Night Women

Out of the two stories that we read on Tuesday, Night Women was my favorite. While the main point of the story was a bit depressing, the way that everything was worded was so beautiful that I couldn't help but keep reading.

Night Women was from the point of view of a woman--who we assumed liked in the poorer parts of Haiti--who is a prostitute. She talks about her clients in the story and how they come to her barring gifts for her and her son, which leads me to believe that she is a higher class sex worker, much like escorts in America. She talks about the women who have to pick up men on the street and how they brush the stars out of their hair, which made me think of a scene in the book Wicked; one of the characters refers to his semen as "blue diamonds" when he sees something shimmering on his lover's skin. This may sound nasty, but what if the stars they brush out of their hair is the bodily fluid of the men they pick out on the street?

She also talks about how her clients lay with their backs on her mat, which I'm assuming is where she sleeps. This leads me to believe that she does all the work, contrary to what usually comes to mind when someone mentions sex work. Perhaps that's why she is more of a high class call girl.

From the details of her description of herself, I picture her as a young woman with copper skin and dark hair. She describes herself as a woman in-between day and night, so I imagine she is golden brown like the sunset. Her eyebrows are thin half moons and she has lovely cheekbones. She knows she is beautiful and thinks that, once she gets out of sex work, she can become the goddess she was meant to be with hibiscus flowers in her hair.