*** Insane killer leads a snake up his victim's ass

Kiss the Girls (1995) by James Patterson is an especially sick detective novel about two competing serial kidnapper-rapist-killers. Lots of twisted scenes about them with their victims but here I stick to the rape scenes of which there are three. This one’s the third. The excerpt is from an eBook.

 

CHAPTER 54

Casanova couldn't take his eyes off Anna Miller. The air around him seemed to roar. Everything was charged with high expectations. He was feeling more than a little out of control. Not like himself. More like the Gentleman Caller.

He looked down on his art his creation. He held a thought: Anna has never looked like this for anyone else.

Anna Miller lay on the bare wooden floor of the downstairs bedroom. She was naked, except for her jewelry, which he wanted her to wear. Her arms were bound with leather behind her back. A comfortable pillow was propped underneath her buttocks.

Anna's perfect legs hung from a rope tied to a ceiling beam. This was how he wanted her; this was exactly the way he'd imagined her so many times.

You can do anything that you want to do, he thought.

And so, he did.

Most of the warm milk was already inside her. He'd used the rubber hose and nozzle to do that.

She reminded him a little of Annette Bening, he was thinking, except that she was his now. She wasn't a flickering image on some Cineplex movie screen. She would help him get over Kate Mctiernan, and the sooner the better.

Anna wasn't so haughty anymore; she wasn't supremely untouchable, either. He was always curious about how much it took to break someone's will. Not so much, usually. Not in this age of cowards and spoiled brats.

"Please take it away. Don't do this to me. I've been good, haven't I?" Anna pleaded convincingly. She had such a beautiful and interesting face in happiness and especially in sorrow.

Her cheeks rose sharply whenever she spoke. He memorized the look, everything he could about this special moment. Details to dream about later on. Like the exact tilting angle of her derriere.

"It can't harm you, Anna," he told her truthfully. "Its mouth is sewn shut. I sewed it myself. The snake is harmless. I would never hurt you."

"You're sick and vile," Anna suddenly snapped at him. "You're a sadist!"

He merely nodded. He had wanted to see the real Anna, and there she was: another snapping dragon.

Casanova watched the milk as it slowly dripped from her anus. So did the small black snake. The sweet fragrance of the milk drew it forward across the wooden two-by-fours of the bedroom floor. It was quite magnificent to observe. This truly was an image for beauty and the beast.

The cautiously alert black snake paused, then suddenly jutted its head forward. The head smoothly slid inside Anna Miller. The black snake cleverly gathered itself in folds and slid farther inside.

Casanova closely watched Anna's beautiful eyes widen. How many other men had ever seen this, or felt anything like what he was experiencing now? How many of those men were still alive?

He had first heard of this sexual practice for enlarging the anus on his trips to Thailand and Cambodia. Now he'd performed the ceremony himself. It made him feel so much better about the loss of Kate, about other losses.

That was the exquisite and surprising beauty of the games he chose to play at his hideaway. He loved them. He couldn't possibly stop himself.

And neither could anyone else.

S** An insane killer drugs his bound and gagged victim and rapes her in a forest

Kiss the Girls (1995) by James Patterson is an especially sick detective novel about two competing serial kidnapper-rapist-killers. Lots of twisted scenes about them with their victims but here I stick to the rape scenes of which there are three. This one’s the first. The excerpt is from an eBook.

CHAPTER 3

Click! Casanova popped the trunk latch of his car and peered into the wide, shiny-wet eyes staring out at him. What a pity. What a waste, he thought as he looked down at her.

"Peekaboo," he said. "I see you." He had fallen out of love with the twenty-two-year-old college student tied up in the trunk. He was also angry at her. She had disobeyed the rules.

She'd ruined the fantasy du jour.

"You look like absolute hell," he said. "Relatively speaking, of course." The young woman was gagged with wet cloths and couldn't answer back, but she glared at him.

Her dark-brown eyes showed fear and pain, but he could still see the stubbornness and spunk there.

He took out his black carrying bag first, then he roughly lifted her one hundred twelve pounds out of the car. He made no effort to be gentle at this point.

"You're welcome," he said as he put her down. "Forgotten our manners, have we?" Her legs were shaky and she almost fell, but Casanova held her up easily with one hand.

She had on dark green Wake Forest University running shorts, a white tank top, and brand-new Nike cross-training shoes. She was a typical spoiled college brat, he knew, but achingly beautiful. Her slender ankles were bound with a leather thong that stretched about two and a half feet. Her hands were tied behind her back, also with a leather thong.

"You can just walk ahead of me. Go straight unless I tell you otherwise. Now walk," he ordered. "Move those long, lovely gams. Hut, hut, hut." They started through the dense woods that got even thicker as they moved slowly along. Thicker and darker. Creepier and creepier. He swung his black bag as if he were a child carrying a lunch box. He loved the dark woods. Always had.

Casanova was tall and athletic, well built, and good-looking. He knew that he could have many women, but not the way he wanted them. Not like this.

"I asked you to listen, didn't I? You wouldn't listen." He spoke in a soft, detached voice. "I told you the house rules. But you wanted to be a wiseass. So be a wiseass. Reap the rewards."

As the young woman struggled ahead she became increasingly afraid, close to panic. The woods were even denser now, and the low-hanging branches clawed at her bare arms, leaving long scratches. She knew her captor's name: Casanova. He fancied himself a great lover, and in fact he could maintain an erection longer than any man she had ever known.

He had always seemed rational and in control of himself, but she knew he had to be crazy. He certainly could act sane on occasion, though.

Once you accepted a single premise of his, something he had said to her several times: "Man was born to hunt ... women."

He had given her the rules of his house. He had clearly warned her to behave. She just hadn't listened. She'd been willful and stupid and had made a huge, tactical mistake.

She tried not to think of what he was going to do to her out here in these bewildering Twilight Zone type woods. It would surely give her a heart attack. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her break down and cry.

If only he would un gag her. Her mouth was dry, and she was thirsty beyond belief. Perhaps she could actually talk her way out of this of whatever it was that he had planned.

She stopped walking and turned to face him. It was draw-a-line-in-the-sand time.

"You want to stop here? That's fine with me. I'm not going to let you talk, though. No last words, dear heart. No reprieve from the governor. You blew it big time. If we stop here, you may not like it.

If you want to walk some more, that's fine, too. I just love these woods, don't you?"

She had to talk to him, get through to him somehow. Ask him why. Maybe appeal to his intelligence. She tried to say his name, but only muffled sounds made it through the damp gag.

He was self-assured and even calmer than usual. He walked with a cocky swagger. "I don't understand a word you're saying. Anyway, it wouldn't change a thing even if I did." He had on one of the weird masks that he always wore. This one was actually called a death mask, he'd told her, and it was used to reconstruct faces, usually at hospitals and morgues.

The skin color of the death mask was almost perfect and the detail was frighteningly realistic. The face he'd chosen was young and handsome, an all-American type. She wondered what he really looked like. Who in hell was he? Why did he wear masks?

She would escape somehow, she told herself. Then she would get him locked up for a thousand years. No death penalty let him suffer.

"If that's your choice, fine," he said, and he suddenly kicked her feet out from under her.

She fell down hard on her back. "You die right here." He slid a needle out of the well-worn black medical bag he'd brought with him. He brandished it like a tiny sword. Let her see it.

"This needle is called a Tubex," he said. "It's preloaded with thiopental sodium, which is a barbiturate. Does barbiturate-sounding things." He squeezed out a thin squirt of the brown liquid. It looked like iced tea, and it was not something she wanted injected into her veins.

"What does it do? What are you doing to me?" she screamed into the tight gag. "Please take this gag out of my mouth."

She was covered with sweat, and her breathing was labored. Her whole body felt stiff, anesthetized and numb. Why was he giving her a barbiturate?

"If I do this wrong, you'll die right now," he told her. "So don't move." She shook her head affirmatively. She was trying so hard to let him know that she could be good; she could be so very good. Please don't Ml me, she silently pleaded. Don't do this.

He pricked a vein in the crook of her elbow, and she could feel the painful pinch there.

"I don't want to leave any unsightly bruises," he whispered. "It won't take long. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, you, are, so, beautiful, zero. All finished."

She was crying now. She couldn't help it. The tears were streaming down her cheeks. He was crazy. She squeezed her eyes shut, couldn't look at him anymore. Please, God, don't let me die like this, she prayed. Not all alone out here.

The drug acted quickly, almost immediately. She felt warm all over, warm and sleepy. She went limp.

He took off her tank top and began to fondle her breasts, like a juggler with several balls.

There was nothing she could do to stop him.

He arranged her legs as if she were his art, his human sculpture, stretching the leather thong as far as it would go. He felt down between her legs. The sudden thrust made her open her eyes, and she stared up at the horrible mask. His eyes stared back at her. They were blank and emotionless, yet strangely penetrating.

He entered her, and she felt a jolt like a very powerful electric shock running through her body. He was very hard, fully aroused already. He was probing inside her as she was dying from the barbiturate. He was watching her die. That's what this was all about.

Her body wriggled, bolted, shook. As weak as she was, she tried to scream. No, please, please, please. Don't do this to me.

Mercifully, blackness came over her.

She didn't know how long she'd been unconscious. Didn't care. She woke up and she was still alive.

She started to cry, and the muffled sounds coming through the gag were agonizing. Tears ran down her cheeks. She realized how much she wanted to live.

She noticed that she'd been moved. Her arms were behind her and tied around a tree. Her legs were crossed and bound, and she was still tightly gagged. He had taken off her clothes. She didn't see her clothes anywhere.

He was still there! "I don't really care if you scream," he said. "There's absolutely nobody to hear you out here." His eyes gleamed out of the lifelike mask. "I just don't want you to scare away the hungry birds and animals." He glanced briefly at her truly beautiful body. "Too bad you disobeyed me, broke the rules," he said.

He took off the mask and let her see his face for the first time. He fixed the image of her face in his mind. Then he bent down and kissed her on the lips.

Kiss the girls.

Finally, he walked away.

** A young woman is sexually abused by her new legal guardian

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, chapters 11 to 14. Exerpts from an eBook. The original Swedish book Män som hatar kvinnor (literally: men who hate women) was published in 2005.

She sent evil thoughts to Herr Bjurman, but then she bit the bullet and called her guardian to explain that she needed money for an unexpected expense. Bjurman’s secretary said that he had no time to see her that day. Salander replied that it would take the man twenty seconds to write out a cheque for 10,000 kronor. She was told to be at his office at 7:30 that evening.

--

    Bjurman came round the desk to show her the statement of her bank account – which she knew down to the last öre, although it was no longer in her disposal. He stood behind her. Suddenly he was massaging the back of her neck, and he let one hand slide from her left shoulder across her breasts. He put his hand over her right breast and left it there. When she did not seem to object, he squeezed her breast. Salander did not move. She could feel his breath on her neck as she studied the letter opener on his desk; she could reach it with her free hand.

    But she did nothing. If there was one lesson Holger Palmgren had taught her over the years, it was that impulsive actions led to trouble, and trouble could have unpleasant consequences. She never did anything without first weighing the consequences.

    The initial sexual assault – which in legal terms would be defined as sexual molestation and the exploitation of an individual in a position of dependence, and could in theory get Bjurman up to two years in prison – lasted only a few seconds. But it was enough to irrevocably cross a boundary. For Salander it was a display of strength by an enemy force – an indication that aside from their carefully defined legal relationship, she was at the mercy of his discretion and defenceless. When their eyes met a few seconds later, his lips were slightly parted and she could read the lust on his face. Salander’s own face betrayed no emotions at all.

    Bjurman moved back to his side of the desk and sat on his comfortable leather chair.

    “I can’t hand out money to you whenever you like,” he said. “Why do you need such an expensive computer? There are plenty of cheaper models that you can use for playing computer games.”

    “I want to have control of my own money like before.”

    Bjurman gave her a pitying look.

    “We’ll have to see how things go. First you need to learn to be more sociable and get along with people.”

    Bjurman’s smile might have been more subdued if he could have read her thoughts behind the expressionless eyes.

    “I think you and I are going to be good friends,” he said. “We have to be able to trust each other.”

    When she did not reply he said: “You’re a grown woman now, Lisbeth.”

    She nodded.

    “Come here,” he said and held out his hand.

    Salander fixed her gaze on the letter opener for several seconds before she stood up and went over to him. Consequences. He took her hand and pressed it to his crotch. She could feel his genitals through the dark gabardine trousers.

    “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”

    He put his other hand around her neck and pulled her down to her knees with her face in front of his crotch.

    “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” he said as he lowered his zip. He smelled as if he had just washed himself with soap and water.

    Salander turned her face away and tried to get up, but he held her in a tight grip. In terms of physical strength, she was no match for him; she weighed 90 pounds to his 210. He held her head with both hands and turned her face so their eyes met.

    “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you,” he repeated. “If you make trouble, I can put you away in an institution for the rest of your life. Would you like that?”

    She said nothing.

    “Would you like that?” he said again.

    She shook her head.

    He waited until she lowered her eyes, in what he regarded as submission. Then he pulled her closer. Salander opened her lips and took him in her mouth. He kept his grip on her neck and pulled her fiercely towards him. She felt like gagging the whole ten minutes he took to bump and grind; when finally he came, he was holding her so tight she could hardly breathe.

    He showed her the bathroom in his office. Salander was shaking all over as she wiped her face and tried to rub off the spots on her sweater. She chewed some of his toothpaste to get rid of the taste. When she went back to his office, he was sitting impassively behind his desk, studying some papers.

    “Sit down, Lisbeth,” he told her without looking up. She sat down. Finally he looked at her and smiled.

    “You’re grown-up now, aren’t you, Lisbeth?”

    She nodded.

    “Then you also need to be able to play grown-up games,” he said. He used a tone of voice as if he were speaking to a child. She did not reply. A small frown appeared on his brow.

    “I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to tell anyone about our games. Think about it – who would believe you? There are documents stating that you’re non compos mentis. It would be your word against mine. Whose word do you think would carry more weight?”

    He sighed when still she did not speak. He was annoyed at the way she just sat there in silence, looking at him – but he controlled himself.

    “We’re going to be good friends, you and I,” he said. “I think you were smart to come and see me today. You can always come to me.”

    “I need 10,000 kronor for my computer,” she said, precisely, as if she were continuing the conversation they were having before the interruption.

    Bjurman raised his eyebrows. Hard-nosed bitch. She really is fucking retarded. He handed her the cheque he had written when she was in the bathroom. This is better than a whore. She gets paid with her own money. He gave her an arrogant smile. Salander took the cheque and left.

--

    The plan began to go wrong almost from the start.

    Bjurman was wearing a bathrobe when he opened the door to his apartment. He was cross at her arriving late and motioned her brusquely inside. She was wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, and the obligatory leather jacket. She wore black boots and a small rucksack with a strap across her chest.

    “Haven’t you even learned to tell the time?” Bjurman said. Salander did not reply. She looked around. The apartment looked much as she had expected after studying the building plans in the archives of the City Zoning Office. The light-coloured furniture was birch and beech-wood.

    “Come on,” Bjurman said in a friendlier tone. He put his arm around her shoulders and led her down a hall into the apartment’s interior. No small talk. He opened the door to the bedroom. There was no doubt as to what services Salander was expected to perform.

    She took a quick look around. Bachelor furnishings. A double bed with a high bedstead of stainless steel. A low chest of drawers that also functioned as a bedside table. Bedside lamps with muted lighting. A wardrobe with a mirror along one side. A cane chair and a small desk in the corner next to the door. He took her by the hand and led her to the bed.

    “Tell me what you need money for this time. More computer accessories?”

    “Food,” she said.

    “Of course. How stupid of me. You missed our last meeting.” He placed his hand under her chin and lifted her face so their eyes met. “How are you?”

    She shrugged.

    “Have you thought about what I said last time?”

    “About what?”

    “Lisbeth, don’t act any more stupid than you are. I want us to be good friends and to help each other out.”

    She said nothing. Advokat Bjurman resisted an impulse to give her a slap – to put some life into her.

    “Did you like our grown-up game from last time?”

    “No.”

    He raised his eyebrows.

    “Lisbeth, don’t be foolish.”

    “I need money to buy food.”

    “But that’s what we talked about last time. If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. But if you’re just going to cause trouble…” His grip on her chin tightened and she twisted away.

    “I want my money. What do you want me to do?”

    “You know what I want.” He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her towards the bed.

    “Wait,” Salander said hastily. She gave him a resigned look and then nodded curtly. She took off her rucksack and leather jacket with the rivets and looked around. She put her jacket on the chair, set her rucksack on the round table, and took several hesitant steps to the bed. Then she stopped, as if she had cold feet. Bjurman came closer.

    “Wait,” she said once more, in a tone as if to say that she was trying to talk sense into him. “I don’t want to have to suck your dick every time I need money.”

    The expression on Bjurman’s face suddenly changed. He slapped her hard. Salander opened her eyes wide, but before she could react, he grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her on to the bed. The violence caught her by surprise. When she tried to turn over, he pressed her down on the bed and straddled her.

    Like the time before, she was no match for him in terms of physical strength. Her only chance of fighting back was if she could hurt him by scratching his eyes or using some sort of weapon. But her planned scenario had already gone to hell. Shit, she thought when he ripped off her T-shirt. She realised with terrifying clarity that she was out of her depth.

    She heard him open the dresser drawer next to the bed and caught the clanking sound of metal. At first she did not understand what was happening; then she saw the handcuffs close around her wrist. He pulled up her arm, placed the handcuffs around one of the bedposts, and locked her other hand. It did not take him long to pull off her boots and jeans. Then he took off her knickers and held them in his hand.

    “You have to learn to trust me, Lisbeth,” he said. “I’m going to teach you how this grown-up game is played. If you don’t treat me well, you have to be punished. When you’re nice to me, we’ll be friends.”

    He sat astride her again.

    “So you don’t like anal sex,” he said.

    Salander opened her mouth to scream. He grabbed her hair and stuffed the knickers in her mouth. She felt him putting something around her ankles, spread her legs apart and tie them so that she was lying there completely vulnerable. She heard him moving around the room but she could not see through the T-shirt around her face. It took him several minutes. She could hardly breathe. Then she felt an excruciating pain as he forced something up her anus.

--

    Salander was allowed to put on her clothes. It was 4:00 on Saturday morning. She picked up her leather jacket and rucksack and hobbled to the front door, where he was waiting for her, showered and neatly dressed. He gave her a cheque for 2,500 kronor.

    “I’ll drive you home,” he said, and opened the door.

    She crossed the threshold, out of the apartment, and turned to face him. Her body looked fragile and her face was swollen from crying, and he almost recoiled when he met her eyes. Never in his life had he seen such naked, smouldering hatred. Salander looked just as deranged as her casebook indicated.

    “No,” she said, so quietly that he barely heard the word. “I can get home on my own.”

    He put a hand on her shoulder.

    “Are you sure?”

    She nodded. His grip on her shoulder tightened.

    “Remember what we agreed. You’ll come back here next Saturday.”

    She nodded again. Cowed. He let her go.

--

    Salander spent the week in bed with pain in her abdomen, bleeding from her rectum, and less visible wounds that would take longer to heal. What she had gone through was very different from the first rape in his office; it was no longer a matter of coercion and degradation. This was systematic brutality.

    She realised much too late that she had utterly misjudged Bjurman.

    She had assumed he was on a power trip and liked to dominate, not that he was an all-out sadist. He had kept her in handcuffs half the night. Several times she believed he meant to kill her, and at one point he had pressed a pillow over her face until she thought she was going to pass out.

    She did not cry.

    Apart from the tears of pure physical pain she shed not a single tear. When she left the apartment she made her way with difficulty to the taxi stand at Odenplan. With difficulty she climbed the stairs to her own apartment. She showered and wiped the blood from her genitals. Then she drank a pint of water with two Rohypnol and stumbled to her bed and pulled the duvet over her head.

S** Serial rapist/serial killer attacks a woman in her home. Later a psychic has a vision of the same incident.

Carolina Moon (2000) by Nora Roberts. Excerpts from an eBook. Warning: snuff

Chapter 19

    A movement at the corner of her eye had her heart wheeling into her throat. The bowl flew out of her hands, and she managed one short scream.

    Then a hand clamped over her mouth. The knife she'd used to make her dinner pricked at her throat.

    "Be quiet. Be very, very quiet, and I won't cut you. Understand?"

    Her eyes were already circling wildly.

    Wings of fear beat in her belly, had her skin going hot and damp. But confusion rode over it. She couldn't see his face, but thought she recognized the voice. It made no sense. No sense at all.

    His hand slid slowly away from her mouth to grip her chin. "Don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me."

    “Now, why would I do that?" Her hair smelled sweet. A whore's blond hair. "Let's go in the bedroom where we can be comfortable."

    "Don't." She gasped as the edge of the knife teased along her throat, tipped up her chin. The scream was inside her, desperate to burst out, but the knife turned it into silent tears as he pushed her out of the kitchen.

    Her patio doors were closed now, the blinds shut. "Mongo. What did you do with Mongo?"

    "You don't think I'd hurt a nice, friendly dog like that do you?" The power of the moment cruised through him, spread, made him hard and hot and invincible. "He's just taking a quiet nap. Don’t you worry about a thing. This is going to be just what you want.”

    He shoved her belly down on the bed, put his knee in the small of her back and added weight. He'd brought precautions. A man had to be prepared, even for a whore. Especially for a whore.

    After a while, they screamed no matter what. And he didn't want to use the knife. Not when he was so good with his hands. He took the bandanna from his pocket, gagged her.

    When she began to stir, when she began to struggle, he was in heaven.

    She wasn't weak. She kept the body she liked to flaunt and tease men with in good shape. It only excited him to have her struggle. The first time he hit her, the thrill of it slammed into him like sex. He hit her again so they both understood who was in charge.

    He tied her hands behind her back. He couldn't afford those nails with their sluttish pink polish scraping any of his skin.

    Quietly, he walked over to shut the curtain and close them into the dark.

    She was moaning against the gag, dazed from the blows. The sound of it made him tremble so that he nicked her skin a little as he used the knife to cut her clothes away. She tried to roll, tried to buck, but when he put the point of the blade just under her eye, pressed, she went very still.

    "This is what you want." He unzipped, then flipped her onto her back and straddled her. "It's what you asked for. What you all ask for."

    When it was done, he wept. Tears of self-pity ran down his face. She wasn't the one, but what else could he do? She'd put herself in his path, she'd given him no choice.

    It wasn't perfect! He'd done everything he'd wanted and still it wasn't perfect.

    Her eyes were glazed and empty as he took off the gag, kissed her cheeks. He cut the cord from her wrists, stuffed it back in his pockets.

    He turned her music off, and left the way he'd come in.

Chapter 22

    "He was there. Just there." Tory's breathing came in quick, short bursts now. She had both hands fisted at her throat. "You didn't hear him. You can't see him. There's a knife. He has a knife. Oh God, oh God, oh God. His hand's over your mouth, squeezing. The knife's at your throat. You're so scared. So scared. You won't scream. You won't. You'll do anything if he doesn't hurt you.

    "His voice is at your ear, soft, quiet. What did he do with Mongo? Did he hurt him? It's all tumbling in your head. It's not real. It can't be real. But the knife's so sharp. He pushes you and you're afraid you'll stumble and the knife ... "

    She shuffled out of the kitchen, braced a hand on the wall when she swayed. "The blinds are drawn. No one can see. No one can help. He wants you in the bedroom, and you know what he's going to do. If you could only get away, away from the knife."

    Tory froze at the door to the bedroom. Nausea rolled into her in short, choppy waves. "I can't. I can't."

    She turned her face to the wall, struggling to find herself through all the fear and violence. "I don't want to see this. He killed her here, why do I have to see it?"

    "That's enough." Cade shoved away Carl D.'s restraining hand. "Goddamn it, that's enough."

    But when he reached for Tory, she stumbled away. "It's in my head. I'll never get it out of my head. Don't talk to me. Don't touch me."

    She pressed her hands to her face, trapping her own breath, and let it claw back inside her.

    "Oh. Oh. He pushes you on the bed, facedown. And he's on top of you. He's already hard, and feeling him, feeling him pressing against you, you struggle. The fear's wild inside you. Huge, choking. There's a heat to it. Fear burns."

    She moaned, went down to her knees beside the bed. "He hits you. Hard. The back of the neck. The pain's so sharp, it rushes through you, stuns you. He hits you again, the side of your face explodes with it. You taste blood. Your own blood. Blood tastes the same as terror. The same. He yanks your arms behind your back, and the pain of that's just another layer."

    Tentacles of that pain slithered and groped inside her, tangled with a horror so huge it seemed the mass of it all would burst out of her brain. She pressed her face to the side of the mattress, dug her fingers into it.

    "It's dark. The room's dark, and the music's playing and you can't think over the pain. You're crying. You try to plead with him, but he's tied a cloth over your mouth. He hits you again and you start sliding away somewhere. Half conscious, you hardly feel it when he cuts your clothes away. The knife nicks you, but it's worse, so much worse when he uses his hands on you."

    Tory doubled over, wrapped her arms around her belly, and began to rock. "It hurts. It hurts. You can't even cry when he's raping you. Just let it be over, but he keeps beating himself into you and you have to go away. You have to be somewhere else. You have to go away."

    Exhausted, Tory laid her head on the side of the bed, closed her eyes. It was like being smothered, she thought dimly. Like being buried alive, so the blood rings in your ears like a thousand bells and the sweat that coats your body is cold. So viciously cold.

    She had to fight her way back into the air.

    Back into self.

    "When he was finished with her, he strangled her with his hands. She couldn't fight anymore. She cried, or he did. I can't tell. But he cut the rope from around her wrists. He took it with him. He didn't want to leave any of himself behind, but he did. Like an ice rime on glass. I can't stay here. Please get me out of here. Please get me away from here."