She watches the younger women as they work, flaunting bodies untouched by age or diminished by turns spent making a living on their backs. She watches as they waltz in and out of Rosie's, one young face traded for another. Perhaps they find husbands, sullied though they may be in the eyes of some, or are shipped off to warm to warm the beds of the wealthy. Others may find mates out on the hatching sands.

She is past the time for any of those options, by her estimation.

Aging hasn't withered her in beauty, she knows that much. Those fine lines which begin to show in her reflection do not seem to have any effect on her ability to turn a man's (or a woman's) head. She makes her marks, and doesn't want for anything in that respect. But she knows her time is trickling away, each day a grain of sand in the hourglass.

In any other job, she is still young enough and full of promise. Here, she is a swiftly ageing artefact; a cautionary tale about what happens when you have no exit strategy. When she hits forty, she imagines she'll be much like a creature in the Steens' menagerie, viewed with equal parts awe and fear.

The youngest among the girls adore her. She plays mother to their insecurities, giving away the affection she will never be able to give to a daughter of her own. They run to her for their problems now, but she knows that they will not always need her. She is, after all, not their blood.

Still, there will always be new girls too young to be choosing this life for themselves, just as she once was, and they will need guidance.

They will need someone to make certain that they don't stay here forever.

Yes, Tsetsiliya knows she is a woman who may eventually outlive her value in the eyes of her clientele, but she still has work to do here.

A cautionary tale teaches the best lessons, after all.