11

Ana was totally disorientated when she opened her eyes in the morning. Where was she? What was that strange mirror doing in the corner of the room? Why did the sheets feel so relatively cool and silky? But she gradually remembered and glanced at Binta who was still sleeping beside her, naked like herself. A sudden spasm of alarm constricted her neck, but she relaxed and smiled to herself as she regarded Binta’s head on the pillow and recalled the passion of the night before.

It had happened so fast! And it had been so much more pleasant than she’d imagined. Her own previous gropings and fumblings with boys in Rif seemed so sordid and unpleasant in comparison. Part of her felt a pang of guilt and shame. She had after all committed a crime, the consequences of which she knew only too well from Binta’s own example. Mostly, however, she felt relieved to have at last achieved the fulfilment she must have always wanted but had never known.

She scrutinised Binta’s naked body. So beautiful. The long hair. The slim waist. The full breasts she’d admired before without knowing how well she’d get to know them. She smiled at the slight heave and stir of Binta’s body who was breathing steadily in apparent contentment. She hoped - so much! - that Binta’s feelings towards her were as strong as those she at last admitted to have towards her friend. Not just a friend now. A lover. She relished the word and mouthed it silently to cherish its full flavour. Overcome by desire, she leaned over and kissed Binta tenderly on the shoulder.

Binta stirred and rolled over towards her. She opened her eyes wearily and smiled welcomingly. A rush of emotion pounded at Ana’s chest and heated her cheeks.

“Good morning,” Binta mouthed.

“Good morning,” replied Ana. “Did you sleep well?”

“What little of the night I spent asleep, yes!” Binta remarked wickedly. “It was good wasn’t it? Did you enjoy it? I did!”

“Yes, very much. Very much. Very much indeed.”

“Oh, you’re so sweet!” Binta cried pulling herself up, the silk sheets dropping into a heap on her lap. “You’re so wonderful. Give me a kiss!”

Ana shyly proffered her lips to Binta’s and kissed her tenderly. But Binta was not to be satisfied. She squeezed the back of Ana’s neck, pulling her forward, and kissed her with the same passion and intensity Ana remembered so fondly and vividly from the night before. Ana locked her arms around Binta and pulled her close, her small breasts against Binta’s larger, firmer ones.

Quite suddenly there was a knock on the door. Binta started with a look of panic, which Ana was slow to recognise. She quickly pulled herself off her lover and called out in a hoarse startled voice: “Hello! Who is it?”

“It’s me silly!” replied a voice from outside which Ana recognised but couldn’t immediately place. “Can I come in?”

“It’s you, Zabba!” called Binta, clearly not pleased at the timing of this visit but feeling obliged to be polite. “Come in then.”

The young girl pushed open the door, wearing a shirt, grey shorts, ankle-high socks and a thin tie. She looked exactly like a young schoolboy, an impression her slenderness and lack of breasts did nothing to dispel.

“Oh ho!” she said with a mischievous grin, pushing the door close behind her. “I see Ana missed her last bus home. I hope you didn’t mind slumming it here for the night, Ana sweetest?”

Ana blushed, unable to answer. What was Zabba thinking? She was horribly aware of her nakedness, and belatedly pulled the sheet up to hide her breasts. Zabba smiled but restrained herself from saying anything crude or unsubtle.

“Well! This is one way you’re different from Inta. But of course I guessed all along. You can’t keep a secret from me!”

“It’s not what you think...” gasped Ana.

“Don’t lie, sweetheart. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. But don’t worry about me. I won’t tell a soul. You can do exactly what you like together. It’s your lives, after all.” She smiled at Binta. “So, Binta, I take it you’re not working this morning.”

“This morning? No. My shift doesn’t start till this afternoon.”

“Just as well, really. Me, I’ve just finished work! And a long night it has been too. Profitable, though! Very profitable. Quite painful, too. One of my regulars just can’t get enough of me however much I remind him of the cost of his little sordid extras. I’m just off home now. I need a decent sleep in my own bed without the smell of clients on the sheets. Sleeping with clients! Pah! If only that were true, then I’d never need my own bed!”

Zabba stood in front of the mirror and admired her reflection. She turned her head one way and the other, pursing her lips in a loving kiss at herself. Ana could see Binta and her behind Zabba: much more of Binta who’d obscured very little of her body with the sheet Ana clasped to her neck. Zabba turned round and smiled, while running her hands down the front of her shirt. “I really must get changed! I wouldn’t want any of my clients to recognise me in the street. I wouldn’t be able to fight them off! But first of all I fancy a swim. That’s why I came here: to see if you were interested in a splash. But I guess you’re not.”

Binta shook her head firmly. “No, not really.”

“Ana’s company’s better than my own, I suppose,” Zabba laughed. “Well! You just don’t know what delights you’re missing, Binta dear! And Ana. Not so far for to go to work this morning. At least you can lie in.”

“Work!” gasped Ana. She frantically studied the small battery powered alarm clock by the bed. She wasn’t late was she? She was relieved to see that she had nearly an hour till she was due in the office, but then worried about the logistics of the operation. She wouldn’t be able to change her underwear and she would have to use the Brothel shower to remove the night’s odour from her body. Would the Director notice? Could she hide the evidence? “I’d forgotten about work.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” grinned Zabba indulgently. “You’ll just have to be better prepared in future.” She sat on the edge of the bed and supported her weight on a thin arm. “For some of us, the working day has just finished, for others it’s only about to begin, and for lucky Binta she’s got until this afternoon to think about it. But do you still enjoy your work? The Pimple’s not been molesting you, I hope?”

Ana’s mind flashed back to her earlier conversation with Zabba and Ferhana. She’d been much warier of her boss since then, but fortunately the Director had not behaved especially badly. He was usually busy elsewhere in the Brothel and only rarely stayed in his office for very long. Sometimes he dictated letters, which Ana took down in shorthand for typing later. These were usually fairly standard letters, addressed to suppliers of Brothel equipment, government departments and bodies like Careers Advisory services, newspapers, or customers who’d defaulted on sometimes rather substantial bills. She preferred the more standard letters. They kept her busy and required very little original thought, but some letters reminded her rather uncomfortably what organisation she worked for. She’d particularly disliked a letter she’d had to type to a girl who’d been forced to leave because of her pregnancy. The Director wasn’t at all sympathetic to the girl’s plight or her subsequent loss of earnings.

“I hate your boss!” exclaimed Binta bitterly. “I’m just glad he’s given up pestering me. There was a time he just wouldn’t keep his hands off me. And some of the things he said. He’s so crude!”

“What’d he say then, Binta sweetest?” wondered Zabba.

“I’m just not saying. At least, not with Ana here. I don’t want to distress you, Ana. But he’s not a nice man, the Director. He thinks his staff are all fair game, and that we’re obliged to do whatever unpalatable things he fancies. Even if I were attracted to men, I wouldn’t be attracted to him. He’s the most obscene and unpleasant man I’ve ever met!”

Ana hadn’t known enough men to voice a well-rounded opinion, but his bawdy remarks were rather tasteless and his comments about her personal appearance were a little unsubtle. She had no intention of dressing like the prostitutes, although he often said that it was more or less expected of even the secretaries in the Brothel. And she didn’t like his repeated assertion that she should display more of her chest or legs.

“The Pimple’s a real bastard,” agreed Zabba. “But what about his lieutenants? They’re not much better are they, Ana?”

“At least they never touch my bottom or put their hands on mine.”

“Well, that’s because you’re not a prostitute,” Binta said. “The Head of Catering is a real nuisance. And he’s so fat and ugly as well. He looks like he bathes in lard: his skin is so greasy. And the Caretaker seems to have taken a liking to me. He’s always slapping my bottom when I pass him. I really go out of my way to avoid him. If I see him walking towards me, I just turn round and walk the other way.”

“The women aren’t much better, are they? That Khedra’s a real cow!”

“Do they molest you as well?” gasped Ana, strangely excited at the thought of much more widespread lesbianism in the Brothel.

“No, of course not,” laughed Binta. “Zabba’s just saying she doesn’t like them. They don’t behave like the men, but they can be very bitchy and unsympathetic. They think that even those of us who’re not in the Brothel by choice should be grateful to work here.”

“They just suck up to the Pimple. He can never do anything wrong. I think they’d probably wipe his bottom clean if he asked them to. And of course you can’t be too sure that that’s not exactly what he does ask them to...”

“Uugghh!” Ana exclaimed. “What a horrid idea! You can’t be serious! Nobody would do things like that, surely?”

Zabba laughed. She appeared to contemplate elaborating on whatever it was she found so amusing, but was silenced by Binta’s frown. She turned back to her reflection, ran her fingers through her short hair and scratched her crown.

“So, you still enjoy working here, Ana? You’re not put off by the Pimple? You don’t mind having all these whores around you?”

“It’s my first job. I’ve never worked anywhere before. I have to try and make the best of it.”

“Of course, you do!” agreed Binta. “Stop trying to upset Ana, Zabba! She’s not like us. She doesn’t have anything to do with the sordid side of life here!”

“I’m sure you’re right, Binta,” Zabba responded unconvincingly. “I’m sure you’re absolutely right!”

“What we do, Ana, is quite different from what you do,” Binta continued. “You definitely don’t have to be like your predecessor, Inta. You don’t ever have to let men maul your body or do the gross things that they require...”

“If they’ve got the physical ability to perform that is...” Zabba remarked. “One good thing about our job is that we get paid the same however well our clients do their half of it!”

“Honestly, Zabba! You sometimes sound as if you liked the job! Why do you keep taunting poor Ana?”

“She’s got to know about life. Haven’t you, Ana sweetheart? You can’t just work in a place like this and be totally ignorant of what goes on.”

“I don’t believe that at all,” Binta countered. “Ana doesn’t have to know anything about what we do. In fact the less she knows the better, don’t you think Ana? You don’t want to know what the punters do with Zabba. All the perverse unmentionable things they force her to do. Or me for that matter! I hate my clients. I don’t care if they leave me complaining that I’ve not satisfied them as they’d like. However much Khedra and the others tell me off for the clients’ grievances about my lack of enthusiasm or professionalism. However many times they tell me I might be downgraded if I’m not careful and how much worse the clients would be if they had to pay less for my services. I’m not here by choice, and I don’t get anything however well I perform.”

“Has Khedra been having a go at you, Binta dear?” wondered a fascinated Zabba. “She never has anything but praise for me. You really must have peeved her. She just doesn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t enjoy this job. Have your clients been complaining that much?”

“One or two, yes,” Binta admitted. “But I’d rather not talk about it, Zabba, please. Ana doesn’t want to hear about it, do you?”

Ana shook her head, although she was uneasily curious of Binta’s contacts with the clients. How did they compare with her? What did they actually do to her? She could imagine, of course, but her mind deliberately blanked out the distasteful images and focused instead on the beauties of the body she’d enjoyed so much during the night. It hurt her to think that others had also had the pleasure of it. She looked at Binta sadly. Binta smiled at her compassionately, and, despite Zabba still sitting on the bed, she leaned over and tenderly kissed her on the cheek.

“Don’t you worry, Ana! Don’t worry! What I do with clients and what we do together are two different things.”

Zabba observed thoughtfully and silently, uncharacteristically embarrassed by Binta’s display of tenderness. She looked down at the rings on her hand, and then fumbled around in the top pocket of her shirt. She pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter and held them in front of her. “I’m dying for a smoke! It’s a good way of taking the taste out of my mouth, you know!” She ran her tongue around her lips and looked longingly at her packet. “You don’t like me smoking in your room, do you Binta?”

“Not at all!” she exclaimed sternly. “You go outside and smoke it. And, anyway, Ana’s got to prepare to go to work.”

Zabba nodded and stood up. “Well, maybe we can go for a swim another day, Binta.” She strolled to the head of the bed and briefly kissed Binta on the cheek. She then left, pulling a cigarette out of the packet, and carefully shut the door behind her.

Binta smiled indulgently. “Zabba’s all right, Ana. She’s just quite young, really. But she means well. But before you get out of bed and go to work, where were we before we were interrupted?”

She stroked Ana lovingly on the cheek. She then bent over, supporting the chin with her fingers, and passionately resumed her kiss.