It's late at night and you can't sleep. You blame it on jetlag. There's nothing interesting on CNN/BBC, and you can't understand a single fucking word they're saying on the other channels because you can't speak French. You feel bored. It's too late to go out, and besides, you just arrived this afternoon and you don't want to stay out in the city all morning because you have a meeting at 10 am and you don't want to look like something the cat dragged in through the backdoor when sitting with those 12 other blokes. One must appear civilised after all. Civilised men don't look like wrinkled baboon scrotums. Civilised men look clean shaven, smell like Ralph Polo Lauren, and struts around like a supermodel on a fashion walkway. You know your stuff. You're mad cool.

You decide to read a travel magazine in the bathtub. Forget beds. You can't stand hotel beds. You never could feel comfortable on those semi-hard mattresses covered with tightly folded rough velvet sheets. You prefer to spend your nights on the hotel room couch, where it's more homely. But this small hotel room doesn't have a couch. The company budget is tighter this year, so you can't stay in those nice little suites with bigass bathrooms with a Jacuzzi, or indulge in a beer or two from the mini bar. So you settle for second best: the bathtub. It's okay, you tell yourself. Besides, if you're ever in the mood for jerking off, you don�t have to move very far to clean up.

You try to make yourself comfortable as possible as you slip into the bathtub. It doesn't feel too bad. The bathroom isn't cold since you have central room heating. But it does feel a bit stuffy. Maybe a little quiet too. You prefer to read a book or magazine with some noise in the background. You never like libraries. They always feel like a deserted cursed underground tomb, where if you make even a single peep from your lips, everyone in the vicinity will turn their heads towards and stare straight back at you with a glare on their face, as if you've just triggered a hidden death trap that will bury them all. Now isn't that a nice thought?

So you get up from the bathtub and open the glass door leading to your puny balcony outside your room. Ah, much better. The air is cool, and the traffic tonight isn't heavy. You can see a few bars open. Not many people are strolling outside. Most of them are probably at trendy night clubs or having a night picnic at the Pont De Neuf Bridge over at the Seine River. Yep. They're having a good time and you're not. You secretly curse them hoping the bridge will collapse and drown them all. Okay, maybe not all of them; just the pretty women boyfriends. You'll save their women and be their dashing knight in shining armour.

That is when you first notice her, loitering by the parked cars lining the street.

It isn't hard to miss her. For one thing, she's pretty damn tall. She looks half-Caribbean with her tanned skin, and her face is all dolled up with intricate artistry that have survived over a thousand years. Her eyes looks like cats eyes: pointed, mysterious, seductive. Her white mink coat stands out like a flashlight against the dark black bitumen of the street. Underneath, she's wearing a tight red leather blouse and a pair of matching hotpants accentuating her slender figure and pert breasts. Yes-siree, she's got the curves in all the right places.

The sight of her piques your curiosity. Doesn't she feel cold? It's windy outside, and she doesn't seem to be wearing any stockings. Maybe she is wearing stockings and you are too far away peering from your balcony door to tell. She places her hands in her armpits. She walks back and forth in her platform shoes among the parked cars, occasionally looking bored and swinging her white handbag in her hand as she has nothing else better to do then to wait while cars pass her by.

You feel dirty. You feel like a secret voyeur. Only you are paying so much attention to her now and yet she doesn't know that someone up in room 211 Hotel Villiers is secretly watching her. Whenever she walks towards your direction, you turn away from the balcony door, quickly hiding yourself. You've had your fair share of ladies. People back home know you're a ladies man; a Casanova. Why are you hiding yourself? Why are you so afraid? She's nothing but a midnight trader. She's probably used to it now, men staring at her all the time.

True, you say to yourself. She's probably used to it. But I've never engaged nor witness one before. Believe it or not, I feel shy. Besides, you continued, she might notice me and instead think me as her next potential customer. Nothing more.

You find some comfort in your reasoning after wrestling with your conscience. You try to convince yourself that you'll only watch her for a few more minutes, and then you'll close the balcony door, go back to reading that travel magazine in the bathtub, and sleep it off. But you can't. You're enthralled by her beauty and the fleeting sad look in her eyes. Why is she doing this, you think to yourself. Was she forced to? Was it her own free will? Does she need the money? These questions plague your mind but still no answers surface as you continue to observe her silently.

Just as you mull over this, you see a mini hatchback pulling up to her. She goes over to the driver's window and exchange words with the unseen driver. He remains hidden under the shadow of his car. Too bad you can't see him. He could be an everyday father. Maybe someone important, like a member of the government or a rock star. Perhaps he's a 50-ish balding old man who is limp in the dick and has to pep himself up every night with a few pills of Viagra before he can perform. Or maybe a sick psychopath who likes picking up women like her on the streets and then tying her up and doing all sorts of nasty evil things like all twisted psychopaths would in their secluded cabins in the woods. Or maybe one of the 12 yes men that you'll meet tomorrow morning. You don't know.

You see her nodding her head in agreement to the unseen employer. She goes around the front of the car and enters the opened passenger seat at the front. The car drives off, but after a short distance, it stops again by the kerb and you see a fat man (at least you got the part about him being fat right) walking out the car. He's making his way to a nearby auto teller. Looks like Mr Employer doesn't have enough money to afford her. You chuckle to yourself.

He finally finishes his transaction and walks back to the car. The mini hatchback turns into a junction and speeds off. You can no longer see them. You enjoy the cool air of the night just for a little bit longer, and then you close the balcony door. After all, there is nothing more to see.

You go back to reading that travel magazine in the bathtub, and the image of the midnight trader pops into your head occasionally for the night. But you know that once you fall asleep in the bathtub and wake up in the morning, you'll forget about her. You'll unconsciously wipe her off from your mind. You'll instead have a hot shower, shave, splash a little Ralph Polo Lauren on your temples and cheeks, don a smart looking 3 piece suit and have the contract signed. You'll be off on your merry way back home and your life will go on as usual.

And for tomorrow and many nights and years to come, the midnight trader will return to the same place, flaunting her trade for another nameless employer for the night.

Her life will go on, just like yours.

With, or without.





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