My uncle told me he had something for me. My vision dimmed as I entered his office, the heavy wooden slatted blinds shut tight. The sun still tried to stream through. Slits of light painted the floor in perfect lines.

There’s a girl here. I hear the door close behind me as the girl steps around my uncle’s desk.

She looks so small in comparison. Everything in the office is old, heavy. She’s beautiful. Her pale white skin glows as the lines of light from the window scroll over her cheek.

But she looks tired, and too pale.

“I heard it’s your birthday,” she says. She steps toward me, coming closer. I don’t look down, but I can sense that she’s wearing high heels from the way she’s walking. Her gait is uneasy. There’s something wrong.

There’s something wrong with me, too. My cousins and my uncle bought this girl for me. She gets closer and stands right in front of me, but she doesn’t touch me. I don’t know if I should make the first move, but my body moves before I can decide.

My hands come up and cup her chin. God, she’s gorgeous. The color in her eyes is light blue, and they gleam with a tiny spark that’s about to be extinguished. I feel her hands go to my belt in the darkness. I hear the clank of the metal, but it’s slow. She isn’t grasping at me, desperate to have me.

I feel my hands glide down her arms. She’s thin. Almost too thin, maybe. Her dress curves along her body, and as I glide my hands down past her elbows, I feel her bones pass under my fingers. I feel like I could break her.

“It’s okay,” I whisper. “You don’t have to.”

I bring her hands into mine as she stops just before pulling down my zipper. I wonder if my cousins are outside the room. Maybe they’re off with their own girls. Maybe they’re with their girlfriends or maybe they’re with women they purchased. Maybe they’re with women they stole, or who owe something, or who are almost done paying a debt.

I don’t know this girl’s name. I haven’t seen her before, and I don’t know why she’s here.

Her fingers try to loosen themselves from my grasp, but I’m stronger than her. I keep her still. Her eyes freeze, and then shut, and then she looks up at my face.

“I have to,” she says in a small voice. “I need the money.”

My heart clenches up, and I feel it drop to my stomach.

She needs the money, but I still don’t know why she’s here. Needing the money isn’t a good enough reason to do this. There has to be more. But I don’t want to know her story. Not now. Not here.

“You don’t have to do this,” I repeat. “Let’s just talk.”

Outside the closed windows, down in the backyard, I hear the party going on. My uncle’s business associates, everyone is here. I’ve been waiting for my dad to arrive all afternoon and evening, but I don’t think he’s coming. It’s my birthday, and I’ve shaken hands with all the men outside. This is my present, though. She’s my gift.

I should be grateful. I should unwrap her from her dress and pull her down onto my lap. Or maybe tell her to get down on her knees. My cock stirs as I look at her lips, but I feel utterly empty inside. Contact might help. I know it would help for a moment. It might even help for more than a moment, as she lets me work her body, make her feel good, take my pleasure from her and make myself feel good, too. But I’d feel more empty afterwards than I do now. Somehow, that’s possible. I know it’s always possible to seem more empty.

Emptiness isn’t finite. The hole inside you can get bigger. More and more space inside you can be eaten away, until you’re hollow. A shell of what you used to be. And it’s shit like this, right here, that causes it.

The men outside...I know what they’ve done. Fuck, my cousins have done it, too. I haven’t done it yet, the ultimate sin, but I know there are some things I’ve done that may even be worse.

Worse than taking away a man’s life? It’s possible. What about making him beg to be spared. Is that worse? Making him think it’s all about to be blotted out in an instant, with the quick pull of a trigger. That one moment, and it’s all over. But what if you bring him to the brink and walk him back? That can break a man.

Is that worse than taking a man’s life?

The girl’s face is painted with fear. She probably thinks I’m a sick fuck. Maybe the gentlemanly thing to do would be to just get it over with. Fuck her fast and raw and throw her aside while I light up a cigarette and shut the blinds on the window tighter. That’s what she expects.

Maybe it’s selfish, but I can’t do it.

“You don’t have to be afraid. I don’t want this.” I take her by the elbow and sit her down on the couch at the far wall. “Just sit. We’ll wait here. I won’t tell them it didn’t happen.”

Her eyes drag up my body and flicker in a stream of light as she peers at me.

“You won’t tell them?” she asks. Her eyes haven’t been stolen of all their light. There’s still some there. I can’t take it away from her. I can’t.

“I won’t tell.”