Secret Skin Read online

  The driving was so bad that alien anthropologists could be forgiven for imagining the road as some sort of elongated sacrificial altar to a pagan god.

  Top of the line cars bore the image of the roads namesake, Sheikh Zayed, the UAE’s first ruler. They tore along each lane of the highway casually breaking the speed limit of 120kph. At 140 they set off the speed cameras. At 200 they might get accused of dangerous driving.

  For insecure individuals with tribal status to maintain, driving like an idiot and paying the weekly fines was the mark of a man. Those with the appropriate level of wusta, immune to the vagaries of point-free speeding tickets simply said ‘I don’t want to pay’ when presented with their fines, and they didn’t.

  Imagining that this localized power and influence carried over to their dealings with god they drove in writhing snake-like columns, four and five cars deep, each vehicle just inches away from the car in front. The cars in the body of the snake flashed their lights and tail-gated aggressively forcing the lead car to pull over. The snake’s new head then received the same treatment from the furious tail behind. This continued until they made it home, traffic slowed, or someone died.

  ‘Insha’allah,’ the drivers casually said – if god wills it – only then will you die. It was originally a phrase used to show humility to the almighty. Heaven forbid the driver with his eyes closed had anything to do with his own mortality.

  The speedometer crept relentlessly upward as I tried to prevent a white Mitsubishi Pajero a few feet off my rear bumper from crashing into me. The dishdashed driver flashed his headlights repeatedly demanding that I let him pass. Even if I had wanted to, the bumper to bumper lane on my right offered no gaps as we passed the Al Quoz industrial area and sped towards the city.

  I tried to put distance between us and hit 140. Instead of granting me the room to maneuver he sped up to maintain his lethal position behind me. My speedometer pinged wildly as I broke the speed limit, but if I slowed the aggressive retard would plough straight into the back of me.

  Statistically he had a better chance of survival in his 4x4. In my humble modern classic I had virtually none – a shoot out between a gun and a catapult – Insha’allah my arse.

  I caught the driver’s eye in my rear view mirror and raised my hand to the traffic around us. I shrugged my shoulders to indicate I had nowhere to go. The man in the red and white Kuwaiti style head dress showed me his middle finger.

  I laughed from the shock. As a foreigner if the police saw me doing the same thing I could be deported.

  I gave him the finger back.

  Hurt that I hadn’t kowtowed in abeyance to this obvious double standard, he swerved to the right without slowing, cut across three lanes of traffic and veered back into the fast lane ahead of me, narrowly avoiding more cars than I could count in a glance.

  The 4x4 pulled ahead to reveal a rear window filled with a smiling picture tint of Sheikh Zayed himself. Almost instantly a large black Mercedes roared up behind me flashing its headlights, the driver anonymous behind a blackened windscreen.

  I jammed my car into the next gap, slammed on the brakes to avoid shunting the car in front, and left the never ending car chase of Sheikh Zayed Road two junctions earlier than planned.

  The quiet back streets to Beach Road slowed me down, but better to arrive alive and late than become yet another sacrifice to such a blood thirsty god.

  ***

  The tissues Yasmin had torn to pieces during her wait lay neatly arranged in front of her, a small part of her life that she could control. She sat alone in the empty interior of the Icy Palm’s upper level, her back to a floor wide balcony window.

  Against the dark interior the balcony outside was lit like a stage. No sound penetrated the glass in between. Two middle aged housewives, Jumeirah Janes, sat opposite a young trio of Dubai divas in wraparound sunglasses, lenses the size of begging bowls. They ignored a token male with swollen hung over features hoping to give alms.

  Yasmin sat in silence as if waiting to deliver a dramatic monologue.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ she said instead. ‘I was going to leave.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Too many psychopaths on the roads today, I’m here now,’ I said.

  She stared forlornly into the middle distance, not offering any words. Her shoulders heaved a sigh.

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘Faisal knows about you,’ she said, looking directly at me, worry in her eyes.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I came to warn you to be careful. He thinks I am working today. I cannot be gone too long.’

  ‘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.

  Chapter Eleven

  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 decl
ared 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.’