AN INCIDENT IN VIETNAM

During the War in Vietnam, all sorts of "incidents" took place; women were shot, stabbed, beheaded, blown up, burned alive, tortured, and killed in all manner of odd ways. A form of erotic killing was so common that American soldiers invented a term, "Double Veteran," to describe a man who'd had the experience of raping and then killing a woman. Most of them were hardly "consensual" in any sense, and therefore they succeed only in making me angry, not in arousing me.

But there are a few.

In some cases there was at least a certain acceptance. One reported from the infamous My Lai Massacre tells of a woman who, believing that allowing the Americans to vent their rage on her would save her family (she was right), knelt down and permitted the soldiers to behead her. In another, a film is supposed to exist of several men raping and killing, with their knives, an unresisting young woman; she isn't resisting because they have threatened to kill her infant unless she does as they ask.

There are some from the other side, too. What follows is a somewhat modified dramatization of an incident reported after the war by a Viet Cong commando.

It had taken some considerable effort, and more than a little luck, but as I glanced around at the cells, I realized I was in the women's section of the prison. Since this area was reserved for those who had "cooperated" - regardless of how that cooperation had been achieved - the living conditions her were far better, and the security less tight. As I went down the line, glancing into the cells, I encountered no one, no problems at all. The girls in the cells glanced up at me as I went past, but I had not yet seen the face I was looking for.

And when I did, I almost walked on past; I didn't even recognize her at first.

I stopped, backed up; a startlingly pretty girl of about nineteen looked up at me. "Thieu Tai Tao?" I asked in a low voice.

Her large liquid eyes flashed down for a moment, then back. "You are from Central?" she asked.

"Yes. I've come to take you out of here. Do you know why?"

"Yes, of course. You have a key?"

"No," I said, looking around furtively as I packed a light charge of plastics into the lock. "This will do it."

"But the noise - !"

"Stand back!" I told her, and lit it. It was special stuff; it only made a pop, and the lock fell apart.

In an instant she was out of the cell. I looked her over; she looked, if anything, even better than she had when I'd last seen her, some two years previous, when she'd been sent into the city undercover - and had been almost immediately captured. But her wide, classic face was unmarked, her hair long and lustrous, her slim body - as much of it as I could see given the gray tunic and pants she wore - looked to be in excellent condition.

"They have subtle means of torture, you know," she told me. "Do you have a weapon for me?"

I watched her for a moment, then handed her a bayonet. She looked over the heavy steel blade, slipped her finger through the ring, and smiled.

"Let's go!" she said, and started off down the hall. "I know the place well!"

I followed her, and she did indeed seem to know exactly what she was doing. But when we got near the exit, there was a guard; he hadn't been there before, and he was a real problem.

"I think I can handle him!" she said. Deftly, she tied a loop of her hair through the ring of the bayonet, dropped in down the back of her blouse. Then, boldly, she walked out toward the guard.

He heard her footsteps, turned to face her, his rifle up. "Tao," he said, "Why are you - "

"They trust me now," she purred, standing in front of him. "And I wanted to come see you! I know how lonely guard duty can get - "

He looked a little puzzled, but she started pushing her pants down over her hips and his expression went to a broad grin. He pulled his own pants down, and he was already becoming erect. She suggested he sit, and she came atop him. I started sneaking up behind, but I couldn't help staring at her legs and hips; they were very beautiful, long, muscular, and shapely. I saw her position herself over him, saw her guide his erection into herself.

When I was close enough, I dropped a wire noose over his head, pulled it tight around his neck. Tao was screwing him vigorously, and she didn't bother to get off; she whipped the bayonet from her shirt and thrust it into his neck, just under my wire. His blood spurted out, wetting her thighs with red; she cut sideways, and he collapsed.

"Let's go!" I snapped, taking my wire off and letting the corpse down silently.

"Wait - " she said, "he's coming - " She touched his face. "Might as well let him have that," she said as she stood up. His semen dripped from between her legs. "I think we're clear now," she told me, jerking at her pants. She couldn't get them on quickly and, after an instant, she tossed them aside casually and, nude below her waist, went on without them.

And she was quite right; no one else saw us as we left the prison compound. The door the guard had been posted at let us out on the street, and, keeping to the shadows, we crept through mostly silent roadways. I wasn't sure where she was taking me, but at last we reached a park of some sort, and she stopped there.

I glanced up, could still see the city lights. "Not far enough - " I said.

"It will be all right," she told me, playing with the bayonet. "You can trust me."

I looked back at her open, innocent face. "I asked you before - you know why I'm here?"

"I told you before - yes."

"You gave up five of our operatives."

"Yes. They tortured me, I broke. I would not have under the threat of death. But they made the pain go on for days - "

"I understand. But - what should your penalty be? What do you deserve?"

She smiled. "What you are here to give me. Death."

I hesitated. "I would spare you if I could, but - "

"You cannot. Carry out your mission!" she told me firmly. She handed me the bayonet, and stripped her shirt off in one smooth motion. Her breasts were exceptional, high and firm, her nipples small but delicately formed.

"We are too close - your cries - "

"I will not give you away," she declared, and stepped close to me. "Do what you have to do!"

I put my left arm around her bare shoulders, pulled her even closer, like a lover. She leaned against me, rested her head on my shoulder. Then she closed her eyes.

For a moment, I did nothing. Her eyes opened again, and she looked up into my face. "Carry out your mission!" she repeated, in a firm whisper.

I let my eyes wander from her luminous dark eyes to the steel point of the bayonet, then to her breasts; her little nipples were getting erect, standing out like the tips of bullets. Then back to her eyes. There was an expectancy there, and invitation; and a calm acceptance.

My arm surged forward; as it did, I looked back down at her breasts, at her nipples.

And the bayonet struck her beautiful chest, just under one of those nipples. There was a thud followed by a ripping sound, and I saw the steel sink into her flesh. It was not too deeply in, and I shoved hard, holding her back with my arm. There was another sound like tearing cloth as the blade sank deeper, and her blood started welling out around the steel.

Her head was pressed tightly against my shoulder, her eyes tightly closed now, but her mouth open in a silent scream. I slammed the bayonet on into her chest, driving it so deeply that only an inch of blade remained exposed. The blood erupted now, streaming down her chest and stomach. But she hadn't made a sound, not even a grunt.

I let her down to the ground, leaving the bayonet imbedded in her chest. "Uh! Uh! - !" she grunted, as the blade moved a little inside her. But it was a tiny sound. I knelt beside her, and she looked back up at me; blood was still surging out around the blade, and it bubbled on her lips.

Weakly, she laid her hands on my arms. "Well done," she said in a low, strained voice. "I am dying - as it should be - there is much pain - "

"I know," I told her, wrapping my fingers around the handle of the bayonet. I pressed my left palm against her breast and rather slowly pulled the blade out of her.

As it came free, her blood literally sprayed. She rolled her head over, her eyes wide. "I - accept - the - jud - " she managed. Then she went limp, her beautiful eyes open and staring.

I wiped the blade on her discarded shirt and left. My mission was complete.