pray

She told me that I need to pray to God. Actually, it was more directly ‘you need pray God’ in her strong Korean accent. I asked her why it was that she felt I needed to pray to God. I couldn’t help but laugh as I asked. ‘To find a good woman.’ I told her that ‘I don’t want a good one, I want a bad one.’ It was a conversation held in my kitchen. She was already wearing her coat and was about to leave when she began to ask me if there was anyone in my life.

She had arrived just three hours earlier. When she stepped out of the taxi, I was somewhat shocked by her appearance. She was wearing black lace stockings that came up to the middle of her thighs and a red dress that was barely long enough to cover her underwear, which was open enough at the top to make it abundantly clear that she was not wearing a bra. I’d wondered why the taxi driver had made the effort of walking around the car and opening the door for her, but now it was clear. He stared at me with a look that seemed to say, ‘shame on you’. He obviously wanted a close-up view of her and probably thought I was abusing Uber.

Once inside my apartment, I poured her a whiskey and she sat on my couch, the red dress instantly falling from her shoulders and revealing her perfect breasts. I sat beside her and she rested her head upon my shoulder. She began to tell me how lonely and isolated she feels during this time but that she is still progressing with her business and her product – nutritional information, guidance, recipes, and foods. She asked me to take some photos of her, which I did, and then we just lay around listening to music and talking.

When she got up to leave, and the above-mentioned discussion took place, I asked her what she was doing the following day, Sunday. She said that she would be working. I asked if she was working on her business, but she said it would be something else. When I asked what, she became very defensive and asked why I wanted to know. It suddenly dawned on me… the clothing, the defensiveness, the secrecy… perhaps she was selling herself. I felt sadness for her because she had come here pursuing a dream and had become entangled in a mess affecting all of us (the virus crisis) that meant, for her, strong restrictions on the hope of progressing.

‘I have a lover, but she has a boyfriend’, I told her. This was when she replied with ‘you need pray god’. She went on to say that she had never known love. Even in her marriage, she had not known love. ‘I never wanted marriage, I never wanted children. I did it only to make my family happy and because of the pressure. I had children for my husband, but he never loved me.’ ‘You must miss your children terribly?’ I asked. ‘Not really, I speak to them every day and they think that I am studying and on a great adventure, they are excited. My goal is to start my business and bring them here.’ A great hole opened inside of me and into it fell all of my happiness. I was left with nothing but sad and numb emptiness. I wished I could click my fingers and make it happen for her immediately. Then she asked, ‘Why do you get involved with people who are involved?’ ‘I simply haven’t felt any real connection or even attraction to anyone since Miss Vietnam.’ ‘What was so special about her?’ ‘She was independent, motivated, intelligent, highly educated, open minded, free thinking, inquisitive, beautiful, sexy, easy going, funny. I loved the fact that she absolutely didn’t need me… she just wanted to be around me. At the same time, she had her own life, her own hobbies and friends and apartment, so after a fantastic few days together, she would go and do things with her friends and that would give me time to read and write and work on music or see my own friends and go to concerts.’ ‘Why did you stop seeing each other.’ ‘She said I was not the one for her but couldn’t tell me why.’ ‘Do you still speak to her?’ ‘Yes, we message occasionally, but never for very long… I can tell that she is not really interested. She has a boyfriend now, too.’ ‘How do you feel about that?’ ‘I am happy for her, she deserves to have good company and to be loved.’ ‘And yet you live your life so alone.’

It felt like a pointless discussion in the wake of the tragic revelations of her own past and its lack of love. It made me return to a recurring thought that has haunted me for most of my life and that is to wonder how many thousands, or millions, of people existed all over the world who were trapped in unhappy marriages with partners they did not want to be with. Feeling that they are unable to escape due to the fact that they have children, or they have nowhere else to go and no security without their partner. It’s a terrifying and depressing thought.

My friend departed and I went to bed, sad and alone.