They'd come to our village by storm before dawn - we were helpless - fishermen and shopkeepers mostly... they slaughtered everyone - my father's throat was slit - my mother stabbed deep in the breast - my brother William hunted down and simply slain - this I witnessed - my brother Edward, I don't know - he was always good at hide-and-seek - I hope that childhood game placed him in safe keeping...

As for me, I was carried away with 24 or 25 other young girls - some of them barely out of diapers - and we were divided amongst the seven ships.

Us three, we laid in a kinda shed in the middle - Bertha, who I knew quite well - she was two years older than I - and a small girl, maybe six years old, who I knew was the pharmacist's daughter... we hugged each other for security.

Once out in the open sea, a man ducked in, plucked Bertha's hand, and off she went, as if pulled by the torrent - she screamed, I heard, above the waves, as the men raped her... over and over again - like the raging lulling of the sea itself...

She was thrown back in to us, quite unconscious. I tended to her wounded privates, and bleeding torn nipples, and the sticky stuff seemingly all over her body, with a dirty rag and the little water they'd allotted us - she slept soundly for almost two whole days straight... lucky her, I thought - the nightmare was still ahead for me, and I became seasick and retched into our bucket over and over...

I'm good at picking up languages - I'd learned enough French from the concubine at the bakery to talk to her in complete sentences within weeks - and though it was mostly yelled orders I heard in this unfamiliar tongue - I found similarities between it and English - so I could decipher their meanings...

"They're not coming for you, no, no" - I could honestly soothe Bertha with...

Me, and the little one, they left alone - but Bertha was to be their conquest one more time - about eight days into our journey... she told me there were twenty of them - they stank like rats - and many of them 'came' just as, or before, they were to enter her.

I accepted my fate - though fate hadn't shown its ugly head.

It was just after her second rape, that I grew too sick from the bucket of our piss and shit and my bile, that I took the bucket up and went outside, to cast its contents over the side - like some chore at home - the men were not amused by my presence - and him I took for the captain of the ship - looked at me sternly, but didn't touch me - as I cast the shit overboard...

He even, in a way, protected me from the others - as I quickly ducked back in to our cavern.

I'd seen we were all sailing fast - all seven boats... and there were shouts between them - hailing Kong - which I figured-out meant King - and I, by odd questions to our occasional host, who was an old hunchbacked toothless fool - that the King had chosen me and little Lucinda - that he had been wounded in the battle, but raced along, alive, on the larger ship next to ours.

Once land was spotted, I was able to cheer-up the girls, even Bertha - though she was ghostly white, ready to succumb at any moment.

She died as we reached land - her head in my lap.

I couldn't walk - I couldn't find-out how to walk. One of the burly men took me up in his thick arms and carried me across the wide beach - I passed-out in his arms...

I slept for two days - I woke-up after sunrise that first, but pretended to be sleeping - and they let me go.

"The King is now better" - It was strange how I now understood them - this an older woman who addressed me - and she led me out - there was a huge fire - the heathens were still celebrating their conquest - dancing around a fire - eating roasted meat - I stood there before god and almighty in my tattered chemise - squinting around to see what I had fallen into.

It appears the king - no doubt him - in the middle of this debacle - was healing from a deep wound to his shoulder - I was ushered to sit beside him - I was still sea-sick - I hadn't forgotten the trip.

He was drunk - he handed me the flask - it tasted of pure honey - he clapped me on the shoulder once - pleased look in his eyes - I feigned death, which he understood - and had me carried away to my dungeon...

I couldn't sleep, that other night, and, though the old woman sat next to me, I crawled about and lifted the flap so I could see the goings-ons - some magnificent party - dancing and yelling and singing, around a huge fire - beasts -

When they are done celebrating, I said to myself, I must confront this 'king'.

I was kept in the dungeon for thirty days, I think - may have been forty - I was no longer allowed to sweep open the flap - I was held down there, by this old, stinky woman, so that I was continually prostrate for all these days... torture to a child...

When I finally rose, and opened the curtain, there stood before me the King of these people - muscular, a bitter dream floating through his light blue eyes - a reckless, unkempt grayed beard - a huge man...

"I will never tame you, wild beast - I only wish to entertain you."

"Fuck you! - Fuck what you've done to my family! - Fuck you!"

He was amused by me, and I became lost in that - this beast, this shaman - it's like he wanted to replace my father - not my father exactly, but someone to which I could enter the fold... and I was mesmerized I admit - I knew I was going to be raped - I knew that this was the king of all people - I was a simple sacrifice... I knew that my short life would end soon... and I didn't care - all feeling had dropped from my body...

The next night the revelry began again - they loved their singing and brawling and shouting - their drink - and they laughed all the time... and ten of us girls were lined-up - I believe I was the oldest at this point - the rest of us had died from their mistreatment... I'd been given a well-tanned skin to wrap around me - and I oddly had no fear - I was ready to die, the sooner the better...

We were ushered to various places around the huge fire - I was sat next to the king. The old woman handed me a small scrawny mushroom - glistening with having been scrubbed - she motioned for me to take it in my mouth - which I did - such an awful taste - chew it, she mimicked - and I did - she handed me a bottle of their liquor, which I drank from, to get the awfulness down - then handed me a skin-bottle of water - which I eagerly chugged. I ate eight of these mushrooms in succession - following the same ritual of drink afterwards. I felt bloated, and my head was reeling - I looked at my hand while I lay there - I'd lain down - and there were colors shooting out from my fingers... I even laughed...

The woman helped me on to my feet - though I couldn't really stand - there were no legs there, just ghosts of legs... I'd drunk so much fluid that I desperately needed to pee - and I tried to communicate this need, but was getting nowhere. It's then, the king pulled the skin from around my shoulders - he pulled down my dank panties - I was cold and shivering - this is it, I thought - but he did the strangest thing, and simply glued his hairy mouth over my bare privates -

I was panicky - I tried to shove away from the old woman's firm grasp - then it happened - I began to pee directly into this king's mouth... I was struggling against the woman's and man's hold, but nothing could be done - and the king drank it all, all my piss - as if it were precious - licking...

I was then laid back down, beside him - the skin laid over me - I probably slept, I'm not sure - I fought against it, but my body felt exquisite - my mind raced toward pleasure at every turn - I wasn't sleeping, but it was like a dream...

And as I laid there I could tell the party picked-up - something beyond intoxication - laughter and serious discussion becoming one. I thought back to the king's mouth on my privates, and I smiled.