She unlocked the door and threw it open. "Mommy, daddy, I'm home," she called as she had a thousand times before. Getting off the bus as a fifth grader and all through the rest of elementary school. They'd lived here in this idyllic and isolated home even through her college years. But she hadn't been home in a long time. Now her joyful cry of 'I'm home' was met with silence.
"Hi, hon. You have a good day at school?" wasn't the response. Only silence and a slight echo greeted her. She started to cross the threshold, but she found she could not enter. The realization that neither 'mommy' nor 'daddy' would ever respond again evoked a long suppressed sob.
She didn't enter, but turned and sat on the porch swing sobbing. Finally her emotions ebbed, the sobbing slowed, and she was able to control and quench it altogether. She rose and turned back to the house. Quietly she extracted the key from the lock and put it back in her purse.
The key was no longer on a chain around her neck. It hadn't been used in years. She'd been back to visit, but she hadn't needed a key to enter. She had always been met at the door. First, both parents greeted her. Then she returned to bury her father and only her mother greeted her.
Then the even more wrenching experience of having to return to bury her mother. She had left the house and her hometown feeling like an orphan. She hadn't been able to sell the house. How could she sell the place of so many memories. It had to wait. Even now she wasn't really ready, but she'd come back to see if perhaps she could do it. Entering the house, stepping into the foyer, she was still uncertain.
The ambient odors were those of a house long closed. Stuffy with some old food, perhaps a trace of her mother's perfume and her father's pipe could be teased from the odors that greeted her. Quickly she set about opening windows. She planned to stay for a few days so she was anxious to let the less pleasant odors go their way. Maybe some of the more pleasant ones would remain.
The house creaked even under her small frame. Two windows in the living room, two in the kitchen, then the back door. Things didn't look too bad. The floors needed dusting as did the furniture and various counters and shelves. She'd get to that soon.
Head down, not wanting to take in the full vista of the house, she returned to the foyer to leave the front door open.
"Oh, my god," she screamed as the sight of dirty, ragged boots suddenly became part of this vista. Snapping her head up she saw him. Knife raised ready to strike, terrifying with his long, unwashed hair and craggy face.
She continued screaming until with panic overwhelming her, she fainted.
Chapter Two
She awoke in minutes, but by that time he had bound her hands with cords cut from window blinds. It may have been that which brought her around for the thin cords were cutting into her wrists painfully. Her fingers were cold and numbing.
He was standing over where she lay on the foyer floor looking down at her with a malevolent smile. She tried to skitter away pushing with her heels.
Barely moving in response, he stamped hard on one ankle. She shrieked and stopped moving.
"Who are you? What are you going to do to me," she screamed in panic. For a time, until he quieted her with a fierce, "Shut up!", she babbled, tears flowing.
She stared mutely at him. Her chin quivered out of control. Tears pooled on the floor on either side of her head. She began to shake all over.
He knelt on one knee at her side. She could smell his bad breath even from this distance. He hissed at her, "Who are you and what are you doing in my house?"
Confused she said, "This is my house." Then clearer thinking returning, she continued. "Maybe I've got the wrong house. Just let me up and I'll leave."
"To late," he hissed. He was leering at her. Terror returned as she read his thoughts. "What's your name," he asked demandingly.
"Leslie," she replied stammering a little.
"That could be either a boy's name or a girl's name." he replied. "Which are you?" He smirked as he asked. He reached for her, his hand seeking her breasts.
She twisted away. "Please don't," she managed even as his big hand clamped down on her breast. A button popped off flying up and clattering down on the wood floor as the opposing forces tore her blouse.
The blouse, with it's V neck already had one button open. Loss of the second exposed her bra. His nails had put two parallel scratches on her breast. They brightened into red streaks. Again she struggled, now to cover herself. He made no move to stop her, only chuckled, a low malevolent laugh.
She pulled the blouse over her breasts clutching it together tightly with her bound hands.
He began to stand. "Wait," she pleaded. "Look at my hands, feel my fingers, these cords are too tight. Please loosen them."
She released her blouse and held her hands out. She recoiled slightly as he took her hands in his, not just feeling the tips of her fingers, but holding her hands in his, his filthy hands with their long, ragged, dirty fingernails cradling her soft manicured hands.
He leaned closer. His breath sickened her. She turned her head away.
She started as he raised the knife which had been on the floor. He cut the cords. Feeling flooded back into her hands as he rubbed them solicitously. They tingled almost painfully. As he rubbed them he said, "If you plan to be a good little girl, if you are a girl, I won't tie them again. You just have to do as you're told." Remembering the pain in her fingers, she nodded in defeat.
"OK," he said standing. He reached down to her with one filthy hand. "Take it," he insisted. She grasped it in revulsion and allowed him to help her stand. Once on her feet she looked at him expectantly and in defeat.
He smiled that malevolent smile again. "First things first," he said. "We need to decide if you're a girl or a boy." He grinned. She shuddered. He said nothing further, but continued to look at her.
Minutes passed in silence. Finally, unable to bear the quiet and suspense, she said, "Don't I just look like a girl?"
"Some boys can make themselves look just like a girl," he rejoined.
"What do you want," she asked, but was afraid she knew the answer.
He said nothing, just looked at her. He looked into her eyes. He looked at her face. His eyes traveled slowly down her neck and hesitated on her chest. Further down his eyes found her waist, her hips, her crotch, then finished near the floor before returning, retracing their earlier path.
Pursing her lips as the tears began again, she opened her blouse. It was a slow affair totally devoid of the sexual movements of a stripper. She stood quite still as she opened the remaining three buttons and pulled the blouse from her jeans. She let it hang open slightly, just enough to show her bra.
