PANIC

He took you as you were walking through the dark parking lot. You looked beautiful. Wearing your one-size-too-small blouse spilling your cleavage into the night air. You did this to catch the attention of the cute boy you worked with. You know the one. You remember how the boy made you laugh. How the boy subconsciously made you wear revealing clothing. A mating ritual spurred by physical attraction, awakening what was left of your ancient bestial instincts. I wouldn’t worry about that boy anymore.

Is your heart rate increasing?

You didn’t see him coming. You didn’t hear his vastus laterallis muscle engaging his peroneus longus muscle as his soft-souled shoes stabbed the asphalt. You didn’t smell his excited sweat rife with adrenaline and urea. No, poor helpless you, you lost those animalistic traits through millennia of evolution. The traits that would have saved your life. Being human is overrated, a birth defect.  These traits won’t help you tonight. You remember the can of mace in your purse, a gift from your father. Because ‘you never know’ your father said. You remember this two seconds too late. Two seconds is an eternity to a rabbit fleeing from a wolf. Two seconds was all the wolf needed for you. Helpless, he grabs you.

Are you sweating yet?

His fingers ice cold clamped over your mouth. Frozen strength stifling your pathetic screams, more like whimpers. His other hand a band of steel around your ribcage. Digging into your solar plexus crushing the air from your lungs. Don’t worry, you won’t need it after tonight. Pulling you into the shadows he deftly moves his hand from your mouth to your throat; his fingers crush your cricothyroid muscle in your larynx, skillfully cutting off your oxygen flow. Perfection. Instinctual.

Can you feel this?

Every cell in your pathetic body knows this feeling. Knew this before it knew anything. This feeling was hardwired into every nucleus. Fear. Your whole body drunk with it. This is when your sluggish brain starts to panic. Acetylcholine released from preganglionic sympathetic nerves triggers your ‘Flight or Fight’ response. Your hypothalamus chooses to fight. He likes this. Sending epinephrine through your body, piloerection is the first to kick in making your hair stand on end like a scared cat. Even with the adrenaline screaming through your body the embargo his fingers put on your oxygen supply renders you helpless. Meekly you kick and wiggle and fidget. He thinks of this as a dance, a mating ritual. He delights in it.

Are you panicking?

Had he held your larynx any longer you would have died then. You realize he did this not to kill, but to incapacitate, to make you more manageable, to save you for later.  You think of this as your vision goes blurry. Tiny black dots swimming, drowning your field of view. You think of this as his panting shrinks from your ear, replaced by white noise. You think of this as you feel his erection pressed to your back, corpulent with blood. You think of this as your zygomaticus major muscles relax, turning your twisted dread-filled face smooth and expressionless, morbidly angelic. You looked beautiful. You think of this as everything goes black, to save you for later.

 To save you for later.