Engkanto
Fifteen years ago, on a night when the veil between worlds thinned, I chose to change my fate.
I like to think my life didn’t really begin in a bright, antiseptic birthing ward but in the salt, soot, and sweat of Burgos, Makati’s red-light district. People write about escorts and paint our stories in shades of tragedy, with brushes dipped in sorrow. But that night, the night I stepped into the demimonde, I wasn’t afraid or full of self-pity. I was hungry. I was cold. I simply had bills to pay.