“Shit …” the wop whispered. He began to swing his hips in and out. Her eyes were closed and her head turned half away. But when the blade touched the side of her nose, she jumped—with her whole body, from the knees to the neck. She jerked in the nigger’s grip: “Goddamn it, you tell me why that bastard sent you—why Jimmy sent you here! He’s too fucking chicken shit to … Go ahead, you just say it—” The nigger yanked her hair again.

The wop’s knife slid back inside the cloth.

He snarled his zipper from chest to groin, took out his cock.

She heaved up, she kicked, she hammered. Hogg came in on her again. With the nigger and the wop. It took the three of them to hold her, and none of them could really quite get on, I guess.

Denny was looking at the girl.

When she glanced up at him, her tits in the pink sweater stopped moving up and down. Her eyes flicked to Denny’s hand, swiveling on his dick.

When he stooped down, she pushed herself up on both hands and drew back so far she fell again, rolling to her back. Denny took one tit in his dirty fingers and squeezed. The sweater bulged between his knuckles.

Her chin wrinkled as she stared down at his hand. Her lips got real thin. Her eyes were very wide.

“Hey,” Denny said. “Can you take your sweater off?”

Her eyes closed. Tight.

She lifted her hands—one of them brushed Denny’s arm and flew away like she’d been burned—and finally dropped on the belly of the pink wool. Her nails had the same pearly polish on them Maria used to wear.

She took a breath, eyes still closed, jaw still set; her fingers closed in the wool and she began to pull it up from out of her white belt. Thick, white skin pushed out between them all around. There was a scar, high as an appendectomy operation, but much thicker and without the cross cuts, slanting down under her skirt. The white ribbed bra came out, left tit then right, shallow as dessert dishes of vanilla pudding. She wriggled on the floor once to get the sweater from under her back; then her face, all close-eyed and frowning, disappeared in pink wool, her light brown hair following into the neck hole.

Denny grinned at me. Then he stuck one finger in the top of the bra and pulled. One vanilla pudding came free. Denny got it with both hands; he bent over, elbows on either side of her, and began to suck.

The woman screamed.