[JoeWhite1]

Cherry tried to gather her thoughts together so that she could find some way to explain to Jane what she had done, and why she did it. The left side of her face hurt where she had been hit the night before, and now the right side also hurt where Jane had hit her with the bag of ice. Her upper lip was cut and she could taste the bold that trickled down into her mouth.

With a groan, Cherry slid off the bed and rose unsteadily to her feet. Picking up a tissue from a box on the bedside table beside her bed, she dabbed at the cut. Then, she walked slowly into the living room still clutching the crumpled tissue in her hand. Jane was not in sight and when Cherry looked through her open bedroom door, it was clear that she was not their either. The only other place that she could be was on the balcony, so that is where Cherry headed next.

When she slid open the glass door to the balcony, she could feel the light breeze that blew from the sea. With the smell of the sea, and the Sunday morning quiet of the city streets, Cherry felt herself becoming calmer and she decided that Jane had to know the complete truth about her life and the choices she had made.

Jane was sitting on one of the two bamboo chairs on the balcony, gazing vacantly into space. As always, the balcony was her place to go to when she wanted to feel calm and to release her stress. Today was no exception, so when Cherry stepped onto the balcony, Jane had stopped feeling so angry, although she was still not ready to forgive her mother for doing the things she had learned about earlier.

“So, the whore has finally decided to get out of her bed. Have you used that bed to fuck men when I am at the university? I’m sure a slut like you would want to take advantage of having an empty apartment to earn some more by opening her legs for some stranger she picked up on the street.”

Jane’s voice was full of contempt for her mother and her actions. Cherry started to speak, but the words would not come out. Instead, she sat on the other chair and covered her face with her hands.

Jane searched her brain for all the nasty, dirty words to use against her mother. She no longer wanted to shout at her, but she wanted to hurt her by the words she used.

“I see you have washed your hair clean after letting that man piss on you like the cheapest street whore who has no shame or pride. Did you also make sure your cunt was well washed because I’m sure he fucked you without a condom and filled you full of his cum? Who knows what disease he might have given you or maybe you have already been fucked by so many men that you are the one spreading diseases to them. You disgust me and I will never forgive you for being such a cheap street whore.”

And Jane looked at the woman who had given birth to her with disgust and contempt.

“As soon as I can, I’m leaving here so you won’t have to worry about me getting in the way of your whoring activities. You’ll be free to fuck day and night and I hope you will be happy living the life of a dirty and shameless cock sucking cunt.”

Jane’s torrent of words finally ceased and she sat glaring at the woman who she had always admired and loved for the hard struggle to support them both after her father had abandoned them. Now she was angry and confused, and she wanted to vent all her anger at her mother for deceiving her for so many years, and for choosing to live such a disgusting and degrading lifestyle. If any of Jane’s friends or fellow students discovered that her mother was a bitch…a whore…a woman without shame or morals…without pride…who would sell her body to any man willing to pay…who must have let maybe hundreds of men fuck her…Jane almost cried with the shame of being connected to this PROSTITUTE…this PUTA…she thought inwardly.
But at last she was silent. Her rage had exhausted her emotionally and physically as her adrenaline levels fell.

That’s when Cherry finally began to speak.

“Baby,” she said, using the term of endearment that she had used all her life when talking to Jane.

“Don’t call me baby. You know I don’t like it, and now I hate the idea that I was ever your baby,” Jane’s anger erupted briefly.

“Sorry, Jane, sorry for calling you that, and sorry for the way you found out about me. But please let me explain.”

Jane grudgingly nodded her willingness to listen.

“When your father left, I had to try to find a job that would pay enough to support us both and to make a better life for you. I don’t know if you remember what life was like when we lived in the old barangay, but I can tell you that the roads were full of potholes, there were rats and cockroaches everywhere, the stream near us was polluted and sometimes had dead animals in it, the tin roof of our house leaked and the streets were not safe for young girls and boys at night because if they were not robbed they would be raped. That’s the only place that your father could afford for us to live. When he left, I knew we had to get out of there.”

Cherry paused, and then continued. “I wanted a better life for you…I wanted a better life for me too. So, when I saw an opening for a singer in a band, I went for an audition and I got the job. At least, I was able to earn enough to buy food for us, but we still had to live in that dirty barangay.”

Jane had forgotten what their life had been like 10 years before, and how poor they had been. “But that doesn’t mean you had to become a whore. You earned enough money to buy us food and send me to school. Why did you start to sell your body like a common whore?” Jane burst out angrily.

“Do you like where we are living now?” Cherry asked. “Do you know that the rent I pay here is 20,000 pesos a month. Then there is electricity and water, our food, your clothes, your university fees…” Cherry’s voice trailed off. “I wanted a better life and I was willing to do anything to provide it for us both.”

“But many women are abandoned by their husbands, and they don’t all become street prostitutes,” Jane argued.

“No, that’s true, but they become cleaners or maybe shop assistants or they have to borrow money from loan sharks and pay 20% interest a month – and when they can’t pay, they are forced to fuck the loan shark, and maybe his friends just to pay off the interest, but the loan still remains and the interest mounts up again…and there is no end to it. That’s why I decided that I would be the one in charge and not wait until I was forced to fuck just to pay off some of the interest. I would take control.” Cherry finished and waited for Jane to reply.

Jane was trying hard to process all that her mother had told her, and although she recognized the truth of what she had heard, she was still not convinced that Cherry had no other option. So, she did not reply, but looked steadily into Cherry’s eyes. This was a trick that she had learned from a psychology class where the professor had taught them that people hate silence and that it is sometimes easy to make them tell the truth by simply staying silent and not responding to whatever someone has said.

Cherry shifted uncomfortably in her chair and waited for Jane’s response. When there was none, she continued to speak.

“There was another reason, I don’t know if I should tell you, but you are a woman now Jane, so I think you should know the whole truth about me. I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us.”

Jane remained silent, so Cherry took a deep breath and resumed her explanation.

“When you were born, the doctor warned me that another birth would probably kill me, so I agreed to have my tubes tied. This means I can’t have babies – I can’t get pregnant. But your father didn’t know this because his greatest desire was to have a son. He tried many times to make me pregnant, but of course he could not succeed, although he was unaware of that fact.”

Cherry took another deep breath before continuing.

“He started to blame himself for not giving me a son, and one day when we were with his best friend, he was drunk and told his friend that it was his fault that we did not have a son. You were five at the time and it was afternoon, so you were taking a nap. Then your father suggested that his friend might be able to make me pregnant and that he should fuck me. I was horrified at what he said, but both men were drunk, and I was unable to resist when they pushed me on the bed and pulled off my panties after flipping my dress up.”

Again, Cherry paused.

“His friend raped me while your father held my feet to force my legs apart. I struggled, but I was no match for those two drunk men. I cried out, but none of the neighbors would interfere because in that barangay it was common for husbands to beat their wives. The sound of women crying was not unusual, so others turned a deaf ear to the noises of domestic violence. That friend of your father was not gentle and he penetrated me even though I was not lubricated. It was painful, but it was over soon, and I was left alone to clean up his sperm oozing from my pussy, and try to make sense of what had just happened. Your father was not a good man, Jane. That was the first time, but soon there were others. He would get drunk and bring home strange men to fuck me. He told me that if I couldn’t give him a son, I could earn money lying on my back and opening my legs. He became my pimp and I was powerless to object or refuse because when I did, he hit me. I don’t remember how many men he brought for me to fuck, but it was a lot. Yes, I was a whore and your father was my pimp. So, when he left, I knew how I could earn money to get us out of that slum. And I did!” Cherry ended almost proudly.

“But there was one more thing.”

Jane looked at her quizzically.

“I grew to like being used and abused by strangers.”