Graphic

Peri pulled loose, chapped skin off her lips with her teeth. It was a nervous habit lost since childhood, and rediscovered in the last week. She'd avoided driving past the house where it had happened. She was now emboldened, however, by her night with Lex--somehow fortified by a healthy sexual connection--and the time seemed right to confront the ghosts of misery past.

The rambling Victorian sat on the corner in front of the high school like a sentinal to adolescent pain and education. In the decade that had passed some had torn down the large oak in the sideyard where kids had once huddled sneaking a few illict drags of nicotine before class. The lawn boasted new landscaping and the porch swing had recieved copious layers of new paint.

Peri recalled the weekend that Gideon had asked her and her mother to stay. It was sort of a trail to see if they could all live together before the vows were final. Gideon had decorated Peri's room with comic book posters, a mini fridge stocked with Mountain Dew and sweet snacks, a bed laden with downy comforts, and a drafting board with enough supplies to write, draw, and ink ten comic books.

Gideon's attention to detail enthralled Peri. In only a few short months she'd be entering the University of Iowa as a freshman art student. Mom seemed happy with Gideon and vise versa. Life was glimmering.

Mom had been called in for overtime in the ER. Peri was bent over her drawing table working on a self-portrait of herself in the same position. The drawing, a homage to Will Eisner, was coming along nicely when Gideon knocked.

"Come in."

Gideon entered in his police uniform.

"I thought you didn't have to work tonight?" Peri asked.

Gideon smiled and brushed her question to the side. "So, what do you think? Could we be a happy family here?"

Peri set down her Micron pen and swiveled in her chair to face the question. "I don't see why not. Everyone seems happy and I think I'm pretty easy to get along with."

"That's what I was counting on, Gideon said, his eyes changing from soft and inquizative to manical. Peri had seen eyes like that before when Uncle Freddie returned from the Marines a changed man.

Peri's feet dangled and kicked over her new pens as she was held aloft by a single hand at her throat. Quick as a snake he had struck. Too shocked to scream, she pulled at her fingers as he threw her on the bed.

Released from his grip she scrambled up the bed pushing pillows and bedding between them. He'd removed the handcuffs from his belt and shackled her to the headboard. She kicked at him and her foot nearly found purchase but Gideon slipped to the side as he punched her in the ear. His grunts of rage faded into a uffled ringing.

"Resisting arrest is against the law," he said, flipping her onto her stomach and twisting her hands in the cuffs drawing blood from tender skin.

"Who's daddy's little whore, now?" He ripped her pajama shorts down, while raising her to a kneeling position with his knees.

When she felt Gideon baton enter her, Peri screamed into the pillow.

"That's right." Gideon, again, grabbed her by the throat, lifted her head so he could hear her yelps. Then he thrust himself into her from behind.

Peri had never felt such pain as if someone cut her from stem to stern. Her anus contracted and ripped. He rocked back and forth on top of her shouting obsenities, slapping her ass, and pulling her hair.

Then, suddenly, Peri heard shrieking louder than her own. A deafening siren wail, then a door slammed in her head and all was dark.