This story is one of my early ones. Be warned it has adult content which may be found offensive. It contains voilence and a rape scene. Any comments, constructive criticism or whatever send to kismettg@hotmail.com.

"Hey, stop that. I'm out of here!" Kylie said, climbing out of the car. She had just finished a fairly pure joint and had been laying back enjoying herself in the back seat at the mall car park, when Mikey had tried to make a move on her. "Look I'll smoke stuff with you, but don't get fresh with me."

She slammed the door in his face. Mikey frowned. He'd been sure that things were going well. Rejection never felt nice. Instead of dwelling on it he had another toke on his joint, watching Kylie's firm backside through her jeans as she walked away.

Kylie walked away from the vehicle towards the entrance of the mall. She noticed a gangly looking guy loitering by the entrance. He looked vaguely familiar, 'Stewart or Stew from school?' She thought. She momentarily thought about talking to him but decided she was too ripped for small talk or intelligent conversation. Besides he was only a face, not a friend and school had been years ago. Kylie ignored him as she increased her strides and hoped he didn't recognise her.

Kylie headed into the shopping centre, past the cheap CD stall set up in the middle of the walkway, briefly scanning it for anything of interest. She looked at the clock on the wall. 8.30 PM - an hour until the movie began. 'Shit,' she thought to herself. She couldn't go back to the car on principal, it would look like she was crawling back to him. Mikey was nice but he needed to know who was in control.

The buzz of the marijuana was still with her, making her feel slow and tingly. She needed to do something to pass the time. Getting a hunger attack she moved to the food court and bought some food which she rapidly scoffed down. After eating her fill she roamed around the mall until she noticed that there was a particular shop which seemed to attract her attention, a magic and novelty shop.

Looking at it in her drug distorted state she felt the hairs on her neck rise, a rush along her back as someone walked over her grave. It's like an energy nexus, a focus of change and fantasy in the dull suburban sprawl, which has entrapped us all in its monotonous mundanity. She giggled to herself, at her thoughts which always changed into poetic rubbish when she was stoned. At the time they seemed meaningful and poignant. She had written her thoughts down once when she was stoned and had been surprised at how ridiculously stupid they were.

She was drawn towards the entrance but something about the shop made her wary. Oh shit I'm getting an attack of paranoia. Kylie thought. Paranoia, fear and uncertainty wrapping us in their tight web, then pulling us apart, untangled and exposed, naked to the world. Bugger, there I go rambling again. She walked over the threshold and looked at the wizened and stooped man behind the desk. To her blurry eyes he looked incredibly powerful. She could not dispel the image that he was an immensely huge and powerful man entrapped and contained in the small diminutive form. She expected him to tower ominously over her any second and she kept furtively glancing at him as she looked at the bobbles in his shop.

"May I help you?" He had suddenly appeared right beside her.

Kylie was startled and fought her uneasiness, convinced that it was the drugs that had made him seem to emerge out of thin air. "Um. Well have you got anything to pass the time quicker? I want to waste an hour before a film and..."

"What film are you seeing?" The proprietor asked, subtly sniffing the air. He knew that this young lady had something approaching second sight, even if it had been induced by drugs. Kylie almost fascinated him. So few people could do that nowadays. He wanted to find out more about her.

"We're seeing Romeo and Juliet." She fingered a key ring on a stand as she talked. Even through her drug induced haze she could tell that this old man was odd.

"Terrible film. Bill would have turned over in his grave if he saw it." The old man spoke as though he were very familiar with the pay writes and his works...

"Yeah, well it's that or Batman and Robin," she said with disgust.

"Ah yes, the lesser of two evils." He looked at her, his eyes taking in more than ordinary mortals ever could, calculating and plotting. "I think you should find this suitable," he said cryptically as he handed her an antique watch.

"Sorry?" she could not recall asking for a timepiece.

"To make the time pass more quickly," he explained.

"Oh right." She looked at the face carefully. The glass swam before her eyes and she could make out constellations and cloudy nebula. There was a universe trapped in the glass. She blinked and saw only a simple watch face. Trippy, she thought. "How much?"

"For you? Three dollars, but you have to promise to come and visit me again," he sounded as though he was serious.

Why do I want to buy this piece of rubbish? She thought, but something within her forced her to ignore this. "Deal." Kylie said, pushing her dark hair out of her eyes. She passed her money over to him. She felt a strange flow of energy as he took the money and knew with complete clarity that a binding deal had been struck. "I'll see you later," she said as she drifted hurriedly out the door, putting as much space between her and this peculiar man as possible.

"Or sooner..." he mumbled under his breath as two young men entered the shop. He sized them up and started to make life altering plans for them.

Kylie looked at her new watch which read 9.20 PM. She realised that she had spent more time than she had intended in the shop. The film started in ten minutes. Where had the time gone? She wondered as she walked hastily to Mikey's car, passing the mall clock that read 8.50 PM without even noticing. In her mentally altered state she did not perceive that the watch was not ticking as she slipped it onto her wrist.

* * *

Stuart stood at the exit, watching people pass from the shadows, particularly women. Stuart was a gaunt and viscous predator. He had a cruel, thin mouth, dead, emotionless eyes and a warped and twisted psyche.

He noticed one particularly attractive girl which he had eyed off as she had entered. She was tall, dark and busty with a thin waste and a great arse. She seemed to be agitated and in a hurry, not noticing where she was going. She was glancing at her watch in annoyance and her movements were fast and furtive.

Stuart followed her closely until they reached a dark and secluded part of the car park. As luck would have it she stopped and started to play with her watch, winding it up.

He ran towards her drawing his knife, putting a hand over her mouth and dragging her struggling form backwards into a quiet storage area. He pulled some gaffer tape from his jacket pocket and started to wrap it around her mouth in quick confident movements.

"Stuart stop. I'm-" She managed to say before he completely sealed her mouth.

Shit this bitch knows me, Stuart thought. He taped her hands down. She was weak and seemed to be drugged up on something. He smiled, feeling the firmness of her body through her clothes.

"Yummy," he said. In the darkness he started to cut through her clothes. Her struggling only made things better and Stuart became more and more excited. Her screams were muffled through the tape to almost inaudible grunts.

After Stuart had finished with his victim, he slowly withdrew, holding the knife in front of her pleading eyes. "I'll let you live if you remain quiet when I remove the tape." He had absolutely no intention of letting her live, not just because this woman knew his name, but because killing his victims was the best part. He wanted to play with her mind a little before he killed her.

He slowly pealed off the tape, holding the knife to her throat, savouring the pain on her face as the tape removed some skin.

She started to talk hysterically. "The watch it-" Stuart quickly silenced her by driving the knife into her throat. He watched in sorrow as the animation slowly left her eyes. Within minutes they would become glassy and lifeless. 'I could have tormented her for hours,' he thought morosely. 'Oh well there are always more women in parking lots. Time to get the van, she'll be dead by the time I return.'

His good, though darkly perverted, spirits returned as he searched her body.

She had said something about a watch... He reached to her wrist and removed it. It was an antique and had diamonds at each hour. 'Probably worth at least a hundred dollars once it's melted down and I sell the stones,' he thought to himself. He stood and walked away as he slipped it onto his wrist. Stuart noted that it was a bit fast compared to his watch. He wound it back as he walked out of the alley to his vehicle-

* * *

'Damn watch isn't running,' Kylie thought, winding it.

As Kylie turned the spring on the watch in irritation. The lights dimmed and then brightened in a rapid flicker.'Strange,' she thought as she noted parked cars seem to disappear in a blur of speed and new ones reappear just as rapidly. Kylie shook her head.

'How weird', she thought, 'just like that really sped up film footage that they have on the weather.' She looked down at her new watch. It was ticking slowly and read 9.23. 'Maybe it's the wrong time,' she thought.

As she thought this, Kylie felt a creeping of flesh from her lower back towards her neck. She looked around nervously, a dark sense of forboding growing in her stmoach. She hurried to Mikey's car and tapped urgently on the window. Mikey looked up at her, bloodshot eyes squinting at her through the smoky haze inside.

"Let me in." Mikey opened the door and Kylie climbed inm locking the door and looking out the window fearfully.

"Want some more?" he offered cheerfully, the previous dispute all but forgotten.

"O.K." Anything to calm her nerves. She inhaled deeply on the joint. "I just had the strangest feeling."

"Yeah?" He looked at her inquisitively.

"It was like I was walking towards the car and the lights blurred and I lost something..." she said. 'Time. I lost time. That old guy really is a wizard,' she realised. She looked at the clock on the dashboard it read 9.24 PM, the same as her watch. 'I need a distraction,'she told herself. "Lets go see that film."

"Yeah," Mikey's face split into a stupid grin.

* * *

-and Stewart was suddenly standing in darkness. Someone grabbed him from behind, putting a knife to his throat and a hand over his mouth. He was being dragged backwards. Stuart reached for his knife in its sheath and found it gone. He then tried to struggle but his captor had incredible strength.

He was thrown roughly against the ground and experienced a macabre de ja vu. He looked up and saw his own emaciated face. He heard the familiar sound of tape being drawn out. 'What was happening?' he wondered.

"Stuart wait, I'm y-" The tape sealed his mouth. He looked down in horror at the soft mounds on his chest. Breasts? I have breasts! This can't happen, he thought as his hands were taped painfully together. Stuart's doppelganger groped him, pawed his breasts then placed a hand roughly between his legs. From the sensations he was feeling something down there had changed. My god I'm a woman! He thought as a hand roughly pushed and rubbed his female mound through his jeans.

Stuart realised that somehow he had traded places with a woman, and that he was reliving the experience of his previous violation from the other 'participants' perspective. If that was true then he would kill himself as he always killed the women he assaulted!

Not only that but judging from the clothes he wore, the hair and the watch, he was the woman he had just raped and killed. He tried to remember what had happened, if anything was different from when he had first raped the woman. Last time the woman had said 'Stuart stop. I'm-'. This time he had said 'Stuart wait, I'm y-'. That slight difference meant that he had a chance, that perhaps he was not reliving the rape from the other angle again in exactly the same way.

He had to find a way to escape.

The double held the knife in front of the female Stuart and then began to cut the clothing free. It was most distressing to feel the knife cutting away his clothes and Stuart was finding it increasingly difficult to think up a means to get away. The blade just as often nicked and cut his female flesh as it did the clothing. Stuart also knew with certainty what was about to happen and was not exactly prepared for it. The last of the clothing was cut away from his nether regions, exposing his female genitalia to the cold air.

Stuart looked down in terror as his duplicate pulled his pants down and forcibly entered him. Being female was a big enough shock, but being on the receiving end of a rape was nauseating. He screamed at himself, begging his double to stop, muffled by the taped gag. This just seemed to excite his counterpart even more.

Stuart was too lost in panic for the experience to fully register on his mind. Every time his counterpart pounded into him he thought it was the last. He hoped that it was, then the rape would be over. As his doppelganger withdrew though, Stuart prayed that it wasn't the last thrust as death would surely follow. In a detached corner of his mind he could not decide which was worse, rape or death. He decided that rape was the lesser of the two evils.

'Done,' a voice seemed to say in his mind and he felt a surge of power around him.

After Stuart's twin had finished he held the knife to Stuart's throat. "I'll let you live if you remain quiet when I remove the tape," he said.

Stuart knew what was to follow. Slow torture or rapid death. He decided to try and avert death. "Its a trap-," he whispered fearfully, just as the knife cut his throat.

"I told you not to say anything." Consciousness started to fade from Stuart's mind. He watched like a statue as the duplicate reached down and searched his female body. The duplicate found the antique watch and some grass. Drugged up bitch, the twin thought. Stuart watched in frustration as the doppelganger put on the watch as he walked away and, noticing it was fast, wound it back-

-and Stuart was completely conscious again. A hand grabbed him from behind, as a knife was pressed to his throat. 'Not again...' Stuart thought as he was dragged backwards. He clutched at his breasts to confirm that he was still female.

'You did have a choice- death or rape-sorry if I took you literally, but you do deserve what you're getting,' a merry voice said in his mind.

As gaffer tape was cruelly applied to his mouth, Stuart wondered how many times he would relive this experience. If he never died than it would be a terribly long time. He apprehensively hoped that there was something to the old saying about lying back and enjoying it, otherwise eternity would be a truly terrible experience for him.

* * *

Mikey and Kylie walked through the car park towards the cinemas and, as they passed a dark service area, Kylie paused. She looked down the passage and could have sworn she saw a strange shifting and warping in the darkness at the end of the loading bay. She shook her head and walked on, resolving to visit the old man and thank him for the watch.

'Maybe if the film is as bad as the old sorcerer said it is, I could distract myself with Mikey,' Kylie thought to herself, trying to dismiss what she thought she had just seen at the end of the alley.

The film turned out to be a shit-house.

End.