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Ana was seeing a great deal of
Binta these days. On those days when her friend was not working late, she
rarely returned home directly after work. She would wander along to Binta’s
room and the two girls would chat together or go swimming in the Brothel pool.
On some evenings, they would meet in the roof garden: high above the city and
the only part of the Brothel open to the sky. Like many others, Binta had a
small plot in the garden she could tend when she could. It was a very small
plot that grew only a few flowers and herbs, but Binta had taken the option of
working there, precisely for the freedom of an empty sky above her head. Ana
enjoyed these visits which, because of Binta’s chosen dress, were only possible
on dry warm evenings. She enjoyed standing by as Binta knelt down on the
ground: her trowel deep in the earth and mud on her knees.
Ana wasn’t
at all sure why she felt the need to see Binta so often. The most obvious
reason, and the one she preferred to believe, was that Ana had very few friends
in Blad and Binta was the closest of them. She could
speak freely about all she missed from
Ana felt
empty on those evenings when Binta was working. Time seemed to drag and she was
unable to concentrate. Weekends were even worse. She often had to think of
excuses to come to the Brothel, as she had when she escorted Ferhana to the
cathedral, for the occasion of spending time with Binta.
“I never
enjoyed gardening in Jebel,” admitted Binta. “Indeed, I never did any at all. I
couldn’t tell geraniums from hyacinths. I would have hated getting any of this
muck on my fingers. Look at it all!” She splayed her fingers to display the
earth that discoloured them. “But, now, I just couldn’t imagine a day not spent
tending this little garden. I’ve read all the books in the Brothel library on
gardening and I know far more than I used to do. Some girls here have much
better plots than me. That Delta with the jacaranda over there: I don’t know
how she does it! Her plot always looks immaculate. And she manages to make it
look good all year round. Most of the time, there are either things waiting to
sprout or flowers which have just died. There’s a real art to it!”
Ana smiled
appreciatively. She thought Binta’s plot was quite delightful enough. She
followed Binta’s gesture to all the other plots that lined the narrow paths
around the roof garden. Other girls were working at their plots, but they were
mostly Deltas and Epsilons who were also serving time, and wore nearly as
little as Binta as they didn’t wish to dirty the satin, silk or leather of
their working clothes. Prostitutes were not offered the sort of clothes that would
normally be appropriate for working on a garden.
“What do
you enjoy most about it?” Ana asked, standing against a small tree in the
evening sun, her arms folded and a hand stroking her chin.
“The open air more than anything else. It’s so oppressive being indoors in the Brothel all day. A country girl
like me just can’t take so much neon and claustrophobia. There mightn’t be a
lot more space, but there’s a lot of air. You can’t see much more of the world
up here. No more than I can see through the window in my room anyway. But it’s
nice to know that there’s nothing but sky above my head. It’s a kind of
freedom. But it’s more than that! I like getting my hands deep into the soft
unresisting earth. I like to help things grow. I love watching the first leaves
of a bulb sprout from the earth, and then bit by bit watch the flowers open. I
like to take my secateurs to the roses and prune them. It’s so restful. You
just don’t notice the hours go by. I can forget the misery of the Brothel and
just concentrate my thoughts on what to do with this plant or that plant. Where to put what seed. What needs to be trimmed.
I wouldn’t mind growing vegetables here. Carrots or cabbages.
But there’s nowhere to cook them. And anyway the Brothel only supplies us with
a limited variety of decorative garden plants. You can order other plants, but
whatever you order just doesn’t seem to be available this month or any other month
for that matter. What do you think, Ana?”
“I don’t
know. I like looking at all these flowers and I love watching the way the
garden changes, but I just don’t know whether I’d be so keen even if I were in
your position.”
“But you
seem to enjoy coming up here and watching me work.”
“That’s
because you enjoy it,” Ana remarked. She instantly felt embarrassed. What was
she trying to say?
“What do
you mean, Ana?” asked Binta standing up and turning her naked body towards her friend.
“You only come here because I come here?”
“Well, no.
I mean, yes. I mean, it’s just because ... you know ... it’s nice to watch you
at work and enjoying yourself at work that ...”
“You like
watching me enjoy myself?”
“Not so
much watching you...” rambled Ana, her ears burning with embarrassment, not at
all sure what she was trying to say. “It’s just nice chatting to you while
you’re happy and not ... when you’re sort of your own person and not being ...
I just think it’s nice that ...”
Binta
leaned over and tenderly kissed Ana on the cheek. “I enjoy your company. I
don’t care why you want to spend time with me. It’s just nice to be together.”
“You think
so?”
Ana felt
the heat from her ears spread across her cheeks and forehead. What was causing
her so much embarrassment?
Binta
looked at the earth-pasted hands with an amused smile. “How did they get this
muck onto the roof? Anyway, I must wash it off.” She picked up her trowel, fork
and a small bucket. “Let’s go to the taps.”
These were
lined against the wall by a series of shrub-like trees in wooden tubs and a
small greenhouse where an indistinct figure was tending to some tomatoes. Binta
carefully packed her tools in a small locker, its
green metal rusted a red tinge, locked the door and hid the key in a small pot
just above her locker. Ana stood back as she rubbed her hands under the
sparkling water of the tap as it gushed out, splashed over her wrists and
fingers, and then spiralled down the small grate at her feet which were also
getting washed.
“It’s
unbelievably cold!” she exclaimed, shaking the droplets off onto the wall’s
peeling paint. “My fingers are so numb! Feel them!”
She
proffered them to Ana, who had to admit that they were very cold. She dropped
them promptly while Binta agitatedly shook her hands.
“So, what
do you think about working here, Ana? Are you enjoying it any more?”
“It’s a
job. It has its good days and its bad days,” Ana answered. She never really
thought that much about it. She didn’t enjoy the director’s company, but
fortunately he was more often than not busy elsewhere and she didn’t have to
suffer his facetious comments too often. “It’s not as bad as your job. I’d hate
to do what you have to do.”
The thought
always filled Ana with disgust. It perturbed her more than she thought
possible. The image of Binta being subjected to the physical attentions of her
clients was one she preferred to blank out of her mind.
“Some of
the clients today were particularly nasty,” Binta mused. “One man wouldn’t stop
squeezing my wrist. I told him to stop and he just wouldn’t. I think he liked
causing me pain. Another one just wouldn’t accept my refusal (which I’m wholly
entitled to insist on) when I said I didn’t want to do what he wanted me to do.
I told him it was painful and, in any case, illegal. But that didn’t stop him
going on and on. And offering me quite a lot of money for it.
Money I can’t even spend at the Brothel anyway. I hate my job. And the worst of
it is how it changes the way you regard lovemaking...”
“What do
you mean?” wondered Ana, leaning against a table loaded with potted plants.
“How has it done that?”
“It just
doesn’t seem to have anything to do with love any more. The other words you use
for it - the old Anglo-Saxon ones - they seem much more appropriate than words
like ‘making love’. It’s got nothing about it that I would call ‘love’. Not the
love I enjoyed with Mezyana. Not the passion and satisfaction I used to get.
Now, it’s just on your back, legs up in the air, a disgusting smell of body
odour and a kind of distant far away sensation from where you’re supposed to
feel sensation the most acutely. It’s just perverse and horrible!” Binta leaned
against the table next to Ana, and absent-mindedly took Ana’s hand in one of
her own and looked down at it. “It’s dehumanising! I’m nothing more than a sex
toy. I have a vacant hole to be filled and the clients just want to fill it.
That’s all it is! That’s all they do! I prefer it when I can satisfy their lust
without them putting their repulsive thing inside me...”
Ana gazed into Binta’s eyes. “How do
you do that?” she asked with a slight choke.
“With my hands. With my
mouth. With my breasts. With anything I can.
And then they release their smelly viscous muck and I know I’m safe. The trick
is to do it quickly, but not so quickly that they feel that they want to have a
second go. And I look at them. Those bristly greasy faces.
Those pale hairy chests. The flabby mass of stomach in folds
at the front. The skinny legs with the angular knees
and so much hair. Those piggy little eyes. And that loathsome look of lust that they all have when they come
in my room and look at me. And the things they say. ‘Just like my
daughter, you are!’ One said. ‘And she’s a slut too!’ That was so horrid and
unnecessary. So dreadful...” Binta sighed, and her eyes moistened with tears Ana
had never seen before. She put an arm round her shoulders to comfort her friend,
and Binta squeezed up towards her, face against her cheek and an arm trailing
over Ana’s knee.
“And some of the others! The
violent way they force their fingers in places where I don’t want them to touch
me. The way they slobber and trails of saliva drip out of their mouths and
leave damp patches on the sheets. The ugliest, unhealthiest, most diseased
looking bodies you can imagine. It’s not just the ignominy of being a sex
machine: it’s what you have to endure. It’s repulsive! Obnoxious! Nothing I
ever did with Mezyana resembles what I have to suffer from these men. God! I
hate them! I hate them!”
Ana
squeezed Binta’s shoulder comfortingly. “They’re not here now! We’re in the
garden. Your clients are far away.”
Binta
turned round and with a sudden impulse wrapped her naked shoulders around Ana’s.
“You don’t
understand. While I’m in the Brothel, I can’t escape them at all. The clients
are here all the time. All the time I’m surrounded by prostitutes and the
Brothel, I can’t forget them. They’re in the shadows of the corridors, behind
the doors with red lights, in the creases of all the satin, silk and leather
that’s worn here. I hate it! I hate it so much!”
Her chin
rested on Ana’s shoulder and her body pressed against her breast. Ana patted
Binta’s back with one arm while supporting her with the other. The note of Binta’s
breathing became a distinct sob.
“There there!” Ana said periodically and soothingly, but
nonetheless feeling unsettled by the sensation of a naked woman pressed so
close to her. She and Binta had never been so physically intimate before. She
gazed into Binta’s tear-soaked eyes. A sudden rush of emotion and pity
overwhelmed her, and without any thought she leaned over and kissed Binta
tenderly on the lips. It was meant to be a brief and comradely kiss, but she
was taken totally unawares by the intensity of Binta’s response.
In a sudden
wild rush of sensation, she was aware that Binta had manoeuvred her kiss to a
longer and more passionate one in which there was the unfamiliar (and yet not
unwelcome) sensation of another tongue in her mouth. Ana felt obliged to follow
suit. Binta’s mouth was a very liquid and very warm place which tasted of so
many different things: sweet, salt and even bitter. She felt the hardness of
Binta’s teeth: the uneven row of incisors and the crowns of the molars where,
yes! she identified the metallic taste of a filling.
Her tongue ached as it revolved around Binta’s own tongue, slid along the gums
above and below the teeth, and deep breaths through her nostrils picked up the
slight soapiness of Binta’s well-scrubbed flesh.
All of a
sudden, Binta eased off and steadily gazed at her, with a toothy bright smile.
There was something very strange about her expression. The eyes sparkled in a
way Ana had never seen in anyone before and her mouth expressed an unutterably
beautiful foolishness. Ana just wanted her lips to return to Binta’s and feel
more closely her smooth warm flesh. Binta understood Ana’s thoughts, despite
reservations that had vanished in the heady mist of passion.
“I think we
should go to my bedroom,” Binta said breathlessly, raising her eyebrows with a
reluctant frown. “We can be sure of our privacy there.”
Ana
panicked slightly. She glanced around her. Thankfully there was no one who
could have seen her with Binta. She looked back at her good friend. She smiled
in a sad but determined way.
“Yes, let’s
go! But hurry!”
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