Of guys and hoes*

I am a whore. We are all whores after we hit 30 and there seems to be nothing for us in life except do the things we were supposed to have done and wait for menopause. Wrinkles. Old age. Death.

I’m a whore, an affection whore, because I lust after every man, after his affection. It doesn’t have to be a man I’d like to spend the rest of my days with. It doesn’t have to be a man I’d like to hold hands and watch a movie with. It doesn’t have to be a man who is single, in anyway likable, of age. If he’s a man and he’s talking to me and smiling, I start drawing all these scenarios in which he’d come again tomorrow, pretending to wanna buy something, stopping by my register to say hi, say “Remember me?”.

He’d leave me his number or ask for my number. Hang around till I am free to talk to him, to warm him with my rays [of intelligence, wit, sense of humor. The sunshine of my smile]. I imagine him going out and going to his car and waiting restlessly, to see me come out. I see him trying to “meet me accidently” at the store – down the street from where I work – where I stop-by every day, more out of habit than the refrigerator being less full. [Not that that’s ever stopped me from carrying plastic bags after plastic bags of grocery which I take home, and consume, watching TV, reading an article on the internet, chatting with younger siblings back home.]

I’m a whore in that a five minute’s talk with a customer who seems to have found me interesting, smiled looking into my eyes, probably told me I have a cute accent/a nice smile/a singsong voice, would make me go without sleep. I toss and turn, on my futon bed, infront of my TV, toss and turn half the night wondering how he’s gonne do it. How he’s gonne appear in my life tomorrow. How it would feel like to kiss him, kiss that face of his which seems to have worn out from over thinking, appearing in and out of my vision – now clearly, now not. I keep rerunning our conversations in my head. I keep seeing how it would go when he comes next time. I start making up stories, stories that kept my imagination occupied and my ears full when, once…long time ago, my father was abusing my mother – both physically and verbally – all. through.the.night. Stories so well thought-off and so personal, so real I end up covered in tears in the telling of them. Stories of how a relationship would be built, how a budding lotus of love would sprout, how a mistake would be made, how somebody leaves, and then comes back — pulled by a memory, a dream, a heart-string.

I’m a whore because he doesn’t come the next day. Or the next. And when he does come, he’s either with his girlfriend, or his boyfriend, or pays at the next counter, or has completely forgotten me that he won’t even say “Heyyy, you are down here today!?”.

I’m a whore in that I never learn.

Another customer would come the next day. You’d start talking, because you are supposed to. Make them feel at home, comfortable, known – personally. And you’d think you got him until he throws his arm in despair to show why he’s hanging around the register. “She isn’t ready yet!” he’d say, smiling exasperatly. She would soon appear, all bustling, smiles and brown hair. Confident, demure, white. “Honey..?!”, she’d pout, as if the few minutes they’ve spent apart was an intentional desertion from him. She’d then walk to his side, seemingly unaware of the perfect picture they make, and show him something she knew, simply knew, would be perfect somewhere in their nest.

You’d continue to smile, say a warm Hi, comment on her light colored sweater, her Scarlett-O’Hara hair-do, little baby-blue in the trolley. When they have finally made up their minds [after one of them had run back and forth through the aisles to grab or put some piece of junk back], joked and laughed about her inability to resist temptation, his baseball card collection [a lost cause he’s hoped little blue there would one day inherit and go to college with the profits from, until they started to manufacture them in millions or everybody was collecting them], you start punching the numbers.

You are folding their merchandize, taking the tags out and reaching for a plastic bag while the printer spits stringed piece of papers, when he says “Can you give me a bag please?”, motioning to where your hands are striving to reach. “Sure”, you’d say, instead of ask him what on God’s mother-fucking-earth he thinks you were trying to do. “Here you go,” you’d add cheerfully, handing the stuff out, “Thank you, sir. Mum. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Next!”

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* Disclaimer: The feelings depicted in this post are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental.