Chapter 11
Even though Sherry's time was well occupied, for her the days followed with almost maddening monotony. Cooking, washing, cleaning and then being passed from Gus to Red to Louie at any hour of the day or night, that they wanted their sexual needs accommodated. Sometimes one of them would spend the entire night with her and then the whole routine would begin over again the next morning. What abuses her body endured only she knew, especially when the three of them converged on her at the same time for what they called a million-dollar orgy.
They'd usually begin these gay sessions by drenching her head to foot with whisky and licking over every inch of her anatomy until she was dry. By the time they finished, she'd be reduced to a squirming bundle of passion, willing to comply with their every perverted wish so long as they brought relief to her tormented body. That she'd sometimes black out, made little difference to any of them. They continued right on ravishing her until their lust had been satiated.
Only Ben and Denny stayed away from her. Denny for obvious reasons. Ben because he apparently had too much pride to want a girl, even one he'd married, after what she'd chosen to do to Gus in preference to him. Besides, they were there only a few days when Ben took off in the Barracuda. Nobody would tell Sherry where he went, only that he'd be back the next week. She was sure that his sudden departure had something to do with the report that came over the radio, which they kept on constantly, day and night.
According to the report, a couple of sets of fingerprints had been found in the Grano City State Bank that matched with other prints found on the stolen car that reputedly had been used for the getaway. The report said that at the present time, the police were withholding any information as to whom the fingerprints belonged. Which only tended to muddy the waters as far as Ben, Gus and the others were concerned. Each of them had a criminal record and had served time in prison, so the police would have no problem determining to whom the prints belonged. Which meant that the moment any of them showed their face and was recognized, the rest of them would be placed in immediate jeopardy. Which led Sherry to believe that it had something to do with Ben going away. Especially since there had been several head- to-head conferences in the living room, from which Sherry had been barred.
Something else she had been unable to find out was how long they intended staying here at the cottage, where they planned to go when they left and even more important--what they had in mind for her. However, during one of his well-oiled, more loquacious moments, Gus did set her straight on one fact.
"Y'know, when all this is over, it ain't gonna do you a damn bit of good to run to the lousy fuzz and blow the whistle on us, tell 'em how we robbed the bank and all," he said. "Because you can't rat on us without implicating Ben. And as even a half-ass shyster'll tell you, a wife can't testify or bring evidence against her husband."
At least, it shed a little light on the mystery as to why Ben married her. That plus the fact that their marriage license helped get them through the otherwise escape-proof roadblock the police threw up around the City of Grano that morning of the robbery.
Sherry began to worry more and more as to what her ultimate fate was to be at the hands of these five men. She heard a few remarks to the effect that they wouldn't be there very long after Ben got back. But still no indication where they were going, or how they planned to get away when they did pull up stakes.
Whatever they did, or wherever they went, she knew just one thing--she didn't want to go with them. She didn't want to continue the kind of life she'd been made to live here. In fact, she didn't know how much longer she could go on submitting to the abuses they were forcing on her mind and body.
Since the very first moment she set foot here on the beach, her main thought had been how she could get away. But not only was she almost constantly in their presence, the few times when she was left alone in her room at night, they made her keep her door open and took away her clothes. Moreover there was no window in her room, or in the adjoining bath and one of the four men, now that Ben was gone, would take turns sleeping in the living room immediately outside her door, so that it was impossible for her to get pass them. Still, she never gave up hoping, or keeping alert for the first opportunity to escape.
After Ben left, Sherry sort of lost track of time. Cooped up with the four men, each day and night was almost a carbon copy of the day and night that preceded it. Therefore, there was no reason for Sherry to believe that the pattern would ever change. Until one night after Gus, Red and Louie had finished another drunken, sadistic three-way bombing of her body, they returned to their respective rooms to sleep off the quantity of alcohol they'd consumed. They left Denny to guard the door.
As soon as they were gone, Sherry dragged herself into the bathroom and showered, once more trying to scrub the filth of their lust from her pores. With barely enough strength left in her aching body to return to her bed, she flopped face downward across it in the darkness and tried to sleep and forget. . .
She had started to doze when she felt a hand shaking her shoulder. She raised her head wearily off the pillow and tried to penetrate the darkness to see who it was. Recognition was impossible until she heard a voice whisper, "It's Denny ..."
She was shocked into wakefulness. "Oh no, Denny, not you, too?"
"Of course not," he said with the expected revulsion that a homo like himself might employ. "The others are asleep and I want to help you .. . "
"Help me do what?"
"Escape."
"But I don't have any clothes. I can't go any place without clothes."
"I brought them for you to put on," he told her as he dropped a bundle of her things onto the bed beside her.
"But where can I go?" Sherry wanted to know worriedly as she swung her feet to the floor and sat up and began to put her clothes on hurriedly.
"There's a house about a mile-and-a-half down the beach," Danny explained in an excited whisper. "I don't know who lives there. But I saw a woman there, from the distance. I'm sure she'll help you get away. Only one thing--"
"What's that?" Sherry asked as she put on her dress. It was a new one that Denny got from one of her bags in the other room. It was heavier than the other one, buttoned down the front and was a lot more suitable for the cool night air she'd face on the beach.
"You've got to make up some kind of a story about what you're doing here, how you got here," Denny told her. "After all, I'm sticking my chin out for you. If you tell anybody the truth, that means the cops'll be down on us. So you've got to protect me, as much as I'm helping you. Promise?"
"Promise." Sherry's main concern at the moment was to get away, be free of this nightmare through which she'd lived since she was first brought to this awful place. At the same time, a promise to her always had been and always would be a sacred thing. So when she promised Denny, regardless of the duress she might have been under, she meant to keep her word. She wouldn't inform on them "But what can I tell the woman?" Sherry wanted to know.
Obviously Denny had given it careful thought and had a story prepared for her. "Say some guy picked you up in his car, drove you here to the beach and tried to--tried to rape you. Say you broke away from him, jumped out of the car and lost yourself in the darkness. You don't have any idea who he is, or anything about him. Say it was dark when he picked you up and you didn't even stop to notice what kind of a car he was driving. Think you have it all straight?"
Sherry repeated the yarn to make sure.
"Perfect," he told her then took her arm and tip-toed with her through the living room and kitchen to the back door. He eased open the door without a sound and they stepped outside.
It was cold and dark and she shivered. But it was a lot better than what awaited her inside, when the three men woke up.
She placed a hand on Denny's forearm and squeezed it gratefully. "What about you? What'll you tell Gus and the others when they find I've gone?"
He shrugged. "I fell asleep and didn't hear you leave."
She studied his pale, boyish face as best she could in the darkness. "Why are you doing this? You don't owe me anything."
"That's right. I don't owe you. Not a thing."
By the way he said it, she suddenly realized why he was doing it. She had been usurping his duties. As long as she was there, probably not one of the men would have any occasion to use his abnormal services. With her gone, he'd have three men all to himself. Four when Ben came back. He'd reign as the undisputed "queen" of the household, doing the cooking, the cleaning and taking care of their sexual requirements. From his viewpoint, she guessed it was worth the risk.
Denny told Sherry exactly where the house with the woman in it was located and what landmarks to look for. Then he put a light, almost feminine, hand on her shoulder and gave her a gentle nudge forward. "You'd better go now before one of them wakes up inside."
She took off her heels, tucked them up under her arm and with her long hair blowing wildly, she thanked him, turned and hurried away into the darkness. She followed the water's edge along the desolate, sandy, wind-swept beach with not the slightest suspicion that she might be stepping into a situation as bad if not worse than the one she had just left.