Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

“She comes here sometimes, not every night. Suka .” Calling Natasha a bitch, reminding me that in the skin trade it’s every working lady for herself. And the nearer you get to descending into street meat, the more desperate it gets.

I knew that was all the information I was going to get out of her. Months, maybe years of enduring the worst that men could do to her had given her armor only violence could penetrate. I nodded, offered her drink back. She ignored the gesture, so I placed the glass on a nearby shelf and pushed my way through the crowd toward the door.

It was only as I reached the door that it opened, and a woman entered the bar. Long white-blonde hair twisted up into a French plait. A dramatic scarlet silk blouse with perhaps one button too many undone to reveal a cleavage deep enough to topple into. I’d never seen her before. But she was still the woman I recognized from a photograph I’d first seen two thousand miles and a culture away.

Natasha Sulonbekova.

I stumbled as if one vodka too many had made me unsteady, brushed against her. Her glare was sharp as a switchblade, but I’ve been stabbed before, and for real.

“A thousand apologies,” I slurred, turning on what little charm I possess and my best Russian. “Please, allow me to buy you a drink to make up for my clumsiness.”

I tilted my head to one side, smiled. A friendly guy, maybe a little drunk, an easy mark perhaps. And a drink is a drink, after all. I looked around for a waitress, but one was already on her way, carrying a bottle of beer, the obligatory straw protruding in a mockery of arousal. Heineken safely in hand, Natasha deigned to nod, mutter thanks.

“You’re Kyrgyz?” I asked and was granted a second nod.

“My name is Kairat. From Bishkek. I’m over here for a trade convention. My first visit to Dubai; it’s quite a place. And you are?”

“Adelya.”

I wasn’t surprised. Most working ladies use an alias in case a punter causes problems, and knowing that a vengeful Tynaliev would be on her trail Natasha had more reason than most. That would explain the dyed hair as well. But she couldn’t conceal the too-large breasts or the intelligence in her eyes.

“A beautiful name for a truly beautiful lady. Please, give me the honor of joining me for a few moments. Perhaps for dinner later this evening? Unless you’re meeting someone?”

I made a show of looking at her right hand; no ring on her wedding finger, so I was merely being a gentleman, rather than trying to muscle in on some other man’s property.

Natasha gave me a smile that showed me just how easily she’d hooked the Minister for State Security. She linked her free arm in mine, pulling it close so that I could feel the heavy presence of her breast against me, a weight that went straight to my groin. She tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear, and I gazed into her eyes and realized just how skilled she was at the ancient hunt, the lure and then the coup de grace.

“I wouldn’t normally come into a bar like this, you understand,” she said. “Such low-class people. But I lent a lady who comes here quite a lot of money, and I wanted to collect it tonight.”

She looked over my shoulder and theatrically scanned the room before pulling a disappointed face.

“She doesn’t seem to be here,” she said, “and I really wanted my money today.”

She glanced at me from under eyelashes so heavily mascaraed I was surprised she could keep her eyes open.

“A thousand dollars,” she said in a wistful voice. “It’s a lot of money. I need it to send home to my mother. She’s not well, needs an operation. On her leg.”

If every working girl I’ve talked to actually was paying for medical treatment, surgeons would work round the clock—when they weren’t counting their millions. But it’s a great line. Who’s going to tell a woman they’re hoping to bed that she’s lying?

“It is a lot,” I said, steering her toward the exit before the girl I’d questioned came over and betrayed me as asking after her. “But I’d love to help if I can.”

Her gesture of I couldn’t possibly was simply for appearances’ sake. My smile was, if anything, even less honest.

“I’m in town for a few days; you can always pay me back tomorrow when you get the money from your friend. And besides, it gives me the pleasure of seeing you again. Now, where do you suggest for dinner?”

Natasha had enough style to wait until we were in the back seat of a taxi before suggesting a change of venue. After all, if we were quick, she could get back to the bar before it closed and hook another fish.

“Kairat, you’re very sweet to offer to help me, and I’d feel terribly guilty if you spent so much money on dinner as well. And I’m really not hungry.”

She let her hand rest on my thigh, her nails etching an erotic tattoo into my skin. Her perfume was overpowering, the scarlet slash of her mouth hypnotic as she spoke, her eyes wide and never leaving my face.

“What do you have in mind?” I said.

Natasha pouted so prettily I wondered if we were in a scene from a 1950s’ Soviet romantic comedy. We were both acting a part, and both knew it, with only a matter of a few frames and some passionate glances before we kissed.

“Perhaps you’d like to come to my apartment for coffee or a drink? My flatmate’s away at the moment, visiting her mother in Kiev, so we won’t be disturbed.”

The way she looked at me as she spoke made me aware of the sweat on my skin, the hair on my arms suddenly erect. I patted her hand, the flesh cool and tender under mine. I felt as if I were stroking some wild creature, one that could turn and bite at any moment, and probably would.

We pulled up outside one of the seven-story apartment blocks that litter that part of Dubai, and the driver stopped the meter.

“Fifteen dirhams.”

I gave him thirty, half for the ride and half as a tip; you never know when you might need a helpful and discreet taxi driver. He gave me the merest hint of a wink as he unlocked the door; this was obviously the kind of journey he made several times a night. I helped Natasha out of the taxi, noticing the way the slit in her skirt revealed her slim thighs. The air felt greasy, soiled, smearing my hands and face with something thicker than sweat.

As the taxi drove off, Natasha led me toward the front door of her building. A security guard paid us no attention as we walked toward the lifts, concentrating instead on his mobile phone. Like the taxi driver, he probably saw several such scenes every evening. Natasha’s heels beat a Morse code of desire on the marble floor, a message for which I didn’t need a translator.

Natasha stood closer to me than the lift necessitated, and her perfume seemed headier than ever, almost like a drug. We turned left out of the lift and down the sort of corridor you don’t find in Bishkek apartment blocks: tiled, with windows facing an inner garden courtyard. Natasha’s door was at the far end, and she fumbled in her bag for the key. I wondered if there would be an irate “husband” inside, ready to proclaim his outrage, an outrage that could only be calmed by money, but the apartment felt deserted.

Natasha turned on a couple of side lights on low tables on either side of a long leather sofa. Set to one side, near floor-to-ceiling balcony doors, a small table with matching chairs was the only other furniture in the room. The apartment had all the romantic atmosphere and lived-in charm of a furniture showroom during a going-out-of-business sale.

Natasha dumped her handbag on the table and disappeared into the kitchen.

“Another vodka, darling?” she called out. “You were drinking vodka? I couldn’t smell anything on your breath.”