Time passed without any kind of reckoning, as Beth stood mesmerized by the sight of her home so far from her reach. Any notions of escape died in that immeasurable moment. She would die here, her captor beyond the reach of authorities. Her parents and friends would never know what happened — no one would — until some dim unimaginable future when her body was found floating in orbit.

    A soft tap behind alerted her. Turning, she saw the creature that was the master of this ship. The yellow eyes — those she remembered quite well — but the rest registered for the first time. The humanoid formed an almost perfect parody of a weight lifter's physique. Broad shouldered, thick necked, square chinned and boasting a defined six-pack of muscles on his stomach. Two of everything a human had two of, but there the similarities muddied. His skin was mottled, like a giraffe, with light and dark patches. As Beth watched the patches lost the blue, gray, and green cast and became shades of tan and beige. The mottling made identifying facial characteristics difficult, but she noticed he had no hair on his head — or anywhere else, for that matter. He stood naked, one hand playing with the inset monitors, the other holding a weapon upon her. He glanced from her to the controls and back.

    Beth averted her eyes, but not before noticing the differences in his anatomy that had prevented her elbow shot to his groin from any response save a laugh. A ridge of bone had blocked her blow but what it protected appeared human — all too human in shape and surmised function. It twitched as if he could feel her regard.

    Her captor grunted and gestured. He spoke a rapid sentence in another language.

    She looked up at his face. A very human one, beyond the odd variegated coloring, looked back at her.

    He repeated the same words.

    “I don't understand.”

    He stopped fiddling with the controls and reached out, faster than Beth could believe, to slap her, knocking her from her feet. He said a single word and gestured.

    This time she understood. Stand. She clambered to her feet and stood where he pointed. He repeated the first sentence. For the life of her, there was no clue as to what he expected and she shrugged, trying to appear compliant but confused. He delivered another ringing slap, which sent her to her knees. He repeated the stand order, but as she drew her feet beneath her, Beth jumped to a decision.

    Tucking herself tightly, she uncoiled to drive her head into the creature's stomach. The sound of his oomph at the impact encouraged her. She snatched the weapon from his loose fingers and turned it toward him. The grip was the same as a pistol, but she had to stretch her finger to reach what she hoped was the trigger.

    The creature grabbed the console for support. Too late Beth saw his smile, and the floor fell away from her feet. She flailed, trying to find down, and kicked the wall. She tumbled toward the window in a leisurely somersault. One part of her mind understood that he had nullified gravity and she was weightless. The same part noticed that her captor was still standing, apparently unaffected by whatever he had changed. The rest of her mind fixated on the looming window, suddenly realizing there was no glass or other solid substance between the bay and space. She didn't know whether the technology that kept the air in would keep her in as well.

    The creature plucked the weapon from her nerveless hand. The tiny tug halted the headlong tumble and she drifted. Every involuntary twitch changed her illusion of balance and she concentrated on being still. A glittering droplet floated before her face, reflecting back a miniature of her white face in its surface. A tear had broken free from her cheek. She hadn't noticed that she'd been crying.

    Long hard fingers encircled her calf.

    “No!” she whispered, but he completed the motion and sent her wheeling across the hanger. She warded off the wall, but the rebound sent her back toward the gaping port. Dimly, she heard harsh cries from her lips. Her hand entered the barrier; a slippery gel-like substance engulfed and chilled it. A grip on the back of her jacket stopped forward motion and she arched, drawing back from the too close vacuum of space. The creature gave her a little spin, stopped her turn as she faced him and then pushed until she could feel the barrier on her neck like greasy whipped cream. Her captor lifted a tear from her cheek and examined it. He tasted the drop and made a sound of pleased surprise. Beth closed her eyes as he licked the rest of the salty wetness from her face. He tapped her forehead with one finger and she looked at him.

    He gazed into her eyes and whispered the same sequence of words as before, and fingered the zipper on her jacket. Inching it down, he repeated the words one more time.

    'Oh that!' she thought with relief at her understanding and horror for the same. More tears spilled as her trembling hands found the zipper and finished the job.

    He laughed at her efforts to strip while weightless and, finally, restored gravity when Beth had succeeded. She huddled on the floor, grateful to have down, once taken-for-granted but never again, returned. At the word, she stood where he pointed.

    “Yeter,” he said, patting his chest. “Uman.” Pointing to her. She nodded, hoping that it was the right thing to do. The Yeter touched a spot on her leg. A dark purple bruise marred the honey gold of her skin. She winced. He poked again with a chuckle for her discomfort. When she would have closed her eyes, he chucked under her chin.

    The Yeter ran his hands down her arms, examining how the tiny hairs stood up when her skin goose-bumped, and back up her sides. He cupped her breasts and whispered something as the nipples hardened. He used her long hair as a handle to draw back her head. He smelled her neck and ears before licking them. Another difference. His tongue was long and smooth in a mouth with narrow lips and a solid bridge of teeth. Bright white and even, except for two small fang-like incisors upper and lower, which broke the skin on her shoulder when he bit down. Four little pin-points of blood welled up and he licked those away too. He caressed roughly from her breast to her rump, pulling her tightly against his groin. She cringed but his grip in her hair and on her ass held firm.

    Beth felt the hard bulge as he rubbed against her. She heard herself whimpering, a little no-no-no. The Yeter growled and lifted her to the tabletop. She kicked at his face but his hand, long fingered and strong, locked her ankles together in one grip. He prodded her feminine folds with the other. Pain, fresh and galvanizing, shot through her as his fingers parted her roughly. Fisting her hand, she twisted and punched at his jaw, connecting with a crunch. The creature howled and released her legs. Beth rolled from the console and stumbled toward the other cabin.

    She felt the air movement as his hand missed grabbing her. She lashed out with her bare foot and struck his stomach with her heel. He doubled over, but grabbed her ankle and dragged her back. One more kick — at his crotch, and then his knuckles hit the side of her face. Stars whirled in her vision… How comic book — she thought — as the floor rushed up to meet her. Dazed and in more pain than she had ever been, she found no will to continue the fight. He left her face down, kicked her legs apart, and knelt between her knees.

    He lifted her by the hips and forced his way in. Another difference, she thought, wishing to be more unconscious. His penis didn't feel the right shape. The groin plate pummeled her inner thighs. He apparently found nothing missing, judging by his rapid breathing and ecstatic groans. He lifted her upright, and the fit felt better. His hands covered her belly and breast, his teeth broke her skin, and the hunter claimed his trophy.

    “Seba,” he whispered after his spasms stopped. “You smell like sex.”

    English. He did speak it, but he covered her mouth when she tried to talk back.

    “Shhh. I will talk. You will listen.” His fingers stroked her cheek, but the palm stayed over her lips. “You wish to live through this?”

    She nodded.

    “Good. Obedience and silence, unless I order otherwise.”

    She nodded. The Yeter withdrew and pushed her onto her back on the floor. He uttered one word and pointed. She stayed.

    Beth had heard of living in fear, but no one had ever told her that fear isn't the same as being afraid. The constant terror dulled into a cramp-like ache, flaring into knife-sharp fear whenever the hunter desired. And he desired it frequently. Her breathless panic amused him endlessly. He would halt the ship's gyro and send her in a weightless pinwheel across the open-space hanger bay. Each time she vowed not to scream. Each time she steeled herself against the begging words. Each time she failed.

    “Stop… Please.” Her voice trembled as she sought some anchor with her reaching hands to halt her tumble toward the hard vacuum a few yards away.

    “Do you beg?” he asked with a laugh for her whimpering.

    “I beg.” She fought the words but they slipped out so easily.

    “For what do you beg?” The actual lines sometimes varied but their meaning — and outcome — stayed the same.

    There were tortures worse than rape. Begging for it topped Beth's list. Sometimes he wanted her to beg, sometimes to fight, sometimes to submit, and sometimes a combination of all three.

    “Fight me,” he might say.

    Beth would use the martial arts training she had once considered her silver bullet against the dangers a modern woman faces. Her captor laughed as she faltered in her resistance. A casual slap, which set her ears ringing, would send her rolling across the floor where, if she failed to regain her feet fast enough, he kicked at her with his magnetic soled ship-shoes.

    The bruises on her body ran the gamut from blue-black to orange-green. None ever faded completely before his pinches would freshen them. Pain buttons, he called them. He used them to cause her to flinch and cry. He would lick away her tears like some rare exotic delicacy.

    The bruises on her inner thighs were renewed continuously. She fought his advances until he, another species but entirely male, buried himself completely, holding her arms captive with his long sleek fingers. Only then was it permissible to submit and allow her mind to escape.

    He would usually finish quickly, and then return to his maps and hunting plans. This time, he halted in his thrusting and whispered in her ear. Always a bad sign, the altering of his routine warned her of his imaginative mind working to devise another way to shame her.

    “Seba.” He'd renamed her, never asking her real name, never giving his own. “Open your eyes.”

    She obeyed… She always obeyed; the part of her that rebelled had burrowed deeply, waiting for an opportunity to escape.

    “Move under me.”

    “What?” she asked, confused by the new game. He filled her mouth with his tongue — not a kiss — to forcibly silence her. The only words he wanted were the begging ones, or her unintelligible syllables of fear.

    “Like Uman females move in the videos.”

    He'd murdered a porn shop proprietor, prior to abducting her, and stolen some movies. He'd watched them as if studying the behaviors of some lower species — the Jane Goodall of the Yeter.

    She shook her head, decisively. He wrapped his fingers around her neck, chuckling, as he always did, at her little fit of insurgence. The gray starry haze of oxygen deprivation set in rapidly.

    A fate worse than death, better off dead, death before dishonor — she could list all the empty platitudes but knew she would always chose life over death. Living in any form had to be better than dying. Alive, things could improve. Dead, there could be no change.