“Sure I seen ’em,” he stuttered.

“Bet you haven’t either, retard.” Smoke laughed. “Except maybe in pictures when you try to jerk off that little golden rod of yours.”

Everybody laughed with him, including Weed. Weed tried to get cocky and show no fear.

“Fuck,” Weed strutted. “I seen tits bigger ’an hers.”

“Show him.” Smoke snapped his fingers at Divinity.

She pulled up her shirt and smiled at Weed. He stared, his mouth falling open, his face so hot he thought he had a bad fever. She had tattoos of targets and flower petals in places he could not believe.

“You can look, but you touch and I shoot your balls off,” Smoke said in a menacing tone. “Everybody knows the rule, right?”

Beeper, Sick and Dog nodded blearily. They didn’t seem the least bit interested in Divinity or her equipment. Smoke dropped down next to her on the mattress. He started feeling her and kissing her, his tongue about to get dislocated from his mouth. Weed had never seen anybody act like that in front of other people. It didn’t make any sense to him, and he wanted to run as fast as he could and wake up in another city.

“All right, baby, you ready to cook?” Smoke asked, his tongue in her ear.

“Yeah, sugar.”

She languidly reached behind her and got hold of a box of syringes and a Bic ballpoint pen. Weed watched with growing terror as Smoke started heating a needle in the candle flame while Divinity smashed the pen with the butt of the vodka bottle. She pulled out the slender ink tube and dabbed a dot of black ink on her wrist, as if she were testing the warmth of baby’s milk.

“We got it, sugar,” she said.

“Get your ass over here,” Smoke ordered Weed.

Weed was paralyzed.

“What’cha gonna do, Smoke?” His voice got small again.

“You gotta get your slave number, retard.”

“I don’t need one. Really I don’t.”

“Yeah you do. And you don’t get your puny ass right here right now”—he patted the mattress where he and Divinity sat—“then I’m gonna have to get the boys here to convince you.”

Weed walked over and sat on the mattress, a musty, yeasty smell assaulting his nostrils. He held his legs close together and wrapped his arms around his knees, his fists clenched to hide his fingers as best he could. Smoke slowly turned the needle in the flame.

“Hold out your right hand,” he commanded.

“I don’t need no number.” Weed tried not to sound like he was begging, but knew he did.

“You don’t hold it out now, I’m gonna chop it off.”

Divinity poured another cup of vodka and handed it to Weed.

“Here, honey, this will help. I know it don’t feel good, but we all had it done, you know?” she said, holding out her delicate finger with its homemade 2 tattoo.

Weed drank the vodka and caught on fire. His mind went somewhere and when he put out his hand, he was surprised that he could tolerate the sticks and deep scratches of the red-hot needle. He didn’t cry. He threw a switch that turned off pain. He didn’t look as Divinity dripped ink into the wounds and rubbed it in good. Weed swayed and Smoke had to tell him twice to sit still.