Chapter 1

So I shop in budget clothing stores - bite me! There’s no law that says people as comfortably-off as I am should pay more just to buy clothes in stores with better lighting and condescending sales assistants. Besides, all I wanted was a multipack of socks.

Another economising difference from the store chain’s more pretentious rivals was that its stores neither opened early nor closed late. It was almost closing time already and there were few customers left in the store. The cashiers were closing their tills and carrying out their end-of-shift routines so they could make a quick exit.

While I was browsing the racks of socks, looking for my size in a colour scheme I wouldn’t be embarrassed to wear, my attention was drawn to an altercation at the last remaining open till.

“Please,” begged a young girl, “if you don’t let me have these, I won’t be able to walk home.”

“I’m sorry Miss,” said the cashier, a middle-aged woman. “As I’ve told you before, if you can’t pay the price, you can’t have the shoes. Now, do I have to call security?”

“No,” said the girl, looking utterly abject. She turned away from the cashier and, without paying attention to where she was going, limped away from the till.

Suddenly the girl looked up and caught me staring at her. Our eyes met we held each other’s gaze for an uncomfortably long moment. She altered course, making a beeline for me. I saw the cause of her limp - one of her trainers had virtually split in half and was barely hanging onto her foot.

I prepared for a barrage of foul-mouthed insults but the girl stopped, a little too close for my comfort, stood on tiptoe and whispered into my ear, “Please, you look an okay sort, I desperately need another pair of shoes to walk home in but I don’t have enough money. If you buy them for me, I’ll let you fuck me, but it will have to be up my bum because it’s my fertile time.”

Stunned into silence, I studied the girl while I formulated a reply. Heaven help me, being a sucker for teary females, I couldn’t not consider her request. And besides, I was swayed by the girl’s audacity and resourcefulness in seeking a solution to her problem: such an approach had so far served me well in life.

The girl looked to be in her early teens, wearing a well-worn white t-shirt with a small, plain-white bra visible underneath. Her visible attire was completed by an equally well-worn blue denim skirt almost down to her knees, and a pair of scruffy, disintegrating trainers that were now only partially successful at enclosing her sockless feet.

The girl was too skinny for my liking but she had clear, beguiling, blue-grey eyes and a pretty, freckle-spattered face, albeit framed by unwashed, lank dark brown hair that trailed halfway down her back. She wasn’t wearing perfume and her natural smell was both enticing and feminine, yet somewhat stale from the need of a good wash.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Eighteen.”

I couldn’t stop myself from snorting derisively.

“Sixteen,” she amended.

“You’re not helping your cause if I can’t trust you,” I said.

The girl looked away. “Fine, I was fourteen three months ago.” Then she looked up again to gauge my reaction and I was transfixed by those blue-grey eyes.

Fourteen sounded credible and meant the girl was above the age limit for statutory rape, but I didn’t know whether I could trust her to be discreet. I decided to let things play out. “Can you come to my house tomorrow?” I asked.

“Where do you live?”

I told the girl my address then instantly regretted it; what on earth was I doing!

“Oh,” she started, in recognition of the fact that I lived in an exclusive area. “That’s not far from me. I can come round virtually any time: my mum doesn’t care what I do so long as I don’t do drugs or get knocked up. But what about your wife? Won’t she be home?”

“No, I’m single. Come here, I want a quick sample of the merchandise before I decide.”