In this story, Fran Piper manages to shock AND amaze—the end effect is wholly satisfying .

ESCAPE

By Fran Piper

The house was warm and quiet; in the early hours it was possible to feel that it was a place of peace and safety. Nothing broke the silence but the ticking of the radiators and the occasional hiss of tires in the rain outside. She stepped carefully down the stairs, carrying her purse and an overnight bag. The bag contained a change of clothes, toiletries, a hairbrush, the framed picture of her parents, and her mother's small jewelry collection. It was all she dared take. Anything more would slow her down.

In the hallway, she pulled aside the window curtain, made a face. She knew she'd have to walk a while before she dared call a cab, but in this rain she'd be a drowned rat in two blocks. In the back of the closet she found an old raincoat, kept as a spare for visitors to borrow. She slipped into the raincoat and crammed a hat over her hair. Opening the front door, she heard Alex snore once loudly, and froze. But then there was nothing, and after a few seconds of holding her breath, she let herself out into the rain, closing the door quietly behind her.

Her tennis shoes made little splashing sounds on the wet pavement. She skirted the bright pools of reflected streetlights and stared fixedly in front, never once looking over her shoulder. After a few zigzag blocks of the night suburb, she felt safe enough to pull out her cell phone and call the taxi company.

When the cab arrived, its lights dazzled her. The driver sat without offering to help while she put her case in the trunk and slid into the back seat.

“Where to?”

She could see his eyes looking her over in the mirror, and moved sideways to avoid them. The cab was an old-fashioned sedan, with no divider between the front and back; it made her feel exposed.

“The bus station,” she told him shortly, and he pulled away from the curb.

When they reached the bus station it would almost be time for the early buses to leave. She planned to choose one at random so she would be hard to trace. “No-one walks out on me,” Alex had said once when she had suggested that perhaps things weren't working out. “I'll decide when this ends.” Or something like that. She hadn't heard clearly because her ears had been ringing from his slap.

She relaxed back into the upholstery, and watched the lights of the main road slide past the window.

“Bad night to be out,” the driver said.

Wonderful. A chatty driver.

“Yes,” she said shortly.

“Hope you don't mind me asking, but you look like you got a problem. Out in the rain in the middle of the night and all.”

He sounded concerned, and she felt compelled to respond.

“No – I just need to catch an early bus.” She felt herself smiling nervously, as she always did when talking to a stranger. She noticed that the driver had shifted in his seat so he could see her in the mirror again. He was smiling back at her – an ordinary looking man, maybe in his early twenties, brown hair flopping over his forehead.

“Where're you headed?”

She froze.

“Sorry,” he said after a moment's silence. “You don't have to tell me.”

He sounded offended, and at once she felt guilty. “I'm going to Philadelphia .” That was safe. She was pretty sure she didn't want to go to Philadelphia , and now she could simply avoid it.

“Hey, I got family in Philly. Know it pretty well. What part?”

Dear God, worse and worse. She thought desperately.

“Somewhere in the north, I think. I'm visiting a friend. He's going to pick me up. I've never been there before.” OK, she thought. You can stop babbling any time now.

But the reply seemed to satisfy him. She was able to sit quietly while he told her the best places to go in Philadelphia , just nodding and smiling and occasionally repeating a place name.

“Your friend will probably have his own places to take you, though,” he said. “Or maybe you'll just stay home, huh?”

She had been lulled by the chatter, almost dozing, but now (or had it happened gradually?) something about his voice had changed, She looked up and met his eyes in the mirror. He was grinning in an unpleasantly personal way. She had taken off her hat and shaken out her damp hair; now she picked it up and pulled it back on.

“I don't know,” she said.

“Come on, a pretty girl like you, he's not going to want to take you out and share you with other people.” The grin was more like a leer, now. “Bet you're looking forward to seeing him. Bet you're gonna jump straight into bed.”

She reddened and started furiously at her feet, barely noticing the car slowing, pulling over. Then he turned off the engine, and she looked around.

“Where are we? This isn't the bus station.”

At some point they must have turned off the main road, though she hadn't noticed. The street outside looked mean and dingy; the nearest streetlamp was broken, and the light from the next didn't reach the car. It looked as if they were in one of the rundown neighborhoods that ringed the downtown area – not a place you would want to stop at night.

The interior of the cab lit up briefly when the driver opened his door. He closed it, walked around to the rear, and got in beside her. Alarmed, she tried the door handle, but the door didn't budge, and she couldn't see any way to unlock it. He moved up close to her, and she backed further into the corner, arms crossed protectively across her breasts.

“What do you want?” In her head she heard Alex saying “You'll never make it out there, girl. You need me to look after you. It's a bad world.” It made her feel almost too tired to resist as the driver leaned over and grabbed her wrists, prying them away from her body.

“Hey…” his voice coaxing, even while he wrestled with her. “I just want to get to know you better. You're a pretty girl. Does the guy in Philadelphia tell you how pretty you are?”

He pulled her hat off and threw it into the front seat.

“Give that back!” Even as she said it she thought how stupid it sounded.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “Lots of girls are happy to get back here with me.” He leaned over her, forcing her wrists downwards to her sides. She clenched her teeth as he tried to force his tongue into her mouth. She smelled garlic and beer, and wanted to retch.

He sat up again. “Women! You pretend to be virgins, but you're quick enough to give it away when you feel like it. You'll be giving some to the guy in Philadelphia . You can give me some too.”

She wrenched her arms away from him, tried to turn away. He grabbed her shoulders and pinned her against the seat. “Listen, lady, what do you expect? Running around on your own in the middle of the night? Off to visit your goddamn boyfriend in goddamn Philly. Bet you don't act this way with him.”

“Leave me alone,” she said, almost crying.

He started to climb on top of her, throwing his weight on one knee that he rammed onto her lap and then into her stomach, using it to hold her down while he tore with his hands at her clothes.

“No!” she said. “No!” But quietly, because there was no-one to hear except the driver, and besides, if you didn't want to get hurt, you didn't scream. She twisted from side to side, but he had her trapped in the corner.

“Come on,” he said, and now he was in control he was laughing a little. “You know you want to. You like it rough, huh?” Then his mouth was all over her face, and she felt his teeth on her skin, and the rough bristle of his chin.

Alex talked on in the back of her mind. “You silly bitch. You should have stayed here with me. I give you everything you need, you ungrateful whore. And now look. Just wait till I catch up with you. I'll teach you to run away.” He was half laughing in her head, as he always was when she gave him an excuse to punish her.

Then she was aware of the driver's voice like an echo, muttering as he slobbered over her, pushing his hands under her T-shirt and yanking it away from her breasts. “You ungrateful bitch. I'm offering you a great fuck and all you can do is whine.” He drove his knee further into her stomach, and she cried out as the pain almost took her breath away.

“Alex! No! You're hurting me!”

The driver sat back suddenly, his face startled and angry all at once.

“Alex? Who the fuck's Alex?” She saw his hand go back to swing at her, and then suddenly it came to her with the force of a revelation: this wasn't Alex – this was just some taxi driver. Just another stupid, violent man. She didn't have to put up with this. She took a deep breath, put two hands in the middle of his chest and pushed, hard. The driver, caught off balance, toppled backwards into the footwell and struggled for a moment like a beetle on its back.

And suddenly she was almost blind with anger. She lurched forward and started pounding with her fists, going for his face. She could hear yelling; she thought it was her voice, but she couldn't be sure. He tried to grab her hands but she twisted away and punched him again. He fought back, cursing, but he was jammed between the seats and couldn't move easily. The few blows he landed didn't deflect her; she was used to being hurt. She felt a great wave of searing white anger, and then a kind of fierce joy. But fists weren't enough. Hers were starting to hurt. She glanced around, and a dim gleam down between the front seats reminded her of what she had seen in the brief moment when the light was on. She hardly missed a beat as she grabbed it. The driver screamed briefly as he saw the tire iron coming, but after that he was quiet.

When she was calmer she sat back in the seat, resting. She almost dozed off; how odd, she thought, to be so relaxed. But it wouldn't do to sleep here.

Her coat and hat were a mess, so she used them to cover up the driver before she moved into the front of the cab. The keys were in the ignition. When she reached the main road she started towards downtown, where the bus station was, thinking she was losing time, the buses would be leaving soon. Then she glanced back at the tire iron, still where she had left it on the rear seat, and thought, no, maybe I don't need to get away after all. So she turned the taxi around and drove back home.