A thud resounded near the window and she opened her eyes wide. It was just Uncle Cliff, she told herself. Outside guarding the window with his gun. Moans drifted through the apartment and a headboard banged rhythmically against the wall. She closed her eyes in the darkness and tried to go back to sleep, but the wetness soaking her panties sent her climbing over her younger brother, her feet noiseless on the cold tile as she sidestepped the bags of rotting garbage and headed toward the moaning sounds coming from her mother’s bedroom.

The little girl opened the bedroom door and squinted into the semi-darkness. Cara, her mother, was naked, her stunning, milky body moving like a storm as she bucked up and down on top of the strange man stretched out beneath her. In the filtered light streaming in from the window the girl saw her aunt Ree, as beautiful as her mother but darker, straddling the man’s face, rolling her privates all over his lips and chin. Her mother reached out and grabbed both of her own full breasts and squeezed her cherry nipples, her hair falling down her back in silky curls, a wicked smile on her face.

The child hated her mother’s bed, but somehow she felt safe there, too, so she crept into the room and slipped beneath the sheets at the foot of the bed, pulling the covers over her head. Lulled by the familiar rhythm, scents, and fuck-sounds, she stuck her finger in her mouth and drifted back to sleep.

The tinkling of shattered glass broke into her dreams and scared her so badly she almost sat up. She lifted the edge of the blanket and saw that the window had been kicked straight in; splinters of sharp glass were like a moustache around an open mouth as the wind swept into the room.