The campus campanile slowly rang out the last of the
twelve hours. From his cubicle in the library — open
twenty four hours — he barely heard it, but perhaps it
made him decide to pack it in for the night. On the
other hand, perhaps it was just a coincidence.
As quietly as he could, he slid his books inside his
shoulder bag and got up to leave. Some other students,
stressed out of their wits, looked up at him, partly
from curiosity, partly from relieving their sore eyes;
most of them, though, didn’t notice. A pair of eyes,
large, grey and limpid, followed him out of the room
and into the elevator.
On the ground floor, the elevator doors opened again.
He exited, alone. An aide reclined in a chair by the
entryway, dozing softly. He shrugged, deciding not to
disturb the aide. Behind him and slightly to the right
there was the sound of slippers making their way down
the stairwell. He stepped out; it was a cool pleasant
night, and the oppressive stillness of the tight
quarters inside gave way to a fresh mist falling gently
on his face. He breathed in deeply.
There was a bridge over a brook down this path; it was
not as well lit as the paved path rising over the
Cricket Hill, but it would take him half the time. So
down he walked to the bridge, his topsiders flapping
quickly under him. The sound of the brook, more of a
small river now that the spring torrents had come,
drowned out the sound of his footsteps, and hers. He
felt a hard push in the small of his back.
“Don’t even try moving, Lucky,” said someone from
behind him, in a voice which implied that luck, good
luck, anyway, was not about to be involved. For a
moment, he was taken aback by the voice — and then he
realized it was female. He stiffened, and his heart
pounded; it felt like it had been pounding now for a
while. She pushed him.
“OK, now, keep on walking. Don’t turn around.” He took
a hesitant first step, and the pain in his back abated
somewhat. “Stop at the end of the bridge.” He could
only assume that she was keeping the gun (if that was
what it was) pointed at him. His stomach wrung itself.
“All right,” she said, coming up quickly behind him.
“Now walk down.” She indicated the bank. “CAREFULLY,”
she added. “I mean it. You try to run and… and, I’ll
blow your fucking head off.” There was a quaver in her
voice (he hadn’t heard it before) that suggested she
was either not completely sober or not completely sane.
Either way, there was no reason to believe she wouldn’t
carry out her threat. He began sliding down the bank to
the rushing water.
“Under the bridge.” He hesitated. “NOW!” she whispered,
but her whisper was a growl. He rushed under the
bridge. There was a narrow terrace under the bridge
where the water ran up alongside. There he turned his
head around and chanced a glance at his attacker. She
was small, but not slim, and her hair, illuminated from
above and behind by the lamplight high up on the
opposite bank, seemed ablaze. That same light hid her
face, though.
Either he was too deep into the shadow for her to see
him look at her, or she did see him and wasn’t
concerned at all. In any event, she simply walked
toward him, and as she passed under the lip of the
bridge she too was swallowed up in shadow, and all he
could see was her silhouette.
“Take your pants off,” she said, in a measured tone.
When he didn’t move, she placed the muzzle of her gun
at his right kneecap. “Do you know what will happen if
I pull the trigger?”
He shook his head slowly, even though he was pretty
sure she couldn’t see him. “It’ll take your pants down,
for sure, and,” she said, breaking into a small smirk
(he was sure of that), “it’ll blow your fucking knee
right off. Now, would you kindly take your pants off?”
The hammer cocked.
He was surprised how loudly it clicked above the sound
of the water. He took his jeans off, slowly, in order
not to provoke her. When he finished, he stood up
again, looking down at her, or actually, at her gun. He
thought about how, if by any chance he came out of this
alive, he would have to describe her and everything,
but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from that gun.
That gun was now being inserted into his underpants.
“These too,” she said, just a tad menacingly. “I’m
going to be raping you,” she added, pulling his
underpants up fiercely, “not your goddamn BVD’s.”
He moved quickly to take his underpants off. He had
fantasized about being taken by an aggressive woman,
but not like this. All his guts came to rest in his
throat. Now that he was naked from the waist down, she
seemed to relax, and she ran the barrel of the gun up
and down the length of his penis. It was limp and very
small, he suddenly noticed, much smaller than normal.
If he could only keep it that way.
“Well, well, well,” she said, chuckling slightly. That
impossibly angered him. “Down,” she said, pointing at
the wet grassy earth with the gun. He lowered himself,
onto his back, never letting his eyes stray from the
gun. She kept the gun on him with one hand, and with
the other hand began taking her own pants off.
“Goddamn button flies,” she muttered, but finally got
them off all right. It was queer, but he found himself
using body English to try to help her take them off.
She began taking her panties off, then simply tore them
off. She leaned over him.
“Still not hard, eh?” she asked. “How would you like me
to take care of that little problem?” Her mouth hovered
over his penis. “There’s a better way.” She lifted his
legs, positioned the end of the barrel at his anus, and
then quickly, pushed it into him. After the initial
shock of pain, he found his penis growing. He tried to
make it stop, to no avail.
“And,” she added, “if you try anything stupid…” She
let that thought trail off to the obvious end. Oh god,
oh my fucking god, he thought. She wouldn’t shoot, she
wouldn’t, because somebody’s got to hear that, they’ve
got to. But in a surprising fit of clarity, he realized
he would still be dead, and he knew she would risk
getting caught to make good her threat.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, solicitously. “All I
want’s a little tenderness, that’s all.”
And just that fast, before he had time for another
thought, she engulfed him.
It went quickly, really. She went up and down on him,
hard, and his stomach ached, and the smell of alcohol
on her breath was overwhelming. And her panting. She
only broke the silence (silence!) to tell him, “I don’t
want any problems later, so don’t come, or I’ll drill a
hole right through to your fucking head.”
He tried to think of his physics professor, or the ant
nest outside his bedroom, or anything to distract
himself as he rose inexorably to orgasm, but it was one
thing to distract himself while masturbating in the
shower, and another, he was fast discovering, to
distract himself when a hundred twenty pound woman was
bouncing up and down on top of him. And just as the
fatal moment approached… she reached behind her for
his balls, and squeezed hard. He lurched into her, and
stifled moans leaked out her clamped lips as she came
(he thought). He vomited on top of his chest.
In the haze of pain and nausea that followed, he felt
her withdraw, and his crotch felt wet and cold.
Something came out of his anus. “Goddamn,” she said,
“take a shit every now and then. You got my heat all
lousy. Maybe you wouldn’t mind cleaning it off?” She
waved the gun over his mouth. “No, I guess not.” She
settled for wiping his shirt with it, where the vomit
hadn’t run off to.
“Later,” she said, getting up a bit. “And if anyone
asks, this is for Laura.” She put her pants on,
disregarding her panties, wherever they were. “Sorry I
have to do this, but I can’t have you following me.” He
wondered who Laura… Then something quick, hard, and
heavy met his head.
Blessed darkness, real darkness. Complete darkness…
When he came to, it was much colder, and he shivered.
The vomit had caked a bit, and choking down the nausea,
he managed to get up and take his shirt off and throw
it into the brook. He didn’t ever want to see it again.
He shook off as much of the dirt and earth as he could,
then put his underpants and pants back on. They were
damp, but he would have to deal with that. He looked
for his shoulder bag.
It was at the edge of the water, and completely soaked.
On top of it were her panties. This time, he couldn’t
quite choke it back down. He was careful to let the
vomit drop into the running water. He kicked the
underwear into the brook, and picked up the bag. It
felt like it weighed about a half a ton. He held his
head in his other hand, and leaning against the
underside of the bridge, he cried quietly for a minute
or two. Then, he ran as fast as he could, without
stopping, until he made it to his apartment.
He fumbled with his keys, and tried to get the right
one into the lock, realized it was upside down, tried
again, turned it the wrong way, then finally got the
door open. He went in and slammed it shut. His
roommates were studying for finals. Tomas looked up
briefly as he ran to his bedroom; the other one, Mark,
didn’t even flinch. He closed the door to his bedroom,
and knelt, and prayed for anything that came to mind.
Ten minutes later, he still knelt in the darkened room,
his knuckles still in his mouth. His first thought was
to sleep it off, but of course he found he didn’t want
to try.