Secret Skin

by Frank Coles

  ‘You want business?’ a husky feminine voice whispered in my ear. I whipped round to look at the woman. Eastern European? Russian? Oriental even? Hard to tell.

  ‘Where?’ I asked.

  Her eyes looked up toward the dark recesses behind the balcony. She saw me hesitate.

  ‘Your place?’ she suggested.

  I could hold her hand and walk out the front door. Pay her when we got outside. Interview her even. Interviews? Oh you’re such a fucking professional David.

  Over her shoulder I saw the two bouncers enter the room, with them the concierge and the young girl. They scanned the floor looking for something, for someone…for me, it had to be.

  The two bouncers split up, each took one side of the stage, the only routes in or out. The concierge went with overbite and the girl with the sport star.

  Either route would lead them to me.

  Smart, they’ve done this before. Smarter than you.

  The front door was no longer an option.

  ‘Hey, you’re right, let’s go upstairs.’ I said to my Eurasian friend. ‘My place is miles from here.’

  She led the way, walking smartly ahead of me. She turned and said something but I could only smile and maneuver her gently forward. I couldn’t hear her words over the music and my heart pounded so hard I couldn’t have answered.

  I craned back to see my hunters. The girl and the concierge made eye contact with each customer, checking every sleazy nook and cranny, the muscles always a step behind them.

  We reached the wide spiral staircase. I smiled at the girl and began to follow her up. I stopped and stepped back down. To my left a swarthy pock-scarred man counted notes out in front of an Asian woman half his size. She laughed happily at her sucker for the evening. He wore a white collared trader style shirt and had a navy jacket draped over the back of a bar stool.

  I curved a finger under the collar of his jacket and slipped one shoulder off the back of the chair. A gentle tug as I walked up the stairs and the jacket came with me. I pulled it on.

  At the top my eyes had to adjust to the low light before I could make out the balcony that ran the length of the stage downstairs. A few men and women leaned over the rail watching the scene below. Set back from the balcony, alcoves and booths shrouded with designer Arab frills concealed what went on behind.

  We walked along the balcony and peered into the gloom, looking for a space. Guttural ululations of pleasure, glimpses of flesh and the scents of spent passions drifted up to us, the opposite of enticing, like a tour of some cheap musk perfumery.

  We walked the length of the balcony and she guided me into a sunken booth with a circular calf high sofa and a large round table in the middle. We squeezed in and before I could begin to make myself comfy she began yanking at my zipper.

  ‘Hold on,’ I said, ‘Not yet.’

  Her eyes asked the question.

  I bullshitted. ‘I want to make someone jealous. My friend has had his eye on you all night, but I got you first hey? Lucky me!’ I said. ‘Relax a minute. He’ll be along soon. Then we can play a little trick on him.’

  Our sunken position meant that you could see over the heads of our sexed up neighbors to the top of the back-lit stairs. We waited. Breathing deeply, I tried to calm down. I feigned cool and smiled at my companion, she rolled her eyes.

  Couples came and went through the busy bottleneck at the top of the stairs. The Yasmin look-alike caught my eye. She had removed her abaya and led a blocky guy in jeans and t-shirt to a booth on my left.

  I forgot about her when the young girl appeared followed closely by her minder. They waited for the concierge and underbite to join them. They quickly split into two groups again, covering all exits, exploring every booth and examining every face.

  My pulse quickened. How could I do this? The jacket might fool them from a distance but they only had to see my face.

  ‘Okay,’ I said to the woman next to me, ‘my friend’s here. Don’t look!’ I said grabbing her chin. ‘He can’t know that you know okay?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Here’s what we’re going to do…I’ll pay you double.’

  ***

  I could tell by the way her thighs clamped nervously around my head, crushing my ears, that they were looking in our booth.

  She moved her hips in a circular motion and thrust her sharp pelvis into my face. Trapped beneath her short skirt, I could smell the sour and overwhelming fragrance of leftover sex. The red underwear she wore reminded me of the first day I’d met Yasmin.

  She began to fake pleasure, noisily exaggerating for effect, just as I’d asked her to. Small sighs at first, one on top of the other, she quickly built momentum, her pelvis pumping quickly.

  The volume intensified and that desperate almost-there tone crept into her moans. She grabbed the back of my head and pulled me into her, burying my face in her pantied crotch, jerking my head back and forth.

  ‘Fuck off!’ she said to whoever was looking in. Her moaning grew louder turning to an animal grunting. If I hadn’t been so scared I might have been aroused, but terror is an efficient passion killer.

  If someone grabbed me from behind, what then?

  Aggressive voices barked at each other. The hunters. I felt too exposed. I couldn’t control this situation any more than this. I tried to stay in character and my face out of sight.

  Long moments passed and then the moaning began to subside.

  She stopped banging my face against her crotch, pulled me out from underneath and held me roughly but not unkindly by the hair.

  She smiled, I grinned stupidly back.

  Dishevelled, crouched between a prostitute’s thighs at the back of a night club, wearing a stolen jacket and having just pretended to perform cunnilingus to escape the people looking for me. My mother would have been so proud.

  ‘They go,’ she said to me.

  ‘You did great,’ I said, ‘worth every penny. My friend will be mad with envy.’

  She beamed back at me. ‘That’s okay, it was fun!’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, remembering to breathe, sliding back from the verge of a panic attack. ‘We got him, great fun,’ I lied. ‘Well done.’

  ‘Will he be angry?’

  ‘Someone will be. No doubt about that.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘You’re too quiet,’ I said.

  ‘I’m listening,’ Martin said, arms folded across his chest and looking at me with calm, steady eyes. His drink stood untouched on the hospital coffee table between us.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘What no pithy comebacks?’

  ‘Plenty,’ he said, and then sat there sizing me up. Normally he never seemed genuinely interested in you or what you had to say, but for once he was intently focused. His buffoonish character replaced by someone who wanted to figure out all the angles.

  ‘Go on,’ he said again.

  ***

  My red panted friend told me her name was Natasha, the most common nickname given to the Russian working girls in Dubai, the Natashas. She didn’t laugh when I did. I paid her double for her time and she tottered back to the trading floor with its high turnover bull market as aggressive as any bourse.

  I sat in the booth on my own, waiting, killing time, giving my pursuers enough space to find their way out of the main room. My eyes had become accustomed to the balcony’s low light but the constant bobbing of heads and the slurping, groaning sounds of men being serviced was more than I could endure.

  I shifted out of the forced squat the low cubicle sofa had put me in. One of the men stopped grunting and thumped the seat next to him. Despite my best efforts this caught my eye, so did the woman who lifted her head from the man’s crotch to smile, her lubricating lips still glistening.

  The look-alike.

  She licked her wet lips and looked up at the other man with familiar eyes.

  ‘Yasmin,’ I growled under my breath.

  She turned in my direction when she heard her name.
<
br />   This time it was her.

  I saw her squint in the darkness, unable to see clearly. Perhaps she sensed my jealous eyes boring into her.

  I sprang up from my half-crouch and tried to walk as calmly as I could to the balcony. My hands shook. Once again I felt like a teenager. This time a jilted one who didn’t know what to do with his emotional anguish.

  I envied the happy simian crowd below. Faisal and his guests still sat at their tables, a steady stream of girls coming and going.

  Maybe it really was better to pay for love, for sex, for the kinds of things that animals do so compulsively, so unashamedly. Just grab a quick blow job in between meetings, in between picking up the kids and dropping off the wife, she gets her nails done while you get yours.

  Maybe she’ll hold your hand.

  Why the hell not? It’s just sex. It’s natural, it’s normal; it’s the biological urge to procreate for god’s sake. It’s why each and every one of us is here.

  So why does this hurt?

  Why does it feel like I’ll never be happy with her sleeping with so many other men?

  With them it’s just sex; with you…it’s making love.

  Words I’d said so many times to my own long list of love rejects. Was this payback for all those times? The universe giving me the middle finger, asking how does it feel fucker?

  Yasmin walked out of the booth, the man lead her by the hand. She looked over her shoulder in my direction, our eyes met for a second and then she turned, trailing him down the stairs.

  I couldn’t let go of the balcony railing, my mind raced with a million what ifs? And a thousand whining whys?

  Something warm touched my crotch and began to move. For a moment, horrified and caught off balance I thought I’d wet myself. The mobile phone buzzed again and I realized it was just vibrating against my leg.

  The text message said: Was that you?

  She still wasn’t sure, but then neither was I.

  ***

  I tapped the shoulder of the man whose jacket I’d stolen. I held it up to him. ‘This yours?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was on the floor, I think you dropped it.’

  He took it and turned his back on me, trying to save face in front of the woman who only cared for his wallet. Ignorant arse, I thought. I should have kept it.

  I scanned the floor for any sign of Yasmin.

  I saw the doppelganger first and then Yasmin passed in front of her. A truly remarkable resemblance. Two items from the same product line.

  Yasmin smiled without humor; trying to shake off the post-coital haggling of the man she had just felated and clutching her mobile phone.

  She kept glancing at the screen.

  Behind her the slave owning rapist, Faisal, laughed in the smoky distance.

  I was angry with Yasmin but angrier with myself. I knew what she did for a living when I started this. This wasn’t her thing it was his. She was still his victim.

  And I was jealous.

  Should I walk away?

  Should I stay?

  The men milling around me happily kissed and touched women who did what Yasmin did every day. Maybe my whining was just Anglican prudery. Post Victorian values smothered in the hypocrisy of Islam. People fuck. No big deal. Get over it. After all was it the woman or the act I was interested in?

  Yeah, but….

  But when we have our semi-d and a settled suburban lifestyle, what do I say to her when she comes home from work?

  ‘Nice day at the orifice dear? Kiss, kiss. Oops, you’ve still got cum on your lips. Let me just get that for you….’

  I mean really? Really, David: Can you handle that?

  The man finally let her be and I moved in behind her. Close enough to smell her familiar scent, the warmth of her physical presence.

  ‘Daddy, where’s mummy?’ my imaginary kids asked.

  ‘Well she can’t come to the zoo dear, she’s got a lot of work on today. There’s a dinner cruise and a birthday gang-bang, so it’s all hands on deck.’

  She glared at the screen on her phone, waiting for a sign. I hesitated.

  So, can you handle that?

  I whispered in her ear, ‘It’s me.’

  ***

  ‘Whoa back up there Bryson. If I thought you were too close to this story before now you’re telling me you’ve fallen in love with a fucking prostitute?’

  I opened my mouth to speak, paused, ‘It’s not quite like that,’ my cheeks warmed as the blush spread.

  ‘Well just what the fuck is it like, you fucking idiot gobshite mother fucker? If I’d sent you on a job covering camel racing in Dubai, I wouldn’t have expected you to go around fucking the god damned camels. Where’s the objectivity for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘I haven’t bloody well fucked her have I.’

  ‘Haven’t you?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay but you’ve bloody well gone and fallen for her haven’t you?’ he roared. ‘A woman who’s seen more burnt rubber than Sheikh Zayed road.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said, ‘have I?’

  ‘Well let’s see you’ve just told me you’re happy for her to come home with another man’s…oh please Bryson, just tell me that was the heat and the tension talking would you? Smacking a kiddie-fiddler with a fire extinguisher I can handle, even applaud, but falling in love with a prostitute, not in this country, please god no.’

  ‘What’s so wrong with that Martin? She’s not doing it by choice, she’s someone’s slave for crying out loud, who else is going to help her?’

  ‘But that’s the point you naïve little shit. You think you’re helping her don’t you?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ I said.

  ‘Well you’re not Bryson, let me tell you. This isn’t Holland where prostitution is legalized, or even Britain where they pretend it doesn’t happen but everybody knows it does. This is Dubai: it’s a desert playground for the boys that own it. It’s private land and you’re the hired help, allowed in here to trim the frigging hedges and to keep your mouth shut.’

  ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do….’

  ‘Shut up Bryson. For once keep quiet and listen. You’ve obviously promised this girl, someone’s slave, that somehow you’re going to rescue her by writing an article. Haven’t you?’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  ‘So what happens when this article is printed and nothing changes?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Bryson, one article that’s read by about ten people in this country isn’t going to change a thing. Even the readers abroad who roll their eyes and say “Oh that’s terrible!” will do very little, nothing probably, and then where will your girlfriend be?’

  ‘Yes, I know that, that’s why she’s not going to be mentioned, or her pimp.’

  ‘And then what happens to her?’

  ‘I…I don’t know. We’ll find a way; I’ve already tried to buy her freedom.’

  ‘Have you? On the rates I pay.’

  ‘Well then I’ll get some false papers made or have her smuggled out.’

  ‘But that’s only if you love her right?’

  ‘Yeah, well no, of course I’ll do it either way, even if nothing happens between us.’

  ‘Oh yeah? And when will you know if you love her? When you’re inside her right?’

  I didn’t know what to say. Truth really does hurt.

  ‘You’re an idiot. You should have kept your distance.’

  ‘Yeah, but the story is good.’

  ‘How good?’

  ‘Damaging.’

  ‘To who? Them or her?

  Chapter Twenty

  Martin was right. I hadn’t kept my distance.

  She turned when I tapped her shoulder. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said.

  ‘I thought I’d get out of the heat. I’ve been working through your list. It’s going great.’

  ‘You
should have called first,’ she said, ‘Faisal is still suspicious of you. He will be angry with me; you should go before he sees you.’

  ‘I can’t. Not just yet,’ I said looking at the bulky silhouettes through the glass doors. She followed my eyes.

  ‘What have you done David?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘David!’ she said through gritted teeth.

  I knew I’d messed up, but I was charged from my narrow escape and still had nowhere to go.

  ‘Well balls to it,’ I said. ‘Let’s see if I can’t grab this bull by his horny horn then,’ and strode off in the direction of Faisal’s table.

  ***

  ‘Faisal!’ I called out.

  He didn’t hear me. Or more probably ignored me, while a wiry hair-trigger of a man did his job and put a hand on my chest.

  ‘Private area,’ he said.

  ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘I’m here to see my friend. Faisal,’ I called again.

  He looked pissed off at being addressed so disrespectfully; then amused when he saw it was me.

  ‘Come,’ he said and waved me in. He patted the white leather seat on his left without acknowledging me. I sat down and waited.

  ‘Mr. Bryson,’ he said eventually. ‘Vodka?’ Before I had time to answer he motioned to a waiter who poured two fingers in a tumbler beside me.

  ‘I thought you were going to let me know when you were coming.’

  ‘My apologies,’ I said, ‘I was passing and your offer was just too good to refuse. I’ve already had an ear bashing from Yasmin I’m afraid. I think she thought I came for her but when I told her I’d come to examine your other girls she was most put out.’

  He tutted. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure next time you show her the color of your money she will be just as wonderful as the last. I train them well, but they can be a little emotional sometimes. They are only women after all.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed and joined in with his little joke.