by Omar Sharif
The fourth night in Beirut, I had excused myself after dinner and gone to my room. The sheikh had a large, festive gathering of friends, and I was sure he wouldn’t miss me with the collection of young men that were present. But he knocked on my bedroom door a few hours later.
“Omar, Hani is asleep. There is a young man outside. Can you give him this watch?” he asked, handing me a small box. “And this,” he added, passing me a stack of money.
It was my job to pay some of the bills. I walked outside and saw the young man standing there with his head down. I didn’t know how young he was, but he didn’t look of age, and that made me extremely uncomfortable, so I turned around and went back inside.
I walked past one of the assistants and said, “This is wrong,” and continued down the hall to Hani’s room. I knocked on his door, and he eventually answered.
“I don’t know exactly what this is,” I said, shoving the box and the money into his hand. “I will do anything I’m asked to do professionally—but I will not play a part in paying that boy.”
“Just go and give him the money and the watch. It’s fine,” Hani insisted, rubbing his eyes.
“No. I will not.”
“Don’t worry, Omar. It’s normal here,” he said with disinterest, confirming my suspicions.
“Good,” I replied, “You’re from here, so you can pay him. I won’t be involved in this,” I added before walking away.
As I was heading back to my suite, one of the butlers who had overheard the exchange stopped me and said, “Omar, no one says no to what the sheikh asks or . . . they won’t be here anymore.”
“So, he can fire me. I won’t be a part of that,” I said.
“No, Omar. Not fired.” He leaned in and whispered, “Worse.”
He had no reason to lie to me. I returned to my bedroom, locked the door, and sat on the bed, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. My legs started trembling and I felt sick. I didn’t know what to do.
A few days later, we returned to the Gulf, and things were beginning to change. For the next few weeks, the sheikh wasn’t as communicative with me as he’d been. Sami was going to his room at odd hours, spending more and more time with the sheikh. I began to worry that I was going to be out of a job because the sheikh didn’t require my services as often as he had initially. But it was beyond my control, and after the warning, I didn’t know if working there was even worth it.
Soon, the kindness the sheikh had shown ended. His polite demeanor became boorish; he’d sometimes walk past me in the hall and burp in my face, without saying a word. I’d ignore him and walk away, contemplating the absurdity of his behavior, but in a short period of time, the conversations in the house began to shift. The sheikh wasn’t speaking to me directly. Other assistants would tell me what he wanted me to do. I heard a few more stories from his assistants and butlers about what happened to people who had said no in that house. They had car accidents, sudden unexplained illnesses, or were just never seen again. I chose not to believe them.
The next morning, I worked with the sheikh, convinced I could still turn our working relationship back around, but he didn’t seem to be listening while I read his emails. He got up and interrupted me. “I’m going to go wash; come with me so you can keep reading my emails. Bring a chair with you.”
He had me place the chair next to the toilet while he defecated; I sat there reading his emails, feeling totally dehumanized. And then he lit his pipe and seemed to enjoy drawing smoke in and blowing it out in my face. I justified his behavior by assuming this was just one of those weird cultural things that Dad had warned me about. They’re different—they’re tribal—was what Dad had said.
The sheikh owned a farm in the Gulf that he’d only take a few people to; compared to the estate, it was small. He asked Sami, a chef, a butler, a security guard, and me to go along on a visit. This time, he didn’t take Hani. The sheikh said, “Omar, you are going to ride with me.” We took a red Corvette from which the speed regulating chip had been removed. He drove it so fast I thought that if he hit so much as a small rock, the car would flip over and explode. The man was so rich and powerful that he appeared to fear nothing, not even death. I thought about the warnings I kept hearing. When people said no, they had accidents; they disappeared. I had the fear of God in me, and yet I couldn’t speak up. I just clenched the seat with my butt cheeks, trying to hold on so tightly that it actually hurt when we finally stopped. I didn’t know what kind of sick game he was playing or what message he was sending, but I understood it was meant to intimidate me. I knew that I would avoid riding with him again, whenever possible.
Nearly three months had passed since I started working in the Gulf. Just as the sheikh forewarned, I hadn’t received a day off, but I found other ways to maintain a bit of normalcy and peace. I became close with the staff; they were my family now, too. At night, I’d usually retire to one of their bedrooms to watch a movie, talk, make light of the way I was treated, and laugh about things that happened to them. I found out some of the others had it worse than me. But, oddly, I chose to believe everything was manageable when we swapped stories. One of the chefs, Titou, was a crossdresser, incredibly kind, and a great belly dancer. He’d play music and teach us how to dance to it. It was the little things that drew us together.
The rustic farm was the sheikh’s place of relaxation; as soon as he crossed the threshold, he vanished.
I asked Sami where the sheikh had gone. He told me, “He went to his bedroom to take a nap.”
“But we just arrived,” I replied.
“When he does that, it means it’s going to be a very long night,” he sighed. “Come on. Let’s take the ATVs out and have fun while we can. You look stressed.”
“I could definitely use a break,” I admitted.
The air was less toxic outside, and I felt free to have fun and be myself. Sami told me that regardless of which direction we looked, the property line extended far beyond what the eye could see. “There’s no escape,” he joked, tossing me the key to the ATV that I was going to drive. I didn’t understand why they called it a farm. There weren’t any crops, the dirt fields were parched, and there was no indication of livestock. It seemed like the farm was just a hidden getaway, and Sami knew every inch of it.
Exploring the property on the ATVs made me forget about everything long enough to start enjoying my time. Sami told me to watch him do a trick he’d done a hundred times before. He took off as fast as he could, accelerating to get the height he needed off an elevated part of the land, but he must’ve hit something. His ATV flipped midair and launched Sami in another direction.
He hit the ground hard and began to scream. He’d broken his right leg and dislocated his shoulder. I rushed Sami to the house on my ATV, and the security guard took him to the hospital in a nearby town. When I looked at the sheikh, his eyes were furious. Sami was his beautiful golden boy—his favorite—and now he was injured.
The next few nights, it was just the chef, a butler, the security guard, and me with the sheikh. The night of Sami’s accident, the mood was tense. Everyone drank a lot over dinner, but I only had a couple of drinks because of how bad things had been with the sheikh lately. After I finished my second drink, the sheikh poured me another before my glass touched the table. I didn’t drink it because I was beginning to feel dizzy and was struggling to stay awake. We sat there a few minutes longer, and I remember hearing the sheikh say, “I’m going to bed.”
I mumbled, “Thank goodness,” because I too needed to sleep. I went to my room and was about to fall across my bed when I heard a knock on my door. I barely had enough strength to open it and found the Lebanese butler, Baqil, standing in front of me. He’d drunk a lot more than I had, but he seemed fine.
“The sheikh asked if you want to join him in his room.”
“I’m not feeling well right now—but I’ll check and see what he needs before I go to bed.”
“You’d better go now. You don’t want to keep him waiting
,” Baqil insisted.
I don’t know how much time had passed or how long I was in the sheikh’s room, but the next thing I remembered was going in and out of consciousness with the sheikh naked and on top of me. I fought to snap out of whatever haze I was under, but I couldn’t. When I turned my head away from the sheikh, I saw that Baqil had undressed and was climbing into bed next to us. The sheikh instructed him to hold me in place and get me aroused. I didn’t want to believe this was happening, but it was. I used my remaining strength to turn over onto my stomach just so he wouldn’t see me cry. He probably thought I was offering myself to him, and then—I blacked out. I don’t recall saying no or telling him to stop. I don’t remember being able to speak. I couldn’t say no, so I shouldn’t have been able to say yes, either. I felt trapped in a body I couldn’t control, and I was lost—all over again.
Unaware of how I got there, I woke up in my bed, alone, unclothed, and stripped of my dignity. I stared into the darkness, trying to figure out how something like this had happened. How long had he been doing this? And then it made sense—all of it. Sami was the person the sheikh had been sleeping with. Possibly, this was punishment because he somehow believed I was responsible for Sami’s broken leg and the reason he was without his companion.
I had nowhere to go, and no one could help me. All I could think of was that self-fulfilling prophecy Mom had warned me about when I told her about Gabriel. “Don’t be gay. Only problems will await you—misery, heartache, and tragedy,” she’d cautioned. I needed to hear her voice, but I couldn’t handle hearing what she would say. I couldn’t call Mom, because I didn’t want her to be right—and I didn’t want her to know that she was.
More than anyone, I wanted to call my father because I needed him. But if I called him, I’d have to tell him everything, and I couldn’t. If I told him I was gay and he rejected me, I couldn’t take it on top of all that had happened. My father and I were close, but it was to the extent of a handshake and a kiss on both cheeks. We didn’t talk about feelings, and he wouldn’t know what to make of the situation I’d gotten myself into. I stared at the ceiling, becoming reacquainted with the darkness, knowing I had to go through this alone.
I remember thinking it strange that I didn’t cry more that night—I had been broken. Sometimes a truly broken person can’t cry. Much like a broken glass can hold no water, a broken person holds no tears. Tears are for the hopeful, and hopeful people can still dream and imagine a better world. I could not.
I got up and stumbled barefoot down the dark hallway into the kitchen and turned on a dim light above the stove. A Black Forest cake with whipped cream and maraschino cherries was resting on the counter under a glass cake stand. It looked like the chef had been striving for perfection when he had made it earlier that evening, yet it went untouched. I removed the lid, pulled a fork out of the drawer, and sat at the kitchen table, contemplating with every bite. I had just been raped, and there was nothing I could do about it. There was no one I could call for help; I was so ashamed that I’d let myself get to this point. But what could anyone do? The sheikh had diplomatic immunity, and anyways, did I really want to make international headlines in this way? Could I really stand the world learning that I was gay and a victim of sexual assault? I didn’t want to become a cautionary tale or to have people see me differently.
I don’t remember the taste of the cake, but I ate the entire thing. I ate until the sun began to rise. I was trying to fill a sickening pit in my stomach—but it remained hollow and empty, no matter how much I consumed.
8
Trophy Boy
Once we left the farm and returned to the Gulf, I felt like I was walking on eggshells, not knowing what I might do to make them crack. I did my best to avoid being alone with the sheikh, so he wouldn’t be abusive or intentionally ill-mannered toward me. I went out of my way to prevent being punished again and quietly did my work and whatever else he’d ask me to do.
My appetite disappeared, and I stopped eating lunch and dinner altogether; instead, I’d make myself tall Bloody Marys throughout the day, rationalizing that the tomato juice and vegetables made them a healthy alternative to food. In reality, I was developing a dependency on alcohol—I self-medicated, drinking to numb myself, to help me get through each day, to forget what had happened, and, perhaps in some way, to prepare myself for what might happen next. I felt like the sheikh’s property. Whatever I had thought I was there to do had ended; I no longer felt like I had landed an incredible opportunity. I was sexually assaulted, humiliated, damaged, and dehumanized, and I could see only a bleak existence for my future.
I still hadn’t been given a day off. When I glanced in the bathroom mirror, fatigue kept me from recognizing the reflection. My face was thin and gaunt, and my eyes no longer held the sparkle or fire that once burned; they just stared, lifeless, floating with dark circles below them. I didn’t know how to change the situation, so I pushed myself to keep going, just to get through each day. Apparently, it didn’t matter to the sheikh, because he was escalating things to the next level and keeping me close to him again. Sometimes he’d make a quick jaunt in his helicopter, and it became increasingly uncomfortable when he would take only Sami and me. He made it obvious that he intended to show us off to his wealthy and powerful friends.
The sheikh hadn’t touched me since the farm, but he relished in telling his friends elaborate stories and lies, sharing graphic details of things he had never actually done to me. His piercing eyes would soften when he’d fix on me with his nauseating, seductive gaze, as if I were his muse—the one who helped create the fantasies as he told them. I’d lower my head and sit quietly, trying to believe the night would soon end, but his nights were long. His friends—a mix of royal figures, heads of state, and other high-profile people—shared a barrage of distasteful jokes, as if they were imperceptible to our hearing, and then each would smile at us approvingly, appearing to savor their own disgusting thoughts. “When you want a blond, you have Sami and when you want a brunette, you have Omar,” one of them teased, while the others laughed. It wasn’t flattering, and it wasn’t funny. I felt less like a trophy boy and more like prize pig at the county fair—dirty and marked for slaughter. At some of these events, we were instructed not to wear underwear beneath joggers, so our bulges would be discernible. At others, the hosts would parade their own staff and talent before us, like some sort of sick competition. I remember one royal figure giving me a tour of his palace, during which he pointed out a window that revealed what seemed like several hundred partially nude South Asian men, frolicking like deer on his lawn. “Those are my boyfriends,” he said. “One for every day of the year.”
After what had happened on the farm, I was wary of everyone. I made my own drinks, and I avoided, when I could, the sheikh and his friends when they started drinking and celebrating. I wasn’t going to let what happened to me happen again, and I believed the sheikh knew that. Other than the derogatory sexual statements he tossed at me when he was around his friends, he left me alone. I wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t like me, or because I didn’t do the things he wanted. The reason was unimportant—I was relieved.
There were occasions when the sheikh indiscriminately decided to take a flight from one place in the Middle East to another, and sometimes he’d fly to London or New York. After breakfast one morning, he told us to pack. “Let’s go to Syria,” he exclaimed, as if the thought had pounced into his head randomly. That morning, he flew Sami, a couple of assistants, a few butlers, and me to the capital city, Damascus, where we stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel in connected suites. The second night there, one of his security guards woke me up around 2:00 a.m. “The sheikh says to get up and get dressed.” That sickening feeling returned. I needed to vomit, but I had to pull it together. I slipped into a pair of dark jeans and a sweater before going into the sheikh’s suite.
“We’re going out,” he announced.
I’d only gone to bed a few hours before. The sheikh didn’t s
ay where we were going—he rarely did, but I knew not to ask. As instructed, I followed him down to the lobby, where one of his security guards and an assistant were waiting. I climbed into an armored van with a gnawing feeling in my abdomen. No one said a word. The driver already knew where we were going because he took off quickly, leaving the city lights far behind us.
We drove for about forty-five minutes to the outskirts of town, an old and desolate industrial area full of what appeared to be abandoned factories. A few minutes later, the driver made a sharp turn onto a road that would have gone unnoticed to anyone who did not know it existed. When the driver parked, the sheikh said, “Just Omar and I are going in.” As we got out of the van, his security guard handed me an empty black duffle bag. In a nearby warehouse, we were greeted by a young man and his father, who seemed to know the sheikh well. I kept looking at the young man as though we knew one another, but he didn’t say anything, so neither did I. He reminded me of Rayan, the handsome Jordanian I’d met in Mykonos. I forced myself to think of anything else; the memories of freer and happier times were almost too much to bear in my current circumstance.
The building looked like an old slaughterhouse. When we went inside, I couldn’t fathom why the sheikh had taken me to such a rundown and unsettling place. There were several pieces of farm equipment and crates sloppily stacked in scattered piles. The floorboards barely looked like they could handle the weight of the machinery. Without saying a word, the young man motioned for me to follow him. I looked at the sheikh and he nodded for me to comply. He led me to the back of the building, where he knelt down and pulled back a filthy piece of ivory and blue carpeting to reveal thick, uneven, and tattered floorboards. He put two fingers through a small notch, lifted the hatch, then turned to me, and said in Arabic, “Go down.” I looked into the hole and saw the top of a ladder, but it descended into complete darkness. He repeated more firmly, “Go down!”
