CODES: * means plain. The scene is unsatisfactory due to lack of length or detail. ** means average. *** means hot.
V is a warning for above average violent content. S is a warning for snuff content - the excerpt is usually from a crime novel.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

**An abuser torments his past victim over the phone by reminding her of her past suffering and humiliation

The Devil's Star (2003) by Jo Nesbø. A policewoman struggles to keep up appearances at work despite having been put through an ordeal of rape, sexual abuse and humiliation in the hands of a higher ranking officer. And despite still having to work with her abuser.

CHAPTER 20

Beate Lønn enjoyed her work. She like the routines, the security, the knowledge that she was competent, and she knew that the others at the Forensics Institute at Kjolberggata 21A knew that too. Since work was the only thing in her life she considered important, it was reason enough to get up in the morning. Everything else was a musical interlude. She lived in her mothers house in Oppsal and had the whole of the top floor to herself. They got on extremely well. She had always been Daddys girl when he was alive; she assumed that was why she joined the police force, like him. She had no hobbies. Even though she and Halvorsen, the officer Harry shared his office with, had become a sort of couple, she was not convinced about it. She had read in a womens magazine that this kind of doubt was natural and that you should take risks. Beate didnt like taking risks. Or being in doubt. That was why she enjoyed her work.

As she was growing up she blushed at the thought that anyone could be thinking about her and she spent most of her time devising different ways to hide. She still blushed, but she had found good places to hide. She could sit for hours inside the worn redbrick walls of Forensics studying fingerprints, ballistics reports, video recordings, comparisons of voices, the analyses of DNA or textile fibres, footprints, blood and an endless number of technical leads which might resolve important, complicated, controversial cases in total peace and quiet. She had also discovered that working was not nearly as dangerous as it seemed. So long as she spoke loudly and clearly and managed to repress her panic about blushing, losing face, her clothes, standing there exposed and full of shame, for what reason she didnt know. The office in Kjolberggata was her castle; the uniform and her professional duties her mental armour.

The clock showed 12.30 a.m. when the telephone on her office desk rang, interrupting her reading of the laboratory report on Lisbeth Barlis finger. Her heart began to quicken with fear when she saw on the display that the caller was ringing from an unknown number. It could only mean that it was him.

"Beate Lønn."

It was him. His words came out in a flurry of blows.

"Why didnt you ring me about the fingerprints?"

She held her breath for a second before she replied.

"Harry said he would pass on the message."

"Thank you. I received it. Next time, you ring me first. Is that understood?"

Beate gulped. She didnt know whether out of fear or anger.

"Fine."

"Anything else you told him that you didnt tell me?"

"No. Except that Ive got the results from the lab on what was under the finger we were sent through the post."

"Lisbeth Barli's? And it was?"

"Excrement."

"What?"

"Poo."

"Thank you very much. I know what it is. Any idea where it came from?"

"Er, yes."

"Correction. Who it came from."

"I dont know for certain, but I can guess."

"Would you be so kind."

"The excrement contains blood, perhaps from a haemorrhoid. In this particular case, blood group B. Only seven per cent of the country has this blood group. Wilhelm Barli is a registered blood donor. He has --"

"Right. And what do you conclude from this?"

"I dont know," Beate said quickly.

"But you know that the anus is an erogenous zone, Beate? In men and women. Or had you forgotten?"

Beate squeezed her eyes shut. Please dont let him start again. Not again. It was a long time ago, she had begun to forget, to get it out of her system. But his voice was there, smooth and tough, like snakeskin.

"Youre good at playing the very ordinary girl, Beate. I like that. I liked it when you pretended you didnt want to."

You know something, I know something, no-one else knows anything, she thought.

"Does Halvorsen do it to you as well as I did?"

"Im putting the phone down now," Beate said.

His laughter crackled in her ears. She knew it then. There was nowhere to hide. They could find you anywhere, just as they had found the three women where they felt safest. There was no castle. And no armour.



**Sexual harrassment scene (no rape though)

From Open Season (2001) by C. J. Box. A game warden's daughter is threatened and harrassed because she's harbouring endangered animals which some people want dead. The excerpt is from an eBook.

PART FOUR, CHAPTER 18

She knew the area around their house so well that she was certain where she would find her pets: under the foundation of the garage.  There were some large cracks in the concrete where the structure met the ground, and the cracks led to a large dark space under the floor of the garage.  She had once probed the space with a long stick and had not been able to find the sides.  That, she was sure, was where she would find them.

When she emerged from the bushes, the first thing she saw was Lucky sticking his head out of the crack and then vanishing under the garage.

"Boy, am I glad to see you," she said, emptying her pockets into the hole. "That ought to keep you guys full for a while."  The relief she felt made her giddy.

"I'll be back as soon as I can be, you can count on that."  She felt as wildly good as she had horribly bad a moment before.  "You guys are pretty smart."  She smiled, pulling her pockets inside out to get every last sunflower seed. "This is a much safer place for you."

Rather than crawl through the bushes again back into the yard, Sheridan skipped down the length of the lilacs toward the end of the fence and the corner of corral.  She planned to turn and enter the yard through the same gate the monster had used. As she turned toward the corral, she saw the face of a man in the window of the pole barn, and it stopped her cold.

The man's face withdrew from the window into the shadows of the barn and then reemerged in the doorway, so that she could now see all of him.  He stood in the light but didn't step outside into the corral. He was motioning to her to come to him.  He was smiling.  She had been right about being watched.

Sheridan couldn't move.  She was terrified.  She didn't know whether to scream for her mom, run for the gate, or run back toward the garage. If she ran back to the garage, the man might follow her and maybe see the animals.

"Sheridan, right?"  The man asked softly.  He spoke just loud enough for her to hear him.
"I need to talk to you for a second.  Don't be afraid," the man said. "I know your dad."

He did look familiar, Sheridan thought.  She had seen him before with her dad. She didn't know his name, and if she had been told what it was, she had forgotten.  There were a lot of people who came to their house because it was Dad's office also.  There had been a lot of men at their house when the dead man was found.  She knew she shouldn't talk to strangers. But if he knew her dad and her name, was he really a stranger?  She weighed going to the man against screaming or running to the house.  If the man saw her feed the animals, he might tell her mom.  If she ran screaming, she might embarrass her dad.

The man kept smiling and motioning for her to come. She walked toward him on stiff, heavy legs.  Her eyes were huge.  She walked past the gate and ducked through the poles of the corral. Still, the man stayed in the pole barn.  Sheridan suddenly realized that he was standing there so he couldn't be seen by anyone in the house, and she knew she had made the wrong decision.  She turned to run, but he was on her in an instant, and he jerked her back roughly into a dark stall with him.

He swung, her around and pressed her against the hay bales, and her scream was smothered by his hand.  His face was so close to hers that his hat brim jammed against her forehead and his breath fogged her glasses.

"I'm sorry I had to do this, darling," he whispered when she had stopped struggling.  "I really am.  I wished you hadn't come around the yard that way.  I didn't expect you and you saw me."

He kept his hand, massive and rough, crushed against her mouth.  Her breath came in quick little puffs from her nose, and he didn't intend to let her answer.

"Before I take my hand down, there is something you have to understand, Sheridan.  Are you listening?"

She tried to nod her head yes.  She was trembling, and she couldn't make herself stop.  She was suddenly afraid she would wet her panties.

"Are you listening?"  he asked again.  This time his voice was very gentle. "Are you listening?"
She said with her eyes that she was.

"You've got some secrets, don't you little girl?  You've got some little friends in the woodpile, don't you?  I've been watching you.  I saw you feeding them."

The big hand did not move from her mouth. "Do your mom and dad know about them?"

She tried to shake her head no.  Even though he pressed her to the hay, he could tell what she was trying to say because he smiled a little. "You're not lying to me, are you, Sheridan?"

As forcefully as she could, she tried to say no.  He pressed his face even closer to her.  His eyes were all she could see of his face.

"Okay, then.  That's good.  We both have a secret, don't we?  And we're going to keep it our secret, just between us.  Just between us friends. You just keep this to yourself and don't you ever say a word about this to anyone.  Look at me."

Sheridan had averted her eyes toward the door, hoping her dad would be there.

"Look at me," he hissed. She did.

"If you say one thing about this to anyone, I'll rip those pretty green eyes of yours right out of their sockets.  And I won't stop there."

With his free hand, Sheridan felt him reach back.  She heard a snap and a huge black gun filled her vision. "I'll use this on your dad.  I'll shoot him right in the face.  I'll do the same thing to your pretty mom and your itty-bitty sister.  I'll even kill that stupid dog.  I'll blow her head right off.  Keep looking at me," he said.

She had stopped shaking; she was beyond it.  She was absolutely calm, and absolutely terrified.

"I'm going to take my hand down now and let you go as soon as you can smile," he said. "Then you take that smile right into the house and never, ever tell anyone what happened here.  Your little animals in the woodpile are going to heaven, do you understand?  Your family won't have to go to heaven or anywhere else if you keep your little mouth shut."

He eased his hand down.  Her face felt cold as the air hit it.  Her lips had been crushed against her teeth, and she tasted a drop of salty blood from inside her mouth.

"Are you listening, Sheridan?"

"Yes."  Her voice was thin, and it nearly cracked.

"Then smile."

She tried.  She didn't feel like smiling.

"That's not a smile," he chided, his voice gentle again. "You can do better than that, darling."

She tried.

"Closer," he persisted. "Keep working on it."

Her mouth smiled.

"We can live with that," he said, stepping back.  His crushing weight was now off of her.  She stood up.  She winced as he reached over her shoulder, but he was just brushing the hay off of her dress.

"Don't be scared of me," he admonished.  He sounded like a normal person now.  She was as confused as she was frightened. "Nothing bad will ever happen because we've got a deal.  I won't break it if you don't.  Shoot," he said, "we might even turn out to be friends someday.  That'd be nice, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," she said.  But she was lying.

"You might even get a little older, and I'll take you to a movie.  Buy you a Coke and some popcorn."  He smoothed her dress across her bottom, pressing his hand more firmly than he needed to. "You might even like it."

They both looked up when they heard her mom call her name.

"You had better go now, darling," he said.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

*** 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.

*** Insane killer shocks his victim with a stun gun and rapes her while she struggles to remain conscious


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 second. The excerpt is from an eBook.

CHAPTER 28

"Well, what do you have in mind for me?" Kate decided on the direct approach. "Why am I here? Why this room, the clothes? All my things?" His voice remained gentle and calm. He was actually trying to seduce her. "Oh, I guess I want to fall in love, to stay in love for a while.

I want to feel real romance every day that I possibly can. I want to feel something special in my life. I want to experience intimacy with another person. I'm not that different from everyone else. Except that I act instead of daydream."

"Don't you feel anything?" she asked. She feigned concern for him.

She knew that sociopaths couldn't feel emotion, at least that was her understanding.

He shrugged. She sensed that he was smiling again, laughing at her.

"Sometimes I feel a great deal. I think that I'm too sensitive. May I tell you how beautiful you are?" "Under the present circumstances, I wish you wouldn't." He laughed a nice laugh and shrugged his shoulders again. "Okay.

That's settled then, isn't it? No sweet talk for the two of us. Not for now, anyway. Bear in mind, I can be romantic. I actually prefer it that way."

She wasn't prepared for his sudden movement, his quickness. The stun gun appeared and hit her with a vicious jolt. She recognized the gun's crackling sound, smelled the ozone. Kate fell back hard against the bedroom wall and cracked her head. The impact shook the whole house wherever she was being kept.

"Oh, Jee-sus no," Kate moaned softly.

He was all over her. Flailing arms and legs, all of his weight pressing down on her. He was going to kill her now. Oh God, she didn't want to die like this, to have her life end in this way. It was so pointless, absurd, sad.

She felt a fierce and explosive rage swelling up in her. With a desperate effort she managed to kick out one leg, but she couldn't move her arms. Her chest was on fire. She could feel him ripping off her blouse, touching her all over. He was aroused. She could feel him rubbing against her.

"No, please no," she moaned. Her own voice sounded very far away.

He was kneading her breasts with both hands. She could taste blood, and feel its warmth trickle from the corner of her mouth. Kate finally began to cry. She was choking, and she could hardly breathe.

"I tried to be nice," he said through tightly gritted teeth.

He stopped suddenly. He got up and unzipped his blue jeans and yanked them down around his ankles. He didn't bother to take them off.

Kate stared up at him. His penis was large. Fully erect, and bright with pulsing blood and thick veins. He threw himself down on her and rubbed it against her body, moving it slowly against her breasts, her throat, and then her mouth and eyes.

Kate began to drift in and out of consciousness, in and out of reality.

She tried to hold on to each thought that came to her. She needed to feel some control, even if it was only over her thoughts.

"Keep your eyes open," he warned her in a deep growl. "Look at me, Kate. Your eyes are so beautiful. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Do you know that? Do you know how desirable you are?" He was in a trance now. It seemed like it to Kate. His powerful body danced, snaked, writhed, as he thrust himself in and out of her. He sat up and he played with her breasts again. He caressed her hair, different parts of her face. His touch became gentle after a while.

That made it even worse for her. She felt such humiliation and horrible shame. She hated him.

"I love you so much, Kate. I love you more than I'm capable of saying.

I've never felt this way before. I promise you I haven't. Never like this."

He wasn't going to kill her, Kate realized. He was going to let her live. He was going to come back again and again, whenever he wanted her. The horror was overwhelming, and Kate finally passed out. She let her spirit fall far away.

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 seemingly destitute girl sells her maidenhead in a brothel

Two rich London rakes – assertive Micky and his accommodating friend Edward – visit their usual bordello on a masquerade night and get offered the chance to deflower a virgin.

A Dangerous Fortune (1993) by Kevin Follett. The book is divided into several parts. This excerpt can be found under Chapter four, June, One. I have transliterated the excerpt from an audiobook since I could not find a free eBook.

    A few minutes later he stepped into Nellie’s. The party was in full swing. Every table was occupied. The air was thick with cigar smoke and ribbled banter and raucous laughter could be heard over the sound of a small orchestra playing loud dance tunes. All the women wore masks. Some were simple dominoes but most were more elaborate and a few were entire headdresses, covering everything but the eyes and mouth.
    Micky pushed his way through the crowd, nodding at acquaintances and kissing some of the girls. Edward was in the card room, but he got up as soon as Micky walked in.
    “April’s got a virgin for us,” he said thickly. It was late and he had drunk a lot.
    Virginity had never been Micky’s particular obsession, but there was always something stimulating about a girl who was frightened, and he was titillated.
    “How old?”
    “Seventeen.”
    Which probably meant twenty-three, Micky thought, knowing how April estimated the ages of her girls. Still, he was intrigued.
    “Have you seen her?”
    “Yes. She’s masked of course.”
    “Of course.”
    Micky wondered what her story was. She might be a provincial girl who had run away from home and found herself destitute in London. She might have been abducted from a farm. She might just be a housemaid fed up with slaving sixteen hours a day for six shillings a week. A woman in a little black domino touched his arm. The mask was no more than a token and he recognized April.
    “A genuine virgin,” April said.
    No doubt she was charging Edward a small fortune for the privilege of taking the girl’s maidenhead.
    “Have you put your own hand up her to feel her hymen?” Micky said skeptically.
    April shook her head. “I don’t need to. I know when a girl is telling the truth.”
    “If I don’t feel it pop you won’t get paid,” he said, even though they both knew Edward would be paying.
    “Agreed.”
    “What’s her story?”
    “She’s an orphan, brought up by an uncle. He was eager to get her off his hands as soon as possible and arranged for her to marry an older man. When she refused he put her out on the street. I rescued her from a life of drudgery.”
    “You’re an angel,” Micky said sarcastically. He did not believe a word of it. Even though he could not read April’s expression behind the mask, he had the strongest feeling that she was up to something. He gave her a skeptical look.
    “Tell me the truth,” he said.
    “I have,” April said. “If you don’t want her there are six other men here who’ll pay just as much as you.”
    Edward said impatiently: “We want her. Stop arguing Micky, let’s have a look at her.”
    “Room three,” April said. “She’s waiting for you.”
    Micky and Edward made their way up the stairs, which were littered with embracing couples, and went into room three. The girl stood in the corner. She wore a simple muslin gown and her entire head was covered with a hood, leaving only slits for the eyes and an opening for the mouth. Once again Micky was seized by suspicion; they could see nothing of her face and head. She might be hideously ugly, perhaps deformed. Was this some kind of prank?
    He realized as he stared at her that she was trembling with fear, and he put his doubts aside as he felt a stirring of desire in his loins. To frighten her more he crossed the room quickly, pulled the neckline of her gown aside and plunged his hand into her bosom. She flinched and there was terror in her bright blue eyes. But she stood her ground. She had small firm breasts. Her fear made him want to be brutal. Normally he and Edward would toy with a woman for a while but he decided to take this one suddenly.
    “Kneel on the bed,” he told her.
    She did as he said. He got behind her and pulled up her skirt. She gave a little cry of fright. She was wearing nothing underneath. It was easier to penetrate her than he had expected. April must have given her some cream to lubricate herself. He felt the obstruction of her maidenhead. He grabbed her hips and pulled her roughly to him as he thrust deep inside her and the membrane broke. She began to sob and that excited him so much that he reached his climax immediately.
    He withdrew to make way for Edward. There was blood on his prick.
    He felt dissatisfied now that it was over and he wished he had stayed at home and gone to bed with Rachel. Then he remembered that she had left him and he felt worse.
    Edward turned the girl over onto her back. She almost rolled of the bed and he grabbed her ankles and pulled her back into the middle. As he did so her hood came partly off.
    Edward said: “Good god!”
    “What’s the matter?” Micky said without much interest.
    Edward was kneeling between the girl’s thighs with his prick in his hand, staring at her half revealed face. Micky decided that the girl must be someone they knew. He watched, fascinated, as she tried to tug the hood down again. Edward prevented her and pulled it right off. Then Micky saw the big blue eyes and childlike face of Edward’s wife, Emily.
    “I never heard of such a thing!” he said. And he started to laugh.
    Edward gave a roar of rage: “You filthy cow!” he yelled. “You did this to shame me!”
    “No Edward, no!” she cried. “To help you. To help us.”
    “Now they all know!” he shouted and he punched her face.
    She screamed and struggled and he hit her again. Micky laughed all the more. It was the funniest thing he’d ever seen: a man going into a whorehouse and meeting his own wife.
    April came rushing in in response to the screams.
    “Leave her alone!” she yelled. And she tried to pull Edward off.
    He pushed her aside.
    “I’ll chastise my own wife if I please!” he roared.
    “You great big fool! She only wants to have a baby!”
    “She’ll have my fist instead!”
    They struggled for a moment. Edward punched his wife again. Then April punched him on the ear. He gave a cry of pain and surprise, making Micky collapse with hysterical laughter.
    At last April managed to haul Edward off his wife. Emily got off the bed. Astonishingly she did not immediately rush out. Instead she spoke to her husband.
    “Please don’t give up Edward. I’ll do anything you want. Anything.”
    He lunged at her again. April clung to his legs and tripped him up. He fell to his knees.
    April said: “Get out Emily before he kills you!”
    Emily rushed out, weeping.

Friday, August 17, 2012

S** A neighbor rapes a girl in a secret hideaway underground

From first chapter of Lovely Bones (2002) by Alice Sebold.

    "I got to go, Mr. Harvey. This is a cool place, but I have to go."
    He stood up and did his hunchback number by the six dug- in steps that led to the world. "I don't know why you think you're leaving."
    I talked so that I would not have to take in this knowledge: Mr. Harvey was no character. He made me feel skeevy and icky now that he was blocking the door.
    "Mr. Harvey, I really have to get home."
    "Take off your clothes."
    "What?"
    "Take your clothes off," Mr. Harvey said. "I want to check that you're still a virgin."
    "I am, Mr. Harvey," I said.
    "I want to make sure. Your parents will thank me."
    "My parents?"
    "They only want good girls," he said.
    "Mr. Harvey," I said, "please let me leave."
    "You aren't leaving, Susie. You're mine now."
    Fitness was not a big thing back then; aerobics was barely a word. Girls were supposed to be soft, and only the girls we suspected were butch could climb the ropes at school.
    I fought hard. I fought as hard as I could not to let Mr. Harvey hurt me, but my hard-as-I-could was not hard enough, not even close, and I was soon lying down on the ground, in the ground, with him on top of me panting and sweating, having lost his glasses in the struggle.
    I was so alive then. I thought it was the worst thing in the world to be lying flat on my back with a sweating man on top of me. To be trapped inside the earth and have no one know where I was.
--
    Mr. Harvey started to press his lips against mine. They were blubbery and wet and I wanted to scream but I was too afraid and too exhausted from the fight. I had been kissed once by someone I liked. His name was Ray and he was Indian. He had an accent and was dark. I wasn't supposed to like him. Clarissa called his large eyes, with their half-closed lids, "freak-a-delic," but he was nice and smart and helped me cheat on my algebra exam while pretending he hadn't. He kissed me by my locker the day before we turned in our photos for the yearbook. When the yearbook came out at the end of the summer, I saw that under his picture he had answered the standard "My heart belongs to" with "Susie Salmon." I guess he had had plans. I remember that his lips were chapped.
    "Don't, Mr. Harvey," I managed, and I kept saying that one word a lot. Don't. And I said please a lot too. Franny told me that almost everyone begged "please" before dying.
    "I want you, Susie," he said.
    "Please," I said. "Don't," I said. Sometimes I combined them. "Please don't" or "Don't please." It was like insisting that a key works when it doesn't or yelling "I've got it, I've got it, I've got it" as a softball goes sailing over you into the stands.
    "Please don't."
    But he grew tired of hearing me plead. He reached into the pocket of my parka and balled up the hat my mother had made me, smashing it into my mouth. The only sound I made after that was the weak tinkling of bells.
    As he kissed his wet lips down my face and neck and then began to shove his hands up under my shirt, I wept. I began to leave my body; I began to inhabit the air and the silence. I wept and struggled so I would not feel. He ripped open my pants, not having found the invisible zipper my mother had artfully sewn into their side.
    "Big white panties," he said.
    I felt huge and bloated. I felt like a sea in which he stood and pissed and shat. I felt the corners of my body were turning in on themselves and out, like in cat's cradle, which I played with Lindsey just to make her happy. He started working himself over me.

    "Susie! Susie!" I heard my mother calling. "Dinner is ready."
    He was inside me. He was grunting.
    "We're having string beans and lamb."
    I was the mortar, he was the pestle.
    "Your brother has a new finger painting, and I made apple crumb cake."

    Mr. Harvey made me lie still underneath him and listen to the beating of his heart and the beating of mine. How mine skipped like a rabbit, and how his thudded, a hammer against cloth. We lay there with our bodies touching, and, as I shook, a powerful knowledge took hold. He had done this thing to me and I had lived. That was all. I was still breathing. I heard his heart. I smelled his breath. The dark earth surrounding us smelled like what it was, moist dirt where worms and animals lived their daily lives. I could have yelled for hours.
    I knew he was going to kill me. I did not realize then that I was an animal already dying.
    "Why don't you get up?" Mr. Harvey said as he rolled to the side and then crouched over me.
    His voice was gentle, encouraging, a lover's voice on a late morning. A suggestion, not a command.
    I couldn't move. I couldn't get up.
    When I wouldn't was it only that, only that I wouldn't follow his suggestion?he leaned over to the side and felt, over his head, across the ledge where his razor and shaving cream sat. He brought back a knife. Unsheathed, it smiled at me, curving up in a grin.
    He took the hat from my mouth. "Tell me you love me," he said.
    Gently, I did. The end came anyway.

*** Innocent governess is helped from the clutches of one bad man just to be raped by another

Rosalie is harassed by a man in dark London streets. Lord Randall Berkeley rescues her - but only with the intention to use her himself. He takes the witless girl to his apartment and, when she comes around the following morning, demands her sexual favors as a thank you for helping her.

Where Passion Leads (1987) by Lisa Kleypas, chapter 2. Exerpt from an eBook.

"Don't," she finally said in a cry that sounded smothered under his mouth, aware that the masculine body so close to hers was powerful enough to break her in two. Inexorably he dragged her to the bed and tossed his robe to the floor. She gave a little squeak as she realized that he was naked. "I am personal maid to Lady Winthrop, companion to her daughter! I—"

"I don't care if you're femme de chambre to the Princess of Wales," he muttered, flinging her across the mattress and spreading her arms wide. Her wrists strained against the confinement of his warm hands until her fingers were numb. Rosalie could feel every detail of him through the thin material of her under­clothes. The solid heaviness of his chest and shoulders was a burdensome weight on her breasts, and she writhed in discomfort. Quaking, she shrank from the taut pull of muscle across his waist and stomach, the resilient strength of the legs that eased hers apart. Most unfamiliar of all was the bold heat that branded her as his hips pressed into the cradle of hers. Fear spread through every pore like a delicate liquid, causing her pulse to rocket, her thoughts to crash against each other.

"Don't do this to me. You could have anyone," Rosalie panted, trying to escape the heat of him between her legs. Rand responded by settling more deeply against her, hard and impatient for the softness of her body. The light feminine scent of her, the young warmth of her flesh caused a hunger inside him that he had not felt in a long time. It was unexpected, the strength of this desire for a reluctant maid. "Please . . . I've never been with a man," she whispered, pulling out her last card, and he stilled. Hazel eyes met brilliant blue in a split second of challenge. Momentarily Rand allowed himself to wonder if what she claimed was true. But it couldn't be. Someone in her position and with her looks would have lost her innocence years ago. Comely housemaids were readily accessible and very desirable targets for men of almost any means and station.

"I don't believe you," Rand replied flatly.

"It's true, damn you!"

Prompted by painful arousal and the inexplicable necessity to have her, Rand closed his mind to the possibility that she was not lying. It must be, he reasoned, that she was afraid he would not recompense her well for her favors, or perhaps she was merely playing the tease to heighten his desire for her. He was well used to that game.

"Then," he drawled insouciantly, "it seems I'm called upon to find proof of your claim." He trans­ferred both of her wrists into one hand. Her fingernails curved into fragile, translucent claws. Desperately Ro­salie fought, but even in her fury there was little she could do to stop him. He stripped her garments off easily, with an offhand attitude that was as much an indignity as a physical violation. Her naked body quiv­ered in reaction to the cool air and the unfamiliar experience of being revealed completely in the day­light. Sickly Rosalie closed her eyes as Rand inhaled slowly. He placed a warm, gentle hand on her finely structured rib cage, his reverent touch drifting upward along the velvet skin to the fullness of her breast. As he took its weight in his palm, the expert caress of his thumb brought the tender softness of her nipple to complete arousal. At the same time he bent over her other breast and took it into his mouth, the heated flick of his tongue sweeping over her again and again. Her soft skin, her quivering flesh . . . was so sweet . . .

As Rosalie struggled against him she realized he was ten times stronger. His body was hard and invulnera­ble, built for aggression, so very different from her own. The hair on his chest brushed against her skin like rough silk, the abrasion feeling unutterably strange. I don't believe it is happening, Rosalie thought, frozen with shame as she pictured the scene from above. Herself, pale-skinned in the morning light, stretched out on the rumpled luxury of the bed, the man devoting his attention to the most private parts of her body as if he owned them. His dark amber hair gleaming immaculately, his large hands cupped around her, one of his legs insinuated between her tense and parted knees. She could barely hear through the labored rushing of her breathing and the drumming of her heart.

"This is disgusting," she choked, and he dragged his mouth up to the fragile line of her jaw, careful not to disarrange the silk kerchief around her neck.

"A wounding observation. Usually my services are more highly recommended," Rand said, his mouth curving in a momentary touch of humor. She turned her face away from him, clenching every muscle in rejection of what was occurring. She merely succeeded in imprisoning his leg more securely between hers. Then her breath caught in her throat as his hand stroked over the lowest part of her abdomen. "If you would relax, I believe this would all be more . . . tolerable to you," he suggested gently, and Rosalie thought she would die of shock as his fingertips drifted in an idle pattern through her soft, light curls. The world was spinning crazily, its humming whirl resonat­ing in her head. The scents of bare masculine skin and sandalwood soap drifted seductively to her nostrils.

"Don't!" she choked, yet still the strange undreamed­of caress continued while she lay under him like a block of ice. It deepened, intensified until he was stroking the snug, shrinking tenderness of her virgin flesh, watching her stiff expression curiously. He continued until two wavering tears of humiliation wound their way down the sides of her face, yet still he did not appear satisfied with her response. "When are you going to stop?" The words fitfully issued from her lips, and Rand's mouth thinned. He discarded all efforts to make the act more pleasurable for her.

"You would prefer a fast-paced finale? I'll endeavor to oblige you," he said, and before she could take another breath he thrust into her, hard and demand­ing, rending her feminine softness without restraint. Rosalie cried out in surprise and pain, her body arching sharply into his in immediate reaction. The disembod­ied feeling returned as she realized that he had pene­trated inside of her, that he remained there and was suddenly still as he stared into her dazed face. Rand whispered something, a trace of some undefinable emotion in his tone. He remained unmoving as Rosalie endured the uncomfortable sensation of being filled, too much and too deep. He held her face between his hands, but she would not meet his eyes or accept the touch of his mouth. She had not wanted to be possessed by him, neither did she want his consolation. Patiently he let her adjust to the feel of his body, allowing the first shock to wear off before he began to ease in and out of her with exquisite care.

As remorse mingled with his desire, Rand's manner changed entirely. He was extraordinarily gentle, trying to soften the stiffness of her body with his touch, brushing the lightest of kisses across her face. Although she lay underneath him like a stone, he continued to make love to her in a way that ordinarily would have given a woman unimaginable pleasure. But she was a virgin, and not only her body but also her spirit was wounded. She felt no gratification from his touch, only degradation.

Rosalie's arms, freed now, drifted down to her sides as she felt the control and the power of his movements echo through her body. Each thrust aggravated the burning discomfort between her legs, and she felt as if she had been scorched by some inner fire. Now I know what it's like, she thought dully, her quivering thighs locked on either side of his. It was just what Amille had predicted it to be, full of pain, embarrassment, the baseness of physical desire. She had been told that women were created to serve man's needs, to give pleasure with their bodies. But how, Rosalie wondered miserably, did a man find pleasure in this? She doubted now that she would ever submit to someone voluntari­ly, not to this kind of invasion, this insult to her innocence, her dignity.

Finally, mercifully, he stopped, tensing as he pressed into the feminine sheath of her, then breathing out with a taut sigh. Exhausted, Rosalie lay beside him in misery, turning away as soon as he moved off her. She could feel rather than see the unnerving gaze that swept up and down her body. Rand glanced at the sheet, shaking his head slightly at the fresh stain of bright red. Even with such obvious proof, it was difficult to believe that she had been an innocent. He had never taken a woman's virginity until now. Baffled and disquieted, he rose on one elbow and contemplated her forlorn figure silently. At age twenty-eight Rand had known a considerable number of women, yet not one of them had provided such acute pleasure as he had just experienced. Somewhere in the midst of possessing her, his lusty enjoyment of her body had changed into awareness of her fragility. How vulnera­ble she was, how delicate the feel of her body clasping him, how crude his pleasure had been in comparison to her tender inexperience. She should not have been used so, and he felt a shame in the realization, a shame he covered up with his customary brusqueness.

"You were telling the truth," he admitted quietly, and as Rosalie quivered with hatred, she refused to look at him.

** The happenings of a violent novel she’s translating start leaking into a woman’s life

Transgressions (1997) by Sarah Dunant. The excerpts are mostly taken from Amazon book preview but I had to supplement with chapters of my own translation as the preview doesn’t contain every single page of the book and I had access only to the Finnish book. The parts between # marks are those I’ve translated and will thus probably differ from the original English text.

CHAPTER 3. A drug mule abused during delivery.
    She slid both hands slowly up her legs and under her skirt, shimmying her ass down to help her reach the top of her panties. She teased them loose, letting them slip down onto the floor and stepping carefully out of them. She pushed a lock of hair back from her face and lifted her right foot onto the chair, the skirt pulling up high over her thighs to reveal a line of naked leg right up to the curve of her buttocks. Then, slowly, she slid the fingers of her hand up into her crotch.
    She moved her way inside for a moment, probing, playing, all the time keeping her eyes fixed on the man who was sitting opposite. Her face showed no signs of pleasure, no emotion at all, just a cool expressionless stare.
    He kept on looking. He was thin and sallow-skinned, a man who hadn’t seen the sun for so long he had started to feed on darkness. His eyes flicked between her face and her fingers, lips parted in a half-smile, his breath an echo of sound.
    After she had played for a little longer she slowly removed her fingers. Between them she held up a thick plastic tube, six or eight centimeters long, glistening, its covering slightly wet. She tossed it across the room. The man caught it neatly, lifting it briefly to his nose before peeling off the wrapping. Released from its covering, a heavy little bag unfolded, packed with white stuff. He held it up, weighing it casually in his palm.
    “Ninety percent pure,” she said softly, as if amused at the ritual, both his and hers. “A thank-you from Jerome. He says to remember who it came from.”
    “Tell him I already have,” he said quietly. “I’ll also remember from where.”
    She nodded, then sat back down and reached for her panties: the gesture this time more ordinary, more self-absorbed–a woman getting dressed after the show, regardless of who was watching her.
    “Uh-uh.”
    She glanced up at him, as if surprised to still find him there.
    “Why don’t you open your legs again,” he said quietly.
    She gave a shrug, her hand already under the chair, the white lace curled up in her fingers. “Sorry. I’m not part of the free gift,” she said coolly.
    “I said open your legs.” This time the voice was harsh. “Or I’ll open them for you.”
    She sighed slightly, as if threats bored her, but she did as she was told, moving her knees just far enough apart to show the pubic bush under her skirt.
    He sat staring directly at her snatch. She let him stare. She almost seemed to like it. Slowly she shifted her buttocks forward on the chair, spreading her legs farther apart, so the view was better and more insolent. He laughed, tossing the bag down onto the table and walking lazily over to her. With one hand he lifted her chin up and held it cupped in his palm, a little too high for comfort. Then he slipped his other hand up into her. “Just checking that everything that’s mine is out of there,” he said slyly, his fingers working overtime.
    She sat absolutely still, apparently oblivious to his touch.
    “Satisfied?” she said after a while, and this time the voice dripped with scorn.
    He slammed a finger farther in and up, savagely deep, and this time she cried out. “Bastard,” she said between clenched teeth.
    “And what other kind of men do you know?” he said as he used his other hand to unzip his fly. “Let’s get on with it, eh?”
    “Yeah, well, you’d better get your finger out if you want to fit anything else in. Unless, of course, it’s even smaller than I think.”
    “Bitch, he said, as he hit her hard across the face. “That’s not where I’m going to put it.” And he hit her again.
    Her eyes glazed over, the look of a woman on automatic pilot. “Shit,” she said under her breath as the skin around her right eye began to swell.
    “You got it, sweetheart.”

CHAPTER 13. X complies with her rapist during a night time home invasion to save her life. The man has seen her translations of sex scenes and imagines she’s gagging for it.
    “Why don’t you put down the hammer?” she said at last, and to her amazement her voice sounded almost loving. “You don’t need it, you know, I can’t go anywhere and I swear to you I won’t try to escape.”
    She felt rather than saw his fingers twitch, then tighten further around it. She counted to ten in her head, then slowly, so slowly that he could see her every move, she lifted her finger to his face. He let out a kind of growl, and his right hand whipped up and grabbed her wrist, forcing it down onto the bedspread, twisting the skin savagely as he did so. She registered the pain, but also the fact that the hammer had been left behind.
    “Bitch,” he hissed under his breath. “Bitch.”
    “You’re hurting me, she said between clenched teeth as the burn worsened. “You’re hurting me. Let me go.”
    He was breathing hard now, too hard to speak.
    “Please,” she said, and they both heard the way the words came out, as much a quiet command as a plea. His response was to squeeze even tighter, his hand shaking with the force of the grip. She let out a small yelp of pain, though she didn’t take her eyes away from his face. The burn made her want to cry, then, just at the point where she couldn’t hold out any longer, she felt the pressure reduce, until gradually his fist relaxed and her hand was almost free. It took all her courage not to snatch it back, but instead to let it lie limply in his, both of them registering the touch without violence.
    This time, as she moved her hand to his face, the air between them was alive with anticipation. And this time he let her touch connect. Her fingers fluttered over his cheekbone. She held them there till they were steady, then slowly traced the line of his cheek down to his mouth, and, after a beat of hesitation, played across his lips. His mouth fell open slightly. She took a breath, then with her forefinger she pulled down his bottom lip, feeling the moistness, exposing the fleshy bit inside. He made a sound, halfway between a moan and a growl, and bit backward. At first she thought he would take her fingers with him, crush and break them between his teeth, but it was more by reflex than design, like someone recoiling from a flame.
    Relax, she thought. Relax. Maybe she said it out loud. It was meant for both of them.
    She waited, then began again, now pushing her fingers inside. She encountered the edge of his bottom teeth, uneven and jumbled, as if they had grown crooked and never been properly corrected, then moved further in to find the tongue. The flesh was alive with muscle, rough and quivering, almost like the feel of her own vagina. It sent a shudder through her and she had to steel herself not to pull out. No time for the fainthearted now.
    She lifted herself up from where she was sitting on the bed and moved toward him. Their joint breaths sounded huge in the night. As if neither of them could get enough air in their lungs. She felt his hand clutch at his side, searching instinctively for the hammer, his fingers closing over it.
    “It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t need it. You don’t have to hurt me. That’s not how it has to be.”
    She waited, counting off her heartbeats. At ten she moved again.
    Where she had first used her fingers, now she used her tongue. His lips trembled, then parted to let her in. Slipping in through the portcullis of his teeth, she made herself think of all the lovers she had known who could turn a kiss into making love–teasing and catching at your lips, pulling them into theirs, making the kiss its own act of seduction, a kind of devouring that made you want to take off your clothes and guide their pricks into you. Making you ache for them, all from a kiss.
     Remember it now, she thought. Remember it now because your life depends on it. She pushed her tongue in. His mouth was limp. “Kiss me back, “ she whispered. “Use your tongue.”
    She could almost hear his heart beating. The tongue fluttered, then whipped out, like a lizard. She could feel the tension in him, like some uncontrollable seismic buildup, and she felt the hammer hand jerk across the coverlet. The kiss continued, his tongue darting, still lost but still trying. God help me, she thought. God help me here to know what to do.
    She brought her hands up to cup his face. “That’s better,” she murmured. “Again.”
    This time he did as he was told and the kiss connected. They both felt it. As it went deeper, she slid her hands over his neck, then slowly down his back. The wool of the sweater he was wearing was coarse and prickly and damp to the touch. Under his clothes he would be sweating. Who says it’s only the woman who feels the fear. She pulled up at the sweater to discover a shirt underneath and some kind of vest. Too many clothes. He was dressed as she had been, smothering the desire, hoping it might go away. As her hands finally reached his bare skin he let out another noisy breath. She stopped, waiting, reading the signs, then slowly continued the caress. Again he relaxed. She let her hands linger, then slid one of them down over the edge of his trousers onto the bed and toward his right hand. At her touch the fist clenched. She kept her hand cupped over it, waiting, then slowly the fist opened itself, the hammer slipping onto the bedspread. She slid it as far away as she could without risking the noise of its falling on the floor. She took his hand in hers, entwining their fingers, using her thumb to play with the inside of his palm. The skin was surprisingly soft, almost like a girl’s, soft and wet with sweat. She felt a sudden shaft of power.
    And as she did so she thought of the woman in the Prague apartment. And the girl in the attic. And she knew that there had to be another way, a female way, where redemption is as powerful as violence.
    This time when she moved away from his lips, he came toward her, his mouth messy, greedy. For a second the taste of him repelled her, the saliva and the smell making her want to puke. She pushed away the thought and sucked his lips back into hers.
    She had released the rest of the clothing from his trousers and was exploring his chest. The skin underneath was rough and dry, with wiry little curls around small nipples. Not cared for. Not loved. How does it happen to some people? she thought. How do they miss out? If you’ve never been touched, how do you know how to touch? If you’ve never felt, how do you know how to feel? So unfair. So dangerous. She brought his hand up and guided it slowly to her body, cupping it over her breast.
    The first contact made him shudder. Before he could pull away she moved her body into his hand, pushed the weight of her flesh against his palm and heard him groan, a dark, painful sound dragged out from a long way down. To her astonishment the noise delighted her, as if the control she was feeling really did contain its own sexuality, the pleasure of her control. Don’t show it, she thought. Whatever you do don’t let him know.
    She was about to help him further when his fingers found her nipples, hard from the cold and the fear and a sudden muddied, confused kind of desire. The first squeeze was too tight, it made her draw a breath too quickly. “Gently,” she said in a whisper. And this time he heard her and did as he was told. Slowly they toppled from sitting to lying on the bed. And as they did so she brought up her right leg and used the bottom of her foot to locate the hammer on the coverlet and push it gently toward the edge.
    It hit the floor with a thud.
    The sound, or maybe the sudden weight of him pinning her down onto the bed, brought back a flash of fear. They both felt it, both sensing the change and tensing themselves away from the other. She recovered first, reaching up to kiss him again, maneuvering herself half out from under him, at the same time moving her hand to the top of his trousers, fumbling to free the button. She used the ball of her palm to push down the zipper, then slid her hand inside, slipping under the frayed elastic of the underpants until she found his penis, limp and curled. You’re not ready, she thought with a sudden panic. Is that your problem? Or is this what you need the hammer for, to get a hard-on?
    Maybe he heard the thought. At her touch he pulled back violently, and for a moment she thought she had lost it, could feel him trashing around in search of some way back into control. In search of a weapon that would give it to him.
    “It’s all right,” she said quickly. “It’s all right.”
    She kept her hand over his softness, holding it there almost tenderly, as she pulled her T-shirt farther up her body and over her head, rubbing herself against him, letting him feel her nakedness underneath him. Instinctively his hands went out to touch her again, moving down from the breasts to her stomach, clumsy, urgent caresses, until his fingers slid into the tangle of pubic hair. And as he did so she heard herself moan.
    The sound had not been deliberate. In fact, if anything it was more a release of fear than anything to do with pleasure. But somehow it helped. Both of them.
    He hesitated and she knew he was frightened to go further. Knew that at that moment he was more frightened of her than she was of him.
    I am here, she said to herself, although the thought didn’t make sense. This is me doing this. Here. Now. It’s not someone else.
    “I’m here,” she said, this time out loud. “And I’m not pretending. Anything you want to do to me is okay.”
    And as she said it, his penis took a jerky leap in her hand, and he let out a sharp groan of pain and pleasure. At the same time his fingers slid into her, pushy and overeager, a sudden haste to everything, the onslaught of a frenetic kind of lust. To her amazement she realized she was wet. The discovery sent its own shock wave through the pit of her stomach. She ran her hand gently up and down his prick, her own breath coming quicker now, teasing him into further erection. Then, registering the sudden urgency of his need, she slid herself underneath him so she could guide him into her. It wasn’t that easy, as he was still only half erect, but as he moved inside the mouth of her he stiffened further, then slid in all the way, letting out another shattering groan. She heard her own voice join his. And so, almost without giving her time to move, she felt him rise up, and, with two or three thrusts, come inside her, a juddering, jerky orgasm that was too hurried and crude to bring any lasting pleasure.
    AIDS, she thought, in a sudden blind moment of panic. AIDS, and the clap, and a million other diseases that will rot me slowly for my sins. But even as she recited the litany, those thoughts were overwhelmed by another. The realization that he was crying.
    He had fallen heavily onto her body after the orgasm. Now he tried to pull himself off, the sobs clutched and angry, searching frantically around him, groping for something that she knew would be a weapon. But this time, rather than his violence, all she could feel was his pain.
    “It’s okay. You’re all right,” she said fiercely, pulling herself up with him and putting both her arms around him, hugging him hard to her and holding on to him, despite his attempts to wrench her off. “It’s all right,” she said again. “Really. You don’t have to do anything more. It’s done. You did it. It was fine.”
    And slowly, as she clung to him, reading the battle in his body between the rage and the release, she felt the fury diminish and the crying win out.
    So it was that she sat there in the winter night, her body shivering with the cold and the adrenaline, holding on to a man sobbing his heart out for the fact that the rape he had planned had turned into an act of lovemaking.
    Time passed. And eventually the sobbing subsided so that now when he started to pull away she knew to let him go. she stood up and took a robe from the door to cover herself, as she did so feeling the cold trickle of his semen running down the inside of her thigh. Cold, she thought. Why is it always cold when it has just erupted from such hot depths? She used the inside of the robe to wipe it away, and then, as she tied the belt around her, she felt about the floor with her feet until she came across the cold edge of the hammer and slid it farther under the bed.