This is a story. It never happened and never will, not even the parts that aren't magic. The General Disclaimer is incorporated herein by reference.

"What kind of party can I have for my birthday?" Ainsley Bierlen asked her mother. "I want a party with all kinds of decorations! And all kinds of guests! And all kinds of games!" she exclaimed, while picturing the amazing party in her mind. "More than Heidi had at hers, at least." Heidi, a girl in Ainsley's class at school, though not exactly a friend, had just had her sixth birthday, with a fabulous party, and Ainsley naturally wanted to top Heidi with her own sixth birthday party next month.

"Let's go up to the attic and see what we can find," her mother suggested, knowing that poor farmers on the edge of the Black Forest couldn't afford a really lavish party, certainly nothing like the mayor's daughter, but hoping she could find something to distract the little girl from such dreams. With that in mind, she took Ainsley's hand and led her up the stairs and into the attic. They explored it together at first, a veritable treasure trove (or a veritable trash heap, some might say) of unusual (and mostly unused) items, but Ainsley soon grew bored of the type of items her mother stopped to examine, and went off on her own.

"What's in here?" Ainsley asked, while brushing the dust off a large wooden chest with ornate metal clasps. "It looks old, but new, too."

Her mother, busy examining other items on the other side of the attic, answered without looking. "I don't rightly remember everything that's up here, darling. Open it up and see."

Ainsley flipped the clasps open and lifted the lid. It opened much easier than she expected of such a heavy chest. "Oh my!" she exclaimed, lifting out the chest's only contents. "What a pretty cloak!! It looks like it's my size, too!"

Her mother turned. Her face went pale. "Oh my," she shuddered. "It is your size, Ainsley. It probably fits you perfectly. I haven't worn that cloak since..." She didn't finish her sentence.

"Oh? Was this your cloak? Did you used to wear it, Mamma?" Ainsley asked. "Can I put it on? Can I have it?? Please!?" she begged.

"Oh my," she shuddered again. "You sound just like I did when I found it. And I probably feel just like your gramma did when she saw me holding it and asking for it. Yes, I used to wear it, darling. So did my mamma, and so did her mamma, and on back since before anyone can remember or figure. Yes, you can have it, Ainsley. I suppose it was fated to happen sooner or later. It always does. I couldn't stop you no matter how much I wanted to. I used to think that cloak was magic, and sometimes I still wonder. It never seems to fade or get torn or stained."

"Magic!!" Ainsley cheered as she flipped the cloak over her shoulders and wrapped it around herself, leaving the cloak's hood loosely hanging down in back. She could put the hood up some other time. She slid her hand under her soft wavy brown hair in back, pulled it out of the cloak, and let it hang down, halfway down her back. The cloak came down to her mid-thigh, covering her dress while leaving her slender legs showing. "Am I invisible, Mamma?" she asked hopefully.

Her mother didn't answer.

Ainsley removed the cloak and held it out to look at it again. "Did it make me invisible, Mamma?" she repeated.

"No, darling. It makes you silent, so no one can hear you."

Ainsley thought that could be useful, but realised it wouldn't be possible to hide while wearing such a bright color. "I've never seen a cloak like this one, Mamma. What kind is it? And what are these strings for?"

"My mamma told me to call it a 'riding hood' because we can't call it what it is, and 'riding' is close enough," her mother answered reluctantly. "Put it away for now, Ainsley. You can wear it when we... I mean, when you go to visit Gramma later this week. It's time for you to start making the trips yourself."

The next day, the two stood in the kitchen together, Ainsley in her new - well, very old, but definitely new-looking - red cloak. Her eyes shone as she thought of showing her grandmother her new pretty cloak. She meant to ask her about the strings, since her mother hadn't answered. The five-year-old, just shy of six, looked as radiantly beautiful as she always did. In contrast, in a wrinkled nightdress and tangled hair, the woman beside her looked like she hadn't slept all night.

"But why aren't you coming with me, Mamma?" Ainsley asked, confused. She picked up the basket of food her mother always packed for her grandmother every week. Ainsley wondered if her mother was sick. She hadn't even dressed for the trip.

"Not this time, and not anymore, darling. Now that you've found the riding hood, I can't go with you anymore, no matter how much I might want to. You know the way there. You're not afraid of the old forest, or big bad wolves, are you?"

"No, Mamma," Ainsley said proudly. "I know the way, and I know the Hunters keep the wolves away so nothing will hurt me there."

"That's right, darling, the Hunters keep the wolves away," the woman said. She turned away to keep from commenting on the rest. "Off you go, now," she said, without turning back. When the door closed, she turned and stared at it, trembling. 'Be careful,' she whispered, despite knowing it wouldn't help.

She moved to gaze out the window at her departing daughter. 'Apparently, you're the hunter's game now, since you found the cloak just like I did, just when it fit you, just like Mamma warned me you would. It never seems to get lost, either.'

Ainsley knew the way to her grandmother's house, just as she'd said, and it wasn't a very long walk, even for a five-year-old girl carrying a basket of food. She crossed the bridge over the river, and stood at the edge of the woods, hesitating. Although she had lived in sight of the woods all her life, this was, after all, the first time Ainsley had gone through the woods without her mother, or gone so far from home by herself, either. She drew a breath, pulled the hood of the cloak up over her head, and bravely crossed under the first tree and into the shadows.

She followed the path, as she had done countless times with her mother, and soon arrived at the huge tree marking the turn, at the halfway point. She had turned to go left, toward her grandmother's house, when a man of about thirty years stepped out of the woods onto the path. She recognised him, having seen him several times at the market in town. "Hi, Mr. Hunter," she greeted him.

"What a beauty," he smiled. "I saw you walking through the woods. That's a very pretty cloak. And very uncommon. My pappa told me I'd see a cloak like that someday."

"It's a riding hood, Mamma said. I'm going to Gramma's house," Ainsley told him. "You are a hunter, right?"

"I've been looking forward to this for a long time," he said, ignoring her question. "Let me get a look at you. Put down the basket." He approached her, knelt in front of her, and reached out. He lifted her dress. "Hold this up here," he demanded, putting the hem of her dress into her hands, then pushing her hands up by her neck. He slid her panties down to her ankles. "Lift your feet for me," he demanded. "Left foot. Now the right foot."

Ainsley didn't know what he was doing, or why, but she obeyed. He pulled her panties the rest of the way off, with her assistance. She stood holding her dress up at her neck and lifted her feet one at a time for him.

"Stay like that a minute. I'll see you on your way back," he teased, and quickly strode away.

"Hey! Come back with my panties!" Ainsley called to him. "I'll tell!!" she yelled just before he disappeared into the woods, but he didn't reply and she didn't even move to pursue him, much as she wanted to.

A minute after he left, Ainsley gasped, blushed almost as red as her cloak, lowered her dress, picked up the basket, and ran away, down the path.

Ainsley entered her grandmother's house and put down the basket of food. The old woman, upon seeing the bright red cloak Ainsley wore, sat down quickly and stared. "Oh my," is all she said.

Ainsley immediately told, as she'd said she would. "Gramma, a hunter in the woods took my panties." Her grandmother didn't reply. "Gramma, look," she said, lifting her dress. "A hunter took my panties!'

Her grandmother sighed, reached out, and helped Ainsley out of the cloak, then gently smoothed it out and neatly folded it on her lap. "You met a 'big bad wolf' and you should never say anything else about it. If you try, no one will hear, and even if you ever got someone to hear, it would only cause trouble. You have to go now, dear. Tell your mamma that you spent all day playing here."

"What? Why?" Ainsley asked, confused. "I've only just got here. And how could I tell her I spent all day playing here? If I go now, it'll still be early morning when I get home."

'No, it won't, dear,' the woman thought. "Just remember to tell your mamma that you spent all day playing here, so she won't worry. If she asks me, that's what I'll say." She unfolded the cloak and helped Ainsley put it on.

The elderly woman suddenly shuddered, surprised at her own words. That's what her gramma had told her mamma, two generations ago, she realised, when she had come home from the woods screaming and bawling and trying to tell her mamma what had happened to her. That's what her mamma had told her, a generation ago, when her lovely six-year-old daughter came home from the woods, silent but obviously crying, wearing the same bright red cloak Ainsley now wore. She realised her daughter would pretend to believe her now, as she had pretended to believe her mother's lie, and her mother had pretended to believe her grandmother's.

"Why would she worry?" Ainsley asked.

The old woman didn't reply. 'Be careful,' she whispered when Ainsley had gone, despite knowing it wouldn't help. With the effort of age, she stood to gaze out the window at her departing granddaughter. 'Apparently, you're the hunter's game now, my poor little Ainsley, since you found the riding hood just like your mamma and I did, just when it fit you, just like I warned Adelaide you would. I wish I had burned it like I tried so hard to do.' She looked at the basket of food, fresh and enticing as always, but she had lost her appetite.

Still more than a little confused and annoyed, Ainsley entered the woods again. She pulled the beautiful little red riding hood closer around her beautiful little shoulders and lifted the hood up over her beautiful brown hair, framing her beautiful face without hindering her view, nor the view of her. She followed the familiar path to get home from her grandmother's house, as she had done countless times with her mother, but never before on her own.

As she approached the tree marking the right turn toward her home, a man stepped out of the forest and onto the path in front of her. "You're the man who took my panties!" Ainsley scolded. "Give me my panties back right now!"

The man made no reply to her accusation or to her demand, and merely said "Stop there."

Ainsley stopped. The look on his face frightened her despite his smile, perhaps even because of it. She thought of trying to run past him, but she wanted her panties back, first, she told herself. She took not a single step as the man strode up to her and moved behind her. Ainsley turned to face him. "Give me my panties!" she repeated.

"Don't turn around," he demanded. She stopped turning and looked forward instead. She felt him tug her little hood down until it covered her eyes. A cord sewn into the hem of the hood pulled tight across her nose, tightened even more, and tugged a few times as he tied the cord off behind her head, to a loop on the back of the hood.

Ainsley couldn't see anything. "What are you doing?" she asked him, but her own action surprised her more: what was she doing, letting him pull the hood down and tie it? Why didn't she run away?

"Get your arms back here, behind your back," he demanded. Ainsley obeyed without hesitation. A cord sewn into the end of the sleeve pulled tight around her left wrist. He bent her left arm up at an angle and tied the other ends of the wrist cord to a loop at the back of her right sleeve, halfway between her right elbow and shoulder.

Ainsley squirmed, and found her left arm pinned in place. "What are you doing?" she asked again.

A cord sewn into the end of the right sleeve pulled tight around her right wrist, tightened further until Ainsley whimpered, then forced her right arm up at an angle to match her left arm. The hunter tied the cord to a loop on the back of her left sleeve. He pulled out the ends of cords sewn into the upper sleeves, around her upper arms, just below her shoulders, pulled them as tight as he could, and tied them off in bows.

Ainsley squirmed again, trying to pull her arms free, without success. She tried to run away, even though she couldn't have seen where she was going, and now couldn't have removed the hood. Instead she stood where she was, only feebly and fearfully squirming her arms.

The hunter lifted the back of her pretty red cloak and wrapped it over her arms behind her back, then tucked the extra cloth between her arms and her back, on both sides. A button on the left corner of the cloak fit into a buttonhole on the right, and vice versa, so the cloak stayed in place when he released it.

"Let me go!" Ainsley whined, despite the plain fact the hunter hadn't done anything to stop her from going anywhere. She felt tugging on her dress. Then she screamed as the dress, a very pretty spring dress decorated with lilac and apple blossoms, ripped, starting at her right shoulder and going down the rest of her sleeve. She felt it pull out of the sleeve of the cloak and fall, exposing half of her chest. "No!!" she screamed, as the dress ripped on her left, then dropped entirely to land around her ankles. Ainsley knew she stood there in the forest, in front of the hunter, naked from her ankles up, since he'd taken her panties on the previous encounter. She tried so hard to run from him, but couldn't.

"Lift your feet for me," he demanded the same way and with the same tone he had used the previous time, but taking longer than before. "Left foot. Now the right foot."

Ainsley obeyed, standing on one foot for him, then switching to the other foot. She felt him pull off her shoes, then her socks, one foot at a time, leaving her barefoot. She knew he had taken her dress away, also, leaving her completely naked. Except for her pretty red cloak, which not only didn't cover anything important now, but kept the frightened girl blind and helpless, Ainsley stood before the hunter with every part of her beautiful little body exposed to him.

"Now come with me," the hunter said. "Turn when I turn you. Otherwise walk straight."

Ainsley found that she could walk, at last, but not run, and she still couldn't even walk away from him. He took her elbow in a tight grip and led her away, through the forest, and almost certainly not toward her own home. She squirmed her arms, uselessly trying to free herself, as she walked, and walked, and walked, turning whenever he pushed her elbow. "What are you going to do?" she cried, her lips curling up in fear. "Where are we going? What are you going to do??" she wailed. He didn't reply.

"I got here as fast as I could, Hans. Traffic was all snarled up on the autobahn," Gerich Hunter apologised as he entered and hung up his hat. "Another stupid tourist thought he could go 160 and found out his bloody van wasn't built for it. Flipped over and burned in the middle of the roadway." He took a look at the girl kneeling on a board in the middle of the room, knees wide apart, trembling but otherwise motionless, her hood tied over her eyes and arms bound behind her but otherwise naked. "Nice!" he declared. "She's as pretty as Adelaide was!"

"Don't rub it in, big brother," Hans groused. "You know how mad it makes me that I missed her. Our uncles should be here this afternoon, but I don't see any reason why we shouldn't have some fun before then. That alright, Pappa?" he asked a man on a rocking chair in the corner.

"Sure, let's play," the man said. "And she's as pretty as Amelie was, too, Gerich, and you missed out on her, just as I missed out on all the ones who came before then. Everyone misses all the previous ones, so no one should feel mad, Hans. I've a mind to get out the old pictures. Want to look?"

"It would be fun to show this girl what we're comparing her to, Pappa. Go ahead, get out the old pictures. I'd like to see what Adelaide looked like back when she was as pretty as you two claim she was."

The old man carefully stood and left, returning several minutes later with a very old leather-bound scrapbook. He opened the cover and started lifting out very old sketches on scraps of old parchment.

"These are so obsolete, now, Pappa. You ought to let me scan them and throw them away," Gerich suggested.

"There's still something to be said for these that you can't just 'scan' into a computer, kid," the man stated. "This piece of paper and the charcoal that made these marks was held by the same hands that tied the knots you see in the picture. If he'd been a better artist, and had better materials, especially if he'd had color instead of black charcoal, I bet you'd be saying the girl spread naked over the tree stump in the picture - at least I think that's a tree stump, I can't be sure - is as pretty as the one in the room with us."

He turned to the middle of the scrap book and began flipping back until he found a page with pictures. He pulled out the largest, a 20 by 25 glossy color print. "Here's Adelaide. I had to let the photo finisher keep a copy, but he didn't charge me and told me he'd do all the rest for free, too, so long as he could keep what he wanted. The others are in a separate book I made just for her. What do you think, now, Hans?"

"Gott im Himmel!" Hans yelled. "I think I want to see the rest of her book! I hope the rest are this good, even if there's no way they could be any better." He showed Gerich the picture of a stunning seven-year-old tied to a tree, her braids pulled back around the tree, her face soaked with tears, obviously bawling. Best of all, she was impaled on a thick wooden rod, with a subtle bulge proving how deep inside her it went. "Did you get to see her this way in person? If so, I'm even madder about missing out."

Gerich didn't answer at first, just grinned, and finally asked, "Who do you think took that picture?" Then he turned to his father. "What about Amelia, Pappa? Do you have any good pictures of her? I don't remember any."

"It's Amelie," the older man corrected. He lifted the scrapbook, then flipped back one more page to the next picture, a 9 by 9 square. He lifted it carefully out and showed it to his sons. "This is Amelie, same pose," he said, holding up an instant snapshot from an early Land camera. "A real screamer. Bending her arms back around the tree with wire like that was my idea, you know," he boasted, "so I did the same with Adelaide, as you saw in the other picture. They didn't have wire before then, but I saw it was good for more than just fences. Pappa said I was clever, never mind that I was still eleven. The rest was pretty standard. That oak rod that's fucking her and the ones her ankles are tied to are probably out in the lumber shed somewhere. I think they're the same ones we used with Adelaide, or maybe not. We'll have to hunt for them later. There's no hurry."

"Ecccck," Hans said in disgust. "Sure, the position is clever, but you said she was pretty. Was she really as yellow as that?"

"It's faded, smartass. Take a look at the ones before it. This is Amelie's mamma, I'm fairly sure," he said, holding up a small brownish-and-white image of a sevenish-year-old girl stretched naked across a row of wooden poles. As a photo, it looked terrible, with her face blurred because she'd been crying and struggling and moving her head as the photographer made the long exposure. Even her hands and feet were blurred. Fortunately, the rest of the image was sharp, proving the girl couldn't move anything else despite dozens of obvious incentives poking into her various places.

Hans took the picture and looked at it closely. "Nice pose, but too bad it's so small, Pappa," he shrugged. "You can barely see her clitty. If that's not just a scratch in the print. Gerich might be able to fix it and colorise it, too." He handed it back to his father, who snorted derision at the thought of ruining the picture with made-up colors.

He pulled out a pencil sketch of a different girl, clearly, since her hair was longer and tied in braids, though she had been sketched in much the same position as the other girl, on a similar arrangement of poles. "I think the photographer was trying to reproduce this one, probably Amelie's gramma," the old man speculated.

Gerich took the scrapbook. "Every one before that is a sketch by hand," he observed after flipping pages. "Some of them are actually pretty good, but most of them are awful. Grief, I think this one must be mud on bark. At least he understood shading. But wait until you see the pictures I make of this little doll. Millions of guys will see her in full color, printable lifesize if they want, though there's no need for that. Bigger than life for the more interesting parts, naturally. She'll be a star on the internet overnight. I might even be able to interest BR&T Magazine over in America, though I know they have plenty of their own girls."

"Why should we give this one - what did you say her name was, Hans? - to the Americans?"

"They're pretty loose with 'giving' us theirs," Gerich smiled. "Have you seen Krystal Cockwood? What a doll! She was in some youth program with her sister, or cousin, Morgan or something, brown uniforms, no, not that kind. Girls are very cute in those, especially when they're getting raped, but better without them, of course. Yes, Hans, come on, you haven't told us her name, yet."

"I think I overheard her mother call her Ashley or Ainsley at the market, but obviously I couldn't ask her, yet. Listen to this." Hans turned to Ainsley. "What's your name?"

Ainsley had heard everything the men had said about her and her mamma and her gramma and the other girls before them. She just trembled, remaining on her knees, almost naked in front of the men, despite her desperate desire to stand up and run away. She certainly wasn't inclined to tell them her name. "Please let me go, let me go!" she wailed. The men could see that she said something, but heard only a low mumble.

"Commands," Gerich said impatiently. "Tell us your name!" he barked to Ainsley.

"I'm Ainsley," she cried.

"See? You can't tell which one she said," Hans pointed out.

"Not commands like that, until she has the cloak off," the old man said to his eldest son, "and afterward there's no point." He spoke to Ainsley. "Nod your head if your name is Ashley." He waited. "Nod your head if your name is Ainsley."

Ainsley slowly, reluctantly, nodded her head, while crying so hard her head shook on its own. She nodded several more times to make sure she'd been understood. She squirmed again, trying to get her arms out of the cloak that held her helpless.

"I told you how it is, boys, but pay attention this time. Whatever she's told to do while she's wearing the cloak - even tied around her arms like it's designed for - she will do, even after she takes it off. But you can't just tell her 'do what you're told to do after it's off' or 'obey me forever' like you might hope. You have to give her a definite command before the cloak comes off. Here, I'll show you." He stood beside Ainsley. "Ainsley," he barked, "right after we take the cloak off you, stand up, hold your arms up high, spread your arms and legs wide, and stay that way until one of us tells you that you can move." He stepped back and waved his sons up. "Get the cloak off of her and watch. You might like to get your defernal camera ready, Gerich."

"Digital, Pappa," Gerich rolled his eyes, but he and Hans began unlacing the cords from the cloak.

As soon as they removed it from her, Ainsley leapt to her feet. "Please!!" she cried, "please let me go! What are you doing to me!?" As she cried and wailed the question, Ainsley raised her arms high. Her long hair flowed down behind her in a honey-brown cascade. The lovely five-year-old spread her legs apart, spread her arms apart, and stood in front of the three men, completely naked. As well as completely unrestrained. "Ohhh please let me go!!" she bawled.

"We're doing everything we want to do to you, Ainsley," Hans answered, as he removed his belt from his waist, "and you're going to stand there and get it! Won't you?" He folded the belt and gripped the buckle.

"No!! YYaaaawww!! YYAAAUWww!!" Ainsley screamed, as she stood there and got it. "hu- hu- HHHAaaawwwwhh!!" she shrieked as Hans swung his belt, and Gerich clicked his camera, again and again.

Ainsley's arms felt so tired, she felt like she'd been holding them up and apart for years, and her legs the same, as if they'd been spread wide apart for years. Yet when she tried to lower her arms or move her feet, she always found that she couldn't, somehow.

The rest of the Hunters had arrived one or two or three at a time, including another brother of Hans and Gerich, two brothers of the man in the corner, three of their sons around thirty to forty years old, and four of their sons from ten to twenty years old. Ainsley cringed and cried and pleaded as each new arrival entered and admired her and said how nicely she compared with her mother or her grandmother at her age, if they'd been around then. She still stood naked in the middle of the room, exposed to every one of the men and boys in every direction. She longed desperately to lower her arms, not just to rest them, but to cover herself, any way she could, anywhere she could. She sobbed, looked around at the grins and stares, and held her arms and her legs wide apart. Tears collected on her chin, hung there trembling, and dripped off from time to time, marking her slender pale chest and belly, or splashing into the small puddle between her feet.

The boys were especially interested in Ainsley, not having had a naked little girltoy to play with before. They had to be told time and again that no, they couldn't take her to school to show their friends. Finally, as a compromise, Gerich showed them a better way to show their friends, on his portable computer, which he'd already set up with high-resolution photos of her. Comments on her beauty had begun to come in from all around the world already, along with suggestions on what they should do to her, which Gerich made sure to read to Ainsley, often just before they did what had been suggested.

"UUUHhhhh- uhhhghhh- uhhch!" she choked, her mouth full for the two-dozenth time as men stood watching and laughing at her distress. The little girl didn't have to open her mouth for them, unable to resist the demand, like the compulsion to stand there, but when they proved they would spank her if she didn't, and that she had no way to escape the spanking, she'd finally submitted and opened her mouth for them, time after time after time. Often someone spanked her anyway while she sucked and sucked and choked, but she believed them, that it would be even worse if she refused. "UUhh- Aaaachh!" she gasped as another man finally pulled out. "NNNoo- Pleaaach! Uhhuuch! YYAAAAUGGGH!!" she choked as the next one stepped up for his turn and someone behind her swatted her with a belt.

"Give her another one like that, son," the man said. "Her throat tightens up so nicely!" He shoved in deep as his son swung again. Gerich got a great close-up and sent it out to the world in seconds.

Hans loosened the cord and pulled the hood back from Ainsley's eyes. She stood beside him in the forest, at the large tree marking the turn in the path between her own home and her gramma's home. Once the hood had been untied, she wore the red cloak just like anyone would expect her to wear it, her arms free. He put an empty basket in her hand, the same one she had taken to her gramma that morning. That seemed so long ago. She stood crying, unable to take a step because he hadn't demanded that she do so. Or perhaps because every step she took hurt her in several sensitive places.

"When you get home, Ainsley, tell your mamma you spent all day playing at your gramma's house. Don't say anything to anyone about anything else that happened today, ever. Keep the cloak clean, keep it safe, and never lose it. Next week, put on the little red raping hood just like you did today, come into the woods just like you did today, don't take it off, and wait for us right here. We'll see you next week, cutie! Now go home." He whistled a cheerful tune as he walked away.

Ainsley would have made a very different sound as she cried all the way home, except she couldn't make any sound. When she arrived home she ran inside. "Oh please don't make me go back!" she wailed to her mother - or rather, murmured silently. The trembling of her shoulders, and the way she held her ripped dress to her chest, were the only indications anything unusual had happened.

Her mother helped her out of the cloak, helped her brush it off, and helped her carefully fold it. Then she helped Ainsley remove her torn dress. She held it up in dismay. By next week she'd have a dress ready for Ainsley to wear that had straps tied across the shoulders. She hated mending clothes. Finally, she pretended to believe everything Ainsley said, that she'd spent all day playing at her gramma's house, even when the little girl begged, sobbing, to please stop her from going back.