The wop stepped up, dropped to a squat, and put his other hand on the girl’s cheek. He pushed her hair, lighter brown than her mother’s, back from her ear, bringing his dirty middle finger down her cheek, under her jaw—she blinked, opened her mouth a little, closed it again, but she must have been scared to turn her head—down her neck, and hooked it in the round, pink collar. He pulled at it, slow, down enough so you could see the top of her bra. She was maybe fourteen; and the bra was just about flat.

The woman, half limp in the nigger’s grip, was crying now. It wasn’t a full sound at all, but a non-stop squeak that went on at the same pitch while she shook her head, with her eyes closed tight.

The girl was taking quick breaths, then holding them a long time. I couldn’t tell if that was fear or pain.

Hogg, who’d been watching with half a smile, turned to the woman. His cock made a tent of his pants. He went toward her, one hand between his legs. He got the other in the woman’s jeans and yanked a couple of times at the top button. Her arm that had been swinging out limply suddenly came up in a fist, and the squeak turned into a full, white-eyed, red-mouthed growl. She tried to lunge up and knee Hogg in the nuts, but the nigger was on her, anyway, holding her. But from there on, it was all fight. They hit her a lot, and her shirt got just about torn off. Once I saw Hogg sink his yellow teeth into her shoulder; blood ran down her arm and down across one tit, as well as on her face where the chains had cut. When they hit or bumped or kicked things, they just grunted; most of it was awfully quiet, with just scrabbling and hissing and gagging and catching breath.

Kneeling beside the girl, the wop had one hand down the front of her sweater, the other around under her white plastic belt. Where the sweater was up, you could see the blue elastic along the top of her panties stretching and going back together as he worked his fingers down. He nuzzled her neck. Somehow she didn’t seem to be paying attention to him anymore, though. I wondered if she was trying to just let him do what he wanted, now.

But maybe she was just tired. About every ten or fifteen seconds she would try to pull away, but she really couldn’t get anywhere.

“Grab her … there, get her, nigger! Get—”

“Goddamn! This bitch is a tough—Ow!—tough pussy, Hogg!”