My assailant - I like the rather cosy sound of that - my personal assailant - waved his small gun and ordered me to step out of the roadway into the bushes. I obeyed although I didn't like it - but at that moment my brain was stopped and it didn't occur to me to do anything else. He ordered me to lie on my face and told me not to look around. He asked for money. In one pocket I had $30, in the other $10. I thought about it and gave him the $30.

The man tugged at my white trousers, "Take these off!" he said. My brain was suddenly crammed with jostling thoughts. To be raped was one thing but I was on my face and somehow I suspected the rape would be anal. I remembered how my sister told me, with such resignation, that she had been raped in Paris. "No," I thought, "I won't be like her."

Do you remember the TV show "Hill Street Blues," and the little undercover detective who looked homeless and growled and snarled at the enormous felons he fought with and inevitably caught?

Men: Good, Bad and Irritating.

Photos in Chronological Order

Trails

Map/Diagram of Story Elements