Nice guest host spot, Brian.
I especially appreciated the warning at the start, and the thoughtful outtro.
I think the highlight of this story for me was the moment when the attacker says something like, "I wasn't going to kill you. I was going to let you go afterwards." Which was viciously, wickedly funny and very pointed, because basically the scumbag is just saying, "Hey lady, I only wanted to rape you, not murder you! Why so upset?!"
As a story about rape, this one didn't really hit the mark for me, for many of the reasons Bouncewoosh highlighted. I wish the main character had had something else to her personality than "husband" and "baby", even just a hobby or a job or really anything. It also bugged me how much the story upheld some of the frankly dangerous myths about rape (that rapists are usually strangers hiding in the shadows; that rape is mainly about sex/lust instead of power/dominance) and even more so, those about how rape victims should behave. It's a bit cruel, the way we praise those who physically fight back against their attackers while ignoring or downplaying those who do not or cannot.
Also, I don't think the story really got at what's really scary about rape: the aftermath, the way something like this can come to define her in the eyes of everyone she knows, how she'll have to recount all these events to the police again and again while they ask her if she's SURE she didn't somehow lead him on or entice him. I guess it's hard for me to feel her victory at the end, knowing the really bad part is still ahead.
As an example,
"The Final Girl" at Strange Horizons earlier this year IMHO really nailed the topic of rape & violence survival for me, and how the aftermath can be worse than the actual event.
On the other hand, when I think of "Gut Check" as a sort of revenge fantasy, maybe a representative of what we all hope we might be capable of in such circumstances, I can see why this story works well in many ways.