You might have read and heard stories that starts with cliche like 'Once upon a time'. I wouldn't want to beat around the bush. Because my story is neither interesting nor important. It is nowhere near the story of the princess who kissed the frog. I am a prostitute, and this is the story of a girl who offers sex in exchange for payment.

Some call me Abbie, while others calls me the name of their mistress on bed. Many men call me 'hey, oye, ahem', while their women call me a bitch. I never know anything about the world or its people. I know about this town where I live, and my manager who fetches the clients.

The other girls in the mansion mentioned to me that I have a daughter. They also said that the manager has held her captive. To be honest, I don't remember if I have a kid. But if I did, it could be true because she is a terrific woman running this business on busy streets.

Every one of the girl you meet here has stories; the kind of storied you can't listen without squinting your eyes. We say we are here on our own will when cops asks us. We shouldn't be engaging them with any other reasons.

The truth buried deep within the heart, sometimes disappears without a trace too. Maybe, that's why, I don't remember why I'm here. After saying a lie for so many times, now I believe that it must be truth. I must be here on my own will.

I don't remember when and why I came here. Was I forced or taken away? Do I have past? Can I trace the old steps to find a family of my own? To a prostitute like me, there are no definitive questions like this. We don't have any past or future.

We basically wish to survive, so we don't live in the present too. The girls with me said I spoke two to three different languages when I came here. We didn't know the date or time today. So, they weren't to able to tell me when it happened too.

When I couldn't recall anything, they said that I have got dementia. I might as well get this disease, instead of HIV. Atleast this one has got a fancy term, isn't it?

Despite all the chaos around me, I know why I am here in this darkest room now. There are no windows or a spark of light. There is no piece of furniture, and so my body felt numb most of the time.

My hair smells horrible, and there might be blood gushing out of my teeth. The ground is always moist. There must be a leaky tap in the room. I didn't want to think of myself floating on my blood.

Occasionally men visit this room once or twice a day. I didn't bath for ages. Since I had lost track of time and place, you cannot expect bibliography in this story.

When I run my fingers through the body, it feels sticky due to gluey skin. There is no piece of cloth to cover me from cold. I don't care about dignity anymore honestly.

As I was saying, I remember how I landed in this room. I was not put through such horrific trials from the start. Like other girls, I was also asked to look pleasing to the customers.

The manager selects the dresses for all of us. The dresses she selects is on the basis of only one criteria: the dress should 'ask for it'.

Unlike you imagine, I do not work only at nights. I work whenever someone 'calls' me. The mirror usually showed a woman at early 20's with bruises and nail marks all over the body. As you can guess, I have no clue about my age indeed.

There is particularly a myth among people that girls like us don't go to markets. I usually sneak out to buy books from the market. Hiding it between the cot and bed without anyone seeing it is the hardest job I have ever done.

Just like you or any other girl, the experience of sex is the same with me. I sweat, secrete and exhaust after the job. But the only difference between you and me is I don't get aroused like you.

The insides of my body work like a mini machinery, trying hard to satisfy the man on top of me. A machine need not be aroused; it has to be tapped on by money. In short, I'm a doll with female genitals, ready to be savoured when you have money or power.

If you do not know, then know it now; sex involves transfer of energies. For a woman like me, it involves energy transfer between many random persons. It must be the reason why I can now sense what kind of energy you're carrying in you.

But, I wouldn't know if the same person visits twice. I cannot identify energy, I can only identify it's kind. For me, if a same person visits again, he is another customer; and I become a machine again.

Believe it or not, even for prostitutes like me, there will be a person who we might fall in love with. Some are fortunate to find, while others serve the person as any other customer.

Disgusted by everyone, a fraction of our heart tries to find solace. It begs for a bit of love. When I thought that love is a made-up element on scripts written by novice writers, he appeared.

He was different because he asked for my name. Every man I know who walked through that door, had only hurt me physically and emotionally. Nobody has time to sit and talk with a girl like me.

Last time I talked, it was with a crow on my window. She was busy cawing for food. I used her to vent out my heart while feeding.

"What is your name?", he asked without any hurrying of switching off the lights.

"Does it matter? This body doesn't own one", I replied him with the truth.

"Then what about your heart?", he asked again.

"A girl like me doesn't have one", I urged him to finish his business and leave.

"What does it mean?", he demanded more.

"A girl like me is like a coffee cup. After you have it, you throw it", I told him. Seeing his dilated eyes, I added, "I read it from a book".

He was more surprised now. But seeing me nervous, he tried to make a deal.

"You tell me your name, and we can do whatever you want", he said.

That's the very first time when someone says I can do whatever I want. But, you cannot see a person who does business better than a prostitute.

"We see what we can do in bed first, and then, I'll promise to tell you my name in the end", I winked.

They say that 'the woman of the streets' cannot experience and narrate the tales of making love. It's partly true because we don't even own our bodies. We give what others ask, because we don't want to die.

When it happens to 'good girls', it's rape. When it happens to girl like me, it is karma. People must have misunderstood us for devils without pain.

But, that day, he made love. For the first, probably the last time, he heard my cravings. He made me moan. I experienced love. My body realised the pleasure of ownership. For the first, probably the last time, someone kissed a girl like me.

I whispered my name on his ears. I prevented him with a kiss when he tries to say it aloud.

My manager found out the weirdness between us soon. So, everytime he came, she made sure that I was occupied with someone else. But he never forgot to leave a book under a flower pot on my window.

One such time, he left a book called 'Lolita'. While I was finding more about Lolita and her miserable life, I saw a version of me in her.

Nobody saw me as a person. None saw my desires or dreams. Because I was always an extended part of their obsession.

When I was reaching the last few pages of the climax, when I was about to know the ill-fated girl completely, my manager caught me with the book. She is a kind of woman who firmly believes that a girl with book in her hand is a major turn-off.

She threw me into a dark cell. She restricted the food and the visitors. There is no point in searching for Lolita or any other books that had me in their company. The fire would be eating the scraps of whatever is leftover in them now.

Book was a turn-off. But my filthy smell and gory lips didn't bother any man who came to relieve their pleasures. Pleasure blindfolded their eyes. Some were even turned on seeing my horrible state.

Sometimes, I was woken up by their jerk from deep sleep; while other times I laid like a corpse without or a part of consciousness.

"Here is your last customer", the crow cawed from distance. "Try to stand, if you can; Hold him with open arms, because this would be your last time", he cawed again and flew away.

Before I could stand up, the man with big tummy tied my hands with steel wire. He raised it above my head and pushed me to the floor again.

He lit a cigarette, and in that small flash of light, I could see him grinning at me devilishly. I could see his bald head, and a horrible smile with several teeth gone.

He puffed it once, and tried to push the cigarette into my mouth. He slapped me again and again, until I felt dizzy. My mouth started bleeding again.

I could have lost more teeth than that man. The blood was gushing all over the face, and it didn't seem to stop.

Holding the cigarette between his left and index fingers, he steadily pushed the lit side through my lips. Before I could scream to the burnt pain, he sushed me.

He lit the cigarette again and again, to press holes on various places of my body. From cheek to arms, Legs to umbilicus, he burnt every part of the body he liked. "I couldn't feel the pressure", he sighed.

The burnt marks on my vagina, face and all parts of the body laughed harder at him. That's when his devil side popped in. He took his pocket knife and inserted it deeply into my stomach.

Blood oozing out, I screamed and my body withered in pain. It turned him on strangely. He left me with a bloody body, and threw some notes of money in my face.

His money was soaked in his sweat, my blood, shame and death.

"Oh God, I was too late", he cried standing at the doorstep.

Somehow his arrival made my journey to the death easier. I eased a bit, smiled and said, "Do not touch me. If you touch me, I might live. I don't want to..."

"Who did this to you?", he groaned.

"The book I read..", I said.

"I want to hold you in my arms", he pleaded.

"I don't look nice", I definitely didn't. For this man, I wanted to look nice in my life.

"She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something", he quoted Lolita.

"She was lo, plain lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line...", I paused and waited.

"...but in my arms, she was always Lolita. Light of my life. fire of my loins. my sin, my soul. Lolita.", he completed me.

With eyes wide open, I drifted off to the final journey to the land where I can live like a normal girl again. not like any princess. not like Lolita. but a normal country girl.

I was a prostitute to others; but to him, I was Lolita...