A Different Kind of Story

"Susan, You're no longer paying attention. Are you going to listen or not?"

"Yes, yes, I am listening. You want me to call Janine downstairs and have her stand next to me. I understand". Susan's voice now registered a combination of fear and resignation. William recognized this and smiled. He was clearly gaining ever more control over the situation, exactly as he had hoped.

"Very good. Now what I am about to say is important. It is absolutely essential that you make Janine understand that she is to cooperate and listen to you carefully without speaking. Is that clear?"

"She will listen to me if I tell her too. There is no need to worry about that." Susan knew that this was the truth. Janine was as good a daughter as anyone could have hoped for. She would do as her mother asked if it was important. And the gun William was holding would make it quite clear that this was as important as anything Susan had ever told her daughter.

"Very good. Now, once you are certain that she will listen quietly, you will explain to her that, when the time comes, she is going to sit silently and watch carefully while I do with you anything I want."

There was a pause as the meaning of what she had heard began to dawn in her. This was not a robbery. He wasn't after money or jewelry. He wanted her. "So you are going to rape me then." Susan said, more as a statement then a question.

"If that's what you wish to call it, then yes, I am going to rape you."

"Please, I don't know who you are or why you chose me but I swear to you I will let you do anything you want to me. Anything at all. But please, for her sake, don't make Janine watch. Please, I am begging you. She has never had to do anything like that! We can take my car and just leave here right now. Take me anywhere you want. She will never know. No one else has to know. But please, dear God please, don't make her watch. There isn't any reason for her to be involved." Susan was now nearly panic stricken. Her rational mind was fighting hard to maintain control, trying to say whatever it is she needed to say to protect Janine from witnessing what this man was going to do to her.

William let her speak and then cocked the hammer on the gun and aimed it directly at Susan's head. "ENOUGH!" he hissed. The calm, almost soothing manner that he had shown to this point was instantaneously replaced with a seething anger she could sense easily. The change in his demeanor was sudden and frightening.

"OK, OK. Just don't hurt her. I'll tell her what you want. She will sit quietly and watch while you rape me. She'll do it and remain quiet for you I promise. I'll make sure of that. Just please don't hurt her. Promise me you won't hurt her."

"Whether anyone gets hurt remains entirely up to you and Janine. I hope you convince her of that." His manner had returned to the soothing calm figure he had been just seconds before. Clearly this was a very unstable, volatile and extraordinarily dangerous man.

Susan, now resigned to her fate began to stand up, her head hung low as she slowly began walking towards the spacious living room. But before she took a half a dozen steps, she heard him speak again.

"Not yet Susan. Please, sit back down."

Susan paused, then slowly returned to the bed again, sitting on its side. Her had hung down as she tried to stop the tears that ran slowly down her cheeks. She would be strong. She had to be. What else could she do? Whatever happened to her, she had to be strong for Janine. Her thoughts were broken by William's voice, still bearing the soothing tone that was so out of place in this most hellish of situations.

"There is one other detail that you must understand and make clear to Janine."

"What is it? Just tell me and I will make sure she understands."

"I appreciate your cooperation, Susan. Now, once you have made absolutely certain that Janine will sit quietly and watch what happens to you, and not until then, you will tell her that she is to cooperate fully while you watch me do whatever I want to her. Do you understand?"

Susan was suddenly enraged, her maternal protective instincts rising above her fear. "No, I won't and you can't. I will kill you first. You leave her alone or else."

"Or else what Susan?" He was raging again aiming the gun at her chest. "You think this is a game? You don't make the rules, I do." You can decide whatever you want. But if you don't do what I ask, then that decision will cost you and your daughter your lives. Are you willing to pay that price? Are you Susan? Is it worth that? You decide. Is it worth your lives?"

She almost jumped up to grab the man facing her. But it took only a second for her to realize that she had not the strength to overpower this fiend. His size and the weapon he held made it impossible regardless of any strength she could summon out of fear and desperation. She was rational enough to realize that her situation was hopeless. No matter how terrible, she had no choice but to cooperate not only to protect her own life, which she would have gladly sacrificed to save her daughter, but to protect Janine's life as well. Whatever he did to them, she knew that they had to survive. Cooperating was her only choice to save the life of her daughter.

Susan was crying openly now. She could no longer completely suppress her emotions. "Please, promise me that when you've done what you want, you will leave and not hurt us. Please promise me that. Please."

"Susan, I didn't come here to hurt anyone. As long as you both cooperate with me, when I am gone, you will both be safe and able to live long happy lives. I make that promise. All you have to do is do what I ask tonight and you and Janine will be just fine."

Somehow, she knew he was being honest. Why she felt that, she could never say. But it was an unmistakable feeling. "Just survive" she thought. "Do what he wants and survive."

Softly, in a whisper, Susan said the only thing she knew to say. "Please, be gentle with her. Be gentle with Janine."