"Oh my Jesus Christ," he said.

His wife was lying naked on top of the bed. Her ankles were bound together with clothesline and so were her knees. Her hands were tied behind her back. Three loops of clothesline pinned her upper arms against her body. Her underpants had been wadded tightly and wedged into her mouth. One leg of her panty hose had been ripped off and used to hold the gag in place. The length of tan nylon was very thin where it held the wadded cloth in her mouth, and wider at the corners of her mouth and across her cheeks to where it had been knotted behind her neck. Her eyes were wide and tearful but she looked more angry than frightened. On her stomach, just above the line of her pubic hair, someone had scratched AK with a sharp point. The scratches were shallow. The gag forced her mouth slightly open, and Newman noticed that the wadded underpants had a floral pattern.

She groaned at him again, insistently, and her eyes were as wide as she could make them. She shrugged her body angrily on the bed. For a moment he stood soundless and without motion. The panic that flooded over him gave way to an urge to rape her. There she was. Miss. Complete Control, absolutely helpless for the first time since he'd known her. She couldn't turn away. She couldn't even talk. The two impulses flushed his face and paralyzed him for a moment. Then he thought of who might have done it. AK. He reached behind the bedroom door and took the double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun he always kept there. From the ledge above the door he took two shells, broke the shotgun, put in the shells, and snapped the gun closed.

She made a series of grunting sounds at him through the gag. He cocked both hammers. Holding the shotgun in his right hand he sat on the edge of the bed and, with his left hand, he fumbled the length of panty hose from her mouth, slipping it down over her chin. He took the gag from her mouth. It was soaked with saliva. He kept his eyes on the door.