“Just fuck off, will you.” She turns her head away, trying for an exasperated tone though her heart is banging so hard her voice trembles.

“Fuck off?” He’s not taken in. The ribbed wall of his chest pushes at her. “Fuck off?” he whispers in her ear as he clutches her hair, pushing her violently around until she faces away from him. He shoves something against her face, a small plastic bag full of white powder. “Want some?”

Something slides around her neck, leathery, pulled tight. The fear in her head ratchets up, there’s no room for thought. He pulls hard and she chokes, struggling for breath. Their feet shuffle together as if in a dance, as she is pushed, stumbling and gasping, behind the high wooden screen where the garbage is kept. He thrusts her forward till her chest hits the dumpster. Her mind is empty of thought, hot fluid trickles over her feet. Urine, hers. He clamps her neck so her face is forced down onto the lid of a bin as her dress is yanked to her waist. He releases his grip; she hears the grating whisper of a zipper. His thighs are tight against her buttocks; he fumbles at his jeans.

Scalding fury takes over; he thinks he can do this, thinks he can get away with it and he might, man against woman, white against black. Her thoughts switch on. He’s forgotten her hands are free; he doesn’t see her slide them into her bag, which has swung forward around her neck. While his fingers are scrabbling at her underwear, tearing cloth and skin, hers push aside the coin purse and inhaler and close on Blake’s penknife. She flicks open the blade, her hands still deep in the bag as he snarls in her ear. “You’ve had this coming, stuck-up bitch.”

She jabs back fast and hard. The knife is snagged by his jeans. He doesn’t pause, doesn’t notice, he is beginning to straddle her, putting both thighs alongside hers, pushing into her, missing, swearing. He bends to bite her neck and she jabs backward again, higher this time; the knife glides through the cloth of his T-shirt and into skin, a layer of firmer tissue after that. He screams, a high-pitched shriek, and falls away from her; his shoulders and then his head hit the pavement with a bang. She runs to the car, her breath hurting her throat, her bag swinging about her neck, the dress around her waist. The car key misses the lock twice. Once inside she doesn’t look back. She drives fast, swerving out of the parking lot then along the road; she takes the second left, skids half up on the sidewalk, and brakes sharply. She raises her hips, pulls off her underwear, and shoves them in the glove compartment, DNA from his skin if it comes to that. She leans forward and takes slow, trembling breaths, trying to calm herself; her heart is still pounding, her head still full of noise, but none of it makes sense. After a few minutes she wipes her face with her palms and pulls out her phone. She jabs at a number three times.