"These woods can be a little scary," said Renée. "You always see in the movies or whatever, bad things happen in the woods."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry. That's just the movies. That stuff isn't real."
"It's just, if someone ever attacked me, I don't—I don't think I'd do real well."
"Why's that?"
"I don't know." Renée fiddled with the cups of her one-piece. "Like, I don't fight really good. In school I got into a, like, fight with another girl once and I just seized up. Like a doe in headlights. It's like a reflex. I can't move and I didn't fight back and she just knocked me around. Stuffed my face in some really gross garbage, smeared it all over me, it was so humiliating."
"Gawd," commiserated Krissi. "How demeaning."
"Yeah, but I just let her do it. I got really mad later, whatever, but when it was happening I just let it happen. I was just helpless, I couldn't move or do anything."
"Gosh. They have a word for that. What is it?" Krissi looked up in thought. "Subnormal? Sub... sistent?"
"Submissive. I looked it up."
So. Spritely Renée was a born-again saving herself for marriage, the Filthy Hermit surmised. And she didn't know how to fight, having just inadvertently signaled to him that if he were ever to descend on her, she would likely cave in in an instant. He'd despised Renée before but learning she was a born-again made him truly seethe with rage. There had been a born-again in his unit during the war who'd been a real nutjob. He'd caved under fire and had almost gotten him killed.
Learning of Renée's faith made him want to take out all his frustrations on her. He stopped in his stride, letting Renée and her snotty little friend recede down the path on their way to the pool. That's just what he would do, he resolved then and there: take his frustrations out on her, and put them in her, and show her what it means to suffer as a martyr.
The Filthy Hermit spent the next few days building a sturdy and elaborate trap for Renée. He fashioned a lasso from a generous length of thick, woven vine, tying it with a one-way knot that could be tightened easily but took a lot of effort to loosen. He threaded the rest of the vine up and over a high branch of a tree that arched as it rose so that near its crest its trunk slanted nearly over the center of the path. Finally, he tied the end of the rope to a thick but flexible sapling near the tree; he bent the sapling forcibly over, creating tension in it, and then let it go. It sprang upright, yanking hard on the ropy vine and causing the lasso to jump at least six feet in the air. Satisfied, he laid the lasso in the middle of the path, covered it carefully with leaves so it was invisible, and weighted the vine with a small rock. He set a larger rock on the sapling to hold it in a state of tension and the trap was set. All that remained was to wait.
Creamy Renée came up the path the next morning, dressed—immodestly, the Filthy Hermit thought—in a silky carnation-edged white skirt that only came down to mid-thigh and a slinky matching blouse. Along with it she'd pulled on the expected spaghetti top with the polo player decal. She was reading her book again, and because she wasn't looking where she was going she meandered about the path, veering first to this side, then to that. The Filthy Hermit looked on, worried that she might step around or over the lasso by chance, or even worse, that she might spring the trap at the wrong time and so learn of the Filthy Hermit's designs on her. But none of this came to pass; she stepped squarely in the center of the hidden lasso, even, improbably, pausing there to puzzle once more over a tricky passage in her book.
The Filthy Hermit kicked the rock weighing down the sapling, and thereby sprung the trap.
