Secret Skin (13 page)

‘Thirty dirham. You fuck me now,’ she ordered. If you negotiated a good price you were expected to accept it.

‘I will pay you, but I just want to talk,’ I said.

She looked at me in disgust, showed me the palm of her hand and refused to look me in the eye. Surely talking was preferable to fucking.

‘You don’t want to talk?’

She turned her back to me and looked to the other end of the alley as if spotting a new customer.

***

The heat was more than enough reason to move on. I opened the faded blue hotel door beneath a grizzled and garish sign: The Bola Bola. Cool air welcomed me along with an even cooler reception from the scruffy man at the front desk.

‘The women?’ I said.

He gestured for money. I slapped a twenty on the counter.

His bony finger pointed up some steps to another door.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

In stark contrast to the abra and the café, the room was devoid of men. Around two dozen women lounged in a variety of flimsy outfits on long sofas that stretched the length of the room.

I became aware that I had interrupted a conversation I could never be a part of. All eyes turned to face the intruder. Then the looks softened, glares became flirtatious calculating stares and the cats called: ‘Hello mister’, ‘Hello handsome’, ‘I show you a good time’, ‘You want me’, ‘You fuck me now mister’.

I let the voices wash over me and tried to focus on the individual women. But the sight of so many cleavages, exposed rumps, fingered lips and petulant pouts distracted me. It was unpleasantly arousing.

A plump black teen grabbed my hand and pulled me toward a door at the back of the room, ‘You come with me now,’ she said in an accent that could only come from Africa. ‘I will make you a man.’ The other women shrieked.

Probing hands groped my arse; another hand grabbed my crotch and tugged uncomfortably hard.

I wanted to run from this sensory overload and resisted the young woman’s insistent grip. ‘C’mon mister,’ she said more calmly, but still pulling. The other women all played their roles perfectly, making me feel irresistible, alluring, their every dream come true. I didn’t believe the act of course, but I imagined it would be easy for even the most pious man to be tempted.

I looked at the young woman tugging my hand, ‘Come mister,’ she said, clumsy pun intended.

‘Okay.’

She led me into a dank hallway lined with anonymous brown doors. Behind me the voices returned to less commercial banter.

The hallway had an air of desperation about it, laced with the lingering miasma of soggy genitals, cheap whisky, cigarettes and disinfectant. Where the previous room aroused this corridor killed any ardor I might have felt.

The rooms were silent. I could easily imagine the kinds of sounds you would hear on a busy night. The young woman guided me along a well travelled path to the last room on the right.

We entered her small cell, a queen size bed and a closet inside. A few girlish pink decorations took the edge off the functional squalor. Unframed pictures of friends and family took pride of place on the walls. A hopeful suitcase stood next to the door.

A teenager’s room, one that she lived in out of hours.

Was Yasmin’s apartment the same?

The girl let go of my hand and closed the door. She began to undress. ‘You pay Salem on the way out,’ she said, ‘20 for the room, 80 for a fuck, 50 for suck, 120 for sucking and fucking, extras we negotiate.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘How about talking?’

Her hand paused on a bra strap. ‘Fucking?’

‘No, talking. I just want to talk. I will pay you for sucking and fucking but we just talk. Is that okay?’ I said looking into eyes that never looked directly at mine.

‘Talking? You want to fuck me, c’mon. Fuck me now. I want you to fuck me, c’mon mister,’ she pleaded.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Tabitha,’ she lied.

‘Tabitha?’

‘Yes, what’s your name mister?’

‘John,’ I said and cringed. ‘Don’t worry I am going to pay you. Sit down, relax. Please, let’s talk.’ She sat next to me on the bed. ‘I’ll ask questions, you answer, a conversation. Okay?’

‘You want to fuck?’ she said again. I ignored the question.

‘Is this your room?

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And you work here as well?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long have you lived here?’

‘Ten months,’ she said.

‘How old are you?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Uganda’

‘Do you miss home?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who do you miss most?’ I said trying to break her out of one word answers.

‘My son.’

‘You have a son?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me about him.’

‘Olu. He is three years old’

‘Yes?’ I said.

‘He lives with my aunt. She looks after him. When I have money I send it home. She will send him to school next year.’ She walked over to the wall and pointed at a picture. ‘This is him.’

‘He’s a very good looking boy,’ I said. ‘Like his mother.’

‘Like his father,’ she said.

‘Where is he?’

She shrugged and broke eye contact. That line of questioning was clearly over.

‘When will you go home?’

She shrugged again, looking at me for the first time and moved back over to the bed. I sat down next to her.

‘I will go when I can’t work anymore.’

It was a stupid question but I asked it anyway. ‘Do you like your work?’

She laughed and stared at me for a long time. Seeing what was inside.

‘I have had men like you before,’ she said.

‘You have?’

‘Men who ask questions. They always want me to be their dirty little girl.’

‘I don’t want….’ I began.

‘Of course you don’t, John,’ she smiled bitterly, and moved towards me, licking her lips. ‘I know what you want to hear,’ she whispered. ‘How I love to fuck men, to suck their dicks, to swallow their cum.’

‘No, please don’t…’

‘I eat them up. I love it Mister John. I love it when they use me. My arse, my mouth, my cunt, my dirty little cunt…’

‘Please, stop,’ I said.

‘You want to take pictures? Ask me about my family again? Show me you care John?’ she demanded angrily, half part of the act, half genuine hurt. ‘Go on; ask about my little boy again. Maybe you want to hear about my father? What he did to me when I was bad? Just fuck me now.’ She grabbed my crotch, ‘You’re big and hard John, stick it in me, fuck me, I just want you to fuck me.’

‘No,’ I said pushing her away. ‘No I really don’t want to.’

‘Okay John, whatever you say.’ Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, she mouthed slowly writhing on the bed, moaning, fingering her puckered mouth. It was like a Pavlovian compulsion, an animal trained to do one thing and one thing only. ‘Stick it in here,’ she said, thrusting her pelvis toward me.

I was horrified.

I was turned on.

I was horrified that I was turned on.

I grabbed my bag and all but ran out of the room. With my head down I slunk quickly through the feline taunts of the women towards the masculine safety of Salem.

‘Who and what did you have?’

‘Young black girl….’

‘Tabitha?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said out of breath, shameful heat burning through my schoolboy cheeks.

‘You very quick. She fucks good hey?’ he grinned.

‘Oh. Yes. Wonderful.’ I tried to smile with brotherly camaraderie and threw some more money on his desk. I didn’t count it. ‘Excuse me,’ I said and hurried back to the sweltering concrete outside.

Thankfully my pantomime lover had disappeared from her doorway at the other end of the alley.

I couldn’t control this situation at all, these people.

‘These fucking people,’ I shouted.

I’d been stuck in my ivory arsehole hammering out soft copy for far too long. For the first time in a long time I wondered if I could go through with the job.

Martin stared at me over his whisky. ‘That better not be it Bryson,’ he said.

‘Of course it’s not, I just got a fright. She could have been my daughter for Christ’s sake.’

‘Bollocks, you haven’t even got a daughter.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Yes it bloody well is you were just freaked out that you weren’t the first person to pay her to talk to you…’

‘Not quite’

‘…to talk dirty to you!’

‘Exactly, not that I wanted her to talk dirty to me.’

‘Bryson, you’re a bloody coward. We’re journalists. Getting people to talk dirty to us is what we do. Anything else is just listening to people jerk off.’

‘You’re right,’ I said and meant it.

‘My boy,’ he leaned close, ‘are you sure you didn’t stick it in her? You can tell your Uncle Martin, c’mon.’

‘Fuck off, Uncle Martin,’

‘Pussy.’

‘Wanker.’

‘Oh David,’ he said attempting a falsetto voice and failing, ‘why must we always fight when we’re drunk.’

‘Who’s drunk?’ I said. ‘You’ve had half that bottle to yourself already.’

‘Oops, well let me refill your glass old man, while you carry on with your story.’

***

Martin was right of course, that is what journalists at least tried to do, to get people to talk in truthful honest words rather than phrases manufactured for the press.

Sat next to the creek eating a falafel sandwich I cursed myself for succumbing to my fear and failing to get any words at all, honest or otherwise. The cursing didn’t work though. The cool of my air conditioned car called to me from the other side of the creek, tempting me to go home, to give it up before the night even began, to find an easy press release to top and tail.

I’d spent the last hour traipsing through the lanes of Deira and getting exactly nowhere. I had tried to strike up a conversation with three Filipino prostitutes in a street café. When they realized I wasn’t a potential customer they shouted and waved their handbags, napkins and cutlery at me. I then tried to talk to a john in relaxed negotiations with a prostitute on the main street while families and policemen walked on by. He didn’t have a handbag but the result was much the same. I then managed to strike up a conversation with a wonderfully garish woman who wore a gold blouse, purple leggings and excessive amounts of costume jewellery. All too happy to talk to me, only my lack of Latvian prevented us from getting any further than the prices for a performance.

Plenty of color, I thought, but no substance, nothing juicy. I ordered another sandwich and thirstily gulped back bottles of water while watching the sun set behind the minarets and malls on the other side of the creek. I relaxed in the unconscious certainty that I would soon give in to temptation and go home.

A pedestrian subway caught my attention. In Britain they were usually filled with the kind of people you would brave night time traffic to avoid. Here they were well lit and filled with pedestrians who stubbornly refused to urinate in the corners.

Where the subway steps came out on the other side of the road I noticed three young men just hanging around. I didn’t think anything of it until they began to say quiet short phrases to men who held their eye too long.

I crossed through the subway and stood at the top of the steps, glancing at my watch occasionally as if waiting to meet someone. The young men thrust their coquettish hips at passersby, sifting for low carat gold. One potential punter doubled back and asked the time of the most foppish of the three. They negotiated quietly, looked furtively around, and together walked away down a narrow side street.

Male prostitutes out in the open. That wasn’t on Yasmin’s list.

I followed a second young man as he escorted a middle aged office worker in a grey suit around the same corner to a nearby hotel.

I walked back and caught the eye of the last young man. I wanted to do this on my own terms this time.

‘How much?’ I said.

‘What you want?’

‘Let me talk to you over some food and I can tell you what I need. I will pay you for your time. How much for half an hour?’

‘One hundred,’ he said hopefully.

‘Fine, show me where you would like to eat,’ I said and gestured for him to lead on.

***

‘I sell hubs,’ he said, in broken English.

I looked where he was pointing. An auto-spares shop.

‘Ah, hub caps. Pays the rent huh?’

‘Yes. But I can’t pay for…’ his English failed him ‘…a good place. My place not good.’

‘How long you been here now?’

He looked at me non-plussed.

‘How long in Dubai?’ I shrugged, ‘Months, years?’

‘Oh, months and years, yes. Two and one.’

‘Do you like it?’ He smiled at me as if I was asking a trick question. ‘Do you like Dubai?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

‘The place where I live there are seventeen men.’

‘In the building?’

‘In room. Stinking Muslims. They work at fish market. They stink. Fish, always fish. In this heat. Blech!’ He said, demonstrating a dry retch.

‘Do you like them?’

‘No. They do bad things.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘To me,’ he said looking away from me, ‘They do bad to me.’

A beat of awkward silence. ‘You want another tea?’ I asked him.

‘Coca Cola.’

I waved the waiter over and ordered more drinks.

Another innocuous hole in the wall cantina, the dirty grey of pollution beneath our feet, red and white plastic surfaces on the tables, cracked and broken like my new friend’s English.

‘We go to your place,’ he demanded.

‘Ah, no. I live miles away.’ I said making overly dramatic hand gestures. ‘Abu Dhabi,’ I lied.

He looked at me despondently and put his glasses on, which only emphasized his awkward youthfulness. Like most young men there he had a smattering of facial fuzz, a baby beard.

His sickly features seemed Caucasian but with a hint of something else. I couldn’t place it.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Uzbekistan,’ he brightened. ‘Do you know it?’

‘I know of it, never been there. Do you prefer it there to here?’

‘Yes, it is beautiful,’ he chirped.

‘So why are you here?’

‘To work,’ he said looking at the shop. ‘My boss,’ he pointed again, ‘I owe him money, yes?’ He got up quickly, looking flustered. ‘We go now. We go now in your car?’