Secret Skin (9 page)

‘What does he know about me?’

‘He found your business card. He knows you are a journalist, but he doesn’t know what you want. He is suspicious.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I told him that you were on your own and lonely and liked to pretend that I was your lover. I told him you missed home.’

‘Well that’s almost true,’ I said.

‘That you are lonely and you miss home?’

‘No, the other thing,’ I said.

The smile on her lips carried over to her eyes. The shared happiness didn’t last; her face dropped and turned to a cold hard stare.

‘Faisal,’ she whispered and lowered her eyes.

A sharp movement beside me brought with it the masculine odor of sweat masked by a layer of aftershave. Faisal stood to my right and between us. He pulled out the chair and sat down.

We sat in silence. Yasmin didn’t look at either of us. Her demeanor had changed. She held her head low and physically shrank in his presence. The crackle of restrained violence filled the air around him.

Faisal didn’t look in my direction or acknowledge me. He stared grimly at Yasmin daring her to look at him, to challenge him.

His breathing quickened. He exuded nonchalant menace in well tailored western casual clothes. A vain man, his goatee, moustache and eyebrows were flawless, effeminate and expertly groomed.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ I said in character, the brutish expat john.

He turned to look at me, slow and unhurried. His short breaths and calm contempt emphasized his impatience with this nobody who had just addressed him.

I responded in kind and leaned my face in so close his eyes lost focus. ‘Who. Are. You?’ I repeated.

He retreated in his seat and smiled a salesman’s smile. The menace toned down. The Icy Palm was too public for confrontation.

‘She has not told you about me?’ he said. A skeptic.

‘You have not told me about you.’

He spoke quickly to Yasmin in Arabic. I didn’t hear what he said and wouldn’t have understood it if I had.

‘La,’ she said simply, head still bowed. No in Arabic.

‘I am little Yasmina’s manager,’ he said, ‘a friend who arranges things and looks after her…her well being,’ he said opening his palms wide and gesturing with his hands to indicate our current situation.

‘Oh, so it was you that asked her to call me earlier? And there I was thinking she called me because she wanted to.’ I looked at her submissive figure with feigned contempt.

‘So here I am negotiating fun time for my day off with your “little Yasmina” and here you are, Mr. who-the-fuck-are-you-anyway? I don’t do threesomes and I’m not interested in guys, so stop pissing about. What the fuck do you want?’

I didn’t know whether this unhappy customer routine would pay off. My hands had unconsciously clenched into fists, one rested on the table. Yasmin flashed me a look of nervous disbelief.

‘Ha, ha,’ he said, pronouncing each word rather than actually laughing. ‘My name is Faisal. Do not worry, I thought I saw my Yasmina coming in here and just thought I would check up on her. I did not realize she was meeting you. Please accept my apologies for interrupting. But tell me, are you the zahafi, the journalist that she keeps telling me about?’

‘Oh she keeps telling you about me does she?’

‘Yes, I think she is quite fond of you. But it is not good to let them get too attached. They get ideas, do you know what I mean?’

‘I think I do,’ I said.

‘For a man in my position that can be…difficult. I have many other women for you to choose from.’

‘Perhaps I should see these women. Do you have them with you?’ I joked. ‘Where do you hide them?’

‘Ha, ha, ha,’ he said again. ‘No, you come to my hotel sometime, you can take your pick my friend, blondes, brunettes, red heads, Orientals, Europeans, Russians, Africans,’ he said, holding his hands as if cupping a pair of oversized breasts in front of him.

He tapped Yasmin on the arm and shooed her off to another table.

‘You want young girls?’ he asked, warming to his own sales pitch.

‘How young?’

‘However young you want. Virgins. Never been bled!’ he said enthusiastically, licking his lips as he voiced what was all too obviously his own desire.

‘Expensive?’

‘Only a little bit.’

‘Hmm, I will be sure to stop by,’ I said with a conspiratorial smile. ‘Where is your hotel?’

‘The Kingston Hotel, it is very good. Drinks, music, beautiful women, what more can any man want?’

‘I know of its reputation,’ I said.

‘Let me know when you want to come.’

‘When I grow tired of Yasmin, then I will come.’

‘You like her so much?’

‘She reminds me of someone from before. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Ah, yes, I see.’

‘Someone I thought about for a long time, I haven’t finished with her yet. In fact,’ I whispered, ‘I’m just getting started.’

‘You will pay for any damage,’ he said, all business.

‘Of course, but it is more subtle than that. Do not worry.’

His demeanor relaxed after this sharing of desires, but I still felt his strength from across the table.

He raised his hand to shake mine. An unexpected gesture, ironically this polite form of physical contact was frowned upon. He held my hand, looked me up and down and then didn’t let go.

‘So tell me,’ he said. ‘You are a journalist. Do I have to worry about you saying anything to anyone?’

The fingers of his other hand began to stroke mine as he talked. My skin crawled.

‘What would I say? What it is like to fuck a whore? Fun to research but I can’t think of anyone who would publish it, can you?’

He thought about this as his fingers probed my skin and smiled. ‘Good. If I don’t have to worry, then neither do you,’ he said.

‘Even journalists need a little fun,’ I said, relaxing my hand and moving it calmly out of his reach.

‘I am glad we had this conversation,’ he said.

‘Oh good. Now if you don’t mind I am paying for Yasmin’s time. I have some things I’d like to do.’

I stood up, not waiting for him to respond.

‘Of course Mr. Bryson,’ he said. ‘I look forward to seeing you at my club.’

He walked quickly towards the stairs and reached the top step at the same time as two bleached blonde thirty-somethings. He paused to let them pass, nodding his head at the polite ‘Thank you!’ they sweetly chorused. He inspected their form from behind with a lopsided smile. Inspection over he winked cheekily at me and disappeared down the stairs.

Yasmin gave me the lowest rate she could and I agreed to yet another unaffordable night. She would say I’d bargained her down to some plain vanilla flavored action rather than anything expensively tutti frutti.

I laughed at this description and told her she should come back to the apartment again. I had a deadline to hit on the news items and with the night’s unclaimable outgoings I needed as much cash coming in as possible. Martin would shout me out of the office if I put in any more than a few hours of expenses with a prostitute. The project was fast becoming a loss leader. I had to hope it would pay off with re-sales in foreign markets.

However, at that moment, I was committed to it for reasons other than money. Yasmin. I was inescapably drawn to her. Strong and tough despite all she’d been through she managed to retain her dignity even when molding herself to Faisal’s vicious craft.

Most people would probably balk at the idea of being with someone like her, a prostitute. Soiled because she had been with so many other men. I foolishly let the doubts of imagined others fester in my guilty unconscious.

‘Can’t you imagine it? What she did with them?’

‘Can’t you taste them when you kiss her?’

‘She’s just using you.’

‘You are just using her.’

If I slept with her, future female lovers might also consider me tainted. I would become how men saw Yasmin – an untouchable – unless you paid for her of course.

My internal naysayers had a point. I’d never heard of normal couples asking for an AIDS test on a third date. Maybe they did. I hadn’t been a part of a normal couple in a long time.

‘What the hell was a normal couple anyway?’ I asked the voices.

They didn’t answer.

Could this even be considered a date? My wallet grew thinner every time we saw each other. And if money changed hands then she wasn’t there voluntarily. I simply paid her for information rather than for her body. An info-john who got off on turning her experiences of the seedy, shitty side of Dubai into a shared fantasy for voyeuristic readers.

‘Bloody hellfire and damnation,’ I said as I turned the key in the door of my apartment.

‘What’s wrong?’ Yasmin asked.

I tried to articulate something meaningful and fumbled my words. I made a deep guttural sound of desperation. ‘Damn it all to hell!’ I said and kicked the door open.

‘David, what’s wrong?’ she said.

‘Ah, it’s nothing. I’m sorry Yasmin.’

‘David, I know what you are thinking. I do want to be here with you.’

‘You do?’ I said. My disbelief barely hidden.

‘David, if I could be here when I’m not working I would be, but I don’t exactly get days off.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. You’re that cocky little fuckwit’s slave and I feel so fucking helpless.’

We stood, not moving, breathing heavily, taking in our situation, and then both began at once.

‘David…?’

‘Yasmin…?’

We both smiled, relaxing a little.

‘I wonder if it feels like this because I actually like you?’ she said. ‘Sexually I am mature, but emotionally David, I am still the shy teenager who came here to work in a flower shop.’

‘Well when I’m with you I feel like I never grew up,’ I said, ‘I never knew you could actually blush from head to toe, or be so incredibly happy just to see someone.’

Her eyes sprang wide with delight; she laughed carelessly, ‘David….’

‘But, Yasmin. There is a but.’

‘There is always a but,’ she sighed and sat down at the dining table piled high with research materials and books. ‘Tell me.’

‘What if this is just a lie?’

‘What lie?’

‘That you like me. I think you feel the same way I do, but I just can’t trust my instincts on this. I have this nagging doubt that maybe this is all part of the act and that you are just very good at what you do.’

Her eyes narrowed.

‘If we ever had sex,’ I continued, ‘while I was paying you. Wouldn’t I just be another customer?’

She folded her arms defensively and stamped the floor. She looked like she might cry for a moment, then the anger smoldered in her eyes once more.

‘These are my fears Yasmin, again I’m sorry, but they’re not going to go away.’

She sucked her bottom lip and resisted the urge to shout. ‘I understand,’ she said.

‘You do?’

‘Yes. You are right to worry about these things. Men have declared their love to me before.’

‘Yasmin, I never….’

‘I’m not saying you have David, shush,’ she said, holding a finger to my lips. ‘But many men have, and, of course, I play to this. This is how I make my money. Repeat business is good business. I am their fantasy, but I never reciprocate. I also never hold back. We have sex, they pay me, then they go. We haven’t had sex David…perhaps we never will, but if I wanted to control you I could through that silly little thing dangling between your legs.’

‘We are not all that easy to control,’ I said, unsure.

‘I have worries too David.’

‘Tell me.’

‘What if I open myself up to you, you finish your story and then I never see you again? What if all you say is just an act to get your story? I have more to lose than you David, you just move on to the next job. You control your destiny. I have to face Faisal and his men.’

Perhaps we could never be more than this. A romantic Mexican stand-off, guns drawn, unable to take the shot. I had no idea how to get her away from Faisal, and she had a point, she had more to worry about from him. I didn’t know where the story could go, but if it went anywhere with Faisal, Yasmin would suffer.

‘Maybe, I should kill this story,’ I said, ‘at least the parts that might involve you or Faisal.’

‘You would do that?’

‘Yes, sure, why not? It happens all the time. Nobody gives a damn about anything in this country unless it affects their ability to make money. No one will notice.’

Her fingers clenched and unclenched on her knees.

‘What’s up?’ I said.

‘I do not want you to give up on this story David. We will have to think of something else. It is not just me that this affects, hundreds of young girls go through the same thing I did. Why should I be so safe when others will suffer in my place?’

‘Really?

‘Yes, David.’

I leaned over and kissed her. It was hard to stop kissing her. But I had to work the angle through.

‘Okay,’ I said tearing myself away. ‘We will tell this story without it being about you or Faisal. Write me a list of all the places you know where prostitutes do their thing and any stories you can think of. It’ll take more leg work but I can come at it from a different angle, no problem.’

No problem apart from an impending deadline.

Then she smiled at me, we were doing things together like a couple, and the deadline didn’t seem quite so important. Her lips still shone from our kiss and an unspoken question flickered in her eyes.

‘What?’ I said.

‘David perhaps you are really a gay journalist, and your attraction to me is just part of your act,’ she said, daring me to prove her wrong.

‘You’re not getting me into bed that easily you Persian minx.’

Although when she pulled me towards the more comfortable sofa I found her difficult to resist. We never even made it that far. Wrapping arms and legs around each other we kissed recklessly and slid to the floor, writhing, touching, nibbling and caressing, passionately, carelessly.

***

Half an hour later, when ‘Should we?’ became ‘No we shouldn’t,’ I retreated back to my desk and began to knock out some boiler plate copy for the news items while Yasmin worked on a list of places and people in her world.