“How can you be so sure?”
“Because it has happened before to no avail. We are bigger than life. We are untouchable. Our actions are justified by G-d Himself. And that’s why I can be so sure.”
Rabbi Klum took David by the hand, “I want to be your friend, David. It’s politics. It’s money. I want you to understand the truth of your situation. Either you do it our way, or you’re out. You want your freedom? Here’s your free choice. The favor I need you to do is to terminate your illicit enterprise immediately. Excuse me David, but I have to go to pray now. Hope to see you soon. Shalom.”
The rabbi hurried into the sanctuary to don his talith and enter a directive trance to inch closer to the Divine Being.
David tossed his yarmulke away and headed for the street.
Odalisque
Mitzi Szereto
So how’s Dubai? friends ask over the phone. Dubai. How can one possibly describe this mixed-up parcel of sand that’s part Arab, part British, part Indian, with some Lebanese, Malaysians and Iranians thrown in for added spice? Have I left anyone out? I’m sure that I have.
Hot and sandy, I say. I don’t say it’s a sand beneath which nothing grows . . . except perhaps, fundamentalism. How long will it be? I wonder. How long will the freedom last in decadent Dubai? In the neighboring emirate of Sharjah a man and woman can’t hold hands in public, nor can a woman wear short sleeves. They can get great rugs, though. The winds of change blow close, I fear.
I don’t tell my callers about the smell of Arabic perfume that has made a permanent home in my nostrils. Oudh, amber, sandalwood, rose. These are the scents that fill my nose, seep into my skin and the skins of everyone around me. Arab perfume is a great equalizer among men and women; there are no His and Hers sections at the perfume counter. Eventually they stop asking about Dubai. Stop ringing to see how I am. Leaving me on my own, a foreigner in a foreign land. Forgotten by the West.
Citizen of the world, that’s what I am. What would my American friends think if they saw me now – a woman caught between two cultures? Their only reference points being harems, white slavery, religious fanatics. They know so little about this part of the globe. Only what they see on the news – the extremists, the haters of the West. The Death To America coalition. They would not know this beautiful Arab man on the prayer mat, his long limbs bent in supplication as a muezzin calls out the afternoon prayer through a loudspeaker hitched to a minaret, his smell of oudh, amber, sandalwood, rose teasing me, making me desire.
They would think I’m not safe here. Yet I am probably safer than on the street of any American city or town. (Crime is low in the United Arab Emirates; Sharia law makes a powerful deterrent.) They do not hear the lively Arab music coming through the open windows of taxicabs. They do not see burka walking alongside tank top, both of which have breasts bouncing beneath them. They do not taste the salt on the air blowing in from the Gulf. I hear and see and taste all of these things. I love them all.
Especially his prominent nose. We are in the land of prominent noses. Ah . . . but that is a superficial thing to say. An American thing to say. The cliché springs to mind of big noses and big—. No. I won’t even go there. Dubai may be a lot of things. A cliché isn’t one of them.
We met over the pastry table at Spinney’s supermarket in the Mankhool district – the Spinney’s with the Filipina hooker who hangs around outside the glass doors day and night, her skintight pants splitting her crotch, her painted face devoid of expression. Perhaps she isn’t a hooker at all, but only looks like one. No matter how many times I go to buy my groceries, she’s there. Alone. Standing. Waiting, her mobile pinched between her long painted fingernails. Just as the Latino hustler in his tight black T-shirt and jeans is always there on my way home, cruising up and down past the hotels, day and night. Though mostly at night when it’s cooler. After all, it can get up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, and Gulf winters aren’t exactly Zurich either. I’ve often wondered who his clients are – wealthy Arabs for whom homosexuality might be punishable by death, or lonely sunburned Englishmen working for the big tax-free bucks in Dubai. Probably a bit of both.
They have a pork counter at Spinney’s for the foreigners, the heathens, though I’ve yet to see anyone make a purchase. It’s expensive to buy pork in a Muslim country. Not sure I’d want to either. You tend to get away from the taste of pig flesh until it becomes a distant and unmissed memory on the tongue. Booze – well, that’s another matter. You can always get booze. Westerners wouldn’t come here if they couldn’t. Not the Brits, anyway. When I was still the new kid on the block, I asked the waitress at a Chinese restaurant if the dumplings in the won ton soup had pork in them, concerned as I was for the spiritual wellbeing of my Muslim dinner companions. They’re chicken, she said. Of course. What else could it be?
Meanwhile, back at Spinney’s. I was in the process of selecting some baklava to have with my meal that evening. This is very important business, I should add – food in general being an important business in the Middle East. I was dying to pop a piece into my mouth right that minute, but it was Ramadan and the sun was still shining. Not that I would have been led away in handcuffs, but the consumption of food or drink during Ramadan is frowned upon. Everything goes on behind closed doors – stuff your face as much as you want, but not in public, please. Unless you’re at a hotel, where Islam vanishes the moment you step inside the refrigerated lobby. Even a drink of water on the street is prohibited, though you might see overheated English tourists going about with a plastic bottle of mineral water, their faces running the gamut from lilac to pink to lobster-red. The same English tourists whose ultimate calamity in life is the absence of liquor for the holy month. It’s the major topic of conversation – hear an English accent and you can guarantee it’ll be complaining about the lack of booze. They’d have happily gone without food and sex for the month, providing they could get a drink. Abstention isn’t so hard once you get used to it. You can get used to a lot of things in Dubai.
In my modern air-conditioned apartment in Mankhool it took some getting used to the cold water taps running hot. The water boils beneath the desert sand, and a cold-water wash in the washing machine comes out hot, shrinking all those beefy cotton T-shirts you brought with you from home. The water in the toilet bowl simmers when you sit down to take a pee, the heat from the tank radiating warmth better than the radiators in my old New York apartment. It’s hot here. Too hot. The sun’s always there, burning into you, judging you like those lamps the cops shine in suspects’ faces in those old black-and-white Hollywood movies. Where were you on the night of—? Did you murder—? Movies where women were dames, tomatas. God, how I miss those movies! We get plenty on television here, but they’re nearly all Bollywood films. Or rather fil-ums. Lots of slender women singing in high-pitched voices, lots of slim men with smoldering dark eyes and flashing white teeth. Sometimes I’m not sure what country I’m in. I see as many saris on the streets as dishdashas.
He wore a dishdasha. My partner in crime at the baklava table, that is. Pristine white against smooth flesh bronzed from generations of Arab blood and unrelenting sunshine. You see a lot of dishdashas here, especially in the swanky lobbies and restaurants of the Bladerunner city center hotels. Conducting business. Dubai is all business. All money. Slippery with oil. If you don’t hold on tight, the dirham will slip out from between your fingers.
He must have seen the hunger in my eyes as I perused the staggering variety of pastries laid out on the large table – honeyed and walnutted and pistachioed sacrifices to those who’d spent the day fasting. Yes, there’s plenty of temptation here. When he looked at me, he too, had hunger in his eyes, and it wasn’t for the trays of sweets. I felt that familiar little tickle of desire between my thighs as my face heated up from his gaze – a heat which shot all the way down to my toes. The eyes beneath his ghutra were as black as his neatly trimmed beard and mustache – in fact, as black as the agal that held this head covering in place, and they
seemed to darken as they studied me, burrowed into me. I’d later learn from resident foreigners that this is called The Look. They’re a horny bunch round here, my English friend in Abu Dhabi told me. I should have taken that as a warning, though it was surely not meant as such.
He kept a villa at the beach. A villa bought with oil that he lived in all by himself. Massive tiled rooms, ceiling fans, hand-carved furniture, hand-women silk rugs. The constant hum of the air conditioner in the background. Servants came and went unseen, discreet as a tampon. The place was within walking distance to the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, where we often had dinner. I’m glad it was walking distance, since I hated getting into a car with him. He drove his Range Rover (not a Merc – the police drive Mercs!) through the streets like a madman. Though so did everyone else, cutting in and out of traffic, running up the bumper in front, flinging arms to and fro in exasperation at the sluggish traffic. All this while maintaining a steady stream of Arabic obscenities. There are probably more men in the Middle East whose mothers mated with dogs than anywhere else in the world.
He was distantly related to the Maktoum family, the rulers of Dubai since the early 1800s. Although nearly everyone who’s wealthy seems to be related to them in one way or another. He always smelled of sandalwood and rose – of that Arab perfume worn by men and women. He liked to take the little wand from the ornate glass bottle and dab the oil onto me, onto my wrists, behind my ears and knees, the crook of my elbows, in that snug place where inner thigh joins the flesh of my sex. He’d whisper to me that I smelled better than any perfume as his fingers smoothed the amber-colored liquid into my skin, rubbing it in until it was no longer oily. He liked to dab a bit of perfume onto my clitoris, which he’d take a lot of time over, rubbing in circular motions and causing it to heat up from his touch and from the oil itself, not stopping until he had me squealing and shaking with orgasm. I had no protection from his fingers, since I’d taken to removing my pubic hair shortly after our affair began. Not to be the trendy American sporting a Brazilian (which always looks to me like a cunt smoking a cigar), but because of Islamic codes of cleanliness. They make a lot of sense, when you think about it. Besides, he asked me to. How could I refuse? How could I refuse anything he asked of me?
In the afternoons after we made love, I’d remain lying in his bed as the call to prayer started up again – a Muslim rave blasting from the loudspeakers at the Jumeirah Mosque, which has a Starbucks across from it. Get in a few prayers, then nip next door for a no-foam double latte. Islam keeps you busy, I’ll say that much for it. With wake-up calls at five a.m. you’ve no need for an alarm clock. He would spread his prayer mat over the cool floor tiles and kneel upon it, still naked and dripping from me, as he began bowing toward Mecca. I suspected his lack of attire might not have been entirely respectful, but who was I to point this out to a good Muslim? I remained still, silent, not even wanting my breath to disrupt him from his link with Allah. Because there are some lines you just don’t cross. Not even in Dubai.
When he finished, he’d look up and see me reclining on my side, nude. Like the famous painting, he’d say. The Odalisque.
I am his Odalisque.
With lovemaking and praying out of the way, we’d indulge in an afternoon snack. He’d order me to stay in bed while he prepared something in his cavernous kitchen. I didn’t argue. I was still glowing from his flesh, his saliva, the heat simmering over the sandy earth beyond the high walls surrounding his villa. He’d return a short while later carrying a hammered gold tray containing plates of grapes, black olives, labneh, feta and hallumi cheese, and cucumbers, along with some Lebanese sweets. We mustn’t forget the sweets! He’d hand-feed me bits of cheese, followed by bits of cucumber, following it up with a spoonful of thick yogurty labneh that stung my tongue with its tanginess. Sometimes he tipped the spoon, and a blob landed on my belly. A perfect mountain of creamy desert snow. He bent down to lick it away, his dark head moving lower as his tongue searched out places where the labneh could not have possibly gone, the silky black hairs from his beard and mustache tickling the insides of my thighs, which I’d thoughtfully parted for him. He opened me up with his thumbs, taking his dessert where he found it, the sweets he’d brought into bed with us now forgotten.
Do we have a future? I asked.
Inshaallah, he answered. If Allah is willing.
We’d go dancing – the Kasbar or even the Planetarium, where we’d rub up against each other like two cats in heat. Exotic desert cats. Music thundering in our ears, lights flashing, no one watching and everyone watching. Maybe go hear some jazz at Issimo. Sit outside at a shisha joint sharing a pipe, arguing good-naturedly about whether we should try strawberry or green apple next time. The smooth smoke slipping down our throats in the warm night air. Just as he had slipped down my throat only moments before, his elixir as sweet as the tobacco.
He took me shopping, buying me the latest clothes the European designers had to offer. He took me to the gold souk in Deira, where he had me try on gold headdresses. I was blinded by gold – everywhere where I looked it glittered at me, showing off its extravagant beauty. I didn’t wear a headscarf, so he had to fit the dangly strands over my hair, which fortunately is straight and rests neatly against my skull. He whispered that he wanted to drape my naked body with strands of gold, place gold rings on my fingers and toes, then burn frankincense and myrrh in homage to me. As he said this, his tongue tickled my earlobe and I shivered, remembering where it had been only that morning. How deeply it had penetrated before he replaced it with his penis, taking me from behind. The Arabic way, he called it. Arabic birth control, more like. Not that I complained. He made it into an art form. I couldn’t bend over far enough for him, spread myself wide enough for him. Anything. Just ask. Just take. I am your desert houri.
I could tell that the old merchant with his clicking worry beads didn’t approve of us, but since the headdress cost about forty grand in American money, he wasn’t about to complain. You can’t be serious, I’d said, smiling, my mind calculating dirham into dollar. I wouldn’t be so gauche as to mention cost, but the thought of wearing something this expensive made my bowels knot up. Thieves would chop off your head in the States to steal something like this. Hell, people were killed for only a few dollars back home. And they say the Middle East is dangerous. Maybe the State Department should reevaluate its warnings to Americans traveling abroad and instead issue warnings that they aren’t safe at home.
In the end he didn’t buy it for me. Maybe it was stupid, but I graciously talked him out of it, squeezing his hand affectionately as the Abra ferried us across Dubai Creek to Bur Dubai. I thought it would make me feel like a kept woman if I accepted a gift like this. Now I realize how shortsighted that was. How stupid. At least I would’ve been left with something in the end. I could have always tried to sell it back to the man at the gold souk or one of the other merchants. Even if I’d only got half its value, it would have been enough. But I had my pride. An Odalisque has her pride.
Of course he played golf. What self-respecting Emirati doesn’t? Several times a week he met up with friends for a round or two. He never asked if I wanted to join in. Not that I’d have wanted to, though it might have been nice to be invited, especially since I’d already met most of his golfing buddies. He did take me to the camel races though. He owned several camels and more often than not they won. I’d sit miserably beside him under an oversized umbrella, sweltering in the desert heat as camels loped along the track, their sun-blackened jockeys hitting them with sticks to urge them quicker and quicker toward the finish line. If it happened that his camel was gaining the lead, he’d lean in close to me, his fingers stealing beneath my gauzy skirt, heading toward their own finish line. My thighs would be slippery with perspiration, but I couldn’t open them, since we were quite visible sitting alongside the track. I could hear his breath laboring with the excitement of the race and perhaps with the excitement of touching me, his fingers working my clitoris, thrusting inside me, swimmin
g in a pool of my sweat and my own excitement from what he was doing to me. The farther ahead his camel reached, the quicker his fingers moved and I’d climax just as his camel passed the finish line. I could see that his thighs had begun to jerk beneath his dishdasha, making me suspect that he, too, had come. Though whether it was from winning the race or from touching me I could never be certain.
For Eid he took me to a beauty salon to get my hands decorated with henna. Beautiful intricate designs that put any ring or bracelet to shame. Graceful floral and vine patterns that performed a sinuous dance all the way down to my fingertips. He got off on the sight of my henna-painted hand pumping him to orgasm. He even made me wear a shaila. Nothing else, just this stern black headscarf as my hands – which he’d tied together with the agal from his ghutra – worked him to a frothy conclusion. My friend in Abu Dhabi had neglected to tell me the Emiratis were a kinky bunch as well.
The henna faded. And so did his desire for me.
He tired of his Western woman. His Odalisque. I suppose it was a matter of practicality. It was time for him to get married. To an Arab woman. To have Arab children. I wasn’t the former, I couldn’t offer him the latter. There was no argument. Just tears. Mine.
They said they’d cheer me up – take me out for a night on the town. Dubai has a swinging nightlife, if you know where to look. They were just some guys who’d come around to visit sometime, whom we’d meet for dinner, share a shisha with. Golfing buddies, camel racing cohorts. His friends. My friends. Or so I thought. Salaam Ale-Koum they’d always greet me, and I’d Walaikum-asalaam them right back. Young Arab men with dishdashas and black beards and mustaches. Going to a night-club filled with rich Arabs – the Kasbar, maybe. At least that’s where I figured we were going. Instead they took me somewhere I’d never been.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 5 Page 20