A Date With Fate

by Tracy Ellen

  He made a mockery of my efforts by easily controlling my frenzied attempts to get free. As if to emphasize this total power over me, my attacker put his hand over my breast and squeezed. Throwing my head wildly around didn’t stop his tongue from licking up my throat to my ear.

  He growled, “You aren’t going anywhere, little girl, but fight me all you want.”

  His touch and guttural voice held me frozen in suspended shock for an instant. This was really happening to me.

  I didn’t answer. I saved my breath for battling him. I knew my struggling was turning my assailant on big time. I could feel him hard against me from behind while I strived to get free. I tried to ignore this as I fought him, but it was like trying to ignore a red-hot poker.

  I used every trick I had ever been taught to break his holds. Too bad these tricks were from years ago, and against my sisters. I hadn’t been in an actual physical fight since I was thirteen. I could verbally slay Hannibal Lector into a blubbering fool without breaking a sweat, but I am not a kick-ass fighter against a man. I was captured with no use of my arms. I was unable to turn my hips, so my legs were useless, too. My brain was still functioning, though. I allowed my body to relax and go heavily limp in his arms, as if in a dead faint.

  My attacker didn’t care if I was dead or alive, but instead took advantage of my feigned slump. He stuck his hand down the front of my nightgown; cupping and rubbing my breasts. His other hand on my hip moved to my naked butt, and he pinched me hard.

  Unexpectedly shocked from my coma, I inadvertently yelled, “Ouch!”

  He laughed at my pained reaction. Until I jumped up and snapped my head back, catching his mocking mouth with the top of my skull. It felt like his front teeth were embedded to the gums in my cranium. I didn’t think grown-ups had soft spots, only infants. Apparently, mine had never fused. I didn’t receive much delight from his moan of what had to be a mouthful of hair-filled agony since my own moan of throbbing hurt was louder.

  My attacker recovered quickly. With a bounce, he hoisted me up higher against him. His hand roved all over my butt and the back of my thighs. He held me close against him to limit my range of motion. His mouth was hot on my ear whispering words I couldn’t distinguish, or be sure were even in English. I hoped I’d loosened his front teeth.

  I wrenched my head away as far as I could to avoid his mouth, but couldn’t move my hips enough to avoid his busy hand. I felt his fingers strumming boldly down my rear end. Then I felt those fingers move between my legs, and the vibration of another mocking laugh against my neck.

  The touch of my attacker’s invasive fingers drove me over the edge into a mindless, uncontrolled frenzy to escape his touch. I erupted and fought against him like a woman possessed. Blindingly out of control of anything I was doing or screaming, I was only dimly aware of kicking and scratching, head butting, throwing myself from side to side, and even snapping at his face. Had he come within range, I would have ate his face off zombie-style and then asked for seconds. I don’t know how long it took before his excited laughter started to penetrate my futile haze of bloodlust to kill him.

  I could hear the underlying, sexual tension in his voice as he held me to him, goading me on, whispering he was stronger and would always win. He was a predator and the harder I fought the more aroused he became.

  The next thing I knew, I went sailing though the air in the darkness. I landed on my bed so hard that I bounced not once, but twice. My antique bed springs were squeaking protests louder than my own shrieks. My attacker had snapped on the bedside lamp and tore his T-shirt off over his head by the time I came to a stop from bouncing. I was disoriented at the sudden blaze of light and struggling to catch my breath.

  Breath or no breath, I couldn’t afford to lie there on my back, on my bed, and at his mercy. I hurriedly rose up, but didn’t get much further than my elbows before his hand clamped around the front of my neck and pushed me back down against my pillows. He kept me there.

  The black dots hadn’t disappeared in front of my eyes from dazedly staring at the sudden burst of lamplight a moment ago. My attacker was a fuzzy blur as he stood next to the bed. I pulled with all my strength on his hand casually surrounding my throat. It wasn’t even a huge, monster hand. This guy was seriously strong, or I was incredibly weak. Either way, I couldn’t get free of him.

  His hand slid off my neck and glided slowly downward. My nightgown is more like a longish, tight tank top. It’s made of a stretchy lace material with an elasticized neckline cut straight across and held up by thin spaghetti straps. He spread his hand, fingers dipping under the gown’s neckline. His splayed hand was lying across the top curve of my breasts, and exerting no apparent effort, held me firmly down on the bed. Unbelievably, I was unable to do much more than lift my head from the bed pillows.

  Inside my head, I was calling him every foul name in the book and some that hadn’t been written. In my bedroom, my hitched breathing was the only sound in the silent night around us as we continued battling. I soon realized it was a one-sided struggle because my attacker was doing nothing but standing next to the bed and holding me down. He was probably getting off on the view every time I lashed out at him with a kick. I couldn’t let that stop me.

  He blocked my attempts to maim him with kicks by using his left knee to pin down my thighs. I got a quick glance of a bare foot. Knowing this meant he had taken the time to remove his shoes and socks made me shudder. He had planned out this assault. His right foot stayed planted on the floor by my bed.

  During this time, I still couldn’t see the predator’s face as he was a shadow backlit by the light from the lamp. Even with my vision restored, my damp hair lying across my eyes in tangles made trying to see a nightmare version of peek-a-boo. I was out of breath, and I could feel my nightie was twisted up above my hips from thrashing around.

  I’m sure it would matter later I was partially blinded, winded, and so blatantly exposed to him, but not right this minute. The man was lifting his hand off my chest and I knew it was my golden opportunity.

  I went for his balls.

  With a surprised grunt, he adroitly avoided my fist by turning his body towards his right. This caused my punch to bounce harmlessly off his left thigh, but I had anticipated this move and my left hand was already in motion.

  I was an inch from my goal of causing a painful distraction so I could get away when his right hand shot out. He grabbed my fist in a tight grip and thrust my arm off course, causing me to cry out. Not so much in pain, but in total frustration at the lost opportunity to nail him. He released my fist quickly but kept hold of my wrist.

  My attacker gave a little shake to my hand in his grip and mockingly made a “tsking”, chiding sound, as if disappointed in me for missing.

  He then laughed like a demon, in obvious delight with his own prowess.

  I ignored his taunts, focusing on pulling my hand back out of his grip.

  He responded by forcibly lifting my arm up, and then over my head. He pried open my clenched fist and pressed my fingers firmly around one of the iron bars of my headboard. He kept his much larger hand tight around mine.

  His free hand went for my other wrist. My free hand knocked his away. He kept coming back and grabbing for me. I kept batting his hand away. It was a Three Stooges moment. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so serious, and if I got to be Moe instead of Curly on the receiving end. He managed to capture my wrist with a hand as tight as a manacle. He made this hand hold another bar on my headboard. Now both of my hands were covered by both of his.

  My assaulter sat down alongside my prone body, leaning across me to keep my hips pinned to the bed. I’m in good shape but I have to admit, no matter how fit you are exercise alone doesn’t prepare you for this kind of battling. My arms were held up high, and my hips and upper thighs were trapped under the weight of his angled body.

  I was panicky at the vulnerability of my position and I was suddenly exhausted from battling him so ferociously. That tiny voice p
opped up again, the wussy one that prays for help. Wussy voice whispered insidiously how easy it would be to give in, admit defeat, and let my attacker win with no more fight from me.

  ‘Yeah, right!’

  I laid a smack down on that little cowardly voice and took several, calming breaths. Surrender is not a word in my vocabulary.

  I concentrated on my next move, or tried to come up with one. I didn’t have many options to choose from. I knew I’d have to be ready to act when I got the chance. I needed to face who I was up against.

  I briskly shook my head from side to side to remove my mass of long hair from my eyes.

  My attacker was no longer backlit by the lamp. I could see him. The left side of him was bathed in shadows, but not so much that I couldn’t tell what he looked like.

  In the swift, comprehensive glance I stole before veiling my eyes beneath my lashes, I observed a few things about the predator holding me captive on my bed. He wasn’t too ugly or scary looking, and could pass for attractive in a dark, rugged way. He had a short, black beard. He wasn’t as tall as my earlier impression before the light was on. His raised arms were flexed with muscle. No wonder I couldn’t move him; the man looked strong.

  Another thing I had noticed in my brief glance, Muscle Man wasn’t paying any attention to what I was thinking. He was absorbed doing his own reconnaissance.

  Now that I was held down and temporarily still, I was acutely aware of the fact I may as well be nude for all the cover my nightgown afforded. In his position of leaning against me, he was intently checking out what he could easily survey above and under the sheer lace, namely most of my breasts.

  ‘Oh, my god!’

  I squeezed my eyes tightly shut. Based on his earlier grabbing and now his intense expression, my attacker seemed to have a thing for boobs. I really, really wanted to wipe that arrogantly leering expression off his face. I took a fortifying breath and made myself focus on how to get away, determined not to give up against his greater strength. My damn brain had to count for something. I just needed to keep my wits about me and outsmart him.

  As if he sensed my racing thoughts, he roused himself. He sat up straighter, removing his hands from over mine around the iron bars. I instantly started to lower my arms.

  He raised his hand sharply in warning, but still spoke softly. “Do not take your hands off those bars.”

  The calmness of my assaulter’s tone was so normal in contrast to the implied threat of his raised hand that I involuntarily obeyed without thinking.

  I jerked my eyes up, meeting his squarely for the first time tonight. Distinctive green eyes challenged me. His mouth looked cruel. His full lips curled with a patronizing smirk, clearly getting a kick from my dilemma. So far, he hadn’t hurt me, only restrained me.

  ‘Could I push him further?’

  He continued to read my mind. His voice was pleasantly conversational over the implied threat. “I’ll only tell you this once. If you take your hands off the bars, I will make you regret it. You will be punished. Do you understand me?”

  ‘Punished! Holy crap! That answers that!’

  My attacker didn’t even wait for my response. By my silence, he was confident I was too intimidated to think of disobeying him. He moved his total concentration to his reason for breaking into my home. It almost drove me beyond endurance this guy could dream for a minute he’d won that easy. It wasn’t easy, but I made myself demurely lower my eyes in pretended submission and bide my time.

  When he slowly pulled my nightgown down, I determinedly kept my eyes closed. As he must have intended, with my arms stretched over my head and from the tightness of the stretched neckline pushing up underneath; my breasts were high on display in exaggerated offering. I could feel my nipples were erect from the rough friction of the lace, his hands, and the cold air. As he touched me and looked his fill, I set aside the feelings of wishing to kick his ass into the middle of next week with every fiber of my being. I forced myself into calm, and then used what weapon I did have to create a diversion; my girly-girlness.

  Hands around the bars behind me, I let out some scared, feminine squeaks. I tossed my head in agitation. I shook my shoulders to and fro, quivering in modest fright. My bed helped; it bounced and squeaked a little, too.

  Is there a straight man with eyes in his head capable of resisting the vision of a bare-breasted girl shimmying practically in his face? Possibly there is somewhere on the planet, but not the predator in my bedroom.

  His total attention glued where I wanted, my attacker was starting to lean forward. Without warning, I quickly brought both my knees up and then slammed into his side with both feet flat. I gave him the heave-ho, using the strength and momentum of my legs. Holding onto the bars actually gave me greater leverage. He had been in motion, his foot wasn’t planted on the floor any longer, and my comforter fabric was slippery. I finally caught the man completely off guard.

  I didn’t once let up my attack to allow my surprised assailant to catch his balance. I kept up the pressure of frenzied kicking and pushing until he slid right off my silky duvet.

  Legs and arms flailing, he yelled, “Shit!”

  He landed hard on the floor with a solid THUMP!

  “Yes!” I screamed triumphantly when he went over the side. Hopping to my knees on the bed and scrambling to the edge, I was about to make a jump for the door and freedom.

  My luck was short-lived. My assailant was ideally supposed to be slowed down. I was supposed to get a chance to run for the door. The only thing I managed to get was a quick tug up of my nightgown’s neckline before I saw the top of his head rising up from the floor along the side of the bed. Remembering his threat of punishment, I threw myself backwards and grabbed the iron bars of the headboard. I hit with enough force the bed posts smacked against the wall just as he sprang up from the floor like some kind of warp speed jack-in-the-box.

  My attacker stood looking down at me, hands on his hips. Gazing back, trying to look innocent, I was berating myself silently for not trying for the door, regardless of the consequences. My only small satisfaction was seeing him breathing heavier for the first time. My eyes kept dropping lower. I could not stop staring at the sight of his tanned, cut abs above his low riding jeans. They rippled with every breath he took.

  When I am really nervous or really emotional, my mind sometimes goes AWOL and thinks bizarre thoughts as a coping tool. I’m terrible at funerals. I dare not look at anyone who knows me lest they set me off laughing. I have to constantly battle myself not to lose it when I have these whacked thoughts.

  Right now, all’s I could think about while staring at his ridged stomach was how could Muscle Man still be so tan when it was near Thanksgiving? Did he use a tanning booth? Get sprayed? Have his abs “highlighted” to accentuate the definition? Imagining him in a hair bonnet, and giving precise instructions on how to get sprayed tan before his big night out to sexually assault a woman, had me turning my face into my shoulder to muffle my sudden choke of crazed giggles. A small snort escaped, but I hurriedly coughed to disguise the sound.

  The predator staring at me solved my attention deficit problem when I heard the clinking noise of his belt buckle. Without saying one word, he made the desire to laugh curl up and die instantly. He unhooked his belt buckle and started to pull the belt from the loops on his jeans.

  Heart thumping madly, I looked up to see his narrowed eyes watching my face. His black brows almost met in the middle over his fierce scowl. His mouth was a thin line.

  ‘Oh help me; this is one pissed-off attacker!’

  I am a baby when it comes to pain. Actually, a baby probably handles pain better than I do. I’m sure my eyes were already opened as wide as they could go after hearing the belt buckle sound, so I didn’t have to fake that. I swallowed hard over the dry lump in my throat. I moistened my lips with my tongue. I blinked and tried for sweetly reasonable; even if it was to tell a lie.

  “Um...Mister, you’ll notice I didn’t take my hands off the bars
?”

  He ignored me. He paused, then let go of his belt. Instead, he undid the top button of his jeans and pulled down the zipper. Emboldened with relief at the immediate threat of pain off the table, and ignoring the zipper part, I was done with being reasonable. Sweet has never worked all that well for me, anyway.

  So I jeered at him.

  “I almost think you didn’t have fun getting kicked to the floor by a girl. Hey, you never said I couldn’t throw you off the bed like the annoying, little meat puppet you are.”

  Right then, as I heard myself talking smack, I swear I was having an out-of-body experience. I had a vision of the entire scene as if I was perched up in a corner of the ceiling with a birds-eye view of the room. I saw an angry, tough, and half-naked man looming over a defiant, defenseless, and half-naked woman. She looked tiny sprawled out on the big bed, holding onto the iron bars behind her, and running her big mouth like a lunatic.

  Why do I feel compelled to keep taunting my assaulter against everything I have ever read or been told to do in this situation?

  Maybe I was being strategic and thought I had a better chance with him mad and out of control. Maybe I wanted to prove he could restrain me physically, but he couldn’t break my will. Maybe I’m such a smart ass I cannot keep my mouth shut even if it means getting beat with a belt, or worse.

  So I laughed in his face.

  “Why, I do believe the big man isn’t used to getting his ass kicked to the floor by a ‘little girl’.” I drawled. Then I gave another, much more exaggerated shimmy. “Oh, Muscle Man is so very frightening and so very strong. I’m just shaking.”

  It felt mighty fine to smirk up at him for a change.

  For about two seconds.