She is halfway through when he steps out from behind a bush in front of her. Here in the trees it is darker than the street, but light enough still to see that he is confident and smiling as he steps up to her.

"Hola," she says, with a tiny false smile, hoping he will leave her alone, and she goes to move around him.

But he steps to the side with her.

"You are so beautiful," he says. Still smiling, he is breathing very hard. He makes some motion with his head that makes her look down and she sees that he has let himself out of his pants.

"No, por favor," she says. She repeats it. "Por favor."

And always smiling, though his eyes are deadly cold, he moves quickly now, both hands at her waist, pulling her toward him, holding her against him.

"Don't fight," he rasps out. "Don't fight me. I'll kill you."

She struggles and he slaps her face hard, never letting go of her dress with his other hand. He now grabs her by the throat with the one free hand he'd slapped her with. Up against her, he pushes her back and back until she falls and then he is on top of her, holding her throat, opening her legs under him, forcing himself against and against and against and finally inside her and she screams out and he covers her mouth with one hand and tells her again that he will kill her and she believes him with all her heart. And she takes it in silence.

And then it is over and he stands up and smiles down at her, tucking himself in, and tells her that he likes her shoes and he's glad that she kept them on for him-that was sexy, he says, the fact that she couldn't even wait to take them off she wanted it so bad-and then he tells her that he will see her around and maybe they will do this again. Her coffee had gone cold. She'd been sitting here now for twenty-five minutes. Outside, the fog advanced in bleary wisps.

If he was waiting for her, he would be very cold by now. She would wrap her coat up tightly and walk by at the end of the block to see if he was still there, and if he was, she would keep going and decide where she would hide.