Cock-Sucker: Abducted

It occurred to me that they might regard their treatment of me as some kind of retaliation for the sexual humiliations imposed on the Abu Ghraib prisoners. Then I recall how Tariq had talked to me about how, in a strictly gender-segregated society, young men fall back on experimenting with each other, establishing tastes and suppressed secret desires that persist well into later life. Despite superficial appearances to the contrary. That's why sex-tourists exploit their poverty by coming here for compliant available youths. And that's what happened to TE Lawrence. He was here during the final collapsing days of the Ottoman Empire. He was captured. He was beaten and sodomised. It skewed and confused his already fragile sexuality.

Perhaps the older members of the cell had been using Rashid in that way, until now they've acquired me to fulfil that function? And he was only too keen to take advantage of the reversal of fortunes. Despite what he claimed, he wasn't ready to die. His persistent erection tells me all I need to know about his lust for life. I recall post-coital whispers with Tariq, him telling me 'in the west you have your messiah, we have the prophet, but none of their promises of paradise can be verified. We persist in believing because... why not believe, what do we lose by believing? What do we gain by non-belief? It is what they call Pascal's Wager? But I have seen dead men. I saw no eternity. I saw no vistas of paradise. Only death. Perhaps all we have is what we have here and now. If there is a god, this is the consolation he gifts us. And orgasm is the closest we are ever going to get to heaven?'

During the night I hear low-flying 'copters choppity-choppity thrumming overhead. Perhaps they are searching for me? Maybe house-to-house searches will follow? But no. There is only silence. What is going to become of me? Are there negotiations going on for my release? Will I be forced to make one of those confessional videos pleading for my life? I was fearfully aware of other stories, other possibilities. About there being at least one dissolute Prince of the Gulf royal families who is said to harbour a seraglio of stolen young men, with a rapacious taste for blonde Europeans. Hopefully, I'm not sufficiently pretty for such a fate. More immediately, there's a yellowing bruise on my leg where I must have caught it as I was bundled into the kidnap van. The bruise is still tender, I wince at each touch. And mosquito sores. That too. I exercise as well as I can. Worried I'm losing weight, and not in a good way. I yearn for a shower to sluice away the sweat and dried semen, but they only provide a single bowl of water to wash by. And somewhere to piss without being watched. But mostly I'm alone, watching cockroaches saunter across the floor as though they're strolling in the park. I watch their progress. There's nothing else to watch.

'You are homesick, maybe?' I ask Rashid, 'you want to go home? Me too.'

'You came here to help us?' teases Rashid, 'and how much were you paid to do that, how much for this noble gesture? What were you paid to live in the pampered privileged compound of foreigners? More money in one day than most families here have to subside on for a month...?'

Of course, he's correct. If he learned something from me – and I hope maybe he did, I certainly learned from him. Back in the air-conditioned bulletproof dark-glass office-space fortress of the Green Zone I'd existed in an artificial bubble. I realise that now. There were vast double doors with sensors and coded locks. To get out of the main compound there were more sensors and locks. Then come the locked metal gate at the outer wall, constantly guarded by armed security. What I am enduring now is the reality for the ordinary people.

Weeks later, I lose track of time. It is dusk, sullenly warm. Rashid comes to me. But not for sex. This time he releases the manacle that shackles me to the bed-head, and tosses me a chador. I'm able to pull it over myself, and follow him dully. There is change. This is different. And I'm more scared of change than I am of the present. We pace the length of the hallway to the exterior door. There are no sounds in the building. Where are the others? No-one challenges us. No-one moves to stop us. Either they're out somewhere, on a mission. Or they're fully aware of what Rashid is doing. Stepping out into the night is to tread onto the surface of Mars. The battered saloon car is waiting. At the wheel is my faithless Tariq. Yes, I'd been wrong about him all along. I later discover it was he who'd searched me out through the complex web of cells and affiliations, contacted Rashid, and negotiated for my release. My captors conceding, unconditionally. For now, I glance across at him with a curious mixture of relief, and shame.

We pile into the car together, Rashid and me joining Tariq. Tariq slides into gear and we pull away. Accelerating into the gathering gloom, descending back towards the city.

'Where are you taking me?'

It's Rashid who grins a wide and guiless way. 'Where do you want we should go? Although I must be true to my own voice, to my own place, to my own heritage, as you must be to yours, that does not mean that our three souls cannot touch.'

I smile across at him. You could say it was a shared predilection for male genitalia that bridged the gulf between cultures, and established common humanity. I guess so. This must be the future. The way to save the world.

'Yes. If we stand between hope and history, here there is hope.'