Chapter 2- Destined

Irtifa and her friend Silvia were doing assignments while sitting in the reading room of their university. Silvia was the one who was talking non-stop, sharing her opinions, while Irtifa seemed absent-minded. She wasn’t even hearing what Silvia was saying.

Silvia noticed the anxiety on Irtifa’s face. Her eyes were so red, as if she had cried the whole night. It was not unknown to Silvia that Irtifa was going through a financial crisis. She also knew about Irtifa’s family situation. She guessed that something might have happened.

“It’s about your mom, right?” Silvia asked Irtifa.

Irtifa answered, staring at the table, “I think I am going to lose my mom as well.”

“What happened?” Silvia asked, softening her voice.

This time, Irtifa could not control her emotions anymore and burst into tears. Placing a hand over her mouth, she started hiccupping. Silvia moved closer, hugged her, and patted her back to console her.

“I need money, Silvia. I want to save my mom. But I don’t know where I will get such a huge amount. Somehow I saved some money, but my asshole brother stole it from me. I don’t understand what I should do,” Irtifa said while hiccupping.

Breaking the hug, Silvia said, “You can borrow from me. You can return it whenever you can.”

“How many times, Silvia? I have already borrowed enough from you,” Irtifa said, sounding ashamed.

Yes, she had borrowed money from Silvia before but could not return a single penny yet. Like a true friend, Silvia had always helped Irtifa, but it still embarrassed her.

“If you want, I can suggest a permanent solution for you,” Silvia suddenly said.

Wiping away her tears, Irtifa asked curiously, “Permanent solution?”

“Yes, a solution that will change your life. Your mom will be saved, and you will never feel a lack of money again,” Silvia suggested, and Irtifa’s eyes twinkled with sudden hope and happiness.

Then Silvia began explaining, “My mom was a drug addict and left me when I was just 13, and I never knew who my dad was. I was thrown into an orphanage, from where I escaped at 16 to fulfill my dream of becoming an independent, educated woman.”

Hearing her, Irtifa was shocked beyond belief. She never knew Silvia was an orphan. Since Silvia always wore branded clothes, adorned herself with expensive jewelry, and rode in expensive cars, Irtifa had thought she belonged to a rich family.

“I know what you are thinking. How do I get money to live such a lavish life, right?” Silvia asked, and in response, Irtifa only nodded.

Silvia took a breath and answered, “I work as a high-profile escort.”

The word was not foreign to Irtifa, but Silvia’s involvement in such a job astonished her.

“There is a club named ‘Fallen Angels’. I work there. Most of my clients are old billionaires. They pay me amounts you cannot even imagine. So I am telling you to join me,” Silvia suggested.

“This is…” Irtifa hesitated.

Silvia chuckled and replied, “Prostitution, right? You can think of it however you want. But this is the only way. So think before you speak.”

Irtifa did not understand what to do. She knew what Silvia was telling her to do—sell her body in exchange for money. How could she do that? According to her, it was not something respectable. What would her mother think if she found out what her daughter was doing to save her? If she came to know that Irtifa had sold her body for money, she would prefer death over being saved by such earnings. Irtifa was in complete dilemma while thinking about all this.

“Come on, Irtifa. Don’t think too much. Just sell your body for once and you will be a millionaire. In that club, most of the old men come to satisfy their desires. They need young bodies to fulfill their sick fantasies, while girls like me need their money. It’s a good deal. You just have to sign an agreement with your customer for three to four months. Once you get the money, you can return to your normal life,” Silvia said in one breath, as if it was not a big deal.

Irtifa replied, shaking her head, “Won’t it make me a prostitute even if I do it only once? I can’t do it.”

“It’s an agreement. You are selling your time and body, not your soul. Trust me, Irtifa, the amount those men pay is enough to cure twenty cancer patients at a time,” Silvia said, holding Irtifa’s shoulder.

Irtifa remained completely silent. She did not know what to say. Her mother’s pale face kept appearing in her mind nonstop. Her family’s situation and her brother’s carelessness were pushing her to think about Silvia’s proposal again and again.

“Once Mom is cured, I can get back to my normal life,” she thought. This one sentence convinced her to agree with Silvia.

Having no other choice, she agreed with her friend, and a tear rolled down her eye.

“I am ready,” she said meekly, which brought a chuckle to Silvia’s face.

Then Silvia whispered in her ear, “Just share your body, not your heart, because in the end, you will get hurt if you do.”

Irtifa did not understand Silvia’s words, because the only thing she was thinking about was her mother.

****************

Meanwhile, Ezekiel's life turned upside down since the day Rihanna left him.

“ I told you that she was cheating on you. But you never believed me,” James told Ezekiel, and he remained completely silent.

Ezekiel realized that James was right.

Ezekiel was gulping down alcohol as if there was no tomorrow. He felt so broken that he couldn’t describe it in words. She divorced him!

How easily she forgot everything and moved on. He didn’t know what was lacking in his love that she decided to break him like that.

“Stop it, dude. You are going to kill yourself,” James shouted at Ezekiel and took the alcohol bottle from his hand.

Ezekiel yelled, “Give back that bottle.”

“Don’t act like a teenager. Think about Errol,” he shot back with the same intensity.

Letting out a painful chuckle, Ezekiel answered, “What should I do, James? Every fucking second, I can only think about her! No matter how much I try to forget her, I can’t. What was the fault in my love?”

Saying all this, he lit a cigarette. Taking a puff, he looked at James with hurtful eyes and felt guilty instantly. He didn’t know how many times he had insulted James just because he talked against Rihanna. But in the end, James was right.

“Sorry, dude. I trusted the wrong person,” he apologized, taking another puff when James snatched the cigarette from his hand.

He said, “You need a distraction from that woman.”

He paused for a second. “Only another woman can distract you from that bloody cheater," James suggested.

“I don’t want to be with any woman, James,” Ezekiel answered curtly. " Not after what Rihanna did to me," Ezekiel's voice cracked.

Suddenly, James asked. Almost out of nowhere, “When did you have sex last time?”

Ezekiel was a little taken aback by his question. He was embarrassed.

“I am drunk, not you. What are you even asking?” he asked, sounding embarrassed.

James asked again, “When did you last sleep with that woman?”

Ezekiel went silent after the question. How could he tell James that it had been half a year since he had been intimate with Rihanna? Whenever he tried to get close to her, she would just leave, giving excuses. His trust in her was so strong that he never questioned her. He always prioritized her wishes, but he never realized that he was no longer her priority.

“Unbelievable,” James scoffed after understanding the meaning behind Ezekiel’s silence.

Then he said—no, he didn’t say. He almost ordered, “Tonight, you will be joining me at the ‘Fallen Angels’ club. You will find so many beautiful and sexy girls there that you will forget about her.”

“You know that I don’t like sleeping with random girls,” Ezekiel told him directly.

Yes, he never liked sleeping with random girls. Without emotional attachment, he didn’t understand how people could just have sex. In his life, he had only slept with one person, and that was Rihanna.

“Can you just leave that gentleman’s mask behind?” James said, his voice low but insistent.

“Think about it. Those girls need money, and you need someone beside you—someone who will share your sorrow, who will do whatever you want. It’s a simple exchange. Don’t overcomplicate it. Trust me, dude… sometimes sex is the easiest way to numb a pain you don’t know how to carry.”

Ezekiel said nothing. The words hung in the air, but none of them found a place to land inside him.

Seeing his silence, James finally snapped, his voice rising. “You are going to the club with me. That’s final.”

And somehow, in that moment, Ezekiel didn’t argue. He just nodded. He didn’t even know if it was agreement or surrender.

All he knew was that Rihanna’s absence had become a constant ache—quiet, ruthless, unrelenting. And if forgetting her meant drowning himself in a different kind of noise, then tonight… he was willing to sink.

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