Time, already slow, grinds to a halt. Even his speech seems halting. Petra's breath and her heartbeat elide strangely with one another, like sound to an echo. She notices he is still wearing his gloves, perhaps to warn her of the futility of screaming. She can almost taste the bitterness of leather.

Petra forces down a whimper. If she moves, what will he do? If she begins to cry again? If she breathes too shallowly, is this provoking him? Will he confuse her staring at him, her fear for lust? Are the physical attributes not similar? She remembers how, in utter darkness when she was supposed to be asleep, her father’s breath grew ragged when making love to her mother, how he uttered a moan not unlike that of toil or illness.

This thought pervades her with a horrible consciousness, an awareness of every sound and movement she makes, of every part of her body, of her face, remembered from old glances into the still creek. She returns to the same unutterable statement: he is a man. Vedomec, yes, but in the form of a man with large, gloved hands that smooth his surcoat over his knees, a butcher preparing his table. He glances at her to see if she is still listening.

Please, do not look at me, she begs silently. She does this with a fervor unmatched even by her prior pleading for a painless death. She covers her breasts with her arms to try and make them smaller, doubles over into a ball to try and diminish all that could interest a man in her body. Her shame is overwhelming, outclassed only by her terror. If she could somehow sink into the earth and perish there, she would.