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all over.
    When he was through beating her, he threw the belt at Mim, who was kneeling crouched in a comer of the room, sobbing, her hands over her eyes. Only half-conscious now, Stella felt him turn her over; she lay there not able to move as his weight came down on her and he raped her, pulling her legs apart and upward. He seemed bigger than he had ever been, she was dry, and she could feel him tearing his way up inside her, battering into her vitals. She screamed out loud, and his hand slammed down across her mouth, cutting her lip and loosening her teeth. She could feel herself bleeding, and that must have made it easier for him because soon he discharged himself inside her and at last she felt him leave her.
    From very far away Stella heard his voice, threatening, cruel.
    "Be out of here by the time I get back—both of you. You got two hours, that's all. And you better not contest the divorce, bitch. Get out—and I don't want to hear anything from either of you "again, understand?"
    She heard him go stamping out of the apartment, but she couldn't move, couldn't stop her own cries of pain. Oh, God, what pain!
    Mim washed her protesting body gently. Mim kissed her all over, stinging her cuts with salty tears. And Mim, her mouth and fingers so very gentle, gave Stella her first orgasm, there on Kevin's bed.
    Afterward, leaving most of her clothes behind, Stella let Mim take her away. They went to Los Angeles first, and Stella became beautiful again as the bruises healed. Mim taught her things she hadn't dreamed about, even bought her books to read, and gradually she began to understand about Mim and about herself.
    Never again would she let a man touch her, never! She didn't care what they called her; she was going to be like Mim, accepting herself for what she was, accepting her own needs.
    That's what she thought at first, until the ugliness of the looks and sly little innuendos and the feeling of merely existing on the fringes of life began to get through to her. Stella still wanted no part of men, but she did want to be accepted by other people. After months of protests and tears and arguments, Mim said at last that she understood; and it was Mim who had helped her get the job. "I suppose I owe you something, after what I caused," Mim said, her big eyes sad and pleading. Somehow, from somewhere, Stella had found the strength to resist that pleading. She had grown tired of Mim, in any case. Never again would she let someone dominate her completely.

CHAPTER SIX
    The telephone rang , sending shock waves through Stella's body. She closed her eyes for an instant before she answered the insistent ringing. This was the present; both Kevin and Mim were tucked safely in the past. She picked up the phone, hoping it wouldn't be Marti.
    But it wasn't Marti; it was David Zimmer.
    "Stella, I won't be in this morning—looks like we're going to be tied up in court for quite a while yet. Be an angel and get my correspondence all sorted out, would you? Answer whatever you can, leave the rest for me."
    "Yes, Mr. Zimmer. Will you be in this afternoon?"
    "I expect to be, sure. After lunch, though. Hold the fort, honey."
    She hung up and looked quizzically at the phone. David was being very free with expressions of endearment lately. Could that mean—well, why not? He had told her frankly some time ago that she was a beautiful woman, and he liked to be around beautiful women. Maybe he was leading up to asking her out. God, Marti would go crazy with jealous anger. And Eve—oh, Eve would almost die.
    Stella wondered if Eve knew that she was the one who'd confided to David that Marti had once made love to Eve. Once, only once, Marti had said. And that had been very long ago, almost in the nature of an experiment—never repeated. She had pretended to David that she was jealous because of Marti, but really —really it had been because she was mad at Eve. Eve had acted like a snotty bitch, and it served Eve right.
    The trouble with Eve was