A young man in a suit is sitting in a dark wooden chair by an old man’s bedside. The old man is dressed in a pink shirt and tie, and is propped up on top of a quilt and cushions. He smiles widely when we enter and makes a purring sound. I think he’s calling us cats as he says, ‘Mmm, pussy, pussy,’ and the young man laughs loudly, his face red and greedy, chin wobbling underneath.

The young man speaks for the old, ‘Take off your clothes. It’s Pop’s ninetieth birthday and I wanted to get him a present he would never forget. Present of a life time, eh, old boy?’ He sounds angry. Every word lands somewhere deep in my body, making ugly pictures, although I don’t know exactly what they mean. The old man makes slobbering noises like a baby feeding. I feel doors inside of me slam shut and worry that I won’t be able to do this. The young man begins to undress the old, revealing hairless skin, like putty.

‘What are you waiting for, girls?’ the younger says.

Ling and I look at each other and she begins to undress first. I copy her until we are standing in our underwear. ‘Do not resist, it’s over quicker that way.’ Magda is there in the room with us, guiding us through. I feel her squeeze my hand.

‘Everything,’ the man says.

I do not want Ling to see me naked, nor do I want to see her that way, so we continue to look into each other’s eyes as we remove the rest of our clothes. The younger man takes us by a hand each and tells us to sit on either side of the old man. The old man’s blotched hands shake as he reaches out and grabs hold of each of our thighs and pinches hard, his fingers creeping upwards.

‘You, chinkie,’ the younger man says, ‘climb on top of him.’

The old man’s razor-thin lips clamp to Ling’s nipple as he sucks and bites, and she winces.

‘You, blondie,’ the man tells me, ‘play with him, make him hard and then suck.’

The younger man watches as the old man’s limp bits come to life. I unfocus my eyes so I don’t have to see.

I block out his voice. I am sitting on the highest branch of the highest tree in the forest and Ling is there too and we are swaying in the breeze.

When it’s over, the nurse woman escorts us back down the hallway so fast we have to run to keep up, then opens the front door a crack, peeps out, and pushes us through. ‘Straight to the car,’ she says.