Away

Rachael tried to open her eyes, only to find the task unusually difficult.

I must have sleep in my eyes.  Or maybe I forgot to wash off my mascara before I went to bed.

Rachael tried to assist her eyes in opening.  All she wanted was to rub her eyes open, but she couldn’t move her arms.  As Rachael slowly regained consciousness, her fear began to mount.  She tried harder to move her arms, but they seemed tied to her bed.  She moved her tingling fingers, wrapped them around what held her to the bed.  They felt smooth; medical.  Rachael struggled with her bonds as she began to cry.

“Help!  Please.  Oh God, help!”

The words sounded so ridiculous, so cliche, even to her own frightened ears.  She threw her weight against her restraints, desperate to gain freedom, to get help.  She almost leapt out of her skin when she felt someone touch her face.

“Shh, you don’t want to go making noise now.  Wouldn’t be wise.”

Rachael tasted bile as calloused fingers caressed her face.

Oh God.

Her tears must have loosened whatever was keeping her eyes shut, as she was finally able to pry her eyes open.  Rachael turned her face from the blinding light of her table lamp.  The first thing that came into focus was the flower pattern of her bed sheets. 

“Wow,” the owner of the calloused hands breathed.  “You are so beautiful.”

The man ran his hand over Rachael’s face again.  She pulled away as best she could.  She didn’t dare look at her captor; she feared she would be ill.  When she felt his bristled face against her freckled cheek, his sour breath in her ear, Rachael gagged. 

“You just look so much...” The man’s whispered breath hitched and he kissed her earlobe as Rachael’s tears redoubled.  “You look so much like my Emily.  She had the same little collection of freckles on her nose, the same beautiful brown eyes.  What’s your name?”

He was talking to her like she was a cherished lover.  Rachael tried to pull away.  She didn’t want this man touching her.  She wanted to get away.

“Please, let me go.  I’ll give you whatever you want, just please let me go.”

It was what everyone said in the movies, and it never worked there either.  The man just laughed, placed his hand under her chin, and turned her face to him.  Rachael closed her eyes, she couldn’t bear to look at the man who had tied her to her own bed, invaded the sanctity of her home.

“Look at me,” the man cradled her face in his hands, “please.”

Rachael shook her head.  Maybe if she didn’t look at him, he would let her go.

“Open your eyes and tell me your name.”  There was an edge to his voice.  Rachael shook her head again.  “Open them!” 

The man’s grip tightened on her chin, causing her to cry out in pain.  Rachael opened her eyes, turned her head, and vomited.  The man who was hovering above her looked like the type of man she crossed to the other side of the street to avoid.  His hair was cut close to his head, and his face was covered with stubble.  His skin was sallow, his eyes sunken and bloodshot.  He looked as though he was covered with a thin layer of dirt.  Rachael met his grey eyes, and the look she saw there scared her more than she had ever been scared in her life.  It was cold, animal, hungry.

“Look what you did, you got sick all over your pretty sheets.  Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Rachael almost laughed.  Like she could really go anywhere.  That didn’t keep her from trying, however.  As soon as the man left her room, presumably in search of something to clean up her vomit, Rachael attempted to free herself from what was tying her to the bed.  They looked like latex strips, the kind they used when one had blood drawn.  She tried to get her wrists close enough to her mouth to undo the knots with her teeth, but every time she moved the knots only tightened. 

God, how could this have happened?

Rachael closed her eyes and tried to remember what she was doing before she woke up tied to her bed.  She had put on a pot of tea and was about to sit down to write a paper for her Child Education class when she heard something out in her livingroom.  She thought that perhaps the neighbor’s cat had gotten in again.

“Mr. Weggie?  Here kitty-kitty.  Come here boy.”  She bent low and made kiss-kiss noises as she looked under furniture.  And then she must have tripped, because the corner of the coffee table came up hard and fast, colliding with her forehead.  But...no, she didn’t trip.  There was definitely a hand or something that pushed her face down onto the coffee table, splitting her forehead and causing blood to run into her eyes before she lost consciousness.

Rachael opened her eyes as the full implications of what was happening hit her.  She started pulling on the latex strips holding her to the bed with renewed force, but the more she struggled, the more they tightened, causing the painful numbness in her hands to increase.

Oh God.  What do they say to do if you’re trapped?  You’re supposed to yell something, not “help” but something else.  What was it?

“Fire!” Rachael screamed as she finally remembered.  “Fire!  Thirty-one Depot Street! Fi–“

She was silenced by a backhand to the mouth, so forceful that she actually saw little dots of light in front of her eyes.  The man had returned at the sound of her screams.  He then got very close and placed a hand over her mouth, pinching off her nose.

“Now, listen to me and listen good.  There will be no screaming, okay?  I don’t want to have to gag you, but I will if I must.  So just be a good girl and use your indoor voice, all righty?”

She couldn’t breathe.  Her head was starting to spin; she felt like she was going to pass out.  She tried to struggle, to move his hand so that she could get some air, but she was tied down and couldn’t move.  Oh God, she was going to die.

“All right?” he pressed again.  His voice was so soft, so gentle it was obscene.  Rachael nodded her head, desperate for air.  The man released his hand; Rachael sucked in cool air in gasps. 

The man began cleaning up her vomit with a damp washcloth, which he placed on the bedside table when he was done.  He then returned his attention to Rachael.

“I love your hair.”  He ran his fingers through it, as though to emphasize his point.  “It’s just so soft and curly.  And the color...not quite red, but not quite brown either.  Do you dye your hair?”

The question was so absurd that she couldn’t think of anything to do but shake her head.  The man sighed and twirled a piece around his fingers before placing his hands back on her face.  Rachael recoiled at his touch, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“And your skin...you look just like a porcelain doll.  Your perfect eyelashes, perfect freckles, full red lips,” he ran his thumb over Rachael’s lips and she thought she would be sick again.  “I just...I want to...”  The man brought his face forward and pressed his cracked lips to Rachael’s.

The first boy Rachael ever kissed was Billy Johnson.  He sat next to her during first period English back at Harper High.  She dropped her pen one day, and they both bent to pick it up, their fingers brushing.  He asked her to Homecoming later that week, after he kissed her under the bleachers.  The kiss was soft, fumbling, absolutely perfect, and nothing like how this man kissed her.

Rachael tried to move her head so that the man’s lips and hers would no longer be connected.  The smell of stale beer and chew churned her stomach, and Rachael knew that if there was anything left she would have thrown up again.  She finally managed to turn her face away from the man, breaking their connection, but he didn’t seem discouraged.  He simply moved his kisses to her neck and collarbone.  He was acting like an impassioned teenager, like Rachael’s first college date, and it was making her sick.  She gagged once more as the man returned his mouth to hers, this time attempting to press his tongue past her lips.  Rachael bit down hard.

The man yelped in pain as he pulled away and held his mouth, a shocked, almost hurt look spreading across his face.  It was quickly replaced by anger.

Rachael cried out as the man’s fist collided with her cheek a second time.

“You little cooze.”

He touched his mouth once more, as though looking for blood, and hit Rachael again.  She left her face turned how it was as she watched the doorway, praying someone would drop by.  She turned back to her captor when she felt cold metal pressed against her abdomen.

He had taken out a large hunting knife, and had proceeded to cut her sweater up the middle, like they do in the emergency room.

Please don’t, this is my favorite sweater, my Nanna gave it to me last year for Christmas, was the first thought to enter Rachael’s mind, which was absurd.  She was most definitely about to be raped, possibly killed, and she was worried about a sweater?

The man cut through the collar of her sweater, then slid the knife under the front of her bra, slicing through the fabric almost flirtatiously.  Rachael felt herself blush as he clumsily cupped her naked breast.  God, what the Hell was wrong with her?  She resumed her screaming as he slid his other hand down her abdomen.

“I said shut up!” the man growled, hitting her again for emphasis.  “I told you I didn’t want to have to gag you, but you just won’t behave.”

Rachael screamed louder, but her screams were muffled in her throat as he jammed her torn sweater into her mouth.  She increased her thrashings, bringing her knees up as far as the bonds around her ankles would let her, attempting to hit something that would cause the man enough pain to slow him down and get him off of her.  She wasn’t able to slow his progress any, however.  He removed her remaining garments with a speed and agility that she hadn’t expected from his earlier fumbling actions. 

The man pressed himself on top of Rachael, began fumbling around her bellybutton.  She tried to plead with him, but her sweater hindered her attempts.

Oh please God, don’t let this happen.  I’ll start going to church again, I’ll visit Nanna in the hospital, I’ll give to charity, I’ll do anything, just please let someone come by.

Rachael’s thoughts were interrupted by a searing pain that tore through her as the man above her accomplished his task.  Rachael’s vision tunneled and her senses became blurred as she drifted away.  Away from her house...away from the man who was raping her...away.