It took me a while to let this story grow on me...it grabbed me but I had to force myself to stick with it because it had this mix of being appalled by the violence and strangely fascinated by it. When I went back to reading it today I was reminded of a comment about a film that stirred similar emotions in me - it's called 'Irreversible' by Gaspar Noe. Here's the comment: "...compels us to denounce the rape scene as wholly repugnant, but our baser instincts draw us to it. To not walk out is at the very least to collude with it." Even though the subject isn't even remotely the same in the two...the feeling I got was similar. And your story did suck me in, as much as I wanted to walk out. Thank you for sharing this, Scorpio, and good luck with the contest.