Gone to the Forest: A Novel by Katie Kitamura Page A

slowly, with both hands spread before him. Like he thought she was a
     rabbit or a rabid animal. She watched and saw the gleam flicker into his eyes. Her body
     relaxed a notch. After all they were men. After all they were the same. She smiled and
     then she watched his face harden in front of her and the smile died on her lips.
    She stood in the blast of hunger that came from his body and the hatred
     coming from his eyes. Hatred for her as a woman. She became afraid. Panic swung through
     her body and then she changed her mind. A woman can change her mind, she thought. A
     woman can get wet between the legs and loosen her dress and she still has the right to
     change her mind. Doesn’t she? Isn’t that what they said?
    She felt the situation slipping out of her control. She stumbled and tried
     to guess at the damage. There was the old man. They were afraid of him—that could
     work for her or against her, likely against. She had seen the store of resentment in the
     faces of the men. Built over time and carefully fortified. Brickby
     brick and then the wall broke and wiped out whatever stood in its way. Due to either bad
     luck or stupidity.
    She had made a situation for herself on the farm and a good one. But now
     it was turning to mud and faster than she could believe. It was not fate and not
     inevitable but it was what was going to happen. Now the man was standing in front of
     her. He walked his eyes across her body and then to her face. The interest being more
     knot than attraction. His lust being caught up in complicated things. Like power and
     shame and fear. She thought: we are not so different. I know you, there are things that
     we share.
    She wasn’t even convincing herself. His gaze slid around her neck to
     her back and his body followed, his body circled round. He stood behind her. She closed
     her eyes as he gripped her neck. With the other hand he yanked her to him. Held her by
     the neck and pushed her dress aside. Rooted downstairs. Poked a finger in. Slapped it
     with an open hand. Hard, not teasing like, not affectionate. She gasped and winced in
     pain. She thought: surely not here, in front of all of them. Surely not like this.
    He unbuckled his trousers and shoved right into her but she was wet so it
     wasn’t rape. Which gave him no pleasure or less pleasure or a different pleasure
     to the one he was wanting. So that was a point for the girl. Just one but who was
     counting, you grasped at straws when you were trying to keep your head on your
     shoulders. Now he was calling her a whore cunt bitch but she’d heard it all
     before. Nothing new under the sun, nothing he could tell or show her. With his idiot
     thrusting.Like a dog or rat or pig. Quick as a dog, too, and it was
     on to the next one.
    So that was how it was going to be. So she was going to be sore but she
     had her pills. A whole bottle of them on the bed stand in her room. One of the men
     slapped her face and pushed her to the ground. She concentrated on the pills. She should
     have counted how many. How many pills and how many men. In case there was an equivalence
     lurking in the numbers. Back when this began, which already felt like a long time
     ago.
    Were they all going to take their turn? Was every one of them going to
     line up for a poke and a stab? Or had some of the group left—scared by what they
     wanted to see and what they would imagine for weeks to come, what they almost saw and
     did. She tried to keep count. It took her mind off things, which were quickly becoming
     painful back there. Desire ran out on you and then the fucking started. You could
     disconnect but there was nothing like pain to bring you back.
    Not that she wanted them to stop. She couldn’t think a thought so
     clearly. She couldn’t think her way past the situation at hand, she could no
     longer fathom what happened next.
    To give her credit: she was not waiting to be saved. She was not waiting
     for the shout of a man coming to save her