Rebecca sat bold upright and looked around her bedroom. Silvery moonlight cast black, inky shadows across the floor and plunged the corners of the room into impenetrable darkness. She strained to isolate the sensation that had shocked her awake, was it a sound, a sudden draught? She did not know. Straining her eyes, she peered into the corners of the room, trying to identify the shapes she saw. A shiver ran along her spine and she clutched the neck of her filmy nightgown more tightly around her throat.
"Who's there?" she called hoarsely.
There was, of course no reply and she silently cursed herself for thinking that there might have been one. Both of her parents worked late shifts, leaving Rebecca alone most nights. For an eighteen year-old college student, Rebecca was level-headed and independent but that did not mean she liked being woken in the night by a strange feeling. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Rebecca stood up and slid her feet into a pair of tatty, but much loved, moccasins and padded quietly to the door. Putting her hand on the door handle she frowned, trying to remember if she had pushed the door closed, or left it ajar when she had retired for the night.
As she twisted the handle, Rebecca felt a sudden rush of air behind her and a damp, smelly cloth was held over her mouth and nose, almost suffocating her. She tried to reach back and scratch her attacker, to claw at him but his grip felt like iron and she seemed to melt as the noxious fluid soaking the cloth over her face made her woozy. She wobbled weakly for a moment and then her knees buckled and she slid, gracelessly sliding to the floor.
Rebecca was unconscious for nearly a quarter of an hour as her attacker prowled quickly through the house, making sure that they were alone. When he returned to the bedroom he was carrying a pair of dressmaking shears that belonged to Rebecca herself and five lengths of nylon clothes line. Rebecca was still groggy but beginning to come round as the effects of the drug he had soaked the cloth with wore off.
The intruder pulled his ski mask, with slits for the eyes and mouth, securely down, over his face and made a loop in one of the lengths of rope, fastening it around Rebecca's wrist. Her other wrist was tied in the same way and something seemed to pierce the fog in her brain. She shook her head violently, partly to clear it and partly to put up at least a show of resistance. She cried out as her assailant grabbed a handful of her hair and started to drag her across the room towards the bed. The pain was excruciating, making her eyes stream with tears and she had to struggle to her feet, so that her scalp did not tear. He threw her roughly onto the bed and wound the ropes around the opposite uprights of the headboard, pulling them tight so that her arms were securely fastened above her head. The tension on her shoulders was agonising, and she desperately wanted to scream, but fear had paralysed her. She watched, helplessly, as he looped more rope around her ankles and pulled it taut, spreading her legs wide. She shook her head, unable to believe that a stranger had broken into her house and now had her helplessly fastened to her bed. She smelt a dirty musty smell of unwashed clothes and stale sweat as he knelt on the edge of her bed and looped the last length of rope around her neck. She could feel the rope like a snake against her skin and closed her eyes, revolted by the stench of his body and the feeling pf the rope around her throat.
"Now honey," he hissed, "Be a good girl and we'll have a little fun together, then I'll be gone. Try to escape and I'll pull this rope tight."
Rebecca just looked at him, her eyes filled with fear and her tongue still as she wracked her brain to try and devise a plan of escape. She shuddered as the moonlight glinted on the blades of the shears he had picked up and her belly tightened as he lifted the hem of her nightdress and began to snip through the flimsy fabric. Her breath caught in her chest as the icy steel brushed against her skin, moving higher, across her belly and along the cleft between her rounded, pert breasts. The cloth parted and he laid the shears to one side, spreading the ruined nightdress with his fingertips and pausing, for a moment to stare at her breasts.
Rebecca closed her eyes, desperately praying for her attacker to go away and leave her. Even with her eyes closed, she imagined that she could see him watching her. The bed shifted and she flinched as she felt a damp, cool palm cupping her breast and fingers pinching at her nipple. Turning her head as far as she could, Rebecca bit into her lip to keep from crying, determined that he would not see her pain and fear. A strong hand clamped around her jaw and forced her head round. She felt his breath on her cheek and smelt sour whisky and stale tobacco, almost strong enough to make her gag, and then he was pressing his lips against her mouth, thrusting his tongue between her lips, the taste of his breath making her gorge rise in her throat. Instinctively she bit down on the flesh invading her mouth and tasted blood as he jerked back, snarling.
"Bitch!" he grated, "I told you to relax and we'd have fun but you had to spoil it. Now I'm gonna have fun and you're not gonna like it honey."