Michael Malone - Weebly

seen her, to lose her! Lose her? How was she his?
How had he lost her? Wasn't she alive? Abernathy
envisioned an illumination, white and leaf gold.
Hideously from behind the parchment red stain bubbled
the vision. Why hadn't she stopped it? Why had she let
the vision be ruined? Could she not be vestal guardian
of her own temple? Mustn't she have in some way
(titillation, fear, kindness, hostility) encouraged the
rapist? Nothing like that could ever have happened to
Beanie! Or Tracy. Or Priss. Impossible. Perhaps
Evelyn.
He caught himself and fought back his anger at her.
Weren't even strong athletic women raped, too? And
old decrepit women, and girl children? Must there be
something in every female psyche that solicited rape?
And if that something were their fear, had they not
every right to be afraid? Were victims to be charged not
only as accomplices, but as sole perpetuators of the
crime, as if the victims of theft should be condemned for
being robbed? If even he, mildly, obediently marshaled
through life by women, if even a male like himself felt
males to be so irredeemably impelled by lust that law