Secret Skin (6 page)

I thanked him and asked for some mint and apple tea – the first thing on the menu – anything to keep him occupied and allow Yasmin the time she needed to compose herself.

She cried openly as soon as he left. Thankfully galleries are designed for opening nights. In the middle of the day we were its only customers.

I waited awhile, with my hand on hers, uncertain what to do next. When I’d talked to some of the men who used prostitutes they casually warned against anything more than simply using them. ‘Don’t get into a conversation,’ they said, ‘they will have many sad tales to relate.’ Callous bastards.

‘I’m so sorry that happened to you,’ I said.

The smiling waiter arrived with the tea and fussed over Yasmin until she blushed. Embarrassed but flattered by the attention, she sipped on the sweet refreshing drink and smacked her lips together.

‘A simple pleasure,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I agreed. My list of questions seemed redundant after her revelations. ‘So can you ever leave?’

‘I don’t know. I hope so. I have to pay back my debt first.’

‘How much is that?’

‘It was $5000 when I came here. Faisal told me it was down to $2,000 but I cause them trouble he says, so whenever it goes down he puts it back up. It does happen though. One girl left last month.’

‘But how much do you earn? I’m paying you $200 today, so surely in six years you must have paid it back?’

‘Oh yes, much more. Hundreds of thousands probably. At the weekends I make three maybe five hundred dollars a night.’

‘What?’ I spluttered, calculating in my head, ‘in a bad year…that’s…that’s over 30 to $50,000 not including any other nights.’

‘Have you told him this?’

‘Yes, but he tells me that it is the “magic of compound interest”. Like a credit card, it takes years to pay back. I showed him records once, of how much I was earning. He punched me and told me I was a fool. What if somebody found them? Interpol?’

‘I wish.’

‘Yes David, me too. But the police protect these men. They are all part of it.’

‘You mean the local CID?’

‘Yes, I think so. Sometimes they are in uniform, sometimes plain clothes.’

‘Could be the secret police. Is Faisal local too?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m so sorry. I wish there was more I could do.’

‘You could talk about something else.’

‘You know, there are slave owners in Africa to this day that will accept a lump sum for someone’s freedom. Can you do that here?’

‘Give Faisal his $2,000 you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘To his friends he would sell me for very little. But for me? I don’t know. For me he would probably add interest for at least another two years worth of earnings, maybe $80,000,’ she said. ‘Why, do you have the money to buy my freedom David?’

‘No.’

‘No,’ she sighed.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Oh stop saying sorry David. It is not your fault.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You look lovely today by the way. I can see your face. Without the abaya you seem to have more clothes on.’

‘Yes,’ she said, pleased by the compliment, ‘I normally work hotels, not streets. I was only doing that because it was a quiet day and I was bored.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well David, many men have fantasies. In my abaya on a hot day, I can be a wicked wife for a bored husband, a seductive mother to a troubled son, or if I am out of luck a naughty daughter to an angry father.’

‘Ah, I didn’t realize.’

‘But surely you must David? If I need to, I can even be the innocent Arab girl who needs to be rescued from oppression by the heroic white man.’

She explored my awkward reaction, waiting for me to see her point, to acknowledge my own predatory role during our previous meeting. A small smile touched her lips when I finally worked it out.

‘Don’t worry, we all react to other peoples bodies in different ways. It is natural. We are only animals after all. This is why they cover their women here. To hide them from the other animals.’

‘Like blinkers for horses?’

‘Exactly.’

‘So do you have local customers?’

‘Yes. If I am stupid or unlucky. Many times if you get into a car with them, they take you to a cheap penthouse somewhere in Sharjah or Khalidiya where there will be maybe nine or ten men waiting. If you survive the night you are lucky. But what can you do? Faisal can only make a noise if they are smaller men than him, you understand?’

I nodded.

‘Faisal will only be interested in getting paid by every single man for the days or weeks that I cannot work. They will be punished, but only for not paying.’

‘Will you show me some of the places where the women work?’

She shook her head. ‘I can show you the places where I work. You can pay and meet me. I can tell you about the rest.’

‘Okay,’ I said inhaling sharply, just another man paying to use her.

I told myself not to be so self indulgent.

‘I’ve never been here before,’ she said, ‘six years and I didn’t even know this existed. It is lovely.’

We sat for a moment taking in our surroundings. She let out a nervous sigh. ‘David, you have paid me for the whole day, yes? Will you take me to more places like this? Good places?’

I hesitated. I was supposed to be a professional pinning down a story, but then I had the luxury of choice.

‘Sure,’ I said, offering her my hand, ‘let’s go.’

Our first stop was the Icy Palm Café, a health conscious hideaway on Beach Road for Anglo-Saxon expat wives. Yasmin chain smoked heavily in between sips of her muesli smoothie, uncertain what to make of the chattering blonde hordes that surrounded us, their well fed boho babies and nannies chasing after them, living the good life.

‘This is what schoolgirls want to be when they grow up,’ she told me.

***

I contemplated taking her to the Ladies Club but knew neither of us would be welcome. As the sun was melting tires outside we decided to go skiing instead. Cold snow in a hot desert sounded ideal.

Inside the cavernous Mall of the Emirates the slopes were full of local teens showing off. Middle Eastern chavs wore pristine white dishdashes beneath puffy skiing jackets, their headdresses and baseball caps perched primly at rakish hip hop angles.

Too cool to ski, their eyes darted unconsciously towards the visible curves of western teens, while the local girls looked on with envy and disdain.

Never straying too far from family or friends they suckled the digital teats of their mobile phones and grunted ugly answers to indifferent questions.

Yasmin explained that away from the inquisitive eyes of their families, teenagers would cruise the malls and use the Bluetooth messaging on their phones to flirt and make illicit rendezvous.

Their bored fathers used the same technique to pick up cruising prostitutes while the kids occupied themselves on the slopes.

We skied as badly as each other to begin with. Thrashing around on the baby slopes until we made sense of where our legs and arms needed to be. Once we had the feel of it we hit the red and blue runs until our thighs burned. I wondered if I could use the experience in some way. Prostitutes who skied. I’d never read that before.

After two hours, we staggered back into the busy mall, exhausted, thirsty and hungry.

‘Do you fancy Madinat?’ I said. Enjoying myself too much to worry about the research I ought to have been doing.

‘You’re buying?’

‘Sure, but if the tab is too high we do a runner okay? I’m only a lowly journalist after all.’

‘Okay then, maybe we go Dutch, you poor little journalist.’

***

The Madinat Jumeirah complex was an effective recreation of the real world souks downtown. It even had a faux creek, with mock abras that transported tourists from private holiday villas on the beach to the rows of comfortable air-conditioned restaurants on the promenade.

There were people we knew everywhere we went. Yasmin pointed out top tier working girls in the alleyways of the souk, while I avoided tables full of boisterous media darlings in the bars.

‘How about the beach for a change?’ I asked.

‘Yes, but how do we get there David? We are not paying guests.’

‘Hold my hand and come with me,’ I said.

I guided her through the five-star maze of restaurants and wine bars towards the abra station and the concierge waiting there with his clipboard.

‘Slow down and rest your head on my shoulder,’ I said, as we sauntered through tables of drunken tourists sweating at the creek side restaurants.

She did as I asked, linking her arms through mine.

‘Wait,’ I said a short distance from the abra station. ‘Pretend we’re a couple,’ I whispered. ‘Look at me.’ She turned and our bodies met with a bump of hips. Our hands quickly found each other.

Up close I saw that her eyes really were green. No contacts. I also noticed a small mole above her left eyelid. Instinctively I tried to rub it away. She giggled. I kissed it and held her face gently in my hands.

‘My beauty spot,’ she said, ‘my one imperfection.’

‘Yes,’ I said agreeing, a small reassurance in her world, so full of casual brutality.

I stroked the back of her neck. Her hand touched my cheek. Then tenderly we savored the succulent tang of each other's kiss and lost ourselves between eager and impatient lips. Someone’s polite cough reminded us where we were.

‘Come on,’ I said.

We walked nonchalantly towards the abra man, acknowledging him at the last moment.

‘Villa number nine,’ I said, smiling.

He gestured towards a precarious little abra and we stepped aboard.

A real abra on Dubai Creek is a smoke belching park bench that acts as a water taxi for 20 people at a time. The hotel’s polite electric powered, non-polluting version was a new experience for us both.

Yasmin continued to hold my hand even though our little performance had finished. The closeness we shared thrilled me, but my motives were questionable.

A generous tip, months before, had prompted a Madinat waiter to tell me how the unofficial villa nine routine worked for friends and guests of the hotel staff. The furthest stop from the hotel, you simply had to ask for it. No kissing or doe eyes required.

What the hell was I thinking?

I rarely let myself get close to anyone. But Yasmin was raw, sultry and very real, and a prostitute, enslaved to a local.

It could never be anything more.

The abra created a breeze that whipped her hair around her and a disarmingly cheerful and innocent expression spread over that normally troubled face. Like one drink too many Yasmin was hard to resist.

Maybe this could be more?

Yeah? You’ve only just met the girl and this, this is just work, for both of you. Not the eating, drinking and having fun bits of course but…but nothing, you’re smitten over a sob story, don’t get carried away.

.‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said, lying. ‘Absolutely fine. Just having a little argument with my internal monologue.’

‘Your what?’ she said.

I opened my mouth to explain, to say something smart-arsed and cynical, but my jaw just flapped uselessly a couple of times and nothing came out.

‘Oh, you are silly David,’ she said.

I smiled and squeezed her hand tighter. I felt about twelve.

‘What wonderful food,’ she said, as a waiter stoked and prepared her shisha pipe. He dropped a hot coal into the bowl to keep the flavored tobacco alight but never aflame. Then he sucked on the pipe until the bowl glowed and sparked, the scents of apple and cinnamon wafted easily around us. He passed the pipe to Yasmin who lay stretched out on the cushions of the outdoor majlis.

Part of an open-air restaurant on the Madinat’s beach, the traditional architecture of the three hotels stood behind us and we looked out to sea over the impressive sail like structure of the Burj Al Arab. Its mood lit profile colored the night sky with a hue that changed intensity every minute or so, fading from crimson to indigo, green to violet.

‘This is why tourists come to Dubai,’ she said, ‘it is beautiful here.’

‘It certainly is. Normally it’s like we’re in a five-star prison with a wall of hotels keeping the rest of the city out from the good bits.’

‘Sometimes I even forget we are a city on the sea.’

‘The Arabian Gulf?’ I teased her.

‘Shush David, of course not. I am Iranian you know. It is the Persian Gulf, always has been. It is only when America flirts with Saudi that it ever gets called Arabian.’

‘Of course.’

‘Do you know David,’ she said pausing to exhale, ‘I believe that there is something going on with the architecture in Dubai.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Have you ever driven down Sheikh Zayed Road, where all the skyscrapers are, and felt like you are driving through a valley of enormous glittering penises?’

I laughed loudly, I hadn’t expected that.

‘Hmm,’ I said, ‘that would explain why as soon as one goes up, another ten shoot up right beside it. Penis envy, it has to be. I will show that Sheikh Jeff,’ I said in a mock Arabic accent, ‘I will build the biggest, shiniest penis in Dubai, just you wait and see.’ Yasmin giggled smoke. ‘Money is no object. Taste is no object. Everything that can be gold will be gold.’ I continued warming to my theme.

Luckily the staring tourists on the tables around us sat too far away to know why we were laughing ourselves silly, smoke billowing out from under the tented roof of the majlis.

‘You know I think you have something,’ I said. ‘You see the Burj over there? When you drive in from the front it doesn’t look like a sail anymore.’

‘No?’

‘No. it looks like a giant vulva.’

‘Ohh,’ she said. ‘What is ‘vulva’?’

I tried to work out how to explain it, failing. ‘Women’s bits,’ I said pointing at her.

‘No!’ she said, eyes wide.

‘And you know what else?’

‘Oh David, what?’

‘From the sea, it is the biggest crucifix in the world. You will never see a publicity photo of that side because of this. Apparently the architect had a hell of a time after they found out.’

‘Really,’ she said. ‘Is that true?’