After Anita left Joe she did more or less as she had told him she would. She bought the paper cup of Italian ice from the man with the wagon on Thompson Street. Then she walked east on Fourth Street, stopping at a few stores along the way to shop. She angled up First Avenue to Saint Marks Place and the apartment, where she unpacked what she had bought. She put the kettle on the stove, filled it with water, put the rice into it. She let the rice boil for a while, then started to add the mussels and the chopped-up eel. She dropped other ingredients into the pot—some left-over chicken, two crabs, and miscellaneous seafood. Then she covered the pot, wondering if it were all right to watch it. A watched pot, they said, never boiled. That seemed physically illogical. Did watched pots boil? Did a pot burn when you watched it? Many things to think about. She sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to concentrate. She picked up a book and tried to read. Unable to concentrate, she gave up, tossing the book carelessly on the other bed. She stared across the room, waiting for something. For dinner to cook. For something, damn it. She was sitting on the bed when Shank entered. Anita did not greet him, nor did Shank greet her. He walked to the stove, lifted the lid off the pot and sniffed like a comic-strip husband. He sauntered to his bed, picked up the book she had tossed there and looked through it. He threw it on the floor. Then he turned his gaze on her. She felt there was something obscene in his expression. He kept staring at her till she flushed and turned away. When she looked back he was still staring at her in precisely the same way. She wanted to tell him to stop it but she did not know what to say. She wished again he would go away, so she and Joe could live alone. She would get a job—it would be worth it if she and Joe could have a place of their own. Shank still stared at her. She returned his glance now. She searched his eyes, trying to figure out what was hidden there.
Then he told her. “Strip,” he said. Her eyes widened. “Strip. Get your clothes off and get ‘em off fast. Strip!”
“What are you—”
His dead eyes blazed in his pale face. His mouth was smiling terribly. His voice was flat and deadly. “I am going to do what I please with you. And you don’t have a thing to say about it. Nothing. What I do to you is up to me. So get those clothes off fast.”
“You’re crazy!” His hand slipped into his pocket and reappeared with a knife. She watched in morbid fascination as his fingers curled around the handle of the knife. He pressed the catch and the blade snickered out. She stared at it, watched light glinting on the carefully polished face of the blade that appeared to be very sharp. “Strip,” he repeated. She was numb. “You’ve got a choice,” he told her. “You can take your clothes off or I can cut ‘em off. It’s up to you. I don’t care one way or the other.”
“Joe,” she said. “Any minute. He’s coming home. He’s coming and—” He turned and locked the door.
“Thanks for putting me wise,” he said. “Now the clothes. I’ll cut ‘em off of you if I have to. And I’ll cut you up while I’m at it.” He was telling the truth, he would make good his threat if he had to. And there was nothing for her to do…Finally, when she kicked off her tennis shoes, she was naked. Now, his eyes were worse than ever. She felt as if she had taken off her skin and he was staring at her insides. Shank approached the girl and held out the knife. She stared at the blade as a bird would at a snake. Then, after a long moment, she tried to move away. But the bed was behind her and the distance between them remained the same.
“Don’t move,” he advised her. “Not yet. You could get hurt. And Joe might not like you after I got through.” He was insane, Anita knew. He would kill her. She wanted to scream but she was too scared.
“Now undress me,” Shank said. When she hesitated, he repeated the command and backed it up by touching the knife to her and raising a tiny bead of blood. Anita undressed him. His grin widened and his eyes became steadily more insane. She was terrified. Then, casually, he folded up the knife and tossed it on his bed. He did this without taking his eyes from her. Then, as if he had all the time in the world, he drove his fist into the pit of her stomach. She clutched her stomach in agony, trying to hold back the pain. Tears came to her eyes and spilled over. Then he slapped her across the face with all his force. The pain was like a knife. Her body began to tremble. Then Shank began to curse her. He used language more obscene than anything she had ever heard. He cursed her intently and she listened to the words he spoke with her eyes wide and her heart beating violently. Then he began to hit her again. Finally, he shoved her down to the bed and then it began. It was long and bad and very painful. He seemed more concerned with hurting her than anything else. She lay inert, the pain washing over her in high and resonant waves. She lay there, on the bed she shared with Joe, while Shank made vile and brutal and horrible love to her. Later, when her pain had subsided and she was dressed once more, Shank gripped her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. She tried to turn away but he had her vised.
“You won’t tell him,” he said.
“I won’t?”
He shook his head. “You won’t tell him. You don’t want to. You think you do but you’re wrong.”
“Why?”
He grinned. “Three things could happen,” he said. “He could play protective male. He could decide to punish me for taking advantage of his poor, defenseless woman. And that would be a mistake. Because then I’d have to take care of myself. Have to protect myself, like any average all-American boy. And he’s bigger than I am. Which means I’d have to make it closer. The knife. I’d have to cut old Joe a little.” He wasn’t human, Anita thought. No human being could act as he did and talk as he did. Joe was his friend and she was Joe’s girl, yet he could beat her and rape her and talk about knifing Joe as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Or he could decide you led me on. That’s one way. He’d figure it was your fault and get mad at you. He’d beat you for dust, little girl. And you don’t want that. Hell, one beating a day is plenty for you. Right?” That wouldn’t happen, she told herself. Joe would never do that. Never. “Or one other thing. He wouldn’t do anything. He’d just shrug it off and forget about it. Pretend you were jiving him or something, or else say it was between you and me and he didn’t give a damn. And that would shake you up, little girl. Shake you six ways and home again.”
“He wouldn’t,” she said.
“Naw,” he drawled. “Not old Joe. That’s what you want to think. You wouldn’t want to find out he doesn’t care more for you than he does for a used fish. And that’s the big reason why you won’t tell him. You dig the whole message? Any way you lose. Joe gets cut or you get hurt or Joe just doesn’t give a damn. Three ways to lose and no ways to win. You know what? I think you’ll keep that little mouth of yours sewed up nice and tight.”
“You’re a bastard, Shank.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “That the best you can do? You can call me worse than that. Go ahead—talk a big streak.”
She called him a foul name and he laughed harder. She swore up and down at him and he laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. “You’re sick,” Anita said. “You think pain is fun.”
“If it’s not my pain.”
“You’re sick.”
He was laughing. “And you’re fun. Lots of fun. And you’re not going to say a word to Joe. You understand?” Shank walked to the stove and lifted the lid.