My mother believes that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

I believe otherwise.

I know what people think of me. I may be a lot of things, but naïve is not one of them. I am in the business. Naiveté would be suicide.

Oh, I know the hushed tones that follow my wake. I know that when I walk into a room, silence falls like a fog, and at its heels, a sweeping low murmur follows, trailing behind as I hang closely on the arm of yet another gentleman.

Eyes, peering from corners, pierce and search and probe. Mouths purse and pulsate with words I know are ripping me to shreds. Sometimes, your carefully coiffeured heads even shake, ever so slightly, before turning away, unable to look on and yet, powerless to resist.

I know all this. I have learnt, with time, to look, instead between the eyes and at foreheads, at the frames of spectacles and the bridges of your arrogant noses. And most of all, into space, all the while seeming oblivious to the attention I am drawing.

As a technique to distract myself, and to make the evenings pass more pleasantly, I have also learned to listen, to absorb, digest and even offer an opinion on any of the topics my gentleman callers like to discuss. The deepening crisis in Darfur. The latest law suits against two Malaysian bloggers. The future of a Democrat-led US government. Of course, I leave most of the talking to the men.

After all, I am not paid to talk.

You, with your judgments and your resentment and your hurt. When will you learn? Did you really think that you could hold on forever? Did you really think you could win with your love and your understanding and your patience? Your youth. Your looks. Your spirit. They all slip away. Even for me, these things will one day take flight.

But not today.

Today, I am the one all your husbands and boyfriends and fiances are looking at. Their eyes, admiring, probing, exploring. I don’t mind. That is half of why I’m here. But they will return home with you, and I will just be a memory, a fantasy. A reminder even, perhaps. And that is all.

Until one of them decides to call me, that is. If that happens, then your disdain is perhaps justified. Of course, I may just be the tip of the iceberg.

I almost always am.

Sometimes, after the deed is done, I make my curiosity known. Why, really, do men cheat?

“Variety. Lust. You’re impossible to resist,” says one of my more charming clients.

“Beauty. Men are visual creatures.” Usual answer.

The most profound answer I’ve ever gotten, which was also the scariest, was that cheating is man’s most harmless sin.

“I could do a lot worse,” this Datuk said to me, as his eyes held mine steadily. He did not even blink. The next day, I’d requested to never be paired up with him again. Luckily for me, he preferred another.

I know what some of you think, in those over-educated yet poorly exposed minds of yours. That perhaps I come from a poor family. That fate has forced on me a life of debauchery, perhaps brought on by inept parenting, severe neglect or worse, drugs.

Wrong again.

My father is a lawyer and my mother a newspaper clerk at the New Straits Times. I see them every two weeks and pained as they are to know what I do for a living, particularly my dad who avoids my visits whenever he can, they have stopped trying to change or understand me.

I was brought up as well as any child in the 90s could have been raised in a small town, on a steady diet of Sunday church, old-fashioned discipline by way of the cane, and tired after-work seat-of-the-pants parenting which resulted in me spending most of my time in my room, alone, reading.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered that I was different, somewhat removed from my parents, my friends, the people I grew up with. And they too discovered in time that I did not quite belong. And it wasn’t just my looks or the way my body had developed, for I had suddenly grown up one day, all breasts and legs and smooth, flawless, fair skin. So different from my dark-skinned, petite parents that even they were convinced that they had taken the wrong baby home. But no, it wasn’t that.

It was my soul that refused to fit in. My spirit, while addicted to pleasure, did not desire love. And so, I did not know how to show love because I could not feel or care for anyone. There is nothing in me that wants to love. Not for my friends. Not for all the boys in town who fell in love with me. Not even for my parents.

I am a walking abyss. And I cannot explain it.

Which, of course, makes me perfect for this job, doesn’t it? Can a person who doesn’t feel be judged for stealing away husbands and boyfriends? I do not want them. This is simply a means to an end for me. The pleasure. And the profit. That is all.

Two months ago, one of my clients has begun actively pursuing me romantically. He is extremely rich, and wants me for a second wife. He tells me that he is hopelessly devoted to me, and even loves me. In spite of my rather tragic…’condition’, he perseveres.

Yesterday, he proposed on bended knee. It was quaint and sweet. Without answering, we made fierce love because I had needed it. But before he left, I told him that I was going to keep the 14-carat princess cut diamond ring, but that my answer would be no.

He’d almost slapped me. What stayed his hand? True love? Huh. I know that he is an aggressive, physical man. I have seen his quivering, stuttering wife at functions and parties he insists I attend, even if it means being on the arm of his friends. I suspect he even knows that they fuck me after the ruse is over. Yes, I’m sure it is love, although I will never understand it.

I’m sure he will return. He has called me several times and left many messages, but tonight is a busy night for me. One of my New York clients is in town and he is one of few who makes me laugh. I enjoy his company immensely, and the sex after is often satisfying. If I am truly to settle down one day, with or without love, Tom is the type of man I will select. Of course, the real question is if he will want someone like me.

So you see, there is no use despising me. Since I do not feel, your hatred is wasted on me.

If I may give you a piece of advice: Accept that I will always be here. Accept that there will be more of us as time goes by. Such is the way of the world for thousands of years. It is odd that you, and your kid, still fight it.

So the real question is, when will you learn?