Ben Ryder - Side Line

by Ben Ryder

  I wasn’t too sure of that statement, but I knew it would convince Jackie that she wasn’t abandoning me to take a personal night off. Jackie had proved invaluable in the past and always accompanied me to meetings with distributors. Her manner and humor during negotiations had helped land some major accounts and had significantly added to my numbers.

  “But—”

  “Jacks! Go out and enjoy your date!”

  Jackie shuddered and turned away from the mirror and presented herself to me, arms spread and knee bent like she was waiting for applause.

  “You look stunning, Jacks. Peter is a lucky guy.” “I am terribly nervous,” she said, collecting her handbag from the bed.

  “He’s already smitten with you, Jacks. And that’s only after ten minutes!”

  “But it’s not as if this can go anywhere, Jay.”

  “Then enjoy it for what it is, Jacks, an evening of good food, wine, and company. What’s wrong with that?” “True.”

  Jackie shuddered again.

  “You’ll be fine,” I said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “Now, do you have everything you need?” “I have a year’s worth of pent-up sexual frustration and a box full of prophylactics hiding in the bedside table. I think I’m prepared.” She winked.

  “You went out and bought condoms?” I asked, slightly shocked. “Why didn’t you ask me to get them for you?” “I wish I had, Jay. All I can say is that I hope the ordeal was worth it,” she laughed. “Purchasing them was bad enough, but since I have been led to believe that gentlemen of this region don’t measure up the same as their western counterparts, I specifically had to ask for the extra-large size. I swear it took everything for the gentleman shopkeeper not to spit or chase me out of the premises while attempting to douse me in red paint!”

  THE meeting at the Palace House was a huge success. The distributor, Mr. Mamook, a middle-aged Arab man with a sharp face and a devil’s beard, had not only been hospitable but also much more pliable than I had expected when it came to negotiations. His company was the main alcohol distributor in Bahrain and held the most weight when it came to the owners of the pubs, clubs, bars, and restaurants. This was really what my job was about and how I earned money and achieved the sales figures that I did.

  The promotion side of my job was little more than an introduction to the brand. It was merely the way to attract influential distributors. These men had all the power when it came to successful sales. But it fell to me, as a manager, to develop the interest and the relationship. Thankfully, this distributor had already received a glowing review of the company in the form of a phone call from his cousin, Ahmed, singing our praises.

  I missed Jackie’s company but was glad of her absence, as her presence might have shifted the mood of the meeting. I was correct when I assumed he would be a traditional Arab man who believed that women shouldn’t be involved in business. I bit my tongue and skirted around the issue as much as I could so as not to actually verbally agree—or disagree—with him.

  With the details of the contract finalized, we enjoyed a couple of casual drinks, and Mr. Mamook insisted on visiting Ahmed’s bar the following night for our final event. Though his pretense was to visit his cousin, I knew he wanted to see the girls in action. As the night ended, he told me that he planned to head to a private club after our meeting and asked if I would like to join him, but the club he described sounded like it was little more than an organized brothel and strip joint full of western girls. I made my polite excuses and paid the bill as I watched him leave and climb into a chauffeur-driven Mercedes.

  I LEFT the Palace House and made my way toward the intersection that led onto the main strip of restaurants and bars to grab a taxi back to the hotel. Before I reached the corner, I felt someone tap my shoulder. Startled, I looked around to see Damon standing in front of me with a wide smile on his face.

  “I drove down here to say thanks again for returning my wallet, buddy.” “You’ve already said that once. What are you doing here?” I asked as I turned to carry on walking. He quickened his step to match mine and walked alongside me with his hands deep in his pockets.

  “Damon, I’m heading back to the hotel. Unless there is anything else you want, I’m going to have to leave you now to get back.”

  His shoulder pushed against mine, bumping me closer and closer toward the wall of an open-air fabric store. “You know what I want, buddy,” he said, now leaning all his weight onto me, forcing me in the direction of a large alleyway between two stores.

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw the large red sign of my hotel in the distance. Figuring this for a shortcut, I walked down the alley until my eyes came back into focus. A battered chain link fence blocked the end of the alley. I could see the shadows of what looked like wasteland beyond the fence and a stream of cars lined in the distance. I turned to make my way back toward the main street.

  “Get out of my way, Damon.” He moved forward, making me take a step back against the wall. “Seriously, move out of my way. I can’t imagine your family being too happy about this.”

  Damon looked confused, as though he must have misheard me. He turned so the lights were behind him, and I could only make out his silhouette. Despite the bustle of the locals on the street and the cars driving by, I could hear his breathing grow louder in my ears. I felt his hand cup my crotch.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” I said, swatting his hand away and pushing his chest.

  “I’ll level with you, buddy. I can’t get you out of my head.”

  “And this is what you thought about, was it? Wow, your romantic side knows no limits. Perhaps you can whisper a poem in my ear while you fuck me up against the fence.”

  “If that’s what you want.” I could just make out a smile on the dark face. I felt his hand clasp my crotch again.

  “Damon, I don’t want to mess around with a guy who has a wife and kid at home,” I said, knocking his hand away.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked. “Don’t play dumb. I saw the photo in your wallet.” He laughed.

  “You think it’s funny?”

  Damon’s laugh grew a little louder. “Yes, I do think it’s funny. They are my family, but they’re not my wife and kid!” His laughter trailed off, and he became a little more serious. “Look, I swear they’re not my wife and kid. Now do you mind if we don’t talk about my family right now?”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  “I’m not lying to you.”

  I may have been fooling myself and pushing to the back of my mind that he could be lying, but in that moment, my desire to believe him took over. I was ashamed of it, but convincing myself that he was telling the truth would allow me to be with him once more. He pushed his hand palm-side up into the waist of my jeans, and I felt my cock and balls spill through his fingers. I felt his hot breath in my ear as he whispered, “Why don’t we go back to—”

  Suddenly, his face was illuminated, first by a bright white light, then by dark red. I saw the whites of Damon’s eyes as we both heard the siren. I felt the release of his hand as my stomach hit the back of my throat. Indistinguishable shouts in a language I didn’t understand came from the police car, growing louder as they cracked the doors opened.

  A flash of white flooded the alleyway again as the lights on the car spun. I turned and saw that the bottom corner of the chain fence was curled up. It was a way out. I made a dash for it at the same time as Damon spotted it. I got there first and pulled up what I could as I slammed myself onto my hands and knees. I heard Damon’s shaky voice behind me.

  “Move it! Move it!” A frayed piece of wire snagged on the back of my dress shirt, catching me just as I was about to pull myself up on the other side. I shifted my weight until I heard my shirt tear and felt the sharp metal scratch down my back. I pulled at the loose wire, only to have my watch snag on it. I heard the snap and lost sight of it as it hit the ground.

  Damon was on his hands and knees, desperately trying to follow me. I
knew that if I had trouble getting through the gap, Damon’s larger frame would be almost impossible. Another flash of red spun through the alley as I saw the silhouette of two policemen running toward us, one of them wrestling with the side of his waist. The next flash of white shone on his struggle. He was unclipping a holster as he sprinted in our direction. They were armed.

  Damon cried out in pain. The bandage on his wrist was caught in the fence as he tried to open the gap farther. I moved to one side of the building, out of sight of the police, and leaned down. “Stop moving! They’ve got fucking guns. Don’t say a word.”

  I looked in the direction of the hotel. It was clear across the wasteland and the road. It was too open; I would be too much of an easy shot if they decided to fire. I bolted down the back of the building and tried to figure out how to get away. I could still see spots from the blinding lights of the police car as I ran into the darkness. I tripped and fell facedown into rocky sand. I held my breath and looked around. I could still hear Damon struggling and the shouts of the police as they arrested him.

  I couldn’t leave him there. Whatever trouble I might get into wouldn’t be nearly as much as he would suffer. I turned the corner on the other side of the building and walked back onto the main street. Desperately trying to formulate an excuse for why they found us in that position, I walked briskly back toward the alley.

  What had they seen? Had Damon’s body shielded the view of his hand as he groped me? Did they think we were dealing drugs?

  I stopped at the edge of the wall and peered around. Damon towered over the two uniformed men, who seemed small and thin by comparison. The younger of the pair held a gun at his side, facing the ground with a look of fear. The other, slightly older cop was grappling with handcuffs. The younger cop turned to look down the alleyway, so I whipped my head back out of sight. There seemed to be some kind of disagreement between the policemen, and their voices grew louder as they moved in my direction.

  I heard a car door shut, so I took a chance to peer around the building. The older policeman was walking toward Damon with a plastic strap. Apparently the metal handcuffs were too small to fix around Damon’s bandaged wrists, so they planned to use the plastic restraints. Damon winced as the policeman tightened them around his wrists, securing them together in front of him. Satisfied that they had neutralized any threat for which his gun might need to be used, the younger policeman reholstered his weapon. Still, they both held on to Damon’s biceps as they led him back to the car.

  The older policeman stopped to open the back door, releasing Damon’s arm. I saw an opportunity. A surge of adrenaline pulsed through me, and I belted out from behind the wall.

  I slammed my shoulder into the older cop with all my weight, propelling him into the backseat before I slammed the door behind him. Damon yelled in pain as he swung his secured hands around as though he was tossing a hammer, clocking the younger policeman across the face and knocking him onto his back.

  Damon and I ran into the street, against the flow of traffic, knowing the one-way street would hamper any efforts to chase us by car. My body seemed to hear the gunshot before my ears, as my knees buckled at the moment of the blast.

  Damon pivoted and looked me over, then clipped his hand under my armpit and brought me back upright. Another gunshot sounded, and I heard plaster or brick fragments fall almost immediately afterward, indicating that the bullet hit a wall somewhere near me. My heart was pounding in my ears. I couldn’t believe they were actually shooting at us!

  Running in the direction away from my hotel, we checked each other over and sprinted down the street until we could see cars traveling the opposite way. As I slowed down, I pulled off my dress shirt, leaving me in my black undershirt. I tossed the shredded dress shirt across to Damon. “Cover your hands and wrists with this. Make it look like you’re just carrying it.”

  I stopped by a curb and held my arm out in front of a passing taxi, which pulled to the side of the road. I opened the door for Damon, who slid along the seat.

  “Take us to the Sunset Café, please,” I said, knowing it was the closest we could get to the hotel without giving our destination away.

  We began the short journey in silence. Damon’s gaze darted through every window of the car while beads of sweat dropped off his brow.

  “How are you, my friend?” asked the taxi driver. He glanced at Damon through the rear view mirror. “Your friend, he looks nervous.”

  “Bien, bien. My English, eez not so good. Parlez français? You speak français? French?” The taxi driver looked back at me and shrugged his shoulders in incomprehension.

  “Français? France? Do you speak French? Ummmm, Paris?” I added with an even thicker accent that I hoped was somehow convincing.

  The taxi driver seemed to understand the gist of the words and simply shook his head and waved as though he wasn’t interested in talking to us anymore. Instead, he drove on, looking bored. I tried to catch his attention again.

  “Mon ami, he fights with big Australian. Australian no friend to the French.” I ignored the confused look on Damon’s face.

  We reached the restaurant, and I slipped the driver a five-dinar note to pay the three-dinar fare and waved my hand to indicate that I did not expect change. “Merci, monsieur. Thank you, thank you,” I said in my best French accent.

  He drove away seemingly happy to have us out of the car. We walked as quickly but as casually as we could in the direction of the hotel.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Damon said, his head darting around.

  “Keep it together. Hopefully, if they ever get hold of that taxi driver, he will point them in the wrong direction.” “He couldn’t understand a fucking word you said! And what was with the French?” “If the police ever check with the taxis in the area and he talks to them, he will hopefully say that we fit the description, but we were French. That way it will lead them to the French military base and not the US.” Despite the circumstances, I was proud of my quick thinking.

  “Right, right,” he said nervously. I straightened myself up again at the entrance of the hotel. As I pulled the front of my undershirt down I felt it being drawn off my shoulder. My back was bleeding from the jagged wire on the fence, and the blood had stuck the cotton to me. I hoped the dark patch would be dismissed as sweat, and we would go unnoticed. I tried to arrange the shirt in Damon’s bound hands to look casual, but in the light it was obvious that he was trying to conceal something.

  “Just walk through to the elevator. Don’t look at anyone and try to look as casual as you can.” My heart pounded as we walked into the lobby. I jumped when someone called my name. I turned to see Emma bouncing through the lobby toward us, carrying two cans of Coke from the vending machine. I jumped for the button to call the elevator.

  “Jay!” The doors separated, and I nudged Damon inside and turned to Emma. I was quietly relieved when I heard the doors close and the lift begin to move.

  “Hey, gorgeous, how was your night?” I asked far too enthusiastically. Emma looked over my shoulder.

  “Oh, it was quiet. We all went to Siobhan’s room and watched a movie.”

  “That’s great! You girls needed some down time. I hope you all got some well-deserved rest.” I could see on her face that she was itching to ask who was with me. She apparently hadn’t recognized Damon from the bar, since I knew she would have come straight out and asked me if she had. I punched the up button on the elevator again.

  “Are you okay? You look a bit hot and stressed,” Emma asked. “I am. The damn air conditioning has broken in my room, and it’s like a sauna in there. I just came down to sort it out. That was the repair guy headed up to fix it, so I’m going to head up too.”

  Emma didn’t look entirely convinced but passed me an ice-cold can of cola and walked away. I stepped into the next elevator and willed it to go faster up to my floor.

  I stepped out and found Damon standing against my door, sweating. I could almost hear his heart beating. I slid the key card int
o the lock, and we hurried inside.

  “What the fuck do we do, man? What the fuck do we do?” I looked around for something that I could use to cut the plastic handcuffs. Damon followed me into the bathroom, where I went through my toiletry bag, hoping to find nail clippers or a sewing kit with a small pair of scissors. As I searched, he fidgeted and looked agitated behind me. My heart was still pounding, and my head was in a hundred places. His reaction was only making it more difficult to concentrate.

  “Calm down. We’re okay. They don’t know who or where we are,” I said calmly as I emptied the bag onto the sink counter. “What time do you have to be back on base?”

  “I should be okay for a few hours. It’s my colonel’s night off, and he’s gone out, so there’s no one checking our comings and goings.”

  Damon’s bound hands lifted up the back of my shirt to the shoulder. I helped as he slid it over the top of my head.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “I’m okay. I think we both know it could have been a hell of a lot worse.” His lips hit mine before I realized it was a kiss. It lasted no longer than a moment, but in that moment his face changed. He looked away as I saw his eyes glaze over with a tear. He tried to laugh it off, but the quiver of his bottom lip gave him away. “That was not the way I wanted to go out. I am so damn stupid. What the fuck was I thinking?”

  My hand reached up and cupped the side of his head. He let it fall onto my palm. “You’re okay.” Damon pulled in his lower lip again as if he was fighting the urge to weep. Raising his arms, he slid his bound wrists over my head, holding me in the ring of his arms. He kissed me again, longer and with more passion than I had ever felt from a kiss before, like he was trying to express himself in words that he either couldn’t find or was scared of saying for fear that he would break down. He walked me out of the bathroom and to the bed like we were two-steppers bound in a straitjacket, Damon taking the lead as I was guided backward.