rifter stood directly in front of Sandy, his face leaning forward slightly, his fists on his hips. "Well, that's not all I had planned and you knew it. You agreed that we would set is up so that Frank would get caught fucking her."

"I didn't agree to that," Sandy said, turning away nervously and crossing the room to the liquor cabinet. She called back over her shoulder, "Frank would be in trouble with his boss if he got caught. I never wanted to hurt Frank."

Rifter followed her across the room, shouting at the back of her head. "No, all you're interested in is yourself. Get rid of your girlfriend and have Charles all to yourself. That was your idea, wasn't it?"

Sandy poured Scotch into two glasses and added water. "Yes, that's all I wanted." She turned around and held out one of the glasses to Rifter.

Rifter slapped the glass out of her hand. It sailed across the room and shattered against the wall. "You double-crossed me, bitch." His eyes burned fire. "How would you like it if your girlfriend found out who set her up?"

"That's not necessary, Rifter."

"It wasn't necessary that you screw things up so that I don't get anything out of all this, either."

Sandy took a large swallow from her drink. When she brought her hand down, she looked directly into his eyes. "It's too late for you to do anything about it now, anyway. You might as well forget it."

Rifter slapped the other drink out of her hand. It shot across the room and splattered up against the wall with the first one. "You may think it's too late, but it's not too late for me to get something out of it." His eyes became thin slits. "What do you say you and I join your girlfriend and Frank?"

Sandy stepped back, her eyes growing round with fear. "No! That's not necessary."

"Not necessary, but that's what we're going to do." Rifter closed the distance between them again. "Get your purse. We're going to drive back to the hotel."

"No." She turned away from him, but he grabbed her arm and spun her back around, facing him. "Leave me alone," she snapped.

"We're going to join the party."

"You can't make me." Sandy's voice quivered nervously. "I won't go. If you try and drag me out of here, I'll scream all the way down the hall. I'll scream when we get to the hotel. I'll scream bloody murder all the way." She smiled, thinking she had solved the problem. "So you can take a flying leap."

Rifter's right fist lashed out in sudden violence and buried itself into Sandy's unsuspecting stomach. Air whooshed out of her lungs; she doubled up and crumpled to the floor in quivering spasms of pain, her arms hugged around her middle, her eyes rolled back in her head, pain twisting her face and draining her complexion to a sickly pallor. He rolled her over on her back with the toe of his left shoe. Her legs still doubled, hugging her knees with her arms.

Rifter stood over her, straddling her body, his feet planted on either side of her head. He reached inside his right front pocket and pulled out a pocket knife. Snapping open a blade, he tested its sharpness against the ball of his thumb. He smiled down at her sadistically. "So you think you'll scream, huh?" He leaned over and grabbed a handful of the front of her blouse, running the blade of his knife under each button in order from top to bottom and severed it from the material with a deft flick of his wrist at each button, working around her arms and knees.

He pulled the edges of her blouse open, pried her knees apart by wedging his right foot between them and hooked the center of her bra with a finger. He slipped the knife blade between her breasts and cut her bra in half, flipping each cup aside to expose her breasts. Next, he reached under her ass and slipped his fingers under the waist band of her skirt. He jerked up, pulling her hips into the air and throwing her legs over her head. He slit her skirt apart at the seams and threw the material aside as she fell back to the carpet. He pulled her panties off. Finally he sat her up by pulling her hair and then ripped the shreds of her blouse and bra away and tossed them in a heap with the rest of her clothes.

"You're going to go out of here naked," he said. "And if you want to scream and attract attention, that's completely up to you. I couldn't care less."

Sandy rolled over onto her knees and forehead, moaning, her arms wrapped around her stomach. She struggled to a sitting position, resting her hips on her heels. The son of a bitch had really hit her hard. She struggled to get her breath, the pain in her stomach lessening only slightly. She watched dizzily as he stabbed his knife into the carpet in the center of the room and begin cutting a long slit in the shag material. "What are you doing?" she gasped. "You're ruining my carpet." She crawled over to him and tried to pull him away, but he pushed her roughly with his free hand and continued cutting the carpet with his knife. She crawled back to him again and grabbed his shoulders, but this time when he turned around his fist was doubled, threatening. She jumped back.

Rifter hesitated, then turned back to the carpet. He cut a square section out of the center of the floor approximately seven feet by seven feet. When he finished, he turned the carpet over so that the shag lay face down. He looked at Sandy squatting naked behind him, wide-eyed and nervous. He explained calmly, "You're going to go with me back to the hotel. You can go quietly wrapped up in this piece of carpet or you can go completely naked and screaming. The choice is up to you." He smiled wickedly. "If you decide to go screaming, I'll drag you out to the car and drive you to the middle of Central Expressway and dump you out nude. Maybe some nice guy will stop and pick you up before the cops see you, or maybe the cops will find you first. Either way it will be a hassle unless you decide to go quietly."

The last thing Sandy wanted to do was go back to the hotel. Setting Brenda up was one thing, but facing her later and letting her know that she was the one who had betrayed her was something else again. But she saw the look in Rifter's eyes and she knew that if she didn't want to wind up with a couple of black eyes and swollen lips that she had better do what he told her to. "I'll go quietly," she said, biting her lip, trying to think of an alternative.

Rifter smiled again, showing crooked teeth. "It's about time you made a right decision." He pointed toward the carpet. "Now get over here and lay down."

Sandy did as she was ordered, laying on the carpet on her back and stretching her arms straight up over her head. He folded the carpet over her and rolled her over twice wrapping the material around her. When he was through, he tied the ends together with twine. He squatted beside the rolled up bundle and hefted it up in the middle at her waist and lifted her onto his right shoulder so that the end with her head hung down his back and her feet dangled in front. Unless she made a noise, no one would be able to tell that someone was wrapped up in the carpet.

He carried her out of the building and stuffed her into the trunk of his car. When he reached the hotel, he drove around to the back and used the freight elevator, riding up to the tenth floor and then transferring to a passenger elevator after he had checked out the hall and the elevator to make sure that no one would see him. By the time he crossed the foyer to Charles Stern's suite, his back was aching from carrying her. He started to push the door buzzer, then changed his mind and reached into his pocket and brought out a key. He inserted it into the lock and opened the door.

He didn't hear any noise until he reached the hall and began carrying Sandy back toward the bedrooms. He followed the sounds to the master bedroom and pushed open the door. Brenda and Frank were both naked. Brenda had her hands tied above her head to the frame of the water bed and Frank stood above her with a second piece of rope Which he was in the process of tying around her right ankle. He looked up surprised when Rifter burst into the room carrying Sandy wrapped in the carpet.

"What the hell!" he said, stepping back.

Rifter walked to the bed and pitched his bundle down beside Brenda, causing the bed to slosh up and down and the bundle to bounce against Brenda. "I've got a little surprise for you, Frank. An extra piece of ass. Enough to keep us both busy for a while."

Frank watched surprised and amused as Rifter untied the ends of the roll of carpet and pitched Sandy out on the bed, her face livid with anger and embarrassment.

Frank whistled with surprise, his fingers going to the black tube of his cock. He brushed his palms against his organ which was already growing stiff at the prospect of double-your-pleasure. "What is this all about, Rifter?" His smile showed white even teeth.

"It's show time," Rifter explained. "The girls are going to do a little love making for us-just to whet our appetites." He looked at Sandy. "Aren't you?" He looked back at Frank. "Because if they don't, Sandy knows what I'm going to explain to her girlfriend."

Brenda, lying helpless and confused beside her friend, didn't understand what was going on, but she knew that whatever it was involved Sandy in something that she wouldn't like her to find out. She fought to keep tears out of her eyes. In was too late for that sort of thing to do her any good. She had to face whatever stood ahead of her. Somehow she would get through it. But when she heard Rifter's voice bark out his instructions to Sandy, her very soul screamed out in protest.

"Eat her!" Rifter commanded Sandy.

And then he looked at Brenda. "Eat each other!"