Stranger

If only she could get away from him, she could out run him, easily. He was grossly fat, after all. Disgusting. Like jelly, it was true. He breathed with his mouth open. He repelled her. He had small, closely set eyes.

He was all hands, arms, he seemed to have more than the usual number. He kept hold of her, no matter how she struggled. She could smell his BO, pungent and sour, as he held her tight, his arm around her neck. She could feel his spongy fat, against her chin, as he dragged her through the garden.

How naive had she been? This sort of thing happened to other women, not her, not women she knew. He just wanted directions - could she look at his map and tell him the direction he had to go. He just said he needed more light to see it, through the gate into the sun. She hadn't even realised until he grabbed her, it just didn't occur to her. He held her in a head-lock, with his fat fore-arm jammed up under her jaw, as he pulled her out of sight. He was saying that she shouldn't resist, that she should give-in, that way she would come to less harm. She was going to be his play thing, for a while. If she resisted, he couldn't guarantee what he would have to do to her.

He had bad breath, sour, like onions and off-cream. His voice was soft and gravely, like a strained whisper.

He'd dragged her into an abandoned house, she'd never taken any notice of before. Her shirt had ripped, a nail had jammed her in the back, from a door frame, it was supposed to keep the door closed. Her mouth turned dry with the pain. Her shirt felt wet where the nail had got her.

He'd thrown her to the ground, on the dusty, concrete floor and she was still winded, as she felt him on top of her, his hands slide up her skirt, from behind. His fingers under the elastic of her panties. She froze, didn't know if she should kick or squirm.

"Roll over! Roll over!" he demanded.

She rolled to her right. She had to think. Quickly. What was she going to do? She had to do some thing, before he did. It was only the two of them, now.

He was crouching. He went to stand up, but he slipped and fell sideways, onto his hip and elbow, like a whale out of water.

She pulled her legs to her chest, without thinking too much. It was instinctive. He was repulsive.

"Hey!" she screamed. He looked up. She felt a surge of power from the pit of her stomach the likes of which she had never experienced. Her legs shot out like uncoiling springs.

He looked completely surprised, as her high heal struck him in the cheek, puncturing the flesh, blood spurted, as his hands raised to meet it. Her other un-shoed foot struck him in the eye. She felt her teeth clench so hard, as her foot met with his eye socket, that she wouldn't have been surprised if she'd broken them all. She could feel the bone of his scull on the heal of her foot. She wanted to shake it clean, wash it, cleanse it.

He went over backwards. His head fell back, his mouth open like a torn purse. He went over like sixteen bags of shit.

She scrambled to her feet, tried to. Couldn't. Fell. She was shaking, uncontrollably. Powerless.

His head clunked on the concrete floor and rolled sideways. His mouth open, his eyes open, staring at her. The high-heel of her shoe still puncturing the flesh of his cheek.

She pushed away from him, slid across the floor, until her back was against a wall. She pushed herself up it, to her feet. There was blood on her arm, from the nail. She walked around the edge of the room to the door, so she didn't have to go close to him, lying prone on the floor.

She looked back at him, the grotesque thing, like something congealed on the bare floor. She looked away.

She ran out of the derelict house. She coughed, as she breathed in the fresh air. She couldn't stop coughing. Sobbing. Coughing, as she tried to breath. Her face was wet, with tears, salty, not sticky like blood.