Gordita Conspiracy

by Lyle Christie

  “I am the Desert Fox,” she said, with an accent that was more posh British than Arabic.

  “I totally agree.”

  The woman’s deadly serious expression softened, and she smiled.

  “You must be Tag Finn.”

  “Indeed, but you may call me the Desert Stallion, and this is my sidekick Little Gelding.”

  She laughed out loud, and it took a moment before she could respond.

  “Sorry we’re late, Stallion, but we had some unfinished business in the north.”

  “It’s a ladies prerogative to make a gentleman wait.”

  She dismounted then walked over and held out her hand to introduce herself. It was an interesting gesture and one that gave me a little cultural insight into my beautiful new friend. The majority of people in this part of the world were Muslims, and they believed it was wrong to shake hands with the opposite sex and some even included members of the same sex in that category. Extremists even believed that touching the hand of a non believer required religious purification after such an encounter. The Desert Fox was therefore not particularly religious and perhaps more moderate and likely westernized in her beliefs.

  “I am Dolunay Khalida, nice to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” I said, taking her hand.

  Next, she addressed Farid.

  “And nice to meet you, Dr. Ardeshir. I hope you don’t mind if I wait to shake your hand until after you’ve cleaned up.”

  Farid laughed.

  “Absolutely, and please, call me Farid,” he said.

  He leaned in and whispered into my ear.

  “She knows my real name?” he asked.

  “Apparently,” I whispered back.

  “All right, friends, we had best get going, as a car like this will bring unwanted attention in this part of the desert. Come, I will ride with you, and one of my ladies can take care of my camel.”

  Ladies? Interesting. I had a closer look at the line of Bedouins and did indeed detect the outline of some breasts beneath their thawbs. Sweet Yentl’s yabbos! The Desert Fox was the leader of a badass all female military unit, which meant this day was just getting better and better! My attention was suddenly drawn back to my dashing desert beauty, when she started walking towards the Cheetah.

  “I’ve always wanted to see one of these in person. It’s beautiful,” she said, as she stopped in front of it.

  I headed over and stood at her side.

  “Very beautiful,” I said, turning my gaze to Dolunay.

  She smiled bashfully, and I couldn’t help but smile back, and we entered a long moment of uncomfortable smiling and silence that made me feel more like an awkward teen than an adult.

  “And you’re into your cars,” I finally said, breaking from my stupor.

  “Oh yes, and, as they say in England, I’m a petrol-head.”

  “Well in that case, do you want to drive?” I asked.

  “Hell yes, so you and Little Gelding had best hold on.”

  “Shotgun!” I yelled as I climbed into the Cheetah, thereby relegating Farid to the doldrums of the back seat.

  Dolunay turned the key and brought the beast’s twelve powerful cylinders growling to life, their throaty cry a warning to the desert ahead. She put it in gear and expertly released the clutch, sending a spray of sand that spooked the nearby camels, who shuffled sideways to get clear of the mechanical monster. We charged up the wall of sand and caught massive air before landing on the soft dune below. Dolunay cranked the wheel hard over to the right and expertly pitched the car sideways into a full drift before steering southwest and presumably to her desert hideaway. I continued to watch as she her expertly used the throttle, brakes, and steering wheel to navigate the rolling dunes, and I realized that she was one hell of a driver, and it was making her even more attractive. She caught me staring and smiled.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

  “That your aggressive driving style has a tendency to make your breasts jiggle?” I asked.

  She chuckled.

  “No, I was thinking more along the lines that it must be strange to see a woman driving in Saudi Arabia.”

  She was, of course, referring to the obvious fact that women in Saudi Arabia were forbidden by law to drive, let alone vote or hold any kind of office. Coming from America or Europe it was hard to believe that this kind of inequality still existed in the supposedly civilized world, but the Women’s Suffrage Movement, which had started well over a hundred years ago, had apparently missed the Middle East.

  “Well, honestly, I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that you’re driving, but rather how impressively you’re driving.”

  “So, not the jiggling?”

  “The jiggling is merely a side benefit to watching you handle this beast.”

  She smiled.

  “Believe it or not, I used to do some rally and club car racing during my time at university in England, but, sadly, I don’t have much time for it these days.”

  “Well you definitely haven’t lost any of your driving skills, so, between that and the jiggling, you shouldn’t be surprised to find me sporting a pretty serious chub.”

  She looked at me curiously.

  “Chub?” she asked.

  “It’s a slang for boner.”

  She smiled.

  “Ah, yes, boner. Now, there’s a word I haven’t heard in a while.”

  “Well, maybe not heard, but I’m sure you’ve caused more than a few of them.”

  She blushed, and her full sensuous lips parted into a glowing smile.

  “Sorry—as you can obviously see, it’s been a long time since a man paid me a compliment or used such colorful language,” she said.

  “Then you probably need to get out of the desert more often.”

  We continued on for about twenty minutes, and the large dunes gave way to smaller ones, and soon a beautiful green oasis appeared out of the desert. The road went over a small rise, and, as we came over the top, I could see a large ancient fortress nestled amongst the palm trees. It was made from a terra cotta colored stone and, along with the surrounding grounds, was easily the size of a small city. A short distance ahead, we passed through a large gate and continued on beyond the walls to the courtyard that resided in front of the main structure. Dolunay stopped the vehicle, and we climbed out and were greeted by a small contingent of armed women. The one in front was probably in her early thirties, pretty, and appeared to be in formidable physical shape.

  “I see you’ve found our latest visitors, Dolunay.”

  “Yes, and would you please check and make sure their rooms are ready?”

  “Of course,” the woman said, as she gave Farid and me a nice long look then smiled, apparently having liked what she’d seen.

  She and the other women left shortly thereafter, and I had a look around before returning my attention to our hostess.

  “So what exactly is this place?” I asked.

  “It’s an old fortress from the Ottoman period that I’ve converted into our primary base of operations.”

  “I imagine there’s a lot of history in these walls.”

  “Yeah, some bad, some good, but we’re doing a lot more of the latter these days.”

  “Speaking of which—what exactly is it you do here?”

  “Come inside, and I’ll tell you.”

  We followed Dolunay through an archway and into a grand foyer that, in turn, opened into a large living room furnished with palm plants and comfortable looking leather couches and chairs. She motioned for us to take a seat, and, a moment later, three women came in carrying trays with small bowls of fruit, bread, jelly, sparkling water, and coffee.

  “I assume you’re hungry,” she said, taking a seat beside me.

  “Yes, I am,” I said, as I filled three cups of coffee then handed the first to Dolunay.

  She smiled and looked a little taken aback.

  “Did I do something strange?” I asked.

  “No, but
it’s very refreshing to have a man wait on me,” she said.

  “I hate to sound like a broken record, but you really need to get out of the desert more often.”

  I clinked my cup to hers, then she proceeded to make both Farid and me a little plate of food. I thanked her then decided to start with the chocolate filled bread. It was still warm from the oven, and when I took a bite it was utterly delicious and melted in my mouth—reminding me of the chocolate croissants I enjoyed at my local French Bakery back home. I continued eating, all the while alternating bites with sips of coffee, and, combined with my lovely hostess, was making this a perfect morning.

  “So, what exactly is it you do with all this,” I asked.

  “I’m afraid that it’s kind of a long story.”

  “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  She smiled.

  “Well then, as you know, this and the surrounding countries are primarily Muslim, and some of them are subject to very strict and antiquated laws, the majority of which are particularly unfair to women. Every day, women of all ages, are whipped, tortured, and stoned to death for crimes that don’t even exist in America or Europe. A woman can actually be imprisoned for being raped, because she is seen as having had impure relations with a man who is not her husband.”

  “It’s absolutely idiotic and adds credence to my theory that men are actually devolving back into their primordial selves.”

  “Thankfully not all men, but there are enough of them out there that terrible incidents continue to occur.”

  “Yeah, like the one in Afghanistan where a couple of Taliban idiots executed a twenty-two year old woman because they couldn’t decide which of them should have her.”

  “What I wouldn’t have given to have been able to rescue her.”

  “Yeah, and kill the two idiots who caused it as well as those who watched and cheered as it happened. Each and every one of those fuckers deserves a bullet.”

  “Indeed, so, after my own bit of trouble, I decided to use my substantial inheritance to start a foundation that rescues these women and places them in new lives in western countries. We have contacts, supply routes, and safe houses all throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. It’s grown so successful, in fact, that intelligence agencies, such as your CIA and the Mossad amongst others, pay us a lot of money to utilize our assets to move agents and resources in and out of the places we operate. We help them, and they help us.”

  “Everybody wins,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  “So, who are the women here?”

  “These are the ones that chose to remain with me so that they could help others the same way I helped them.”

  “Pretty incredible,” Farid said.

  “We do what we can.”

  “Which is more than most. I’m curious though—if it’s not too personal, do you mind me asking what you meant when you said you had your own bit of trouble?” I asked.

  “My parents were very wealthy Sauds, but they were progressive thinkers and had me schooled in England and America. After Oxford, I went to graduate school at Columbia University in New York, and met and fell deeply in love with a fellow student. He happened to be the son of a very powerful Emir from Yemen, and everything was like a storybook romance until we finished school and moved back to his home country to get married. At that point, things suddenly changed, and I was expected to become a proper Muslim wife, but, having been raised mostly in the West, I didn’t adapt very well, and I ended up getting this scar on my second wedding anniversary.”

  “I take it that it wasn’t very romantic.”

  “No it was not. Quite the opposite in fact, because my husband wanted me to watch while he raped one of our maids.”

  “Where in the hell did that idea come from?”

  “Things were already cooling off between us, so I think he did it as a show of force to make it clear that I was his wife and therefore had to obey him in all ways.”

  “And you obviously didn’t go along.”

  “No, in fact I tried to stop him, but he attacked me with a knife and left me with this,” she said, pointing to the scar on her face.

  “Jesus, I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be. This blemish on my face reminds me every day of the injustices that exist in the world, and I am proud to say that I managed to get a hold of the knife, and my husband ended up looking a lot worse than me. This of course caused his father to put out an edict for my death, but I managed to escape back across the border to Saudi Arabia and, soon thereafter, began building the organization that you see here.”

  “It’s an amazing story, and even more so because you utilized that same courage it took to survive to now save other people in similar situations. Of course, I can’t help but wonder if spending all your energy helping others never allows you to think about your own needs.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, a little sadly.

  We finished breakfast, and I took a cup of coffee to go as Dolunay led us upstairs to our rooms so that we could freshen up. I always thought that the term freshen up was kind of strange and assumed, at least in the case of women, that they were touching up their makeup or applying perfume when they said those words. After all, fresh usually implied a good smell, but Estelle, my recent love interest from the Soft Taco Island adventure, assured me that women were, in truth, actually sneaking off to take a shit. That didn’t seem very fresh, so perhaps that statement was intended to be ironic. Regardless of the gender differentiation of freshening up, for me at this very moment it was going to be the combination of several things—namely shitting, showering, and brushing my teeth, so, in reality, I was only going to be sixty-six point six seven percent fresh, but that was about as good as it got after a night of drinking out in the desert.

  My room turned out to be quite nice and had a king sized bed and full bathroom complete with a western style toilet, sink, shower, as well as all the necessary toiletries with the most important being toothpaste and a brand new toothbrush. There wasn’t a fan unit, but ventilation would be provided by two open windows that both faced out over the lovely oasis below. I set my coffee on the sink and dropped onto the seat, shifting slightly to find that sweet spot where my bunghole was perfectly aligned over the deepest part of the bowl. Properly situated, I grabbed my coffee and took a long glorious sip then relaxed and made a horn sound, thus signaling the beginning of the great exodus of waste that was beginning its southerly migration to the humble porcelain kingdom of Toiletistan.

  Sitting there upon that glorious seat, I was particularly relieved to be in a real bathroom after having thought that I was going to have to do my morning business au naturale behind a sand dune. Dropping a deuce in the open desert was not exactly a comforting thought, least of all when you considered the options for toilet paper. Sand? Hell no. The butthole was generally the last place you wanted sand, so I was currently feeling pretty relieved. I sensed a few more refugees coming through customs and decided to pull out my iPhone and was surprised to see that I had Wi-Fi. This truly was an oasis. I checked my email then glanced at my homepage, curious to see if the world had drastically changed in the last twenty-four hours. All was the same, which meant there was an abundance of news stories about either horrible or useless events—the former being people hurting each other, and the latter being young celebrities and spoiled children of the one percent changing sexual partners or getting into trouble. One article in particular detailed the affairs of the world’s various royals, and, coincidentally, on the second page, there was a bit about Sheikh Hamza and how he had supposedly been seen cavorting with a new unnamed society gal pal—probably the one I’d seen at the palace.

  I finished up, shaved, and stepped into the shower and enjoyed washing away the remnants of the previous night’s festivities. Off-roading threw up a lot of dust and sand, and the tiny particles managed to find their way into every crevice of the human body. Finally feeling fresh and clean as a baby, I wrapped my towel around my w
aist only to realize that I had no clothes to wear. I hadn’t expected to leave the UAE on such short notice last night, and wondered if I could have my things in Dubai sent home. Of course, that wouldn’t be much help at the moment, and I feared I might just be relegated to wearing my filthy Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo. As if by divine intervention, there was a knock at the door, and I opened it to find a young woman standing there with a stack of garments. She saw that I was mostly naked except for the towel and gave me a thorough once over before smiling demurely and averting her eyes.

  “I’m sorry to intrude, but Dolunay saw that you had no baggage and had me bring you these clothes.”

  “Really? Where in the hell did you find them?” I asked.

  “Many of us have skills from our former lives. Some sew, farm, or cook and the extra items that we manufacture or grow are sold to help fund our efforts.”

  “Pretty enterprising,” I said, taking the pants off the top of the stack.

  I unfolded them and draped them down across my body.

  “Holy shit, these look like they’ll be a perfect fit.”

  “Dolunay has a good eye.”

  “Two, in fact.”

  She laughed.

  “Now, if you could give me your dirty clothes, I’ll have them cleaned and returned later today.”

  I grabbed my suit and undergarments and handed them to her in a large rolled up ball.