I clamped my legs tight and closed the robe. I didn’t think I could make it back inside before they were upon me. This was not the seduction my irrational mind had envisioned while showering in the afterglow of that glorious meal. Instead of luring that handsome, half-man back into the cabin with promises of romance, I was to be raped out in the woods by a couple of prepubescent cave boys.

Perhaps fearing he would lose out on the conquest, the boy in back raced forward, passing the one in the lead. Then they were both scrambling toward me, running on all fours like chimps. I stood and turned back to the cabin, but only made it a step before one of them clutched the collar of my robe from behind and yanked backwards. The strain pulled my belt lose and I felt the robe sliding free from my body. The boy stumbled back with the robe in his hand, leaving me naked as a sunflower on the front landing. Then the other boy was upon me, grabbing me in a bear hug, grunting with his face against my shoulder, his pecker grinding against my thigh, smelling worse than week-old garbage.

He lifted me and carried me down the steps away from the cabin as though I didn’t weigh a thing. Then his companion came and began grabbing at me, too. And they started snarling at each other, gnashing teeth. And there I was, caught in the middle. Bicycling my feet in the air like I thought that could get me somewhere. Screaming myself now, and it was the first time I’d heard my voice in over a week and it was terrifying to hear. A hoarse roar of raw panic, as beastly as the feral boys. My eyes closed so it’s just dark jostling and war cries and the musk of pending sex taken by force. This looks like the end of things – I’ll make sure it is – and here I’m destined to leave this earth more frightened and confused than I entered it.