Gentleman Playboy

by Alam, Donna

  As we pull into the valet parking bay—an idea as absurd as a ski-slope in a mall, as far as I’m concerned—Kai’s hands seem to almost anchor him to the steering wheel.

  ‘May I call you?’

  A mixture of relief at his courtly question catches me off guard, and I actually giggle before examining my hands. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Then I shall. Have a good afternoon.’

  ‘You, too,’ I answer as the attendant opens the door.

  ‘Katherine?’ Kai calls as I step away. ‘I look forward to further thong discourse.’

  I’m left with the impression of his smirk as the valet closes the dark-tinted door.

  Niamh is waiting for me just inside the entrance, which is just as well because the mall appears to be massive. I don’t think a month of Sundays would be time enough for me to find my way around. Maybe that would be a month of Fridays in Dubai? Lounged over the railings and peering at the floor below, my arrival goes unnoticed as she chats on her phone.

  ‘Does it have a happy ending? Loads. I especially like the one where he says, all commanding, like, roll over Arabella, I’m going to come in your bum.’ Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she spots me, wiggling her fingers in a wave. ‘Listen, I’ve gotta go. Talk later, yeah?’

  Open-mouthed, I glance around the not empty mall as she simultaneously slides the phone into her oversized purse and an arm around my shoulder. ‘You, my girl, are late but being the bestest friend that I am, I’ll still give you the choice: a spot of lunch or shopping first?’

  ‘Am not. And what in the name of arse was that all about?’

  ‘What?’ she asks pulling away. ‘The phone? I was just havin’ a laugh, winding up one of the silly cows from my book club. You wouldn’t believe some people are such prudes. Hypocrites, too. The stink she’s kicked up about our latest read, but you can bet she’s off looking for the dirty pages right now. Not that it’s strictly one-handed reading material, if you know what I mean.’ I frown because I’m not sure I do. ‘You know, Sixty Shags? For feck’s sakes woman, have you been living in a cave?’

  ‘Not really my thing,’ I mumble, recognising the title from its media furore. Mummy porn, wasn’t that what it was dubbed? I like my smut best with a historical slant.

  ‘Sex is everybody’s thing, Kitty. I’ll loan it to you, but it better not come back with stains.’

  ‘Er, thanks?’

  ‘Where to, then?’

  ‘Coffee defo, and a muffin. I overslept and I’m so hungry now that my bum’s eating my undies.’ With a furtive look over my shoulder, I adjust the elastic creeping across one cheek. ‘Maybe on the way, a shoe shop? I so need to buy thongs.’

  Niamh’s gaze flicks down—she gets it, she knows what I mean—before scanning the rest of my appearance, aching toes up.

  ‘Katherine Louise Saunders,’ she says with a mockingly-stern slow shake of her head. ‘You haven’t been home, have you?’

  ‘Well, no . . .’ I feel my face redden under her scrutiny and come back on the defence. ‘But that’s hardly my fault.’

  ‘You hoower!’ she exclaims, clapping her hands in glee. The round of applause does nothing to ease my embarrassment. Am I being congratulated for being a dirty stop-out?

  ‘A bit louder, yeah? There’s a bloke on the top floor that didn’t quite hear.’

  ‘I want details, dirty great ones. Coffee’s on me!’ With a death-grip on my arm, she pulls me toward an escalator.

  ‘Shoes first,’ I whine, shuffling behind.

  ‘I dare say by the look of you, your feet aren’t the only things that hurt,’ she trills as we step onto the first tread.

  Golden fittings, marble floors, and huge domed ceilings give the mall a very luxurious air. Add to that, a ski slope and an aquarium, and you’ve got not only a spot of shopping but a full day out as well. People of all sorts and designs fill the mall. Families trailing kids, some trailing uniformed maids to boot. Women dressed more for dinner than shopping and guys looking like they’ve just stepped off yachts. Then there are Emiratis: women exotically glamorous in their black flowing cloaks, designer handbags dangling, their husbands and sons pristine in gleaming white robes.

  I blanch passing the stores—Chloe, Armani, Louis Vuitton. Alexander McQueen! I’m going to need a mortgage to afford shoes here.

  ‘There are chain stores further along,’ Niamh says, as though reading my mind. ‘They don’t call this place do-buy for nothing.’

  Eventually, we arrive at Nine West where I buy a perfectly comfortable pair of jewelled thongs, my feet grateful and, what’s more, they were in the sale! At a coffee shop, a Gloria Jean’s, for the love of all things Australian, Niamh steers me to a comfortable chair before heading off to order our drinks. The décor is very familiar and comforting, so recognizable it could be home, save for its customers. My local GJ’s is more likely to be filled with the daggy than the debonair. Mums on their way back from the school run—sometimes still in their pyjamas—and tradies, bricklayers and plumbers, dressed in work boots and short shorts. This particular GJ’s, however, has a very different vibe. A group of teenagers worthy of their own H&M ad titter over cell phones and frappés, while at nearby tables Emirati ladies sip espresso, elegance compressed into their kohl-lined lids.

  Dubai is a city that seems to take its appearances very seriously.

  Niamh interrupts my people watching with a bucket-sized frothy coffee and a muffin almost as big as my head.

  ‘You’re a legend!’ I rip off the paper, so hungry I could probably eat dust. I think I’m going to have to complain next time I’m in my local store, though. Size definitely does matter I decide as I take a bite. Wonder if everything is bigger in Dubai?

  Throwing herself into the armchair opposite, Niamh shoots me a quizzical look before drawing in for the kill. ‘Come one, dish!’

  ‘What?’ She gives me a faint but unimpressed, lift of her brow. ‘I had a great time. He’s a little intense but really . . . cute?’

  ‘Feck off! Gorgeous, maybe. Hot, for sure. But cute?’ She shakes her head. ‘Come on now, tell Auntie Niamh what the bad kitty did.’

  ‘We hung out and I . . . slept over. The usual stuff.’ Ducking my head toward the bucket, I concentrate on the foam.

  ‘So fluids were involved. Where’s he from? First though, was I right, is he any good?’

  ‘God, yes!’ I blurt, choosing to answer the final question from the barrage.

  ‘Good on ‘ya, girl! Delish, so he is!’

  ‘How was the rest of your night?’ I try to steer her onto another conversational path, uncomfortable with how far she’ll want to go down this one. Niamh doesn’t generally gush, unless she has something of her own to tell. Speaking of which, why hasn’t she shared?

  ‘Nothing like yours, more’s the pity,’ she answers. ‘Judging by your dress, I’d say you didn’t get far, geographically speaking, at least. Where’d you go? Did you stay at the hotel or go to his place? Come on, I’m fit to burst!’

  ‘It’s been laundered,’ I murmur, plucking invisible lint from the buttons. ‘It’s a nice hotel. The rooms are very . . . plush. And they seemed nice, by the way, your friends from last night. Apart from that girl from brunch, Jen, was it? Though she wasn’t too much of a cow last night.’

  ‘Plush rooms is it?’ She eyes me knowingly. ‘And cow’s too nice a word for what Jen is. Let’s just say if you are what you eat, that girl’s a cock.’

  ‘Definitely not a friend, then?’ I say with a laugh.

  ‘Not even close. She made a play for Matt while you were at the bar, you know.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t see, not that it matters. It’s not like we’re together or anything.’

  ‘That’s not the point. Anyone with eyes could see Matt was making a play for you.’ If by play, she means making drunken lunges, maybe. ‘She’s got no feckin’ boundaries,’ Niamh grumbles.

  ‘Is she really that bad?’

  ‘Well, I’m not saying she puts i
t about, but her favourite shade of lipstick is penis, if you know what I mean.’

  Niamh sometimes cracks me up. She’d make a great caustic comedienne. I wonder if Jen owns Perspex stripper heels?

  ‘He’s a free agent,’ I reply, aware it sounds like I’m defending Jen.

  ‘He was seriously uninterested. In fact, I think his answer was something like “if he’d a bag full of willies, he wouldn’t give her one” ’.

  ‘No way, he did not!’

  Sounds more like something Niamh would say. Matt didn’t strike me as the offensive kind, not that I can honestly say I like Jen.

  ‘Ah, you’re right. He wasn’t drunk then. Anyway, he declined the invitation to her knickers with more kindness than she deserved.’ Niamh picks up her cup. ‘She’d lie down in nettles for it, that one. Stop changing the subject and get on with it. Tell me he’s hung like a horse.’

  I cough and splutter latte across the table. ‘Niamh, what the hell!’ I can’t help but laugh as I snort foam, despite catching unimpressed looks from a couple at a nearby table. I’m pleased to see the teenagers have already left.

  ‘I’ll take that as an answer in the affirmative,’ she says slyly, handing me a napkin. ‘A teacher, isn’t he?’

  ‘Take it how you like, I’m saying nothing. And don’t you have your own tales of hot from last night?’

  ‘Oh, that.’ She sighs protractedly. ‘It was a nightmare, actually.’ Leaning back in the chair, she folds her arms across her chest. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

  ‘What happened? Was he rubbish?’

  ‘Didn’t get that far. Remember what I said about Matt being able to hold his booze?’ Her mouth twists in distaste.

  ‘Oh, he did not!’

  ‘Oh, contraire. We got as far as your building when he hurled all over me new shoes. What are you gawking at, it’s true!’

  I burst out laughing. I can’t help it but hold a hand over my mouth. ‘And you said he wouldn’t—’

  ‘It’s my shoes he ruined, not yours! Night, too. I had to go home. Couldn’t face it after that.’

  ‘I’m not surprised and am very pleased I wasn’t there. Did he puke in the car?’ How mortifying, but there was no sign—or smell—when Kai dropped me off. Eww.

  ‘So you should be, and he managed to hang on until the driver pulled over, or there’d be a huge bill to pay back at the hotel. Speaking of which, the driver wouldn’t accept any money, your man must’ve paid the fare already. We’ll owe him for that.’

  I shake my head briefly, not sure where to begin. The car obviously belongs to Kai and not the hotel. I guess the driver is his, too.

  ‘English is he, and why aren’t there any blokes like him at my school?’

  Taking a deep breath, I begin to explain Kai’s mixed heritage, as well as the fact that he might, on some level, be sort of my boss. Or not. I also mention his hotel-come-home-away-from-home. As I do so, Niamh’s face flickers with a range of emotions, none of them particularly positive looking. I begin to regret mentioning the hotel.

  ‘But, oh. My. God! The man’s freaking sex on a stick!’ I gush, hoping to lighten the mood, plus it also happens to be true.

  Placing her cup against the table, a dour look darkens her face as she covers my hand with hers. ‘Promise me you’ll be careful, babes.’

  ‘What? Oh, be careful. Don’t want to end up in the clink for being pregnant!’ There are no unmarried mothers in Dubai. Not free ones, anyway. ‘I’m on the pill and he was erm . . . careful, too. I might be a bit of a latecomer to the casual side, but I’m pretty sure I can manage that.’

  ‘That goes without saying.’ She frowns. ‘I mean guard yourself. Emotionally. These men, they’re only out for a good time.’

  I pick at the muffin’s remains, not sure where her change in tone has come from. Gleeful a minute ago, and now she’s warning me, but against what?

  ‘Local men, Kate,’ she qualifies in a grave voice. ‘They’re only out for a shag. They won’t marry you.’

  I inhale muffin crumbs. Following that, I choke. It’s not a good look, or something I’d recommend.

  ‘You’re winding me up! Marry me—I’ve spent one night with him. Who’s getting hitched?’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. I’m not explaining myself well. I suppose I’m not talking about marriage exactly, either.’ Her words fall in a rush, hands pulled now into her lap.

  ‘Thank Christ for that. I thought for a minute there you were going to pull out one of those bracelets, you know, What Would Jesus Do?’

  Irreverent humour is usually well received by Niamh, but not today.

  ‘Dubai could do with a Jesus,’ she says. ‘There are enough feckin’ lepers, for sure. A what would Niamh do pin might be better for you, and what Niamh would do is be very careful. These guys, they’re only interested in getting into your knickers. They’ve no long term plans.’

  ‘Niamh, I’ve only known him five minutes, and probably four of those I had no undies on. Weren’t you the one telling me this was a good idea? To get out, get laid. Move on.’

  ‘I know, I’m just saying don’t get involved. Men out here, especially the local ones, everyone knows they mess girls around. They’ll date you, wine and dine you, maybe buy you a few gifts, but it’s all in an effort to get you into the sack.’

  ‘Isn’t that the same with guys from wherever?’ I interrupt. ‘Their gifts of persuasion just closer in value to a bottle of wine or a few cocktails? What am I missing here?’

  ‘If you like, all men are the same.’ She makes this sweeping statement with a flourish of her hand. ‘But one day, some bloke who’s trying to get you to part with your panties will also fall head over heels in love with you.’

  ‘Who says romance is dead,’ I interject but she ignores me, resolutely carrying on.

  ‘He’ll want to be with you, he’ll think of nothing else but you. The sado will even convince himself he wants you for the rest of his life. He might even propose, but you can be sure it won’t be Kai. Or anyone like him,’ she adds. ‘So don’t fall in love. Sure, they all have plans to marry eventually, it’s expected culturally or religiously, or some such thing. But it’ll be to someone their mother or sisters have found to avoid diluting the gene pool, despite it needing a feckin’ expansion.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They tend to keep it all in the family. Marry distant cousins, women from the same tribe and the like. Not a woman like you.’

  ‘Mate, thanks for the vote of confidence. Why does it have to be so different just because he’s Arab or whatever?’ I feel a little sad having this conversation. I know Niamh, and this doesn’t sound like her at all. ‘And you seem to forget, I was on the marriage track. And look where that got me.’

  She reels back in her chair as though slapped before her hands slide across the table, reaching for mine. ‘You’ve got it arseways. I’m not trying to put you off him. I think it’s great that you’re moving on, so long as you can see the implications. Just think about it for a minute, he lives in a hotel, for feck’s sakes. Probably to avoid awkward questions at home. And then there’s the money aspect, he’s obviously loaded and that kind of dough creates a whole different . . . mentality.’

  ‘Again, I’m not getting involved. And who knows, he may not even call.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Her tone is so defensive, I sort of snort-laugh, her shoulders relaxing in response.

  ‘No one wants to be used for sex, babe.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the other way around.’ I slide my hand from under hers. ‘The advice you gave me, get under a new bloke to get over the old one? Doesn’t that mean I’m using him?’

  ‘My arse.’ Her laugh is brittle, her eyes like flint. ‘You don’t have it in you.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong—’

  ‘‘Cos you’ve had it in you all night?’

  ‘And he’s not Emirati, English or whatever; he doesn’t fit any of your categories. And as for wanting to get i
nto my undies, wherever he’s from, he already has and it was pretty fantastic, all half a dozen times!’

  ‘Jaysus, Kate, I’m surprised you’re able to walk at all!’ she exclaims with a laugh. I join her, escaping a conversation that is at the same time a little too honest and surreal.

  ‘Babes,’ she says eventually, our giggles dying down. ‘I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to get hurt again.’

  Her eyes are imploring and I know her words come from a place of true concern. I don’t want to fall out with her, not over this, so I nod my understanding, despite still feeling a little disturbed.

  The leather of the chair creaks loudly as she eases herself back. ‘And you expect me to believe you’re using Mr Hard for a ride? Maybe I’ll just call mammy dearest, I’m sure she’d have something to say.’

  ‘That is not funny. And it’s firm, not hard!’ I really wish I hadn’t mentioned that part of the evening at all. ‘Don’t ever mention it again,’ I say, giggling. ‘Delete, delete!’

  ‘I’ll have a terrible time keeping my eyes on his face.’ She sniggers, rolling her gaze heavenward. ‘But I will try very hard.’ She adds a three-fingered Girl Scout salute and I flip her the bird in return. ‘Sure, who’d believe me, anyway?’

  The fact that I’ve had a one-nighter or the basis of Kai’s name?

  ‘You know it could be worse. You could call mum and tell her I am marrying him,’ I reply, the thought rising along with more giggles.

  ‘Christ, she’d have a fit! Mrs Good-Heavens-what-will-the-neighbours-think? I’m surprised you escaped the basement this time, the shame of it all!’

  I clutch my sides, lungs drained of air from laughing. My mother probably lit enough candles to power a small town after the humiliation of my non-marriage. Bringing home a non-Catholic—never mind someone of a different religion—would have her writing letters to the Pope!

  Tears stream down our faces before, eventually, we calm enough to exhale more than singular, halting words.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I say softly as Niamh dabs her eyes with a crumpled napkin. ‘I’ll take care.’