Roger Grayson: The Two-Way Mirror

"Yes."

"Tonight?"

"Now… Right now."

Muriel shrugged and smiled. "Well… I suppose it had to come sooner or later. Friends, darling?"

"Friends."

"Good… And… and what about your ex…?"

"She can go to hell," Jeff said bitterly. "Right straight to hell… the goddamned little whore!"

The week following the housewarming at the Brendell's, Karen moved to a small, but remote beachhouse a few miles up the coast from San Clemente. Nat had helped her find it and she was thrilled in that it offered the perfect privacy for her work. Her nearest neighbor was a mile away if she walked the beach, two if she drove. It was precisely what she wanted.

She had not exactly gotten over the wild weekend as yet… and doubted that she ever would really, but in her heart she knew that there would never be another. Such promiscuity was not for her; she was certain of that now. Nat had made a bit of a scene when she told him it was over and done with between them, that she was not sorry for anything, but that it could never happen again… and thankfully, he was still her agent and friend.

God knows, she needed friends… somebody. She had no idea what had happened to Jeff, nor did his office. She'd made several calls, left her number and address, but no one had seen him in several days. Probably, if the truth were known, she thought, he was shacked up with Muriel Brendell… that bitch!

Moving about the solid little house, still putting things away and rearranging she could hear the surf pounding, a lilting sound she had always dreamed of one day being able to write by. She had spent most of the day on the beach, bikinized, thinking of nothing, with the occasional exception of Jeff, and then when the sun had set she had come inside to broil herself a steak. She had already tossed the salad, consumed a couple of martinis to the romantic sounds of a stack of her favorite records, and was just about to cut into her steak before shedding her bikini and getting a good night's rest when the front door burst open.

Karen leaped to her feet at the sudden invasion, her steak slipping from the plate to the floor. My God, it was Jeff, staggering unshaven, red-eyed… He was quite drunk.

"Greetings, slut!" he spat, his handsome face contorted in a bitter grin, his white teeth gleaming at her.

"Jeff… You gave me an awful start. Wh-what are you doing here?" Karen heard herself stammer as she came slowly around the small kitchenette table, moving toward the front room where he stood, the door still open wide behind him.

Without looking, he fumbled for it and slammed it closed, his eyes seemingly leveled on her near nakedness, with only the wisp of bikini and sheer waist apron covering her. She felt the light illuminating her from behind, swallowed tightly and walked toward him, forcing a smile. My God, he looked terrible.

"There was a note on my desk," he said thickly. "You'd called. I thank you for that… and the address. It saved me a lot of trouble."

"Y-Yes… I wanted to see you… to talk to you," she managed, still smiling. "Look… I was just going to eat something. Are you hungry? Can I fix…?"

"The only thing I'm interested in eating is your cunt!" he shot at her. "That's why I'm here, baby. I want to know what makes a frigid woman suddenly a wildcat in bed."

Karen felt her stomach turn over at his lewd reference. She fell backwards a step, but still held her head high as she fought for words. "J-Jeff, please… please don't say things we'll both be sorry for…"

He laughed bitterly, then, began to move toward her. "I doubt that I'll be sorry for anything I say or do to you, Karen, my lovely little ex-wife," he hissed at her.

She backed all the way to the wall of the kitchenette before he finally moved in on her, his teeth clenched, his lips drawn back in obvious hate while his eyes blazed in clear ugly lust and his hand reached out, his fingers hooking into the flimsy material between her rising and falling breasts.

Karen gasped aloud as with a snarl he whisked it away, exposing her full, naked heaving breasts to his anger-filled eyes.

"Tits," he sneered vilely. "And the nicest tits I knew of… until Brendell put his filthy hands on them."

"L-Listen to me, Jeff…"

"Shut up!" he half shrieked at her, raising his hand as if to strike her. "I listened to you too long. What's worse… I believed you… The frigid little girl with all the puritanistic crap!" Suddenly, he caught her by the wrist and cruelly jerked her towards him, her breasts bouncing from his force. "Well, when I get through with you tonight, baby… you'll think Nat Brendell was a schoolboy!"

"Jeff… please, darling…"

"And don't call me darling… you… you goddamned little whore!" he screamed at her.

Karen shrank before his violence. He was drunk-mean and filled with hate; she cringed inside with fear as suddenly he turned away, clinging to her wrist and dragged her toward the bedroom. She pleaded behind him, but if he heard, he ignored her. Instead, he flung her across the bed and she dared not move. Then, as she stared in breathless dread, he began to undress.

"Listen to me, Jeff…" she began, almost sub-consciously, "I love you… always have… never stopped… My God… don't… don't do this thing to me again… to us…"

He came to the edge of the bed where her feet lay. He had removed his shirt and was staring down at her brutally. "You lousy bitch!" he spat. "You'd say anything right now, wouldn't you? Well… go ahead… say any goddamned thing you want… but when I get through fucking you this night you'll wish to God you never knew me."

"Jeff, please…?"

"Shut up and take that rag off!" he snarled. "I want to sink my cock in that cunt of yours… like half of Los Angeles has already done. Now… take it off!"

Karen winced beneath the bitter gall of his words. But he was insanely drunk… not himself and she knew it. He had never been brutal or cruel… never as she saw him now. He was a hurt little boy, endeavoring to take his hate out on someone… on her. Well, she wouldn't fight him. Maybe that would help, make him understand that she really loved him… for there was no reasoning with him now… She raised up and began to slither the tight little briefs down off her rounded hips.

Watching Jeff leered nastily. He said: "You've taken those things off so often for so many that it's become a second nature for you hasn't it, baby? The fact is… you don't have any honor left worth fighting for… eh?"

Suddenly, he was naked and she saw his long, thick shaft standing out rigidly from his loins. She swallowed tightly as she witnessed the lust and hate-swollen head jerk violently and she felt herself cringing before and beneath it.

"Oh… oh my God Jeff… please… please!" she begged. "Not this way…?"

He glared down at her beastially from the edge of the bed the belt from his trousers in his hand. "Did you plead with Nat Brendell? Or any of the others…?"

"Wh-What are you going to do with… with that belt?"

He laughed humorlessly. "Frightens you, eh? You filthy little pig! How many have fucked you, anyway? A dozen? Two dozen? Or can't you remember? You… you lousy whore!"

He lashed her across the belly unmercifully with the belt… again and again until she writhed away in pain and rolled over presenting her behind. He whipped her buttocks and her back, her thighs and her buttocks again until he was out of breath and she cried like a severely punished child. Then, he took a sheet, ripped it into strips and tied her hands and feet to the bedposts, but in such a meaner that she was on her knees with a long strip tied behind each knee to keep her from stretching out flat or curling up away from him. She offered him no resistance, only whimpered in the aftermath of her beating, until finally she was hopelessly and helplessly bound, and subject to whatever vile whim he chose to humiliate her with. Then, he climbed onto the bed behind her.