The wharf was cool, air brisk. I was glad for my wool skirts as I hurried along the docks on my way home. I could not seem to pull my shawl tightly enough to stop my shivering. I didn't like the foreboding dark nor the mysterious noises drifting from the anchored ships and invisible sea. I'd worked late in the lading office but was glad for the extra coins. I only hoped I'd get home safely with them at such an hour.

As if invoked by such a thought, I was detoured from my path. An angry face stared at me with ice blue eyes. His nearly black hair was pulled back in a loose tie. Wisps escaped to float about both our faces in the breeze from the water. I was pinned as much by his eyes as by his arms and hips. His large hand was mashed over my mouth and nearly blocking breathing through my nose too. I was panting, trying to recover from not breathing at all when he first caught me, dragged me into a shadow and shoved me against the large crate.

I think he could see over the crate behind me, even though it was certainly taller than I. His frightening eyes kept looking up past me then back again. His heart was pounding too. His bare chest rose and fell with his own recovering breath. My arms and feet flailed at first, trying to fight, but he adjusted his stance. He shoved his knees against my thighs and pinned my slippered feet between his heavy boots. While one hand pressed my head painfully against the heavy crate, the other arm went around my body, trapping my arms at my sides. My protests were wasted against his hand. Nor could I think what opportunity to look for, to pray for, that would afford me escape.

While he planned or rested, I know not which, he leaned his sweaty body so heavily against me. What breath I could get was tainted and foul. I convulsed in a gag more than once. His smell and my nervousness were pushing up from inside my stomach.

He seemed to relax further against me. Stifling my air was not enough? He wanted to crush me too? I tried to turn my head away, underneath his hand. This made him angry. He shoved my face in that direction, now pressing my cheek to the crate. I cried into his harsh hand. My mouth began to hurt. I felt my teeth might be cutting into my skin from his pressure. I choked with silent sobbing. I pleaded to be released, but only in my mind, in my prayers, for my assailant would not let me speak, nor likely would he listen.

He dipped his head and began to kiss and bite at my exposed neck and shoulder. I flinched. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut at his punishment. I tried to wriggle away from it, but he bit harder then let his shoulders and chest rest full against me. His teeth clamped onto my ear lobe with such force that I thought he would bite it off. My eyes flew open wide as I screamed into his hand. I jerked within his grasp, loosening his hold none at all.

Then I held my breath again. I was staring at a very large black spider, the bulbous body with sharp hinged legs, seemed to be climbing across his shoulder. As I blinked back tears from his torture to my ear, I could see the spider was in fact a tattoo, darkly inked on the crest of his right shoulder. The moonlight seemed to beam life into it, but it held still there, very close to my face.

The villain stopped. He looked up over my head and around at the crate-laden docks once more. The moon was bright. I could see him all too well, blackish hair and ice cold eyes. I was glad to have the spider away from me, even just a little. I could breathe better now as well, without the oppressive hulk against me. I listened. Someone, surely someone, was nearby. Perhaps they would hear even a muffled voice? But I heard nothing more than the air moving across the water lapping beneath the docks... that and my own heart pounding so loudly in my ears. My sad attempts to raise alarm were too muffled to carry, mixing with the sounds of the sea.

We were on the move. He stepped back from me as he unwrapped his arm from my body and clamped that hand behind my head. He gripped at my neck with bruising fingertips. He kept the pressure on my mouth in this way. He walked me backwards, both of us stumbling over my full skirts. I could not gain purchase with hand or step to fight him, though I heartily tried.

I was shoved to the wooden planks of the dock. He sat over me and leaned on his hand at my mouth. I thought the pressure would crack my teeth or crush my skull or at least cut completely through my lips. I cried beneath the aching but he paid no mind. He was working at something. He was untying a bit of rope from a latch ring on the planking. When he got the rope loose, he quickly swapped his hand away and pulled the rough rope between my lips. It burned across my skin as he jerked my head up and wrapped the rope once before knotting it off. I could hiss breath around it, but my voice was all garbled sounds with no volume.

My hands were going numb. He sat across my hips with my arms pinned to the wooden dock by his knees and his full weight. Again I wondered how it was that his massive body, compared to mine, did not just snap my bones. He looked down at me. I had to think to swallow, for the rope impeded such a simple thing. His dirty rough fingers traced across my pale flesh above my bodice. I'd not had time to think til now, about what he was doing or why. A tear slipped down the side of my face, for his intentions were suddenly all too clear.

I began to shiver with fright as his fingertips slipped under the edge of my bodice. I shook my head vehemently, even though the hard knot of rope at the back of my neck made this too a painful process. His fingers started at my cleavage and worked outward toward my shoulders. He grasped my dress and started tugging downward. It was not made to be slipped off. He pulled harder, tearing some, shifting me, until he'd worked the sleeves and the bodice down below my breasts. I was laid open for his view. I looked at his chilling blue eyes on me for a moment, then I could look no longer. I turned my head, grateful for the small relief from the rope knot as well.

I grunted against his harsh grasping and kneading at my breasts. He didn't care. It didn't stop or even pause him. My legs could not work to help, with him sitting over my hips, but I started pounding my heels against the wood decking. It was a sound, some sound, perhaps some sign to a savior, if any were about. I had serious doubts. My heel kicks were echoed well, with the hollow beneath them to the water, but none came to stop this vandal from pawing at my chest.

There was a small moment of hope. Perhaps if he was going to do the thing I now dreaded, then he'd have to set my arms free. How could he pin me and... and do the deed at the same time? If I had use of my hands, perhaps I could claw at him or pound with my fists or... I didn't know, but it would be some action against him.

My hope soon faded however. He scooted back. Now his knees were crushing into my palms, nearly breaking my fingers. He sat over my thighs but not on them... because... he was pulling at my skirts, drawing them up between his legs and bunching them above my hips. Eventually I could no longer see his dark pants and wide leather belt, with my own skirts piled up in between. His bare upper body and arms still flexed though and the spider kept its vigil from his shoulder. It was still huge to me, even at this distance. I jerked beneath his hands as they ripped away my undergarments. Again my head shook violently and I choked hoarse cries from a dry throat and through the unyielding rope. I pulled at my hands beneath his knees but all it did was raise me from the damp planks until I had to drop back again.

Please... PLEASE, I thought, only a moment with my hands free. Perhaps while he shifts or prepares to... Just for a moment... I only need one small glint of luck. Please.

I felt him sit on my bare thighs but he leaned forward, keeping pressure on my cramped hands. His fingers pulled down more at the top of my dress. He was almost meticulous about this, looking at his own movements, as if judging something. When I felt the weight of him off my hands, my heart lurched and I raised my shoulders from the decking. I wanted to reach out and claw at him, if my fingers would obey. They would not. I still could not use my hands or arms. His careful assessment had bound my arms at my sides with my own dress. He'd pulled it down just far enough, to trap my elbows inside the sleeves then he'd tucked and adjusted to cocoon my middle in place.

I dropped back again and huffed a moan through the rope. I looked down across my body, exposed to the moonlight and his eyes. I saw the pile of skirts in a shamble over my hips. I saw him reaching behind this disarray of fabric and then his belt was tossed aside. I was lost. I closed my eyes and turned my head away.

I felt his heaviness and stench descend over me. To avoid his odor, I kept my head turned aside. My eyes opened to see the spider looking back from his shoulder. I hissed and huffed around the rope as his knees pushed my legs apart then began to slide upward. His legs lifted mine and splayed my nakedness for him, opening me for his assault.

I grunted with him as he pushed at me. He grew angry while he clumsily pushed between my thighs and could not gain entrance. I choked out a sound at one hard shove and his hand came up to force my cheek against the planks, twisting my neck. As I heaved from this pain, he gained what he wanted. He pushed into me and straight through me, or so it felt. I sucked in a hiss and held it. Even the silent pleading was shoved from my mind for a moment.

I closed my eyes tightly. I tried to hear the lapping of the water and the breezes, above my own stifled cries, above his deep grunts and moaning. He shifted my whole body as he pierced me again and again. After interminable time, the pain moved and seemed to stretch me too far, too wide, as well as to my depth. My stomach sucked in with a deep shuddered breath. I released it but just as he released a loud groan too. He stabbed me erratically then until the pain started to ease and I could try to breathe again. The spider had gone still, staring at me, as my body was pressed to damp wood in the slump of my assailant.

I don't know where I went for a while after that. Perhaps I lost consciousness. His weight would not let me catch a breath. I came aware again as the night began to clear into day. The cool dampness of the fog was rather comforting. I was thankfully alone. I had rolled onto my side or been pushed over. I gasped as I freed one aching arm from the wrap of clothing. I began to sob as I couldn't quite reach to push my dress back into place. My hands were gnarled from his pressure and the following dampness of night. I covered, but not completely. I had no strength to pull my bodice together, simply making do with a layer of skirting. I could not stretch my arm up to untie the rope at my mouth and... I was so weary. I curled further, though this pained me, and lay my cheek upon the dew-dampened planks of the dock. I fleetingly wondered what had become of my shawl. I slept.