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world. I was going to do big things, you know, make a difference.”
    He stops and frowns.
    “Anyway, something happened in my life, and I didn’t want to live in England anymore so I joined Doctors Without Borders and they sent me to Africa.”
    “Oh, wow, Africa!” I interrupt.
    For a second he looks bleak. “Yeah, Africa.”
    “It must have been amazing.”
    He looks at me expressionlessly. “Africa destroyed me.”
    “Why?’ I ask, shocked.
    He drinks his Coke straight from the can. “I realized that there was no way to change the world. Not only is the whole damn system parasitical in nature, it’s been deliberately set up to be that way, and little ole me was not going to change it. In fact, my very existence was making the system run. I was actually a cog in a well-oiled machine that was ruthlessly exploiting the poor and the oppressed so that some over-fed capitalist somewhere in the West could make another buck he didn’t need.”
    I gaze at him curiously. “What do you mean?”
    He sighs. I can see this is a topic that depresses him. “As a doctor you become the unwitting tool of Big Pharma manufacturers who are busy offloading their out-of-date vaccines and medicines at cut prices. They wanted me to inject poison into those kids.”
    “Could you not complain to someone?” I ask, aghast.
    “The politicians are bought so they turn a blind eye, and the think tanks and government officials stay silent to further their own agendas.”
    “I can’t hardly believe that is going on.” What am I saying? Look at the cycle of corruption that kept me enslaved. It was politicians who were my biggest customers.
    “It was going on while I was there. It’s hard to imagine it is no longer going on. The profits are too big.”
    “So you left?”
    “Not immediately. Even then I thought I could make a difference. I began a campaign of educating the people. In Africa life is cheap. A few bullets. One to the chest and a couple to the stomach. I was very badly wounded and would have died if Blake had not sent in an army to find me and fly me out.”
    “Oh my God.”
    “When I came back it was the same shit all over again. Representatives of big pharma constantly in my office pushing the most expensive drugs on me. Basically bribing me with kickback to prescribe those as often as possible. It made me sick and ashamed of the code I had undertaken. Our motto was no longer First Do No Harm, it was Keep Them Sick While You Fill Your Pockets.”
    He leans back in his chair and I see the scars of his past alive in his eyes.
    “Anyway, after that I decided I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore. The most fitting job for me was to become a plastic surgeon. At least I wouldn’t be pretending to be doing something important. I’d simply be tickling someone’s neurosis and filling my pockets at the same time.”

Fourteen
    Jack
    “T his looks big enough to feed five,” she says when her food arrives. I watch the childlike pleasure on her face and suddenly blood is rushing to my ears. Mine. This one is mine. The sentiment is barbaric, but it will not be denied and roots itself in my being.
    “What?” she asks, her eyes so big and bright, her lush lips parting. 
    What the fuck? She’s like an angel from heaven come to tempt me. As I watch, her tongue comes out, wetting her bottom lip. The air leaves my lungs in a whoosh. Shit. I’m in so much trouble.
    “Dig in,” I tell her, my voice hoarse.
    She takes a bite, her movements self-conscious. Juice runs down the side of her mouth and her tongue comes out to lick it away, and it takes everything I’ve got not to lean forward and taste her mouth. I’m going to be lying in my cold bed stroking myself to release tonight. She is looking at me innocently.
    “Is it good?” I ask with a tight smile. “Or do we need to walk down the road to McDonalds?”
    She shakes her head and smiles happily. “No, this is heaven.”
    “Excellent,” I say, and even though I have