The girl observed as the spider devoured the tiny life, dissolving the soft little body from the inside with poison before sucking out the goodness, the best parts. Shifting position infinitesimally as the angular rock she was sitting on ground against her hip, she brushed a clinging scrap of grey leaf mould from the hem of her satin slip. Immaculate white, it was a garment better suited to the bedroom than a damp spring wood where spiders stalked, worms endlessly churned the loam and silent-winged owls brought unexpected death to small mammals.

Stroking the material, absorbing the slippery fine texture through her fingertips, she breathed the moist air, each exhalation turning to drifting steam in the cool night. Ignoring the goosebumps streaking across her exposed skin, she drew her knees closer to her chin, tenting the satin. An intense black not found in nature, her hair fell in a blunt razor curtain across her cheek, hiding her soft violet eyes, emphasising the line of her jaw and slim neck. Pale against the spotless satin, her skin was dewed by the damp fronds of lush green fern sprouting from the cracks and crannies of her rocky perch.

A slight noise to her back caused her to shrink down, small and tensely frightened as an abandoned fox cub. Realising there was nobody there, no one to blame, judge and incriminate, she nibbled on her nails, brushing a fine strand of hair from her eyes. Stroking the satin hammock between her knees, staring at the pure perfect white, unstained, untainted, she hivered and leaned forward to look over the edge of the yawning precipice at her feet. Sharp-stoned bottom obscured by silver cottony mist, it beckoned to her with silken, gelid whispers.

Smiling distantly, she edged a small stone over the edge with her big toe, listening to it clatter and tumble away into the abyss. She would be absolved, she would be clean. Sometimes as she sat there, watching the night wood cycle through its mysteries of dark soil and moisture, she thought she heard his voice. A harsh voice of implicit viciousness that could just as easily change to cheerful banality for the benefit of others. She shuddered as brutal recollection sank insectile pincers into her carefully constructed calm, tearing it apart piece by fragile piece until she was transported back to the blackest place.

Laughter, loud music and fragrant clouds of marijuana-scented smoke, vodka and wine flowing as freely as the inebriated, careless speech. He is there, smiling so innocuously, so attractive in a black velvet suit. The preening, corseted masses part as he slips through, a full glass in either hand. Courted, flattered by his practised wit and ready compliments, she thinks herself special, shaping her words with fluttering pale hands encased in lace. She accepts the drink he offers, stares deeply into his china blue eyes, welcomes the gentlemanly hand on her elbow and the suggestion they go for a stroll in the nearby woods.

Further away from the house, away from prying eyes and intervention, the trees tangle blackly against the cobalt sky, limbs studded with burgeoning green. Gazing at the sky, she squints at the freckling of stars, blinking uncertainly as they haze and blur. Realising her drink has been spiked, she pulls away, wanting to return to the house. His hand flashes out to connect with her face and she spins like a balsa marionette, falling to the loamy ground with a startled cry.

Flinty, glassy-hard with knowledge of dominion and hate-filled lust, his eyes dart over her shaking, crying form as she holds her mouth, tongue tasting the warm trickle of blood. She looks up at him, terrified, violet eyes bruise-purple with a sudden realisation of what is to follow. If she screams, nobody will hear. They are too far from the house.

She does scream, screams until her lungs burn. She screams, begs, and pleads for him to stop, her cheeks scalded with desperate tears. Rendered motionless with fear, she sobs, her face mashed into the ground, filling her nostrils with the mildewed detritus of the woodland floor. She cannot see, but she can hear her stockings whistle like sliced paper as they are torn, hear the rustle as her skirt is dragged over her head, the cool air prickling her exposed thighs.

Somehow, she turns her head, the delicate filigree of black lace against white satin obscuring her sight, the material dipping and rising over her open mouth as she sucks in breath. He grunts, breath laboured as he spreads her rigid, trembling thighs and turns her universe into a molten temple of pain centred between her legs. When it is finally over, he leaves her there, curled, foetal, defenceless, hurting beyond imagining. She lies there for a long time, in the soil and the filth, paralysed, violated.

The girl rocked back and forth like a disturbed infant, forcing herself into the present moment. She did not glance back at her lace shift and gloves, snarled in a nearby bush, for they were black and all she wanted was her stolen purity. Wiping her tears on the back of her hand, leaving a dark mascara streak, she stood and took two unsteady fawn paces forward to the edge of the precipice. Rolling aside a fist-sized rock with her foot, its angular grey contours smeared with organic redness, she peered into the misty gully, imagining she saw the crumpled mangled form clad in black velvet she knows lies at the bottom. Smiling, she spread her arms wide, a broken angel, and stepped into oblivion to find her perfect white.