Fluffy is her name and she is a sex worker. This article is about Fluffy and she is willing to have her story told. Friends and clients call her Ling Ling which is her trade name and I prefer to her call her Fluffy because of her fluffy hair.
Fluffy was born twenty-five years ago into a middle-income family. She is five feet four encased in a petite frame. Fluffy has a cut of a model because she is endowed with seductive features and is self-sufficient, so to speak.
This is a true story, one of the four that I had interviewed for my next non-fictional book. The fine details were excluded in this article except for the story of her life in summary.
The purpose of this book is to highlight how people are suffering in silent especially when it is not entirely their fault. The society frowned upon them and like it or not, they had been marginalized for who they are.
Adjusting herself comfortably on the chair, she rested her elbows on the table while her fingers ran through her fluffy hair over her tilted head. Flouncing her hair asunder, she dropped her arms on the table; body upright accentuating the cleavage of her bosoms and released a deep sigh.
The way she looked at me, I knew she was assessing me in her habitual way she used to assess her clients. Oh boy! The way she scrutinised me, she made me feel so naked!
What the heck! I was there to interview her but not to be her client. I became sensitive because my ego was chipped, however I managed to remain composed but Fluffy saw through me. I was not ready to play the mind game with her because my libido was in controlled.
I went professionally as a writer and I expected Fluffy to know my intention. She agreed, and her ability to transform her personality was just amazing. She controlled herself minus her sensual gimmicks and physical seduction. I did not blame her because such demeanour was spontaneous as a way of her life.
I rewound the tape in the recorder and pressed the play button. With my index finger, I gave her the cue to start.
Fluffy dropped out from Lower Sixth and came to Kuala Lumpur to work as a counter salesgirl selling hand-phones. She shared a room with two other girls after shifting out from her aunt’s house after a month. She enjoyed her freedom and could fraternise with new found roommates. Each of them had their past but I was only interested to know Fluffy’s about her.
She looked into her palm as her thumb ran in gentle caresses. It took her quite a while to begin which was rather taxing to my patience. Before I could switch off the recorder, she lifted her head to tell about the tales of her life.
Fluffy could handle her academic performance but the betrayal kept haunting her. Her performance took a downturn and was at the verge of depression. She hid it well from everyone and the only way that kept her sane was to cry herself to sleep and to forget.
When the hurt was unbearable, she would gulp down a tablespoon of codeine to help her through. Her ambitious dream to be a veterinarian had shattered because she was heading to a disastrous life.
Fluffy still loves Rock (not his real name) even he had tricked her into giving him her virginity. It was all about love and promises. How naïve! Well, naivety and willingness are two different kettles of fish. One cannot be willing when there is naivety or otherwise.
Fluffy was silent trying to ponder what I had said. It was one’s willingness to surrender what is precious in the name of love. It was a case of deep sexual arousal that her resistance was impeded by her own sanity. The truth always lies in the aftermath of the event that tells a different story.
Her greatest enemy was her feeling of betrayal itself and a man like Rock is just a plain vermin. The fact to anything that people indulge in definitely takes two to tango!
The utmost important thing for Fluffy to do at that depressing hours was to handle the enemy within rather than to hurt herself by trading her body for money. I qualified myself by making it clear to her that talking was easy because I was not walking that hurtful mile in her shoes as what she had.
Fluffy was in an imminent crossroad between remorse and regrets. She thought she could handle the situation but her resistance against the odds had finally succumbed to the heavy toll of excruciating emotional pain.
Her countenance bore the pain as she related the fateful event of being too trusting. Fluffy put up a brave front trying to hide her feelings but the camouflage failed her miserably. Biting her lips to sustain her composure, I asked if she believed in destiny. She shrugged her shoulders; gripped her palms and hid them under the table.
Fluffy started to sell her body for the pleasure of men was when she could not make ends meet.
Fluffy joined in the crowd and soon learnt the tricks of the trade. For the first few weeks, business was slow. From there she was exposed to a different kind of world that men of all characters. Her clients vary from professionals to those with the bad man image. The wealthy and VIPs were in her book as well.
She was not the “night fairy” who roamed the red-light area wearing cheap perfume and scantily dressed. Like any young woman, she went window shopping, movies or enjoying her drinks at coffee house. When her hand-phone buzzed, she would check the screen before deciding to take what is in stored.
My final question for Fluffy was her opinion about men who sought her services. Her answer was simple.
“They are wife cheaters!” But she could understand because Fluffy could service them the way their wives could not. Anyway, it was her job and she had to survive even through such depraved ways. The money was good, and this had overruled morality.
What is the use of money when one is infected with the dreaded HIV viruses? To Fluffy she was confident that she had taken good care of herself and well enough. When I probed her about servicing depraved men, Fluffy was lost for words. She just shrugged her shoulders. She digressed and I did not want to be contentious about her perceptive views on HIV let alone other venereal diseases.
As she walked out of the private room, Pete (not his real name) was walking to her direction. They exchanged a few words and she walked to the washroom.
Pete owned the social escort company whom my friend introduced me to him. With my equipment packed and ready to leave, Pete asked whether I had what I came for. I nodded and was thankful to him.
Pete walked me to the door and we smoked outside. I told Pete that she refused my money as agreed for the interview and Pete was not surprised. He knew Fluffy too well.
Fluffy hoped that Rock would get hold a copy of my book to make his guilt pricked his conscience if he has any. To me, it was impossible for Rock to know it was her even he had read it. The story could be from any girls who had fallen prey to such unscrupulous individual. Fluffy was living in self-pity and was paranoid that Rock would still care for her.
Fluffy emerged and she joined us in the smoking spree. She smoked like a chimney and I asked her why she did not smoke during our interview. Her reply was simple yet cynical. “I don’t smoke in front of elderly people.” I kept quiet but in my mind, I tried to figure out her figurative connotation.
Was it a respect or her jibe? Me elderly? What the …! Anyhow, I smiled because the fact is that I am in that category.
Before she left, she would not even leave me in peace. Perhaps she was trying to entice me knowing too well that men of my age group are the horniest despite having their libido hanging in a limbo.
What a crazy insinuation! I realised that to be in such age group, we are susceptible to cruel sexual intimidations and to be laughed at.
Fluffy enjoyed flaunting her assets to stimulate arousal and caress our fragile fantasies invitingly to make our libido running wild in our own figment of imaginations. How pathetic!
“Visit me sometimes?”
“No. I couldn’t afford you,” I replied almost instantaneously.
“Who’s talking about money?”
She waved her goodbye and wiggled away. Her hot pants could hardly cover her buttock cheeks and her pair of shapely legs in her stockings had a tale to tell that she is the “night angel not fairy” and a witty one too.
Pete chuckled. Then, he looked at me with uncertainty across his face.
“You don’t desire her or you need to pop in a piece?” (He meant Viagra.)
“If I say no, then I’m not honest to myself. If I say yes, then I’m the greatest liar!” My answer was straight from my heart and I guessed that it could not be disputed.
Pete patted my shoulder to call for truce. He knew too well that I was going to cry out loud about what he has yet to know, and Fluffy has yet to experience is about an old stallion from a family of thorough breed that could still gallop like a runaway horse! Mind you, with or without Viagra! Perhaps that was a self-consolation to patch up a hair line crack inflicted on my prized libido.
I knew Fluffy could handle herself. Her wits and intelligence are the right perquisites to qualify her in an executive position, only if she could fight against her traumatic experience of being of her virginity cheated.
People are of the opinion that sex workers do not deserve the sympathy or respect. Whether it is of their own free will or been tricked into, they too have their stories to tell. These are the girls and women who are trapped in the cycle of sexual abuse by men.
What if those sex crackpots have no avenues for their sexual escapades, then rapes will sky rocket and the streets will no longer be safe to the females or the males as well.
The potential victims to be tricked or forced into such trade are mostly those from broken homes, runaways or pre-marital sex that turned ugly. Unwanted pregnancies among teenagers and the rejection by their family should not be discounted too. When left in the lurch and gone hungry without shelter, the direction to take is to walk the one-way street. The shame they have brought upon themselves and the societal rejection will push them closer into the arms of the welcoming pimps or to be raped by the opportunists.
As I look at it, we have to treat sex workers like human beings who have their civil and human rights, rather like vermin from the cesspool. When men walk around with their untamed libido, then prostitution can never be eradicated.
So who to blame? The Creator who endowed us with testosterone and progesterone or adults themselves who have failed to inculcate moral values into their children? Or blame it on broken marriages where parents shirked their responsibilities?
There are so many possible causes and to curb the oldest profession from mushrooming, it all depends on how we appreciate human values. I would not dwell into the semantics of the right and wrong of morality because it will take us nowhere, except individual opinion prevails. We should allow them to live their lives without prejudice but with sympathy instead. So, over this contentious topic, I will rest my case.
