Red Lights

The lights went out, and after a minute of silence, the spotlight was on her. She was wearing a piece of cloth that barely covered her skin. The music played and she started dancing in front of the growling beasts wanting to have a taste of her. She is the star of the night club. “I managed to get through another night”, she told herself as she removed the heavy make-up that concealed her youthful but sad face.

Prostitution, in contemporary societies, is carried out by people to supplement low incomes. Men and women who rely on prostitution as their primary source of income typically have left their natal families. Without education or work skills, and often prevented from employment by child labor laws, such runaway children resort to prostitution as their only means of survival.

She is one of them. A girl so young, deprived of a good life, her innocence stripped. She doesn’t even remember how she got herself into prostitution. Every night was the same for her. It has become a routine.

She hates life for being unfair. She hates her parents for not being able to raise her well. She hates the church for condemning the job she has. She hates the people who looked down on her. She hates herself for making the wrong decision. Now, she doesn’t know how to stop.

The scent of the man she was with last night still lingers. She has long stopped believing in fairy tales. There is no prince, no castles, no beautiful dresses, and no happy endings. What she has are customers, a night club for a home, borrowed pieces of clothing for her show, and a lifetime of condemnation and suffering.

When night comes, she’ll be no different from those teenage girls whose stories are told by the red lights in the street. The music is playing again, and she’s on stage.