Chapter 1

The dusty old chandelier’s lights flickered a few times. Electricity was unreliable in the Third World, especially most of Africa. The rusty but formerly elegant ceiling fans groaned like dying animals, their blades barely stirring the warm humid air of the brothel’s dimly lit parlor. Thankfully, it was almost comfortable after dark, instead of afternoon’s steamy tropical heat.

Vincent Rathbone was gray-haired, tall, and in reasonable shape for fifty-five. He wore a light blue polo shirt, gray trousers, comfortable sneakers, and a watch his grandfather had worn in World War Two. It was outdated, with cell phones being ubiquitous, but a sentimental keepsake.

In cooler climates he ordered it neat, but ice rapidly cooled his glass of whiskey. He was born in New York, but lived and worked in the UK the last twenty years, until his recent retirement.

His blue eyes scanned the lineup of girls with the detached precision of a man inspecting livestock. They stood in a row, bare feet pressed into the worn rug, their bodies so slight they seemed to disappear into the shadows if he blinked too long. All five were slender, slim, so skinny. Starving for food, or money to buy some.

That was what he craved - the delicate curve of a waist he could nearly circle with his big hands, the fragile jut of hipbones beneath his fingers, the shapes of bones nearly visible beneath their dark skin. That, and a female desperate for anything he might give her, grateful for even a snack or pocket change.

The madam, a woman whose dark but gold-toothed smile never faded, gestured to the first girl. “She Liseba. Smallest here, just eighteen year. She make dick happy, much happy. Cost twenty cedi.”

The numbers seemed suspicious, the stated age a little high and the price quite low, six pounds sterling, equal to a bottle of the desperately poor country’s semi-noxious rum.

Still, the short, cute, and overly thin girl showed an ID declaring she was born nearly two decades earlier. Liseba smiled despite his age, triple hers, knowing he was wealthy and might tip her if she did well.

Vincent’s gaze dragged over her - skin like polished ebony, the shape of her ribcage faintly visible beneath the thin shift she wore. The top of her head only rose slightly above his armpit. She couldn’t have weighed more than thirty-five kilos, eighty pounds. His throat went dry as he stared at the pretty but emaciated Black girl.

She met his stare for several seconds before lowering her eyes. He caught a flicker of defiance in them. Good. He liked girls with a spark.

“Turn around,” he ordered, voice low.

She did, slowly, letting him take in the narrow slope of her back, the way her spine dipped inward just above the swell of her ass. He gently squeezed her unusually small buttocks. Perfect!

As he set his drink down, the ice made a quiet “clink.”

“Okay. Her.”

Liseba said nothing, but her breath hitched when his fingers grazed the back of her neck, tracing the delicate tendons there.

“You understand what I want?” he murmured, leaning in until his lips brushed the shell of her ear.

She nodded once, sharp.

Vincent smiled. “Take me to a room and show me.”

Liseba led him up narrow stairs that groaned under his muscular but slightly pudgy mass, hand-made Italian shoes striding down a grimy hallway where the wallpaper peeled in humid curls. The room she took him to was barely larger than a closet - a narrow bed, a single flickering bulb, the scent of jasmine and sweat thick in the air. She turned to face him, her chest rising fast, but her chin tilted up. Defiant still.