Free Secret Skin by Frank Coles Page B

me.’
    ‘Faisal knows about you,’ she said, looking directly at me, worry in her eyes.
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘I came to warn you to be careful. He thinks I am working today. I cannot be gone too long.’
    ‘What does he know about me?’
    ‘He found your business card. He knows you are a journalist, but he doesn’t know what you want. He is suspicious.’
    ‘What did you tell him?’
    ‘I told him that you were on your own and lonely and liked to pretend that I was your lover. I told him you missed home.’
    ‘Well that’s almost true,’ I said.
    ‘That you are lonely and you miss home?’
    ‘No, the other thing,’ I said.
    The smile on her lips carried over to her eyes. The shared happiness didn’t last; her face dropped and turned to a cold hard stare.
    ‘Faisal,’ she whispered and lowered her eyes.
    A sharp movement beside me brought with it the masculine odor of sweat masked by a layer of aftershave. Faisal stood to my right and between us. He pulled out the chair and sat down.
    We sat in silence. Yasmin didn’t look at either of us. Her demeanor had changed. She held her head low and physically shrank in his presence. The crackle of restrained violence filled the air around him.
    Faisal didn’t look in my direction or acknowledge me. He stared grimly at Yasmin daring her to look at him, to challenge him.
    His breathing quickened. He exuded nonchalant menace in well tailored western casual clothes. A vain man, his goatee, moustache and eyebrows were flawless, effeminate and expertly groomed.
    ‘Who the fuck are you?’ I said in character, the brutish expat john.
    He turned to look at me, slow and unhurried. His short breaths and calm contempt emphasized his impatience with this nobody who had just addressed him.
    I responded in kind and leaned my face in so close his eyes lost focus. ‘Who. Are. You?’ I repeated.
    He retreated in his seat and smiled a salesman’s smile. The menace toned down. The Icy Palm was too public for confrontation.
    ‘She has not told you about me?’ he said. A skeptic.
    ‘You have not told me about you.’
    He spoke quickly to Yasmin in Arabic. I didn’t hear what he said and wouldn’t have understood it if I had.
    ‘La,’ she said simply, head still bowed. No in Arabic.
    ‘I am little Yasmina’s manager,’ he said, ‘a friend who arranges things and looks after her…her well being,’ he said opening his palms wide and gesturing with his hands to indicate our current situation.
    ‘Oh, so it was you that asked her to call me earlier? And there I was thinking she called me because she wanted to.’ I looked at her submissive figure with feigned contempt.
    ‘So here I am negotiating fun time for my day off with your “little Yasmina” and here you are, Mr. who-the-fuck-are-you-anyway? I don’t do threesomes and I’m not interested in guys, so stop pissing about. What the fuck do you want?’
    I didn’t know whether this unhappy customer routine would pay off. My hands had unconsciously clenched into fists, one rested on the table. Yasmin flashed me a look of nervous disbelief.
    ‘Ha, ha,’ he said, pronouncing each word rather than actually laughing. ‘My name is Faisal. Do not worry, I thought I saw my Yasmina coming in here and just thought I would check up on her. I did not realize she was meeting you. Please accept my apologies for interrupting. But tell me, are you the zahafi, the journalist that she keeps telling me about?’
    ‘Oh she keeps telling you about me does she?’
    ‘Yes, I think she is quite fond of you. But it is not good to let them get too attached. They get ideas, do you know what I mean?’
    ‘I think I do,’ I said.
    ‘For a man in my position that can be…difficult. I have many other women for you to choose from.’
    ‘Perhaps I should see these women. Do you have them with you?’ I joked. ‘Where do you hide them?’
    ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ he said again. ‘No, you come to my hotel sometime, you can take your pick my friend,