One Night in Dubai

I'd shifted up to this position to save my aching abs, and it seemed to really get Jaleh off. But the angle was just wrong for me. If I had the endurance, I'd go on banging her like this for hours. But my arms were starting to give out, and my own need for release was rapacious.

"I'm cumming again!" she wept, her body quivering beneath me. "Ohhh-h-h, Rowwwwannn..."

With a final deep thrust forward, I wrapped an arm under her waist and pushed myself up to my knees between her legs. Jaleh planted her feet on the bed, and arched her back up, pushing against the crossbar.

I held her waist in my hands and gave in to my base instincts. Fucking like a piston, the head of my cock seared against the slick heat of her drooling pussy.

"That's it, Rowan... Shag me stupid..." Jaleh encouraged breathlessly, seeing the desperation on my face. She locked her golden eyes, puffy and red, on mine. "Oo yeah, cum for me, Rowan... I want to see you bloody cum!"

It was like all the stress and fear and tension of the night was suddenly made manifest deep in my groin, and with a final deep thrust and a guttural groan all of that negative energy was sucked out of my body. Again, and again, and again.

Her sweat-slick skin slipped from my grasp and I collapsed backwards away from her, leaning back against the cold steel headbar of the bed frame, panting, enervated, spent.

She smiled, and leaned her own head back over the footbar, exhaling a long, satiated sigh.

***

Afterwards, we smoked the last two stale cigarettes in the pack she found in her hand bag, reclining on opposite ends of the twin bed, our legs entwined. I caressed her calf idly. The cheap Casio said it was a little before four in the morning.

"I don't suppose you came up with a plan during all that?" she asked, exhaling a plume of smoke.

"Are you kidding?" I grinned. "I doubt I could have told you my own name if you hadn't kept screaming it."

She smirked and rolled her eyes.

"But I have been thinking..." I sat up cross-legged on the bed and leaned down to stub out my cigarette on the bare concrete floor.

"Without my contact list, I have no phone numbers. If we're going to find help, it has to be in person. There's still plenty of people I know how to find, but like... what could the guys at Ski Dubai do to help us? So put a pin in that for minute, and think about this."

Jaleh flicked her cigarette butt to the floor and sat up across from me. I tried not to let myself get distracted by the curves and sway of her naked body as she leaned forward attentively.

"Nick said to lay low, but he didn't say where. We could try to request refuge from another embassy. Maybe the Brits. We still have the laptop to trade, but..." I shrugged.

"No, that didn't go off so well last time. And now I've shot a policeman as well as stabbed Esan. I don't think refuge in an embassy is likely."

"Don't forget the jay-walking and the fornication," I smiled. "But I agree. We have a phone to email the CIA, but we don't know how long it might take to get a response. For money, we only have seven thousand dirham left, and we don't dare try to use our credit cards. Agreed?"

"Agreed," she nodded.

"My UAE accounts are probably frozen, but my dad has me diversified with investment accounts in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. I have no idea if it's safe to access them though."

"The government might be watching them even if they can't freeze them."

"Right, so as long as we're in Dubai, we're in danger even if we find someone to hide us. I can't imagine we'd be much safer in Abu Dhabi. What we really need to do is get out of the UAE to a country where your father won't have any more influence than you do."

"Back to the original plan then?"

"Exactly. But we know we can't fly. Commercial is absolutely out of the question, and even if we could afford a private flight, it leaves too much of a paper trail that we can't cover."

"I agree. Flying is a bad idea."

"So we could borrow a car and drive. The closest border is Oman and the closest safe country by land is Israel, which means driving across Saudi Arabia and part of Jordan."

"That's going to take almost a week," she realized. "And it won't be easy to find petrol and food on the way."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. We'd also have to cross four borders—at least one of them where they're probably already watching for us by now."

"Good point. So driving is a bad idea too. Is there a good idea coming?"

"I'm afraid not. By boat, the nearest safe country is India, nine to ten days away depending on wind and currents. If we're not careful, we could end up in Iranian waters. And frankly, my navigation skills are probably a little rusty."

"All three options are bad," she concluded.

"Yes, but I'm thinking by boat is the least bad idea. If we sail, we don't have to worry about making port for fuel or food. I used to sail with my dad all the time, so I'm pretty competent. We can avoid any kind of paper trail until we reach India, and if we can go ashore someplace small and out of the way, we might even avoid that until we can get to the U.S. Embassy in Mumbai.

"It's probably the last thing anyone would expect, and—getting back to my original point—I know a guy named Muhamet at the marina who runs a yacht rental agency. He owes me a favor... Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"He doesn't actually know he owes me a favor yet. But I know he works early in the morning. That works in our favor."

"So that's the 'least bad' plan we have?" she sulked incredulously. "Sail for India?"

"Without Nick, I don't think I can come up with a better one."

"...Ok, then. What can I do?"

I told Jaleh everything I knew about Muhamet, an Iraqi ex-pat who's been in Dubai since his family fled the war. She had some interestingly feminine insights into how to leverage his cooperation. Together she and I plotted a way to persuade him—by carrot or stick—to help us get out of Dubai.

Nick would have been proud of us.

***

The stars hadn't even begun to fade in the east when knots of construction workers started to gather on the street corners. We'd tied Jaleh's hair up and tucked it under a hard hat hoping the shapeless coveralls and boxy reflective vest would obfuscate the feminine curves underneath.

It may have been overkill. The migrant workers shuffled about, heads hung, shoulders slouched. No one was paying much attention to anyone or anything.

When the first of a line of converted school buses with the name of a familiar construction company emblazoned on the side rounded a corner and came to a stop, one of the knots of men shuffled forward in a rough queue. I hefted the dented tool box that substituted for Jaleh's purse, and we joined them.

"What job this?" I asked one of the last men in the line in the worst Arabic I could manage.

"Huh?" he turned to me groggily.

"What job this? What job?"

He told me and it honestly didn't matter, as long as it got us downtown.

I was probably being too cautious, trying to pass myself off as a new hire. Nobody cared. Even the bus driver with the clipboard ticked off a straight line of names and didn't notice that he had two extra heads. The men on the bus all slouched back or forward and tried to squeeze a few more minutes of sleep before another grueling day.

I tried, but I was too tense to join them.

The bus unloaded at a construction site and Jaleh and I trudged along the sidewalk in the thin, grey pre-dawn light with the other workers. When the rest turned in through the gate, Jaleh and I kept walking. Nobody stopped us.

We were further north than I wanted to be, but we had metro passes now, and I'd discovered earlier in the night that the Marina has its own station just a few blocks off.

A green and white police Lamborghini passed us and didn't slow down.

We nervously skirted around the cops at the metro station, but they didn't give us a second look.

In less time than I expected, we were knocking on the door of an office overlooking the marina. I'd been here many times before with hotel guests who were looking to enjoy some time out on Dubai's azure waters. It felt odd being here while it was still dark out.

Muhamet managed the largest selection of private yachts in Dubai. They were owned by people who liked the idea of owning a yacht, but rarely used them. They pay Muhamet to keep them ship-shape, provided short-term crews when needed, and rent them out to help defray some of the expense.

"Can I help you?" he asked in Arabic, leaning out the door with a deep frown.

"Hey, Muhamet!" I greeted him in kind, pulling off the hard hat. "I need a boat."

"Rowan!" he started, glancing around nervously. "You, uh, you should have called."

"I'm in a hurry. I need a boat fast. Can we come in?"

"We're, uh... we're not actually open yet," he stalled. "Can you come back in a couple of hours?"

I could see it in his skittish eyes. He already knew the police were after me.

At least that would save us the time of having to explain. My plan all hinged on how Muhamet balanced greed with self-preservation. I needed the scales to tip one way, then the other.

"Can we come back in a couple of hours?" I asked Jaleh.

"Don't worry about it," she told Muhamet. He'd only just realized she wasn't a man, and his surprise was obvious. "Karim already has a boat lined up for us. I told you it was a waste of time to try and do better."

Karim is Muhamet's older brother. Same line of work. The word 'competitive' is not strong enough to describe their relationship. If there was glory or reward to be had for our capture, there was no way Muhamet would let Karim have it. It also didn't do his ego any good to have a woman choose his brother over him.

We turned to walk away and for a moment I actually thought he was going to call our bluff.

"Wait," he sighed, "I can't let you pay good money for Karim's leaky scows. Come in, my friend. Let's find you a boat."

He backed away from the door and fumbled for a TV remote, switching off the set mounted on the office wall. "So what are you looking for?"

"A sailboat. Ten to fifteen meters. Something suitable for a long trip, but small enough to handle myself. Fully stocked and ready to cast off now."

"Hmm, tricky," He sat down at the computer. "Have a seat and let me see what I have available to rent. How much are you looking to spend?"

Time to drop the pretense before he can send a covert email to the authorities.

"Oh, I'm sorry. There's been a misunderstanding. I'm not here to rent a boat," I smiled. Muhamet frowned in confusion. "I'm here to steal one. But I need your help... I can pay you seven thousand dirham."

"I am... No!.. I... I am not going to help you steal a boat," he stammered indignantly, standing again. "My honor is not for sale. I think you need to leave, Rowan... Let Karim steal you a boat."

Muhamet glanced at the phone again, and I could almost see him weighing the benefit of reporting his own brother.

Time to tip the scales. I winked at Jaleh.

"You sure had a lot of fun fucking Sophie with those other guys, didn't you Muhamet?" she purred, crossing the room. Having Jaleh drop that bombshell added shock value.

His expression fell. No one was supposed to know, least of all a woman.

"How many of her little get-togethers have you been to?" I pondered out loud. "Three? No, four. You were one of the first, weren't you?"

His jaw set and the corner of his mustache started to twitch.

"You know, if I get caught, the police are going to ask me a lot of questions," I settled onto a sofa while Jaleh leaned against the desk next to him. "And let's face it... they have ways of making you talk. They'll probably want me to name names."

"That's just a decadent American criminal's word against the word of an Arab businessman," he countered smugly. "And she doesn't know anything but hearsay!" he gestured at Jaleh, clearly uncomfortable to have her standing so close.

"They might convince me to show them the videos."

"What's the sentence in UAE for fornication, again?" Jaleh asked. "Because what you guys did to that poor French girl... I mean, wow!" She grimaced and her hips squirmed uncomfortably.

Muhamet's face flushed deep red.

"You said no cameras!" he barked. "That was part of the deal!"

"Part of the deal for the men, yes. But Sophie likes her mementos," I lied. Of course there are no videos. I held up the iPhone, and risked another bluff. "Do you want to see one?"

Muhamet was pissed off now. If convicted, after prison he'd be deported back to Iraq and lose his thriving business.

He was out from behind the desk, and crossed the room in two strides to stand over me, fists clenched. "Are you threatening me, Rowan!?"

"What!? Threatening? No!" I feigned surprised embarrassment. "No, of course not! I just want to make sure that you understand—me getting out of Dubai is in your best interest. If the police never catch me... well, everyone will be a lot happier, won't they?"

***

In the pink light of dawn, I cut the sloop's diesel engine as we passed the Palm's breakwater and I set the mainsail, turning us north towards the Strait of Hormuz. Somewhere back on land, Muhamet was hastily faking the paperwork that would show the boat had been sent for engine repairs.

Jaleh came up from below deck. Evidently the owners kept some clothing on board. She'd changed out of her construction coveralls into a light tunic and breezy sarong.

"We have enough food for about a week," she informed me, settling into the cockpit beside the wheel.

"Can we stretch that?" I asked.

"If we're careful. There's fishing gear, too. No board games or cards or movies or anything though... I don't know how we'll pass the time," she smiled coyly.

Just then the rising sun broke into the Dubai skyline, silhouetting the glass and concrete spires against the cotton-candy pink clouds.

My career—my life—lay in a heap of rubble behind me, but that didn't bother me at the moment. With the wind in my hair and Jaleh beside me, it seemed like the future was a blank canvas waiting for me to create something amazing. Something with Jaleh.

It was hard to believe that only twenty-four hours ago my biggest concern had been finding her flowers.