If there is
one thing Leila is good at, it is making a man want her with every inch of his
nether regions. Admittedly, she has yet to perfect the art of making him
continue 'loving' her once she has opened the gates to the promised land. And
she also has yet to learn how to make him love her enough to propose to her
after giving in to his desires. But if there is one thing
she can do, it is make him want her - yearn for
her - chase after her - with a longing comparable to a pregnant woman's
incomprehensible cravings.
Leila knows
exactly what to say (and how to say it) to ensure that Mr Maybe calls her the
next day. She also knows how to behave in order to guarantee a follow up date.
In fact, she has the first six weeks down to a T - for Temptation. She tempts,
seduces, solicits, flirts, snubs, implies and entices to within an inch of her
life. And finally, numerous flowers, chocolates and occasionally jewellery or
shopping expeditions later, she gives in and shyly accepts an invitation back to
his home. In white lacy underwear, she trembles and shivers and moans with an
innocence so convincing that even the head sister at her old convent school
would believe that she had held onto her chastity as tightly as she held onto
her purse
strings.
After swearing
off Emirati men with their double-standards, multiple wives and strange sexual
habits, Leila had no intention of wasting her time or skills with Moe from the
club. They hadn't danced long before he suggested that they go somewhere quiet
to 'talk' and although he wasn't clad in a candoura, Leila was certain that he
was an Emirati of Iranian descent, and therefore, Mr No Way. For the first time
in a very long time, she decided to indulge in
a night of wanton sex with an attractive man with an even more attractive
Breitling that hung loosely from his right
wrist.
To her
surprise, after struggling through the crowd of sweaty dancers and bursting into
the sticky night outside, Moe slid his arm into hers and took her for walk
through the backstreets of Oud Metha. Slightly nervous, she wondered if he would
attempt to make a pass at her in a dark alleyway and concluded that if he did,
she deserved it after agreeing to leave with a stranger in the first place. But
he didn't. Instead, he took her to a juice bar and they ordered fresh watermelon
juices which she laced with vodka. They sat on the wall outside gulping down the
cold, refreshing drinks as if they had been denied water for days. They talked
about their aspirations and their families, their careers and their friends. The
conversation was the longest, most sensual foreplay the ever-so-slightly tipsy
Leila had indulged in. Every word he uttered made her insides melt into a mushy
pool of hormones, every smile made the tiny hairs on her body prickle in
anticipation and every accidental touch sent a shiver down her bare
back.
She had never
felt so alive
before.
So, in the
middle of a sentence, fuelled by alcohol and desire, Leila grabbed Moe's big,
warm hand, pulled him into an alleyway and did exactly what she was fearful
that he would do. And she didn't even feel
ashamed. She didn't care that the Rules dictated that she should withhold as
long as possible, that any previous thoughts of marrying her were now shattered.
There was no way that he would allow the mother of his children to be the sort
who performed all sorts of oral tricks in Dubai's dark streets that would put
Russian prostitutes to shame. But anyway, she told herself. It's not as if an
Arab guy would ever go looking for a wife in a club - so she had already struck
out... and if she had nothing to lose, then why not live a little? He didn't
know her name, so he couldn't stalk her on Facebook and send messages to all her
friends telling them that she was a ten-dirham ho. He didn't know where she
lived, so he couldn't turn up on her doorstep at 3am, pissed out of his face,
demanding for some more of her expertise. He didn't know where she worked
either, so he couldn't take pictures of her breasts with his camera phone and
then send them to all her colleagues. All in all, she was
safe.
"When can I
see you again?" he gasped, wiping his clammy hands on his
thighs.
"Let's not
make any promises," Leila purred, with a smile. She flicked her hair over her
shoulders and began to stride away, her heart beating with the thrill of
conducting indecent, lewd behavior in public, for not having to worry about the
morning after, for not having to plan a snaring
strategy.
"Wait," Moe
called out after her, jogging to catch up. "Give me your number at
least!"
"Come on
Mohamed," Leila grinned cheekily. "We all know that decent Arab girls don’t give
out their numbers to
strangers."
"I think we've
long passed those awkward formalities, ya helou," he grinned back. "Now give me
your number,
yalla."
She gave the
number, smiled one last dazzling smile and then sauntered away with her head
held high and her derriere wiggling professionally and flagged down a taxi. As
she stumbled in, she made sure not to look back. It had barely even pulled away
before her phone beeped with a message from her new FWB (friend with
benefits.)
Can't wait to
see you again, ya omri.
Giggling at
his blatant bullshit, she hit delete and then sent a message to Lady Luxe
instead. Oh how good it felt to feel desirable once again, albeit in a kinky
kind of way. She smiled all the way back to Discovery Gardens, all the way up
the lift and down the corridor, right up until she reached her apartment and was
confronted with a little plastic bag hanging off the handle. Pulling off the red
ribbon, she found three Patchi chocolates inside, and a little 'Thanks for a
lovely brunch," note from Mr Deliciously Rude And
Obnoxious.
Popping a
creamy chocolate into her mouth and tossing the note aside with a 'hmph,' she
entered her apartment feeling more beautiful and sexy than she had in a long
time. She teetered over to her bed and collapsed into it, sighing at how
wonderful her life was. Without even cleaning her face or changing her clothes,
she fell into a deep
sleep.
***
The next
morning, Leila wakes to her phone ringing. Yawning loudly, she forces her eyes
open, her head pounding, and sees Lady Luxe's name on the caller ID. Looking
down at her crumpled, bedraggled self, still in last night's clothes, she rubs
an eye tentatively and then looks at her finger. It is black with mascara and
eyeliner. Confused, she answers and then holds the phone away from her ear as
her friend's shrieks echo around her bare
apartment.
"What are you
screaming about?" she eventually manages to get in, after the yells subside and
she can bring the phone back to her
ear.
"I can't
believe you just went off with a random guy like that! A random guy from a dodgy
club who could have done all sorts of humiliating and degrading things to you
just because you are a woman. And because you are WEAK. And because he was
obviously local and you KNOW what LOCAL guys are
LIKE!"
"Excuse me?"
Leila snaps, her head spinning. What the hell is Lady Luxe on about? "Darling,
habibti," she begins snootily. "Please correct me if I am wrong, but surely you
are aware that it
is you, not I, who
disappears with nameless men from clubs only to be treated like a glorified
prostitute."
"It used to
be," Lady Luxe replies, her voice rising again. "But now you seem to want IN on
my game! Meaningless sex is my thing, not
yours. That's why I was so shocked and I was worried about
you!"
"Hold on a
second," Leila interrupts, her head still throbbing. Is Lady Luxe actually
accusing her of going off with a man from the club? She racks her brains but
cannot for the life of her remember what happened after they had entered Chi.
Ordinarily, she would had scoffed at the accusation, but she is currently lying
in bed in jeans and a leopard print boob tube with full makeup on and is in no
state to be self-righteous. "What are you saying exactly? Be
clear."
"How much
clearer do you want me to be? One second you're all up against that local guy,
the next second you told me you wanted to leave with him, and then a few hours
later you texted me declaring your undying love for
him."
"Shit," Leila
mutters, as realization dawns upon her. She vaguely recalls a man's sweaty palms
in her hands. She remembers walking through Oud Metha's slightly dirty and
unkempt streets, she remembers adding vodka to their watermelon juices, she
remembers her sore feet, blistered from the long walk. Then she remembers
pulling the tall, rugged Emirati into an empty, smelly alleyway and fumbling
with the buttons on his Levi's. She remembers pulling down his CK boxers… and
then…
"OH MY FUCKING
GOD!" she screams in horror. "Oh no! Please no! Please say I
didn’t!"
"Didn’t what?
DIDN'T WHAT?" Lady Luxe screams back. "Leila – don’t tell me –
"
"I did! I
did!" Leila cries down the phone, the weight of her actions looming down on her.
What if the police had caught them? She would have been locked away and then
deported, but not before her name was splashed in every single newspaper in the
UAE. Another horny foreigner caught making a mockery of Dubai's rigid rules. Her
life would have been
over.
"You got
married?" Lady Luxe wails. "Where did you find a Sheikh to do it? Since when did
Dubai become Vegas? La hawla wa la quwwata illa
billah!"
"Married? No!
I wish!"
"Wha? You
didn't? If you didn’t marry him, then exactly did you do that you regret so
much?"
"I gave him
a…" Leila swallows nervously. "A you-know-what. In an
alley."
"That's it?"
Lady Luxe almost weeps in relief. Her breath steadies itself and she smiles a
shaky smile. Leila has shown her brother the true extent of her trashiness. He
will never take her seriously now, and this little problem will be over before
she can say Alf
Mabrouk.
"What do you
mean that's it? I am not YOU. I don’t do these degrading, classless
things!"
"Well my dear,
clearly you do." With that, Lady Luxe hangs up and Leila sinks back on her
pillow, bile creeping up in the back of her
throat.
She manages to
drag herself out of bed and looks at her ragamuffin reflection. She almost falls
back into bed when she is confronted by her massive hair, sticking up in all
directions, her panda eyes and cracked foundation. Her boob tube is exposing
one, expensive boob and her strapless bra is hanging around her waist somewhere.
For a moment, she is thankful that she had the sense to commit lewd acts in
public and then go home, rather than sleep over with the man and let him see her
like this. Sighing, she pulls off last night's outfit that she knows she can
never look upon favourably again and then steps under the
shower.
Her phone
rings just as she has finished piling on countless beauty products that promise
to soften skin (Body Shop Body Butter), fade away stretch marks (RoC Maternity
oil), brighten the complexion (Clinique Even Better Skin Tone) and reduce
puffiness and eradicate fine lines around the eyes, (La Mer Eye Concentrate).
Wrapped in a towel, she walks over to it and squints at the caller ID, wondering
who on Earth Moe
is.
"Hello?" she
answers.
"Hello
habibti," a deep voice drawls. "I can't stop thinking about
you."
"And why is
that?" she asks, stalling for time. Moe? Surely he isn’t the guy from last
night?
"Because those
lips of yours are incredible and I can't wait to find out what they can do to
the rest of me." Shit, she realises in horror. He is the guy
from last night and clearly he likes her sudden slip into promiscuity. Or he
wants more of
it.
"What? Ew! No
way! Don’t call me again!" she gasps, and then hangs up, her hands shaking. She
can't believe she gave him her number. What was she thinking? Clearly she wasn't
thinking. It was all Mr Delicious' fault for making her feel so unwanted. She
would get him back for
this.
A minute
later, the phone rings again and this time, she rejects it without even
answering.
In the next
hour, her phone rings thirteen times and Leila gives up rejecting the calls.
Instead, she just doesn’t acknowledge them, hoping that Moe will get the hint
eventually. She just isn’t interested in embarking on a meaningless relationship
that will end with a disaster and make her feel like an old hooker who has
passed her prime. She doesn’t want to invest time and effort on a man who will
not marry her. Especially when her sister is about to get married and she is
hoping to go her wedding with a fiancée dangling off her left arm, and
a real Chanel bag off her
right.
He
doesn’t.
Habibti answer
the phone. Is the first
message.
Habibti don’t
be shy. It's okay. Don’t be ashamed. You didn’t do anything
wrong.
Ya 2lbi, don’t
burn my heart like this. I can't stop thinking about you. You have stolen my
heart. Come here and give it back to me.
7araam! You
are killing me like this! I am nothing without you. Your beauty makes the moon
look ugly. Your smile makes the sun look dark. Your skin makes pearls seem dull.
Yalla. Call me back!
If you don’t
answer the phone now I will call my friend in Etisalat and find out who you are.
And then I will come to your home and wait outside the door until you open
it.
At this last
message, Leila panics and answers the phone. Moe seems unperturbed by the fact
he has had to threaten her in order to make her yield to his advances. She
wearily accepts his dinner invitation, unsure as to how to deter him. Arab men,
especially Emirati men, do not take kindly to rejection, so she will have to
think of a better strategy to make him give up. She knows this won’t be easy
though. These are the same men who think an open car window is an invitation to
start heckling. So what does a blow job in an alley mean? Leila doesn’t even
allow her imagination to wander down that
avenue.
She gets ready
for dinner as if she is going to a funeral. She slips on a pair of formal grey
trousers, a black blouse and ties a black and white silk scarf around her neck,
trying to cover as much of her skin as possible. If she was Muslim, she would
have wrapped it around her head in an attempt to deter him further. She dusts
the tiniest amount of powder on her nose, blusher on her cheeks and a little bit
of mascara. No lipstick or gloss, or anything to actually look as if she has
made an effort. Of course, she could have gone bareface, but for Leila, a naked
face is sacreligious. She forgoes the usual dangly earrings for plain tiny
diamond studs and pulls her hair back into a neat bun. I look
like a school teacher, she thinks with a
grimace. A classy, sophisticated school teacher.She grabs
her 'Chanel' handbag and gets into Baby Bee. They have arranged to meet at
Madinat Jumeirah (there is no way she will allow him to find out where she
lives) and so she slowly makes her way down there, dread festering in the pit of
her stomach.
She pulls up
at Madinat Jumeirah the same time as Moe, and is surprised to see that he is
driving an orange Mercedes AMG and has a two-digit license plate. She remembers
his Breitling watch from the night before and his expensive Italian
shoes. So they were real, she notes approvingly. At least
she is being hassled by a rich Emirati, not the poor 'just moved out of the
desert and have been given a villa in Jumeirah by the Government'
type.
They park next
to each other and he takes her to the Caviar House & Prunier, the finest
seafood and caviar restaurant in Dubai. As they take their seats outside,
directly opposite the illuminated Burj Al Arab, letting the deliciously creamy,
perfectly salted Caspian caviar melt in their mouths, Leila has an epiphany. Moe
is being attentive, complimentary and sweet – the perfect gentleman. He drives
an expensive car, wears expensive clothes and clearly has more money than he
knows what to do with. She knows that she has had bad experiences with Emiratis
before, but that was when she was naïve, looking for Sheikh Charming to whisk
her away on an Arabian Stallion. Now she knows better than to expect monogamy,
loyalty or even
honesty.
Moe may be
already married… but even if he is…. Would it be so bad to become someone's
second wife? After all, her clock is ticking and she is old enough to know that
fairytales do not exist. What exactly is so bad about marrying a man who will
provide her with her own luxury villa, a limitless credit card and a Maserati,
who she doesn’t even have to see very often? She can be married and yet free to
do as she pleases simultaneously. Is
that really such a bad
offer?
"You look
beautiful by the way," Moe says to her in his slightly British, slightly
American and slightly Arabic accent and suddenly, she softens up. The icy
demeanor she has adopted all evening melts away as she realizes what she has to
do. Maybe his motives are a little shady. Maybe he just wants her for good sex,
for a bit of fun on the side. Or maybe he's looking for a dishy number two now
that he's fulfilled his familial obligation of marrying some ugly buck-nosed,
hairy, local girl his family chose for him. Either way, she has nothing to lose
- there aren't exactly a whole line of men waiting to ask her to marry
them.
She smiles shyly at him.
She smiles shyly at him.
"Thank you,"
she says sweetly, looking down. Her sell-by date is fast approaching and she
knows exactly who should pluck her off the shelf.
Let the game begin.
Let the game begin.
0 nhận xét:
Đăng nhận xét