Desperate in Dubai - The Novel

Good news for Good folk ;)

2012-02-08T07:36:00.002+03:00

Apparently, Desperate in Dubai has been un-banned!

Here's what allegedly happened:

- Someone from the Economic Department came in to Kinokuniya and told them to remove it from the shelves which they did. For a while they continued selling it on request but then stopped altogether while they investigated the matter.

- Upon contacting the National Media Council, they were informed that the book is fine and no longer suspect. This may (or may not) have something to do with the media interest around the topic.

- Things are a bit confusing as some stores (Borders for example) have been telling customers that the book is banned. As it's currently out of stock in most places, it's difficult to find out.

- Jashanmal should be receiving more copies of the book in about 10-14 days. Kinokuniya should be receiving them slightly later.

Let's see what happens when the book is back in stock. Fingers crossed!

Now you see me, now you don't

2012-02-02T15:50:00.002+03:00

Desperate in Dubai has been banned in Dubai. Apparently.

I'm absolutely gutted.

All my hard work, the hours I spent laboriously slaving over each word I wrote, each emotion I conveyed, each story I told, each character I created, suddenly feels like a glorious waste of time.

What makes it worse is that it was allowed in for a good couple of months. It kept selling out whenever the stocks were replenished. My publishers have printed the second print run. I finally started to feel proud of myself.

That sensation I felt whenever I saw it on bookshelves - that stirring in my stomach, swelling in my heart - was absolutely amazing. Incomprehensible. Indigestible. Inexplicable Irreplaceable.

And now I wonder if I'll ever feel it again.

For those who want to get hold of a copy - your best bet is to order it from www.uread.com. And when you read it, I'm sure you'll wonder why it was banned. If you come up with a justifiable explanation, please enlighten me. :(

It's almost here....

2011-07-18T12:59:00.002+03:00

So. Apparently Desperate in Dubai is going to be released on August 10 and I don't know how to feel about it.

It's always been my dream to publish a novel and now that it's almost ready for the world to see, I suddenly feel all naked and exposed.

What if no one likes it? What if people prefer the blog to the book? What if no one buys it? What if the critics absolutely slate it? Am I strong enough to handle the negative reactions that will undoubtedly come my way?

Everyone has a right to their own opinions. We thankfully live in an age where freedom of speech is accepted, appreciated, encouraged. You can't please everyone. I know that, but that doesn't stop the butterflies buzzing around in my stomach :(

I don't know where the book will be available (other than Amazon), I don't know how it will be received, but I suppose I do know one thing. No matter what anyone says, I know I've done myself proud. I've achieved my childhood dream, and that cannot be taken away. :)

SO DEEP BREATHS Ghost Writer... or Ameera as you will soon be known as. (Yes, I'm talking to myself in the third person :s ). Calm down, and just enjoy the ride while you can. After all, who knows when you'll be pulled onto his train again.

No more chapters, no more blog....

2011-02-08T00:40:00.004+03:00

Hello everyone :)

As most of you guys probably know, I was lucky enough to be approached by a prestigious publishing house a few months ago, who wanted to turn Desperate in Dubai into a real book. Yes, a real book that I will be able to hold, smell, and place proudly on my bookshelf :)

The book will, Inshallah, be launched in summer 2011, initially in the Middle East and South East Asia regions, but hopefully, if it does well, it will also reach other parts of the world as well.

When I started writing this blog in 2009, I never expected more than a handful of people to actually want to read it, and I certainly never imagined that it would ever materialise in book form. Which is why, even though DID was written in chapters, had characters, a plot, dialogue, and all the other necessary ingredients for a novel, it didn't actually read like one. It read, and felt, more like a TV series, with a new episode every week, too many sub-plots to keep track of, and a cliffhanger after every episode. After all, I had to do something to make my readers keep coming back every month to read more!

Now that it's a proper novel, I've had to make a lot of changes in order for it to flow like a novel should. I've had to make the plot tighter, I've had to remove sub-plots and characters that weren't going anywhere, and I've had to make things much more concise. After all, it was no longer a never-ending story. It had to reach a discernible conclusion.

I've also had to change a lot of the events in order to maintain my characters' real life anonymity. A few names have been changed in order to protect identities, as well as certain events. Desperate in Dubai, is now a work of fiction, inspired by real people and real stories.

I hope you won't be too harsh when judging it as a book, I hope you don't expect it to be exactly the same as the blog you've come to enjoy, and I hope you understand why I've had to make the changes!!

I'll be removing all the old posts in a few months... with the new changes in place, it doesn't make sense to keep the old story up really. It's going to be difficult as the blog is really close to my heart, but hopefully the arrival of the book will more than compensate for that!

If you haven't already, please sign up to my Facebook page. All the latest updates are there :) I can't reply to any of the comments anymore as the blog has been blocked by my telecom provider in the UAE! I guess it was a little too hot to handle ;)

Thank you all for contributing to my journey and for sharing every moment with me. It's largely due to your support that I have managed to achieve my dream of writing and publishing a novel, and for that, I will be forever grateful.

Ghostwriter xxx

Chapter Twenty-Eight – Breaking free

2010-08-16T21:58:00.003+03:00

Nadia finds solace in the fact that Daniel has no idea. He has no idea that his wife, though in another country, is fully aware of the sordid affair he has embarked on with her friend. He has no idea that she reads his emails daily to keep abreast of his misdemeanors, and he is naively unaware that the ‘I love you toos’ and the ‘I can’t wait to see yous’ are completely, utterly, unwaveringly untrue.

Poor, ignorant Daniel just doesn’t have a clue that his wife is merely buying time until she returns to Dubai before she unleashes the true extent of her fury.

It is this feeling of empowerment, of having the upper hand, that gives Nadia just enough peace of mind to fall asleep at night. Albeit an uncomfortable, restless kind of sleep that never lasts more than an hour or two. And during her waking moments, she plots her revenge. Whether lying in bed and staring up at the childish ceiling adorned with glow-in-the-dark stars, or ploughing through a painfully quiet meal with Yasmine, Nadia cannot think of anything other than seeking justice.

Before Daniel metamorphosed into a lying, cheating, scheming son-of-a-bitch, Nadia took pride in her ability to rationalize with serene detachment. But months of emotional abuse have taken its toll on her personality, and she has recently discovered a side to her that previously remained dormant.

The initial hurt, pain and self-loathing has worn off and in its place sits a cloud of bitterness, and a desire to get her revenge.

“What do you want to do today?” Yasmine asks as she enters the dim kitchen to find her sister standing at the sink and staring out of the window, her view obstructed by the faded lace curtain intended to afford them a degree of privacy from their neighbours.

“Something that involves lots of walking,” Nadia replies, turning around and offering her sister the slightest of smiles. “In two days I’ll be back in the desert, back to using a car instead of my legs, and back to the sweltering heat. Let’s make the most of what London has to offer.”

“Yalla, so choose. Camden or Covent Garden?” Yasmine says with faux chirpiness, taking note of the sadness in Nadia’s eyes and trying to pretend that it has gone unnoticed. “Or anywhere else for that matter. It’s your day, you choose.”

It has not been easy for Yasmine to ignore Nadia’s weak countenance since she has returned, but whenever she opens her mouth to say something, she takes one look at her sister’s sunken eyes and snaps it closed. As they tidy up the breakfast mess, she makes a conscious decision to force herself to ask her sister what the hell is going on, regardless of how the answer will make either of them feel. After all, they are family, siblings, blood. They are supposed to help each other in times of need, irrespective of whether or not help has been sought.

An hour later, the sisters are walking arm in arm through the colourful stalls in Camden Lock, weaving their way through the crowds of people while Nadia tries not to stare at the punks with their fluorescent hair and piercings, the Goths with their pale faces and black attire, and the hippies with loose, flowing shirts and baggy trousers.

Months in the Middle East have made Nadia forget what true diversity is. People say that Dubai is a melting pot of cultures, but walking through Camden Town makes Nadia realize that every person in Dubai is almost exactly the same as everyone else from their nationality. There is no originality. So while Dubai is definitely a mix of cultures, it is more like a stir fry than a melting pot. Every ingredient its own, without merging with the next.

Their arms laden with haggled goods, Yasmine and Nadia finally sit down at the centre of the market with rich cheese crepes and devour them silence, grease dripping down their fingers. Nadia tries her best to absorb the atmosphere around her, but she is unable to fully merge into the ambience with Daniel's memory still looming above her.

Noticing the frown on Nadia's face, Yasmine takes a deep breath, and before she loses her nerve, begins to speak.

“Listen Nadia,” she begins, nervous at the prospect of upsetting her sister. "I know something's wrong." She falters as Nadia's expression changes from wistfulness to wariness but ploughs on regardless.

"Wait, let me finish," she says, avoiding her sister's eyes. "Please don't pretend that everything's okay when it's not. I know something's wrong. I don’t know what it is, but I know that it's bad enough to turn you into… this."

Yasmine reiterates her point by gesturing at Nadia's painfully thin body, at the sallow skin stretching over her bones, the pools of black surrounding her eyes, and the worry lines etched on her forehead like carvings on a stone statue.

Nadia looks down and says nothing, shame and panic rising within. She was hoping that Yasminewould never work up the courage to ask her what was wrong. She was hoping she wouldn't have to admit to her younger sister that she had failed.

She was hoping that she wouldn’t have to confess that she wasn’t enough for her husband.

"Please," Yasmine implores, taking her sister's hands in hers and finally looking into her eyes. "Tell me what's going on. Maybe I can help you, maybe I can't. Either way, talking about it will make you feel better."

The silence stretches itself around them, further strengthening the wall Nadia has built around her. It refuses to reveal even the smallest crack, its defiance irritating Yasmine, who is equally as stubborn. She refuses to let go of Nadia's hands or break eye contact. She doesn’t understand why her sister cannot bring herself to confide in her. She wonders what has happened to the Nadia she used to know, the one who was generous with her smiles yet cutting with her wit. This Nadia has forgotten how to smile with her eyes. This Nadia has no energy for wit.

"You're my sister. I love you. Seeing you like this without knowing why is killing me," Yasmine pleads, almost ready to give up. "Is it work? Too much pressure? Friends? The lack thereof? "

There is still no response from Nadia, and Yasmine feels her blood begin to boil. How is she supposed to help if she doesn’t know what is wrong? What is she supposed to say? She remembers all the times Nadia was there for her; through their parents' divorce, their subsequent remarriages, the second divorces. She helped her through years of being dragged from one country to another, constant bullying at school. Yasmine remembers the way Nadia would prise her emotions out of her, relentless in her pursuit to know what was going through her unstable mind.

Yet here she was. Unyielding. She could see what her silence was doing to Yasmine, yet she refused to surrender.

Nadia, oblivious to the emotions running through her sister's veins, struggles to breathe as claustrophobia overcomes her. Yasmine’s insistence makes the walls around her close in on her even more and she feels a wave of dizziness wash over her.

Please don’t make me say it.

"What is it Nadia?" Yasmine continues, her voice harder than before as she squeezes Nadia's hands, her frustration growing with every second that passes. "What is it? Are you bored? The luxurious Dubai lifestyle not good enough for you anymore?"

Nadia snaps out of her trance as if a bucket of water has been thrown over her head.

"Boredom?" she scoffs, yanking her hands out of Yasmine's grip, her eyes narrowed in disdain. "You think mere boredom can do this to me? You think that I want to have my baby sister staring at me with her big eyes like I'm some kind of freak show?"

"So what the hell is it then? What is so awful that you can't even tell me, your own flesh and blood?" Yasmine retorts, her tone matching her sister's. Although she feels bad about pushing Nadia to this level, she is also relieved that the wall Nadia has built around her is beginning to crumble, and that she is finally getting some answers.

"You just don’t get it, do you?" Nadia hisses, standing up. "You think I like looking like this? You think I don't know I look like a skeleton? That it's somehow escaped my notice that I've aged ten years in the past ten weeks? You think I came to London for pity? For an interrogation? I came here for peace God dammit Yasmine! I just wanted a break from wondering about who my husband was cheating on me with now. What I did to make him hate me so much. What I was supposed to do with my life now. There. I said it. Happy?"

Nadia moves so abruptly that she knocks one of their shopping bags off the table. Yasmine reaches out for her but she shoves her hands away from her, grabs her handbag and walks away, her heart pounding furiously and her pulse thumping in her ears, drowning out all the noise around her. She sees nothing as she pushes through the crowds of people, but feels as if they are closing in around her, suffocating her, preventing her from breathing. She breaks into a run, everything around her becomes a blur, and all she sees is Daniel. Daniel laughing, Daniel smiling, Daniel sleeping. Daniel cheating.

"Oi watch it," a voice cries out as Nadia slams into a passerby, almost knocking him over. He grabs onto her waist just as she almost falls to the ground. Her body presses against him and the shock prevents her from pulling away immediately. Panting heavily, she mumbles an embarrassed sorry and then disengages herself.

"No worries love," he replies, watching her with amusement as she attempts to straighten herself out, still mortified. "Hang on a second," he adds, staring intently at her face. "Haven't we met before?"

The shamefaced Nadia finally brings herself to look at the man insisting on conversing with her, and then does a double take as recognition dawns on her. There, in front of her, is quite possibly the best looking black guy in the whole of London. One she remembers meeting before.

"You're the guy from the tube," she says without thinking, and then curses herself for letting him know that she remembers him. Feeling more embarrassed than ever, she wills her face not to turn red as she looks down at the grey pavement, unable to meet his piercing gaze, and stares at his feet instead. He's wearing white trainers, and she wonders, quite banally, how he manages to keep them so clean in a rainy country.

"So you remember," he grins, puffing out his chest. "Seems like you can't stay away from my lap."

"If you say so," Nadia responds, not knowing what else to say. Her heart is still beating a little too fast, and she is unsure as to whether it is due to the physically exertion, the adrenaline, or the good looking stranger who seems to have a knack of showing up when she needs to be pulled out of a black hole. She decides that she doesn’t want to know what it is that is making her so flustered.

"Anyway, I'm sorry once again," she says indifferently. "Take care…" Hoisting her bag onto her shoulder, she begins to walk away.

"Hey, hang on a second," the guy calls out, jogging to catch up with her. "Don't you think you owe me a drink at least?"

"For what?" Nadia glances at him sideways without slowing down, resenting the intrusion of her personal space but kind of enjoying it at the same time. It has been so long since she allowed this kind of attention. And although she feels a twinge of guilt, the white gold band on her ring finger suddenly feeling like lead, she shoves the uneasiness aside and reminds herself that her husband is currently sleeping with her friend. Surely this gives her the right to engage in a little harmless banter with an attractive black guy.

"For what?! For physically assaulting me, not just once, but twice!"

"Does it look like I drink?"

"I don’t know. I never judge a book by its cover."

"Well I don’t."

"Not even hot chocolate? On a cold winter's day?"

Nadia stops walking, Camden Town tube station now right in front of her, and she looks at the stranger, not knowing what to say. Most of her wants to laugh off his advances without a second thought, but another part of her, the part that longs for some kind of male attention, the part that needs to feel desired, tempts her into reconsidering his offer. He has, after all, saved her from falling flat on her face twice. And he obviously likes her. Maybe he can help her forget about Daniel, at least for an hour or two, if nothing else.

"You know what? Why not? But you're inviting me."

"My pleasure, m'lady!"

For the first time in weeks, Nadia breaks into a genuine smile as they walk into the warm station, and for the first time in months, she feels like a woman.

***

Daniel used to always make Nadia feel like a woman. It was one of the reasons she fell so deeply in love with him. With Daniel, she was never bland, never tired, never weak. She was always sexy, alive, confident, strong. According to him, she was exquisite. Like a porcelain doll in an antique shop, apparently. She used to feign offence, and would ask him if he was implying that she was old. Sometimes he would say yes, other times he would say no. Either way, they would laugh, or he would tickle her, and she would feel like the most beautiful thing in the world.

Their first few months of marriage were perfect. They hated being away from each other, and every moment apart was spent in longing. They would cook together, clean together, sleep together, shower together. They became so close that Nadia forgot what it was like to be just her, not one half of Daniel and Nadia. She was so in tune with his feelings that she often knew what he wanted to say before he said it. She could read him like children's book. Whenever he squinted, she suggested having a nap, whenever he began to fidget, she dragged him out for a walk, and whenever he stared out of the window, she knew to leave him alone.

Until one day, everything she did was wrong. The book was no longer in English. She didn’t know what the letters were.

The naïve Nadia, with her heads in the clouds, didn’t even realize he was unhappy until he had already made up his mind about Dubai. And by that time, it was too late.

Looking back, deep in her heart, Nadia knows that she is partly to blame for the disintegration of her marriage. She knows that it didn’t break down overnight, that it was a gradual erosion of self-worth, self-confidence, self-belief. A slow, painful emasculation process that stripped Daniel of everything he ever though he was.

And when he stopped believing in himself as a husband, he stopped believing in them as a couple. And when he stopped believing in them, it was over.

Nadia, still as naïve as ever, kept thinking that maybe things would be okay.

***

"Are your eyes always this sad?" Prince Charming asks Nadia as they walk through Regent's Park, their hands stuffed into their coat pockets, and their noses red from the chilly March wind.

"Of late, yes," she replies, surprising herself with her honesty. Prince Charming is far easier to talk to than she expected, and she finds herself admitting things she would never admit to someone she actually knows. In fact, he doesn’t even know her name, she doesn’t know his, and she cannot help but find this sense of anonymity strangely liberating.

"Of late? What century are we in?" he teases, and she shoves him in response, feeling shy all over again. In just three short hours, Prince Charming has already succeeded in crawling under Nadia’s skin, and during these three, short hours, she has barely thought about Daniel and her thirst for revenge. The absence of Daniel and payback plots from her cluttered mind is refreshing, and in those three hours, London has burst into colours. Through the grey, she is noticing the vivid green grass, the splatters of bright yellow as Spring's first daffodils emerge from the ground, the painfully blue sky decorated with tufts of cartoon-like clouds.

And then there’s the chocolate of Prince Charming’s skin, the specks of gold in his coffee coloured eyes, his soot coloured hair. It is easier to forget Daniel who teetering on the brink of baldness, when she is next to someone far superior in the looks department.

It’s a shame he’s not Muslim, she thinks for a fleeting moment, before shoving the thought into a dusty corner of her mind. She cannot allow herself to open a door of possibilities. It’s just today, she chastises herself. Nothing more. There will be no tomorrow. You don’t need anymore complications in your life.

There is a familiar sound in the distance and Nadia stops mid-step and mid-thought to listen.

"What –" Prince Charming begins, and Nadia hushes him, her eyes closed.

"Shh…can you hear that?" she whispers.

"Hear what?"

"That voice in the distance? It's so amazing. Listening to it, you'd think we were somewhere in the Middle East, yet here we are, in a public park in the middle of London…"

"The adhaan, you mean?" Prince Charming asks, and Nadia opens her eyes in surprise.

"That's very culturally aware of you," she half-teases, secretly impressed. "You must know that it’s time for prayer then. Mind if we go to the mosque so I can pray?"

They start walking again, towards the minaret in the distance. It is partly hidden by the trees surrounding the mosque, and when the golden dome is finally within sight, Nadia stops again to devour her eyes. Prince Charming watches her in amusement, and she catches him looking at her and shrugs helplessly.

“It’s just so beautiful!” Nadia says, smiling sheepishly and turning to face the minaret again. “I know it must seem weird to you, and I don’t even know how to explain it myself, but right now, I’m in a pretty dark place and my faith is the only thing that’s keeping me going.”

She stops talking and glances at Prince Charming from the corner of her eye, wondering what his reaction to her open testimony of faith is. There is no disgust, pity, or even confusion in his expression though. Rather, he appears to be deep in thought, so she continues, searching deeper within herself to articulate what she is experiencing.

“Just when I’m about to fall, something will happen to remind me of why I was created. Like, I’ll see a mosque, or I’ll hear the adhaan, or I’ll come across a verse in the Qur’an that touches me, and suddenly, it’s like everything will be okay again.”

They reach the entrance to the courtyard and pause for a moment. Nadia wonders if Prince Charming will wait for her outside or whether he is curious enough to venture into the peaceful grounds with her.

"I'll let you in on a secret," he says, his voice light but the look in his eyes strangely serious. Nadia says nothing and waits for him to continue, assuming that he will confess that he has been inside a mosque before.

“I actually converted to Islam a few years ago.”

Nadia stares at Prince Charming in shock. This is definitely not the confession she was expecting.

“Erm, okay,” she says eventually, unsure whether to be pleased or troubled by this short, simple admission of fact that has suddenly and drastically altered the dynamics between them. All this time, there was no possibility of anything ever happening between them. It was supposed to be nothing more than a beautiful afternoon between two strangers who would never cross paths again. It was this lack of possibility that Nadia found so liberating and that allowed her to open up in a manner usually alien to her.

“Don’t look too thrilled,” Prince Charming says wryly, noting Nadia’s wary expression.

“Sorry, it’s just… I don’t know. I didn’t expect this.”

“Well, why don’t you go and pray, I’ll do the same, and I’ll meet you back here in about 15 minutes?”

They walk together through the spacious courtyard and part ways when they reach the foyer of the mosque. Nadia slips into the women’s section, taking off her black cashmere coat and unwrapping her grey hijab as she does so. Rolling up the sleeves of her slightly fitted black woolen jumper and taking off her boots and socks, she sits on a stool and begins performing ablution, the hot water instantly heating up her cold skin. She dries her face, arms and feet using tissue paper and then stares at herself in the mirror, wondering what it is about her that Prince Charming likes so much.

Her face, void of even a smear of Vaseline let alone any makeup, looks plain and tired. She pinches her cheeks in a pitiful attempt to add a little colour, but even that isn’t enough to brighten her complexion. Sighing, she wraps the scarf back around her head and pins it place before climbing the stairs to the prayer area.

The women’s prayer hall is almost empty, with the exception of a couple of Arab-looking women sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall, reading the Qur’an. Nadia looks around the room, at the familiar thick, red carpet, the glistening chandeliers, and the magnificent dome, engraved with verses from the Qur’an, and remembers the times she would come here to get away from whatever was bothering her. It used to be her secret hideaway, her respite from the outside world. The emotions connected to the room are intoxicating, and Nadia blinks tears away from her eyes.

In Dubai, she had nowhere to go. Everywhere was unfamiliar, uninviting. There was no place that she could look upon with fondness, nowhere that held special memories.

The imam begins the prayer, his melodic voice filling the hall, and Nadia joins the line of women in prayer, as they follow the imam through all the various motions. When her forehead touches the soft carpet, she feels tears rush to her eyes again, and this time, they fall down her cheek.

When the congregational prayer is over, Nadia holds up her hands and offers her personal supplications to God, begging him to help her through the darkness, to give her the strength to leave Daniel, and to give her a sign that the future holds some form of happiness for her.

She sits in prayer for over an hour, and it is only when her phone beeps with an incoming text message that she remembers that there is someone waiting for her outside. She tries to get up quickly, but her knees are sore from kneeling for so long, and even her feet have fallen asleep. Hobbling over to the shoe rack, she somehow manages to put her boots back on as she stumbles down the stairs, hoping that Prince Charming hasn’t given up on her and left.

Rushing out into the courtyard, her coat still in her hand, Nadia is confronted by the ice-cold wind as she looks around the empty area for Prince Charming, cursing herself for forgetting all about him. Her hijab flailing in the wind and the tip of her nose already turning red, she struggles to put her coat back, her heart already beginning to ache with loneliness.

Don’t be such an idiot. You only knew him for a few hours, she tells herself as she does up the buttons with cold, stiff fingers. But those few hours were more real than the thousands of hours before it, and Nadia knows in her heart that soulmates are hard to come by. It is not every day you meet someone and feel so drawn to them, so inexplicably intertwined with them.

If he hadn’t been Muslim, she would have easily walked away, telling herself that nothing could possibly happen.

But he was. Which meant that one day, if not today, or even next year, when she was ready, when her wounds were beginning to heal, something could have happened.

Shoving her hands back into her pockets, she walks away, each step laden with a newfound emptiness, one that was different from the emptiness she felt the day before.

“Don’t tell me you’re leaving me after making me wait almost an hour for you!”

Nadia spins around to find Prince Charming jogging up to her, holding his coat in his hands with a bewildered expression on his face.

“Oh, you’re still here? I thought you had left,” she mumbles indifferently, her heart skipping a beat. His presence breathes life into her and now that he hadn’t actually disappeared, and she had confessed her true feelings to herself for no reason, Nadia feels more disorientated than ever.

“You didn’t think I was going to stand out in the cold all that time did you? I was in the bookshop. Anyways, it’s freezing out here. Let’s go and get something to eat. You up for it?”

“Yeah, why not,” she concedes, still trying to remain impassive whilst acutely aware that their relationship was beginning to take a dangerous turn.

Oh screw it, she thinks as they walk up Park Road, past rows and rows of grandiose apartments. It's not like Daniel gives a shit. Is it really so bad if I enjoy this man's company for the next two days?

Prince Charming stop outside Mumtaz, an Indian restaurant Nadia has never been to before, and gestures for her to follow him inside. As they open the door, they are welcomed by a blast of heat and Nadia takes off her coat before she begins to perspire. As she does so, she notices Prince Charming running his eyes over her body with appreciation. They make eye contact and he blushes, embarrassed at being caught out.

“Nice jumper,” he says sheepishly, looking away.

Turning red herself, Nadia hurriedly plants herself on her chair and clears her throat, anxious to change the subject.

“So why did you become Muslim, but more importantly, why didn’t you say anything to me sooner?” she says, hoping that the question will dampen the charged atmosphere.

“Do you want the long answer or the short answer?”

“How about short, and if it’s interesting, you can tell me the long one later.”

“Alright, here it goes. I met a Muslim girl when I was at Uni, we started dating, I fell madly in love with her but she wouldn’t go all the way as she was a bit strict like that. Hormones, love and a little bit of interest in Islam inspired me to convert, so I did, and we got married in secret.”

Prince Charming pauses and looks at Nadia, who stares back at him in astonishment.

“It’s like something out of a movie,” she says, genuinely intrigued. “Go on, tell me more.”

Prince Charming laughs and takes a sip of sweet lassi. He licks his lips and Nadia tries not to stare at them by focusing on his nose instead.

“Okay, so we got married in secret and obviously did everything married people do. Well, not really, as it was a secret so I couldn’t exactly meet her family or anything.”

“And then?”

“Then she got pregnant. She confided in one of her cousins, who she thought was her friend, who actually grassed her up to another cousin, and before we knew it, her whole family had found out that their precious angel was knocked up. Only the thing is, her bitch cousin failed to tell them that we were married. She only told them the pregnant part.”

“Oh my god.”

“Exactly. So her brothers and her cousins came after me, beat the crap out of me and pretty much left me for dead. Here, see this.”

Prince Charming stands up and much to the horror of the rest of the customers, lifts up his white hoodie to reveal a long, deep scar against his taut torso. Nadia stares at it.

“It’s beautiful,” she says simply, looking away. “So what happened next?”

“Her brother was arrested, but he got out of it as he obviously had a million alibis and they didn’t have enough proof that it was him. And then she disappeared. At first I thought they did something to her. I went crazy looking for her everywhere. But then I heard that she left town and that she didn’t want anything to do with me. The last time I saw her was when she told me she was pregnant. And that was it. I never heard from her again."

“That’s so sad," Nadia whispers, touching her chest with her hand. "So you went through all that for nothing?”

“Yeah that pretty much sums it up.” Prince Charming feigns indifference but it is obvious to Nadia, from the slouch in his shoulders and shadow in his eyes, that he’s still hurting. She leans over and takes his smooth hands into hers, and he looks at her in surprise, but she says nothing.

“So what’s your story?” he croaks after a while, pulling his hands away.

“Long or short?”

“Short of course.”

“I met a guy. Fell in love. Got married. Moved to the other side of the world to be with him. Then found out he’s been cheating on me with various women pretty much from the get go. Only he doesn’t know that I know and I’m working out what to do about it.”

“Ouch. That’s harsh.”

“Yeah.”

Nadia and Prince Charming eat the rest of their meals in silence, barely tasting any of the strong flavours, both lost in their own thoughts.

“You know, it’s so weird how we know so much about each other but we don’t even know each other’s names,” Nadia says after a while, breaking the comfortable silence they had fallen into. "Somehow, it doesn’t seem to matter though."

“How come you never asked me before?” Prince Charming asks, raising his eyebrows.

“I didn’t see a point,” Nadia admits, her voice quiet.

“And now?”

“I see a point.”

There is another silence as Prince Charming weighs up the depth of Nadia's words.

“Well," he says eventually. Nadia looks at him in trepidation, wondering what he will say.

He's going to tell you to forget about it. You're married. He doesn’t want you. You have too much baggage.

"How about we start again then?" he says with a smile, holding out his hand. Nadia laughs in relief, and accepts his handshake with enthusiasm.

"Alright love? My name’s Jayden. Jayden Lynch. What’s yours?” he says in his most charming voice, puffing out his chest like a proud peacock.

“Nadia Ziani,” Nadia replies with an exaggerated coy smile, trying not to laugh.

“Pleasure to meet you Nadia.”

“The pleasure’s mine, Jayden.”

Nadia and Jayden burst into laughter and this time, it is him who reaches across the table and takes her small, cold hands into his. The warmth of his touch runs through her veins and she smiles at him, hoping he doesn’t let go.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he draws her hand closer to him and brings it slowly up to his lips.

Chapter Twenty-Seven – All’s fair in love and war

2010-04-04T19:40:00.011+03:00

Lady Luxe winces as her car door swings open and Leila glares down at her, her eyes wild with uninhibited rage.

For almost a month, Lady Luxe has spent every waking moment – and occasionally, even sleeping moments – worrying about the day her friend would discover the truth about her relationship with her boyfriend, either through a mistake of Lady Luxe's own, or Mohamed's careless attitude towards hiding his identity. She has plotted and planned, lied and avoided, and even persuaded her cousin to pretend to be her alter ego in order to ensure that the subject of her nightmares would never materialise.

And now, for the first time in twenty-two years, Lady Luxe finally understands what God means when He says he is the Greatest Planner.

No amount of scheming or hypothesising has prepared her for this moment. In all the scenarios she has imagined, one thing she never expected was for her mindless brother to actually be disrespectful enough to bring his girlfriend to his father's house. How difficult would it have been to hire a hotel room for the night, or even take her to one of the many extra family villas scattered around the city? But no. The obnoxious fool had to bring her to the main home – the one her Grandfather had given his eldest son when he finally let go of his inappropriate Western wife and agreed to marry a more suitable bride – the home that symbolised all that the X family stood for; respect, culture and loyalty.

What an idiot.

For all his lectures on honour, shame and dignity, Mohamed was really nothing more than an ignorant boy, ruled by the anatomy on the lower part of his body, completely oblivious to the consequences of his hormone-induced actions. And it is Lady Luxe who has to pay the price.

Staring back at her friend with a thudding heart and a dry throat, she suppresses the urge to drive away with the door still open and instead, persuades herself to climb out of the car as gracefully as possible, trying hard not to let her legs wobble. She takes a deep breath and turns around to face her furious friend.

Leila's face is contorted with anger, but beneath the fire, Lady Luxe knows there is a deep sadness. Once again, she fell for the charms of a wealthy, handsome and enigmatic man who lacked the most crucial characteristic in a relationship: loyalty. And once again, Leila was embarrassed in front of Lady Luxe, who had warned her against such predators right from the start.

It is this pain, this shame, and this humiliation, that Lady Luxe knows she will have to exploit in order to protect herself. After all, everyone knows that all is fair in love and war.

“You fucking bitch,” Leila begins, her body heaving as she visibly tries to control herself, her rising voice shattering the previous silence. The watchman’s light turns on and Lady Luxe begins to panic. The last thing she needs is Mohamed waking up.

“You fucking backstabbing bitch,” Leila continues, the intensity of her venom causing spittle to spray out of her mouth. “Of all the guys in Dubai, you had to go and dig your claws into the one guy who was mine!”

“Control yourself, you silly tart,” Lady Luxe snaps with slight defiance. “Why are you staring at me like I’m some kind of traitor when you’re the one who is imposing on my territory?” It is my territory, she justifies to herself. Although not in the way I am implying.

“What?” In an instant, Leila’s voice plummets to a whisper, the blood draining from her face. She clutches onto the Ferrari for support, her knees almost buckling from the shock. Surely she doesn't mean what she thinks she means? Her mind spinning, she stumbles, and Lady Luxe is forced to grab onto her before she falls to the ground.

The contact between her hands and Leila's quivering body sends a pang of guilt shooting through Lady Luxe's body, and she swallows, trying to push the intense feeling of unease aside. You have to look out for number one, she tells herself, still holding onto Leila frail frame.

“Look Leila, it’s not a good idea to talk here. Let’s go for a drive,” she finally says, letting go of her friend. Leila doesn’t reply, so she ushers her friend into the car and looks back at the watchman who is watching her intently. She gives him a quick smile and a wave before slipping into the driver’s seat, igniting the engine and rolling out of the grounds.

The street is dark and quiet, as it always is after midnight, with the dim streetlamps providing only enough light for haggard stray kittens that to observe their surroundings. The only sound to be heard is the Ferrari, which slices through the silence like a knife through butter. In the distance, the silvery grey Burj Khalifa juts into the cloudless sky, standing tall, proud and imposing; a reminder of Dubai’s extravagant past, precarious present and imminent future.

Lady Luxe glances over at Leila who is staring straight ahead, almost as if she is in a trance. She looks away, guilt poking her again, and continues to drive. She has a good idea what Leila is thinking, and it is exactly what she wants her to think. But if things are going the way she is planning, why does she feel so terrible?

They reach Umm Suqeim public beach, without a single word uttered between the two of them during the entire journey. Lady Luxe pulls over next to a group of young Emirati boys sitting on the low wall, blasting traditional Khaleeji music from their white Land Cruiser. She ignores their stares and kicks off her shoes, rolling the legs of her jeans up to her shins.

“Let’s walk out onto the sand and sit here for a bit,” she suggests, looking back at Leila who is still inside the car. Lost in her own thoughts, Leila obliges without uttering a word. She too takes off her shoes and follows Lady Luxe onto the sand. It is cold underneath the clammy soles of her feet, and she welcomes the sensation.

Dropping to the ground, Lady Luxe draws her knees to her chest and looks out into the ocean and at the illuminated Burj al Arab in the near distance. The beach is unusually quiet, but at three am on a Thursday night, she guesses most people are either sleeping soundly or wandering drunk out of one of Dubai’s many clubs. Watching the waves glide over the shoreline, she stares into the black sea and hugs her knees tighter to her body. What was she going to say?

“So? Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Leila finally ventures, unable to stomach the suspense any longer. She looks over at Lady Luxe, who has a strange expression on her face, one that Leila has never seen before. She wonders if she should just get up and walk away, without listening to the explanation and without looking back. Although she would love to just pretend that all this never happened, she knows she cannot. As much as the reason is sure to pain her, she needs to know exactly what has been going on without her knowledge. What kind of ride she has been taken on. How much of a naïve fool she has been.

Lady Luxe, knowing that whatever comes out of her mouth next will determine her immediate fate, mulls over the various explanations one last time before she takes a deep breath and clears her throat.

“Mohamed is…” she begins hesitantly. Leila’s anxious face has distorted into a mixture of pain and anger, and Lady Luxe’s words get caught in her throat. Should she confess the truth and relieve of her pain, or should she utter a lie to protect herself? Whatever she says, she is inextricably connected to Mohamed now, and whatever she says, Leila will have the opportunity to blackmail her. However, if she does lie and profess to be a girlfriend, there is a small possibility of Leila being angry enough with Mohamed to cut him out of her life once and for all. If she tells the truth, that she is only his sister, Leila may still believe she has a chance with the handsome Emirati and use her new-found knowledge as lifelong leverage.

“…my husband.”

“What?” Leila feels as she if has been punched in the stomach and she struggles to breathe.

“We got married about a year ago, while I was still in London,” Lady Luxe continues with more confidence. “Things were going fine until I discovered that he was cheating on me the entire time I was studying. He doesn’t know I know, but after I found out, I stopped being loyal to him.”

Lady Luxe cannot look Leila in the eyes for fear of revealing the truth, so instead, she stares at the sea and digs her toes further into the sand. Please just accept what I say and then just leave me and my family alone.

“W-why didn’t you tell me something sooner?” Leila asks shakily, remembering the night they came across Moe and the way Lady Luxe practically shoved him onto her. So that was why she couldn’t get away fast enough. That was why she was so condemning of their relationship. And that was why she had been avoiding her like an epidemic and had refused to meet the two of them together.

"What was I supposed to say?" Lady Luxe retorts, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "The guy you manhandled in the alleyway was actually my husband? You should know me better than that, Leila."

"Turns out I don’t know you at all," Leila replies quietly, looking straight at Lady Luxe.

She believes me, Lady Luxe thinks with sheer relief as she stares back at Leila's confused eyes that are brimming with tears."I'm sorry," Lady Luxe says simply. Leila accepts the sentiment with a nod, completely unaware that her friend is not apologising for hiding her marital status, but apologising for lying about it.

"Me too," she says after a while, digging her toes into the sand and wrapping her arms around her cold body. "Listen… I kind of need to be alone right now. Do you mind if I just hang out here by myself?"

"Of course not,” Lady Luxe answers without pausing. “I'll see you soon okay?” She is thrilled at the opportunity to exit, but before she leaves, she leans over and gives her friend an unexpected hug. I'm sorry, she says silently before she hoists herself off the ground and walks to the car, leaving Leila's dejected silhouette behind.

Neither girl looks back at the other.

Lady Luxe drives down Al Sufouh on the slow lane almost at a snail's pace, ignoring the curious looks her pink Ferrari receives from passers by. She realises that her knuckles have turned white from clutching onto the steering wheel and she flexes her fingers in a lame attempt to relax them.

"It should be illegal to drive a Ferrari that slowly!" an Aussie voice shouts out to her from a gigantic red pick-up truck that pulls up beside her, slowing down to match her pace. Lady Luxe ignores the intrusion and looks straight ahead, a scowl on her lips. Why can’t a girl ever drive in peace around here?

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” The man tries again, raising his voice over the loud engines of both vehicles.

"Fuck off," Lady Luxe replies, and although it is against the law, sticks up her finger to reiterate her point. Let’s see you try to report me you prick, she thinks, closing the window and stepping on the gas. The car roars to life and she shoots forwards like a bullet, leaving the pick-up far behind in a cloud of dust.

Sniggering to herself, Lady Luxe continues driving without thinking, her mind still focused on Leila and Mohamed. She absent-mindedly takes the first exit onto the Palm and is surprised to find herself outside a familiar villa.

A recent birthday present from her father, the villa she is parked outside is also supposed to be part of her inheritance, yet Lady Luxe feels like an intruder as she walks through its gates. Upon handing her the keys, her father specifically told her that she could do whatever she pleased with it after she got married, but until then, it was hers in name only. Thus, the blissfully naïve X has no idea that his daughter has taken his sentiments with a pinch of salt (after all, it was like handing a lollipop to a baby and telling it not to taste it), and has actually been visiting it every few weeks whenever she needs a little time out from her stifling social life.

The exterior of the modest villa is inspired by Islamic art and it is decorated sparsely with traditional berber and shaami furniture. Although a cleaning service cleans it every week without fail, no one uses it, and whenever Lady Luxe does venture into her respite from the outside world, she feels guilty and nervous, as if she is a trespasser. Hence, for the most part, the villa sits abandoned and derelict, like a beautiful virgin bride whose husband refuses to touch her. A complete and utter waste.

Still shaken from the confrontation with Leila, Lady Luxe feels light-headed as she leans against the front door and tries to regulate her breath. When she finally manages to calm down and her pulse returns to normal, without turning on a single lamp, she walks through the house and into the garden facing the artificial beach and sea. With her abaya still covering her body, she lies down on one of the two sun loungers by the pool and stares out into the sea, aching to hear it crash against the shore. But it doesn’t. It sits still and silent, much like her.

* * *

From the moment Lady Luxe awoke up to the brutal wails of her alarm clock, she was confronted with a nervous sensation in the pit of her stomach, warning her of the events that were yet to occur.

After dragging herself out of bed, she bumped into Mohamed, whom she can barely look in the eye following the staircase incident. He muttered ‘salaam’ to her, their brief encounter putting her off her breakfast. Dismissing Claudine’s delicious waffles, she changed into a plain abaya coupled with a hot pink sheila and went to meet her cousins who were due to fly out that evening.

Moza and Rowdha, anxious to remain in Dubai where they could pretend to be single and carefree instead of married mothers, spent the entire morning wailing about their husbands and children and how they didn’t want to return to Saudi.

Bored of their endless moaning, Lady Luxe tuned out and listened to the low hum of conversation around her instead. Anything to take her mind off the growing sense of unease she was experiencing.

A strong London accent in the background caused her to stop in her thoughts and for a moment, transported back to the UK. If she concentrated hard enough, she could have easily been in a coffee shop in South Kensington, wearing a loose cotton dress to avoid sweltering in the cruel August heat, so she closed her eyes and listened to the girl drone on about something or another.

A blast of air conditioning from the vent directly above her head soon destroyed the daydream, and Lady Luxe opened her eyes and inwardly sighed. It was far too cold indoors and far too sunny outdoors for her to be in Britain.

Get over it, those days are gone, she told herself, trying not to think of her glorious three and a half years studying in London. Memories of cloudy grey skies, cold drops of rain on her bare arms and the warm scent of Belgian waffles next to Bond Street Station taunted her, causing unexpected tears to spring to her eyes. She hastily wiped away the rogue tear clinging to her eyelashes before one of her cousins could notice.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" Rowdha, who detested public displays of emotion, wrinkled her nose, shooting Moza a dirty look upon receiving a sharp dig in her ribs for her brutal approach. "What? Why did you just assault me with your pointy elbows?"

"Can't you be a bit sympathetic for a change?" Moza scolded, taking Lady Luxe's hands into hers. "Ignore her habibti. She's just pissed off because we're going back to Saudi tonight. Now tell me. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Lady Luxe mumbled, pulling her hand away and staring out of the window at the happy people walking by, enjoying Dubai's beautiful Spring weather. Mothers pushed prams, children whizzed past on scooters and lovers strolled by, hand in hand. Everyone seemed so carefree and relaxed. Everyone but her.

"What exactly about your over privileged life is upsetting you today?" Rowdha continued, almost as if her sister hadn't spoken. "What? It's true! Look at you. You’re young, beautiful, healthy, rich. You live in a gigantic villa, you drive a Porsche and a Ferrari, and to make things worse, you’re even a successful businesswomen. So please, enlighten me. What exactly about your life is so shitty?”

Lady Luxe remained silent, knowing that what her cousin said was harsh but true. She didn’t want to try to explain that she was always disorientated, that she never, ever felt truly comfortable, even in her own home. Especially in her own home. She didn’t know how to describe the ache in her gut whenever she heard a British accent, came across a picture from her student days in London or felt a drop of rain.

But most importantly, she didn’t know how to adequately convey the fear that was slowly creeping its way around her entire body, warning her that things were about to blow up in her face. And she didn’t know which was worse. To be beaten by Moe, kicked out of the family or killed in order to protect their honour.

“Nothing,” she said shortly. “My life is great. And so was Hend’s I’m sure.”

There was a discomforting silence.

It had already been five years, yet a mere mention of the circumstances that lead to Hend’s disappearance was enough to send shivers down the spines of all the girls in the X family.

The product of a consanguineous marriage, Hend was both her father’s sister’s daughter and her father’s cousin’s daughter, a common practice in the X family. She was bright, fun loving and feisty, and when Lady Luxe is being honest with herself, she acknowledges that there were great similarities between them both.

Externally, they could not have been more different. Hend’s hair was jet black and unruly, her skin was a smooth mocha and her eyes were framed with the thickest, darkest eyelashes Lady Luxe had ever seen. Unlike Lady Luxe’s slight, athletic frame, Hend had a curvaceous body that could rival the likes of J-Lo and Beyonce, and she loved to show it off in skin-tight glittery gowns whenever they went to weddings. She was loud, she was smart and she had no qualms about speaking her mind. Everyone knew when Hend was in the room.

Beneath the lively exterior however, was a deep sadness that only those extremely close to her could detect. When all the cousins would get together and joke about their other family members, amidst laughter and giggles, Lady Luxe would look over at Hend to find her staring into the distance with a pained expression on her face. When their eyes collided, Hend would always smile at her younger cousin, but Lady Luxe, even as a teenager, was aware that the smile was hiding a sorrow that could not be articulated.

When news of Hend’s disappearance made its way to Lady Luxe’s ears, when rumours of Western boyfriends, stolen chastity and shameful acts travelled through the grapevine, everyone knew exactly what had happened. But no one had the nerve to say it.

They stopped visiting Hend’s house and for a while, the inhabitants of the house stopped visiting everyone else. When they finally made their way back into the community, all mentions of Hend stopped. It was as if the parents had raised two sons and no daughter.

Two years later, Lady Luxe paid a visit to her sick Aunt. Her Aunt’s health had completely deteriorated following the disappearance of her only daughter. Dark, deep circles rimmed her eyes, her sallow skin was sickly and thin, and she had lost most of the hair on her head. Towards the end of the customary visit, Lady Luxe claimed to need the toilet. Ignoring the bathroom door altogether, she slipped past the wandering maids, crept up the stairs and sought out Hend’s bedroom.

She pushed open the door and stepped inside, bracing herself to be assaulted by memories of her missing cousin. But she didn't have to, for the pink walls were now a clinical white, the countless photographs were nowhere to be seen and there was not a single pretty ornament in sight. It was almost as if Hend never existed.

Feeling nauseous, the eighteen year-old Lady Luxe turned away and closed the door softly behind her. Tears falling down her face, she ran back downstairs and for the first time in two years, confronted her Aunt.

“Where have all of her things gone?” she demanded upon returning to her Aunt’s bedside, unable to contain her emotions.

Her Aunt looked over at her niece and saw in her hazel eyes her own tempestuous daughter.

“Habibti,” she began, her voice quivering with uninhibited pain. “There is no place in this family for shame. Not one member, even those who profess to love you, will spare a girl who soils our name with dishonourable acts. Never forget that.”

* * *

Lady Luxe shivers, the thin cloth of her abaya providing little warmth from the ice that has numbed her body. Thinking about Hend always has this effect on her. No one knows exactly what happened to her cousin. What they did to her; if they were kind enough to drive her out of the country, if she had voluntarily left and never looked back, or if they got rid of her forever. She is not sure she wants to know.

“Salaam’alaykom,” a voice calls out to her and she sits up straight, startled at the intrusion. Pulling her sheila onto her head, she looks around to see a solitary figure in the adjacent garden looking out into the sea, and she scowls, wishing the walls separating the two were higher.

“What do you want?” she snaps in English, shooting him a cutting look that goes amiss in the darkness.

“Sorry, you just looked a little lonely so I thought I’d keep you company,” the man replies sheepishly, also in English but with a strong Arabic accent.

“What makes you think I’m lonely?” she asks, adjusting her abaya to cover her body properly.

“Well, for starters, you didn’t deny it.”

“Oh, we have a jester on the Island,” she retorts, already warming up to the stranger.

“Every queen has a jester,” he flirts back, and Lady Luxe laughs at his audacity. He too laughs and edges closer to the wall. “May I request the pleasure of your company this evening, my lady?

"Ahlan," she replies with a smile, welcoming the distraction from her painful thoughts. She would rather indulge in meaningless conversation with a flirtatious stranger than be left alone with haunting memories of Hend or Leila.

She watches the man jump over the wall, his fluid movements catching her attention and she readjusts her abaya to expose one slim, smooth ankle. Before he turns around, she lets her sheila drop to her shoulders and hastily rearranges her fringe. After all, with her naked face and her drab abaya, there isn't much else she can do to make herself more attractive for this intriguing stranger.

"Mind if I take a seat?" Without waiting for a response, he hops onto the lounger beside her and stretches, his fitted t-shirt rising to expose a taut stomach. Lady Luxe feels a stirring within and she swallows nervously. It has been a long time since she has sowed her oats, and the combination of the sensual moonlight, the seductive breeze and an attractive stranger is making her feel a little flustered.

"Sure," she croaks, too worried to look at his face in case he senses her feelings. She watches him lie back onto the lounger from the corner of her eye and then turns to look at him, ready to get a proper look at the mystery man by her side.

Despite the darkness that surrounds them, despite the shadows playing on the angles of his face, there is absolutely no denying the familiar dark eyes and messy hair. Lady Luxe, overcome with sheer horror, stares at the man - no longer a stranger and definitely no longer attractive - not knowing whether to get up and run or throw herself into to the sea in front of her. Either way, she is completely and utterly screwed.

"So," he says, turning his body to face her. "How are you my dear future bride? And pray tell, how is our mutual friend Jennifer?"

* * *

A million light years away from the luxury man-made island, Leila sits alone in her bare bedroom in Discovery Gardens staring at the blank wall in front of her. Unable to digest what she has recently come to know, she feels weak, queasy and stupid. She wonders what Lady Luxe was thinking all those times she gloated about Moe's attentiveness, his full lips and his big hands. When she boasted about all the gifts she had received and how she would return the favour.

She was thinking you were an old, delusional tramp who could never bag a single man, a cruel voice taunts her, causing her heart to wrench in shame and agony. She didn't tell you sooner because she wanted to prove you a fool.

"Shut up," Leila mumbles, unaware that she is actually speaking out loud to herself.

She wanted to mock you, to jeer at you, to snicker when your back was turned, the voice continues, relentless in its sadistic - or perhaps masochistic - pursuits.

Rocking back and forth, her knees drawn to her chest, Leila begins to cry. She weeps for herself, her achingly lonely self who had been played a fool all over again. She weeps for her heart, in love with a man who was married to her friend. And she weeps for this friend - stuck in a loveless marriage with a man who brought his conquests to their marital home.

Thinking back to the opulent villa with its marble floors and crystal chandeliers, Leila feels another emotion that suddenly replaces the previous emotions of pain. Envy.

She has all of that yet she's still not happy, she thinks, her mind taking a more dangerous course. Plenty of men cheated on their wives, but at least their wives were not alone. They had someone who came home to them at the end of the day. They had someone to look after them. They had someone to raise children with. What did she have? A shabby little apartment in the middle of the desert?

She needed a man. She needed a husband. She needed someone to spend the rest of her life with. She wouldn't have minded sharing him with someone else if it meant that she was taken care of.

I could have made him happy, she thinks wistfully.

And then, a tiny seed plants itself in the darkest depths of her mind.

I can still make him happy.

Chapter Twenty-Six – Be careful of things that go 'bump' in the night

2010-02-17T15:03:00.004+03:00

Leila is in the middle of a beautiful dream. In this dream, she is lounging in the Burj Al Arab's Sky View Bar and she is wearing a classic black Chanel dress accessorised with her pride and joy: her white calfskin Chanel quilted bag. Peep-toe Louboutins are caressing her perfectly manicured feet and she curls her toes in joy. How she loves the obviousness of red soled shoes. Moe compliments her on her sophisticated outfit and tells her that he has always wanted a strong, independent, classy woman to stand by his side. Leila's siren-red lips curve into a smile and she brushes off the compliment as if it were a piece of flint on her dress. But then, he takes her slender hands in his and turns her around to face her, and she realises that he is not merely complimenting her to inflate her ego.

Just as the sun begins to descend, casting an orange glow over the entire Persian Gulf, he coughs nervously and takes out a heart-stopping pale blue box. Leila's eyes grow wide as she spots the simple black logo and the tiny hairs all over her body prickle in trepidation.

In real life, the doorbell rings. And then, like all good things, Leila's wondrous dream comes to an abrupt end.

Cursing silently, she rolls over onto her stomach and covers her head with the pillow, hoping that whoever it is who has stumbled across her doorstep at such an ungodly hour will interpret her silence as her absence. And leave. She forces her eyes closed and desperately tries to make the dream come back and start where it left off.

To her dismay, the doorbell rings again, diminishing every iota of slumber remaining in her system. Leila is a morning person and it usually takes her alarm clock a mere thirty seconds to persuade her to arise. She mumbles an incoherent "I'm coming," (along with a list of other profanities) and then pulls herself out of bed, scowling and muttering as she stretches, her slim body arching like a baby tiger.

I didn’t even get to see what kind of ring it was, she laments to herself as she pads over to the front door barefoot, the cold tiles abusing the warm soles of her feet. Her eyes sore from the bright sunlight flooding the entire open-plan living area - courtesy of the gigantic floor-to-ceiling window - she opens the front door, squinting at the little man holding a clipboard.

"Yes?" she scowls, folding her arms over her chest in an attempt to hide the lack of a bra beneath her cotton nightshirt. So this is the munchkin that ruined my dream, she thinks, her frown deepening. She smoothes it out abruptly when she remembers that she spotted her first wrinkle a few days before (first post-Botox that is). And it was (unsurprisingly) on her forehead.

"Leila Saade?" the small Indian man asks with a grin, bemused at Leila's bedraggled appearance. Her hair is sticking up in all directions as it always does first thing in the morning - before she has a chance to smooth it out with her Braun IONTEC hairbrush that is - and her tattered nightshirt is so faded that it barely resembles a colour.

"Yes?" she snaps impatiently. Her eyes fall upon his hands and widen as she comprehends the familiar red and grey Aramex packaging, colours that have recently become synonymous with beauty and luxury.

"Ma'am can you please –"

"Okay!" Leila snatches the biro out of his hand before the poor thing has a chance to complete his sentence and hastily scrawls her name on the form. She is barely able to contain her excitement and grabs the parcel before he can protest. She slams the front door closed without even thanking him, let alone tipping him.

Leaning against the door and listening to the disappointed footsteps of the delivery man on the other side disappear, she holds the package in her hands for a few moments, wondering what it could contain. The last time she went 'shopping' with Moe, she pointed out various things in Dubai Mall's fashion avenue that had taken her fancy, but none of the things she had 'oohed' and 'aahed' over were small enough to fit in parcel of that size.

Although Leila is accustomed to receiving gifts from generous suitors, she still gets a tingling sensation in her stomach every time she is bestowed with a package – whether it comes wrapped in pretty paper, adorned with bows, in its original packaging or, as of late, in a plastic courier packet. In the past she has received designer goodies, jewellery, hampers, experiences and once, a horse. The latter was from an ex, also Lebanese, who was anxious to prove his love to her despite her breaking up with him, changing her number, and threatening to report him to the police for his stalkerish ways. He named the horse Lei-mo – a testimony to her name and his - completely oblivious to what it sounded like it English.

Leila gently shakes the parcel and feels something move inside. Unable to suppress her curiosity for a single second further, she runs over to her slightly dusty kitchen table and plonks herself onto a fragile IKEA chair. The scissors are still lying on the surface from three days ago when she opened a package containing a gloriously luxurious La Perla underwear set in pale pink with a note saying, "when will I get to see you in this?" She grabs them and cuts the parcel open as neatly as possible.

Inside the plastic packet sits a flat box with the stomach-tingling Damas logo glistening in the centre. Shaking with excitement, she opens the box to find a stunning white gold necklace encrusted with what appear to be countless brilliant cut diamonds. Her breath stuck in her throat, she lifts it out of its velvet surroundings and gapes at it in awe before running over to her full length mirror and placing it against her smooth, tanned neck. It sits perfectly on her collarbones as if it were created especially for her and she turns her body to examine it at all angles. The diamonds sparkle in the sunlight and a shiver runs down her spine.

This is it, she thinks to herself as she studies her reflection, knowing how amazing she will look once she wears it with a more appropriate outfit. It's time to give in to his needs.

Leila has had enough experience with generous men to know that it is unlikely to get better than this. A diamond on her finger is almost certainly out of the question so she will make do with a whole load glittering on her neck, while little something back before things turn sour. She is perfectly aware of the fact that every gift comes with a price and only last week she was forced into almost betraying her friend in an attempt to stay on Moe’s right side.

The time for her to get out with her gifts while she could, had arrived.

For the first time since she embarked on her precarious relationship with Mohamed, Leila picks up her phone and dials his number. She no longer cares about appearing to be too interested, too eager, too easy. In fact, she would rather control the way their relationship degenerates than allow him to just dispose of her like an empty cigarette carton once he has had his way with her.

"'allo?" he answers, dropping the 'h' in the typical Arabic, guttural way.

"Keefak habibi?" she purrs back, still looking at her reflection and tentatively touching the necklace with her finger tips.

"Do you like it?" Moe says, as more of a statement than a question.

"I love it," she answers with sincerity, beaming. She imagines his chest swelling with pride and for once, allows his ego to inflate as much as it wants.

"It is exquisite," she adds. "Thank you."

"So when can I see you?" he demands impatiently, raising his voice over the sound of traffic.

"Whenever you want," is her coy reply, a small smile playing on her lips. There is a stunned silence as Moe's heart begins to thud. During their entire courtship, Leila has remained stiff, stern and, for want of a better description, positively prudish. There were moments when Moe would wonder if he had imagined their first physical encounter, whether the entire scenario was a figment of his imagination.

"Now?" he suggests quickly, as if he is worried she may take back her promise.

"No, not now. Tonight." Leila affirms, still staring at her reflection. She may be grateful but certainly not so grateful that she is willing to drop everything to go and cater to his whims.

"Come and collect me at 8:00pm. See you later…" With that, Leila hangs up the phone and then gently takes off the necklace and places back inside the box, as carefully as if it were a newborn baby. Turning on the taps in the bathtub, she fills the tub with fragrant bath oils and when the temperature is just right, climbs in and closes her eyes. She was ready to give Moe a night he would never, ever forget.

* * *

Leila is wearing pale pink satin dress so tight and so low that her breasts are almost spilling out of its embrace. She is also wearing her new diamond necklace, although the spectacular creation is struggling to compete with her cleavage. Every single man in the restaurant is aching to catch a glimpse of Leila’s bosom as she wriggles past them, until they realise that her rear assets are just as generous as the front. Every woman is shooting her down with death stares, their eyes fixated on her sparkling necklace.

In ode to the occasion, Leila’s hair has been professionally blow dried and is sitting in soft, sensuous waves down her bare back and her makeup, courtesy of the MAC counter at Ibn Battuta, is simply smouldering. Everything about her persona – from her silky blonde hair to her tanned golden skin, her slender neck surrounded by a cluster of glittering diamonds and her tiny waist – is screaming for attention, and oozing with sexiness.

Quite naturally, the Emirati man who has the pleasure of escorting walking the sex siren is being tantalised by her in a manner he never anticipated. Not even his highly overactive imagination that was often fuelled by late night television could have conjured up the stirring sensation in his loins, or the lump stuck at the back of his throat, as his heart pounds so furiously that it is almost threatening to spill out of his mouth and into his date’s lap.

They are dining at Ewaan at the Palace Hotel in Old Town, and are sitting by the pool. Tiny yellow lights are wrapped around the palm trees and the atmosphere is alive with gentle laughter and the clinking of glasses. The tortured voice of the singer seduces the audience with his own renditions of the renowned Um Kulthoum, while Leila and Mohahmed puff on individual sheeshas and sip fine wine.

Unbeknownst to said singer, he is not the only one on a seduction mission.

From the moment Leila slid into Moe's orange AMG, she has been all over him like a rash, touching his knee, stroking his face, clinging to his arm. Now, at the restaurant, she is staring at him through half-closed eyelids and slowly licks her lips before taking the mouth of the sheesha pipe between them. Moe almost chokes on his Chardonnay and tries to compose himself, wiping his clammy palms on his dark brown candoura. Leila pretends not to notice and inhales deeply, before allowing the smoke to whirl out of her mouth slowly and gracefully.

Although Leila was originally only pretending to be like a cat on heat, the more she pretends, the more real the feelings become, until she too is desperate to get away from the crowd of people and spend some quality ‘alone time’ with the man who she knows is about to slip through her talons.

She analyses Moe's handsome face as he stares at the singer and realises with a jolt that she will miss him. Over the past few weeks he has become the only constant in life. With the global economic crisis at its peak and the subsequent crash of the real estate sector, Leila’s career has taken a gigantic plunge. She has been getting paid late, her commission percentage has been reduced, and she is highly unlikely to receive a bonus.

If her turbulent financial status wasn’t bad enough, Leila has also noticed with horror that her body is changing. A fine line here, a wrinkle there, a sun spot, an ache. Although hours of Yogilates has kept her muscles supple and flexible, she just doesn’t move with the same agility she did a decade ago, her face just doesn’t hold the same youthful glow, and no amount of gym, microdermabrasions or sneaky visits to clinics in Jumeirah can prevent time from taking its natural course.

Then there is her love life. Turbulent, exciting, promising, painful. Uncertain.

And now, with Moe soon to exit the scene, she will be left alone. All over again.

Leila wonders when that defining moment in her life was, the moment when she traded her naivety for cynicism, when her innocence was stripped away from her, when she realised that there was no such thing as a ‘happily ever after’. She wonders if she should pin all the blame on Fahd who taught her that no man wanted an imperfect woman and no Arab man would marry a ‘loose’ girl. Or maybe she should blame Michael – the American who falsely made her believe that fairy tales did exist.

Michael had escaped Leila’s thoughts for a very long time. She liked to tell herself that he was just one of her countless conquests, and his memories often became trapped between those of recent lovers. Until she catches a whiff of his spicy cologne, or her gaze accidentally falls upon a pair of startlingly blue eyes, or her ears catch hold of a wry, New York accent. Then the memories slowly come seeping back and she spends the night looking up at the ceiling and remembering his broad smile, the tiny bump in his otherwise perfect nose, his sandy blond hair… and those eyes. Those bright blue, sparkling eyes that she would disappear within whenever she would gaze into them.

They met in Leila’s second week in Dubai and for the naïve twenty-something Lebanese girl, it was a dream come true. Not only was he intelligent, attentive and respectful, but he was also American. And not the kind of American she had encountered whilst studying in Ohio either, but a native New Yorker who drawled, dropped his r’s and wore Italian shoes. The fact that he was ten years her senior made him all the more appealing.

Although Leila had youth on her side, she was certainly lacking in the looks department and it wasn’t long before the sweet Michael dropped a few hints about his fascination with blondes during a post-movie dinner. Mortified, the brunette hastily booked herself into her local salon and emerged three hours later with a gorgeous yellow mane.

As the weeks progressed, Michael’s dissatisfaction with his girlfriend continued to grow. Fuelled by their lack of physical contact and her commitment towards maintaining her virginity, Michael expressed his frustration through degrading Leila whenever possible. He commented on her acne-prone skin, persuaded her to see a dermatologist, made subtle remarks about her B-cups and laughed at her very Middle Eastern nose. He even made fun of her accent that was tinged with Arabic and French. The more he ‘joked’, the more Leila withdrew into her shell. Her confidence deteriorated with every comment and she was desperate to do something right.

Then, two months into their relationship, came the inevitable day when he invited her for ‘dinner’ at his apartment. She happily agreed, stunned that a man was willing to cook for a woman, completely oblivious to his ulterior motive. Or perhaps she knew, but was hoping he would prove her wrong.

The putrid stench of his alcoholic breath on her face, the wildness in his eyes, the aggression of his touch, plagued her at every moment for weeks after. How could she have understood the situation so wrong? How could she have expected a man to respect her monogamous choice?

You fucking tease. You’ve been fucking using me and expecting nothing back? You fucking ugly bitch.

His voice continued ringing in her ears long after she had managed to extract herself from him after kneeing him in the groin, long after she had stumbled to the lobby of his apartment, her dress torn and her arms bruised. And long after the bruises faded away.

For months after that night, Leila would sit in the shower with her knees drawn to her chest, her entire body shaking as tears rolled down her cheeks, trying to wash away the invisible imprints Michael had left behind. She would scrub away the memory of his forceful hands pushing her against the wall, his unwavering grip on her sore, bruised wrists, his clumsy lips all over her neck.

And all the while, deep down, she believed it to be her fault.

When she gave herself to Fahd, a year later, her mind wandered back to Michael and her refusal to give herself to him. Sometimes, during her darker moments, she wished she had.

The Michael incident, coupled with Fahd’s betrayal, taught Leila an invaluable lesson or ten: virginity had no value to absolutely anyone – least of all herself – with the exception of her future husband on their wedding night. And that was if he happened to be Arab. With simple surgical procedures readily available for women wanting to repair their hymens in order to dupe their unsuspecting husbands, even that wasn’t a big deal anymore.

Leila realised that her body was her own, what she did with it was her business, and what was more important was the illusion she portrayed of herself. For it was the illusion that was something she had 100 per cent control over.

“Shall we go?” Moe’s tentative question, coupled with the longing in his dark eyes, is a welcome distraction from Leila’s painful memories, and she nods. When the bill is settled, Moe stands up and for the first time in their relationship, offers her his arm. Leila feels another stab in her heart. Would this be the last time? She accepts it graciously and stands up. There is the same look on every man and woman’s face as they watch the tiger and tigress glide away: envy.

* * *

Leila gently extracts herself from Moe’s embrace, his gentle snores assuring her of the depth of his slumber. As she lifts one heavy arm, he stirs, and she stiffens, her heart beating quickly. The last thing she wants is him waking up and pretending that he still wants her there after finally achieving his goal. She would rather his last memory of her to be beautiful, strong and sexy – not weak, cowardly and ashamed.

She smiles as she recollects the look on his face when he unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor. His eyes moved up and down her body, savouring every inch of it and lingered on the pale pink lingerie that he had bought her for just a moment, before taking it off and leaving her in nothing but the diamond necklace.

Then, it was non-stop for almost two hours. Three times in one night was quite an achievement for Leila, who usually got bored after just one. But the pent up tension from weeks of dating had developed a hunger in her that had to be satiated and finally, exhausted, they both collapsed onto the bed. Moe immediately fell asleep, while Leila played over the details in her mind. At least it was a night neither of them would ever forget.

She finally manages to sneak out of bed and looks around the room for some clues as to who Moe actually is. She still cannot believe that he has actually brought her home instead of taking her to a fancy hotel, and she relishes the opportunity to snoop around.

Mohamed’s bedroom is the stereotypical bachelor pad, and needs just a mirrored ceiling to complete the look. The walls are a plain grey, all the furniture is black and all the accessories are chrome. The bed is possibly bigger than any of the beds Leila has ever slept in and a gigantic zebra print rug sits at its foot. On the wall opposite is a 60-inch plasma screen and below it is a water feature that is more annoying than soothing. Leila cannot comprehend how Moe can manage to sleep with that incessant racket. There are no photos on the nightstands and no pictures on the walls. Nothing to divulge who the real Mohamed is.

Treading carefully, Leila gathers all her clothes, tiptoes across the room and opens the bathroom door, hoping it doesn’t creak. Thankfully it glides open with ease and she locks the door firmly behind her.

The bathroom is just as sleek as the bedroom with stark black and white tiles and a huge shower. There is a corner tub which Leila assumes is a Jacuzzi and she wishes she could fill it up and just soak there for a while. It is a definite upgrade from her own little bathroom in Discovery Gardens and she sighs audibly, wishing she had been blessed with better fortune.

Hoping to learn something new about the man who is soon to become her ‘ex’, Leila peeks inside the medicine cabinet but is disappointed to find that all it contains is toothpaste, floss, mouthwash, shaving lotion and aftershave.

She closes the cabinet and stares at her reflection. The girl staring back at her looks tired and weary. Makeup is smeared all across her face and her hair has lost its grace. Tearing her eyes away from her pitiful appearance, she sits down and opens up her gigantic handbag, glad that she didn’t use the new Chanel. As beautiful as it is, it wouldn’t have been able to hold a pair of leggings, a long t-shirt, deodorant, a hair brush, ballet pumps, face wipes, moisturizer and her wallet. Not to mention her perfume, makeup bag and keys.

Leila gets to work with the face wipes and cleans off every scrap of makeup before rinsing her face quickly and moisturizing it. She moves quickly and diligently, afraid that if she stops moving, the void that Moe had temporary filled will resurface, leaving a dull ache in its place.

So, she focuses on completely the task at hand as soon as possible so that she can go home and forget that Moe ever existed. She runs the hairbrush through her hair and pulls it into a ponytail before putting her bra back on, climbing into her new outfit and slipping her feet into her rubber soled pumps. Spraying on some deodorant and perfume, she squashes her beautiful pink dress and lingerie set into the bag, places the necklace back into its box and then zips it up.

Khalas. Time to say goodbye.

Exiting the bathroom as quietly as she entered, Leila takes one last look at Moe’s peaceful expression and turns away before tears begin to form in her eyes.

Stop being such a wimp, she thinks as she forces herself to open the bedroom door and step out into the deserted upstairs hallway. She is glad she had enough sense to bring rubber soled shoes that will reduce the chances of her making enough noise to wake him (or God forbid, someone else) up. All the doors in the hallway are closed and although Leila is dying to peek into some of the rooms, she controls herself in case there are any other people living there, despite Moe promising that no one else was at home.

Walking down the magnificent marble stairs and absorbing the crystal chandeliers and intricate stained glass window, Leila wonders if she has made a terrible mistake by approaching her relationship with Moe as nothing more than a little fun on the side. Had she put up the innocent act a little longer, had she packaged herself as the perfect wife, perhaps he would have wanted her enough to marry her? She stops at the foot of the stairs and looks around her at the beautiful artwork and ornate marble with wonder. Imagine if she could wake up to such splendour every morning.

Don’t be stupid. You met him in a club. You gave him a you-know-what the same night. You were nothing more than a bit of meat for him. You ruined it before it even began.

Her limbs aching from the indoor sports and her heart heavier than ever, Leila tells herself that she made the most of her situation. She had a 50,000 dirham diamond necklace in her handbag and was obviously better off than she was when she met him. Straightening her back and holding her head up high, Leila decides to just go home and enjoy the memories she had created instead of skulking around the villa wondering about what might have been.

The front door is heavy and creaks as she pulls it open. Wincing, she steps out into the cool, desert night and closes it behind her. Inhaling deeply and enjoying the fresh scent of the mysterious desert plants all across the driveway, she looks back at the enormous villa and smiles. This will be one interesting story to tell her daughters one day.

A roar fills the garden and Leila jumps, almost dropping her handbag. She spins around and then squints as a bright light shines on her face. Like a deer caught in headlights, she freezes, wincing at the intensity of the spotlight and wondering if there is a guard with a gun about to shoot her down.

The lights turn off and so does the deafening roar, leaving Leila in complete darkness and silence once again, and she blinks rapidly, trying to adjust her vision, her ears still ringing. The hair on her arms begin to prickle and as her eyes adjust to the moonlight, she realises that the lights did, indeed, belong to a car. And not just any car, but what appears to be a Ferrari.

Staring at the familiar car but still not registering where she has seen it before, she tries to see who is at the driver’s seat, the tinted windscreen preventing her from doing so. Perhaps it is Moe’s parents back early from their vacation. It is too late to hide behind a palm tree, and all she can do now is walk away as gracefully as possible. How she hates walks of shame.

Feeling more than a little awkward, she quickly begins shuffling towards the gate, but as she passes the Ferrari, she realises with a shock that it is pink. Stopping in her tracks, she stares at it again, not caring that it could potentially be Moe’s father. Something just doesn’t feel right. A million thoughts begin racing through Leila's confused mind and through the dark tints, she eventually makes out the silhouette of a woman. Still disoriented, before she can control herself, she raps on the window. There can’t be only one pink Ferrari in the whole of Dubai…but then, she has never seen more than one before.

Anger begins to boil within, and Leila raps on the window again, this time with her fist not her knuckles. It can't be her, she desperately tells herself, panic racing through her system. When there is no answer, she tries the door and it swings open, revealing exactly who she was afraid she would find.

Her face red with fury, her mouth dry and her eyes wide with shock, Leila clenches her fists and forces herself not to react until she knows precisely what is happening.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she manages to hiss as Lady Luxe, the woman she once described as her friend, stares back at her, with eyes full of guilt.

Chapter Twenty-Five – Omitting isn't the same as lying…is it?

2010-01-11T21:51:00.005+03:00

I have moments when I absolutely love living in Dubai and lately, they're not as few and far between as they were when I first moved out here. I still have major issues with a lot of things (namely the blatant discrimination, the hierarchical system and lack of transparency) but I've realised that since I'm stuck here for the duration of my contract, I may as well just enjoy whatever I can, while I can. It's not all woe and doom. I love the abundance of halal food, I secretly love the pampering lifestyle (I've been to the salon to get a mani and pedi again after 24 years of never being bothered) and I love the Muslim facilities. Being able to pray just about anywhere definitely beats having to pull over at a service station or take refuge behind a tree.

In ode to this realisation, I have decided to take the plunge and hire a car. I've never owned a car before and relied mainly on Travelcards to get around London. Occasionally I managed to nick my brother's Golf, or persuade my dad to insure me on his Galaxy (which didn’t quite capture my young, single spirit with its seven seats and rumbling diesel engine), but most of the time I made do with buses and tubes. Naturally I can’t help but feel excited at the prospect of having my own (okay, not technically my 'own' but as good as) set of wheels.

The rental man actually brings the car right to my doorstep, I complete the necessary paperwork, and that's it. I now have a modern equivalent of a horse for just over a thousand Ds a month.

After the dude leaves, I stand there in the dimly lit basement car park, staring at the brand new Toyota Yaris and wondering how I'm supposed to drive the fragile little thing around this monstrous city. Sheikh Zayed Road in particular scares the crap out of me. In the UK, whenever I was forced to drive on the motorway, I'd get palpitations when I had to actually join it, terrified that I wouldn't find the right gap at the right time to squeeze in before the lane ran out. When I did finally manage to get on it, I'd sit myself in the middle lane, too scared to switch, even if it did mean being stuck behind someone crawling along at 60 mph.

Pushing aside my fears, I mutter various prayers and verses from the Qur'an under my breath and decide to see if I can make it from JBR to the Springs in one piece. I get in and sit there for a moment, disorientated. Something just isn't right. Realising that the steering wheel is actually on the other side and feeling more than a little stupid, I climb over to the left side of the car and strap myself up. I feel queasy already. How am I supposed to drive on the wrong side of the road? Reading a few more prayers just to be on the safe side, I turn on the engine and carefully navigate my way out of the car park, thankful that at least I don't have to fuss around with gears.

The first time I got behind the driver's seat was with Jayden and my attempt at driving was pitiful to say the least. He had borrowed his brother's Beemer for the day and rolled up on campus like he was some kind of G, blaring hip hop out of the open windows, the ground shaking under the force of the subwoofers.

"Aight Shorty? Wanna ride?" he purred, pulling up next to me, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and flashing me a bright smile.

"I ain't that kinda girl," I teased, flicking my hair over my shoulders and pretending to be offended. He continued following me and I gave up the pretence, laughing as I walked over to the car.

A group of Asian girls with massive hoop earrings and tight jeans stopped to stare, expressions of shock disfiguring their otherwise pretty faces. It was obvious that they couldn’t believe that the fittest guy on campus had just stopped his pimped out ride to let in the clumsy Asian girl who never spoke to them.

I never ignored the Asian gang at Uni out of spite, but I guess after hanging out with my cousins in the weekends and spending evenings with my family, I was all Asian-ed out by the time I got to Uni and preferred meeting people from different realities instead. For me, University was supposed to be about making new friends, broadening horizons and going out of my comfort zone, so I made an active effort to get to know those who weren't from my part of the world.

Plus, the Asian girls at Uni just weren't my cup of masala chai. Some of them were living away from home for the first time, others were in a mixed-gender environment for the first time and they just didn't know how to handle the freedom that they were suddenly granted with. I wasn't perfect myself and I did my fair share of messing around, but these girls had a sort of wildness about them – and it unnerved me.

"Slut," one of them hissed at me the moment I got into the passenger seat. Her taunt felt like a physical assault and I took a deep breath, nerves clawing at my stomach. I whipped my head round to see who it was, but all five of the girls were whispering, looking at me like I was a prostitute being picked up for a quickie.

No words came to my mind as I looked at them with their shiny straightened hair and layers of lip gloss. Was what I was doing really deserving of that label? I didn’t have to say anything though. The driver's door was flung open and Jayden stepped out of the car, towering over the group with his six-foot frame.

"Is there a problem, ladies?" he asked, his tone pleasant but the steely glint in his narrowed eyes saying otherwise.

There was a silence as he continued to literally look down on them, looking more than a little imposing in his black hoodie over a tight white vest and dark blue jeans, his trademark diamond stud decorating his left earlobe. Most of the time I wished he didn’t look like such a hoodlum and made more of an effort to look respectable but that chilly Autumn morning, I was quite happy that his bark was far worse than his bite.

The girls remained silent and Jayden smiled, his lanky arms folded casually over his chest.

"Good. I thought not. But disrespect my girl again and there's gonna be beef." Turning around, he swaggered back to the car, revved up the engine and we drove away, my heart pounding after the confrontation.

"J, do you really think it was a good idea to intimidate them like that?" I asked eventually as we left the de Havilland campus behind us, drove through the quiet Hatfield streets and back into London through windy A-Roads. Although our university campus wasn't part of London, it was only a 20-minute train journey from King's Cross so I usually took the train there unless someone was kind enough to offer me a lift. It got a little tedious, especially as getting to King's Cross took me half an hour on the bus, sometimes more, and that's not including the often cold and wet wait at the bus stop.

I tried to broach the car subject with my dad once. All he did was raise his eyebrow and mutter, "When I was your age I'd ride my bike to university in 30 degrees heat."

After that emphatic response, I pretty much gave up and resigned myself to a life of running after the bus.

"Me? Intimidate them? Surely you jest," Jayden joked as he leaned back against the leather seat and casually placed his left arm across my shoulders, using his right to control the steering wheel.

"Come on J, not everyone knows that you're not a thugged out G but actually a sensitive nerd who smashes all his exams," I retorted with a laugh, leaning over to yank the baseball cap off his head. "Maybe you could try losing the diamond earring…"

"Look, I'm not going to change my style just because people are too ignorant to look beneath the surface," he suddenly snapped, snatching the cap back. "Yes, I'm black, yes I like my gangster rap, yes, I prefer my jeans baggy but that doesn't automatically make me a thug."

"No it doesn't, but bullying a bunch of girls does!" I retort unfairly. Just half an hour earlier, I was glad that he gave off that vibe but his sudden defensiveness irritated me. Maybe because I was tired of people thinking I was going out with a rude boy. I turned to face him, about to argue more, but the sadness in his expression made me stop in my tracks.

"So you would have preferred it if I had let it go and they continued thinking you're a slut just because you're with a black guy?" he asked, glancing at me. As always, his puppy dog eyes melted away my irritation and a twinge of guilt gnawed at me for making him feel bad. He did, after all, come to my rescue.

"You have to let me fight my own battles," I said softly, leaning over to nestle my head in the crook between his arm and his chest. "Trust me, I know how to handle Asians. Getting my boyfriend on them wasn't the right move."

"S, there were five of them. Were you really gonna take them on?" he replied, softening against my touch.

"Next time let me find out," I whispered.

We sat in silence for a while, listening to the hum of the engine as we eventually entered London, the tension between us slowly melting away. I could never stay annoyed at Jayden, neither could he stay upset at me, and soon, we were laughing and joking as we usually did. We spent the rest of the drive singing along to an old Beenie Man song about a Beemer and trying to match it with reggae dance moves.

* * *

"Oh crap," I mutter to myself as I accidentally take the Jebel Ali/Abu Dhabi exit, my memories interfering with my already lacking sense of direction.

"Damn you Jayden for messing with my mind so much," I add only half jokingly as I find myself on a slip road that leads onto the dreaded Sheikh Zayed Road. There are vans to my left and my heart begins pounding as I try to speed up to pass them in order to join the highway, my lane already beginning to run out.

"Get out of my bloody way!" I yell as a truck beside me also speeds up, preventing me from joining the road. I start panicking as my own lane gets shorter and shorter. I wave at the driver to let me through, but either he can't see me or doesn't want to see me, giving me absolutely no space to enter the lane. My Yaris looks like a mouse compared to his rumbling old van and I can feel my heart thumping furiously as I finally find a tiny gap and pull into it, squeezing my eyes closed as I do so, unsure as to whether I actually have enough space to get in. The driver blares his horn at me and I open my eyes to see that I have made it, relatively unscathed.

Sighing in relief, I slump back in my seat and, as an afterthought, stick up my middle finger at the mean truck driver while trying to regulate my breath.

Once I recover from my near-death experience, I actually enjoy the freedom of driving so I open my windows and turn up the radio, wishing I could feel the wind ruffling my hair. I make do with it tickling my face as I plod along at 90 km/h, enjoying the sense of freedom. When I get used to the road, I tentatively begin switching lanes and it isn't long before I am weaving in and out of the cars like a pro, wondering why I am the only one who seems to know what the indicators are there for.

In the UK, the motorways generally operate by a uniform rule – drive in the left unless you need to overtake – and very rarely do you see people hogging the fast lane. Here though, anything goes when it comes to roads. You can overtake, undertake, intimidate people by coming right up to their bumpers and flashing your headlights until they move out the way and indicating appears to be a waste of time. You can speed down the slow lane at 180, and you can cruise down the fast lane at 100 – until someone comes up behind you and forces you to move out of the way, that is. I realise that driving in Dubai requires a lot more concentration than in London – you have to be aware of everything that is around you at all times and you have to expect people to undertake you or swerve in front of you without signalling. You can even do bizarre things like reversing around a roundabout when you miss your exit without anyone batting an eyelid.

As soon as I become comfortable with the art of driving, I start thinking about that autumn day in London again, and no matter how much I try to delete the memories from my mind, I can’t. I even try thinking about my dilemma with Goldenboy instead (I am trying to avoid him and haven't returned any of his calls since we kissed), but that doesn't help either. The scent of the upholstery, the feel of the steering wheel between my nervous hands, the sensation of finally being in control, all resonate with that morning with Jayden.

We ended up in Alexandra Palace, one of our favourite hang out (make out) spots in North London. Jayden parked by the ice rink and we walked to the actual palace and sat on the walls, feasting our eyes on the magnificent view in front of us. We could see miles and miles of London in the distance – tiny grey buildings, baby towers, all against the backdrop of a typical English blue-ish grey sky. We sat huddled together, the chilly breeze surrounding us. He wrapped his arms around me and his warmth filtered through my denim jacket and my white hoodie, heating up my skin. We didn’t talk much as we sat there, just absorbed the amazing view and enjoyed each other's physical presence.

Until I began to wonder how long our relationship would last. What would happen after University was over and my parents undoubtedly began enquiring into suitors? It had only been a couple of months since we technically got 'together' and neither of us had uttered the dreaded 'L' word. I was probably the only girlfriend in the world who adored her boyfriend but hoped he never worked up the courage to say it. Because that four-letter word would change everything.

And I wasn't ready.

To avoid voicing my growing sense of uneasiness, I jumped off the wall, grabbed Jayden's hand and pulled him back to the car. Thinking he was about to get 'tings', he happily obliged, but instead, I slid into the driver's seat and asked him to teach me how to drive. Jayden being Jayden, he readily agreed without asking any questions.

The next day, a group of Asian boys who weren't from our University turned up in Hatfield. When Jayden walked out of the campus, earphones glued to his ears, completely oblivious to the crowd that was waiting for him, they pounced. By the time they were finished, Jayden lay in a broken heap on the floor, his entire body covered with bruises, his white t-shirt smeared with cherry red.

None of us realised that this was only his first run-in with overprotective Asian boys. The worst was yet to come.

* * *

I've been driving for about forty-five minutes now and don't have a clue where I am. I know that I need to somehow go back the way I came, but every time I reach an exit, I end up driving just a little bit more. Although I'm just cruising along in a straight line, I'm enjoying the experience.

The scenery has changed and so has the road – it's now a reddish colour and the signs are describing places I've never heard of or been to. The mosques on the roadsides are beautiful, and for some reason, seem more magical than those in Dubai. Huge structures of stone with intricate domes, they look like something out of 1001 Arabian Nights and I'm tempted to pull over and have a peek in a couple.

My mobile phone rings and I answer it without checking the screen, not wanting to tear my eyes away from the road ahead of me. I'm supposed to be using a handsfree kit but whatever. The people out here don’t even wear seatbelts and their kids jump around in the front with no care in the world, so what's a lack of a headset in that context?

"Hello?" I mumble, my eyes focused on the road ahead.

"Hi."

I recognise Goldenboy's voice instantly and I curse myself for not screening the call. I have been yearning to hear his voice again and just hearing that one-syllable greeting has already melted my heart. At the same time, after our soul-connecting kiss, I'm too scared to talk to him. I'm worried that he'll wear down my barriers until I forget my ideals, my morals and everything I vowed to do (or not to do) to avoid my previous mistakes.

There is a silence as we both hold the phones to our ears, waiting for a sign from the other. My breath is stuck in my throat.

After a whole week of avoiding him, now that I am suddenly faced with him, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to explain the conflicting emotions tearing through me, the fear of deviating off the path I've set for myself… and there is no way I can explain why I am who I am today.

"I'm sorry," I blurt out, the same time he says, "I miss you."

He misses me.

Those three, sweet words mean so much to me and I find tears welling up in my eyes. There is a petrol station in the distance, and I pull into it and park up shakily. I don't tell him I miss him too, instead, I go for a safer topic and ask him what he's doing. He starts talking slowly, his voice tinged with wariness. The conversation is stilted at first but soon we're talking as normal – about work, friends, family. Everything other than that Godforsaken kiss.

The initial nervousness I felt wears off, aided by our chosen avoidance of certain subjects, so I push the seat back and fold my legs as we talk, getting comfortable. Our conversation is as sweet as his broken English. I love the way he mispronounces words. I love the way he tries to find alternative methods to explain himself when he doesn’t know the word. And I love the way he occasionally arranges his sentences the Arabic way rather than the English one. Everything about him it so endearing and all I want to do is snatch him, wrap him up in cotton wool and then place him high up on a mantelpiece, so I can stare at him forever without breaking him.

"Where are you?" he suddenly asks, and for a moment, I forget that I am sitting in my car in a petrol station, somewhere between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, not snuggled up in bed next to him.

"Um, I dunno. Somewhere near Abu Dhabi I think," I answer absentmindedly, wishing I were by his side.

"Abu Dhabi?! What the hell are you doing there? Are you alone?" His tone is angry and I frown, wondering why he's raising his voice at me.

"What's your problem? What's wrong with Abu Dhabi? And who cares who I'm with?" For some reason, I don’t want to tell him that I'm alone and I want him to think I'm with a guy. Okay, it's not 'for some reason'. It's because I want to see if I can make him jealous.

It bothers me that he hasn’t brought up the kiss. Yes, ignoring the topic did make me feel comfortable. Initially. But now I want to know why he's pretending it didn’t happen. Maybe he has no feelings for me whatsoever and all he wanted was a little fun on the side? My blood begins to boil as I work myself up over the hypothesis.

"Tell me who you're with!" he demands, his voice still raised.

"No," I answer, pissing him off further. I can hear him breathing heavily down the phone and I wonder why he's so annoyed. I've never seen this side to him and I can't imagine why he's being like this. Even if he's a little jealous, there's no reason to act so angry.

"Tell me Sugar or I swear to God I'll come and find you and kill him whoever this hmar is," he finally says.

I burst out laughing at his threat and my giggles deflate the charged atmosphere like a pin to a balloon.

"Don’t laugh at me," he mutters petulantly. "I just feel jealous okay?"

"Well don’t. I'm not with anyone, silly. I'm alone."

"You're alone? In Abu Dhabi?" His voice begins to rise again and I sigh. He senses my irritation and starts again, using a different tactic.

"It's not safe," he says, his voice softer now. "What were you thinking driving all that way by yourself? What if something happens to you? What if you need help? What if your car breaks down?"

"Don’t worry, I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself. And Abu Dhabi is hardly a dangerous place."

"You don’t know what. What if you break down and a man comes pretending to help you and kidnaps you?"

"I'll knee him in his you-know-what," I joke.

"Ataghfirulla. Why are Western girls so independent?" he laments, half to himself and half to me. I contemplate telling him off for being so quick to judge and then decide that we've had enough drama for the afternoon.

"Look, you need to calm down," I say with as much gentleness as possible. "Don’t get so worked up about things."

"I'm sorry," he apologises in a voice so quiet and regretful that I can't help but smile. His passion is actually quite cute. "But I'm an Arab guy, Sugar. You have to know that about me. I'm not Western."

"It's okay," I reply, shaking my head and still smiling. There is another silence and I wonder if all Arab guys are so overprotective. I wonder if his attitude would be stifling, and then I decide that I quite like having a knight in shining armour. I'd rather him protect me than abandon me altogether. Plus, it wasn't that long ago that I wished I could wrap him up and keep him by me forever.

"It's just…I can't bear to imagine you with another guy! It's the worst thing in the world for me," he suddenly bursts out, surprising me again.

"So don’t then," I answer glibly, trying not to take the conversation so seriously. We still haven’t discussed what happened, we still don’t know what we mean to each other, but he feels he can just come out with whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

"Sugar… I was wondering something," he begins hesitantly. I tense up immediately, not liking the sound of what he is about to come out with.

"What?"

"Have you had a boyfriend before?"

The question shocks me and I feel my face turn red, first with shame and then with anger. Who does he think he is, asking me personal questions like that when he hasn’t even made his feelings clear?

"I don’t think that's your business is it?" My voice is curt and I intend it to be that way.

"That means 'yes' doesn’t it?" he replies quietly.

"No it doesn’t, it means it's not your bloody business!"

"So does it mean 'no'?"

"Look! You're just my friend and nothing more," I begin, my blood boiling again. "You have no right to be asking me such personal questions. It's not your place and you should be ashamed of yourself."

I know I'm overreacting but I can't seem to control myself. I feel so annoyed with him for putting me on the spot and making me feel so shameful. All over again. As if I haven’t felt enough shame over everything that happened. I wonder if my past will ever let me be free.

"I'm just a friend? That's it? Do you kiss all your friends?" Although his tone is hurt, all I hear is the implication that I am loose, and then I lose it. I shout and I cry, huge blobs of water cascading down my face. I can't seem to control myself. I'm sick of being judged, sick of being labelled, sick of running, hiding, pretending.

"Just leave me alone!" I eventually gasp, before hanging up the phone, tears still streaming down my cheeks.

My heart is aching and my hands are trembling. I want to tell him that I'm falling for him. I want to tell him that he is my only ray of sunshine, my only glimmer of hope, in this strange city. I want to tell him that in his eyes I see my future.

Amongst the thousand things I want to tell him, there is one thing I definitely don't. And that's my past. It is clear from his questions that if he ever found out about my sordid history, he would never look twice at me.

A shiver runs down my spine and I burst into a new flood of tears, a sense of hopelessness overcoming me. Does this mean that I have no chance for happiness because of what happened? Does it mean that every guy I ever meet will strike me off his list because I made some mistakes?

My phone rings and I ignore it, still crying. It rings three more times, and each time, I will myself not to answer. I don’t know what I will say if I do. I don’t know whether to come clean, I don’t know whether to lie. I don’t even know if I want someone as traditional as him in my life.

With each ring though, my resolve wears thin and I wonder if I should just answer and give it a go anyway. He doesn’t have to know everything about my past. Not yet anyway. Maybe we could just be friends? The thought of losing him forever – although he has only been in my life for such a short while – numbs me. It causes an iciness to run through my veins and my stomach to contract in agony. We have only just met. I don’t know what we are doing, where we are going or what we will become. But I do know that I'm not ready to let him go completely. I can't.

I decide that if he calls once more, then I'll answer. But if he doesn't, it's over.

The minutes pass and I calm myself as I wait. The tears stop rolling, I stop hiccupping and I stop shaking. I wipe my face with tissue and blow my nose, feeling better after letting it all out. My heartbeat rises in anticipation as I wait for the phone to ring once more.

Half an hour later, I'm still sitting there with the phone in my hands. He doesn’t call back.

Chapter Twenty-Four - There's no place like home

2009-12-31T11:22:00.006+03:00

NOTE - PLEASE READ THIS FIRST!!!

Before you read onto Chapter 24, just be aware that I've changed some of Nadia's details. I've made the changes in the previous chapters as well. It just had to be done for various reasons. I know it's annoying as a reader to suddenly learn that a character is no longer something, but something else, but I guess it's gonna happen as you all participate in this journey with me and I learn new things everyday as well.

Anyway, enjoy Chapter 24 of Desperate in Dubai - my apologies for taking so long with it and I wish you all a fantastic New Year's Eve and 2010. Whether you decide to party into the new year like Lady Luxe and Leila, whether you spend it with your loved one like Sugar or with your family like Nadia...Have a good one! :)

Thank you all for your constant support and doing what you can to promote Desperate in Dubai - I really appreciate it.

Until next year :)

Ghostwriter xx

P.S If you've not read the prologue to this chapter yet, please scroll down or click on the link on the right for that first.

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Chapter Twenty-Four - There's no place like home

Nadia leans against the wall, her left hand casually placed on her suitcase's handle and her right unconsciously gripping onto her leather handbag. Her long, beige cardigan is creased after being stuffed in a suitcase for over 10 hours, and despite the extra layer, she still feels a little chilly.

She looks on at the hoards of people at Heathrow's Terminal Three, smiling as warmth fills her up from within, observing the mesh of different colours with a sense of peace in her heart. Colourful Asian women shuffle along in their traditional shalwar kameez and sarees, thick woolen shawls wrapped around their shoulders, a group of trendy Japanese students with paper straight hair and funky tights giggle together whilst taking photographs and the occasional hijabi also walks past, smiling at her in commiseration.

The airport is shabbier than she remembers, the décor dated and dull, the people void of the tiniest hint of glamour. There are no flowing black abayas gliding along the floor, no clouds of perfume lingering in the air or glistening white candouras catching her eye. Even the women that are dressed in Middle Eastern attire don't look nearly as enchanting as those in Dubai. Their abayas don't gracefully graze the floor, they don't float and they are not black. Dubai, despite being in the depths of economic ruin, is like a well-to-do woman who has recently lost her fortune but projects the illusion that her money is still intact with her classic jewellery and well-kept hair. London, it seems, is more like a working class woman who is simply too busy trying to organise her life to bother with taming her unkempt curls or manicuring her chewed-down nails.

"Nadia!" There is a flurry of red and Nadia looks up to see Yasmine hurling towards her in a bright red coat and her signature metal New Rock boots. Yasmine throws her arms around her older sister and Nadia hugs her back, a little of her sister's energy transferring to her.

"I'm so glad to see you," Nadia whispers, inhaling Yasmine's scent, memories of their childhood seeping back into her mind. She holds onto her sister for a long time, as if she is scared that she will disappear if she lets her go.

"I'm glad to see you too but you don't have to strangle me," Yasmine jokes, her voice muffled by Nadia's cardigan. She breaks away and looks up at her sister, her smile faltering as she takes in her pale skin, dark circles and protruding cheekbones. Yasmine, usually the more poorly-looking of the two with her death-white skin and fragile frame, looks radiant in comparison.

"You don't look like someone who lives in a sunny country," she notes, taking the long handle of the suitcase from Nadia and walking towards the bustling Underground station.

"Well, you know what they say about too much sun exposure. I don’t want to end up getting skin cancer, or worse, aging too quickly!" Nadia replies lightly, navigating her way around the crowds of people queuing up to buy train tickets from the various outlets.

The long, stuffy journey home down the Picadilly Line is uneventful, and other than the occasional strange look Yasmine gives her, it is almost as if she never left. Almost, not entirely, as she is now seeing everything she has seen before through new eyes. She never really noticed the conflicting scents on the Underground – soot mixed with perfume, food and body odour - nor had she paid much attention to the controversial advertisements. Her eyes fall upon a particular advert, one that appears to be quite bland at first glance, until she actually reads the writing and realises that it promotes atheism through denouncing the existence of God. She recoils as if she has been electrocuted. Shaking her head, she tells herself to snap out of it, that the bubble that she has grown accustomed to has well and truly burst. She isn't in Dubai anymore. She is no longer a religious majority. She is back to being a minority, an immigrant, and occasionally, a 'terrorist'.

After the initial shock of realising that she is no longer in a country that caters to Muslims wears off, she begins to enjoy watching the diverse mix of passengers entering and alighting the train. She enjoys being able to sit in a mixed-gender environment without every other man trying to make eye contact with her. She enjoys the fact that there is an alternative method of transport that is not under construction and is actually relatively reliable (until it rains, that is). She also enjoys the fact that on the tube, there is no hierarchy. There are no first-class compartments, no one is better than the other, no one but the elderly, pregnant or disabled gets priority over anyone else.

However, despite the sense of harmony she feels, Nadia unconsciously cannot help but keep her right hand firmly on her suitcase and her left on her zipped-up handbag. She also ensures that her pockets are completely empty and whenever anyone gets a little too close, she stiffens and draws her bag to her even closer.

"You're getting a bit precious aren’t you?" Yasmine jokes. "If you squeeze your bag any tighter it might actually shrink!" Yasmine's own bag is lying casually on the empty seat next to her, and she is playing with her phone without worrying that someone may snatch it out of her hand and run off with it.

"Am I squeezing it? I hadn’t even noticed," Nadia replies with a laugh, trying to relax her tense knuckles.

Yasmine stares at her sister, opens her mouth as if to say something and then closes it again. Worry is etched all over her face as she contemplates whether or not to confront Nadia about her obvious grief.

"What?" Nadia says eventually, tired of watching Yasmine's mouth open and close like a goldfish.

"Nothing," Yasmine replies quickly.

"Well stop staring at me then," Nadia snaps, turning her face away.

"Okay fine, it's not 'nothing'," Yasmine retorts. "I don’t know how to say this so I'm going to be blunt. Why do you look like shit?"

"When did you start saying 'shit'?" Nadia asks, mildly surprised. "I thought you always refused to swear and said 's-h-i-t' instead?"

"That's not the point so stop changing the subject. Nadia, you look like death. I've never seen you look so awful in my whole life. Even your skin has broken out and I know that only happens when you're stressed. So can you tell me what's going on?"

"Nothing's going on," Nadia lies, looking away. "If you don’t mind, could you continue your interrogation later? I'm kind of tired."

Nadia leans back against the soft blue seats and rests her head against the glass panel on her right, careful not to catch her sister's bewildered eye. She feels a pang of guilt at being so abrupt with Yasmine but really cannot bear the idea of discussing her pitiful life there and then.

Still looking away, she remembers the last time she sat on the tube, when she was overcome by nervousness and excitement simultaneously, not fear and regret. She remembers the nerves playing with her stomach, her mother clasping onto her hand, the hopes she had of starting a new life in a new country. She remembers the gnawing sensation in her guts as she waved goodbye to her family, her lower lip quivering as she willed the tears slowly brimming her eyes not to spill over. She remembers calming herself on the plane, telling herself that as much as she missed her family and her friends, it was more important to be with her husband who was also missing her, waiting for her, yearning for her.

A surge of anger rushes through Nadia and she squeezes her eyes closed and clenches her fists. She left everything behind for him. She left her mother who had no one but her daughters to lean on, she had left her friends and ventured into a land where finding people on a similar wavelength was almost impossible, and she had left her blossoming career, all for a man who openly declared that she wasn't enough.

He's promised he'll change, that we'll go for counselling together, she thinks, trying to calm herself. She struggles to remember Daniel's contrite face as she waved goodbye to him at the airport and wonders if he is enjoying her absence. She knew that leaving him in Dubai for ten whole days without her was like leaving an alcoholic alone with a bottle of rum. But the truth was, she wanted to see whether the bottle would remain untouched until she came back, if she would return to find it opened, or worse, completely empty. She also wanted to know whether he deserved an added investment of counselling. She was tired of feeling like a burden. This was his chance to prove that what they had was worth fighting for. And although most of her was hoping it was…a tiny part of her, a part she refused to acknowledge, was hoping he would cheat again, so she could cut her losses and run.

"Wake up! We're here!" Nadia opens her eyes slowly and lets them roll into focus. Yasmine is standing, balancing precariously as the train grinds to a halt while trying to prise her sister's fingers open so she can pull the suitcase off the carriage. Nadia blinks rapidly, letting go of the case and staring at Yasmine as she manages to yank the case off the train. Still disorientated, she slowly gets up as the driver instructs the passengers 'to mind the doors' just before they close. The train lurches and she falls backwards onto the passenger sitting next to her.

"Oh!" she exclaims, trying to pull herself up. Yasmine is already on the platform, shooting evil looks at her, as the train moves away, leaving a slightly dazed Nadia on someone's lap.

"I'm so sorry," she mumbles, her face beetroot as she holds onto the railing and pulls herself up. She turns around to apologise to her victim again, smiling sheepishly, but her smile freezes when she sees that the man whose lap she fell into is actually rather good looking. His skin is dark, his eyes a warm brown and his shoulders are broad and muscular. Before she can stop herself, Nadia finds her eyes moving across his body in appreciation.

"No worries," he replies, his voice as smooth as a bar of Galaxy chocolate, causing Nadia to blush further. "I'm sorry that you missed your stop."

"It's okay," Nadia says, a genuine smile appearing on her face and she takes the seat opposite and tries not to stare at him too much. "My sister will just have to wait a little until I find my way back."

"Oh right, you've just come from the airport. Will you know your way back to Arsenal?" He looks straight into her eyes, and she notices that amidst the coffee brown are tiny flecks of gold. His mouth is full and soft, and she has to drag her eyes away.

Half tempted to lie and pretend that she doesn’t have a clue how to navigate her way around the London Underground, Nadia forces herself to admit that she is actually British and lived in London for many years before she moved to Dubai.

"So you're a half Moroccan, half Algerian Brit with a sort-of American accent who lives in Dubai?" he says just as the train slows down again.

"I guess that sums me up," Nadia answers, reluctantly getting up to leave.

"Somehow, I think there's more to you than that," he replies with a half smile. "And if you wouldn’t mind letting me find out, I'd like to meet up with you while you're here. Can I give you my number?"

Nadia turns to look at him – at his big, strong hands, his chiseled cheekbones and the smooth skin on his face – wishing she could take a lot more than just his number. She takes a deep breath instead, reminding herself that in God's eyes, she is still a married woman, regardless of her husband's opinion of her or his interpretation of marriage.

"Thanks but I'd better not," she manages to say as the carriage doors open. She gives him one last smile and elegantly steps out of the train, her brief encounter with the cute black guy making her feel warm inside. Maybe her life wouldn’t be completely over if she and Daniel parted ways. Maybe I'm not as awful as Daniel makes me feel.

"God, you need to get with it," Yasmine chastises as Nadia reaches Arsenal station and they begin lugging her suitcase up the ramp, eventually emerging onto the quiet street where the station sits in between a row of small, terraced houses, like a shiny silver coin amongst a pocket full of coppers. The sky is bright blue, decorated with the occasional wisp of clouds and Nadia shivers, pulling her cardigan tight around her body, unused to the cold breeze.

"Didn’t you bring a coat?" Yasmine asks as they turn the corner and into Quill Street, the council estate rife with Bengalis, where the Ziani family happens to be one of three Arab families (unless you count the Somalis, in which case, they are one of twelve). The flats and houses are made from yellow bricks, a welcome change from the dismal brown of most council estates, and there are children playing in the streets on colourful bikes; the girls in gaudy frocks or cotton kameez's paired with frayed jeans, their slick, oiled hair glistening in the rays of light. As always, there is a scent of freshly cooked curry in the air, and Nadia's stomach rumbles in desire. She can't remember the last time she had a full meal, or even wanted to.

"Why would I own a coat in Dubai?" Nadia retorts, following Yasmine into the bright apartment. The fragrance of buttery rice lingers in the air and Nadia inhales deeply, her stomach growling once again. She pops her head into the small kitchen, her eyes falling on the table that saw many family meals, but now looks more like a magazine rack, with various journals and papers adorning it.

"Gosh, things have really changed since mum moved back to Morocco," she notes, pulling off her white trainers and tossing them next to Yasmine's collection of more interesting footwear in the hallway.

"Well, seeing as you lot pretty much left me alone here, what did you expect? The flat to still look like a family house?" Yasmine snaps, her sharp tone causing Nadia to stare at her in surprise. The sisters look at each other in silence: the older wondering if her baby sister really was okay with living all alone in a big city, and the younger wondering why her big sister looked so tortured. Neither confirmed or negated the other's fears.

Nadia leaves the kitchen, already feeling despondent. Her old home just didn't feel the same without her mother's laughter and warmth, and she is worried about the distant look in Yasmine's eyes. She has been so wrapped up in her own life, her own problems, that she never actually thought to find out if her little sister was okay.

Guilt weighing her down, she drags herself up the stairs, pushes her old bedroom door open and enters the room, glad to be home despite the changes.

She isn't prepared for the rush of emotion that follows; the wave of nostalgia, the tightening in her throat as tears begin to gather in the corners of her eyes. The small room, painted cream during the days when magnolia was the latest décor craze, looks almost exactly the same as it did when she left home and moved in with Daniel. She takes a deep breath and closes the door before walking over to her bookcase, the shelves laded with university textbooks and old CDs. On the top shelf is a picture of her and Yasmine during their Qatar days. Nadia stares at her fifteen year-old self. Her eyes were big and bright, her smile open and unassuming, her skin fresh and plump. Her curly brown hair grazed her shoulders and her arm rested casually on Yasmine's tiny shoulders.

Moving over to the full-length mirror by the window, she looks at herself, thirteen years later. Her eyes are beginning to sink into their sockets through lack of sleep, her once roundish face is now gaunt and strained, her cheekbones protrude like an iceberg and her complexion is dull and lifeless.

"Nadia! Come down and eat!" Yasmine calls from the bottom of the stairs, and Nadia is thankful for the interruption. She has come to hate looking at herself.

* * *

Nadia walks through Oxford Street, trying to avoid bumping into the crowds of shoppers, businesspeople and tourists, making sure to keep her handbag close to her at all times. The wind is strong and she wishes she had secured her brown hijab more tightly around her head. She is wearing her favourite cream coloured woollen coat and she feels snug and warm against the silk lining as she continues glancing at shop windows. She enjoys the feeling of walking in a street to shop rather than a glittery mall, although if it starts to rain she is sure she would change her mind. She takes a moment to stop outside Selfridges and looks around her, feasting her eyes on the bright red buses, the cornflower blue sky while inhaling the scent of warm waffles, and then continues walking towards Oxford Circus where she finally makes it to her favourite shop in London - the flagship Topshop store.

After two hours of fighting through serious shoppers, browsing through the clothes racks and trying on countless pairs of shoes, she emerges with four huge bags of clothes and shoes and makes her way to the Underground and back home, feeling more satisfied than she has in a long time.

It has been three days since Nadia came 'home', and she has realised that she actually missed navigating her way around pigeon poop and occasional dog droppings on the pavements on her way to the train station. She has also missed being able to walk to places rather than take taxis or coerce Daniel into dropping her. But more importantly, she has missed having family around her.

Although it has only been 72 hours since she landed in London, she can already feel a huge shift in her emotional and physical well-being. She has been sleeping through the night without waking up in a panic. She has been eating three balanced meals, and even the odd snack instead of skipping most of them and relying purely on breakfast cereal to ensure she has enough energy to move.

Her relationship with Daniel even seems to be getting better as well. Every evening, he calls her and mentions that he is missing her and that he can't wait for her to come back to him. Every morning she receives a text message proclaiming how sorry he is for all the hardship he has inflicted her with. And every time she hears from him, another pebble of hope joins the little cluster she has collected. She wonders if one day, she will have enough to build a wall around them again.

Yasmine is still completely unaware of her sister's sorry life in Dubai. Nadia has placated her with tales of long working hours, lack of friends, no family, and so far, her unassuming sibling seems to believe it.

Feeling tired after her day of shopping, Nadia takes a bucket bath (the weak water pressure making it impossible to have a decent shower), changes into flannel pyjamas and makes herself a mug of hot chocolate, feeling sinful after taking a sip of the thick, creamy cocoa but tells herself that she needs to gain weight anyway. She sits on the soft, faded canary yellow sofa and sinks into the cushion, her hands clasped around her mug, keeping them warm. She glances over at the bookshelf, wondering if she should pick one of Yasmine's many literary books to read, and then decides against it. She's not in the mood for something so heavy - and the only other alternative in Yasmine's extensive book collection is Manga, which she also opts against.

As loneliness begins to surround her, Nadia regrets declining Yasmine's invitation to join her with some friends for sushi. She hadn't wanted to impose on her little sister's group of friends and to be honest, wasn't particularly fond of most of them, with the exception of Sugar. Now, she is wishing she had. For when she is alone, she is plagued with thoughts about her uncertain future.

Taking out her laptop, she tells herself she will only check her own emails - not her husband's, although in her heart, she knows she will have a peek eventually. He had, of course, changed his password, oblivious to the fact that Nadia used her key logging device to learn all of them again. He still thinks that he had accidentally chosen Google chrome to save all his passwords and Nadia is glad that he was inventive enough to reach his own conclusion without delving too deep into the reality.

As she browses through the various forwarded mails in her inbox, she comes across one that she has been avoiding for a week, and as such, has not even opened it yet. However, the pangs of loneliness, together with the nostalgia she is experiencing being back at home, inspire her to finally open it.

7obbi,

I understand why you feel compelled to ignore my messages and calls. As always, you have been far better than the men in your life, so it is only natural that you would respect your status as someone's wife despite the fact that he disrespects his own status as a husband.

All I want to say is this – I am willing to wait for you however long it takes, just like you were willing to wait for me all those years ago. But please, I need to know, should I wait, and should you leave your undeserving husband, should fate open the doors for us again – would you be willing to come back to me?

Just reply 'yes' or 'no' if you cannot bring yourself to write anything else. And if it is the latter, I will respect your decision and will omit myself from your life.

Yours,

Y

Nadia's hot chocolate is now lukewarm, but she takes a sip of it anyway, allowing it to soothe her sore throat. Yet another decision she has to make. Another option to add to the mess that is her life.

She cannot help but feel annoyed as she re-reads his pompous words. He was always dramatic. Why is he putting her through this torture when he knows she is suffering enough? Couldn’t he have waited for her to come back to him instead of forcing a decision out of her? Yes, he said he would wait – but he wanted to know if there was any point in waiting. He still wanted a decision.

She hits 'reply' and with her fingers poised on the keyboard, she waits for some kind of divine sign that will guide her. Would replying 'yes' count as cheating? Would it make her the same scum as Daniel? But replying 'no' would cut off the last, fragile tie she has with her childhood love – a tie she is not sure she is ready to let go.

Nadia's phone beeps with an incoming text message. She is relieved at the interruption and gets up to retrieve the phone. Upon seeing Daniel's name on the screen, she lets herself out onto the veranda and leans against the cold brick wall, pausing to watch a train go by on the rail tracks behind the flat, before she eventually musters up the courage to open it. Although Daniel has been messaging her every day, each time she sees his name, her heart lurches with fear. She never knows what to expect. It could be anything from an apology to a talaq.

Whatever the message is will decide what your answer to Yusuf will be, Nadia tells herself, closing her eyes for a fleeting moment.

Hey babe, just wanted to see how you're doing. I'm still missing you, still wish you hadn't left me. But then, it's good you did. It's reminded me that I didn’t know what I had…until it had gone.

Nadia smiles and heads back indoors. Feeling more self-assured and confident than she had just ten minutes earlier, she reopens her laptop and sends Yusuf a resounding 'no'. Things between her and Daniel were finally looking up. He was open to communication, he was willing to change and he realised what he had being doing was so wrong. For her to tell another man to wait for her wouldn’t be fair to her marriage.

Within seconds, she receives a reply from Yusuf. A simple 'okay'. No flowery words, no profound testaments, just a four-lettered, two-syllable goodbye. Instead of feeling as though a weight has been lifted, Nadia feels an immense sadness at the end of another era. The first time she said 'hello' to Yusuf was eighteen years ago, when he was a shy, eleven year-old boy hiding behind his mother with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

She never thought that their 'goodbye' would be quite so…short.

She wonders how he felt when he received her 'no'. If he was relieved at being able to move on with his life, or if he was sad to lose her all over again. She tries to imagine his face, but finds that she cannot. She doesn't know what he looks like. All she can envision is the childhood version.

Nadia is tired of crying lost tears. Instead, she logs out of her email and logs into Daniel's, hoping that the contents will affirm that she has made the right choice.

Her eyes flickering through the various names, she learns with relief that there is nothing there. Feeling a little guilty at doubting him, she is just about to sign out when an email comes through. An email from her old friend Sophie. The buxom Emirates Airline Stewardess whom she met at university.

For a moment, Nadia forgets that she is in Daniel's inbox and not her own. Then she remembers, and her heart beginning to sink, she opens it up and devours the short paragraph left on the screen.

Daniel,

Last night was a terrible mistake. A combination of too much to drink and stupidity. On both our parts. Please don't tell Nadia what happened – I'd hate for our friendship to be ruined because of this. Please don't contact me again.

Her hands trembling, she marks the message as 'unread'. What exactly happened? A hug? A kiss? More? Worry filling her veins, she begins to go through all his emails again – carefully this time. There is nothing incriminating in the inbox, so she heads over to the sent items instead where she finds a message, from Daniel to his colleague Anastasia, called 'productive.'

There is only one line in the email, and an attachment.

Lol, looks like neither of us have been doing much work ;)

Nadia opens the attachment to find an image of a 'print screen', displaying Daniel's sent items from his work email. There are over 30 messages sent to Anastasia, who Nadia remembers to be a colleague, all within an hour. This is the same Anastasia who Nadia had cooked for on many occasions. The same one who needed money urgently to send to Russia last month for her mother's operation, which Nadiahad happily provided. The same Anastasia who Nadia assumed was merely Daniel's colleague, and nothing more.

First Sophie and now this.

Nadia's head begins to throb and she pauses a moment, holding her head in her hands and pressing her temples, wishing the pain would go away. She had really thought it would have taken Daniel more than a few days to go back to his old ways. She wonders if she is just being melodramatic, if all men were programmed to behave in such a manner, if there really was no way for a man to be satisfied by one woman.

Breathing deeply, Nadia's shaking hand moves the mouse pointer back to 'inbox.' There is another email there, waiting to be ready, but she is doesn't know if she wants to look at it. They say ignorance is bliss, so wouldn't it be better to just ignore it? She knows enough. She knows that Daniel will not - or cannot - change. Does she really have to know more than that?

Yes.

She presses the tab before she can change her mind and sees that there is another email from Sophie. Perhaps Daniel was using his email at the same time as she. She smiles wryly at the irony. She is finally connected to her husband, finally on the same page. Just not in life, but online.

She is too scared to open the mail and part of her doesn't even want to know what it contains. But she knows she has to look, she has to know what is happening. She has to know whether or not to go back to her husband.

She reads Daniel's reply first.

Thanks for your email. I hope you got home safely this morning. If you hadn’t disappeared while I was in the shower, I would have dropped you.

I agree, Nadia needn't know about what happened – but as for never contacting you – how can I not? I have admired you from afar for a long time now and last night was unbelievably sweet. Nadia gets back from London next week – why don’t we just enjoy the next few days together while we can?

Nausea clings to Nadia's stomach and she pushes her laptop aside and runs to the bathroom, where she retches into the toilet bowl, her stomach aching with every contraction, until there is nothing but bile remaining. She continues to throw up, her mouth stinging with acid, water running down her nose, her eyes bloodshot, her knees sore on the ice-cold tiled floor.

He wants to fuck her until I come back. He sent me a message telling me he missed me and then emailed her to arrange more of what he got last night.

Her body eventually stops heaving, and she lies on the bathroom floor for some time, the coldness soothing her burning skin, breathing heavily.

She gave up her life in London for this. She gave up Yusuf for this.

As the weakness subsides, rage begins to take control over her body. Holding onto the toilet seat, she hoists herself up, washes her face and brushes her teeth, glancing at her reflection as she does.

Something has died in Nadia's eyes. The softness has been replaced by steel. She is tired of being nice, caring Nadia. She is sick of being a pushover. She will never let any man make her feel weak again.

She goes back to the living room and curls up on the sofa once again. But this time, instead of letting grief overcome her, she focuses her emotions on her anger instead. Daniel has taken advantage of her one too many times.

This time, she will get her revenge.

Chapter Twenty-Four - Prologue

2009-12-30T15:47:00.003+03:00

The apartment is silent, with the exception of his gentle snores and her steady breathing. His skin is white and clammy, hers is dark and silky, and their limbs are intertwined like true lovers; her leg over his hips, her arm over his chest, and if it were not for the stark contrast in colours, an onlooker would not have been able to decipher where she ended and he began.

She stirs, moving as she does, and her slight movement awakens him from his peaceful slumber. He blinks, letting his eyes sharpen into focus and then stiffens when he feels her soft skin beside him. His heart begins to pound as he desperately runs through the previous night's events. He remembers getting ready to go clubbing with his friends. He remembers dancing, colours, girls, sweat, music, lights, drinks. So many drinks. He remembers falling out of a taxi.

And then blackness.

He turns to look at the time. 05:15. He is too afraid to look at her, too afraid to confirm what he has done.

His throat is dry, but he is reluctant to disengage himself from her to go and get a glass of water. His mouth tastes like stale beer, and it takes him a while to realise that he also smells like it as well.

If he moves she will wake up.

And then he will have to look at her. And, worse, he will have to talk to her.

He closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep. Things will be better in the morning. The sunlight will dispel the nightmare as it does darkness. His eyes become laden with sleep, and he turns over and presses his body against hers, enjoying the sensation of skin against skin.

Maybe it didn't have to be over.

Chapter Twenty-Three – Two for the price of one - Part 2

2009-12-04T00:27:00.012+03:00

Jennifer climbs out of the Porsche Cayenne, teetering slightly in cheap bubblegum pink patent stilettos. She snaps her chewing gum loudly, pulls up her grey skinny jeans in order to avoid exposing an unsightly bum crack and flicks her long, blonde hair over her shoulder. Readjusting her gaudy silver boob tube, she looks back at the other two who are still fiddling around with their sheilas, a nauseous look on her face.

"Don't worry, everything's perfect," Moza assures her, following her out of the car, looking ridiculous even for Dubai standards in her huge Chanel sunglasses... at nine in the evening. Lady Luxe is next, her face completely covered in an opaque niqab, with only her eyes peeking through the slits in the cloth. Handing over the car to the valet outside the imposing yet rather comical hotel, she joins her cousin in walking up to the entrance, taking a second to look up at the huge salmon pink building, wondering what the architect was smoking when he conceived the idea. She hasn't been there since the grand opening party as quite frankly, she wasn't impressed by the weird, colourful structures and the shoddy finishing. It is the last place anyone she knows would expect her to grace, and therefore absolutely perfect for tonight's rendezvous.

"As fine as a chav can look, you mean?" Jennifer - also known as Rowdha - jokes, blowing a big bubble with her gum, trying to soothe her static nerves.

"Darling, you'd put any Sharon or Tracy to shame," Moza says in an over-exaggerated poncy accent, following her sister into the hotel. "Now, just remember, we'll be right there the whole time. We'll give you around 15 minutes with him before Exhibit A, we'll send over Exhibit B ten minutes after that, and then the final showdown will happen when you give us the go ahead."

"And remember that he doesn't know a single thing about Jennifer other than the fact that she's Emirati, she dances like Pussycat Doll and she drives a black Cayenne," Lady Luxe adds, excitement rippling through her veins. The afternoon's drama, combined with the knots of anxiety in her stomach and countless sleepless nights, has suddenly caused an unexpected reaction within. Adrenaline has replaced the tension, and she feels sharp, strong and in control - much like her previous scheming self. She is tired of feeling weak, tired of being intimidated and tired of feeling used. Okay, so she can't do much about Mola at present - but she can do something about that sneaky little bastard Humaid. He isn't the only one with contacts at Etisalat, nor is he the only one with wasta. In fact, she is far higher up in the food chain and tonight, he would learn the hard way that no one messes with Lady Luxe - especially not a horny, pubescent Emirati with far too much money and not enough class.

"Got it," Rowdha says. "So I can basically say or do whatever I want. Yalla, I'm ready for this. I'm going down... see you later." She suppresses the urge to leg it back to the car and walks away, her long, blonde wig swishing behind her and her heels clattering on the pink marble floors.

Moza and Lady Luxe sink down on a bench by the colourful statue of a sea amoeba and say nothing for a moment, absorbed in their thoughts.

"Do you think this is going to work?" Lady Luxe finally asks, breaking the peaceful silence. Although she is no longer riddled with fear of having her entire life exposed, she is still on edge. She is relying on Plan B to solve the Humaid issue once and for all, and if it does work, then she can go back to concentrating on bringing Leila down – something she has been dying to do ever since the annoying, gold digging cow hoisted herself onto a throne.

"Actually," Moza replies slowly, "I do. It's obvious what kind of guy Humaid is. He's two-faced and shallow like the rest of them. By the time we're through with him, he'll never show his face in Za'abeel again."

"Ameen to that," Lady Luxe hails, standing up and stumbling slightly, unable to see properly through the tiny gap in the cloth. How women cover their faces on a daily basis to hide their beauty is beyond her comprehension. Already she feels as though she is being smothered. Besides, hiding a face like hers from the public would be a great pity, she decides. She simply cannot imagine being so completely anonymous, or not having men constantly admire her. Nor can she imagine a world where she is a nobody.

"You should have just worn sunglasses like me," Moza says, looking far more graceful as she stands up. "They'll be easier to take off later as well."

"I'd rather be a clumsy munaqqaba than a refined fashion victim," her cousin retorts, making her way down the long hallway and concentrating on watching where she is going. She realises that in niqab, she cannot simply look down with her eyes – doing so results in her vision being obscured by cloth and she actually has to move her entire head to see her feet. They walk slowly for a couple of metres before Moza stops in her tracks, causing her cousin to bump into her.

"Watch it," Lady Luxe complains. "I can't see properly as it is."

"Look, there they are!" Moza whispers urgently, pulling Lady Luxe behind a glittery gold column. "In the lounge. Look!"

Lady Luxe peers around the column and sees Rowdha sitting on the far end of the glitzy room, facing the entrance. Humaid is sitting opposite her, dressed in the very same outfit as that afternoon. Bastard, Lady Luxe thinks again with hatred.

"So what shall we do?" she whispers, unable to tear her eyes away from the pair, desperately trying to read Rowdha's impassive facial expressions. "Hide here until it's time?"

"Well we can't exactly go in there like this," Moza replies, also trying to see what is happening between her sister and the two-faced twit. "…we'll stand out like prossies in a mosque. Let's just wait here."

"Okay, let me send some text messages," Lady Luxe murmurs, forcing her eyes to look away, her heart pounding in anticipation. "Almost time for Exhibit A."

* * *

Rowdha sits next to Humaid feeling more uncomfortable than she does at her quarterly smear tests. As much as she enjoys talent spotting and the occasional flirting, this is the first time in five years that she has left her home in something so revealing – not to mention tacky. With her post-baby figure, it isn't exactly flattering either. Even back in her slightly wilder days, her antics were always conducted in Western countries - never, ever in Dubai. She has never understood how her cousin could easily plonk a wig on her head and then mess around practically in her own back garden. That girl had far too much courage. If she had been more sensible in her choice of venue – and, of course, friends - they wouldn't have been in this precarious situation.

Her throat dry and her palms clammy, she fidgets in her seat, pulling up her top to reveal less of a plunging, mother-of-two cleavage and tries not to make her awkwardness so obvious.

This is also her first (and last, she swears) 'date' whilst being married - something she never dreamt she would do. Although her presence is not voluntary, and nor is it really a date, she can't help but feel as if she is doing something terribly wrong. She tries to tell herself that she isn't cheating, but sitting there at the Atlantis with another man who is trying to let his knee touch hers, she gets the feeling that her husband wouldn't agree.

"You look a little different today," Humaid notes, his eyes flickering over Rowdha's thicker eyebrows, her bigger mouth, her rounder face.

No kidding, Sherlock, she thinks to herself, suppressing a yawn and trying to follow the bimbo slut brief she has been given.

"Really? Well, you did see me in the dark," she giggles, chewing her gum loudly. "But then, most guys do see me in the dark. I hardly ever go out with guys during the day. I don't look very pretty in natural light." She says this with such nonchalance that Humaid actually believes the statement to be true. Weird, definitely, but true all the same.

"Is that so?" Humaid leans forwards, unashamedly trying to look down her top. "You look fine to me."

He is a little too close for comfort, close enough for Rowdha to smell his spicy oud and she moves back as much as she can, another wave of guilt rippling through her. Please God, forgive me for this, she pleads, taking a sip of her tea.

"So how come you've taken so long to get back to me?" he asks, his gaze still fixated on her chest. Rowdha shrinks further into herself, feeling completely naked. How women walk around wearing next to nothing is beyond her. She makes a mental note to ask her promiscuous cousin how she brings herself to wear such skimpy clothing – assuming she gets out of this mess relatively unscathed, that is.

"You know how it is. So many guys, so little time," she laughs, discreetly wiping her palms on her jeans. "I mean, all of last week, I had to like, you know, go out with this Saudi guy who pays for all my plastic surgery. And then the week before there was this American guy who took up all my time. This is like, literally the first free night I've had in a long time."

"Oh." For once, Humaid is speechless. Is she a prostitute, he wonders, partly intrigued, partly repulsed.

"Are you a -" he begins, his voice rising in indignant excitement.

"No!" Rowdha laughs, slapping her thighs. "Well, not literally. I don't charge for sex but I do accept gifts, if you know what I mean." She winks at him, and he feels his tea rise up his oesophagus. What happened to the classy girl from the club? After all that time he waited for her to finally yield to his pursuit, he was expecting a woman with a little more decorum. But then, what did he expect from a club-whore whose best friend liked to bestow 'favours' on innocent men in dark alleys?

As they continue to talk, Rowdha dropping more and more references to previous 'boyfriends', Humaid starts to wonder if this is all a big joke, if Jennifer is actually trying to put him off. Surely no woman – prostitute or otherwise – would behave with such indignity in public unless she had an ulterior motive.

"Leila told me you're Emirati," he states, narrowing his eyes and looking at her face for a change. The accusation comes like a drawn gauntlet and Rowdha wonders whether to admit she is, or to lie a little more.

"Oh Lord no!" Rowdha exclaims, choosing the latter and guffawing loudly.

"That's what she said," he protests in defiance, scowling.

"That's what she thinks," Rowdha replies conspiringly. "Actually, to be honest, my father is Emirati. My mother is Indian. She was his housemaid."

"Your mother was a housemaid?"

"Yes, but it was a very long time ago. We actually have a history of maids in the family. My grandmother and great-grandmother were both maids back in India."

"You're half Indian?"

"So?"

Humaid leans back in this seat, clearly exhausted by the conversation, finally beginning to realise that Jennifer isn't worth his time at all. However, after all those days he spent fantasising about her, along with the pent-up sexual energy following the meeting with his future wife, he wonders whether to just screw her and leave her anyway. She is practically a prostitute anyway and probably won't be too difficult to lure into his car. But there is no way he will actually pay for her services – with money or gifts. No, after wasting his thoughts and his time, she owes him this. And he always makes sure that his rights are fulfilled.

Rowdha is also shattered. The story-telling was a little fun after she got over her initial sense of guilt, but now, it is just plain tiring. She hasn't told so many stories since her children were small, demanding bedtime tales before going to sleep, and even that was a chore. She is hoping however, that the plan is working and Humaid is too disgusted with Jennifer to pursue her further.

"Jennifer! Darling! How are you?" Rowdha looks up to see a small, Filipino man with high cheekbones and short, spiky hair stride over to her. He is wearing a bright pink shirt and tight jeans, and as he comes closer, she notices that the tips of his hair are ice-blonde.

"Jose!" she squeals, jumping up from her seat and throwing her arms around him. "Oh my God, it's been SO long!" She beams at him and playfully ruffles his hair.

"Who's this?" Humaid asks sharply, a little put out by the interruption. He was just about to begin enticing Jennifer to accept a ride. Home, that is.

"Humaid, meet my old friend Jose," Rowdha gushes, still grinning. Despite meeting Jose for the very first time, she is thrilled to see him and thankful for the interruption. "Jose, this is Humaid. My boyfriend."

Humaid almost chokes on his drink.

"Nice to meet you," he splutters, too shocked at Rowdha's statement to be insulted by the presence of a khaneeth.

"Jose, you have to join us," Rowdha declares, pulling his slender arm and forcing him into the seat beside her.

"Oh, I don’t know," Jose says, smiling a bright, toothy smile and covering his baby face with his hands. "I don’t want to impose…."

"You're not imposing, you have to stay for a bit."

"Okay, if you absolutely insist," Jose huffs, sitting down and putting his arm around Rowdha's shoulders. "So tell me darling, how are you? As in, how are you really?"

"I'm fine," Rowdha says, imploring him with her eyes to be quiet.

"You're such a strong little thing," he continues with raw emotion, pulling a silk handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbing the corner of his right eye delicately.

"It was just a cold," Rowdha says through clenched teeth, pretending to be annoyed. She kicks Jose under the table, accidentally-on-purpose kicking Humaid instead.

"Ouch!" Humaid exclaims, bending down to rub his sore ankle. "What the hell was that for?"

"Sorry, my foot must have slipped," Rowdha says quickly, throwing Jose a quick warning look, one that does not go amiss by the increasingly suspicious Humaid. "Anyway Jose, don’t you have somewhere you have to be?" she says, all the warmth in her voice gone as she stares daggers at him.

"Right. Yes. I better go. Hope your…..'cold' goes away soon."

Humaid stares at Jose's retreating back in confusion. Although he is not the sharpest knife in the kitchen, he is perceptive enough to realise that there is something going on – something he is not supposed to know. Jennifer is obviously sick, but is trying to hide it from him. He rubs his swollen ankle again, befuddlement written all over his otherwise attractive face.

"What's wrong with you?" he asks, out of curiosity more than genuine concern.

"Nothing!" Rowdha snaps, folding her arms and looking away.

They sit in stony silence for a while, Humaid trying to understand exactly what was going on while Rowdha suppresses the smile that is aching to form on her scowling lips. The tension is thick enough to slice, and Rowdha is enjoying his obvious discomfort.

She opens her mouth to begin talking, but before she can, there is a sudden movement in the lounge, and she looks up to see a vaguely attractive girl in a plain black abaya descend upon her table.

"Can I help you?" Rowdha asks politely.

"Galeelat al sharaf," the girl hisses in Arabic, hatred clouding her dark eyes.

Man, this girl is good, Rowdha thinks to herself, looking forward to seeing what would happen next. "What's your problem? Do I know you?"

"What's going on?" Humaid intervenes weakly, his head beginning to pound. All he wanted was to spend time with the sexy, fiery little thing from the club, but the girl who snatched his hat and danced with him was so different from the one who now sat opposite him. This girl wasn't fiery, she was rude. She wasn't sexy, she was annoying. And she definitely wasn't a little thing. In fact, she seemed to be a lot older than he expected. He sighs, wishing he hadn't wasted so much time on her, but reluctant to let her go completely without getting anything in return.

"You might not know me, but you certainly know my husband don't you?" The girl spits, bringing her face so close to Rowdha's that she can smell her cigarette breath. "Don’t try and deny it. I recognise you from the picture he has, you cheap whore."

"I don’t know what you're talking about," Rowdha says defiantly, glancing over at Humaid who is looking shocked all over again.

"Don't fucking lie to me!" The girl screams in English. The other guests in the lounge turn around to stare, but the girl either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. "Don’t fucking insult me anymore! You gave him herpes you dirty bitch! And now I have them too!"

There is a stunned silence while the other guests stare in open-mouthed horror. Rowdha says nothing, her face turning red. The girl is so convincing that she almost feels as if she actually does have the disease. Humaid's face turns greens.

"I hope you rot in hell," the local girl chokes out, her eyes wild with fury. She turns to leave, and then stops mid-movement. Hesitating slightly, she turns to spit on Rowdha's lap before striding away, leaving behind an atmosphere of disgust and embarrassment.

Rowdha doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. The girl was amazing but here she is, sitting with a stupid jerk, wearing dodgy clothes, saliva decorating her lap while the entire lounge ogles her as if she is one of those ugly monkeys with their bums hanging out in Al Ain Zoo.

"What the hell," Humaid mutters, his hands shaking. "You have herpes?"

"Yes," Rowdha says in a quiet voice, looking down. "I don’t know how I got it or where it came from. That's why I didn’t want to meet you. I didn’t want you to get it. It's so painful and so sore. I have blisters all over my –"

"Okay! I get it!" Humaid interrupts, bile rising to the back of this throat. To think he almost…

"I'm so upset!" Rowdha chokes, her voice beginning to wobble. "I don’t know what to do!" Before Humaid can respond, she gets up and plants herself on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and sobbing into his chest.

"Get off me," Humaid mutters in disgust, trying to disentangle himself. The evening has been nothing like how he expected and he no longer knows what to do. Should he push her to the floor and leave? Wait for her to stop crying and then leave?

"What do we have here?"

The voice is familiar and Humaid is almost too scared to look up. He has had enough drama for one evening. His eyes focus on a pair of sparkly sandals, an abaya hem grazing them gently. With baited breath, he looks up, his eyes moving past the length of the abaya and up to the girl's face. When he sees who it is, all the blood leaves his face. The poor, innocent girl he was thinking about marrying looks at him with undisguised disappointment. Her cousin stands next to her, disapproval etched all over her face.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," Moza says, venom lacing her words. Her phone ready in her hand, she takes a picture of Humaid sitting there with a blonde bundle on his lap. "I'll be sure to show this to Mohamed's father."

"Wait! I didn’t do anything! She just – " Humaid struggles to push Rowdha off his lap, but she clings on even tighter, her body heaving with laughter masquerading as sobs.

"Goodbye," Lady Luxe says softly, before turning on her heels and walking away, Moza close behind her.

"Sharmuta!" Humaid yells, pushing Rowdha off his lap. "Look what you did!"

"What did I do?" she cries in pretend sorrow. "You're the one who's been hounding me for the last two weeks! I didn’t know that you're married."

"I'm not! I was…Oh forget it." Humaid gets up, throws a five-hundred dirham note on the table and walks away without looking back.

Rowdha waits a few minutes until she is sure that he has disappeared from sight, and begins to laugh. Half an hour later, she is joined by the rest of the motley crew - including Jose the Khaneeth and Wafa, the Palestinian 'local' girl. They all laugh together, replaying the evening's events in detail, so enraptured in their own little circle that they fail to notice a guest who, whilst walking past, stops to see where all the laugher is coming from. And when a familiar face registers in his mind, he stops and stares, unsure whether to be pleased at what he has learnt... or enraged.

Chapter Twenty-Three – Two for the price of one - Part 1

2009-12-03T16:14:00.005+03:00

Lady Luxe was certain that if she did all she could to make Humaid like her – as in, really like her, he wouldn’t bother with pursuing her alter ego. She was certain that once subjected to her subtle yet intoxicating feminine wiles, the hussy with the blonde hair would become an obsession of the past. Of course, there was always a chance that he really was a complete a-hole, in which case, he would probably want the best of both worlds.

So, with the help of her trusty cousins, there was a Plan B. Just in case.

In an attempt to test the waters a little, hoping that perhaps he had given up on acquiring his conquest, Lady Luxe sent him a quick text message, asking him to meet Jennifer at six, knowing quite well that he would be too busy with the real her to comply.

His reply came almost immediately: I would love to habibti, but unfortunately, I have family commitments to oblige. Can you please do me the honour of postponing it to 9pm?

Bastard. All fancy lingo aside, he was essentially planning on meeting a prospective bride at six, and a prospective shag at nine. The things men did to get laid never failed to surprise Lady Luxe – although admittedly, it worked in her favour when she was the one looking for a little under(the)cover action.

"Don't be so hypocritical," Moza chastised her, brushing magic powders onto her cousin's dehydrated skin to make her look young and fresh. "It is exactly the kind of thing you would do."

"No it bloody isn't," Lady Luxe snapped, trying not to move her facial muscles too much. "If I decided I wanted to get married the Emirati way, I'd stop messing around the unIslamic way. I wouldn't have my cake, eat it and then try another."

"Right," Moza replied uninterestedly. "Anyway stop moving around. I'm trying to sort your face out here. When did your complexion become so terrible?"

"Since Leila and my bloody brother became Mola."

"Well that's no reason not to take care of yourself. Now open your eyes, let me see my work."

Lady Luxe slowly opened her eyes and let them roll into focus, on Moza's frowning forehead, and her own tiny reflection in Moza's critical brown eyes. "Well?"

"I really do have a magical touch, don't I? Go and check yourself out." Moza stepped back to allow Lady Luxe to climb off the bed, smiling proudly as her cousin floated past in a jade silk jellabiya, courtesy of their good friend, fashion designer Rima, creator of the haute couture brand Rimalya.

Lady Luxe peered into the mirror and tried not to let her jaw fall open in awe. Gone was the tired old hag from that morning, and in her place, was a beautiful, vibrant young woman with perfect creamy skin with a hint of gold, cat-like eyes amidst a hue of green and glistening pearlescent lips. Her fringe blowdried to perfection, she placed a purple chiffon sheila loosely over her head, matching the purple beads on her jellabiya, and slipped her feet into Gina sandals. Her favourite diamond bracelet rested on her dainty wrist and a generous application of Romano Ricci's Midnight Oud completed her look.

"He'll never be able to resist me like this," Lady Luxe grinned, running over to Moza and throwing her arms around her. "By the way, where's Rowdha?"

Rowdha, still seething after Lady Luxe's stunt that morning, eventually thawed enough to help her cousin in her time of need. The sudden appearance of the finer Qataris, who turned up just after Lady Luxe disappeared, also assisted in placating her irritated nerves.

"She's out getting some supplies for Plan B."

"Okay great. Although I'm getting the feeling that Plan A will work just fine."

The two cousins smiled at each other, slightly nervous, as they waited for the doorbell to ring. Downstairs in the ladies reception room, Lady Luxe's aunts, Aunt Maryam and Aunt Fatima, her father's older sisters, were waiting to greet the groom's party, taking the place of her mother and her deceased grandmother. Not that they would have stayed at home, had Lady Luxe's mother and grandmother been present.

Aunt Maryam and Aunt Fatima were like characters from a Roald Dahl book. The epitome of selfishness, Maryam the divorcee and Fatima the widow stopped at absolutely nothing to get what they wanted. Be it a home renovation, a new car, or a new sister-in-law – they were constantly on the phone to their younger brother, whining, moaning and emotionally blackmailing him with their nasal voices until they got what they wanted. They weren't in the slightest interested in finding a good match for their errant niece – but they were interested in maintaining the family reputation. They needed to be assured that Humaid was from a respectable family and that he was able to display good conduct in public and that he was relatively bearable, and thus, had miraculously appeared an hour earlier, dressed in their finest abayas, swooning over Lady Luxe as if they hadn't seen her in years.

"Sis, they're here," Ahmed declared in a loud stage whisper, knocking on Lady Luxe's door and then sticking his head around it before she even acknowledged the knock.

"What?! I never even heard the door bell," Lady Luxe whimpered, the words almost catching in her throat, nervousness beginning to run through her body. "What cars have they come in?"

"A white Merc G350, two digit plate. I saw four figures in black, and then him. He's sitting with Baba and Mohamed in the study and I think they'll let him come and check you out after you go and sit with the ladies for a bit. That's what Baba said to Mohamed when you were getting ready anyway."

"Oh man. I'm dreading this," Lady Luxe moaned, leaning against Ahmed for support, hoping that she would succeed in making Humaid forget about Jennifer and save herself from more drama.

"Don't worry hun, you'll be fine," Moza said reassuringly, giving her cousin's arm a squeeze. "They won't let you sit alone with him, so I'll be there the whole time. I won't make it obvious that I'm listening to your conversation, but if he gives you a hard time, I'll step in, okay?"

"Okay," Lady Luxe answers in a quiet voice, pushing thoughts of everything backfiring out of her mind. Humaid was not going to find out that his blushing virgin bride was the same woman he danced with at Chi. Mohamed was not going to find out that his sister was far from the innocent girl he thought she was. And Leila was not going to find out that her 'best friend' was her lover's sister. Everything was going to be fine.

"Miss X? The guests are here and your aunts are asking you and Miss Moza to come downstairs," Mary the maid said timidly, peeking her head around the open door. "Oh Miss X! You look beautiful!"

"Thanks Mary, we'll come down now," Lady Luxe replied, composing herself and holding her head up high. "Ready, Moze?"

"Yalla, let's go."

With Moza leading the way, the pair made their way down the staircase, their high heels clattering menacingly against the marble, announcing their arrival long before they actually reached the living room door, Ahmed trailing behind them.

"Have fun," he said wryly, leaving the women at the foot of the stairs and heading into the study.

Moza took a deep breath and pushed the heavy wooden door open, the clouds of musky bakhoor swirling around them as she did so.

"Salaam'alaykom," she greeted the unknown faces. "My name is Moza, I am Lady Luxe's cousin, her father is my uncle," she said somberly.

The ladies living room in Lady Luxe's home was very different from the miminalistic décor of the rest of the house – with the exception of her father's study of course. She had designed the room to look like an old Emirati house, with sandy coloured walls, thick Persian rugs and low, red and black Majlis style furniture. She had collected the ornaments scattered around the large room from her travels across the Muslim world – leather floor lamps and colourful glass chandeliers from Morocco, ornate ceramic bowls from Turkey, an antique iron birdcage from Tunisia, colourful wall hangings from Cairo, ornate mother-of-pearl encrusted coffee tables from Damascus. The eclectic combination, instead of seeming confused, felt like a free-flowing story – each piece holding a special beauty, each artifact telling a different tale, each colour accompanying its neighbour.

"Salaam'alaykom," Lady Luxe said with faux shyness, following Moza into the room and casting her gaze down, lifting her extremely long (and fake) eyelashes a little to glance surreptitiously at her surroundings. There was a low murmur as all of Humaid's female relatives appraised Lady Luxe's slim frame, her generous height, her hazel eyes and her straight posture, mumbling 'helou' to themselves as they continued to stare.

Lady Luxe's aunts sat together, dressed in their abayas in preparation of Humaid's arrival, and adjacent to them, along the wall opposite the door, sat four women, also in abayas.

"Alaykom Salaam habibti, how are you?" One of the women exclaimed, as Lady Luxe glided over to greet them all personally, shaking hands and kissing their cheeks.

"Oh!" Lady Luxe exclaimed, recognizing her to be her recent client. So this was why Mohamed warned me not to mess up his friend's mum's abaya.

"Yes, I didn’t want to intimidate you that time by telling you that I am Umm Humaid," she replied with a smile. "Plus I didn’t want you to feel obliged to give me a big discount. Sit down bnayti, you look very beautiful Mashalla."

Taking a seat daintily, Lady Luxe continued looking down, smiling small smiles occasionally and answering questions about what she did and what she studied so sweetly that she almost got a sugar rush. She felt a lot more comfortable knowing that Humaid's mother was her intelligent client and actually wished that her son wasn't such a loser. If Humaid had been like…..Mr. Deliciously Absent for example, she would have actually considered selling out to the farce that was also known as marriage.

"Did you say you studied in London?" Humaid's fat aunt asked in disapproval, her eyes narrowed and her thin lips pursed into a permanent scowl, spitting out the word 'London' like a foul-tasting cardamom pod. His grandmother remained silent, her piercing stare unfaltering as she clutched prayer beads in her wrinkly right hand and muttered prayers under her breath. Her face was covered by a bronze burga and her eyes were watery – as if they had seen much sorrow in their years.

"Yes, khalti. My mother lives there so I stayed with her," Lady Luxe lied in a quiet voice, omitting the fact that her mother only visited her South Kensington apartment once a month for her Harley Street trips, and preferred living in her cottage in Hampshire the remaining 28 days of the month. She peered over her long eyelashes and added woefully: "I do miss her terribly."

"Yes, poor child, she had to grow up far too quickly," her Aunt Maryam interrupted. "However, as a consequence, she is very responsible. You should see her with her younger brother. She is marvelous."

"Isn't her younger brother actually her half brother?" The Evil Fat Aunt asked.

"Oh, it depends on your definition. Lady Luxe loves him terribly, he really is like her own," Aunt Maryam answered without skipping a beat.

"But isn't he the product of her father's second marriage?" The Evil Fat Aunt persisted. "And didn't he divorce her soon after?"

"Well, you know how it is," Moza interrupted smoothly. "My uncle, like many men, is so very difficult to please as you all know. But if there is one thing he is happy with, it is his daughter."

Before they could continue in his manner, Mary rushed into the room and announced that Humaid would be entering in a few minutes. There was a flurry as half the women in the room readjusted their sheilas, Lady Luxe's older aunt, Maryam, holding the end of it over her mouth, covering herself further.

"Salaam'alaykom," he announced loudly, sauntering into the room and flashing a wide smile at the women who sat in wait of his arrival, feeling a little like Yusuf the day all those women chopped off their fingers. Dressed in a plain white candoura and messily wrapped white guttra, he looked simple yet oddly attractive, Lady Luxe noted with interest. His eyes were big and dark, and his mouth full and generous.

Grabbing a cushion, he placed it opposite Lady Luxe. "I hope you don't mind if I sit here while we talk?" he asked to no one in particular, plonking himself down on the cushion and folding his legs.

"Of course habibi, you must get to know your possible wife as much as you can in the next twenty minutes, because the choice you make now will either make or break your entire life," his mother replied, laughing. All the older ladies joined her in giggling, making a big show of not watching the couple, but clearly listening carefully instead.

"How embarrassing," Humaid said quietly, smiling at Lady Luxe while she poured him fragrant Arabic qahwa with steady hands. "I'm Humaid by the way."

"Nice to meet you Humaid," Lady Luxe answered with a small smile, catching his eyes for a moment and then looking away like she believed a chaste virgin would do.

They began to talk quietly, trying (and failing) to ignore the women around them who were desperate to hear what they were talking about. Had they managed to overhear anything, they would have been disappointed to note that the conversation barely got beyond their favourite movies, favourite music and favourite food. Lady Luxe was surprised to learn that Humaid loved watching documentaries, his favourite music was rock and the one dish he could eat over and over again was pad thai. With prawns.

"You're not how I expected you to be," Lady Luxe conceded towards the end of their fairly enlightening conversation.

"And how was that?"

"Shallow. Conceited. Unoriginal." she says bluntly.

"Well, you're not what I expected either," he retorted with a smile.

"And what was that?"

"Boring. Stupid. Unattractive."

They laughed together, causing all the women to turn and stare with huge smiles on their faces, while Lady Luxe covered her face in her hands in embarrassment, trying to be endearing. Her attempt at feigning innocence seemed to have work as the ladies all nudged each other, whispering about how attractive her naivety was.

"Aiwa," Humaid's older sister called out from across the room, winking conspicuously, causing Lady Luxe to blush further and getting into her role so much that it actually began to feel real.

"I think your aunts seem to approve of me. Does that mean I can take your number?" Humaid asked with a slow smile, taking in Lady Luxe's pink lips and ready smile with lust, aching to know what was hidden beneath the loose folds of her gown, whether the rest of her body was the same caramel colour of her face, whether the rest of her would turn pink beneath his touch like her face did.

"Sorry Humaid, but I've never given my number to a guy before," You already have it, you nerd.

"Oh okay. Well, can you make an exception?" If she gives her number to me after just a little persuasion, it's a definite indicator that she's ready to give it to anyone.

"No I can't, sorry. If you need to get hold of me, you can always call my brother Mohamed and pass a message on." You know Mohamed right? The same guy I danced with at Chi?

"Sure, I understand." This girl really takes her reputation seriously. Perfect wife material. But maybe not that much fun.

The conversation drew to a close, hurried up by Humaid's mother who felt that they were beginning to overstay their welcome although most of the snacks Claudine had whipped up were left untouched. Lady Luxe bid farewell to all the smiling ladies, kissed them affectionately on their cheeks and then excused herself from her aunts' chattering as they analysed the evening's events, claiming she had a headache.

Pulling her sandals off her feet and running up the stairs with Moza close behind, she shut the door to her bedroom and grabbed her Vertu phone, willing it to beep with a cancellation message.

"Girl, you were wicked down there," Moza gushed. "Seriously, if I were a bloke looking for a missus, I would so propose to you based on that Oscar winning performance."

"Really?" Lady Luxe asked, playing with the phone and praying fervently.

"Really." Moza affirmed with confidence. "Look, he only just left and it's only 7:30. Give it another ten minutes, I'm sure he'll cancel. He was so besotted by you."

Putting her phone on 'loud', Lady Luxe went to the dressing room and changed into more comfortable tracksuit bottoms and an oversized hoody. Pulling her hair into a ponytail, she went back to her bedroom to find that Moza had taken off her abaya and was lying on the bed, flicking through the TV channels.

The minutes dragged by slowly, so slowly that Lady Luxe decided to join Moza in watching mindless TV. They settled on the Style Network, criticizing most of the costumes appearing on the catwalk and claiming they could design better. Until suddenly, there was a small beep from across the room.

Lady Luxe jumped out of bed, tripping on Moza's abaya and ending up falling to the tiled floor on her knees.

"Ouch!" she yelled, clutching her knees in agony and dragging herself to her desk where she left the phone. She opened the message straightaway, far too anxious to ponder about its contents any further.

I'm running a little late. See you at Atlantis at 9:15.

"Shit!" Lady Luxe cried out, half tempted to hurl the limited edition polished stainless steel phone studded with tiny white diamonds across the room like she did with her Blackberry.

"Shit indeed," Moza echoed, a worried look on her face. "Plan B it is then."

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Two – When it rains, it pours.

2009-11-15T17:57:00.016+03:00

Lady Luxe lies back in her bed and wills herself to get up, activating the 'snooze' option on her Vertu phone to give herself another ten minutes of uninterrupted bed rest – something she never thought she would crave at the tender age of twenty-one.

Is this what getting old feels like? She asks herself, rolling over onto her stomach and covering her head with her duck-feather pillow in an attempt to drown out all atmospheric noises as well as the bright morning sun.

It has been a week since her crazy cousins, sisters Moza and Rowdha, stormed the UAE like two Swarovski crystal encrusted tornadoes and since their arrival, Lady Luxe has had no more than four hours of restless sleep every night, the result of which prompted two pink, sore pimples to form on her otherwise flawless complexion. Dousing said spots with tea tree oil, last night, Lady Luxe stared at her reflection in the mirror – at her dehydrated skin, the faint shadows under her tired eyes and her limp hair – and scowled furiously, prodding the spots and lifting up sections of her hair. The nightly shenanigans were not the only things that were playing havoc on her health though. It had been two weeks since Leila started dating her brother and she had expected their perverse little affair to have run its course by now. But it hadn’t. In fact, it had not even peaked yet, with Leila withholding access to her rose garden with surprising resilience.

Pride has prevailed over curiosity, so after their argument at QDs, Lady Luxe has refused to ask Leila a single question about her blossoming relationship and in turn, Leila has kept her chips close to her, barely mentioning Mohamed's name during their few conversations, leaving Lady Luxe with nothing but her overactive imagination to piece together the puzzle. She has imagined all sorts of chilling scenarios: running into Mola (her new name for the gruesome twosome) absolutely anywhere in Dubai and Leila subsequently blackmailing her for the rest of her pitiful life, or perhaps bumping into her making a hasty walk of shame at 5am in their villa. This particular thought causes an ice-cold chill down Lady Luxe's spine, waking her up completely. When her phone rings again, instead of switching it off, she actually looks down and sees that it is Rowdha calling her and not her alarm.

"Hello?" she mumbles, her head still under the pillow and her limbs sprawled like a starfish.

"Wake up tart," Rowdha demands in her thick, British accent. "We've got loads of stuff to do today. Be in JBR by 3pm."

Lady Luxe mumbles an incomprehensible profanity and Rowdha hangs up the phone, knowing that she won't have to call her relatively reliable cousin again.

Moza and Rowdha, like their first cousin, were also educated in the UK, although unlike her, they didn’t just complete their degrees there. When Rowdha was thirteen and Moza eleven, their mother decided that they were far too dependent on their maids and that they needed to learn more about the side of their heritage that was often overlooked. Thus, they packed away a scowling Rowdha and teary Moza to Cheltenham Ladies' College to learn about the British culture, to refine their accents and to become a little more independent. Their father, Lady Luxe's uncle, was always more liberal than his younger brother. He too had married an English woman – one he remained happily married to without taking on further wives for thirty-five years. Moza and Rowdha however, were compelled to wed Khaleeji men despite their own father's preference and ended up marrying two Saudi brothers whom they met whilst holidaying in Evian Les Bains.

Contrary to the stereotypes of Arab women miserable at the mercy of vindictive Khaleeji men, both sisters were relatively content with their choices; Moza's husband happily helped his wife to open her own beauty salon in Jeddah while Rowdha's encouraged her to complete her MBA at Harvard.

Rowdha was never at want for anything, but did wish she saw her husband a little more. But his time was limited, especially as he had recently taken a new wife when she refused to bear any more children for fear of spoiling her figure – the one she worked extremely hard to get back after giving birth to a boy and a girl. She was far from upset by the marriage though, polygamy being a reality in many Khaleeji women's lives. In fact, she enjoyed the extra freedom it afforded her. Having mothered two children, her duty was fulfilled and she was more or less left to her own devices. She spent her summers in Chelsea with her children, her autumns on the Upper East Side, her winters in Riyadh and her springs in Montmarte. Her kids, currently home-schooled by a range of tutors and raised by a score of maids, were left relatively unaffected by their mother's tendency to take flight whenever it took her fancy.

Moza's husband was different from his older brother and felt that his hands were full with the one wife and one son. However, he too was happy to let his wife to travel without him whenever she needed to, completely oblivious to the extent of her beauty and even accusing her of paranoia the rare occasions she complained that the men in the streets were undressing her with their eyes. Even if he wasn’t watching her, other men certainly were, for Moza is the exact definition of beauty. Her complexion is as smooth as freshly whipped butter, her smile is radiant and her eyes are constantly alight with mischief. Slightly chubby with a voluptuous bosom to match her equally generous lips, she is never at want for male and female admirers alike.

Rowdha too has the same, cheeky glint in her eyes, her caramel complexion is clear and even, and her tiny frame almost gives her an elfish look. Together, they are unstoppable, as they speed down Jumeirah Road in their white Lexus and give sidelong glances through the half open windows to all the ogling Emirati men who pull up beside them in their Range Rover Sports and X6s.

For the past week, Lady Luxe has been joining them as they race various cars on their way home from shisha evenings in Fudos, their favourite hangout next to Mercato Mall. Fudos, in Lady Luxe's opinion, is a true, undiscovered treasure, completely misrepresented in the Time Out description. It is perhaps the only shisha joint that actually serves really good Thai, Japanese, Italian and Lebanese food as well as live music, karaoke nights and the occasional group of shaami men who'll burst into a spontaneous debka dance around the joint. The restaurant is also full of local men, who have a tendency to stare relentless at any attractive woman until she accidentally catches his eye.

After this unfortunate coincidence which he will view as a divine sign, he will continue staring in the hope that she will turn on her Bluetooth and communicate with him further. Or worse, he will hold up his number on an electronic screen, willing her to memorise it or at the very least, glance at it, thoroughly embarrassing himself in the process. However, Emirati men are incredibly thick-skinned when chasing their prey, and usually never take 'no' (or 'hell no', 'I'm not interested' or even 'fuck off') for an answer. Well-accustomed to the games their female peers like to play, they firmly believe that a woman who ignores their attention is simply feigning indifference. They understand a downward gaze to be a pretense of chastity, an open window an invitation to sinful acts and, God forbid, a caught eye a declaration of lust.

The last time they went to Fudos, Lady Luxe had a man grab her long, gothic-style abaya sleeve in the restroom, an intrusion that exceeded the usual kind. The basins in the restroom are the kind that is shared with the adjacent male restroom, the mirror acting as a wall between them, leaving ample space to play paper-rock-scissors under.

Lady Luxe, outraged by the audacity, yanked her sleeve back from her accoster, stuck her middle finger up under the mirror (hopefully right in his face) and yelled 'piss off you perv', before stalking out of the restroom and back into the thriving restaurant. Taking a seat on the low, black sofas in the corner of the room, reserved usually for regulars, she repeated the incident to her cousins who laughed raucously in response, neither of them displaying much decorum when it came to their giggles. Moza's laugh was infectious, and Rowdha's was hearty, inviting all around them to stare in curiosity. Lady Luxe laughed back with them, relieved to be around girls who actually understood her. It had been so long since she let down her sheila and relaxed – without having to worry that her acquaintance would work out who she was. If she happened to be spending her evening with a distant friend who did know her family, she knew that her antics would whizz through the grapevine before she even got home. It was a lose-lose situation.

"No one gets what it's like to be us," Rowdha said knowingly, taking a long drag of her grape and mint shisha and leaning against the sofa's soft back. "The Western expats are dying of curiosity, wondering what's underneath the sparkly black gowns, what goes behind our large villa gates, excited when we befriend them and boasting about us as if we're ornaments on a mantelpiece…"

"Hear, hear!" Lady Luxe toasted, raising her mint tea glass and eyeing up a cute local with big eyes. He caught her eye and she looked away, not wanting him to hold up his number. A firm believer of not defecating on her own doorstep, Lady Luxe refused to play with her own kind, no matter how attractive they happened to be.

"The Arab expats detest us – angry that although we're all essentially supposed to be from the same family, God has blessed us with wealth and they have been incapacitated by war, famine or poverty," Rowdha continued, clearly on a roll. "Some of them simply look down at us, proud of their ancient history, viewing us as ignorant Bedouins who have just escaped the desert and have come into wealth and prosperity due to no talent of our own. And then our own are a curious mix of hormonal teenagers, moralistic middle-aged women, boring old cows or traditional tarts. Not easy to find a good friend among those."

Moza and Lady Luxe nodded in agreement, taking subsequent drags from their shisha pipes.

"Even in our community there's a stark difference of values and beliefs," Lady Luxe added thoughtfully. "If we become friends with a girl from a lesser-known family, there's a chance that she's only looking to increase her own social network, and will bitch about us the moment our backs are turned. It’s so hard to find a true friend who isn't there just for the novelty, who isn't looking for a scandalous bit of juicy gossip to talk about over tea with her real friends, who has had the same Western educational influence, is from a successful family, is on the same wavelength."

"It's bloody impossible," Moza interrupted. "If I didn’t have a sister, I don’t know what I'd do."

She took Lady Luxe's hands and held them in hers. "Habibti, you have to be careful about who you hang out with over here. Your father has a lot of friends but he also has a lot of enemies. There are loads of people who'd kill for a bit of information about his only daughter. I know you're still young and you're still having fun. I know that it's been hard for you to come back to Dubai after three years of being free in London. But you really have to be careful."

Lady Luxe said nothing, just listened, a rock weighing down on her already heavy mind. She wondered if she could abandon her alter ego, Jennifer, without suffering from huge repercussions. Or if it was too late.

That night, she excused herself from their nightly drive up and down Beach Road, looking for fast cars to race, and climbed into her Cayenne alone with just her thoughts for company. She fell into another light sleep, the slightest noise - a car horn, a footstep, a sneeze - waking her up and reminding her of the precarious tight-rope she had been naively balancing on.

How long before she would fall?

* * *

"Good morning, freak. What happened to your head?" Ahmed greets Lady Luxe playfully as she enters the kitchen in her old pink pyjamas and crazy bed head, inhaling the glorious scent of homemade buttery pancakes. Her brown hair, usually straight with the slightest of waves, stuck up in all directions and her fringe sat nowhere near her forehead. She couldn’t be bothered to run a comb through the tangles and decided to relish in the temporary liberation of not caring about her appearance

"Sabah al khair, geek," she replies with a smile, ruffling his jet black hair as she passes him and taking a seat opposite him on the kitchen table. "What happened to your face?" She sticks her tongue out at her brother who replies by throwing a strawberry at her, hitting her squarely in the chest.

"Good morning Miss X," Claudine says stiffly with her ever-so-slight French accent, preparing Lady Luxe's plate of pancakes with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and strawberries and placing it gently down in front of her. "Would you like me to pour you some juice?"

"No Claud, I think I can manage that myself," she laughs, grabbing the jug of freshly squeezed orange juice and pouring it into a glass, giving Claudine a quick grin. Claudine has been in their family for over nine years, and is more like an aunt than a cook. Her father entrusts her with a monthly home budget and allows her to keep whatever remains at the end of the month as an additional bonus. She goes out when she needs to without seeking permission, enjoys a business class flight back to the South of France every year and never has to worry about her employer hitting on her, despite being a very attractive thirty-eight year old with pale blond hair and sea-green eyes. Not her main employer anyway. She has caught his eldest son appraising her small waist, high cheekbones and slim hips occasionally. She ensures to keep her bedroom door locked at all times and carries mace in her apron pocket – just in case.

Claudine has heard a few stories about help being abused, beaten, raped, locked up with no food, but considers herself a different calibre from the Sri Lankan and Filipina housemaids whom she occasionally comes across in in the neighbourhood. For starters, she is European, educated and on a real salary – not a pitiful allowance that would barely cover the cost of her phone bill. Having trained in numerous restaurants and hotels across Europe, she never expected that she would move to Dubai to work as a personal chef and instead had pictured herself as the proud owner of an intimate French eatery, resembling her own family restaurant in the quaint University town, Aix En Provence. But the salary and benefits of working for the X family are too good to resist, and although she is more a housekeeper than a chef, she really only has to delegate the housework between Mary the Maid, the two drivers and part-time gardener, and then take care of the pantry and kitchen herself.

Claudine had initially planned to stay with the X family for two years, but soon found herself making excuses to stay on for longer and longer, enjoying her comfortable life in the huge luxury villa, the low demands and the glorious sunshine. And plus, she has a soft spot for her employer. After looking after him and his family for nine years, she couldn't help but grow attached to him. As frightening as he was with his children, for some reason, with her, he was soft. A part of her that she refused to acknowledge, a part that she desperately tried to forget, wanted to make him happy in ways other than feeding him and organising his home.

"Claud, I'm not going to be home for dinner," Lady Luxe announces, licking the last of the chocolate sauce off her bottom lip in satisfaction.

"You're not?" Claudine turns around to look at Lady Luxe in surprise, her neat eyebrows raised quizzically. "But what about the guests, Miss X?"

"What guests?" Lady Luxe asks, grabbing Ahmed's last strawberry and stuffing it in her mouth before he can protest.

"The family your father has invited in the evening, just for coffee I think but still, you need to be home early. I think you need to call him and speak to him before you make evening plans. It sounded important. He wants me to make nine different kinds of snacks."

"Nine items?!" Ahmed and Lady Luxe exclaim in unison.

"Is he inviting Sheikh Mohamed or something?" Ahmed jokes, getting off the stool and stretching in his black 'One Ummah' t-shirt and baggy grey tracksuit bottoms. He walks over to the sink and begins rinsing his plate while Claudine hurries around the kitchen, checking the glistening white Italian cabinets to ensure she has all the correct ingredients for tonight's feast.

"Okay, I'll give him a call," Lady Luxe says blithely, slightly annoyed at having her evening plans with her cousins interrupted. She jogs up the stairs and into her room, throwing on a plain black abaya and a chiffon Fendi scarf, applying a tiny brush of blusher on her pale cheeks and sticking on big black Dior sunglasses to hide her tired eyes. She wants her spots to have a chance to heal so opts against wearing too much makeup, content with the instant glamour the sunglasses provide.

She drives quickly to the other side of Dubai, getting flashed at least once by one of the many speed cameras on Sheikh Zayed Road, waves her hand impatiently at the security guards who have no chance of stopping her Ferrari as she roars into the car park and parks Lady Penelope in one, swift maneuver. She notices a range of Qatari license plates next to hers – a red Ferrari, three different Mercedes AMGs (a small coupe, a sedan and a 4x4) and a monstrous black and silver Dodge Charger – and wonders who they belong to.

Exiting the lift on the eighteenth floor, she raps on the door and Rowdha flings it open, the scrumptious fragrance of baking wrapping itself around her.

"Finally! You're here!" Rowdha exclaims, grabbing her cousin's arm and pulling her into the apartment. The balcony doors of the apartment are wide open and sunlight floods into the large open plan space, decorated sparsely in contemporary furnishings.

"What's going on?" Lady Luxe asks as she spies Moza hard at work in the kitchen through the hatch in the dining area, looking very Nigella-like in a low-cut black dress and dangly earrings.

"We're on a mission," Moza declares, opening up the oven door, taking out a tray of chocolate brownies and placing them next to a large, homemade strawberry tart.

"Look cuz," Rowdha interrupts, firmly placing her hands on Lady Luxe's shoulders and turning her body to face her. "There are a group of fit Qatari guys who live on the twentieth floor. They drive hot cars, they're always decked out in Ray Bans and they're basically too fit to ignore."

"We tried to ignore them, we really did," Moza adds dramatically, sticking her face through the hatch.

"But our efforts were no match for our desires. We NEED to talk to them," Rowdha finishes off.

"So go and talk to them," Lady Luxe laughs, trying to grab a brownie and having her hand swatted away by Moza.

"We can't," Moza says dejectedly. "We're married. We can't go around chirpsing guys like this, so we decided that we'll let our gorgeous single cousin do the chirpsing and we'll just have to be satisfied by living vicariously through her."

"So what are you saying?" Lady Luxe asks slowly, knowing quite well that she probably doesn’t want to know the answer.

"Well," Rowdha begins in excitement, a huge grin on her face. "They'll be back from the mosque in about half an hour. Yes, we've noticed when they come in and out. We want you to take these goodies up to them and just be like, 'welcome to neighbourhood. I noticed you don’t have a woman to look after you so I thought I'd help you out a little.' "

Lady Luxe stares at her cousins in horror. "Please tell me you're not serious!" she begs, her eyes wide in disbelief. "I can't do that! I might as well hand myself on a platter to them, completely starkers with an 'eat me' sign written on my chest in chocolate body paint!"

"Oh come on, it's not that bad," Moza protests, washing her floury hands and coming out of the kitchen, her face flushed from the heat of the oven. "These poor boys are all alone with no mothers, no wives, no sisters. It's our duty to look after our brothers."

"Brothers!" Lady Luxe scoffs. "What is this, an incestuous Virginia Andrews scenario? The chances of you looking at them like they're your brothers are as likely as you walking out the house with no makeup."

"Oh come on, stop being such a wet blanket," Rowdha says in disapproval. "I thought you were more gutsy than that! You'll probably never see them again anyway, and we'll be right behind you."

"But what's the point? You're both happily married with children for God's sake. Nothing's gonna happen!"

"It's just for a laugh," Moza explains earnestly. "We're having a bit of innocent fun. Go on, say you'll do it! Don’t let me wonder how hot they are close up for the rest of my life! Don't let my moist brownies and Rowdha's delectable strawberry tart go to waste!"

"If anything's a tart, it's you," Lady Luxe mutters, stalking into Moza's bedroom. "I'm not going looking like this. Give me fifteen minutes to sort my face out."

Seventeen minutes later, Lady Luxe emerges from Moza's bedroom with her two pimples completely hidden, her complexion bright and shimmery and her eyelashes laden with Dior show mascara. Her cousins have also abayafied themselves, wrapping their sheila's loosely around their neck and are carrying a tray of baked goodies each.

"Don’t I get anything to carry?" Lady Luxe asks, looking around the kitchen. "Or am I just offering myself?"

"You're the spokesperson, you don't need to carry anything," Rowdha says quickly, pushing her out of the apartment. They wait for the lift in trepidation, Moza giggling uncontrollably.

"Shutup," hisses Rowdha as they get into the lift and make the very short journey up to the twentieth floor.

Lady Luxe is used to being roped into bizarre missions, and remembers her childhood summers in her cousins' Jumeirah villa, playing knock-down-ginger and making prank calls. She can't believe that ten years, three offspring, and a lot of further education later, they're still crazy, still uncontrollable and still as close as ever.

"Now what?" she whispers, staring at the large, wooden front door feeling anxious. It's been a long time since she did something ridiculous as herself, and without her Jeinnifer wig and lenses, she feels exposed and nervous.

"Knock on the door," Rowdha hisses, elbowing her sister sharply in the ribs in an attempt to make her giggles subside.

Her breath caught in her throat, Lady Luxe rings the doorbell of the apartment and waits in anticipation, her cousins standing slightly behind her, the three of them in their fitted abayas and perfectly applied makeup, looking like they have just come home from a Friday brunch, not like they've been slaving away in the kitchen all morning. She hopes these guys really are worth all the bother.

The front door opens slowly and a sleepy face greets them. The man looks like he is in his mid-twenties, and is wearing a faded blue t-shirt and checked shorts, his curly hair long and afro-like and his small eyes slightly bloodshot. His mouth is also small, appearing even more so with his large, Roman nose dominating most of his face and there are old acne scars decorating his dark cheeks, giving them the appearance of old, worn leather. Lady Luxe can feel her cousins' disappointment and embarrassment radiating through their thin abayas. Oh, I could kill you with my own bare hands, you stupid tarts, she thinks to herself, grimacing.

"Salam'Alaykom," she says, through clenched teeth. "I'm so sorry to have woken you."

"Ma fi moshkela," he croaks, his putrid morning breath hitting Lady Luxe in the face like a cannon. "Can I help you?"

"Well, we're your neighbours and we noticed that you don't have anyone to take care of you," Lady Luxe begins sweetly, her mouth relaxing and falling into a real smile as the cogs in her head start moving. She feels Rowdha's pointy elbow digging into her ribs, telling her to cool off, which she ignores.

Big Nose laughs, his eyes brightening. "It's hard, having no sisters…" he says slowly.

"Well don’t worry, my cousins here are happy to be your sisters. This is Moza, she's baked you some moist white chocolate brownies, and this is her lovely sister Rowdha, who made this delicious strawberry tart with her own, bare hands."

She pauses dramatically for effect, ignoring Moza's conspicuous coughing and Rowdha's foot coming down on hers. Big Nose notices none of these shenanigans, instead moves his eyes to Rowdha's small hands.

"Anyway, I will leave you to all to talk. I'd better go!" With that, Lady Luxe spins around and stalks away, disappearing through the service doors and leaving behind nothing but a whiff of 'Miss Charming' mixed with butter and pastry behind.

* * *

"Oh good, you're back," Claudine greets Lady Luxe as she enters the villa, still grinning from her revenge. She ignored her ringing phone the entire journey home but knows she will have to face Rowdha's fury eventually and is actually looking forward to the confrontation.

"I sure am!" she sings, throwing her arm around Claudine's shoulders. "So, what's up with this tea party thing? I tried calling Baba but he didn't answer, and then he BB'd me to tell me to be home by five and to look nice. What's going on? Who's coming round?"

"Ah, yes," Claudine begins awkwardly, clearing her throat. "Well, how do I put this? Well, you see, your father thinks that perhaps it's time you were introduced to some…suitors," she finally manages to say, the French tinge on her otherwise British accent like a dust of icing on a Victoria Sponge cake.

Lady Luxe's smile freezes on her face.

"What?!" she exclaims, her heart plummeting.

"Yeah, it's true," Ahmed chimes in, appearing on the top of the stairs, his voice echoing through the foyer. "I tried calling you but you didn't answer. Some guy is coming to see you with his family."

"Who is he?"

"A friend of Mohamed's," he replies, making a face. "Humaid I think? Sorry sis, I did try to warn you. Baba's coming home early especially, he should be here in an hour and then they're gonna get here around six I think, before dinner anyway."

"Shit," Lady Luxe mutters, cursing herself for telling her father she had been reading marriage books. He obviously remembered her little lie and decided now was the time to display unnecessary fatherly care. "But today? Why today?"

Ahmed shrugs and Claudine disappears into the kitchen where Mary is hurriedly chopping away, trying to prepare the nine different items, anxious to show her employer what she is made of.

"I'm going to call Baba," Lady Luxe announces at last, pulling her BB out of her pocket, seeing Ahmed's and Leila's missed calls for the first time. She drags herself up the stairs as if her legs are tied to weights and slams her bedroom door closed, even though there is no one around to listen to her anger. Her phone beeps again, Leila calling for the third time, and Lady Luxe grudgingly answers. She really cannot stomach Leila's childlike boasting about her brother today.

"Shu?" she says rudely, yanking off her abaya and tossing it to the floor.

"Where have you been? I've been calling you for ages," Leila moans on the other end.

"My cousins are here, remember? I was busy with them."

"Okay, well anyway, I was thinking… do you want to go out tonight? As in, out? It's been so long since we did something fun, since you insist on being Emirati these days."

"No thanks," Lady Luxe says curtly, flinging her shoes off and letting them fall on top of her discarded abaya. "I'm too busy. Family stuff."

"Well what about tomorrow night? That wig hasn't seen the moonlight in so long, it's probably getting eaten by moths. What do you say?"

"Sorry, I can't. You know my cousins are here, I'll be busy with them until they leave."

Leila, sensing Lady Luxe's reluctance to go out with her, has a vision of Moe looming down over her, all her new designer goods in his hands, and finds her palms beginning to sweat a little. "When are they leaving?" she asks in a small voice.

"I don’t know. Look Leila, to be honest, I have no intention of being 'Jennifer' again," Lady Luxe relents, the ice melting away at Leila's persistence. "I'm twenty-one years-old now, I have a lot of family shit going on. I can't mess about like this all the time. I have to grow up a bit. Besides, I'm getting bad vibes about it all."

Leila listens in horror, wondering how she is going to deliver the goods to Humaid if 'Jennifer' is AWOL. For good. She decides to come clean. Lady Luxe has always been up for a laugh and may even consent if she's honest.

"Okay look. Basically, you know Cowboy? That guy you were dancing with at Chi? The one you were all over and whose hat you stole?"

"Yes. I remember," Lady Luxe answers, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "I had to shower for an hour to get his strong perfume off me. He's been calling me and I've been ignoring him."

"Oh. Well. How about we go on a double date? Me and Mohamed, you and Humaid? Just for a laugh?" A desperate edge appears in Leila's voice and Lady Luxe notices it.

"NO!" she says firmly. "I'm not interested in hanging out with any Emiratis. You know how I feel about that. Hang on, what did you say Cowboy's name was?"

"Humaid. He's actually really sweet, why don't you give him a chance?" Leila says quickly, mistaking Lady Luxe's question as interest.

The blood drains from Lady Luxe and she feels more nauseous than ever. "Look Leila. I never want you to mention his name again okay? Jennifer is gone for good, the old me is gone for good, and that's that. Just let it go!"

"Fine!" Leila snaps, finally getting annoyed. "Do what you want. But just to let you know – he knows you're Emirati and he has your phone number. He said he'll phone his friend in Etisalat and find out who you are if you don't meet him."

"Whatever," Lady Luxe scoffs. As if I'm stupid enough to register my 'dodgy' line under my own name.

"And he also has your Cayenne's license plate number," Leila lies. Well, he will do if I give it to him, you stupid sharmuta.

Lady Luxe stops breathing. Her license plate number? Her cars were registered in her father's name.

"It's not that easy," she manages to say, trying to keep her voice level.

"It is for people with wasta," Leila retorts, struggling to keep the power with her. "He's serious. He was going on and on about you and –"

"How did he find out I'm Emirati?" Lady Luxe suddenly asks. "You told him didn’t you?"

"No I didn't-" Leila protests.

"Right." Lady Luxe cuts in. "I'm not meeting him, so you can tell your new best friend to fuck off."

She hangs up the phone and collapses onto the bed, feeling completely drained. Her phone beeps again and she looks down wearily to see she has a message from Mohamed. Wanker, she thinks to herself, opening it up.

My friend Humaid is coming round tonight with his family to meet you. Make sure you make an effort and look respectable. Baba's coming home early.

"Argh!" she screams out in frustration, throwing her phone across the room with all her strength. It smashes against the wall and falls to the hard, tiled floor. Humaid wants to meet her and Jennifer? If he really knew her license plate number, and wasn't bluffing, then she was screwed.

How was she going to get out of this one?

An idea comes to her mind. Thinking for a few minutes, she rolls the idea around in her head like a snowball, firmly moulding it into place. After she has calculated the details, she smiles slowly and then reaches for her phone. Genius.

Chapter Twenty-one – There's no such thing as a free lunch

2009-10-24T23:35:00.007+03:00

Leila dashes out of her apartment, teetering in her pink, patent 5 inch Louboutins and slams her front door closed without locking it. She wiggles over to the lift and grins as she looks down at her fabulous new shoes with delight, like a fat kid who's just been handed a massive ice-cream. It has been two glorious weeks since the incident she refuses to speak of, and it has possibly been the best two weeks of her life.

In the last fourteen days, Leila has been to dinner with Moe six times and each time, the bill has come to more than a thousand dirhams. The very first time, it was close to three thousand, the same amount that Leila budgets for her monthly glam expenditure – for manicures, blow dries, occasional shopping and dining out. They have been clubbing twice, during which they lounged at a VIP table, sipping on Dom and making small talk without actually dancing. Just like Leila imagines celebrities to do. They have been to the cinema once (Gold Class of course, where they spent more time canoodling on the reclining leather seats than watching the movie), they have gone for shisha and coffee a couple of times (Leila enjoys making subtle innuendos with the shisha pipe and her lips) and shopping twice. During these shopping trips, whatever Leila 'oohed' over (just clothes and accessories thus far, it's too soon to peer through Damas' sparkly windows) miraculously appeared at her apartment the next day by an express courier. She was in heaven.

"Habibti, weinich enti?" Moe growls down the phone as she exits the building and fumbles around in her new white Chanel quilted bag for her keys – the same one that Lady Luxe has in three colours and that ordinary people have to wait in line for. His voice is smooth and deep, and she feels a little shiver tickle her spine, though she is unsure if it is his voice or the calfskin bag that is having that effect. She can't believe her good fortune. Not only is Moe attentive, sweet and generous, he is also chivalrous. He opens doors for her, refuses to let her spend a single fil when they are together and always makes sure that she reaches home safely. Of course, Leila is not completely delusional, and knows that a major part of his fascination with her stems from his desire to peel away her expensive clothes and go where she has implied that no man has been before. She knows that once he has had her, his fascination with his Lebanese 'virgin' will disappear like a sweet dream in the morning and she will be left feeling cold, empty and alone. As usual.

Thus, she is determined to make the most of her time with him while she can. She knows that their days are numbered, despite her silly denial to Lady Luxe, and she is angry that her bitchy 'friend' forced her into declaring that her relationship with the handsome Emirati was more than a temporary, mutually beneficial affair – glamorous evenings out and pretty gifts for her, an exciting build up to a deflowering ritual for him. She knows perfectly well that there is nothing more to it. That they have no future together. She knows that for him, she is just another conquest to be caught, another notch on the bedpost. But she wishes she wasn't.

"I've just left my apartment," Leila replies checking her reflection in the building's glass door approvingly. She is wearing a white chiffon dress with bronze embroidery from the boho boutique, Antik Batik, that she had borrowed a long time ago from Lady Luxe and accidentally-on-purpose forgot to return. At first glance, she appears to be modestly dressed; the kaftan has long sleeves, it is loose and it falls just above her knees. But on closer inspection (and no doubt Moe will be analyzing her every move), it transpires that her dress is the tiniest bit transparent, that the neckline occasionally slips, displaying a smooth, tanned shoulder and a pale pink bra strap . She has pinned her hair up, but has left loose tendrils framing her face, begging to be tucked behind her ears and her makeup is subtle, giving the illusion that she isn't wearing any at all. In actual fact, she is wearing most of MAC on her face: primer, concealer, tinted moisturizer, a brief brushing of studio fix, bronzer, a tiny dab of gold pigment on her eyelids, brown mascara, a little bit of brown eyeliner to define her eyes, eyebrow pencil to bring out her otherwise non-existent eyebrows and her favourite lip plumping gloss – Sexy MotherPucker. The result of her entire look seems completely natural and effortless, not the outcome of six outfit changes, an hour's worth of careful makeup application and another hour of hair styling. Perfect for an afternoon wandering around JBR, browsing through the designer boutiques and sipping coffee at an Italian café by the beach.

"Yalla, hurry. I miss you." Moe says, and Leila hangs up, putting on her new Prada sunglasses. She makes sure that she is always the first to hang up, that she never calls him first, only returns calls if she absolutely has to and she often lets him call twice before she actually answers. She also ensures that she never agrees to meet him until she has checked her schedule, after which she feigns unavailability and offers an alternative after some probing.

The games she is forced to play to maintain his interest in her are physically and mentally exhausting. As she drives out of Discovery Gardens and joins Sheikh Zayed Road, she feels an unexpected urge to just let down her hair and be herself. She wants to wear denim cut-offs and an old t-shirt. She wants to run a comb through her hair before pulling it into a haphazard ponytail. She wants to call her boyfriend whenever she gets the urge to hear his voice, to answer with a huge smile when he calls her, wants to send him cute messages telling him she's missing him. She wants to curl up in bed with him and fall asleep in his arms, to drop the façade, to stop constantly watching her words, her actions, her expressions and just be herself. Leila Saade. Not Leila the Lebanese Temptress.

But she can't. Because the last time she did, the time she actually thought what was happening went beyond the surface, she found out the hard way that it was not. That the Leila with no makeup, no barriers, no inhibitions, simply wasn't what he wanted. It was too real for him. And now, she is afraid that it is what no one wants.

Fahd was the first Emirati she had dated and everything Leila envisioned for herself when she moved to Dubai. He was the epitome of perfection; kind, generous, good natured and funny. He gave her time and affection, and in return, after a very short dating streak, she gave him all of her.

One night, after she caught him flirting with another girl when she surprised him at work, jealousy bloomed within her like a thorny rose and she threw the biggest tantrum of her life. She screamed until her throat became hoarse, until makeup ran down her face like a dirty, muddy stream, mixing with the water seeping out of her nose. She cried until she began to hiccup, accusing him of cheating on her, playing with her emotions, pretending to love her. She pushed him out of her apartment and told him never to call her again. Like most fights between lovers, she never meant a word of it. She expected him to come straight back. After all, only the day before, she had made him all his favourite Lebanese dishes – tabbouleh, sambousek, kibbeh, bamia, which they ate before making love on the dining room table whilst clearing up. For the first time.

"I love you," he had said the next morning, after they fell asleep on the living room rug, completely naked, limbs entangled, their skin a contrast of white and gold. He traced his finger tips over her bare stomach, as light as a cloud resting on a mountain, and watched the goose bumps form on her smooth skin. "I love you, Leila. Every part of you. Even that fart you did last night."

"Shutup, hmar," she replied, turning pink with embarrassment, her heart bursting with love.

"I said I loved it!" he laughed, trying to pin her down on the floor and she pretended to struggle as she stared into his baby face, his huge, dark eyes, his beautiful smile. Her entire being full of love, happiness and hope, she suddenly softened, wrapping her legs around him and pulling him closer to her, letting go of all her barriers once again.

That very same evening, they had their first major fight but after she had forced him to leave and when she had finally calmed down, she waited for him to call. To apologise. To send flowers. To beg her to take him back.

But he didn’t.

An hour turned into a day, a day turned into a week, and eventually, Leila swallowed her diminishing pride and called him. With complete indifference, Fahd told her that he was engaged, to his 17 year-old virginal cousin. She dropped the phone as if it had scalded her and stumbled into the bathroom, where she retched into the sink. Nothing but acid came up and she clutched on to the sides for support. Her purple toothbrush sat in the holder next to his green one. Shaving foam sat beside her deodorant. She eventually let go of the basin and fell to the floor, silent tears pouring down her face as all her dreams, all her plans for the future, disappeared into the night sky. Along with her naivety. The 23 year-old Leila had finally grown up.

Leila pulls into JBR (or Jumeirah Beach Residence to newbies) and parks awkwardly in the large car park by the ocean between two imposing 4x4s, feeling unnerved by her memories of Fahd. She shakes him out of her mind, and focuses on her surroundings instead.

JBR is buzzing as always. The car park is packed full of Hummers and Corvettes, the occasional Lamborghini and Ferrari providing tourists with glamorous holiday photos. The walkway is full of people; mothers pushing strollers, lovers holding hands, teenage girls in tiny summer dresses, showing off their lean, golden limbs. Students are sat at tables with their laptops, families are browsing through the market stalls. It is just as the developers envisioned it to be – a vibrant, family-friendly promenade, parallel to the ocean, where people can relax, dine and shop whilst absorbing the fresh sea air and basking in the sun. Leila can't believe that just three years ago, the entire Marina area was a ghost town, nothing but a construction site within sparse expanses of empty desert, and now, it is one of the most happening locations in Dubai. The forty odd sand coloured premier apartment blocks in JBR blend into the scenery like mountains, and if Leila could, she would rent a one bedroom apartment in one of them. The rental price however, is at least twice as much as what she is paying in Discovery Gardens, and regardless of how much she would enjoy having an ocean view from her bedroom window, she enjoys saving money even more.

She spots Moe sitting at an outdoor table at Paul's, and to her dismay, sees that he is with a friend. So much for a romantic evening. Pasting a smile on her face, she saunters up to the table and greets them both breezily, allowing them to stand up to return her 'marhaba'. Moe pulls a chair out for her and she sits down, smiling sweetly at him, irritation clawing at her insides. He could have at least told her that he would be bringing someone.

Moe is wearing a white candoura and white gutra. With his Ray Ban aviators, he looks young, trendy and sexy, and his good looks melt away the iciness Leila felt upon seeing his friend. For once, she is actually happy to be seen with her date. She usually has to persuade herself that it is wallet size, not looks, that matters. She has dated fat men, old men, balding men, ugly men, smelly men, obnoxious men and even short men, all in the pursuit of monetary satisfaction.

"After all, they're all the same when the lights are down," Naila, her Russian friend had once said. And Leila half-heartedly agreed, secretly hoping that she would find a man who owned both a Ferrari and a small nose.

"You look beautiful as always, my angel," Moe declares gallantly, taking her hand in his. "Leila, I'd like to introduce to my good friend, Humaid. Humaid, this is my… Leila."

"Nice to meet you," Leila says, acknowledging Moe's inability to refer to her as his girlfriend and looking Humaid up and down. He too is in a candoura, a dark brown one, with a beige guttra messily wrapped around his head. His complexion is a lot darker than Moe's, and bits of curly hair poke out from beneath the head wrap. He isn't ugly and could be considered to be attractive had he been sitting next to someone lesser. There is something familiar about the glint in his eyes and she feels as if she has seen him somewhere. Nervousness buzzes in her stomach. Please don’t let him be someone I've hit on before.

"Actually, we've already met," Humaid answers with a knowing smile. Leila's own smile falters as she struggles to remember where. "At the club, remember? We danced together before you decided to go for Moe instead".

Recognition finally dawns on Leila, but Humaid continues talking good-naturedly. "…And you don’t know how much I regret letting you go that night!" He winks at her and both he and Moe start laughing, their guffaws causing her to turn red with anger, shame and regret.

"Now, now, don't insult my girl," Moe chastises vaguely, getting up to answer a call on his Blackberry and leaving Leila to fend for herself.

"Humaid, as lovely as you are, you are clearly not in the same category as my dear Hammoudi, so there's no way you would have gotten anything that night." Leila hisses scathingly, giving him a look so evil that it would have made a weaker man shrivel up in fear. Humaid, however, simply laughs. She gives Moe's back the same look and contemplates creating voodoo dolls for them both. She cannot believe that Mohamed has completely ruined their so-called 'romantic' Friday afternoon by inviting his buffoon of a friend.

"If you say so, habibti," he replies sarcastically. "As it happens, I'm actually more interested in your friend than the favours you bestow on mine. The sexy Syrian girl with the long blonde hair and breathtaking dance moves that was with you that night. She hasn’t returned a single one of my calls and I'm getting impatient."

Although Leila is thankful that the spotlight is finally off her and the 'favour' he is referring to, she cannot believe that once again, a man has sought her company only to enquire after Lady Luxe.

"Perhaps you should take the hint then," she says, raising a perfectly drawn on eyebrow, willing Moe to come back to her and rescue her from his evil friend.

"If she didn’t want me to call, she wouldn’t have given me her number. She's just playing hard to get. Why is it that you Arab girls make things so difficult for us?"

"Difficult how?" Leila asks, biding time. He has a point. Why did Lady Luxe give her number to him if she didn’t want to speak to him? No doubt it had something to do with another one of those complicated games she liked to play. If their relationship was as it used to be, Leila would have excused herself and then called her friend, warning her of the situation that was brewing. But after the way she scoffed at her relationship with Moe, Leila is convinced that Lady Luxe regrets handing over him to her and wants a slice of Expensive Emirati Pie for herself. This is treachery beyond Leila's limited tolerance threshold, and she decides that an ad-hoc response to Humaid's questions is ample payback.

"It's the games you play!" Humaid exclaims earnestly. You want us to chase you based on the subtlest of signals. Why can't you just be clear and tell us yes or no? Why do your 'no's actually mean 'yes but I can't tell you for fear of looking too easy?'' "

"Well maybe it's because you actually like playing games. If a girl reciprocated your interest, how long would you remain interested?" Leila answers uncharacteristically articulately, folding her arms across her chest in defiance. The nerve of the man, accusing all Arab girls (including her, no doubt) of playing games when clearly he reveled in the excitement of the chase.

"Well your Syrian friend was definitely interested," Humaid says confidently. "Have you forgotten the way she practically snatched me away from you? And not only did she give me her number, but she took my hat! Right off my head! How many more signs do I need? I love Syrian girls! They're so original and...classy. They're not easy like you Lebanese."

Leila holds back a snort, unsure whether to be further aggravated by his comparing her to her more traditional neighbor, or thrilled that she has the upper-hand over him.

"Sorry to burst your bubble habibi, but your Sophisticated Syrian is actually an Enigmatic Emirati," she says snidely, putting both Humaid and Lady Luxe in their places in one, swift move. Check.

"What?" Humaid is shocked, and the strange look on his face makes Leila regret the words that maliciously poured out of her. She shifts around in her seat, unsure of what to say next.

"My apologies for that long phone call, it was actually my father." Moe reappears at the table and sits down, squeezing Leila's hand as he does. She almost weeps in relief, hoping that Humaid won't continue the conversation in his presence. She squeezes his hand back.

"Ahlan," she says goofily, the nerves in her stomach beginning to relax in his presence, his delectable looks adding to her sense of peace. In Leila's eyes, Moe is practically perfect. His eyes are rimmed with thick eyelashes, his nose is nothing like the typical Emirati nose (it is straight for one thing) and his jaw is strong, hidden by a very slight beard that adds to his masculinity.

"I'm not being a very good host tonight am I, habibti?" he continues, smiling warmly at her. "I'll make it up to you, don't worry. What have you been talking about?"

"Oh noth-" Leila begins, leaning forward and staring into Moe's deep eyes, trying to focus on him and forget about his annoying friend.

"Apparently Leila's Syrian friend isn't Syrian but Emirati!" Humaid interrupts. "The nerve of the girl! Pretending to be Syrian like that! She even spoke in the Syrian dialect. Don’t tell me the blonde hair isn't real?"

"Of course it is. She dyes it that's all," Leila answers quickly, panicking and sitting up straight. She lets go of Moe's hand, glancing at him to gage his reaction.

He tuts, shaking his head in disapproval.

"Emirati girls these days are a disgrace," he declares righteously. "She is obviously of very poor breeding. No girl from a good family would behave like that."

Leila looks down in humiliation, aware of the unintentional implication. "Well anyway, she's not interested," she says, trying to repair the damage she has caused. "She's really not that bad. She doesn’t date guys. She just likes to have fun." There is a short pause whilst the two khaleeji men comprehend what Leila has said, and she relishes the silence, hoping that the conclusion will be to drop the subject like a hot falafel.

"Make her interested," Humaid says quietly, a steely note in his voice. Check. There went the queen.

"How am I supposed to do that?!" Leila squeaks, the colour disappearing from her face.

"Tell her that I know she's Emirati and I know her phone number. It won't take that long for me to find out who her father is. Tell her to spare me the hassle. And tell her that I don’t like girls who play games."

Leila looks over at Mohamed for help, but he is uninterested, pressing buttons on his BB instead of paying attention to her.

"Humaid, she really isn’t that pretty in the light," she says nervously, desperately clutching at straws. "Just forget about her and move on. A good looking guy like you can get any girl, so what's the point of chasing after one who won't give you the time of day?"

Humaid doesn’t answer. Instead, he looks over at the uncomfortable Leila who is fidgeting in her seat quizzically. He wonders if she has feelings for him, and is jealous of his interest in her friend. He smiles to himself, his chest swelling with pride.

"Khalas, we'll talk about it later," he says reassuringly, grinning at her. Leila lets out a conspicuous sigh, glad that the chess match is over but oblivious to the reason why Humaid has temporarily stopped hounding her. Her heart resumes pumping blood around her body. She is certain that he will forget about Lady Luxe as soon as another reasonably attractive female pays him an iota of attention.

"Anyway, it was lovely seeing you again Leila. You are just as beautiful in the sunlight as you were under strobe lights. I'll be in touch! Yalla Hammoudi, nshofak bokra. Bye!"

Leila watches Humaid's back as he strolls away and finally stops tapping her feet, which she had unconsciously been doing the entire time he was there. She glances over at Moe who is still playing on his Blackberry and frowns. He looks up and notices the annoyance on her otherwise pretty face, which she doesn’t bother to disguise. Feeling sticky, irritated and stressed, Leila has had enough for one afternoon and now wants nothing more than to go just go back home and work off her aggravation in the gym. Her romantic date – the one that she spent more than two hours preparing from has been more like a police investigation and she is tired of feeling like a criminal.

"Sorry, I'll just be a minute. I'm arranging a few important matters with my father," he says apologetically.

"You know what? You carry on doing that. I'm sorry for getting in the way of your important business. I'll see you later," Leila gathers up her belongings but Mohamed places a hand on her arm to stop her as his phone rings.

"Yes Baba," he says to his Blackberry, pleading at Leila with his eyes to have patience. "No, I didn’t have a chance to talk to him about it again today but we'll schedule something for next week, earlier perhaps. I'll let you know. Salaam."

He hangs up and takes Leila's tiny hands in his, almost swallowing them up completely. Still annoyed, she looks away and takes a deep breath. If she was planning on marrying him, she would have shown more patience but as she knew that their relationship would die out in a few more weeks, she didn’t see the point of acting like an angel. Sure, she didn’t mind pretending to be innocent or uninterested, but that was it. He had to know that her time was valuable and no man, no matter how rich, had the right to waste it unless he was planning on putting a ring on her finger.

"Habibti don’t be angry," Mohamed implores, stroking her face. She stiffens, hoping that he is not ruining her makeup and he assumes her reaction is because she is still annoyed that he is not paying her enough attention.

"I'm not angry."

"Yes you are, and I deserve it. It's just a little family thing I have to contend with."

At the mention of the word 'family', Leila's ears prick up. Moe, like most Emiratis dating illicitly, has been extremely secretive about his family. She still doesn’t know his last name, where he lives or what his father does and is gagging to know more about her mystery man other than his first name (which he shares with at least 70% of the entire male Emirati population).

"Like what? What is more important than me?" she demands to know, exaggerating slightly, excited at the prospect of knowing more about his personal life.

"Well, my father wants me to find a suitor for my sister," he says, gesturing for the waiter and ordering another coffee. Leila leads forward in anticipation, like an eager student and almost wishes she could take notes.

"And?" she says impatiently as soon as the waiter leaves.

"And I'm thinking of introducing Humaid to her. Purely in a professional setting of course."

"What a fantastic idea!" Leila exclaims with a broad grin on her face. If Humaid is introduced to Mohamed's sister, perhaps then he'd stop pining after Lady Luxe and she wouldn’t have to worry about incurring her wrath after blurting out some of her secrets.

"Really? Do you think so? What did you think of Humaid?" Mohamed asks.

"I thought he was very intelligent and charismatic," Leila lies smoothly, reaching out to brush a strand of hair out of her face and then tingling at Moe's touch as he stops her hand and does it for her.

"Hmm… I don’t know how serious he is though. He certainly likes his women, but then, we all do don’t we? I don’t expect any man who marries my sister to be content with just her. Marriages need mistresses to keep them fresh."

"Oh yes, I agree," Leila nods dishonestly. After all, I won't be the wife who has to worry about your affairs. In fact, I will probably be the mistress.

"You do? That's refreshing." Moe looks at Leila with newfound respect, a smile playing on his lips.

"Well, marriage is a very boring institution don't you think? No man can ever be satisfied with one woman and accepting this fact is healthier for all parties involved." Leila is astounded at how quickly the lies pour out of her mouth, anxious to continue persuading Mohamed to allow Humaid to meet his sister. And hopefully forget about her friend and then save her back in the process.

"I agree wholeheartedly," Mohamed says with genuine enthusiasm. "Though I doubt my sister agrees."

"Why? What is she like?"

"Very… fiery," he answers, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "She's very intelligent, slightly arrogant and extremely rude. She needs someone who is able to control her and keep her in line. I think Humaid would be able to do that adequately. And he is, of course, from a good family so they may be a good match. My father seems to think so anyway. He thinks she's becoming far too independent so we're planning a meeting between them soon."

"Will your sister agree?" Leila asks curiously.

"Oh yes, if my father tells her to, she will have to. She will have no choice."

Leila grins happily, leans forward and gives Mohamed an unexpected quick kiss on his cheek. She is thrilled that she has managed to salvage the situation between Humaid and Lady Luxe and learn more about his family in the process. She really is more sly than Lady Luxe gives her credit for.

"But anyway, in case things don’t work out… After all, he may not even like her…He needs something to keep his mind busy," Moe continues, his eyebrows knitted together. "Ensure that your friend is willing to cater to his needs."

"What?" Leila's grin freezes on her face.

"Yes. This Emirati friend of yours needs to be taught a lesson. She can't just dance with a man in such a provocative way, give him her number and steal his hat without expecting to give anything in return. I can't stand teases. She needs to know that there is a price for everything."

"There is?" Leila squeaks, her voice almost inaudible.

"Yes. There is. Nothing in life comes for free, my dear Leila. Yes, the matter is solved. Humaid will meet my sister soon, in the next couple of days anyway, and he will meet your friend soon after. He really is a good friend of mine and if he is to be in my family, I want him to be happy. I trust you understand how important it is that you arrange that?"

Mohamed looks over at Leila, and her breath gets caught in her throat as their eyes connect. She notices something beneath the apparent warmth that she never paid much attention to before. Ice.

"By the way habibti, I forgot to mention how marvelous your handbag is. Simply divine! It wasn't easy to get hold of it without waiting on that ridiculous list though."

Leila looks down at her pristine white handbag and her toes curl in fear inside her new Louboutins.

"Thanks," she manages to whisper, a wobbly smile on her face.

Check mate.

Chapter Twenty - Sugar Honey Iced Tea

2009-10-12T00:03:00.013+03:00

I had another nightmare last night. I keep having them every week or so, and they come like a reminder I've put in my phone – alerting me of what I left behind and what I am trying to achieve, startling me out of my otherwise peaceful slumber.

Last night's choppy, static dream was so intense that I can still feel the tightness in my lungs as I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I can still feel my head spinning as the walls closed in around me and I collapsed into a heap of weak limbs on the bedroom floor, the sound of sirens clawing at my ears. That was when I woke up, my breath heavy, beads of sweat clinging to my hairline. I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom where I made wudhu with cold water, my eyes still laced with sleep, my movements slow with fatigue. After I finished the last step, washing my feet up to my ankles, I stared at my reflection, at the dark circles under my eyes, my lifeless skin, the water dripping down my face and my neck, leaving wet patches on my Snoopy nightshirt. I looked exactly as I felt – cold, lonely and miserable.

Heading back into my bedroom, I wrapped a scarf around my head, pulled on my dressing gown and stood on the prayer mat. It wasn’t even time for Fajr, and the sky was still as black as it can be, considering all the lights in the city, so I prayed the optional night prayers instead. I prayed for Allah to ease my parents', pain, their heartache, their incomprehensible disappointment. I prayed for Allah to forgive my brother for his anger and frustration, to instill peace in his heart, patience in his mind. Then I prayed for Jayden, wherever he is; for Allah to accept his soul into the garden of eternal peace and happiness. I remained prostrated on the prayer mat until my legs began to feel stiff, until I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, until my head and face felt heavy with all the blood that had settled there. My face soaked with tears, carpet marks imprinted on it, I eventually felt as if a tiny part of the weight I had been carrying had been lifted.

The phone wakes me up, hours later. Feeling groggy, my body aching, I slowly wrench my eyes open to find myself lying on the prayer mat, my scarf around my neck and my dressing gown over my body like a blanket.

"Hello?" I manage to croak, my throat dry, acutely aware that I sound disgusting first thing in the morning. When I was at college and at the pinnacle of my beanie hunting days, my then best friend, Farah, had been kind enough to advise me never to talk to any guys when I have just woken up.

"Trust me, Sugar," she told me, snorting down the phone at 7am. "You sound SO butters. Never talk to a guy like this. Not unless you want him to run a mile."

Farah had always been excruciatingly blunt. I feel a sharp pang as I remember all my wonderful (albeit a little crazy) friends that I've had to leave behind. I can't even remember the last time we spoke.

"Sabah al khair," Goldenboy replies, his voice smiling. I smile back, wondering if he too can feel my expressions through the phone.

"Sabah al nour," I reply geekily, trying my best to pronounce the guttural sounds properly. Arabic is definitely a beautiful language, but so damn hard to learn and even more difficult to enunciate accurately.

"Why are you smiling?" he asks, and I grin even more.

"Because you called," I say without thinking. The second I say it, I regret it. I'm supposed to be the cool, suave rude gyal from North London. Not a sickeningly adoring teenager from the suburbs.

"Because you woke me up, I meant," I hastily add, trying to redeem myself. "I forgot to set my alarm. So I'm happy I didn’t oversleep."

"Well get ready. I'm coming to collect you," he says. "I'll be there in an hour."

"Where are we going?" I ask, panicking. I just woke up on the prayer mat for God's sake. Surely my religiosity had to extend beyond the morning after?

"It's a surprise. Just dress comfortably, okay? See you soon!" With that, he hangs up and I sit still for a moment. Last night, during my prayers, I finally felt a tiny glimmer of hope – hope for redemption from Allah, hope for peace in the afterlife. I can't destroy it all now, just for a bit of fun.

But you won’t do anything bad, a voice whispers within. It's okay if you behave yourself, if you keep your barriers strong. Just be strong, be good, and it's okay.

And it’s not just a bit of fun either. There's something about Goldenboy that's so compelling. I feel drawn to him, like two opposite magnets that can only give in to the inevitable and cling to each other.

Persuading myself that my relationship with him is legit and nothing like what happened with Jayden, I hop into the shower and begin getting ready. I throw on a pair of loose, frayed jeans, trainers and a yellow long sleeved cotton jersey top with a hood that just about covers my bum. As I tie a brown and mustard pashmina around my face, I tell myself that it's okay that my top is a tad too short because my jeans are baggy. I feel a bit guilty though. I hate it when hijabis don't dress like proper hijabis. You see them all the time in the UK and in Dubai, wearing skinny jeans that show off their thighs and bums, tight tops that leave no room for guessing bra sizes, and then flinging scarves on their heads, as if hijab is just about covering your hair, not about modesty, dignity or about hiding your physical beauty, saving it for one man only.

When I first moved to Dubai, I found Emirati girls' version of hijab really weird. In London, only ultra-religious girls wear the abaya, and it’s usually a step they take once they've worn hijab for a while and want to cover themselves more. Over here though, you get a lot of women in abayas, but with transparent, floaty scarves perched precariously on huge beehives, perfectly blow-dried, highlighted fringes sticking out. Their eyes are usually exaggerated by thick, heavy kohl, they often have fuchsia pink or cherry red lips and mega high heels. Their Swarovski encrusted abayas sometimes float behind them, showing off tight skinny jeans, bling belts and occasionally, a glimpse of a tanned, toned sliver of stomach. They clutch obscenely expensive designer handbags in their manicured hands and you can continue smelling their strong perfume long after they've walked past you.

Some women don't even bother with a faux hijab over their carefully styled hair and just have it around their neck instead.

Although these women look rich and graceful from the back as they glide through the malls, from the front, most of them look like clowns with all that makeup caked on. It's as if their dad told them that they can only wear makeup once in their entire life, so they put as much of it as they could onto their faces. It took me a while to get used to it, as I felt as if they were taking the piss out of the concept of hijab, out of our religion. It also felt as if they were making a mockery out of Allah's commandments, which, being a newbie hijabi, I was still getting to grips with.

Now though, I get that the way they dress isn’t a testimony of their faith. It's just a cultural obligation, nothing more. Of course, there are women who do adhere to it properly, and I guess those women are the ones who wear it for their Creator, who wear it because the Qur'an says: “And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what must ordinarily appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty…." Not because their fathers are worried that they will shame the community if they don’t.

But I'm not exactly a good example of the modest Muslimah myself, so I can't judge. Look at me, getting ready to meet a guy (haraam), wearing clothes only just about fulfilling the hijab criteria if I stand up straight an don't bend down (haraam), spraying myself with half a bottle of Burberry Brit (haraam) and grabbing my iPod so we can sing to my tunes on the way to wherever it is that we're going to (haraam).

Excitement flutters in my stomach as I get into Goldenboy's black BMW M3, shaking hands with him and buckling up. The sun is bright, but the air is surprisingly fresh, cool enough to open the windows and drive along the motorway. I connect my iPod to the sound system and introduce him to Coldplay. I can't help but sing along to 'Yellow,' and I see him watching me from the corner of his eye, smiling as he leans back against the seat and controls the wheel with his left hand, his right elbow leaning comfortably on the arm rest. I don’t know what it is about cute guys driving cute cars that does it for me. I guess it's the whole 'being in total control' thing.

Anyway, he's wearing aviators, white linen trousers and a dark blue Armani t-shirt, and I get the urge to touch his leg, to see if I can feel his skin through the thin linen (MAJOR HARAAM SUGAR. DON'T DO IT). Obviously I don't though. Instead, I take pictures of my reflection in the car's side mirror with his camera, trying to keep myself busy.

"You're so different from all the girls I know," he suddenly says, turning the volume down.

"Really? Why?" I ask nonchalantly, secretly pleased at the acknowledgement of my uniqueness.

"I don’t know. You just are," he says quietly. "You seem so comfortable with yourself and you're so open. What you see is what you get. There are no secrets."

My face turns pink at his completely misjudged analysis of me, and I turn my face towards the window, so that he can't see how uncomfortable he has made me. I wish I was simple. I wish I had no secrets.

We continue driving down the motorway, leaving the glitz and glamour of Dubai behind us and join a much smaller dual carriageway. The desert is on either side of us and occasionally, there are a few dirty, dusty shops on the side of the road. This is the first time I'm venturing out of Dubai, and already I feel like I'm in another world. One that is actually real, not a mirage of all things new and shiny. As we get further away from the city, as the road gets emptier and the signs get stranger (with the occasional road sign on declaring 'Subhanallah' or 'Alhamdulillah' which I find really amusing), we see brown mountains in the distance.

"Welcome to Al Ain," Goldenboy declares. "These mountains are called Jebel Hafeet. I thought we could have lunch in the oasis. Do you like the surprise?"

"I love my surprise!" I exclaim, my eyes shining and a huge grin on my face.

As much as my relationship with Jayden was thrilling and exciting, it wasn't particularly romantic. He never actually took me anywhere different, not unless he wanted a quiet spot to make out with me, in which case he'd seek out various lonely parks and cemeteries (I know, how morbid). Neither of us had cars, we relied purely on our Oyster cards to get about and we didn’t have much money either, so we couldn’t go anywhere remotely exotic. Not unless you consider graveyards to be exotic. There was one hidden in Stoke Newington, just off the high street, that was actually quite peaceful. The grass was unkempt and there were loads of trees and overgrown foliage covering the headstones, providing lots of privacy. We went there a lot and sat around on the walls, talking, our heads resting on each other. I should have realised that any relationship that blossomed in a place rife with dead bodies was ill-fated.

The oasis is nestled amongst the towering, sandy coloured mountains, a luscious splash of green in otherwise arid landscape, and we choose a spot next to a little stream. Goldenboy has actually not only packed a fabulous picnic of Arabic bread, grilled chicken, roast potatoes, homous, baba ghanouj, fattoush and loads of fruit and drinks, but he has remembered to bring a blanket, cutlery and even a thermos of mint tea and a shisha. There are other families around us, barbecuing fragrant cubes of lamb, preparing salads and others sitting around drinking tea. Goldenboy strikes up a conversation with one family in Arabic, and the next thing I know, they've sent a whole loads of grilled goodies in our direction. I love the Arab hospitality, how they are so generous with their time, attention and material possessions. I can't imagine being invited to join in someone else's family picnic in Springfield Park. In fact, they'd probably nick our stuff while we weren't looking.

When the sun sets, we hear the adhaan in the distance and Goldenboy asks me if I want to pray behind him. I readily agree, and he stands in front of me and begins leading the prayer. His voice is sweet and melodic, and I feel a rush of emotion reach right to my soul as he recites various verses from the Qur'an. We finish praying, get the shisha ready and relax under the stars, smoking the fragrant double apple shisha and sipping on mint tea. I wish I could stay like this forever.

"I haven't seen this many stars for so long," I tell him, looking up at the surprisingly clear black sky. I lie down on my back and try to count them, encouraging Goldenboy to do the same. He seems to be taking the task quite seriously. Whereas I'm just trying to force my body to remain glued in the little (okay, big) patch of grass I've flattened. All I want to do is roll over and place my head on his chest and listen to his heart beat, to casually place my arm over his taut torso, to intertwine my legs in his. And then confide in him and tell him my secrets, my hopes, my fears. My story. I wonder how he would feel if he knew everything about me, if he would still want to be friends with me. Or if he would reject me, cast me from his life as some of my other friends did, if he would hold me in contempt and lose all respect for me.

I have had to learn the hard way that people you think love you unconditionally, actually only love the idea of you, and when you fall from grace in their eyes, they no longer want to know you. The idea they had has been shattered, and the real, you - the naked, vulnerable you - just simply isn’t good enough. I came out here hoping for a fresh start with people who don't know my sordid past. I wonder how long I can keep it like that.

Goldenboy turns his body to face me, his expression thoughtful. My heart starts to pound and the metre between us suddenly feels like nothing. After all, he is close enough to touch. The possibilities between us are endless.

Despite the lack of a physical connection between us, I feel emotionally connected to him. The more we talk, the more I realise that it's not just about hormones. Of course, they're there, charging the atmosphere, but it's not as it was at the beginning of the day, when all I wanted to do was touch him. Now, all I want is to spend more and more time with him.

During our picnic, we talked about our families. He told me little anecdotes about his parents and the day trips they took when they were kids. I didn't tell him about the time our family was supposed to go to Whipsnade Wild Animal Park, and how the night before, my older sister and I excitedly packed a huge picnic lunch, how we sang songs all the way down the M1, only to get there and have my mum change her mind and decide she didn’t want to suffer through the intense heat. And how we looked for an alternative, but the park we stumbled across was full of skinheads who snarled at us as we walked past, and how we ended up having our beautiful picnic in the car. In the Sainsbury's car park. No, I decided to leave out my weird family stories and listened to his instead. His upbringing in rural Syria was so different from my inner city London one, so unassuming and innocent compared to mine, that I found myself hanging onto his every word. I wished that I too had that kind of Enid Blyton childhood, full of adventure, wildlife and the kind of independence kids brought up in a safe environment are privy to.

I turn to face him, wondering what he's about to say, trying to plaster a reassuring look on my face so that he feels that he can open up and say anything.

"How many stars have you counted?" he asks. My heart plummets, and I force a smile on my face. I'm beginning to doubt that he has any feelings towards me at all. Maybe I'm like those saddos from that movie, 'He's Just Not That Into You,' who over-analyse every smile, touch, word until she believes that he is about to pop the question at any moment. When the reality is, he sees her as nothing more than a way to pass a few hours when there's nothing better to do.

What am I supposed to say? Sorry, I haven’t actually been counting the stars. I've been wondering what our children would look like instead?

"Twenty three?" I answer instead.

"Is that all? I got thirty nine," he replies. I don’t care, I think to myself. Feeling annoyed, I sit up abruptly.

"Yalla let's go," I say, already adopting dodgy Arabic phrases.

"Already?"

"Yes, it's getting late. By the time we get back to Dubai it'll be nearly eleven." I say prudishly, remembering the many times I snuck out of my house at 2am, drove my brother's car down to St John's Street and met Jayden in Tinseltown, a 24 hour halal version of an American style diner. No wonder I got caught.

He reluctantly gets up and looks at me, slightly confused, and begins to pack everything away. I want him to refuse, to tell me that he wants to stay out here a little longer, but he doesn’t. Instead, he begins folding up the blanket and collecting our rubbish. I help him half-heartedly, feeling deflated. I should be happy that he respects me enough not to make a move, that whatever his reasons are, at least it's keeping me out of trouble. But I don’t. I feel horribly unwanted instead. Loneliness really is a killer.

The drive back home starts off a little cold as I refuse to smile at Goldenboy and he is unsure as to what has provoked the off behavior from me. It doesn’t take long for me to loosen up, and soon, I'm playing him all the Arabic music I have on my iPod. He is stunned that I know all the words to Nancy's 'Ah w Nos' and I sing my heart out, deciding that if all we're going to be is friends, I might as well have fun while I'm at it.

"Do you even understand what you're singing?" he asks, laughing.

"Nope! Don’t have a clue," I reply with a shrug.

"You're crazy," he says affectionately and I warm up again. He joins me and we sing Abdel Kader, the infamous Algerian song by Cheb Khalid together, dancing around like kids. He seems a little bit embarrassed to begin with, but my lack of inhibitions wear down his barriers and soon we're messing around like old friends.

When we drive into Dubai, I am disappointed that our amazing day has already come to an end. I feel like I'm flying and I don’t want to come back to Earth. I preferred being stuck on Cloud Nine. Why can't he ask me to stay out longer? Why can't he suggest going for coffee somewhere? The closer we get to JBR, the more resigned I feel. And suddenly, a vicious thought strikes me.

I look at Goldenboy's perfectly coordinated outfit, the immaculate hair, his neatly trimmed nails and think back to the amount of thought he put into this day out. He's clearly not interested in me. Could it be that it's not me that's the problem, but my gender?

"Are you gay?" I blurt out before I can control myself as we pull into my carpark.

"What?" His head snaps towards me, and there is a look of shock on his face. He pulls over and stops the car, his expression strange.

"S-sorry," I stammer nervously. Maybe he's not gay. Maybe he's actually a really dangerous guy who takes offense to questions about his sexuality. And who would be happy to put a big-mouthed girl in her place.

"What the hell. How can you ask that? I'm an ARAB guy. Do you know what it means to have someone ask you that?"

"I'm sorry. I didn’t mean it in a bad way," I say weakly, not looking him in the eye.

"What did you mean then?" he answers sarcastically.

"It's actually a compliment," I backtrack stupidly. "It's because your clothes and your hair and everything is just so perfect. It's a bit gay."

"So you still think I'm gay?!" His voice is incredulous, but now, instead of feeling scared, I actually find it all quite funny.

"Yeah maybe," I say cheekily. "Is that why you don’t have a girlfriend?"

"Sugar! Stop it! I'm not gay!"

"You sure?"

"Khalas!"

"One hundred percent sure?"

"You want me to prove it or what?"

"How can you prove it when it may be true?" By now, I'm laughing hysterically, finding his discomfort hilarious, the excitement and then disappointment of the day finally getting to my head. He really does need to lighten up a bit.

Suddenly, he leans forward, and before I can protest, he places his hand on my cheek and presses his warm lips against mine. For a second, I do absolutely nothing. I am in complete shock. My heart feels as if it has stopped. It is as if I am suspended in mid-air. And then, I soften, and melt against him. My lips part and I begin to kiss him back. I wrap my arms around his neck, my mind disappearing into the kiss. I stop thinking, I stop worrying. All I do is feel his heartbeat against my chest and I pull him even closer. His lips are sweet and he tastes like Pepsi and double apple shisha mixed together. I nibble on his lower lip and then his mouth begins to move more urgently. I'm gasping for air but I don’t want him to stop, all I want is for time to stop, and to be suspended in this moment forever. But then, he slides his hand under my top and rests it on my bare back. The contact of his skin against mine, of his warm hand against my cool back, startles me and I pull away. I stare into his eyes, his eyelids sleepy with desire, and he stares back into mine. He is breathing heavily and so am I. It is all so right, but so wrong.

"I'm sorry. I can't." I whisper. I open the door and jump out of the car.

"Sugar, wait –" he calls out after me. But I don't stop. I run into the lift and when the doors close, I let out air from my lungs. My palms are sticky and my breath is still irregular.

This is exactly what I wanted and what I was supposed to be avoiding. This is the reason why my life is in complete shambles. But now it's started, can it stop?

Shit.

I enter my bedroom and collapse onto my bed. My phone already begins to buzz and I stare down at Goldenboy's name on the screen. I turn it off, while he is still calling, and curl up into a ball.

That night, I dream of mountains and butterflies.

Chapter Nineteen – Two’s company…

2009-09-28T11:39:00.008+03:00

Nadia is at work, pretending to write a report on the fluctuating oil prices in the Gulf. She has the right software open on her screen, her eyes are focused in the right direction and she is sitting with her back straight, her fingers carefully poised on the keyboard. For anyone observing her, she seems to be an intense, hard working woman who is deep in thought.

Intense and deep in thought she is, but hard working she is not, for her mind has been on every subject other than oil for the past four hours, and beneath the flitting thoughts, is an uneasy sense of guilt. Not because she is on the brink of leaving her husband, or because she is experiencing failure for the first time, but because last week, when she picked up the phone to call her mother, her fingers began dialing a different number altogether – one that has always been familiar to her.

“Hello?” he answered, his deep voice lilting slightly upwards at the second syllable. The familiarity of his voice together with the warmth in that single word brought instant tears to Nadia’s eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead of words, sobs began to pour out. With her face soaked in tears, water dripping into her mouth, rolling down her jaw, she struggled to answer.

“Nadia? Is that you? What’s wrong?”

After months of battling through her problems alone, those simple words uttered by someone she knew genuinely cared for her, instilled a sense of peace into Nadia’s heart. She wiped her tears away on the sleeve of her worn long-sleeved jersey shirt and forced her breath to regulate.

“I don’t know what to do,” she finally whispered. Leaning back against the soft sofa with her knees drawn to her chest, she clutched on to the phone as if it were his hand, and closed her eyes, remembering his scent - pine trees mixed with cinnamon. It was an odd combination but one that reminded her of her youth in Qatar; playing knock-down-ginger in their compound in Doha, dancing to Michael Jackson mix tapes and her very first kiss. It had been over a year since they last spoke, her union with Daniel encouraging her to steer clear of her first love - just to be on the safe side. But now, the barrier she had hastily built between them to protect herself, her husband and her marriage, had a self-inflicted crack in it.

Nadia was just ten years-old when her father, a treasured computer engineer in the days when IBM was still the king of the industry, got a job in Doha and persuaded his wife to join him on an Arabian Adventure. Nadia's mother weighed her choices – raising her three daughters in a two bedroom flat in London Bridge or an eight bedroom villa in Qatar. Like any woman who had always dreamt of a beautiful family and a comfortable life, she agreed and quickly found herself living the proverbial over-indulged expatriate life.

They assimilated into compound life easily; discos on Wednesday nights, potlucks on Thursdays, picnics on Fridays, pool parties, sailing trips, glitzy malls. Their life was so very different from the one they left behind in London. The cloudy skies were replaced with painfully bright ones, the long queues at the Post Office, waiting to cash child benefit vouchers were a thing of the past, and there was no more struggling on the Underground or lugging prams onto buses. There were drivers and maids to contend with all that. It was easy to fall in love with life in the Gulf.

And it was easy to fall in love with Yusuf as well.

The only other Moroccan family in the compound, Yusuf and his younger brother Tahir spent hours with Nadia and Yasmine, riding their shiny bicycles the days the weather was mild and playing cards whilst lying on the cold, tiled floors in their homes when it was too hot to venture outside. Everyone always joked that Yusuf would end up with Nadia, that Tahir would end up with Yasmine, that they were perfect for each other.

But perfection only lasted during their unsuspecting teenage years, when their biggest difference was their taste in movies. When Nadia's parents separated and her mother moved back to the UK with the girls, Nadia lost not only her father, but the first boy who stirred her stomach, who caused a flush in her pale cheeks. The first boy who made her cry in secret when he danced with another girl on a Wednesday night.

The evening before she was forced to close a beautiful chapter in her life, Yusuf pressed his soft, inexperienced lips against hers and swore that he would come for her as soon as he could.

In his defense, his promise lasted as long as his fidelity. They sustained their pubescent love through composing long, badly written love letters, creating mix tapes for each other, listening to Richard Marx's 'Right Here Waiting' over and over again.

Then Yusuf's family moved back to the US. The more immersed he became with his new life, the more he lost what attracted Nadia to him in the first place – the sweetness, the innocence, the faithfulness. He stopped praying, started drinking, began catching up for all the time he had lost whilst living in a religious state. He had less and less time for the girl waiting for him on the other side of the Atlantic. Like two pieces of driftwood in the ocean, they floated further and further away from each other. Their breakup was an unspoken, mutual understanding that neither needed to articulate. They just knew.

They remained friends though. As friendly as two people with nothing but a shared history in common, who live on different parts of the globe, can be. Every so often, Yusuf would break down and beg Nadia to wait for him, every so often, Nadia would relent and accept his clumsy, confused love back into her life. She met other guys during her time at University but somehow always found herself back with Yusuf in the end. Until she met Daniel, during her Masters, who showed her what love was supposed to be like - two people on a journey to the same end, a relationship thriving on respect and understanding.

Nadia and Daniel got engaged. Yusuf, who heard the news from his brother before he heard it from Nadia, was devastated.

"You were supposed to wait for me!" he said when she answered his call at two in the morning, his voice cracking, his throat hoarse.

"Wait for what? For you to sow your wild oats? To stop having fun at Uni? To stop the parties, the clubs, the drinking?"

That was the last time they spoke, almost two years ago. But when Nadia called him last week, all their differences seemed irrelevant, and deep beneath his cynicism and her pain, they were still Nadia and Yusuf, the picture-perfect, young lovers.

They spoke for almost five hours. At first, about Nadia's problems, then about Yusuf's own issues – his white American girlfriend who didn’t understand him, his inability to balance both his cultures, his sense of displacement. They joked about setting his girlfriend up with Daniel. They analysed the steps they had taken that lead them to their respective disillusioned positions, what they could have done to avoid all the heartache. The conversation was like a glass of ice cold water –clear and fresh, and Nadia drank it all, like a traveler stumbling across a desert oasis. Until, during a moment of comfortable silence, Yusuf mused;

"Why didn’t we end up together, Nadia? You know we were always meant to be with each other. You know I'll always love you."

The glass of water ended up on Nadia's face, snapping her out of her dreamlike state. She was married. Yes, to a cheating bastard, but that didn’t give her the right to stoop to his level. That didn’t mean she wanted another man professing his love for her. Bidding Yusuf a hasty farewell, she hung up, her hands shaking.

As if her life wasn't confusing enough, without adding Yusuf, his feelings and their joint baggage to the equation.

Pressing that little red button may have ended their conversation, but it didn’t stop her from constantly wondering about Yusuf, if she had made a mistake in letting him go, if he would still want her after her relationship with Daniel came to an inevitable end. If he had grown into the man she always hoped he would be. His messages to her have only succeeded in confusing her further.

Maybe all this happened so we could end up together the way we were supposed to, he wrote to her that morning. This time I'll wait for you, like I wanted you to wait for me.

She had wanted to wait for him, and she had waited, all those years. But with every year that passed, another part of him changed, until he became virtually unrecognizable. Almost everything she ever loved about him faded away, and although a piece of her heart would always be with the first man who took it, she had doubted that they had a future together.

Was she wrong?

Now, she is sitting at her neat desk at work, trying her best not to make eye-contact with anyone. She doesn’t want to have to partake in small talk or fake smiles with any of her colleagues today. She doesn’t want anyone asking her how she is (shit), what did over the weekend (lament) or what she’s doing that evening (meeting Sugar to bitch about Daniel and perhaps confess about Yusuf).

When six ‘o’ clock finally arrives, Nadia drags her body out of her seat, hoists her handbag onto her shoulder and begins the short walk home. She used to be fit, nimble and athletic but recent events have taken a toll on her body and her energy. Now, the short walk home from Internet City is a burden. Her bag feels too heavy and cumbersome. Her legs feel lethargic and stiff.

Daniel is already home when Nadia walks up the three flights of stairs to their apartment and lets herself in. He is watching TV and completely ignores her as she quietly enters the apartment. She used to feel a burst of warmth whenever she’d come home to her husband, but now, their brief encounters give her the chills. She doesn’t say anything to him, just walks through the living room to her bedroom (it has ceased being ‘their’ room) and closes the door softly behind her. She leans against it, takes a deep breath, and then begins getting ready to meet Sugar.

She’s not in the mood to dress up, to make an effort to appear normal, but the TV sounds coming from the other side of the door are annoying her. She hates the way Daniel just sits there acting as if he has done nothing wrong. She hates the way he ignores her as if she isn’t there. But most of all, she hates that he doesn’t seem to care that their relationship has crumbled away, that he is unperturbed by the fact that he has not exchanged a single pleasantry with his wife for a week.

Suddenly, her desire to leave the house in tattered jeans and a frayed sweatshirt is replaced with an urge to make him know exactly what he’s missing out on. She steps under the shower and uses as many scented products as she can, knowing that he has a weakness for beautiful fragrances. When she emerges ten minutes later, she smoothes lavender moisturizer over her entire body then slips into a dark purple silk maxi dress. She evens her face out with foundation and then blends purple and black eyeshadow onto her lids, giving them a sexy, smoky look. Highlighting her cheeks with MAC’s ‘Flirt and Tease’ and then applying lipgloss to her pout, she sprays herself with ‘Very Sexy’ and then leaves the room, pretending to look for something in her handbag which lay on the living room floor.

“Are you going out like that? Without hijab?” Daniel asks incredulously as she rummages around in her handbag, taking out various bits and pieces as she feigns looking for her ipod. She smiles to herself, half tempted to do it just to piss him off.

“Have you seen my ipod?” she asks innocently, knowing that it is in the bedroom.

“No I haven’t. Are you going to go out like that?” he asks again. This time Nadia stops and looks at his face for the first time all week. He actually looks tired. There are grey circles around his slightly bloodshot eyes and stubble is beginning to show on his chin. So now he cares about her whereabouts. She feels a sense of accomplishment as she throws him a pitiful glance.

“What? Don’t be silly, of course not,” she answers airily, brushing past him to check the bookshelves by the dining table, leaving the ‘Very Sexy’ scent behind. She hears him inhale, and feels contempt. She couldn’t make him want her when she was in bed naked, but now, a bit of perfume and cleavage was driving him wild. He just didn’t have a clue what he wanted or needed. She gives up pretending to look for her ipod and stalks past him again. As she puts on her shrug to cover her bare arms, and covers her hair and cleavage with a bronze scarf, she feels as if she finally may have the upper hand in this battle. She spotted at least ten empty packets of instant noodles in the kitchen bin. Daniel’s salary is too small for him to eat out regularly, but since Nadia is not cooking for him, he has been preparing nothing but cheap, easy meals. His little internet lover must have returned to the US so he isn’t getting any action in the bedroom either. Right about now, he must be realizing how good he actually had it with Nadia.

Good, she thinks to herself, slipping her feet into bronze heels. She leaves the room and grabs her bag from where she left it in the living room.

“So where are you going?” Daniel asks, just before she exits the apartment.

“Out,” she retorts, slamming the door behind her and feeling a little thrill of excitement. At last, he knows what it feels like to be unwanted.

Sugar collects Nadia from outside the apartment building in her rented Toyota and the two of them make their way down to the Marina, where they have dinner at the Lebanese restaurant and ignore the stares they are getting from all the Arab guys in the surrounding tables. She decides against telling Sugar about Yusuf, but instead, explains the anger, frustration and worthlessness Daniel is making her feel.

“You need to leave him,” Sugar states simply. "Leaving him isn't giving up. It's realising your self-worth".

Deep down, Nadia knows that she probably does. But she can’t bear to acknowledge that the Daniel she married has metamorphosed into the Cheating Daniel. She doesn’t want to join the long list of divorcees in her family, to openly declare that her marriage has failed. She keeps hoping that he will suddenly revert back to the Daniel she fell in love with, that she will wake up from this nightmare and realize that none of it actually happened.

Nadia doesn’t know how to articulate everything she feels simultaneously, so she doesn’t say anything at all.

* * *

She quietly enters her apartment at 1am, feeling exhausted and regretting the amount of makeup she piled on. It will take her ages to wipe it all off. She feels embarrassed to admit that she actually enjoyed the lingering gazes of the men that caught sight of her. It had been so long since she felt desired or sexy that she relished the attention poured on her.

"Hypocrite."

The word comes as a shock to Nadia, who is fumbling around for the light switch in the dark. She jumps, letting go of her bag.

"What the hell, Daniel! What's your problem?" she gasps, finally finding the switch and turning the light on. Daniel is sitting on the sofa, staring at her with an expression she has never seen before. She feels conscious under his gaze, and fiddles with her scarf nervously, wondering why her heart has suddenly started to pound.

"My wife, whilst perching on a ridiculously high horse, has been secretly having an affair with some guy called Yusuf. That's my problem."

Nadia stares at Daniel, aghast at the accusation. She then spots her phone in his fist, and realizes that during her big 'where's my ipod' parade, she had emptied the contents of her bag and left her phone for him to go through.

"You should be so lucky," she spits out, disgusted. "You wish I’m having an affair, so you can justify your actions to yourself. Sorry to disappoint you Daniel, but I most certainly am not. Now give me my phone back."

She stalks over to him and attempts to snatch her phone. He moves his hand away and grabs her wrist, pulling her towards him.

"Don't lie. It's all here!" he says, anger in his eyes. "I read all your messages. Yusuf, huh? I never would have taken you for a cheat."

"And I never would have taken you for a promiscuous bastard either but hey, we learn something new everyday. Now let go of my wrist."

"Tell me who Yusuf is."

"I don’t owe you anything. Let go."

"Tell me!"

"LET GO."

Nadia is unwilling to explain herself to the man who has stalked her friends, indulged in pornography and embarked on a sordid affair with his ex-lover. And then lied about it all. She cannot believe his audacity in questioning her over innocent messages after all he has done. She struggles in his grasp, wondering why the idea of her with another man – which, incidentally, was something he suggested before – is bothering him so much,

"Tell me!" He pulls her arm and she falls onto his lap. She sits there for a moment, the physical contact paralyzing her. Butterflies start buzzing in her stomach and she doesn’t know whether to feel disgusted for allowing herself to be effected by him after all that he has done, or feel repelled by their proximity to one another. She feels neither. Instead, she feels a glimmer of hope light up inside her heart. Before she has a chance to hoist herself off his lap though, he leans forward and presses his cold lips onto hers.

"Don't leave me," he murmurs, pulling away for a second and then kissing her again, this time longer. His words electrocute Nadia, who has been waiting for a sign of remorse from Daniel for so long, waiting for a reason to keep trying with him. She melts against his body. He stands up with her still in his arms, and carries her to the bedroom, where he gently places her on the bed and begins unwrapping her hijab.

It is almost like their wedding night, all over again.

But this time, Nadia feels fear and nausea. She cannot believe that she is allowing herself to be caressed by a man who has caused her so much agony but she is fearful that this could potentially be the last time they have each other. She doesn’t stop him though. She sinks back onto the sheets and tells herself to relax, to let tonight be okay and worry about the repercussions tomorrow.

However, as he plants gentle kisses on her neck, she can't help but wonder what it would feel like if Yusuf were in his place.

Chapter Eighteen – Who said blood is thicker than water?

2009-08-18T20:29:00.007+03:00

Lady Luxe slumps back in her chair with a grimace on her face, ignoring the quizzical look the young woman at the next table gives her. For the past week, she has had to endure Leila gushing about “Moe” taking her to swanky restaurants and bars, long descriptions of his orange Mercedes and painfully intimate details about his full lips that always know exactly how to probe, nibble and tingle.

Little does Leila know, it was actually her so-called friend who helped her sort-of lover choose his car, that his full lips have been inherited from their father, and that the expensive restaurants and bars will not even cause a tiny dent in his bank account.

“So now, I’ve decided to just go with the flow you know? I want to live a little, to stop worrying about finding The One, and have a little fun with The One I’m Settling For instead,” Leila explains to Lady Luxe with a cheesy grin on her face. She is looking happier than she has in weeks – her complexion is glowing, her eyes are twinkling and even the small creases on her forehead seem to have smoothed out.

“Right,” Lady Luxe answers noncommittally, taking a sip from her Moroccan mint tea, and when that doesn't soothe her nerves, a long drag from her double apple shisha. Part of her silky black Hanayen sheila slips off her head and she rearranges it, making sure that her über slick, chestnut brown fringe remains intact and the studded Hanayen logo remains visible.

Since Leila embarked on a love affair with her older brother, Lady Luxe has decided to abandon her Jennifer persona until further notice. She simply cannot risk bumping (or grinding) into Mohammed again, and with Leila constantly trying to run into him, she is afraid that she may not have a choice. As realistic as her golden wig may be (or as stupid as her brother is), he is certainly astute enough to recognise his own sister should he come face to face with her in broad daylight – no matter what her disguise. And that is a predicament Lady Luxe plans to avoid like swine flu. Thus, she has been putting off meeting Leila with lame excuses such as work (as if that ever got in the way of play) and pretend family affairs.

Tonight, after relentless hounding from Leila, Lady Luxe has finally agreed to meet her as her original, abaya-clad self at QDs, the outdoor Lebanese restaurant at the Park Hyatt Hotel. Although relatively atmospheric, with its cosy, majlis-like tents strategically placed around the restaurant, the corny 80s classics that are squeaking through the quiet speakers are grating on Lady Luxe's nerves almost as much as Leila's incessant chattering. She has the sudden urge to jump aboard one of the yachts moored nearby and disappear into the horizon.

"But I haven’t done it with him yet, you know," Leila confides with a gleam in her eyes. "I'm going to hold out as long as possible, but it is so hard to resist when all I want to do when I see him is- "

"I'm surprised he hasn't forced you seeing as you threw yourself at him the first time you met him. He really is one of the good ones." Lady Luxe interrupts snidely, a sense of nausea rippling through her. This is exactly the kind of conversation she refuses to tolerate, and is one of the reasons why she has been trying to avoid meeting Leila. The second is that although bumping into Mohamed as herself is far better than meeting him as Jennifer, it is only the lesser of two evils. She is still hoping that luck will be on her side (she has given up begging God for favours after failing to deliver on her promise to become 'good' the last time He helped her out) and that her brother will become bored of his Lebanese Lover before she has a chance to join the dots and use Lady Luxe's secrets as a lifelong leverage.

Lady Luxe often wishes that she was an orphan. And not just any orphan either, but a siblingless orphan with no extended family, no little note tucked into her Moses basket explaining her origins and no identity other than the one she has created for herself.

The desire to run away to another country, change her name and adopt a whole new persona occasionally fades away though. She enjoys having a sweet, fun younger brother to play Wii Sports with. It also dies down on the rare instances her parents acknowledge her existence in a loving way – rather than just trying to control her or attempting to impart their (very different) beliefs on her. There are even times when she appreciates her last name as well. Whenever she has a little run in with the police, for example, she always drives home feeling relieved that she does not have to endure their law enforcing efforts in the same vain as ordinary people do.

Then there are moments when she can barely stomach her life, her family, her existence; when a newspaper implies that her success lies purely in her name, not her talent nor her hard work, or when her other brother decides to show his authority. With every slap, pinch or shove, her hatred towards him grows stronger, so much so that she has recently started to fantasise about adding cyanide to his tea. She finds it ironic how she loves the brother who is not even fully related to her and yet despises the one who is. That she is closer to the brother who attends the Jumeirah Islamic Learning Centre in his spare time than the one who shares the same pastimes as her.

And then there are the times when she returns to Dubai feeling cold, confused and lonely after another “bonding” session with her mother in London. Lady Luxe’s mother, whom she calls Isabel, doesn’t try to hide her distaste for all things Middle Eastern. After making the dreadful mistake of falling in love with an Emirati man in the '70s and sacrificing her home, her culture and her family in order to be his esteemed wife, she realised that she was expected to sacrifice her freedom as well. Her husband, when he was her boyfriend, was fun, easygoing and modern. He drank like a fish, traveled like a gypsy and swore like a sailor. Having boarded at Sandhurst in his youth, like most of his family, he went on to read PPE at Oxford. She was the cute, preppy Literature student notorious for her endless legs and her quick wit and he was the proverbial tall, dark and handsome foreigner with wads of cash and an open-topped Aston Martin.

She found his accent endearing, his quirky habits cute, and his jealousy sexy. He found her sarcasm funny, her temper cute, her tiny shorts sexy. They shortly became inseparable, spending hours together, smoking weed and listening to Bob Marley. They would talk about how much they despised social norms, their rigid, traditional families, the ugly glares on peoples’ faces when they realised that this pretty English rose was frolicking with a dark skinned Bedouin. All the while, their fingers and limbs entwined – a beautiful contrast of milk and honey, East meeting West.

Isabel thought it would be exciting to move to the UAE, to embark on a marriage rather than a career, to don an abaya over the shorts and become a ‘Muslim’. Her husband’s religiousness did not extend beyond Ramadan and she assumed he would not expect any more from her.

However, upon returning to his homeland with his not-so-blushing, definitely un-virgin bride, Isabel’s new in-laws erupted into pandemonium. They cried, screamed, threatened to die and spun lies, all in an attempt to break up the relationship. Their efforts only made the stubborn English girl try even harder to assimilate, to win over their hearts, to cling onto her husband.

They eventually conceded that he could remain married to his harlot so long as she respected her new religion and culture. She would not work, would no go out unaccompanied, would never leave the home without her face fully covered, would never do anything that could tarnish the family reputation. Oh, she would also have to be willing to share his body and heart with another wife – an Emirati wife – from a wealthy and prestigious family – if he still wanted his inheritance.

After some time, Isabel's sarcasm was no longer funny, it was rude. Her temper ceased being cute – it became disrespectful. And her tiny shorts were more shameless than sexy. Her husband's jealousy became unbearable, his quirky habits uncivilised and his accent irritating.

When his wife disappeared on a sticky, summer’s night with their newborn daughter, leaving behind not just her husband, but their first child as well, Lady Luxe’s father’s heart and pride were shattered. He tracked her down, took their daughter from her and then proceeded to marry the first woman his family suggested in order to soothe his nerves and placate his parents. They had one child together and he divorced her soon after, preferring the company of mistresses whom he didn’t have to endure on a regular basis.

Thus, the X family consists of an English woman who dislikes the Middle East, an Arab man who is detests the West, an innocent Emirati woman caught in the middle of a vicious feud and their children; a curious mix of two cultures and two women, desperately trying to juggle each aspect of their personality and their family, unable to fit in perfectly in either world.

“…and then I said, ‘no habibi, I want it to be special and your tree of desire will bear many fruits if you water it with some patience.’ And then he said, ‘my tree of desire is so big that I am afraid it will explode!’”

Snapping out of her dream like state, Lady Luxe tunes back into Leila’s droning with disgust.

“How cute,” she mutters, scowling. “Anyway! Did I tell you that my cousins are coming to town?”

“You’re interrupting my man story to talk about your cousins?” Leila asks, annoyed. “Either your sheila is heating your brain so much that you don’t know what you’re doing, or you’re insanely jealous and can't bear talking about my perfect man.”

“Jealous? Ha! Why would I be jealous?" Lady Luxe scoffs, raising an eyebrow.

“Quite simply, I have a man. And you don’t. And you feel threatened.” Leila leans back in her seat with her arms folded across her chest, her mouth in a pout and fire flashing in her eyes.

Lady Luxe looks back at her friend in distaste. No woman wearing tight white jeans and a tighter pink t-shirt should have that sort of contemptuous attitude. Leila has been dating her brother for five minures and she has already developed airs and graces. Imagine if she actually – God forbid – married him? She would be positively unbearable.

“Carry on deluding yourself, my dear. We both know exactly how this little union is going to end up, so please, spare me the details until you reach the inevitable conclusion.”

There is a pause while Leila processes what Lady Luxe has said, and when recognition comes, it doesn’t dawn on her slowly, but slaps her hard in the face. She gasps and holds a manicured hand to her mouth in shock.

“You really are a spiteful little bitch aren’t you!” she says, standing up abruptly. “If you don’t mind, I have to go and meet my boyfriend now. The one you’re jealous of. I bet you’re wishing you didn’t hand him over to me in the club now, aren’t you? Well it’s too late. Try and steal him from me and see what I do!”

With that, Leila stalks off, her three-inch shiny hot pink strappy sandals clattering away until she has disappeared from sight. When she can no longer hear her shoes or smell her strong perfume, Lady Luxe lets out a sigh, knowing that she has just made the situation worse. There is nothing like the threat of competition to make a woman cling onto her man even more. If Leila was only interested in having fun with Moe before, now she was determined to prove Lady Luxe wrong. She would no doubt pull out all the stops to ensnare him in her web.

*#&$^@&*!, Lady Luxe curses, feeling completely drained. She takes another long puff of her shisha and releases the smoke slowly out of her mouth, her mind tired from scheming. She wishes she could just go home, curl up in her pjs and completely be herself. She doesn’t want to have to constantly worry about someone who is supposed to be her friend, finding out her real identity. She is tired of having to worry about someone who is supposed to be her loving older brother, finding out her alter ego. She just wants to be her. No labels, no expectations, no demands.

But she can’t.

Instead, she has to go home, swap Lady Penelope for her Cayenne and head over to DXB Terminal three to collect her crazy cousins, Moza and Rowdha, who will be in town for a week. Although she usually enjoys their monthly visits, whenever they swoop into town to attend Rowdha’s laser hair removal treatments and indulge Moza’s shoe fetish, she can be sure her life will be put on hold. And right now, she just can’t afford to stop thinking about Leila and Moe. She needs to hatch a plan to end their little relationship before it explodes in her face.

“Where the hell have you been?” A voice demands as she runs into the villa to change her shoes, her feet tired from being squeezed into a pair of black vampy Blahnik’s that she had bought a size too small due to them being the last pair left in Barney’s. She stops in her tracks and whips around to see Mohamed standing in the foyer, having just exited the kitchen.

“I was at QDs with my friend,” she answers quickly, flashing him a smile. Reluctant to start a fight just before she has to go out again, she decides it is better to remain polite and informative.

“Which friend?” Mohamed asks, leaning against the white wall, almost camouflaging into it with his pristine white candoura. She stares at him, wondering what Leila finds so attractive (aside the obvious monetary fascination).

“Leila.” she replies simply, watching his expression carefully for any hint of recognition. His face remains impassive.

"Where is she from?" he continues, his gaze unrelenting. She unconsciously fiddles with her scarf, wondering where the questions are leading.

"She's Lebanese. Is there a problem?" Although Lady Luxe's voice is steady, inside, she is beginning to feel queasy.

"Lebanese? You're befriending Lebanese women now are you? What a great way to portray our family name."

Lady Luxe is agog at his hypocrisy, and she forcibly bites her tongue.

"Is there anything else you would like to interrogate me about? I'm running late."

“Don't be impertinent or you won't go wherever it is that you're going at all. Didn’t Baba tell you to ask my permission before you go out in his absence?”

Lady Luxe feels her blood begin to boil and she breathes in slowly, trying to soothe her anger.

“Actually no,” she manages to say, her voice shaking and her mouth contorted into a grimace. “He told me to inform you of my whereabouts, which I did, this morning. I told you I was meeting a friend for dinner and I also told you that I have to go and collect Moza and Rowdha from the airport – which I would be happy to let you do yourself if my impertinence prevents you from allowing me to leave the house. I sincerely hope your important admin career doesn’t require you to pay much attention to detail.”

She spins around on her heels and begins walking up the stairs, her pulse thudding in her ears, wondering if her tenacity will go unacknowledged. Before she can even reach the fourth step, she feels Mohamed grab her hair from back, where it is wrapped around a flower clip, and yank it hard. Her head snaps backwards and water fills her eyes as the hair pulls at her scalp.

“Let go of me!” she gasps, trying to wriggle out of his grasp.

“Not until you apologise for being such a mouthy bitch,” he snarls, his grasp tightening, causing her to yelp in pain.

“Let go!” Lady Luxe can feel the skin on her neck stretching so much so that her throat constricts, and she wonders how far he is willing to go to get an apology out of her. She is too proud to let her knees buckle and knows she will never give in, not like this.

“Say sorry.” He says quietly, his eyes narrow and cold.

"No!"

“Hammoudi! What are you doing!” Lady Luxe looks up to see Ahmed at the top of the stairs, staring down at his older sister struggling to breathe in horror.

"Teaching your sister some manners," Mohamed hisses. With one final yank, he lets go of her and shoves her away from him. She collapses on the stairs, her breath coming out in gasps, strands of her hair stuck to her sweaty face, her body heaving.

Without a word, she picks herself up, and knees trembling, walks up the stairs.

“Ukhti, are you okay?” Ahmed asks tentatively, reaching out to her. She brushes his hand away and walks into her room, slamming the door behind her. Leaning against it, she hears the muffled sounds of two brothers fighting – one for respect he has not earned and the other in defense of someone weaker.

Lady Luxe washes her face, dabs on a little moisturiser, sprays a little Miss Charming and then plasters a smile on her face. She checks her reflection. Her eyes are slightly bloodshot and her plain face looks young and vulnerable. Grabbing her handbag, she slips her feet into comfortable trainers, gathers her nerves for a moment and then walks out of her room.

The stairway is empty and she looks down at the hard, cold Italian marble, wondering what it would look like with splatters of red, of how it will feel if her head smashed against it. Because if Mohamed finds out about her other existence, about the amount of men she has slept with, about the fire she has played with, no doubt it will come to this.

Water fills her eyes again, but this time in fear, not pain. She can't let him find out. She can't.

Chapter Seventeen – The Art of Seduction

2009-08-04T22:46:00.010+03:00

If there is one thing Leila is good at, it is making a man want her with every inch of his nether regions. Admittedly, she has yet to perfect the art of making him continue 'loving' her once she has opened the gates to the promised land. And she also has yet to learn how to make him love her enough to propose to her after giving in to his desires. But if there is one thing she can do, it is make him want her - yearn for her - chase after her - with a longing comparable to a pregnant woman's incomprehensible cravings.

Leila knows exactly what to say (and how to say it) to ensure that Mr Maybe calls her the next day. She also knows how to behave in order to guarantee a follow up date. In fact, she has the first six weeks down to a T - for Temptation. She tempts, seduces, solicits, flirts, snubs, implies and entices to within an inch of her life. And finally, numerous flowers, chocolates and occasionally jewellery or shopping expeditions later, she gives in and shyly accepts an invitation back to his home. In white lacy underwear, she trembles and shivers and moans with an innocence so convincing that even the head sister at her old convent school would believe that she had held onto her chastity as tightly as she held onto her purse strings.

After swearing off Emirati men with their double-standards, multiple wives and strange sexual habits, Leila had no intention of wasting her time or skills with Moe from the club. They hadn't danced long before he suggested that they go somewhere quiet to 'talk' and although he wasn't clad in a candoura, Leila was certain that he was an Emirati of Iranian descent, and therefore, Mr No Way. For the first time in a very long time, she decided to indulge in a night of wanton sex with an attractive man with an even more attractive Breitling that hung loosely from his right wrist.

To her surprise, after struggling through the crowd of sweaty dancers and bursting into the sticky night outside, Moe slid his arm into hers and took her for walk through the backstreets of Oud Metha. Slightly nervous, she wondered if he would attempt to make a pass at her in a dark alleyway and concluded that if he did, she deserved it after agreeing to leave with a stranger in the first place. But he didn't. Instead, he took her to a juice bar and they ordered fresh watermelon juices which she laced with vodka. They sat on the wall outside gulping down the cold, refreshing drinks as if they had been denied water for days. They talked about their aspirations and their families, their careers and their friends. The conversation was the longest, most sensual foreplay the ever-so-slightly tipsy Leila had indulged in. Every word he uttered made her insides melt into a mushy pool of hormones, every smile made the tiny hairs on her body prickle in anticipation and every accidental touch sent a shiver down her bare back.

She had never felt so alive before.

So, in the middle of a sentence, fuelled by alcohol and desire, Leila grabbed Moe's big, warm hand, pulled him into an alleyway and did exactly what she was fearful that he would do. And she didn't even feel ashamed. She didn't care that the Rules dictated that she should withhold as long as possible, that any previous thoughts of marrying her were now shattered. There was no way that he would allow the mother of his children to be the sort who performed all sorts of oral tricks in Dubai's dark streets that would put Russian prostitutes to shame. But anyway, she told herself. It's not as if an Arab guy would ever go looking for a wife in a club - so she had already struck out... and if she had nothing to lose, then why not live a little? He didn't know her name, so he couldn't stalk her on Facebook and send messages to all her friends telling them that she was a ten-dirham ho. He didn't know where she lived, so he couldn't turn up on her doorstep at 3am, pissed out of his face, demanding for some more of her expertise. He didn't know where she worked either, so he couldn't take pictures of her breasts with his camera phone and then send them to all her colleagues. All in all, she was safe.

"When can I see you again?" he gasped, wiping his clammy hands on his thighs.

"Let's not make any promises," Leila purred, with a smile. She flicked her hair over her shoulders and began to stride away, her heart beating with the thrill of conducting indecent, lewd behavior in public, for not having to worry about the morning after, for not having to plan a snaring strategy.

"Wait," Moe called out after her, jogging to catch up. "Give me your number at least!"

"Come on Mohamed," Leila grinned cheekily. "We all know that decent Arab girls don’t give out their numbers to strangers."

"I think we've long passed those awkward formalities, ya helou," he grinned back. "Now give me your number, yalla."

She gave the number, smiled one last dazzling smile and then sauntered away with her head held high and her derriere wiggling professionally and flagged down a taxi. As she stumbled in, she made sure not to look back. It had barely even pulled away before her phone beeped with a message from her new FWB (friend with benefits.)

Can't wait to see you again, ya omri.

Giggling at his blatant bullshit, she hit delete and then sent a message to Lady Luxe instead. Oh how good it felt to feel desirable once again, albeit in a kinky kind of way. She smiled all the way back to Discovery Gardens, all the way up the lift and down the corridor, right up until she reached her apartment and was confronted with a little plastic bag hanging off the handle. Pulling off the red ribbon, she found three Patchi chocolates inside, and a little 'Thanks for a lovely brunch," note from Mr Deliciously Rude And Obnoxious.

Popping a creamy chocolate into her mouth and tossing the note aside with a 'hmph,' she entered her apartment feeling more beautiful and sexy than she had in a long time. She teetered over to her bed and collapsed into it, sighing at how wonderful her life was. Without even cleaning her face or changing her clothes, she fell into a deep sleep.

***

The next morning, Leila wakes to her phone ringing. Yawning loudly, she forces her eyes open, her head pounding, and sees Lady Luxe's name on the caller ID. Looking down at her crumpled, bedraggled self, still in last night's clothes, she rubs an eye tentatively and then looks at her finger. It is black with mascara and eyeliner. Confused, she answers and then holds the phone away from her ear as her friend's shrieks echo around her bare apartment.

"What are you screaming about?" she eventually manages to get in, after the yells subside and she can bring the phone back to her ear.

"I can't believe you just went off with a random guy like that! A random guy from a dodgy club who could have done all sorts of humiliating and degrading things to you just because you are a woman. And because you are WEAK. And because he was obviously local and you KNOW what LOCAL guys are LIKE!"

"Excuse me?" Leila snaps, her head spinning. What the hell is Lady Luxe on about? "Darling, habibti," she begins snootily. "Please correct me if I am wrong, but surely you are aware that it is you, not I, who disappears with nameless men from clubs only to be treated like a glorified prostitute."

"It used to be," Lady Luxe replies, her voice rising again. "But now you seem to want IN on my game! Meaningless sex is my thing, not yours. That's why I was so shocked and I was worried about you!"

"Hold on a second," Leila interrupts, her head still throbbing. Is Lady Luxe actually accusing her of going off with a man from the club? She racks her brains but cannot for the life of her remember what happened after they had entered Chi. Ordinarily, she would had scoffed at the accusation, but she is currently lying in bed in jeans and a leopard print boob tube with full makeup on and is in no state to be self-righteous. "What are you saying exactly? Be clear."

"How much clearer do you want me to be? One second you're all up against that local guy, the next second you told me you wanted to leave with him, and then a few hours later you texted me declaring your undying love for him."

"Shit," Leila mutters, as realization dawns upon her. She vaguely recalls a man's sweaty palms in her hands. She remembers walking through Oud Metha's slightly dirty and unkempt streets, she remembers adding vodka to their watermelon juices, she remembers her sore feet, blistered from the long walk. Then she remembers pulling the tall, rugged Emirati into an empty, smelly alleyway and fumbling with the buttons on his Levi's. She remembers pulling down his CK boxers… and then…

"OH MY FUCKING GOD!" she screams in horror. "Oh no! Please no! Please say I didn’t!"

"Didn’t what? DIDN'T WHAT?" Lady Luxe screams back. "Leila – don’t tell me – "

"I did! I did!" Leila cries down the phone, the weight of her actions looming down on her. What if the police had caught them? She would have been locked away and then deported, but not before her name was splashed in every single newspaper in the UAE. Another horny foreigner caught making a mockery of Dubai's rigid rules. Her life would have been over.

"You got married?" Lady Luxe wails. "Where did you find a Sheikh to do it? Since when did Dubai become Vegas? La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah!"

"Married? No! I wish!"

"Wha? You didn't? If you didn’t marry him, then exactly did you do that you regret so much?"

"I gave him a…" Leila swallows nervously. "A you-know-what. In an alley."

"That's it?" Lady Luxe almost weeps in relief. Her breath steadies itself and she smiles a shaky smile. Leila has shown her brother the true extent of her trashiness. He will never take her seriously now, and this little problem will be over before she can say Alf Mabrouk.

"What do you mean that's it? I am not YOU. I don’t do these degrading, classless things!"

"Well my dear, clearly you do." With that, Lady Luxe hangs up and Leila sinks back on her pillow, bile creeping up in the back of her throat.

She manages to drag herself out of bed and looks at her ragamuffin reflection. She almost falls back into bed when she is confronted by her massive hair, sticking up in all directions, her panda eyes and cracked foundation. Her boob tube is exposing one, expensive boob and her strapless bra is hanging around her waist somewhere. For a moment, she is thankful that she had the sense to commit lewd acts in public and then go home, rather than sleep over with the man and let him see her like this. Sighing, she pulls off last night's outfit that she knows she can never look upon favourably again and then steps under the shower.

Her phone rings just as she has finished piling on countless beauty products that promise to soften skin (Body Shop Body Butter), fade away stretch marks (RoC Maternity oil), brighten the complexion (Clinique Even Better Skin Tone) and reduce puffiness and eradicate fine lines around the eyes, (La Mer Eye Concentrate). Wrapped in a towel, she walks over to it and squints at the caller ID, wondering who on Earth Moe is.

"Hello?" she answers.

"Hello habibti," a deep voice drawls. "I can't stop thinking about you."

"And why is that?" she asks, stalling for time. Moe? Surely he isn’t the guy from last night?

"Because those lips of yours are incredible and I can't wait to find out what they can do to the rest of me." Shit, she realises in horror. He is the guy from last night and clearly he likes her sudden slip into promiscuity. Or he wants more of it.

"What? Ew! No way! Don’t call me again!" she gasps, and then hangs up, her hands shaking. She can't believe she gave him her number. What was she thinking? Clearly she wasn't thinking. It was all Mr Delicious' fault for making her feel so unwanted. She would get him back for this.

A minute later, the phone rings again and this time, she rejects it without even answering.

In the next hour, her phone rings thirteen times and Leila gives up rejecting the calls. Instead, she just doesn’t acknowledge them, hoping that Moe will get the hint eventually. She just isn’t interested in embarking on a meaningless relationship that will end with a disaster and make her feel like an old hooker who has passed her prime. She doesn’t want to invest time and effort on a man who will not marry her. Especially when her sister is about to get married and she is hoping to go her wedding with a fiancée dangling off her left arm, and a real Chanel bag off her right.

He doesn’t.

Habibti answer the phone. Is the first message.

Habibti don’t be shy. It's okay. Don’t be ashamed. You didn’t do anything wrong.

Ya 2lbi, don’t burn my heart like this. I can't stop thinking about you. You have stolen my heart. Come here and give it back to me.

7araam! You are killing me like this! I am nothing without you. Your beauty makes the moon look ugly. Your smile makes the sun look dark. Your skin makes pearls seem dull. Yalla. Call me back!

If you don’t answer the phone now I will call my friend in Etisalat and find out who you are. And then I will come to your home and wait outside the door until you open it.

At this last message, Leila panics and answers the phone. Moe seems unperturbed by the fact he has had to threaten her in order to make her yield to his advances. She wearily accepts his dinner invitation, unsure as to how to deter him. Arab men, especially Emirati men, do not take kindly to rejection, so she will have to think of a better strategy to make him give up. She knows this won’t be easy though. These are the same men who think an open car window is an invitation to start heckling. So what does a blow job in an alley mean? Leila doesn’t even allow her imagination to wander down that avenue.

She gets ready for dinner as if she is going to a funeral. She slips on a pair of formal grey trousers, a black blouse and ties a black and white silk scarf around her neck, trying to cover as much of her skin as possible. If she was Muslim, she would have wrapped it around her head in an attempt to deter him further. She dusts the tiniest amount of powder on her nose, blusher on her cheeks and a little bit of mascara. No lipstick or gloss, or anything to actually look as if she has made an effort. Of course, she could have gone bareface, but for Leila, a naked face is sacreligious. She forgoes the usual dangly earrings for plain tiny diamond studs and pulls her hair back into a neat bun. I look like a school teacher, she thinks with a grimace. A classy, sophisticated school teacher.She grabs her 'Chanel' handbag and gets into Baby Bee. They have arranged to meet at Madinat Jumeirah (there is no way she will allow him to find out where she lives) and so she slowly makes her way down there, dread festering in the pit of her stomach.

She pulls up at Madinat Jumeirah the same time as Moe, and is surprised to see that he is driving an orange Mercedes AMG and has a two-digit license plate. She remembers his Breitling watch from the night before and his expensive Italian shoes. So they were real, she notes approvingly. At least she is being hassled by a rich Emirati, not the poor 'just moved out of the desert and have been given a villa in Jumeirah by the Government' type.

They park next to each other and he takes her to the Caviar House & Prunier, the finest seafood and caviar restaurant in Dubai. As they take their seats outside, directly opposite the illuminated Burj Al Arab, letting the deliciously creamy, perfectly salted Caspian caviar melt in their mouths, Leila has an epiphany. Moe is being attentive, complimentary and sweet – the perfect gentleman. He drives an expensive car, wears expensive clothes and clearly has more money than he knows what to do with. She knows that she has had bad experiences with Emiratis before, but that was when she was naïve, looking for Sheikh Charming to whisk her away on an Arabian Stallion. Now she knows better than to expect monogamy, loyalty or even honesty.

Moe may be already married… but even if he is…. Would it be so bad to become someone's second wife? After all, her clock is ticking and she is old enough to know that fairytales do not exist. What exactly is so bad about marrying a man who will provide her with her own luxury villa, a limitless credit card and a Maserati, who she doesn’t even have to see very often? She can be married and yet free to do as she pleases simultaneously. Is that really such a bad offer?

"You look beautiful by the way," Moe says to her in his slightly British, slightly American and slightly Arabic accent and suddenly, she softens up. The icy demeanor she has adopted all evening melts away as she realizes what she has to do. Maybe his motives are a little shady. Maybe he just wants her for good sex, for a bit of fun on the side. Or maybe he's looking for a dishy number two now that he's fulfilled his familial obligation of marrying some ugly buck-nosed, hairy, local girl his family chose for him. Either way, she has nothing to lose - there aren't exactly a whole line of men waiting to ask her to marry them.

She smiles shyly at him.

"Thank you," she says sweetly, looking down. Her sell-by date is fast approaching and she knows exactly who should pluck her off the shelf.

Let the game begin.

Chapter Sixteen – It’s all coming back to me now

2009-07-28T16:27:00.006+03:00

I am officially in lust but I am too afraid to vocalise it – because if I do, it will become tangible. It will cease being a game I play in my head, a few tugs on my heart strings, an occasional dry mouth, a pink cheek, a shy smile. If I tell the object of my lustfulness what exactly runs across my mind when he sends me an innocent message, I may just find out that the feelings are mutual. And if they are, then surely our friendship will take a sweeter but more dangerous turn?

When I declined Goldenboy’s dinner invitation last week, I wondered how he would react to it – whether he would be turned on or off by the ‘good girl’ façade. Incidentally, he seems to be turned on by it, sending me messages almost every day and inviting me out every other day. I can’t help wondering if he’s just enjoying the thrill of the chase though. I’ve heard the rumours about Arab guys – you know, about the way they fall in love at the drop of the hat and fall out of it just as quickly. How they will profess their love for you with such intense eloquence that you are left feeling as if you’ve had the wind knocked out of you. And how they will drop you like a hot potato the moment you become another notch on the bed post. I hope that Goldenboy isn’t the same as the stereotypical Arab guy. But then at the same time, I hope he is. Because his presence in my life is making me too excited, too nervous… and too scared.

I’m not so naïve as to claim that this is the first time I’ve felt this way, that this is the first time a cute, kind and funny bloke has had this profound effect on me. I have. And it took me to the highest cloud and then dragged me down to hell and back.

I’ve tried hard to forget Jayden. To forget his hearty laugh, his deep brown eyes, his ability to make the worst situation seem okay. I’ve tried to forget the way we first met, when he smiled at me from across the university library. Not pervily mind you, but because I had just tripped over the shoelaces on my silver adidas trainers. I had clutched onto the nearest bookcase in support and knocked over a potted plant that was resting there. Who keeps potted plants on library shelves anyway? The plant flew through the air and smashed headfirst onto the carpet, bits of soil flying in all directions. I stared at it, horrified, and then tentatively looked up to see if anyone had noticed the goings on in the west corner. No one had – except this boy – who flashed a bright smile at me, revealing a single, lonely dimple on his right cheek as he did. Turning tomato, I crouched down and unsuccessfully tried to shove the soil back into the brown plastic pot, bits of it getting stuck in my chewed-on nails.

Only I would display my lack of coordination to the fittest guy in the entire library, and render myself a complete and utter klutz in his eyes.

I’m used to making a spectacle of myself though. The library incident was almost as bad as the time I went on Tidal Wave at Thorpe Park. In a white top and white linen trousers. Tidal Wave, in case you didn’t know, is a ride at my favourite theme park that basically drenches you from head to foot. Completely forgetting that I was wearing white, I happily queued up for an hour and it was only when I got off, water dripping from me, and when all the guys laughed their heads off, I realised what I had done. Struggling in my (already tight) linen trousers that had shrunk a size because of the water, I waddled over to the bathroom, my arms folded across my chest in an attempt to hide the pink bra that was showing through the wet cloth. I then spent half an hour under the hand dryer, desperately trying to make my clothes opaque again. And who should walk into the very same restroom at that moment? My old mosque teacher. Horrified, she stared at her ex-student in a wet, transparent white outfit clinging to her curves and no hijab in sight. I muttered a quick ‘salaam’ and looked away in shame, cursing my bad luck.

That afternoon in the library, I ignored the fit guy’s piercing stare and continued stuffing the soil back into the pot. I also attempted straightening out the bent leaves, feeling sorry for the poor plant I had almost destroyed.

“Need some help?” A pair of white Nikes stopped in front of me, and I looked up, past the loose jeans, the grey hoody with the zip undone, past the smooth mocha coloured neck and finally to that beautiful dimple. My stomach did a somersault.

“Um, n-no thanks, I think I’ve got it covered,” I stammered, picking up the pot and shoving it back onto the shelf.

“Alright,” he shrugged, about to turn away. “But do up your laces before you buckle again. Oh, and nice trainers.”

I watched him swagger away, enthralled by the way his jeans hung perfectly on his hips, amazed by his confidence and furious with myself for not replying with something remotely witty or interesting. And what was up with that stammer? I’d never stammered in my life. But of course the one time I did, it had to be in front of a gorgeous black guy with trendy clothes and a swagger that would put Jay-Z to shame.

I became an ardent library goer. Every day, between lectures, I’d visit the bright, airy room with its shelves laden with heavy text books (and plants of course), its desks occupied by enthusiastic students, and sit in the same place as the Plant Debaucle, pretending to study. I actually ended up learning quite a lot during this time, with nothing but my books and my fantasies to occupy me. Every evening though, I’d shuffle home feeling disappointed. But when morning came, I’d wake up hopeful, and without any coaxing from my mother (who usually had to stomp up to my room and yank off the duvet to force me out of my slumber), I’d leap out of bed and get ready with nervous excitement.

When I was just about to give up on the library altogether and go back to my usual dossing ways, he reappeared.

“Knock over any plants lately?” he said, as I sat slumped in my chair, reading ‘Anna Karenina’ for my literature class and drawing hearts on the pages.

“No,” I replied, slamming the book shut. My heart thudding, I waited a moment to compose myself (and appear nonplussed in the process) before I looked up at him and raised an eyebrow as nonchalantly as I could. “Offered to help any damsels in distress lately?”

“Course,” he replied, grinning and showing off his dimple once again. “Some girl dropped her food in the cafeteria yesterday and I offered to eat it off the floor.”

“That’s disgusting!” I exclaimed, horrified. He started laughing, his laugh so infectious that I couldn’t help but join him. It wasn’t particularly funny, but the proximity to his smooth voice, his long limbs and the fresh fragrance of Davidoff’s Cool Water, made me dizzy with hormones, and I just couldn’t stop laughing.

“If you two can’t stop your hysterics than I suggest you leave the library,” the librarian hissed at us from the counter, not bothered to walk up to us to spare us the embarrassment. Still giggling, I gathered up my books and followed him out to the lawn outside, ignoring the dirty looks the more serious students were giving us. Placing his things under a tree, he gestured for me to sit beside him, so I did, and we ‘studied’ together for the rest of the afternoon. By this I mean I pretended to read Anna whilst imagining different scenarios of him ravishing me on the grass in my mind. And him? He took out an Economics book and actually did some work.

Thus was the beginning of a friendship infused with passion, laughter and the underlying sense of something brewing deep within.

* * *

As I lie in bed on Saturday morning, I try to tell myself that my relationship with Goldenboy is nothing like my relationship with Jayden. That I’m not the same Sugar I was back in London. That if we happen to fall in love, I will never make the same mistakes I made the first time – but I won’t even get that far. Because I won’t fall in love.

What are we doing today?

The message alert startles me, and I look down at my phone and smile at his using ‘we’ even though we’re not an ‘us’. I have already seen Goldenboy twice this week. A few days after the cinema day, we went for shisha in Momo’s which restored my ill-feelings towards it after I went there with Nadia. We were talking about work and other mindless things whilst sharing a double apple shisha and I wondered how much his salary was. Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t trying to suss out his eligibility as a husband. I’m just really curious about pay discrepancies in Dubai. I can’t believe that people get paid according to their nationality – not because they have more experience or have earned that salary. Unless you count a maroon passport as really hard work, that is. This 'hard work' will often get you a hefty tax-free salary, accommodation allowance, school fees allowance, medical insurance, business class flights home and all other necessities that your salary won't have to pay for. A man with less experience (i.e. a different passport) will probably get paid a quarter of an EU member/American. He may also be given oars to row himself home with on a banana boat every year. If he’s lucky.

I didn’t realise that I had actually voiced my thoughts out loud until he looked at me strangely.

“What?” I asked, puzzled by the surprised look on his face.

“Well, salaries are quite personal things,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Are you trying to find out if I’m a good catch?”

“No!” I exclaimed, taking a long puff of shisha in a lame attempt to give him something other than my eyes to look at. Whenever I look into his eyes, I feel a jolt of electricity and every time I feel it sizzle through my body, I am reminded of how un-platonic my feelings towards him are.

He told me though and I kicked myself for asking him when I learnt that he earned less than me. Despite being older with more experience. He then asked me how much I earned and I was torn between telling him the truth (a few thousand D’s more than him) and lying (to make him feel better). We already had an awkward conversation when he found out I didn’t have to re-take my driving test in order to get a UAE license, rather I just had to submit the relevant UK documents and wait in a few queues. Not like him. He had to invest hundreds of D's in lessons and tests, despite driving for many more years than me back in Syria and being experienced in driving on the right-hand side of the road.

“You Brits get away with everything over here,” he had said, half jokingly. I was a bit unnerved by the twinge of annoyance in his voice, unsure of what to say. Should I apologise for being British? Should I feel guilty about having certain things made easier for me?

“It’s not because I’m British, it’s because it’s really difficult to get a driver’s license in the UK so they know we’ve already been thoroughly trained.” I argued defensively.

“Not like me, you mean?” he answered quietly.

“No, I didn’t mean that,” I began, but he looked away and I wondered if the differences between our passports in the UAE would be a constant source of bitterness on his part and guilt on mine.

After that, I tried to avoid sour subjects, so when we went for shisha the second time, I kept the conversation light.

We went to Elements, an arty restaurant at Wafi City, which is a mall beautifully modeled on Ancient Egypt. I’d never been to Wafi before, and I was amazed by the colorful glass pyramids and the intricacy of the Khan Murjaan souk, with its huge stained glass ceiling engraved with Arabic calligraphy and the scent of bakhoor tickling my nose. The gorgeous open air restaurant hidden within the souk was exactly like the old houses in the ancient backstreets of Damascus. As the Khan Murjan restaurant was a little too noisy, with the live band playing old Fairouz and Um Kulthoum songs, we opted for Elements instead. We sat down on the low, mattress-like seats in the corner of the room and I resisted the urge to sit next to him and snuggle up.

He was sitting close enough to me for me to inhale his fresh, clean scent though. He smelt like soap, detergent and a bit of musk all rolled in one, and the combination was intoxicating. As we waited for our mint and grape shisha to arrive, we looked at the brightly coloured oil paintings adorning the walls.

“See that red one? Technically it’s incorrect as the shadows should be on the other side,” he explained, citing his Professor at the Fine Arts college, University of Damascus. “Look, let me show you. Do you have a pen or paper?”

I pulled out my diary and handed it to him, along with a pen, and he opened a blank page and began drawing on it. While he was sketching, he explained the way light and dark colours should appear on a canvas, the rules about placing objects on different parts and other complicated rules that I wasn’t particularly interested in. I was more interested in the way his strong fingers were gripping the pen, the way his hand moved over the page so fluidly, the way his eyebrows came together in concentration.

Oh man, I thought to myself, as the true depth of my lust became apparent to me. I couldn’t even watch him draw a box without feeling like my knees would buckle. How could I possibly stay friends with him? How could I continue justifying our friendship with the plea of loneliness?

That evening, I drove home feeling depressed, the absence of his presence making my loneliness in Dubai all the more apparent.

When Jayden and I became friends, I didn’t feel so confused. I was different then; more carefree, more adventurous, more open to new experiences. My parents aren’t strict Muslims (my mum doesn’t even observe hijab) but they’re strict Indians. At times, they think they’re still in Gujarat not Stamford Hill, with the way they go on about the community, their honour. When I’d come home late (by late, I mean 11pm), my mum would be waiting by the door of our five-bedroom terraced house, hissing, “What would people think if they saw you coming home in the middle of the night? Jaldi, go to your room before your father realises you’re not home!”

Despite my parents’ steadfast, un-budging traditions, I somehow managed to find ways to do what I wanted. I’d pretend to be staying over at a friend’s house, revising, when really I’d go out clubbing. I’d leave our house in baggy trackies and hoodies and then remove the hoody when I turned the corner to reveal tight t-shirts or sleeveless tops underneath. I’d even pretend to fast in Ramadan – waking up before the crack of dawn and feasting on a heavy sehri and then would indulge in a sarnie on my way to college or uni. I clubbed, I partied, I had boyfriends, I ate haraam food and I wore revealing clothes – just like everyone else I knew.

I knew that if my dad ever caught sight of me with a boy, I’d get beats. Not serious enough to inflict deep injuries, but enough to teach me a lesson or ten. I didn’t resent him for it – he rarely hit me – but when he did, I’d accept it unquestioningly. It was a normal part of my, and all my Asian friends’, upbringing. If my dad ever found out that I was in love with someone though, I didn’t know how he would react. Maybe he would send me on the next Air India flight back home like my Uncle Yusuf did to my cousin Sumaiya, or maybe he would throw me out the house like my Uncle Khalid did with my cousin Atia. Either way, the result wouldn’t be pretty. But for some reason, I just wasn’t scared. I thought I was invincible.

My dad’s wrath didn’t stop me from befriending boys though, all it did was make me more careful. All my cousins (I have a million) are around the same age so we’d hang out together, and we were all friends with guys. There were no secrets between us because there was no reason to hide anything. There was one unspoken rule though, that none of us would dare to even consider breaking. We could be friends with Asian guys as much as we liked – Punjabis, Bengalis, Pakistanis – but we never, ever became mates with white boys. Or even worse, black ones. There was no future with either race – no prospect of marriage (without being outcasted), and therefore, all liaisons with them would appear slutty or promiscuous.

And no girl in my family was a slut.

That’s why, when Jayden and I starting hanging out in the library together, I never told any of my cousins. I couldn’t. Anyway, we were only studying together, I reassured myself. There was nothing wrong with that. Plus none of my cousins went to my university, so the chances of them seeing us together were slim. But of course, the world is small and North London is even smaller. It was naïve of me to think anything else.

My memory suddenly takes me from the beginning to the ending. And when I think of the ending, a shudder runs through my body. I remember the look on my cousin’s face when I confided my secret to her. I remember my brother clutching a fistful of my hair and pushing me against the wall. I remember him storming out of the house, calling all the ‘boys’ in the process. I remember my dad turning his face away in grief, my mother's tears. And I remember the police sirens in the distance. The clink of the handcuffs in darkness of the night.

My palms begin to sweat. I can’t do it again.

The phone rings and I jump, forced out of my thoughts. It is Goldenboy, and I don’t know whether to answer or reject the call. I’m too lost in the past, too absorbed in my memories to force a smile and act as if everything is okay.

Chapter Fifteen – To leave or not to leave?

2009-07-22T15:42:00.011+03:00

Nadia has had many strange propositions in her (almost) thirty years. At just six years-old, when she was living in Austria, her curious classmate asked her to lift up her skirt. She obliged, and then ensured he pulled down his pants. She was always a firm believer of equality. When she was eleven, now living in London, she was invited to a school friend’s birthday party as the only guest. She happily accepted the invitation and spent the afternoon awkwardly playing games designed for groups. When she was fifteen and living in Qatar, her best friend got down on one knobbly, bruised knee and earnestly asked her to marry him. Blushing furiously, she politely declined and asked him to revert back to her in seven years – a decision she still regrets to this day.

Now, as she sits curled up on her L-shaped sofa with a thin, woollen blanket wrapped around her and the customary cup of green tea warming up her cold hands, she smiles a wry smile. None of her childhood propositions are quite as odd or unexpected as the one is she currently mulling over in her mind.

Well accustomed to watching relationships fail, Nadia has never been under any illusions that marriage is easy. Lust, she assumed, fizzled out after some time, the absence of which, although much missed, was overcompensated by deep love and respect.

She remembers her first few months of marriage, when Daniel's ego was still intact despite relying on financial stability from his wife, and hers was flourishing under the weight of constant compliments from her husband. She remembers the raunchy text messages they would exchange whilst she was at work, the tingling feeling in her toes whenever she would turn the corner into her street, excited about seeing him again and the lazy Sunday mornings they would spend in bed, just snuggling up to each other and talking about their lives, their hopes, their dreams.

Nadia can’t pinpoint the exact moment when their Sunday morning chats started taking a bitter turn, when Daniel stopped asking her about her job, stopped sharing with her his plans, stopped talking about the future. At the beginning, he relished having so much time to read, to study Islam, to explore London and would recount a lecture he had attended, or show her a book on Sufism he had found. After a while though, he stopped going out, stopped reading and spent all day and night on the internet looking for employment. Their chats now consisted of him complaining about London – the weather, the pace and even the pigeons. When he ran out of problems he had with the UK, he would move onto her family or even her: her tiredness after a long day at work, the housework that piled up and had to be tackled on the weekends, her lack of interest in the kitchen.

During one fight, when he brought up the stack of laundry that had yet to be put away and the amount of pizza they consumed on a weekly basis, Nadia, her voice shaking, retorted: “I’m the one who is at work every day with an hour long commute each way. Since you’re the one sitting around at home, why don’t YOU do it?”

He fell silent. The anger that was sizzling in the air died as if a bucket of water had been thrown over it. He turned on his heels and walked out of the flat, into the cold, winter streets without his coat.

Nadia collapsed onto the kitchen chair, and with her head in her hands, regretted the words that carelessly (but accurately) fell out of her. A little part of her remained angry though. As sensitive as the subject was, the fact did remain that he was the one at home so he should have been the one tidying up and cooking, she shouldn’t have to do it both. She was being made to feel guilty for not fulfilling ‘wifely’ obligations, but the sad reality was, neither was he. In Islam, it was his duty to provide her with a roof over her head, to put the bread on the table, not hers.

After the fight, Daniel stopped complaining about everything. In fact, he stopped talking altogether. He spent more time alone and no matter how hard Nadia tried to give him a shoulder to lean on, he refused to acknowledge it. Terrified that her marriage was failing because of its uneven dynamics, Nadia stopped talking about work and spent more time in the kitchen, attempting to restore some balance into their relationship.

The silence became louder and louder until one Sunday morning, he told her that he had been offered a job - in Dubai. A job he had already accepted, without even asking her, that he would take regardless of her opinion.

What Nadia hadn’t realized about her husband at that time, was that he rarely spoke about the inner battles he fought daily. He was skilled at translating lust into love and then conveying it, but that was it. All other turmoil, conflict, confusion, was buried under an indifferent façade. So, although he had finally broken down and admitted his resentment, he didn’t reveal the extent of his emotions – his bitterness at marrying someone more educated, more intelligent, better looking than him – his inexplicable need to feel wanted, powerful and desirable.

Nadia, like any other wife who wanted to save her marriage, quickly agreed to move to Dubai, despite recently landing a swanky new job in a swanky new City office. She blamed herself for not acknowledging Daniel’s restlessness and bitterness until it had developed beyond repair, for not doing more to make him feel strong and worthy. Weighed down with burden of truly believing that she had not fulfilled her duties as his life partner, she pushed thoughts of her career, her family, her life and her home to the back of the mind and went about arranging the move with robotic precision.

“Are you sure you want to move out there? How could he not have even asked you before he accepted the job?” Roba was furious at the thought of her older sister moving across the globe with a husband who didn’t seem to hold their relationship in much regard. Although Nadia didn’t complain about the decision, it was clear that she was scared. Her family and friends assumed it was fear of the unknown that was worrying her, but the truth was, she was scared that her marriage was falling to pieces and that it was All Her Fault.

Daniel packed up and left, leaving her to sort out the rest of their belongings and admin issues while she worked out her notice period.

Their first few weeks in Dubai were difficult. Now that he had a job, instead of acting happily empowered, Daniel seemed to gloat over Nadia, laughing at the way she was at a loss of what to do with the vast, empty expanses of time she was confronted with. They already had an apartment, courtesy of the University, and after she had shopped for all their furniture and had decorated it with Ottoman inspired ornaments, rugs and cushions, she had absolutely nothing to do but eat, shop and sleep. As Daniel had lived in Dubai for six weeks before she came out and joined him, he had already made friends and Nadia was disappointed to find that they were nothing like his friends in England. Gone were the cute, God fearing guys she was happy to feed routinely. In their place were a couple of obnoxious, misogynistic ‘Muslims’ with drinking problems that she refused to tolerate. She was even more upset when she realized that he clearly preferred their company over hers.

Despite the steady degeneration of their relationship and the clear indicators of his impending – if not existing – infidelity, Nadia still clung on to a single shred of hope. Even when she was confronted with the extent of his Facebook fetish, the awful evening when he found her weeping and bleeding in the shower, a tiny part of her believed that it wasn’t over. She would remember their dizzy courting days, the lovely, lazy Sunday mornings and his eloquent love letters and tell herself that all that love couldn’t have just worn away. It was this fragment of faith that kept her heart beating and forced her blood to pump around her body.

She had eventually climbed out of the shower with aching joints and shriveled, prune-like skin. She wrapped a thick towel around herself and pushed opened the bathroom door. Her wet hair clung to her head and her neck as the water dripped down her back before being absorbed by the towel. Her eyes were still bloodshot and the cuts she had inflicted on herself – the long scratches on her arms and legs - were now sore and tender.

Daniel was sitting on the sofa in stony silence. He didn’t look up when she entered the living room, nor did he utter a single word of consolation. His sullenness shocked Nadia, who expected a contrite apology at the very least. Even a denial would have been better than the refusal to dignify her pain with a response. She sat next to him on the sofa, her gaze cast down, her pulse throbbing in her head. Clearing her throat, she tried to speak, but nothing came out. Terrified that this was the end of her rocky fairytale, that she was about to be just another statistic, she tentatively took his hand into hers.

She didn’t know why she took his hand. She just knew that she was scared, that she wasn’t quite ready to let him go, and that she needed to find out exactly what was going on in his mind. Why did he feel the need to run after scores of women? She was tired of wondering, hoping, loving, to no avail.

“Daniel,” she began, her voice hoarse. “What’s going on?”

There was another long silence.

“Nothing,” he eventually replied, his voice trembling. He let go of her hand and turned his head away, but she took it again and squeezed it.

“Daniel,” she started again. “I love you. I loved you when I married you and even after everything, I still love you. But I can’t continue like this. When we got married, you made me feel like the most amazing woman in the world. You made me feel like I could tackle anything with you by my side, that I would never be alone. You made me feel smart, beautiful, happy. Now, I don’t know who I am anymore. I feel ugly, I feel weak, I feel lonely. Every day I walk around in a daze, my head splitting with pain, my lungs contracting as I try to breathe and try to understand. I left everything for you. I came out here for you. But I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

Nadia explained that she needed to feel loved and appreciated – by the man who mattered most to her. As she articulated her frustration and confusion, pain squeezed her heart and she wondered how she ended up in this position. She knew that Happily Ever After was just a gimmick created by Disney to make money, but she never imagined that she would be sitting with her husband a year after their wedding, trying to coax him into revealing the reason why he couldn’t be loyal to her. Why her love simply wasn’t enough for him.

With a lot of coaxing, Daniel reluctantly began to speak and their conversation was surprisingly honest. He confessed his desire for attention, his inferiority complex, the way he needed to feel loved, wanted. His history of depression. He admitted that he used to be on Prozac, that when he met her, he thought his self-deprecating days were over. And for a while, they were. Until his unemployed state began eating away at his self-esteem, his sense of self-worth, his masculinity. And now, even though he has a good job, he still feels weak. He hates that she used to earn more than he does now, that she has a better degree than him, that men are always looking at them wherever they go. He believes that they are wondering why she settled for him. Everyone thinks she is too good for him, and now, he feels that he is not good enough. He needs to feel worthy.

The more they spoke however, the darker the confessions became. He admitted to fantasizing over her friends, indulging in porn, hoarding a secret stash of pictures he had copied off Facebook - of very ordinary girls whom he felt attracted to. Nadia, sick to her stomach, was too scared to let her true feelings be known in case he stopped talking and reverted back into his shell. She listened to him admit that he had invited her buxom air stewardess friend out on a desert trip, and how Sophia had come assuming that Nadia was going to be there. She felt as if she had been stabbed. Running after random women was one thing, but to pursue her friend was the ultimate betrayal. Her words stuck in her throat, she said nothing, just stared at him in horror as she realised his issues ran deeper than just craving attention – he actually needed obscurity within his sex life.

A part of her wanted to get up, run out of the flat and never look back, but another part of her reminded her that she swore to be by his side, for better or worse. At almost thirty, she knew it would be tricky to find a Muslim husband and as a divorcee, it would be almost impossible. Should she – could she – overlook her husband’s indiscretions for the sake of not being alone? No marriage is perfect and at least he isn’t physically abusive – right?

“I do love you,” Daniel explained, his voice strained. “But I need more. I can’t help it. This isn’t the first time this has happened. It has happened in all my relationships. I don’t want you to leave me but I need more than just us. I’m sorry.”

He stared at Nadia, at her bristle, uncombed hair, at her pale face and big, dark eyes. He stared at her small, frail frame wrapped up in a towel, the weakest of barriers, and for the first time in their relationship, realised how powerful he actually was.

“So what are you saying?” she finally asked. “You want to be with me but you want me to share you with any girl who takes your fancy? How would you feel if you were sharing me with a bunch of other guys?”

“Actually,” he began nervously. “To be honest, I wouldn’t mind. Why don’t we try having an open marriage? We both love each other, we both like being together, so why don’t we stay married but just enjoy other people’s company once in a while? It’ll solve everything.”

Nadia’s jaw fell open. In all her wildest dreams, her darkest nightmares, she never imagined that one day, her husband would offer to share her with other men in order to fulfill his own sexual fantasies. She was astounded that Daniel felt like his masculinity had been impaired by unemployment, and yet would remain intact if she - his wife and his honour - slept with other men. She shook her head in disbelief, got up and walked into the bedroom, locking the door firmly behind her. She had heard enough for one night.

Today, she sits on the sofa, still curled up, still unsure as to what she should do. Although she is not the slightest bit interested in embarking on affairs with other men, she is wondering if she should turn a blind eye to Daniel’s infidelity, if she can be happy knowing that she isn’t the only woman in his life. It has been done before, and no doubt it will be done again, but whether she too should live this kind of existence, she doesn’t know. She does know that she doesn't want to be divorced, doesn't want her family in Morocco gossiping about her inability to hold onto her husband. She doesn't even want her grandmother to throw her arms around her and applaud her for doing the right thing.

Picking up the phone, she nervously begins to dial her mother’s number. She can no longer face this alone.

Chapter Fourteen – Let’s get the party started

2009-07-08T10:52:00.012+03:00

Lady Luxe doesn’t stalk; not in real life, not on Facebook and not even on Twitter. In fact, she always turns her dainty nose up at undignified girls who gawk shamelessly at their crushes pictures online and constantly track their Twitter updates on their Blackberries. Desperation, Lady Luxe believes, is an unsightly disease that strips women of their sexiest asset – mystery.

Or so she righteously claimed until she became a victim of the ailment herself, with the only antidote being ever happily after with the very cause of her sickness. When Mr Delicious swept into her life with his wide, shiny smile, tousled brown hair and long, thick eyelashes, Lady Luxe, for the first time in her twenty-one years, felt the sweet pangs of smittenness and although she would rather don a pair of purple Crocs than admit it, she has been doing everything she can to stalk him since. She has found his Facebook profile and spends a few minutes every day looking at the only picture of him she can, her mouse pointer hovering over the ‘add friend’ button. She refuses to send him a friend request though. Everyone knows that adding a guy on Facebook is the cyber version of asking him out. She has also refrained from doing anything with his number, other than staring at it, willing him to miraculously find a way to track her down – despite the fact that he doesn’t even know her real eye colour, let alone her name. However, he is connected to her in one way – through Leila – and this bitter truth is what makes Lady Luxe seethe her way to slumber every night.

Although Lady Luxe has not confronted Leila about her backstabbing ways, she has thrown in just enough hints to encourage her to back off. Her warning signals however, do not consist of anything more than a knowing look here, an innuendo there, and have therefore seemed to have gone amiss. Leila was reportedly at the Movenpick Hotel earlier today and although Lady Luxe cannot be sure that she was frolicking with Mr Delicious as she is only tracking her Beemer, not her, what she can be sure about is that nothing except the fragrance of freshly printed dirhams can lure Leila to the wrong side of Dubai that early on a Friday. Other than getting her deported (ah, the beauty of wasta), for once, Lady Luxe is at a loss at how to control the situation. Although Leila only very, very vaguely has any inkling as to who she really is, she knows enough to find out more (should she ever desire to dig deeper) and this is a risk that no guy – no matter how delicious he is or how long his eyelashes are – is worth.

Chi @ the Lodge tonight? The message appears while Lady Luxe is sprawled over her Queen-sized bed, flicking through Ahlan and sighing in relief when seeing that ‘Jennifer’ has still managed to evade the society pages. She is surprised by Leila’s choice. Although she enjoys the occasional night out at Chi, her friend tends to prefer upscale venues where she can meet wealthy men over good music you can actually dance to. She wonders if the invitation is Leila’s attempt at extending an olive branch and gracefully decides to accept the token. After all, it’s been a while since she’s been to a club and actually danced her heart out instead of just posing prettily. Plus, after canceling Thursday night when her father postponed his next business trip, she feels as if her weekend is missing its very soul. Currently on a plane to China, her father is definitely far away enough for her to have a long night of brazen fun. Chi is notorious for its shamelessly thirsty men, and tonight, that is exactly what Lady Luxe needs – full on flirting without the usual, pretentious mask of sophistication.

Sure… Meet you there at 11:00pm, she writes swiftly, jumping out of bed and heading over to her dressing room to see what she can wear that is comfortable enough to dance properly in yet sexy enough to make sure the spotlight is on her, not Leila.

Any chance you can come and collect me? Leila usually takes taxis so the request comes as a surprise. Going home in a taxi is far too conspicuous for Lady Luxe who prefers to drink carefully and arrive home safely in her Cayenne instead. Even when she ends up leaving a club with a nameless man, she always follows him in her car. She never wants to be in a situation where she is stuck in dodgy Deira, unable to find a taxi to take her home, and then, (God forbid) bumping into her father or brother whilst stumbling out of it crumpled, abaya-less and smelling of fags and booze.

Okay, I’ll come by around 10:30, she texts back, more focused on what she should wear than Leila’s strange request for a ride. Looking around the dressing room, she notices that there isn’t much space left for new purchases and wonders whether or not she should clear out the clothes she hasn’t worn for a while to make space for new ones. The dressing room, designed by Lady Luxe herself, is a haven for fashionistas and shopaholics alike, with its spectacular floor-to-ceiling display of her two-hundred strong shoe collection, luscious thick, cream coloured carpet, hot pink walls and white furniture. The clothes rails are weighed down by everything from glitzy party dresses to elegant ball gowns to heavily adorned jellabiyas, abayas and even the odd Manish Malhotra saree.

After much deliberation, she chooses a sleeveless black sequined top by Anna Sui that she picked up in New York but still has the label on. She pairs it with black twill shorts by Marc Jacobs and her favourite Gina sandals - silver leather, studded with diamantes, big silver hoop earrings and matching bangles. Laying out all the clothes on her bed, she jumps in and out of the shower and after moisturising her entire body with La Mer face cream (she hates the clinical scent of the body cream,) she carefully smoothes body shimmer over it. Skin now soft, supple and glowing, she applies MAC primer, foundation and pressed powder onto her already good complexion and blends silver and black Sephora eyeshadow on her eyelids until she looks like she’s stepped out of a fashion magazine. Squeezing into her outfit, she adds one final layer of a metallic pink Sephora lipgloss created with crushed pearls, sprays herself with Romano Ricci’s Lady Vengeance and then slips an abaya over her head. Wrapping a sheila around her face to hide the golden wig, she grins at her reflection and grabs her tiny purple leather Zufi Alexander clutch (Zufi and Lady Luxe go way back, both being hot young Dubains in the fashion industry) to complete her look. As an afterthought, she sends an sms to both her father and Mohamed as she clatters down the marble stairs, ready for some action. Neither bothers to reply.

* * *

“Going like that?” Leila giggles when Lady Luxe pulls up in front of her building, still in her Emirati gear. “I’d love to see what the bouncers make of you!”

“Well hello to you too!” Lady Luxe answers, flinging open the door. She jumps out of the car and whips off her abaya like Clark Kent transforming into Superman, revealing her daring outfit underneath.

“That’s better,” Leila squeaks, absorbing her sequined top, tiny black shorts, silver strappy sandals and smoky eyes with envy. Fully aware that a designer ensemble compared to an ordinary outfit is like the difference between sashimi at Nobu and a fillet burger at McDonald’s, she unconsciously tugs at her TopShop leopard print boob tube dress and runs her fingers through her big blonde hair. Smug, Lady Luxe smiles and says nothing as she slips back into the car and turns up the stereo. You ain’t got nothing on me, bitch, she thinks to herself as she flies down SZR, completely ignoring the speed cameras and getting flashed at least twice. Wasta goes a long way in Dubai, and her father knows enough people to ensure that his children never get speeding fines, parking tickets or even the pink slip in a car accident when they are clearly at fault. Leila grips onto the edge of the beige leather seats as Lady Luxe increases her speed to 180 km per hour, weaving her way through the various lanes and narrowly avoiding the other cars.

“Um, could you slow down a little?” Leila gasps, her stomach beginning to churn.

“Why?” Lady Luxe laughs, edging up to 185. “I thought you liked living dangerously?”

“Please! I’m serious!” Leila’s stomach contracts and she clutches on to the dashboard, the blood disappearing from her face. She hates driving fast. She hates Sheikh Zayed Road. She hates Lady Luxe and her stupid fast cars.

“Fine, fine, I was just kidding.” Slowing down to 150, Lady Luxe pats Leila’s leg reassuringly. “Sorry, I didn’t realise you were serious,” she says, not wanting to spoil the night already. Leila smiles a wobbly smile back at her, still feeling queasy.

Cow, she thinks to herself, still smiling. I’ll get you back for this.

Leaning back in her seat and trying to bite her tongue, Leila remembers the first time she met Lady Luxe and wonders if she will one day look back and regret the effort she made to secure their friendship. It was one of those rare afternoons when she decided to treat herself to some quality pampering after selling a huge villa on the Palm and receiving a hefty bonus. Instead of grabbing a quick, cheap and temporarily satisfying massage at her local beauty salon, hesitating slightly, she pushed money-saving thoughts to the back of her mind and went to the Burj Al Arab instead. Although the thought of blowing a thousand dirhams on a massage at the Assawan spa was painful for Leila with her frugal ways, it transpired to be one of the best investments she had ever made.

Assawan is not the prettiest of spas. With its garish red and gold colour scheme, it is the complete opposite of what most (sane) people would find soothing. She made this comment to an attractive, thin woman who was lounging by the infinity pool that overlooks the Arabian Gulf. The girl laughed and, connecting instantly, they began talking. Upon discovering that the Emirati was one of the exclusive few to have a yearly membership at the 30,000 dhs a year health club (not to mention having paid a hefty 30,000 dhs joining free), Leila knew that there was a reason why fate had brought her to Assawan, and not Talise at Al Qasr or Cleopatras at Wafi. So, she laughed and joked with her while they swam and ended up getting a coffee at Sahn El Dar afterwards. Sitting amongst the opulent luxury whilst sipping freshly brewed Earl Grey and nibbling on buttery scones, Leila realised that the attractive local girl with the diamond encrusted Cartier watch and patent Prada peep-toes could quite possibly be her passport into the world of rich, handsome and powerful men that she was desperate to infiltrate.

Leila was right. In the past two years, she has been to exclusive gala dinners, has sat front row at fashion shows, has attended restaurant and store openings, movie premiers, all the while being chauffeured around in a pink Ferrari. She has also become close enough to her passport to be introduced to ‘Jennifer’, thus expanding their activities to clubbing, drinking and the occasional bunning, as well as posing of course.

They can feel the pounding bass before they can even see Chi, and Lady Luxe slips into an unexpected free parking space and screeches to a halt. They both slide out the car, aware that the men who are currently being denied entry are staring at them in appreciation, and as they do, Leila takes a quick, surreptitious look at the license plate and notes it in her unfailing memory. In case she gets too drunk to remember it in the morning, she pulls out her trusty phone, writes it in and then grabs Lady Luxe’s arm and pulls her into the heaving club.

Surprisingly, the atmosphere at Chi isn't as Lady Luxe remembers it to be. It used to be full of pervy, sex-starved men who wouldn’t bother feigning sophistication or aloofness. Instead, they would ogle freely at every single creature resembling a woman, and were often courageous enough to sneak up behind them, squashing their protruding nether-regions onto unsuspecting girls’ derrieres whilst they are dancing. The music however, is far from the techno, computerised Swedish rubbish that Lady Luxe cannot stomach, so although she detests uncouth men with a tendency to invade personal space, she likes to indulge her inner black gyal occasionally and goes there solely to wind and grind to her heart’s content.

Tonight however, there seem to be more white people than usual and the DJ is spinning a mix of R&B, hip hop, funky house and good ole Brit pub songs. Lady Luxe smiles, pretending that she is actually in London as she and Leila squeeze their way through hoards of sweaty people. They find a place right in the centre of one of the dance floors, next to a group of single men vaguely moving to the music and begin shaking their thangs to Sean Paul. A blur of gold, the fake blondes look spectacular together and soon, two brave men from the group edge their way over to them. In the darkness, Lady Luxe doesn’t get to see much of what they look like so she grabs the taller one’s hands, assuming he is the better catch, and pulls him towards her. She spins around so that he is behind her and leaning forward, does her legendary, crowd pleasing Beyonce butt-shake.

“Aiwa,” he calls out, pleased, and she freezes mid-shake. She knows that voice. Too afraid to turn back around, she continues dancing with him behind her but this time with breathing space between them. Gutt squirming, head spinning, palms sweating, she sneaks a look at the guy Leila is dancing with. Unable to make out his features clearly, all she can discern is that he is a little shorter than the one trying to squash up behind her, and is wearing a huge cowboy hat. She doubts that Leila will mind parting with him, so when the DJ mixes a bit of Lady Gaga, she spins around again, drops to a squat and as she flexes back up, grabs Cowboy’s hands and presses herself against him. The tall guy, now left facing Leila, laughs and begins to dance with her amicably. Out of his line of vision, Lady Luxe sneaks a look in his direction and feels her face turn green and her insides crumble when her suspicions are confirmed.

Dressed in dark blue jeans and a plain black shirt, Mohamed, her brother, is holding Leila’s hands and dancing with a big, cat-that-stole-the-cream grin on his face. Feeling utterly disgusted with herself, she cannot believe that she had just shown her brother her infamous butt-shake from a proximity that could be deemed as incestuous, had either of them known who the other was.

Resisting the urge to throw up, Lady Luxe looks over at him again just to make sure her eyes are not deceiving her. A second glance only confirms what she already knows and she racks her brain for ways to exit as discreetly as possible. However, if she vanishes, there is a small chance that Leila may realise something is wrong and she cannot let her conniving, backstabbing, boyfriend-stealing friend know who her dance-partner really is. She can just image the look of evil pleasure on Leila’s carefully made-up face if she realises that it is the eldest son of X who is currently being captivated by her fluid moves. She curses herself for coming to such a slimy place, one her brother would naturally thrive in, and then curses Mr Delicious for putting her in a compromising position with Leila to begin with. Pre-Mr D days, she could have just grabbed Leila and ran, but now, since war has been declared, she has to tread carefully around the volatile Lebanese who has too much of a hold over her.

“Can I wear your hat?” she asks Cowboy with a broad smile, dancing vaguely and trying her utmost to keep her back to Mohamed. Thankfully, Leila’s plentiful curves are enough to occupy his vision and she catches a quick glimpse of him with his arms on either side of her while she gyrates her behind against his crotch.

Ugh, she thinks, swallowing another desire to puke. No doubt Leila has spotted his Breitling watch and from an outsider’s perspective, Lady Luxe reluctantly concedes that Mohamed can be perceived as handsome. Unlike Ahmed who is thin and awkward, he takes after their father with broad shoulders and rugged charm. His black, wavy hair is longish and curls at the nape of his neck and his pseudo-beard is well-kept and groomed perfectly. With his fair skin, he looks more Iranian than Emirati, something that his candoura usually rectifies but in the club, Leila mostly likely assumes that he is not.

“Sure!” Cowboy bares his braces at her and whips off his hat. When his curly black hair is exposed, she recognizes him as Mohamed’s colleague, having once caught a glimpse of him in their home when he ‘accidentally’ stumbled into the ladies quarters. She feels dirty for dancing so close to him but knows that the proximity is the only way she can hide as much of herself as possible. She pulls the hat over her head in an attempt to disguise herself further and continues dancing with him, sneaking in peeks of Mohamed and Leila whenever she can and praying fervently that her brother continues to be satisfied by her friend and doesn’t bother trying to analyse her too much.

“Jennifer!” Leila calls out to her, untangling herself from Mohamed’s embrace and skipping over to her.

Shitfuckshit. Panicking, Lady Luxe turns her back on her and facing a short, fat man who cannot believe his luck, bops around in a very un-Lady Luxe like manner. She can't let Mohamed see her face. So long as he just has a view of her golden mane, he will never suspect that she is his sister.

“Leila, wassup,” she growls without looking around and deepening her voice by an octave. Huffing, Leila stomps around until she is facing her and squints at her a little strangely. But she is accustomed to her friend’s sudden bursts of weirdness and shrugs it off as another game she is playing.

“I’m going to go home with Mo,” she breathes excitedly, her eyes bright with lust. “Thank you for swapping with me! He is so cute!”

“But Leila-” Lady Luxe squeaks, losing the deep voice. “You never go home with guys from clubs! How can you marry him afterwards if you sleep with him first? You know what these Arab men are like!”

“I’m sick of playing games. I haven’t had a good lay in so long and I’m just going to go with the flow. See you later!” With that, she walks back over to Mohamed, and only looks back to shout “and get rid of that disgusting hat!” before she disappears.

Lady Luxe doesn’t know whether to be relieved or horrified. Although she is thankful that she can finally breathe now that her brother has left the scene, she cannot comprehend the fact that he has left with Leila. Leila whom she has tried so hard to keep away from her family, has been careful not to divulge any personal information to and who is on the war path with her. Sick to her stomach, Lady Luxe’s desire to party unashamedly has been well and truly murdered.

Shoving the sweaty fat man away from her, she smiles apologetically at Cowboy.

“Cowboy, I have to go,” she shouts over the music. Poor Cowboy, who watched her exchange with Leila but thankfully didn’t catch much of it, looks crushed.

“Don’t go,” he implores, following her through the club as she pushes past the throngs of people to escape. Bursting out into the fresh air, she takes big gulps of it, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. She just wants to get home as quickly as possible and when Cowboy pleads, “Stay a little longer,” she sighs in frustration.

Realising that he is likely to stand there begging for a long time (she is well accustomed to the type that refuses to allow ‘no’ into their dictionary) Lady Luxe decides that the only way to get rid of the over-enthusiastic Emirati with a bad taste in hats (but good taste in women of course) will be to show him some light at the end of the tunnel.

“Take my number and call me,” she says briskly. Grabbing his phone, she dials her ‘fun’ mobile line and lets him save the number. She gives him a quick peck on the cheek, smiles and gets into her Cayenne. Cowboy watches her long legs and small behind in awe.

“I love you!” he yells to her as she reverses out of the space. She blows him a kiss and then drives away. As soon as she can no longer see him, she lets her grin fall into a grimace, pulls his hat off her head and throws it to the back of the car, along with the wig that is making her head hot and sweaty. She can’t believe that right now, Leila is probably performing all sorts of Godless acts with her very own flesh and blood and she pounds the steering wheel in frustration. She makes her usual pit-stop to change and leaves the wig in the car, along with the hat and the shoes that are now pinching her toes. Spraying a generous dose of Midnight Oud all over herself to mask the smell of smoke, she continues her journey home, feeling sick the entire time.

Peace washes over her as the electronic gates to the villa open. She just wants to scrub Cowboy’s sweat away, Jennifer’s face away, crawl into bed and forget that this disastrous night ever happened. She hurriedly parks her Cayenne next to Lady Penelope (a gift from her father when she won the ‘Abaya Designer of the Year’ award) and jogs up to the villa barefooted. She feels nervous when she slowly opens the heavy wooden door after being confronted by her father last week, but is relieved to find her home still and quiet, despite it being just 1am. Mohamed has probably taken Leila to a hotel somewhere and Ahmed is likely to be sleeping. She drags herself up the stairs and into her bathroom, where she pulls off the outfit she had so carefully put together and stuffs it into the bin with distaste. She will never look upon it favorably again. Climbing into the shower cubicle, she puts it in ‘monsoon’ mode and stands under the rain-like water, allowing it to soothe her nerves.

Mohamed, she assumes, must go through women as swiftly as she goes through bottles of Evian. She is certain that he will discard Leila like a broken toy once he has slept with her, and this thought pacifies her. She won’t know who you are to him. They won’t even exchange dialogue other than monosyllabic grunts during the deed, she tells herself reassuringly as the water pounds down on her head and numbs her headache.

After showering, Lady Luxe sinks into her soft sheets, feeling far more relaxed than she did a couple of hours ago. He won’t even remember her name and she has sworn off Emirati guys she repeats to herself. The repetition lulls her into a slumber, but just as the sandman calls, her phone beeps, interrupting the tentative strokes of sleep.

Squinting down at screen, she sees Leila’s name and she hurriedly opens the message, forcing her eyes to focus and hoping that it is a rescue request which she will be delighted to attend to.

But it is not.

This guy is amazing… the short text message declares. And if I’m not mistaken, the feeling’s mutual!!!

Chapter Thirteen – The stepping stone

2009-06-25T15:18:00.010+03:00

Leila grabs her car keys and hurries her way to the lift, where she glances approvingly at her reflection and then adds another layer of her Smashbox lip paint to make her pout even shinier. Fluffing up her hair one last time, she saunters out of the building and gracefully eases into her dark grey BMW 330, revs up the engine and then starts blaring Fairouz from the stereo. Not the sexiest of choices, but it’s Friday morning, the weather is mild and she is on her way to meet Mr Delicious for brunch. What more could she possibly want at this precise moment? (Other than an engagement ring bigger than Lara’s, that is).

Lara called her the previous night, right after Lady Luxe cancelled their usual Thursday night shenanigans. She only ever cancelled their weekly perving ritual if there was a man around and her taste for one-night-wonders rarely meant that she put an ordinary guy before her friends. So when she called to whisper a quick "sorry, can’t make it tonight, see you later", Leila guessed that the man in question was her father.

Lady Luxe rarely spoke about her family with Leila, but it was obvious that they were powerful and affluent. Why else would she painstakingly keep her last name hidden from her and even go as far as to only pay in cash so that her name on her credit card wasn’t visible? At the beginning, when she was still under the illusion that they were becoming real friends, Lady Luxe’s trust issues annoyed Leila. After a while though, she realised it didn’t really matter. Their friendship wasn’t much deeper than a swimming pool and was based upon a mutual desire for men, a vague liking of each other's personality and equal attractiveness. So, up until last week, Leila wasn’t particularly interested in the dynamics of her friend’s family life, her last name or where she lived. But now, after the way Lady Luxe descended upon her apartment like a magpie spying a piece of silver, she feels a little uneasy. Maybe it is time to start investigating her friend’s other identity – just in case.

During her thirty-minute conversation with Lara, Leila didn’t feel insanely jealous by her sister’s excited squeals and lack of pauses between sentences. The wind wasn’t knocked out of her, her breath wasn’t caught in her throat and her head didn’t spin. Instead, she actually felt a little bit happy for her younger sister who had managed to secure the everlasting love of a decent, albeit unattractive, prospective life partner. After her evening with Mr Delicious and his friend, hope in male-kind has tentatively been restored in her and although her cynical side keeps reminding her to keep her feet firmly on the sand, the dreamer encourages her to float to the tip of the Burj Dubai.

So, instead of hurriedly trying to hang up the phone, she actually asked Lara questions about the venue (their back garden), the dress (to be confirmed) and the honeymoon (Turkey). She didn’t even start fantasising about her own wedding. Instead, she concentrated on her strategy to bag Mr Delicious as soon as possible.

According to writer Sherry Arcov, men married bitches. If this was the case though, Leila would surely have been married a few times by now. Another saying was that nice girls finish last, thus implying that mean girls finish first. But so far, she isn’t even close to finishing – first, second, or last. In fact, she barely even gets the race started at all. Somewhere along the first stretch, she stumbles, falls and automatically forfeits. Usually with a lot of bruising.

Tired of getting it wrong Leila wonders if now is the time to play it differently. She has tried nice, mean, sexy, sweet, intelligent and stupid and nothing has worked for her. Today, she decides to just go with her instincts (apart from the those in her loins, that is) and hope for the best. Maybe she will get lucky.

Cruising along Sheikh Zayed Road at 90 km per hour, she takes the Marina exit and joins Jumeirah Road in order to avoid the SALIK toll gate. She hates having to actually pay to drive down SZR, and usually refuses to do so, even if it means being late. She just can’t justify wasting hundreds of dirhams every month for the sake of saving a few minutes. Besides, although she will never admit it, she is actually a little afraid of the mammoth highway, with its six lanes on both sides and monstrous drivers speeding down the fast lane. Her beemer is purely for decoration purposes, not speed. She shudders when she remembers how once, she was caught in the fast lane with a tank behind her flashing her to move out the way and no space on the right to actually do so. The tank came right up to her bumper and had she tapped on her brakes, would have ploughed into Leila, leaving both her and Baby Bee as flat as a manaqeesh. She now avoids SZR like swine flu, and prefers to plod along Jumeirah Road fending off nothing more than a few wolf whistles instead.

Driving all the way down Jumeirah Road (referred to as Beach Road by the residents due to it running parallel to the coast), she finally makes it to Bur Dubai, countless traffic lights and speed bumps later. She enjoys driving down the equivalent of London’s Harley Street with its pretty cosmetic surgery clinics and dental spas, but not as much as she enjoys driving down Al Wasl Road, home to some of the finest old villas in Dubai, including those belonging to the Habtoors, according to Lady Luxe.

The roads are empty as most of Dubai either sleeps or prepares for Friday prayers and Leila reaches Oud Metha in record time. Except for the young Brits of course. They are most likely running riot at a champagne brunch somewhere, and although Leila has joined them on many occasions, today, she has forsaken drunken stupor for a finer pursuit.

Upon reaching Movenpick, Leila happily hands over her keys to the valet, thankful that she doesn’t have to get into a sweat by actually parking the car herself. She heads straight for the small and slightly dark restroom, where she applies her third coat of lipgloss, dusts a little powder onto her small, straight nose and checks her rear-end in the mirror one last time for any strange marks that shouldn’t be there. Despite wearing a cute, white cotton dress with tiny cap sleeves and carefully fixing a white carnation in her hair, with her voluptuous double Ds and round bottom, Leila somehow manages to make the colour of purity look devilish and provocative. Scowling at the dreary restroom, she wonders why Mr Delicious suggested Movenpick rather than something closer to (his) home, like Atlantis, and wonders if it’s because he doesn’t want to be caught seen with her. She shakes the suspicion out of her head – after all, who wouldn’t want to be seen with someone as sexy as herself? A married man her annoying conscience tells her. Shut the hell up, she replies, grabbing her faux tan coloured leather Chanel tote and stalking out of the restroom in her four inch heels.

“Leila, ahlan,” Mr Delicious greets her as she walks into the restaurant in the centre of the hotel foyer. With its huge glass ceiling, it is flooded with natural light, and together with the quiet live music and colonial décor, Leila decides that the general feel of the place is actually quite decadent and pretty.

“Good morning,” she replies accepting his kisses on her cheeks and inhaling his fresh, slightly musky scent. “What are you wearing?” she asks playfully as she sits down next to him rather than opposite him.

“Arabian Wood by Tom Ford,” he answers.

“Nice. It’s one of his private blends, right?” she confirms, excitement tickling her stomach. One 250 ml of Tom Ford’s private blends costs close to two thousand dirhams, and even the teeny 50 ml costs almost eight hundred.

“Right,” he affirms. “He originally created it for Sheikh Majid of Kuwait with the Sheikh’s personal collection of essential oils.”

“So do you know Sheikh Majid?” Leila can’t help but ask, leaning forward in her seat and ‘un’ knowingly giving Mr Delicious a good view of her cleavage.

“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you,” he jokes, smiling at her. “Anyway, let’s eat, the food here is great.”

Leila is not a fan of buffets. She hates having to wobble over to food stations and load up her plate like a homeless person at a soup kitchen. She doesn’t believe in limitless food either – no wonder most of the women in Dubai are so round. But she smiles and makes her way straight to the salads and the sushi, deciding it is the healthiest option and waits for Mr Delicious to finish piling his plate with everything that can fit. She watches him eat and wonders when she will get a chance to find out exactly what his mouth can do, aside from vacuuming up food and making charming remarks. She will never initiate anything though, and neither will she give obvious signals for him to pursue. She wants much more from him than a couple of pleasant gifts and everyone knows that Arab guys don’t marry girls they’ve screwed, no matter what proclamations of love they make prior to opening up the gates to the promised land. Like her mother always says: why buy the entire cow when you can get the milk for free?

They talk mindlessly and as always, she enjoys the conversation, preferring to talk rather than eat. She doesn’t get up to fill her plate again but takes great pleasure in watching Mr Delicious march over to the various stations. His body seems to be strong and powerful and his loose beige combats and a white t-shirt cling to his muscles as though they were made for him. She is secretly pleased that their outfits are matching, and takes this as another sign fate is throwing her way – first the gym incident, and now this. The way he looks at her, although unnerving, has Leila convinced that he is developing some kind of attachment to her. And who wouldn’t, she thinks gleefully. Look at me! I’m not only hot, but I’m classy and intelligent. What more could a man want?

“How’s your friend by the way? I never did hear from her,” Mr Delicious says, interrupting her self-appraisal while devouring a plate of freshly prepared pasta.

“My friend?” Thrown off-guard by the remark, Leila feels anger beginning to boil within. She has never been on a date that has resulted in the man enquiring after her friend before, and the sheer audacity of the question makes her eyes want to bulge out of their sockets.

“You know, the crazy blonde you were with at the Cavalli Club. Now that we’re friends, maybe you wouldn’t mind putting in a good word for me?”

Leila stares at Mr Delicious, at his perfect, chiseled cheekbones and his warm smile, speechless. ‘Friends?’ she screams to herself. Does it look like I need another ‘friend’? Furious, she clenches her fists tightly under the table and steadies herself before answering him.

“Oh, right, her,” she manages to choke out, along with a strangled laugh. “That’s probably because she’s actually Emirati. She likes to party but it’s all just a big game to her. She’s not looking for anything serious.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, a wave of regret washes over her. She knows she has stepped over a boundary.

“Really? Wow. She doesn’t look Emirati,” Mr Delicious says thoughtfully, his forehead creased with confusion.

“Well she is. Anyway habibi, this has been lovely but I really have to run. I have loads of things to do today.” Still feeling as if she is about to vomit, she picks up her handbag and sticks her mobile phone back into it. No matter how much she wants Mr Delicious to want her back, her pride will always come first and she refuses to spend another minute with a man who has dragged her all the way to the other side of Dubai only to pry about Lady Luxe.

“Are you sure?” he asks, eyeing up the chocolate fountain and the selection of fresh fruit and marshmallows lying appetisingly beside it. “I’m not quite finished yet…”

“I’m really sorry but I have to go. Feel free to stay longer. And please, let me pay my share,” she says, pretending to rummage around for her wallet, giving him enough time to decline angrily. No Arab man will ever allow a girl to tread on his ego like that and such a statement is the ultimate blow to his pride, tantamount to his girlfriend cheating on him.

“Sure, why not. I’m all for feminism,” he replies gamely.

Once again, Leila is horrified. She can feel her heart palpitating at the different shocks she has had to endure: first driving all the way to Bur Dubai, then finding out that she is just a stepping stone to the greater prize – Lady Luxe – and then being told to pay her own share. Never in the thousands of dates she has been on, has she ever had her offer to pay taken up. Pulling a range of fifties, twenties, tens and even a couple of fives from her wallet to cover her share of the bill, she dumps them on the table and then stands up.

“Well Mr Delicious, it’s been a pleasure. Hope you have a lovely day,” she manages to hiss between clenched teeth, with as much decorum as she can muster. Firmly shaking his hand, she turns on her heels and strides out of the restaurant. She has had enough for one morning.

As she waits for Baby Bee to be returned to her, her phone beeps and she yanks it out of her bag, expecting to find a message from Mr Delicious apologising profusely for his faux pas. She already begins preparing her sharp response, but instead, it is Lady Luxe. She opens it and then almost drops her phone as she is electrocuted once again. Ya Rab! She almost yells out loud. Have mercy on me!

Had a nice brunch? The ominous message reads. I’ve heard good things about the food at Movenpick.