The Dark End of the Street: New Stories of Sex and Crime by Today's Top Authors by Jonathan Santlofer, S.J. Rozan Page A

the dogs to approach the cage unleashed. And then, at last, when the girl was ready to be taken out, the dogs ran beside her without incident.
    â€œMaster,” Grace said, “I can’t make her stand straight like you said. She still wants to bend over like a baboon. I think she was living with the baboons over there. I think she can still be like them.”
    De Jong smiled down at the girl. Thick black curls were beginning to cover her head. And her face was beginning to reveal itself, the nose long and straight, a high forehead, small ears, olive skin, and the wide black eyes of a gypsy. Considering only the head, she could be any child, any dark, silent girl, no breasts yet, no body hair either. If she still stooped, what difference would it make? She was ready, baboons or no baboons, he could see it in the way she looked at him. It was Grace who was trying to hold her back for some reason.
    â€œYou’ll bring her to me tomorrow evening,” he said. “The usual hour.”
    Grace bowed her head. Usually, she was only too glad to hand a girl over because then she’d have her two weeks off. When she did return, as often as not the girl would be over the first fright of it. So what had come over her this time? “Maybe a few more days?” she said.
    He smiled at Grace. It was almost as if she’d known from the start how it would be with this girl. And now that he was taking pride—well, not so much pride in the girl herself as in the things she could do, the way he could make her obey him—now that he was waking each morning to the thought of what he might make the girl do for him next, now came Grace with her suggestions.
    â€œShe does not even have a name yet,” Grace said.
    They were walking down to the river, which the girl always liked to do. Once he’d thought he heard her laugh—laugh or bark, it was hard to tell which. The sun was shining brilliantly on the muddy water, and she’d looked up into his face, her mouth and eyes wide. And then, freeing her hand from his, she’d bounded down the hill with the dogs, down to the water’s edge.
    â€œTomorrow evening. In the atrium. The usual time.”
    Grace had dressed the girl in a simple silk shift. There was a pool in the middle of the atrium, with a fountain at its center. Most of the girls couldn’t swim, but the pool was shallow, and he’d be sitting in it, naked, waiting for them with his glass of whiskey. The girls themselves always stopped at the sight of him there, the pink shoulders and small gray eyes. And then he’d rise out of the water like a sea monster and they’d make a run for it, every one of them, never mind how much Grace had told them there was no way out.
    Men in the village liked to say they’d come to the house one night and cut off his manhood like a pawpaw. But Grace knew it was all talk. Without his money, where would they all be? Where would she be herself? The Master himself knew that, standing there, shameless, before her. But when he had finished with this one, where would she go? Usually, they’d run home with the money, and then, sooner or later, they’d be back at the kitchen door, wanting work. But what about this one? Where could she go except back to the baboons?
    Quickly, Grace turned and walked out of the atrium.
    He held his hand out to the girl, but she didn’t take it. She was leaning over the low wall, splashing one hand into the water. He caught it in his own then, and took her under the arms and lifted her in. She didn’t struggle, she was used to his lifting her here or there. But this time he was lifting her dress off her, too, throwing it aside. She wasn’t wearing any panties, he never wanted them wearing panties when they came to him. So now there was nothing but her smooth, olive skin. He ran his hands down her sides and cupped one around each buttock—small and round and girlish, the rest of the body