by Safira
Confessions of a Middle Eastern Whore
By Safira
Copyright 2012. All Rights Reserved
The events in this account have been changed sufficiently to render it a work of fiction. Names of several key characters have been omitted for privacy and security purposes.
The morning I stepped into the elevator of the nondescript luxury apartment building to begin my short-lived career as an “escort”, my family’s worth was well into the millions of dollars. As the two halves of my reflection came together and the elevator started its too-fast ascent, I stared back at myself: a girl of 19 wearing a black hijab and sweating slightly from the Dubai heat over understated makeup. I could feel my heart beat and I swallowed hard to drown out the doubts that were swirling through my head.
The ‘office’ of the agency was located in an apartment on the higher floors of one of the many newly-built towers in the fashionable Marina District. There was only one apartment per floor at this level, and a burly man in a suit was standing in front of the door. He looked me up and down.
“Miss N_____?”
Hearing him say my family name gave me a slight lurch in my stomach where the anxiety I’d been feeling toward this meeting had congregated and settled. I nodded and he opened the door. I was expecting darkness, but found light. Instead of heavily draped windows and soft lighting I squinted into sunlight streaming through floor to ceiling windows and bouncing off all the white and gold, the white couches with gold trim, the white lamp shades, the gold rimmed coffee table, all this over a brilliant red, beautifully woven carpet. The door closed behind me and I stood still, dressed head to toe in black, out of place, confused. I thought something would happen, someone would appear, but I couldn’t even hear a clock tick.
Eventually I started walking in a daze. I walked from room to room, oversized hallways to oversized parlors, peeked in rooms with ornate furniture and bathrooms that glittered. I finally saw her, sitting on an oversized mahogany table that was made diminutive by the scale of the room. She was in her mid-50s, plump, but with a weathered face that was once beautiful.
She waved me over. I walked ten paces before I reached her desk. She looked up at me.
“You should leave,” she said, barely looking up.
“I’m here for--“
“I know. But you should leave.”
“Oh.” I didn’t move. She looked up at me, intently this time.
“Are you playing a game?”
“Huh? No.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to audition. I have an appointment.”
“Audition for what?
“To be one of your...models.”
“This is not a modeling agency.”
“I know.”
“You can’t even say it.”
“To be an escort.”
“You want to be a whore, in the literal sense of the word.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I want to be a whore.”
“Why?”
This was the question I had asked myself many times over the last few days, on the drive here, on the elevator ride up. I didn't come up empty, I could muster forth reasons, but which ones were the true reasons and which were fluff and justification I couldn't determine.
Reason to become an escort #1: Money. This seemed the most dubious of all reasons. My friend R_____, my best friend if I could use the camp vernacular of the day, needed money. She was a personal hero of mine; she had somehow overcame the odds and came here from one of the unfortunately oil-deprived Arab countries to study. She lived frugally here in the land of Ferraris and Rolexes and paid full price for the university we locals went to for a fraction of what she as a foreigner was charged. While the rest of us took to designer dress shopping and dropped half of a thousand dollars to eat dinner on a regular basis without earning a cent of it, she paid for her two brothers to study abroad. She also worked as an escort at the agency. She was managing, until the university decided to completely eliminate all fees for the UAE citizens, and triple the tuition of the foreign students. The tuition had barely registered to me and my Emirati friends; I had shoes that cost more than all four years combined.
When she told me how much money she needed to stay in school, I chuckled. The purse I was carrying cost exponentially more. I told her I'd take of it. I brought it up to my parents casually at dinner, the dinners my parents insisted I attend every night.
"Why doesn't she ask her own father," my dad asked.
"She's Syrian. Her dad is an electrician there. He doesn't make that in 10 years."
"Some things aren't meant to be," he said. His manner, so insouciant, released a slight rage inside me.
"She's my friend. We can help her. It's no big deal."
"Does her father know she's begging for charity?"
"She's not begging, dad. I said I'd help her."
"I gladly give to the poor, but I'm not going to insult her family by funding their daughter."
I said nothing, and stared at him.
"There's a bracelet I saw today at Tiffany's. I'd like to get it tomorrow," I finally said.
He looked at me and smiled. "Now, see, that we can do. Gold for my lovely daughter."
Was it in the moment of my disgusted storming off as my parents sat looking bemused that I decided to become an escort? It's possible. In any event, I had decided I'd help R_____ any way I could.
But this reasoning doesn't stand up to my own scrutiny. I could have easily sold a piece of jewelry to cover her costs. There’s forgotten earrings that fell between my dresser and the wall that could have covered her tuition.
Reason #2: Rebellion. The disgust and anger at my parents could have led me to it. Later, when I was being fucked against the wall by my soon to be employer with his hand covering my mouth and he whispered in my ear, "If your daddy could see you now," a recess of my consciousness thought, "Yes, I wish he could see me now."
Reason #3: Adventure/Excitement. The life of an Emirati girl is both wonderful and awful, but mostly it can be described as monotonous and dull. Sitting in all-girl classes from the 5th grade through college. Endless shopping sessions. Lounging by the pool. Gossiping (when there's no mingling of the sexes, gossip is incredibly banal, less catty, and generally uninteresting). There is no dating and boys and the drama that comes with it. Just an avalanche of materialism combined with a heavy dose of chastity. In our antiseptic world, I sought a little dirt. I wanted to feel something new.
Reason #4: Sex. For an unmarried Emirati girl, sex was near impossible. The wall between the sexes was so high and so thick and impenetrable that to even meet men was a task requiring deceit and cunning. And then once you got it, the risk was enormous. Any hint of it and...even to think of the consequences is frightening. Strange as it may seem, joining the escort agency with its security and private apartments sprinkled throughout the city, staffed with people completely outside my circle was a safer proposition.
To answer her question I said simply, “I think I’d enjoy it.”
“Are you a virgin?”
“No.” This was a lie.
“Do you enjoy sex?”
“Yes.”
“When was the last time you had sex?”
“Last week.”
“You’re lying. Please leave.”
“A year and a half ago.” More lies.
“Do you masturbate?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you reach orgasm?”
“Rarely.“
“Take off your...” she motioned to my scarf.
I took it off.
She stared for a long time. “If you weren’t so
beautiful I would tell you to leave right now.”
“What have I done wrong?”
“Do your parents know you’re here?”
“No. Of course they don’t.”
“You parents don’t let you leave the house without your hair exposed and you want to make your body a playground for men.”
I didn’t answer. She stared at me. “You really are beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve owned this agency for over ten years now and never has a local girl enter my office. Aside from the Russians, Romanians, and Ukrainians of course, we’ve had a few Arabs, Egyptians mostly, but I thought I’d go my whole career without an Emirati girl. You must be very brave or very crazy. I would say maybe in need of money, but I’ve learned that’s impossible for you people. You’re born with money and you die with money.”
I didn’t reply to this.
“Take off your clothes,” she said.
We held eye-contact for a long while here, each waiting for the other’s bluff. I looked around the room, then back to her. I unbuttoned my blouse. I took off my shoes and socks-all while standing-and unzipped and slid off my jeans. I stood there in my non-matching underwear.
She raised her eyebrows, “What are we waiting for?”
I quickly unhooked my bra and dropped it to the sparkling marble floor. I bent down and lowered my panties and stepped out of them. She got up and walked in a close circle around me. When she was in front of me again she used her fingertips to raise my left breast and let it drop.
“32C,” she said. I wasn’t sure if it was a question so I said nothing. I became aware I was breathing heavily.
She went back behind the desk and sat. “Sit,” she said, motioning toward the desk. I went around and sat on the edge of the desk.
“This is a fantastic product. This body. And this is what your body is when you work here: a product. We rent out this product. And here we only provide a product that’s top of the line“
I tried to focus, but I was too conscious of sitting there naked in front of her. The last time I was naked in front of another human being I was two and the other human being was my nanny. I could feel the cold mahogany of the desk on my bare behind.
“And that’s the tricky part of working for us. That’s the key to good non-emotional sex really. You have to think of your body as a product, while simultaneously being in tune with it, while savoring each sensation it’s sending you. When a client rents out this product”-here she gestured turned me-“he also rents out those lips. Those are his lips for the duration of his contract. And he can use these lips to be kissed with or to kiss them. Or to have those lips wrapped around his cock while he explores the inside of your mouth with it. But you also have to be aware of every nerve ending of those lips, of the sensations those lips are sending you. And you have to enjoy those sensations. You have to enjoy them with every fiber of your being.”
She looked into my eyes. I tried to look back at her without blushing.
“Do you enjoy the sensation of a cock in your mouth?”
“Do you?” I retorted quickly.
She continued to stare. I thought I detected a trace of a grin, but it was fleeting.
“My name is Miss Seville. I love all my girls here,” she said. “They’re like daughters me. Each one of them. Get dressed.”
She went back to her work on her desk and I picked up my clothes one by one and put them on. I even put on my hijab and my light manteau that was meant to prevent any feminine curve be suggested to the outside world. I had gone from completely naked to completely covered, with only my face showing, in a flash. I was more deft at putting on clothes than taking them off.
I stood in front of her desk for a few moments, not sure what to do. Finally she got up, came around the desk, and stood in front of me. She grabbed my face, stood on the tip of her toes, and kissed my forehead.
"You'll have to go through orientation. We'll start today, and you'll come back tomorrow. If everything goes okay, you'll be on our books and part of our family. You'll be compensated three thousand for your time for these two days. After that we’ll sit and write a contract together."
"Dollars?"
"Yes, sweetheart." Sweetheart and kisses on my forehead; her tone had changed. "My husband and I run this little family we have here. Hopefully, you'll be part of it. Our priority is security for our girls. Our second priority is the satisfaction of our customers. Please wait in the parlor."
I couldn't decide which room was the parlor as I roamed the expansive apartment. I finally settled on a room with an ornate gilded red couch and paintings of women with their backs toward the viewer crowding every surface of the walls.
I sat and stared at the flowing hair of the faceless women, while my own hair was tucked away. I thought about leaving. I thought about how this was the first time in years I could remember my heart beating fast in excitement and apprehension.
"S_______"
I looked up to see a girl of about 20 in a pantsuit. This girl, with whom I would later become close friends, was the first person I had ever seen in person with natural blond hair. I stared at her, transfixed at how lovely she was, how like the dolls I used to play with as a child.
"They're ready for you," she said with a lilt of an English accent. "You can follow me."
Our heels clacked in unison on the marble floors as she led me through the apartment.
"You're so pretty," she said without looking back.
"So are you," I said.
She looked back without slowing her stride and flashed me a smile. I became aware that her presence had comforted me. The doubts I was continuously fighting since I decided to do this were cast aside for a moment. If a girl like her was here, then yes, this was an exciting and adventurous and liberating thing to do and not a rash, rebellious mistake.
She stopped at a doorway, turned, and gave me a hug. "I hope you stay with us," she said into me ear. She let go and disappeared around a corner in two long strides.
I stepped inside a room that was decorated in complete contrast to the rest of the apartment's ornamental style. Here the purpose was coziness and comfort. Lush furnishings in rich reds and deep browns were expertly arranged to highlight a large bed with a silk canopy. In the far side of the room, in front of a dresser, stood Miss Seville talking in French to a man in a suit with no tie. They must have sensed my presence, but were surely unaware I understood French.
"How many requests do we get for the local girls? You travel to a new place, you want to try the local delicacies. They see these girls, all covered up, untouchable, in their expensive cars, and they wonder," she was saying.
"I know, I know. But security is the issue here, love. You don't have to deal with this government; I do. They don't mind the European girls as long as they get their cut. But when it’s Muslim girls, Arabs girl… Remember how much we had to raise the bribes when we added the Egyptian girls? You think they'll shrug their shoulders as we rent out one their own girls. An Emirati! You’ve become too comfortable. We have to stay careful," the man replied.
Miss Seville turned toward me. "Come here, sweetheart."
Again I thought about turning around and leaving, but my feet moved me forward toward them.
"My husband," she said, nodding toward the man.
He shook my hand. He was in his mid-40s, with a broad chest and hair that had gone white at the sides. He looked at me for a long time.
"You're beautiful," he said.
"Thank you."
"Where did you find her?"
"She found us."
"Look at that face. Look at those eyelashes."
"The rest of her is even better."
"We can't. She's emirati, too much risk. I thought they're all rich."
"She is."
"She's playing a game. Tell her to go," he said.
I thought about telling them I had taken four years of French in school.
"Just the one. We'll be careful.
"Marie, listen--"
"Just look at her."
"I know, but—"
She grabbed my headscarf and pulled it off. "Tell me you don't want to fuck her." She kissed her husband softly on the lips. "Tell me you don't want to train her."
He stared at me.
"We'll make more from her than any increase in bribes," she continued.
"Okay, love," he said, still staring at me.
