Then I got up, crawled onto the mattress again, and pulled at the back of his pants. They came down over his heaving ass; coming up, the buttocks opened, shit-stuck either side. They fell, clamping, then rose, the hair pulling apart the half-dried paste. The sphincter, discolored and wrinkled, suddenly puckered, then bubbled. I stuck my tongue in it. His buttocks ground my face. “Yeah,” Hogg growled, “you finally eatin’ shit, you little bastard.” His hand came back and pushed my head further down. With a palm on one cheek, I ate out his asshole. I put my other hand between his legs. Sweat ran down his balls. When I fingered the fat, sliding cock and the rolling edges of Honey-Pie’s pussy, he humped harder. I licked and thought about the way, when he finished fucking a woman or a girl, right afterward he would sink his scummy pole into my mouth and loose another load or fill my belly with pee. Thinking about that and eating out his asshole while he fucked Honey-Pie made it better than eating shit out of—

The door crashed back.

—Big Sambo bellowed: “MOTHERFUCKER!”

I heard Big Sambo’s boots bang across the floor; the nigger roared, “What the fuck you—!”

Hogg came up off Honey-Pie, rising in one movement—I got pushed aside onto the mattress—to turn, crouching, his cock still up and gleaming. He was grinning, all stubbly-jawed and yellow-headed.

Honey-Pie rolled against the wall, terrified. The way she curled up made me think of a brown beetle somebody had stuck with a pin and then just pulled it loose.

“Oh, man,” Big Sambo said, beside the table, real low. He was crouched too. “Oh, man, you fuckin’ on my daughter!” His fists came up like slow cannonballs with corners. “I’m gonna kill you, motherfucker …”

“Aw, shit,” Hogg drawled; in the same tone as when he’d come in. He hefted up his trousers, enough to close the top button. His belt still swung. His cock still hung out, glistening. But it was pretty much down. “Try, nigger.”

Big Sambo’s face snarled up like a prune. One black workboot stamped forward. One of those cannonballs swung by his hip. When it stopped, there was a knife in it; I’m damned if I know where he’d hidden it.

Hogg grabbed the edge of the galley table. It came up, the clamps on three legs yanking loose nests of splinters. The fourth leg just broke. Hogg brought the table back with both hands and heaved.

The cup crashed, splashing tan and splattering pieces.

The table corner hit Big Sambo’s chest. The nigger grunted and went back. Both fists hit the wall over his head—he didn’t drop the knife, though. The table landed upside down. The nigger came forward, among the upright legs (and one stump), stumbling against the brace across the underside.