“Do it!” he said urgently, and she dropped the pistol.
It clattered to the alleyway floor. Lightning shattered the night. There was an enormous boom of thunder. He dragged her deeper into the alley, into the darkness, past the garbage cans to where a loading platform was set in the wall some three feet above the floor. A pair of rusted iron doors were behind the platform. He threw her onto the platform, and her hand went immediately into the top of her floppy rubber boot, groping for the butt of the Browning.
“Don’t force me to cut you,” he said.
She yanked the pistol out of its holster.
She was bringing it up into firing position when he slashed her.
She dropped the gun at once, her hand going up to her face where sudden fire blazed a trail across her cheek. Her hand came away wet, she thought it was the rain at first, but the wet was sticky and thick, and she knew it was blood — he had cut her cheek, she was bleeding from the cheek! And suddenly she was overcome by a fear she had never before known in her life.
“Good girl,” he said.
There was another flash of lightning, more thunder. The knife was under her dress now, she dared not move, he was picking at the nylon of the panty hose with the knife, catching at it, plucking at it; she winced below, tightened there in horrified reaction, afraid of the knife, fearful he would use it again where she was infinitely more vulnerable. The tip of the blade caught the fabric, held. There was a sound of the nylon ripping, the whisper of the knife as it opened the panty hose over her crotch and the panties underneath. He laughed when he realized she was also wearing panties.
“Expecting a rape?” he asked, still laughing, and then slashed the panties, too, and now she was open to the cold of the night, her legs spread and trembling, the rain beating down on her face and mingling there with the blood, washing the blood from her cheek burning hot where the gash crossed it, her eyes widening in terror when he placed the cold flat of the knife against her vagina and said, “Want me to cut you here, too, Mary?”
She shook her head, No, please. Mumbled the words incoherently. Said them aloud at last, “No, please,” trembling beneath him as he moved between her legs and put the knife to her throat again, “Please,” she said. “Don’t… cut me again. Please.”
“Want me to fuck you instead?” he said.
She shook her head again. No! she thought. But she said instead, “Don’t cut me again.”
“You want to get fucked instead, isn’t that right, Mary?”
No! she thought. “Yes,” she said. Don’t cut me, she thought. Please.
“Say it, Mary.”
“Don’t cut me,” she said.
“Say it, Mary!”
“Fuck me in… instead,” she said.
“You want my baby, don’t you, Mary?”
Oh God, no, she thought, oh God, that’s it! “Yes,” she said, “I want your baby.”
“The hell you do,” he said, and laughed.
Lightning tore the night close by. Thunder boomed into the alleyway, immediately overhead, echoing.
She knew all the things to do, knew all about going for the eyes, clawing at the jelly of the eyes, blinding the bastard, she knew all about that. She knew what to do if he forced you to blow him, knew all about fondling his balls and taking him in your mouth, and then biting down hard on his cock and squeezing his balls tight at the same time, knew all about how to send a rapist shrieking into the night in pain. But a knife was at her throat.
The tip of the sharp blade was in the hollow of her throat where a tiny pulse beat wildly. He had slashed her face, she could still feel the slow steady ooze of blood from the cut, fire blazing along the length of the cut from one end to the other. The rain pelted her face and her legs, her skirt up around her thighs, the cold, wet concrete of the platform beneath her, the rusted iron doors behind her. And then — suddenly — she felt the rigid thrust of him below, against her unreceptive lips, and thought he would tear her with the force of his penetration, rip her as if with the knife itself, still at her throat, poised to cut.
She trembled in fear, and in shame, and in helpless desperation, suffering his pounding below, sobbing now, repeatedly begging him to stop, afraid of screaming lest the knife pierce the flesh of her throat as surely as he himself was piercing her flesh below. And when he shuddered convulsively — the knife tip trembling against her throat and then lay motionless upon her for several moments, she could only think, It’s over, he’s done, and the shame washed over her again, the utter sense of degradation caused by his invasion, and she sobbed more scathingly. And realized in that instant that this was not a working cop here in a dark alley, her underwear torn, her’ legs spread, a stranger’s sperm inside her. No. This was a frightened victim, a helpless violated woman. And she closed her eyes against the rain and the tears and the pain.
“Now go get your abortion,” he said.
He rolled off her.
She wondered where her gun was. Her guns.
She heard him running out of the alley on the patter of the rain.
She lay there in pain, above and below, her eyes closed tight.
She lay there for a very long while.
Then she stumbled out of the alley, and found the nearest patrol box, and called in the crime.
And fainted as lightning flashed again, and did not hear the following boom of thunder.
She was sitting up in bed, her hands flat on the sheet, when Kling entered the room. Her head was turned away from him. The window oozed raindrops, framed a gray view of buildings beyond.
“Hi,” he said.
When she turned toward the door, he saw the bandage on her left cheek. A thick wad of cotton layers covered with adhesive plaster tape. She’d been crying; the flesh around her eyes was red and puffy. She smiled and lifted one hand from the sheet in greeting. The hand dropped again, limply, white against the white sheet.
“Hi,” she said.
He came to the bed. He kissed her on the cheek that wasn’t bandaged.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, fine,” she said.
“I was just talking to the doctor, he says they’ll be releasing you later today.”
“Good,” she said.
He did not know what else to say. He knew what had happened to her. He did not know what to say.
“Some cop, huh?” she said. “Let him scare me out of both my guns, let him…” She turned her face away again. Rain slithered down the windowpanes.
“He raped me, Bert.”
“I know.”
“How…?” Her voice caught. “How do you feel about that?”
“I want to kill him,” Kling said.
“Sure, but… how do… how do you feel about me getting raped?”
He looked at her, puzzled. Her head was still turned away from him, as though she were trying to hide the patch on her cheek and by extension the wound that testified to her surrender.
“About letting him rape me,” she said.
“You didn’t let him do anything.”
“I’m a cop,” she said.
“Honey…”
“I should have…” She shook her head. “I was too scared, Bert,” she said. Her voice was very low.
“I’ve been scared,” he said.
“I was afraid he’d kill me.”
She turned to look at him.
Their eyes met. Tears were forming in her eyes. She blinked them back.
“A cop isn’t supposed to get that scared, Bert. A cop is supposed to… to… I threw away my gun! The minute he stuck that knife in my ribs, I panicked, Bert, I threw away my gun! I had it in my hand but I threw it away!”