They were dressed smarter than I had expected. Sitting there in the hotel lobby, they could have been business partners waiting for their client, and in a way, I suppose they were. I stood at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, studying them. There was nothing particularly brutal about their appearance. Nothing that suggested the darkness of the world they inhabited. Rather, they seemed quite comfortable in the luxurious surroundings. I, on the other hand, couldn’t help but feel like everyone was judging me. Never had I stepped foot in somewhere so explicit in its expense. The suit I wore had been borrowed from my brother. A date, I told him. I’d finally started to put myself out there again. It hurt me how quickly he had believed me. How eager he was for me to abandon my grief for his ideals.

I was stalling. Time to face the music.

The couple watched me approach with a kind of distracted interest. I could see their lips stop moving as I came into earshot, profiling me in the space of a few seconds.

‘Mr Gentry, please, have a seat.’

The man’s accent was not local. Polish, perhaps, or Romanian.

‘This is Dahlia. She is the one who will be carrying out the session this evening.’

Dahlia gave me a brief smile but offered no introduction of her own. She wore a green dress edged with lace, designed to tease. As the man – whose name he told me was Jed – launched into what must have been a heavily prepared speech, I found myself unable to look away from her placid face. Such sophistication. Such innocence. I tried to imagine her in my hotel room, succumbed to her work, but each time the image shattered before it could form.

Apparently, she would come to my room just after midnight. No money would exchange hands until after the job was done. I was not to say a word to anyone of what I had planned, and if anyone else came to the room around that time, I was to turn them away.

In the end I left them sipping cocktails and went back upstairs. Perhaps I should have been more nervous. Instead, I felt a strange calmness that often accompanied such momentous decisions. For the first time in five months, I had silenced the ambiguity that had taken ahold of my life. I thought about ringing Kate, but knew it was pointless. It had been several years since either of us had been able to afford a cell phone and she kept most electronics unplugged to save electricity. A note, then, explaining what I had done. For half an hour I sat at the desk in a daze, trying to find the right words. Eventually I gave up and laid on the bed, listening to the sounds of the city drifting in through the open window.

I didn’t sleep as such, but when the knock came I had to drag myself back to reality. A quick check through the spy hole confirmed that it was Dahlia. The first thing I noticed was her change in appearance. In place of the expensive dress, she had put on a simpler outfit, consisting of black jeans and a tight jacket. I assumed it was meant to make me feel more comfortable, as if this was something befitting my middle-class station in life. In reality it had the opposite effect.

She instructed me to take off all my clothes and lay down facing the ceiling. Meanwhile she placed a large handbag on the desk and went about preparing her instruments. It’s at this point that I felt my conviction fading. Whatever had gotten me to this point – fear or lust or sheer madness – quickly fell away in the face of the situation. This was for you. I said to myself, repeating the words until they became a kind of mantra.

Dahlia turned to me: ‘Are you ready?’

‘Will it hurt?’ I asked, although I already knew the answer.

‘Most likely, yes. It is the way we have to do things, I’m afraid. Our clients are quite particular in this regard.’

I closed my eyes and waited for the cold sensation of the blade. It was almost pleasant at first, my nerves not yet accepting what was happening. The warmth of my own blood was a welcome comfort as the pain blossomed. I didn’t dare open my eyes, too afraid to see her standing over me. I imagined her smiling at the suffering she was inflicting.

A few moments later, I was already beginning to lose consciousness. All feeling had left my body; the odd grunt as Dahlia went about her work the only reminder of what was happening to me. Every few minutes she stepped away and the rustle of plastic would signify the next stage of the operation. Any apprehension was gone. My flesh no longer belonged to me. It had become the sacrifice I had chosen. My final repayment to the relationship I’d never meant to leave.

Soon Dahlia would call her boss and my organs would be taken to auction. It wouldn’t take long, they’d said. A few days at most, and then the money would appear in Kate’s bank account, untraced. I no longer feared what would happen to me when the procedure was over. My only wish during those last few breaths, whispered into the darkness, was that one day she would be able to forgive me.