Махи Бинбин - Marrakech Noir

“We are among the Sodomites, my friend,” Ibrahim murmured.

“I told you, they are transgressing,” Ali repeated.

“Infidels.”

The thieves retreated from the pool, tipsy. They stumbled toward the living room where everyone was dancing to raï music.

Cheb Khaled was singing: “ Didi... didi oh... didi ...”

Moroccan girls writhed to the music, and the foreigners accompanied them by clapping to the beat. People were clinging to each other with glasses in their hands; the drinks were flowing everywhere, and the neatly arranged tables were covered with dishes of succulent food.

Ali and Ibrahim were given plates. They piled them with pieces of fried meat, chicken, and unfamiliar salads. The pair ate greedily, and at that moment they were absolutely certain they were in heaven. They had never been to a party this lavish in their whole lives. True, Ibrahim and Ali had known tourists before, but the ones they knew were tourists of a different stripe — ones who could be found wandering across Jemaa el-Fnaa morning and night with their backpacks. Those were the ones they had taken advantage of and swindled, whereas the rich ones sought refuge in villas and luxurious gardens, and in parties like the one they were crashing.

“How do they go shopping, then?” Ali asked.

“Clearly they send their servants to do the shopping for them.”

The thieves had just finished their plates and were preparing for another round when a voice suddenly shouted from the top of the stairs: “ Maintenant, la surprise de la soirée ... Mademoiselle Marilyn Monroe!”

Ali looked quizzically at Ibrahim. “Did you hear that?”

“Some kind of surprise... some kind of food, maybe?”

“He said Marilyn Monroe is here. She’s an actress, stupid,” Ali said, shaking his head.

“But she died years ago.”

“I swear to you, he said that Marilyn Monroe is here.”

They turned toward the stairs and saw a young woman of outstanding beauty descending, very deliberately, the wooden stairway in the middle of the room. She was blond, with large breasts almost bouncing out of her white dress that was slit open at the bust to reveal her charms. She was puckering her delicious lips as if to kiss an imaginary person, and she stretched out her soft arms invitingly. She came down the stairs slowly, stepping to the beat of the soft music. She appeared to be Moroccan.

Some of the men shouted: “Oooh!”

“Ay luv yoo, Marilyn!” one guy screamed.

She seductively lifted up the hem of her dress so that her translucent white stockings appeared, hooked to something even more alluring. The flesh wrapped in the tight muslin pantyhose looked even more tempting than the naked flesh itself.

Ibrahim imagined himself removing her stockings, taking his time kissing those tasty lips of hers. He hadn’t touched a woman’s body for months because he couldn’t afford a prostitute, and he didn’t dare flirt with the poor girls in Riad Zitoun.

In the days when they’d been tour guides, Ibrahim hadn’t been deprived of sex. It had been available from the female tourists who generously offered their bodies and their bountiful love. There was no need for marriage, the women didn’t get upset, and there were no protective brothers, chaperones, or uncles. Just total surrender to the heat of a throbbing body, giving pleasure and taking it. Most of the time they were both drunk, so Ibrahim couldn’t remember exactly how many women he had slept with back then. When they were tour guides, he’d also had a relationship with Zahra, a married woman. He regretted not getting married back then. If he had done so, there would be children jumping around him right now. He pushed the thought of marriage from his mind and simply enjoyed the sight of Marilyn Monroe. He was truly astonished, because he knew that she had died a long time ago.

“I can’t believe Marilyn Monroe is here,” Ali said, his mouth still open in shock.

“I swear, you’re so stupid. It’s a man,” Ibrahim responded.

“A man?”

“Yeah, I swear, it’s a man,” Ibrahim said. “Just look at his legs.”

Ali looked at Marilyn’s legs. They did seem manly. He turned to face Ibrahim. “It’s true! She really is a man... wow! Where are we, my friend?”

“We are with the people transgressing beyond all bounds,” Ibrahim said grimly.

“Infidels.”

They could accept many things, but not a man dressed as a woman. In their opinion, this was something revolting — an unforgivable crime that violated all that was holy. Ali was reeling as he yelled: “I want to throw myself on that effeminate Christian and choke him.”

“He isn’t a Christian — he’s Moroccan. See, his face isn’t foreign,” Ibrahim said.

“He isn’t foreign?”

“I don’t know why I feel like I know him. Something about him reminds me of someone I’ve seen before, but I don’t know from where...” Ibrahim trailed off as he took a good long look at Marilyn.

“Yeah, he does seem familiar.”

“Anyway, we came here because of Hmad the Chelh,” Ibrahim reminded. “We should go look for him.”

“I totally forgot about him... I didn’t see him with the servers — where could he be?”

They circled the house once more, but they couldn’t find him.

“I’m sure I saw him enter this place,” Ibrahim said.

“Me too. I definitely saw him, but where could he have gone?”

“Let’s try the first floor.”

They went upstairs and encountered paintings and photographs of naked male bodies in seductive poses throughout the red hallway. Ali, fighting off his drunkenness and arousal, yelled: “They are the people transgressing beyond bounds!”

“Infidels!”

They opened the door of the first room on the left side and found a foreign man and a Moroccan girl clinging to each other. The foreigner was annoyed and bellowed in their faces: “Allez vous faire foutre!”

Ali closed the door and turned to Ibrahim. “What did he say?”

“He said, Go fuck yourself.”

“Goddamn you. Goddamn all of you. They are the people transgressing beyond bounds!” Ali said once again.

“Infidels.”

Ibrahim and Ali said these things, but experienced at the same instant a powerful arousal.

“Oh, if only I was in his place,” Ibrahim mumbled. “If only I could hold a woman right now, touch her waist, plow her until she moans.”

“Unbelievable... not a single woman hit on me at this party,” Ali griped.

“Have you seen the people here, have you seen their clothes? Their faces? We look like a couple of homeless bums and you wonder why they aren’t chasing us?”

“No one has even noticed we’re here,” Ali grumbled. “Everyone is drunk, or in bed with a slutty girl, or a girlie boy.”

Ibrahim opened the door to the second room and saw two young guys naked on the bed, hiding under the blanket in fear.

“I am about to explode. I want a woman now, any woman,” Ali moaned. “I just want to go to bed with a woman beside me.”

Like most young men of his age, Ali thought about sex obsessively. Nothing would cure this except for marriage, or being able to have a woman every day. But marriage was impossible for him. Sex had tortured him even more since he had been overtaken over by religious sentiments. He had started to feel sinful because of his urges, and the fact that he couldn’t satisfy his needs in the legal way that the faqih talked about.

Ibrahim grabbed Ali’s arm, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Quit daydreaming and help me look in the other rooms. Maybe we’ll find that damned Chelh in one of them. I bet he’s not even a server here. But someone must know what he really does in this place.”