A friend once asked “Would you ever marry a prostitute”
By: Pulkit Srivastava
Tags: Prostitution, Sex Workers, Sex Work, Protect Sex Worker, Prostitutes

Do we ever realize the eternal darkness behind the glittery sequined outfits she wears every night?

Do we ever contemplate the pain she beholds inside every time she enchants “Darling, want to have fun tonight?”

Do we even realize the messiness behind her perfectly smudged eyeliner that she wishes someone notices?

Do we even think of when was the first time she bleeds, and not naturally but when she bled her dignity, her modesty, when her skin turned red from the pain on the inside, and on the outside when a middle-aged man penetrated inside her when she was 11 and sold at an extravagant prize because she was a virgin back then.

No, we don’t think about that. Neither did I, till my friend asked me that question. But do we know why? Because the majority of humans don’t want to talk about vaginas when they bleed, but they won’t think twice before making it bleed. The misogyny is spread in our society as vast as the cosmic imagination of ferocity can foray. The irony lies in the fact that the policemen who are supposed to protect the younger generation to fall into trafficking demand the youngest at night.

She satisfies a lunatic, a millionaire, a teenager and what not. I wonder if she looks with an urge, a ray of hope, every time she is to satisfy a customer. Does she not want that someone will be able to see her body not as a sex kitten but beyond that? Someone who questions why there are red marks on every part of her body?

I envisioned so much that day. My mind bothered me with questions I never dared to ask. My mind ran scenarios and stories that felt true. How that one question brought so many heart-shattering stories to my mind. I imagined a story, of a girl called Jhilmil, who was trafficked at the tender age of six.

Will we ever be able to realize the trauma she undergoes when she gets a vision of a marriage nearby? The music during a groom’s wedding procession doesn’t sound like music to her ears.

While a marriage ceremony takes place somewhere far away from the brothels Jhilmil lived in, a man was trying to get between the two legs. She winced in agony while he pulled her hair and penetrated without her consent from behind. Her consent did not matter right, it was her job to do. Her mascara smudged bitterly as tears came out of her eyes. She wanted to scream “no” but she looked at the purple and blue stains on her white skin that was the result of saying “no” last day.

He pulled her hair while she screamed even louder. The scene was shambling and the lady tried to calm herself down. She became latent and she languished but that did not engross the face of that man with a single bit of sorrow. “You were awesome bitch”, he stated, she jaded and could not see anything in her room. She merely heard the sound of a zip and buckling up of a belt. See you soon “item”, he said and threw money on her face. Boorishly he even threw the used condom on her face and she lied dizzy. She just could not feel anything. She tried to get up and she did, went into her bathroom and she sat and screamed the loudest she could. Her entire body wasn’t alive. It was winter and she took bath with icy cold water in the middle of the night as she did not caress anything.

The breeze of the scintillating winters was not even felt by cold skin.

But it was not the weather that made her cold. It was the coldness of humankind that did.

Such a nincompoop she was right? How could she even think that she will get to live a normal life?

“Jhilmil”, a new customer is here, make him satisfied said the pimp and she again got busy making them satisfied the entire night. Her expectations haunted her abruptly but she kept expecting. Maybe one day, someone would come who would give her home in his heart.

Finally, a day came where a customer came to her to enunciate his thoughts. His name was Abhijeet. What she said was not something she had heard before. The heart of that lady was inculcated with onyx and behind those tacky shimmery clothes also lied a woman fond of love. Her dreams were imaginative, energetic and evocative but she was merely talked about her vaginal capabilities. Abhijeet understood that. He fell in love the first time he saw her. He would come to see her again and again.

When he asked her to marry him. She smirked and reprimanded that she did not want sympathy from anyone to live her life. A woman, who had never seen love confused it for sympathy. He thought of her like a queen at that moment who did not want to live a life of sympathy but she’ll live the life of misery. He told her that it is not about sympathy. It is something natural, something that you should’ve been asked and he told her how long he has loved her. How long did he want to take her out to make her see the real world, to push her wings and fly, to make her view the world from a broad perspective? A butterfly dwindled in her entire body. The cold breeze could be felt by her after ages. She was not numb today. She felt something and smiled. He took her out of the brothel by paying for the entire day and they never returned.

To answer the question my friend asked, I told him I wish I was Abhijeet.