"After that, them dishes in the sink need some washin'," he added with a certain sense of authority. "You don't want to get Billy mad, cause when he gets that way there ain't nobody can stop him."
Ellen nodded dully in assent and shrugging in resignation continued her task of cleaning up the mess. Cash had helped her pile the mattresses against the windows, and it occurred to her that the men were preparing for a possible gun battle when she observed the way the mattresses were arranged. They were piled up as though they had planned to use them as a shield against bullets that might be shot towards the windows from the vacant lot behind the warehouse.
The dishes were clean now, and she stood them up on a rack she had improvised on a table beside the sink. Cash had left the room to bring in some groceries from the truck, and she felt free to gather her thoughts for a moment. Her biggest problem had been believing that all this was really happening to her. The incredible nightmare had actually begun on the beach when she had seen Jennifer fondling the long hard penises of the two young men below the sand dune. The series of emotional shocks that had followed had fused in her mind into an agonizing blur of painful and humiliating thoughts and images, and now it seemed as though the horrible evening would never end. It must be almost early morning, she thought, yet the four men had shown no signs of retiring for the night.
Cash reentered the room and placed the bag of groceries beside the sink. "Billy says you're to get us some supper. And make it quick," he added with an authority of his own.
"There's nothing to cook on in here," Ellen said, surprising herself at the boldness of her statement.
"Them's all canned things," Cash retorted roughly. "We can eat cold for a couple days."
"W-what can I fix?" she asked with a slight tremble in her voice, feeling her fear returning as Cash stared at her cruelly. It was evident that she had angered Cash by speaking out so abruptly, and that was just what she had been trying not to do. She was intent on being as docile and unobtrusive as possible. She knew that everything she said to this man went directly back to Billy. She dared not alienate Billy completely or he might be forced to show his control over her by letting the others take advantage of her as he had done, and this was the last thing she wanted to happen – she would rather die than have them molest and prod her like that again.
"Open up them sardines and start fixin'," Cash shouted, interrupting her thoughts.
Ellen reached into the grocery bag and set a can of sardines and a loaf of bread onto the table. She was a bit surprised to find that the soreness between her legs was not as acute as she thought it might be, but as she bent over the table she felt a surge of pain come from inside her thighs and pulse upward into her groin. Yes, the tenderness was still there, and she couldn't escape the fact that she had been ravished and her cherished virginity had been stolen from her forever. The assault Vito had subjected her to with his fingers had accomplished this, and now she hoped beyond hope that she could escape any further violation of her body from this group of escaped convicts.
Ellen tried to shake the memory of the dreadful incident from her mind, but she couldn't. It just didn't seem possible that all of this could have happened to her in such a short, unexpected, period of time and yet she recalled now that there had been a rash of kidnappings and political assassinations recently that had caught the attention of the press and the entire nation. She remembered with bitter irony that she had once believed that such a thing could never happen to her and that her world was safe and secure, just as millions of other Americans had probably believed about their own lives. But why had these men treated her as they did? This was the unwritten account of what probably happened in dozens of such incidents. The poor victims, fearful of the horrible stigma that would go with them the rest of their lives, had refused to tell the real stories of rape and ravishment that lay behind their abductors' political purposes.
Ellen was still uncertain of what exactly had gone on in the truck only a few hours before. The bitter details were a confused jumble in her mind as she had been in a state of complete shock since the escapees had first grabbed her. Yet one thing was crystal clear to her. Her sister had betrayed an important trust by behaving as she had on the beach, and in some barely comprehensible manner Jennifer was responsible for her being here at the mercy of Billy and his fellow intriguers.
"Man, I'm starving to death, where the hell's the food," Billy's voice rang out from the next room, interrupting Ellen's thoughts.
"She can't go no faster than she is," Cash answered, looking over at Ellen who was placing the sardines on slices of white bread. Cash's voice had a note of irritation in it, and Ellen hoped that this did not signal the beginning of a conflict between the two men. Cash had patiently watched as she prepared the sandwiches and was now making a salad, but she knew that this apparent gentleness would turn into violent passion if he were provoked. She was aware of her breasts hanging out from the tear in her tee shirt, and she could feel the cool air rush against her leg from where they had ripped open the leg of her jeans up to her crotch, exposing one softly-rounded cheek of her buttocks. She tried vainly to conceal herself by pulling her legs close together and keeping one arm pressed next to her half-bared breast, but she couldn't. If Cash would just keep his eyes off her she would be able to work much faster, but as it was she felt his gaze pass over every soft curve and lewdly exposed crevice of her body, and she twisted uneasily as she sensed his eyes glued more tightly to the smooth white firmness of her buttocks.
"You're one of the most appetizing cooks I ever seen," Cash joked salaciously. "But you are also one of the Goddamn slowest."
"The food's ready now," she said weakly, turning with one plate piled high with salad and another with sandwiches.
"Chow's ready," he shouted towards the next room, without taking his eyes from her voluptuous young body.
"Then bring it in here," Billy laughed. "Pop looks so hungry he might eat me up."
Ellen followed Cash into the next room and set the plates down on the floor in front of Billy who lay back on the mattress looking at her with an amused expression.
"Goddamn, girl, I ain't gonna eat off no floor," Billy growled in irritation. "You go and get a table or somethin', so we can eat like civilized human beings."
Ellen returned to the kitchen and pulled the table from beside the sink into the makeshift living room. Then she set the plates on the table top, watching Billy all the while to see if he was still displeased.
"Now that's more like it. Them there sandwiches look mighty good. And what we got here, a nice little salad," Billy said, a note of viciousness in his voice. "Dig in boys, we's gonna need all the nourishment we can get."
Ellen stood back by the door and watched as the four men gathered around the table and began to eat. It was the first time she really had an opportunity to see all of them clearly, as she had tried to avert her gaze from them while they had attacked her in the truck, and when they had entered the warehouse she had been too filled with shame to look them in the face. Now she could see them clearly under the strong glare of the overhanging light, and a sharp stab of fear cut like a knife through her stomach. Their faces were drawn in what she suddenly realized was a prison pallor and their expressions, as they ate, were those of desperate animals who seemed to fear that the food that had been set in front of them might be quickly removed.
Cash was the nearest of the four men; he appeared to be in his middle thirties, a few years older than Billy, but quite a bit younger than Pop. He was slightly balding with shortly cropped blond hair that was graying at the temples. As he bent over his food he displayed a kind of brute strength that was emphasized by his huge forearms and a thick neck that bulged out from a large muscular chest. He reminded Ellen of some dock workers she had seen on the Tampa waterfront earlier that summer. They were a tough vicious breed and she had heard that when they became drunk they frequently got into fights that often ended fatally.