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"Tradgedy and Triumph" - A Filipina Street Girl. Surviving Poverty, Abuse and Hardship

Source

Good Luck

IJCH - Inside JaiChai's Head (meaning: My warped, personal opinions and musings)

From the Author:

Salutations.

I am JaiChai.

And if I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you before, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance now.

At the behest of my Filipino friends, I have am submitting this revised edition of https://steemit.com/hardship/@jaichai/athena-s-story-a-flipina-street-girl-surviving-poverty-abuse-and-hardship.

Although this version has been edited, the story has remained intact and now has the appropriate image sources included with each image.

Claimer and Disclaimer

The male narrator of this short story is me.

The rest of the events depicted in this story are based on true life events.

The only deviation from absolute authenticity is the intentional and liberal use of aliases for real people and places.

Background:

After running away from home at the age of 12, she renamed herself "Evelyn" because she thought it sounded prettier than her real name "Edith".

Idolized by the vast majority of the local population, Evelyn is the "local girl makes good" success story. Anyone hoping to grow out of their current, tough conditions need only to look to Evelyn's story for hope and inspiration.

In spite of the same limitations and circumstances faced by the poorest locals, Evelyn managed to rise above and eventually travel to the Land of Opportunity - the United States of America.

Source (Base Source)

Evelyn's life story is the stuff of urban lore - catching a nice foreigner named Dave, getting married, raising their two beautiful children with her loving husband, earning a U.S. college degree, running a profitable online business and living a happy, sucessful and fulfilling life.

Evelyn's generosity is widely known throughout the city.

Several times a year, she sends care packages to her family, friends and the dwellers of the poorest sections of town where she was born and raised. The packages are filled with essentials for daily living - toothbrushes, soap, first aid kits for the home, etc. Simple toys are always included and often are the first toy that those poor children have ever owned.

Source (Base Source)

Understandably, whenever Evelyn returns to our small city for a brief vacation, she is given the respect befitting a goddess. She is known as the city's "Athena", the goddess of wisdom, inspiration, strength - and more.

Seeing Evelyn after all these years, forced me to accept some inescapable life truths and face some harsh facts of reality.

At the top of the list is Evelyn. As if by magic, she seems to age in reverse. Without one iota of arrogance or hint of pretension, Evelyn demurely walks this Earth as living proof that - for a gifted, select few - it's totally possible for a woman to become evermore beautiful, charismatic, playful and sensual with each passing year.

And whenever I remind myself that Evelyn is literally "The One that got away", I get this burning urge to engage in a prolonged session of self-flagellation!

Source (Base Source)

Present Day

At a popular local restobar...

While I was away talking to the bar owner, Evelyn had left her perch at the bar and joined the table of admiring freelance hookers.

Without interrupting her current conversation, she craned her neck up and offered her cheek to me for a kiss. Giving her a quick peck on the cheek, I told her that I would be chatting with the other foreigners for a while. Reflexively, she nodded and returned the kiss as though this was a natural habit we'd been doing for years. But in reality, tonight was the first time I’d seen her in over a decade.

Then she turned back to her adoring audience. My seat at the foreigner table was positioned back-to-back with Evelyn's seat at the other table. Being so close to her, it was impossible not to eavesdrop; especially when she had to speak loud enough to be heard over the tennis match on one TV and the music videos on another.

Evelyn was conducting what sounded like a professional seminar for high-priced, elite escorts. For the benefit of the local women, she spoke in their common Visayan dialect.

Everyone at her table was quiet and intently listening to Evelyn's Pearls of Wisdom. The hookers were especially keen on learning some new professional, working girl secrets - any tricks of the trade they could incorporate into their own repertoire.

Source (Base Source)

When Evelyn started her oratory, the freelancers huddled closer to their legendary hero whom they regarded as the embodiment of The Goddess Athena.

But instead of Man-Catching lessons, Evelyn shocked all of us with what she actually said.

First, she closed her eyes for a few seconds and then slowly reopened them. Physically she was here with us, but anyone could sense that she was mentally still in the past. Then she took a deep breath, exhaled, and began her story:

Source (Base Source)

About nine and a half years ago, the American I met here - Dave - and I left this little town and took a holiday to the places that previously, I could've only dreamt of. We shopped, ate at expensive restaurants, drank alcohol with strange foreign names, sang karaoke, and danced in Manila, Cebu, Boracay and Puerto Galera.

It was wonderful and I didn't ever remember feeling so happy in my life. At that time, I did not know, or even care, that Dave might be The One. My childhood had already crushed any belief in that fantasy.

Source (Base Source)

When I was eleven years old, I was just one of many poor kids who had never attended school. This was not uncommon in our poor barangay - a small sub-section of any Filipino town or city. In fact, my three brothers and two sisters, and most of the kids in the neighborhood never went to school either. Being a student required uniforms, daily transportation, and snacks that my parents could not afford.

Source (Base Source)

One early morning, I returned home at 3:00a.m. after 16 hours of walking up and down the boulevard trying to sell peanuts to all those foreigners I would see eating their expensive food and drinking their even more expensive drinks.

My papa, as usual at this time every morning, was very drunk and exploded with anger when he saw that I had not sold all my peanuts for the night. It was always a lose/lose situation for me. One time I got rid of my unsold peanuts in a trash bin before going home, but the lack of money collected for all the peanuts showed that I was being dishonest; or worse, spent the peanut money on myself.

He beat me for a long time, yelling, “Is that how you repay me and your mama? We cook those peanuts FOR YOU every morning before sunrise!”

My mama persuaded my papa to stop beating me by getting him to go visit his friends at the local Sari-Sari store - make-shift convenience stores in every neighborhood - and slipping him a few pesos she hid in her slippers beside the outhouse; which was basically, a weakly built bamboo and palm frond shelter that provided no privacy while people squatted over a hole in the ground.

Source (Base Source)

After my papa left to go drinking with his friends at the Sari-Sari store, my mama viciously slapped me, scolded me and told me to go to my grandmama's house - supposedly until my papa calmed down. This was a surprise. I wondered why my mama would want me to stay with my grandmama when they seemed to be at each other's throats all the time?

Always at war with each other, I would often hear them quarrelling whenever my grandmama visited. And their arguement was always about the same thing "money" - or should I say, the lack of it.

Their well-worn fighting script read like this:

(The more tempers flared and the more the alcohol and drugs flowed, the more their language devolved into pure vulgarity.)

My grandmama - with the most guilt-inducing, vulnerable voice she could muster - would methodically berate my mama for not being a good daughter.

She would go on and on saying , "You are a selfish, ungrateful child. Don't you know how much your papa and I had to sacrifice to feed and raise you? We worked hard day and night just to send you to elementary school. Then in your first year of high school, you got pregnant and quit school. You were such a whore that the papa of your child is still a mystery.

No one took responsibility for making you pregnant because they saw how much of a slut you were. Everyone knew that the papa could have been any one of the boys, tricycle drivers, and foreigners you had sex with. Who took care of your kid while you were out doing God knows what? Now it's your duty to take care of me in my old age."

Source (Base Source)

Trying not to raise her voice - but failing miserably, my mama would reply with something like, "Don't tell me about sacrifice! Do you remember what you made me do when I was just a little girl?

And just because you would fu¢k any man who visited us with free beer, rhum or 'medicine' - crystal meth, called "shabu" on the streets - even before papa died, doesn't mean I was a cheap whore like you!

Although you always thought I was a whore, I was still a virgin until you brought me downtown for the first time! Even worse, you kept making me do it up until I got married. And for what? Just so you could get drunk, smoke more shabu and gamble all night?"

They would go at it like this for hours at a time - especially if there was alcohol and 'medicine' available. When the alcohol or drugs were all gone, my mama would just go silent, make that wobbly walk to her bed and pass out. My grandmama would simply lie down on the livingroom floor, curl up in a fetal position and instantly appear comatose.

A few hours later, when they both were awake, they would act like nothing happened. But the underlying tension and animosity was obvious to anyone in the same room. And after some instant coffee and bread, my grandmama would abruptly march out the door.

In spite of the bravado that my mama showed when she fought with my grandmama, I would always hear her crying as soon as my grandmama left our house.

Anyway, I was just happy to get out of the house and avoid the return of my papa. He was about due to stumble home for dinner - most certainly drunker and furious by now.

I walked the 2 kilometers to my grandmama's house, feeling more relieved with each step away from my house and papa's drunken wrath.

I arrived at my grandmama's front door just at the beginning of sunset. I could smell the delicious aroma of my favorite dish - chicken adobo - before I opened her door. I was so hungry that I think I ate the food that was meant for the next morning's meals.

But my grandmama didn't complain.

After we were done eating, I cleared away the dirty dishes, wiped down the table, fed the scraps and leftovers to her two dogs, and washed the dishes. Then she gave me a small banig - a woven rattan sleeping mat, a throw pillow and a sheet. She told me to get some rest because she had a surprise for me later.

A couple of hours later - around 10p.m. - I awoke to the voiceof my grandmama telling me to wake up and take a bath. I asked her where we were going and why do I have to take a bath now.

Source (Base Source)

She just smiled and held up a nice, pretty dress and a pair of shiny black shoes. "Don't you want to look as clean and pretty as your new dress and shoes?"

Stunned, I said, "Is this my surprise for being a good daughter? Did mama tell you how good I take care of my little brothers? Sister knows that I work hard selling peanuts every night. Is that it? Did papa say how I do my chores without being told everyday? I thought nobody noticed any of that."

My grandmama didn't say anything. She just pointed at the dress and shoes with her lips.

Source (Base Source)

I blurted, "Are they really mine? Oh thank you, Lola! Thank you so much. You are the best Lola in the whole world!"

Grandmama smiled and said, "Hurry up child. Or I can't take you to the place where your surprise is waiting."

You can probably guess what happened next.

Instead of going out to eat french-fries or pizza somewhere, my grandmama took me downtown to meet the uncle who paid for my new dress and tonight's surprises - an uncle I'd never met before. Not fully understanding what was really happening, I just kept wondering how nice my new uncle would be. I hoped he would like me and continue to give me nice gifts.

When we got out of the tricycle, we were downtown on the main boulevard. I could see the flashing, colored lights of the discotheque called "Why Not" right across the street. There was a steady stream of women in expensive clothes, old and rich foreigners, and less rich - but good looking, younger foreigners going in and out of the front doors. The loud dance music blasted all the way across the street whenever the doors opened and closed.

Source (Base Source)

Within 5 minutes, I met my new uncle. He turned out to be a fat, old white guy who preferred underage girls like me. I was told to sit down on the bus bench, stay still and be quiet while grandmama haggled over the price of something that sounded very important. My grandmama kept saying, "Clean and untouched. More money. More money."

She was demanding a premium for the opportunity of deflowering me, taking my virginity.

When the two adults finished talking, my grandmama put my hand into the hand of my new uncle and said, "You be a good girl and do whatever your nice uncle says. I will come get you when you're done with all the surprises and fun things you will do together."

I told her I would be a good girl, kissed her cheek and waved good-bye as her tricycle sputtered away.

Source (Base Source)

Ten minutes later, I was in my new uncle's hotel room. He looked angry and scared me with his loud voice. He ordered me to take my clothes off. Then he forced me to have sex with him in every way he wanted.

He molested, raped and sodomized me repeatedly for hours. Just when I thought the Hell was over, he would stick some white powder up his nose, shout and shake his head, laugh, drink more beer, smoke a cigarette and start all over again.

That first sexual experience was horrible. The man stunk of alcohol and sweat. I remember thinking that our neighbor's pigs smelled better! I wanted to vomit every time his face was close enough for me to inhale the rotten egg, beer puke odor of his breath.

Source (Base Source)

He made me do things I never had imagined before in my young life. And those things he did to me hurt so bad I tried to escape his big, ugly hands many times. But every time I tried to break free and run from him, he would grip me tighter with one hand, drink more beer with the other, laugh and begin his fun all over again.

A few times I cried out in pain. But after a few minutes I noticed that my protests, screams, and whimpers just excited him even more; encouraging him to do his fun harder.

In the mirror of his hotel room I saw the ugly image of him pumping faster and faster like a fat, mangy street dog. His eyes were tightly shut like he was in pain, but at the same time, still laughing, and having his fun tearing up my insides. That's when I just bit my lip, hugged a pillow, tried not to make a sound, and just lay there on my stomach - truly wishing I would die soon.

After what felt like forever, his body jerked like he was being electrocuted, screamed something in a foreign language, and collapsed like an empty 50 kg. rice sack on top of me. A few seconds later, he rolled onto the bed beside me, mumbled something else I could not understand, and was soon snoring with his drooling mouth and eyes slightly open.

Source (Base Source)

I spent the rest of the night crying in the shower and scrubbing every inch of my body over and over again with soap and a hand towel - leaving most of my body red and almost raw.

I felt like a trapped little mouse with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. I kept listening for any sounds made by that uncle who had fun hurting me; never forgetting that he was just on the other side of the CR door. I was so scared.

And I never thought it was possible to feel so abandoned and alone.

Staying awake all night, I desperately wished for my grandmama to come get me soon. I began praying for everything I could think of to keep the foreigner uncle away from me - safe from another terrible session of his fun.

Then I prayed for anything to help me escape from the CR, then the room and then as far away from the hotel I could run. I prayed for superpowers like the strength - or ability - to knock down, go under, over, or through the walls.

I wanted to go back to the day before I went to my grandmama's house. I wanted to become invisible and walk out the front door - safe from getting grabbed by the uncle again.

After I couldn't pray anymore, I sat there shivering on the wet, cold shower tiles and watched the shadows slowly dissolve and disappear into the warm, advancing rays of the morning sun.

Somehow, in spite of my physical exhaustion and psychological shock, I found the will to make one more prayer:

I prayed to become one of those shadows.

Source (Base Source)

Grandmama didn't come to get me from my new uncle's hotel room until 10:30a.m.

She had made a deal with the old foreigner to allow him enough time for more fun in the morning. Thank God, the old man was so drunk that he slept all the way up to the minute my grandmama was knocking on the hotel door.

Source (Base Source)

She took the man's money for my food, new clothes, school books, and toys. Of course, I never got any of those things because my grandmama gave half to my mama and the rest went to her gambling during her all-night Tongit (Filipino Gin-Rummy) card games and her weekly - or if unexpected money appeared, more frequent smoking sessions of shabu.

When I finally got home, I ran into the arms of my older sister - Elizabeth, "Beth" - and sobbed for hours. I told her of my ordeal with the old, nasty, smelly and mean foreigner. She hugged me and stroked my hair; not saying anything until I had calmed down a little.

Looking into my eyes, Beth said, "I'm so sorry for you, my sweet little sister. That didn't happen to me until I was 12 years old. Don't ever tell anyone else or more bad things will happen."

“What could be more bad than last night?” I asked.

She cradled my face in her hands and said, “If you tell anyone, papa and mama will get very, very angry."

After mama brought me to my first foreigner uncle, I told my best friend. Later, we had an argument over three pesos - approximately 17 cents - that my friend accused me of stealing from her purse."

Beth's voice began to tremble and tears were welling up in her eyes now. To my surprise, a few silent tears snuck out and rolled down her face.

I have seen my sister cry "good" tears - liquid joy - many times before. Whenever she was really, really happy and grateful for something good that happened to her or anyone else she loves, the flood gates instantly open.

And predictably, for the next few minutes or more, Beth goes through a series of "smile-cry-laugh-cry- sniffle-cry-blow nose-cry..." cycles. She can't help it. And I can't help laughing - to the point of crying myself - whenever I witness it.

I always tease her about that time during our cousin's wedding, when several boxes worth of kleenex went from hand to hand, through the seated crowd of guests to handle my sister's "crying fits of love and joy". By the end of the service, there was a small tissue mountain under the seat in front of us!

But this was the first time I ever saw Beth like this - sad enough to cry the "bad" tears - the tears of heartache, sorrow and pain.

Until now, I thought she never - not even once in her life - cried those "bad" tears that other people around me cried often.

She was the one person in my life who always looked so happy - laughing and joking with me everyday. She was also the one that always gave me a smile, hug and kiss in the morning when I awoke and at night before I went to sleep too.

And I loved her so much.

I glanced upward towards my sister's face. For some unknown reason, I became mesmerized by the quiet, intermittent cascade of liquid sadness running down my sister's face.*

Like the DVD movies I could see through the store window downtown, I watched one particular teardrop travel - in slow motion - from the corner of Beth's right eye, momentarily pool behind a nostril, trace a path to chin, and audibly "plop" onto my forehead.

It was my sister's voice and a kiss on my cheek that jolted me out of the hypnosis and back to the real-time present.

"So to get revenge, she spent the rest of the day telling everyone about the meeting with the foreigner. The next day she found out that the real thief of her three pesos was her brother and apologized to me. But it was too little, too late."

"The damage was done. And that's when papa started calling me a whore and inviting his drinking friends to our house. They brought papa some free beer and cigarettes. Then three of his friends did more of those bad things to me - at the same time, like what that old foreigner did to you last night."

I didn't want my papa's drinking friends to do bad things to me at the same time, so I kept quiet while my grandmama sent me to more and more foreign uncles.

After months of meeting the foreign uncles, I decided it was unfair that I never got any of the food money. So I ran away from home right before my 12th birthday and joined the local street girl crowd; learning how to quickly get men to give me whatever I needed or wanted by using my face, fingers and body.

Source (Base Source)

By the time I was 15, I was certain that the only way to live without hunger or having to sleep on a street bench was to never forget this fact:

Mutual distrust and mutual abuse was "The Way of The World." Accept it.

And exploiting visiting foreigners was the only way for me to survive.

I can still remember how proud I felt when I could afford a boarding house room; basically, a crowded, closet-sized, filthy room, with no electricity, no running water, and only a communal hole-in-the-ground outhouse that was shared with two of my friends that also worked the streets every night.

I met Dave after more than six and one half years on the streets entertaining foreigners like that first one. He had met my roommate, Malou - short for Mary Lou - and dated her for the next five days.

On the sixth day, he complained about Malou's insane jealousy and said he was looking for another girlfriend. Although he felt genuinely flattered that a young and beautiful girl like Malou could actually feel jealous over him, he said she was too moody and had a tremendous temper.

I couldn't explain to him at the time what Malou's jealousy and moodiness was really about. Malou was like me and all the other street girls, fiercely protective of her cash cows from the ever-present threats around us. Whether those threats were real or imagined, we were always on guard. At any moment, another girl could - and certainly would, steal the day's precious source of income.

And for her moodiness? She had a Shabu habit that couldn't always be concealed.

Source (Base Source)

The story of Malou's Shabu addiction is not unique; the same as everyone else's Shabu addiction story. First she tried it to stay awake during the nocturnal, vampiric working hours of any hooker and Bar Girl. But inevitably, she swore she needed the drug to stay cheerful, slim and sexy for her customers and overcome shyness.

Later in life, I learned - the hard way - just how destructive this highly addictive drug can be. In Asia, Crystal Methamphetamine is readily available and more expensive than cocaine. It's the escapist's drug of choice for temporarily staving off chronic depression - momentarily preventing the underlying feelings of guilt, shame and unworthiness to make their way into the user's wakeful hours.

But the respite from all those bad feelings is always short-lived. And of course, when the drug's faux euphoria and false courage wears off, more of the drug is needed in larger amounts with shorter periods between dosing - over and over again.

Source (Base Source)

A lot of girls end up on the streets because a drug dealer got them hooked on shabu. Then the naive girls are terrorized into believing that they owe enormous amounts of money to the dealer - and must be paid. Any non-payment results in a swift and dramatically increased risk to their life or limb.

Inevitably, when the money dries up - and it always does with drug abusers and alcoholics - they are coerced into paying off their never-ending, upward spiral of debt with more and more sex acts - or through personal servitude to one or more of the dealer's pimp friends.

Source (Base Source)

It's an ugly, viscious cycle of addiction, exploitation, violence and psychological abuse. I've seen it many times. And it's still painful to watch. The girl's fragile psyches and low self-esteem are further diminished by the daily sadistic assaults to their minds and bodies.

Sadly, it doesn't take long before the young, curious "recreational user" becomes a trapped, addict-hooker. Then the mental abuse, physical violence, fear tactics and deconstruction therapy takes its toll, leaving only a fragile, brainwashed, zombie that is thoroughly conditioned to accept her fate - a life servicing paranoid drug dealers, violent pimps, and flaky, fetish-laden johns.

Desperate people do desperate things. And for every accessible downtown street corner during the day or night without 24/7, visible police presence, there is a good chance of encountering a strung-out, desperate young girl eagerly willing to trade sexual favors for money, drugs and alcohol - and sometimes, just for a bite to eat.

The sheer amount of young, pretty, poorly educated and poverty-stricken girls and boys makes the sex trade a lop-sided, buyer's market in Asia.

For a nominal fee, a customer can persuade any distressed sex seller to do whatever he/she wants to do to the "paid in full, rented face and body"- wherever they want to do it and whenever they want to do it.

Source (Base Source)

The previous night, according to Dave, Malou went too far when she got into a screaming cat fight with another girl at a restaurant/bar. Dave was forced to pull the leg-kicking, hair-pulling, face-clawing, and banshee screeching Malou off of a poor, unsuspecting waitress who was merely trying to help Dave find a lost contact lens on the floor.

The cause of the fight had been purely a simple, unfortunate misunderstanding.

While Malou was in the CR - restroom, Dave caught a big wave of smoke, made even stronger by the rotating electric fans on the wall, right in his face from a neighboring, smoking drinker. The smoke went directly into Dave's open eyes and mouth. Coughing and rubbing his eyes, Dave caused one of his contact lenses to pop out and fall somewhere on the floor.

The waitress saw what happened and got on her hands and knees with Dave on the floor, carefully searching for the missing contact lens under and around his table.

That was exactly the scene that Malou saw when she returned from the CR. Dave and the waitress were very close to each other, talking, and laughing whenever either of them accidentally bumped their heads on the underside of the table.

Malou went into a rage and pulled the waitress to her feet by her hair and went to town on the more docile female. Dave said he was so embarrassed and angry that he rang the bell over the bar counter; signaling a free, bar-wide round of drinks for everyone. Then he paid the bill and left the still blind-crazy, angry Malou behind.

Usually the street's well known, understood, and accepted dog-eat-dog code - survival of the fittest - would have made Dave an available target for anyone. But since Malou was my roommate, I decided to talk to her about what Dave said.

Source (Base Source)

That night, I spotted Malou at an outside table of a boulevard bar. As I walked across the street towards her, I wondered how to approach the subject of her and Dave's current situation. But before I reached her table, an old, fat, and white-haired foreigner came out of the bar and joined Malou at the table. He pinched Malou's side, producing the obligatory cutesy, squeal of delight from Malou. Malou saw me and waived, gesturing for me to come sit with her and the foreigner.

I did not sit with them for several reasons.

Firstly, it was obvious that Malou was in character and could not talk about Dave right now. Secondly, Malou who was normally shy, was now wide-eyed, smamaing the foreigner with hugs and kisses, giggling and speed-talking. In short, she was tweaking out of her mind on Shabu. And last but not least, the way her foreigner companion talked, laughed and behaved reminded me too much of that first foreigner uncle that my mama had introduced me to when I was a naïve, little 11 year old girl.

During the three days that Malou stayed with that clone of my first foreigner, she gave every excuse in the book - mama is sick, brother is in jail, papa needs help in the rice fields, water buffalo died, etc. - to Dave as almost believable reasons for her evasiveness and unavailability; trying to keep him on the hook until the current customer was leaving in a few days.

But she got careless.

On the fourth day away from Malou, Dave sought me out at my favorite bar for an empathetic ear to voice his troubles. He had spotted Malou and her current companion go through the motions of checking-in, dining, and dancing at a nearby Dive Resort where he was already staying.

When Malou saw Dave, she became visibly nervous and feigned sadness over some family tragedy. Then she told the other guy she needed to go home with one of the many excuses working girls have always used in the past. But before she departed, she caught sight of us - me and the other guy named Hans - drinking, laughing, and talking at the Resort's outside the Tiki Bar.

Weeks later, Hans told me that the Resort's employees confessed that Malou, not wanting to face the loss of face, took everything she could from Han’s cabana; whether it was her or his possession, ran outside the Resort, and jumped into a trike.

So, contrary to this town's popular urban legend about me, I really didn't steal Dave from Malou. She fu€Ked-up and lost him. I just happened to be around when Dave wanted another girlfriend.

Source (Base Source)

Traveling with Dave to those tourist spots, I saw hundreds of juicy targets; cash cows ready for milking by the most expert maidens. In other words, I was in a frenzy, panic-hunting for those additional potential supporters to add to the current group of five men already sending me money from abroad.

You know, a working girl can never have enough supporters, right?

In short, I was still heavily into The Game. And before I knew it, in the stolen moments while Dave was in the CR, I'd collected dozens of new names and numbers on my cel's contact list.

Source (Base Source)

Whenever I had an hour or more alone, I flirted with the other men online with naughty chatting sessions and teasing selfies. Even though I was confident that whenever Dave had to go back to the United States, I could easily replace him with another man, I couldn't help myself.

Secretly - behind Dave's back, I foolishy met with another foreigner. Why? What was my rationale? How did I justify the deceit and secrecy? The truth is that I never even thought to ask myself those questions.

At that time, I was too busy trying to survive on the street to think about things like honesty, respect, integrity and compassion. They just weren't considered necessary for the job, seldom soughtafter, nor talked about. To us working girls, they were just words - luxuries reserved for the rich.

Long story short? My behavior resulted in Dave leaving me at the hotel.

After that, I examined my life and my soul.

Deciding to change, I struggled day by day with the constant temptations. I felt that working a normal, daytime job was too boring, too exhausting, and too poorly paying. Oftentimes, I almost gave up; wishing I was back in the excitement of the freelance nightlife.

But then I remembered all the reasons why I left and what I was working for - a better life, a life that is much more than mere survival.

Luckily, after many months of hard work and misery, I felt proud of myself and confident enough to seek out Dave. I emailed his work address. Thank goodness, Dave replied. And after many more months of chatting with each other, Dave gave me one more chance.

And of course, you know the rest.”

Edith took a sip from her beer. She was now back in the present.

Then, looking directly in the eyes of each freelancer at the table for a good three to five seconds, she said, “My sisters, what is the point of all this? And why did I share my story with all of you; especially when you seem to be having so much fun tonight?

My point is this:

Until you become the person that deserves it, whatever that 'it' is, you are believing in a fantasy. Life doesn’t always give you what you want, it simply gives you what you deserve.”

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By JaiChai

Thanks for stopping by.

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About the Author

Believing that school was too boring, he dropped out of High School early; only to earn an AA, BS and MBA in less than 4 years much later in life – while working full-time as a Navy/Marine Corps Medic.

After 24 years of active duty, he retired in Asia.

Since then, he's been a full-time, single papa and actively pursuing his varied passions (Writing, Disruptive Technology, Computer Science and Cryptocurrency - plus more hobbies too boring or bizarre for most folk).

He lives on an island paradise with his teenage daughter, longtime girlfriend and three dogs.

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