Chicken Soup for the Prostitute's Soul

There was (and is) someone I love. Let’s call this person Y. Y becoz his memories are so painful that I have forgotten X, my first boyfriend-who introduced me to this trade, where we barter off saliva and body fluids. No he, (Y not X) did not intend to hurt me. He told me on day 2 that there wasn’t a future to our relationship, that I should go away, but then isn’t it true that what is forbidden is the most wanted. After all even he is with me, till date because prostitutes are forbidden for young men from “good families”

Over a period of one year, I did everything I could to love him, then hate myself for loving him, love him more and consequently inflicting more hate upon myself. This continued till I couldn’t hate myself more or love him any more…the course of journey with this one man told me that prostitutes aren’t those who bed many, but also those who bed someone with so much of an intensity that the noble woman in them burn themselves out. For your information, we never reached the bed though- we were limited to the seats in public parks and seedy discs.

He was neutral, in the truest sense of the word. Not that he was dead in spirit but far opposite from that he is a creator, a gifted writer, artist and a software engineer. (That was what I fell in love with in the first place and his confused, intelligent eyes in the second place) When his neutrality to my love didn’t rub me off he tried to ward me off but then there is no stopping a hot blooded Indian woman on trail. I explored the lust angle. He succumbed. Call me a bitch- I don’t care.

Now he tells me his family has decided whom is he supposed to marry. He tells me that he is happy (he doesn’t know happy people don’t complain about things as banal as the incompatibility between his and his wife’s sun sign) and that I should go on with the course of my life. I smile and tell him, life will take its own course through the deserts of pain and rainforests of bliss. Who am I to decide the course of life? Well, officially noone, worth an atom, forget the atom, not even an electron. For that matter even he is also noone to anyone, except me. He is my personal Jesus.

I know given a chance I wouldn’t marry him. Marriage is not for true artists. Artists never get satisfied…they always look for new avenues, new pastures, new mistresses. He has made his mind to be loyal, but then even without my interference; the dream of a blissful married life wouldn’t ever be converted to reality. Because, life will interfere and ask him to seek what doesn’t exist. And then he will meet me again. Ok if not me then maybe another bitch. Soul meeting Soul. Body is just the medium.

They ask me, they means my friends (that includes my mind) - that prostitute soul doesn’t get into relationship. Why the hell did I? When he had told me that we don’t have a future? I tell them, love is out of bounds for prostitutes but hope isn’t. I’m an eternal optimist. When I got into this relationship I had told myself 3 things:

1. True Love will find a way.
2. Sometimes you have to stretch yourself to love yourself back in place of the other person loving you. Yeah it sounds kinda stupid.
3. If it isn’t stupid it ain’t love.

I was sure he was the right person. I still am that he is the guy for me. No, don’t confuse it with marriage. Love and marriage don’t go together as best friends, they just go around as “hi/ hello friends”. So, I’m in love, I’m an optimist and I’m stupid. I’m hurt also- badly, for I haven’t forgotten a single moment of the toil I did over the past year. But then the optimism mantra says, “No pain, no gain” and “No shortcuts to success”. The second mantra was more difficult to implement. He was under my spell and the easiest thing was to blackmail him into marriage. But then as I said who wants to be the wife?

Once I jokingly asked him if he would marry me. His response was, “Are you crazy?” He treated me like a person would treat the one who gives out his death sentence. What he didn’t know was I’m his death. The truth of life. The black beauty that waits with open arms just at the edge. You can forget her and damn her existence in the frivolities of life but then there is no escaping her.

Today, he tells me we must not talk. I say, oh you think if you don’t, things would be alright? He stays quiet so I tell him that his wife and I would be the best of friends. He says impossible. My mind tells my heart, “more possible and easier than seducing you”. I say “Oh of course we would be .I want you to be happily married and will do everything to save it from breaking.” My heart tells my mind, “Even if that means giving you a break from your boring married life in my arms” I know I am not wrong. My love is unconditional as is my desire. I’m a prostitute, only becoz guys are dogs, who get bored easily, becoz they do not respect what they have.

My prosti- colleagues would be shocked if they get to know that I still hold himin dreams. But then I’m an artist. He is my muse. He is my canvas. He is my mind that fathoms the colours of the world. He is my hand that puts those reflections on the canvas. I do old things in new ways and new things in old ways. I awaken him and in the process live my life. But then I’m his teacher, his master in bed. I teach him, I restrain him and partner him in reaching new heights….

Who says I’m a prostitute?