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David

It’s early evening as we join David and Rachelle enjoying some quality time together on the over-stuffed sofa in Rachelle’s snug, fifth-floor walk-up. David, who’s just “had his way” with Rachelle, as he likes to put it, is beginning to nod off when Rachelle digs him in the ribs with her elbow.

“Oh my God, David—look at this,” she says, gasping.

She’s referring to the disturbing video then being aired on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. It’s one of those caught-in-the-act videos captured by a parking-lot surveillance camera at a big-box outlet; in this instance, a Target Superstore in Bentonville, Arkansas.

In the video a young mother is seen leaning into the back seat of a dark-colored Chevrolet Suburban and whacking the daylights out of a child who’s hidden from view by the roof of the vehicle. The woman whacks and whacks and whacks and whacks, her ponytail bobbing and swaying with every blow.

Rachelle’s eyes begin to blur with tears. “That woman should be taken out and shot,” she says.

David, however, is observing the episode from another point of view. He’s transfixed by the fetching rhythm of the child-beater’s bobbing and swaying ponytail, finding it alluring in the extreme. It is, for David, pure poetry in motion. What’s more, he really digs her ass.

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