In the way that a baby will repeatedly drop an object for the sheer delight of watching you pick it up, I, as a 24 year old, threw myself in front of men to see if they would pick me up. And like a delighted baby, never happier than when seeing a dirty spoon returned to my highchair to be dropped again, I felt my confidence grow with each conquest.
Lots of the flirting I did that year was a sonar call, a blind bat sending out a message: “Do you think I’m hot?” and the nearest cave wall responding, “Yes, bat, you are hot.”
In an interesting confluence of events, during this chapter of sexual exploration, I got a thrilling opportunity to do a show in Abu Dhabi. This is a place where sexual exploration, unless it’s with your husband, can get you arrested.
At this point in my life, age 24 in particular, I was “self-actualizing.” I thought my self had finally gotten hot and wanted to know if this was actually true. The mirror, with its past history of subjectivity and lies, did not feel like a proper gauge. Men did.
The spoon was in my hand, tilting floor-ward. Within these new repressive parameters, surely I could explore a little without ending up beating down the door of the American Embassy. The warning stories I’d been told, about a couple arrested for years for kissing in public, were so ludicrous. I believed they must be true, but I couldn’t really wrap my head around a society that would be so easily affronted. I was anxious to find out who I was in this new place, and whether the kandura-clad strangers might reflect my sonar bat call.
Before going, I, and the other women in the cast, were warned endlessly … not to go out alone and not to talk to men. And of course, not to drink outside hotel settings or better yet, at all.
When the show was over, and the rest of the cast had left the country, I stood alone on the deck of a resort overlooking the ocean.
While applying sunscreen, I caught the eyes of two young Arabic men, whom I was not supposed to talk to.
They came over. They offered to get me a drink. We introduced ourselves to one another and we sat together, the three of us drinking very alcoholic, sugary drinks as they proceeded to tell me how powerful one of their fathers was.
Through connections, the boy was working as a bodyguard to a shah. It later became clear that “bodyguard” was a mistranslation and he actually meant “member of a shah’s entourage,” which made a lot more sense. I could see all of his bones and up close it was clear that he was trying, and failing, to grow a light mustache of upper lip pubic hair. He didn’t look like he could protect himself, much less some other person.
He was soon wasted and slumping on his lounge chair. It was then, amid his drunken storytelling, that the embarrassing fact emerged that he had been convicted of “raping” his younger girlfriend (the air quotes being his, not mine) and he had done jail time for it. My eyes wandered to the scars on his forearms and he told me that he had tried to kill himself while incarcerated.
He elaborated further. This ex-girlfriend of his had really big breasts so … therefore, the whole rape thing was bogus. I did not follow his logic, but the story definitely put me off my boozy, chocolatey drink. Even with my chronic, open-minded optimism, I saw that this guy was “no good for me.” So, I cut my losses and shifted my attention to his hotter friend, who was demure enough to keep quiet on his criminal record, if he had one.
We chatted about what all they did for fun in Abu Dhabi (smoking hookah, coming to this resort on weekends, the much anticipated arrival of the Formula 1 race track) and we did achieve a formidable conversation about the new versus old culture there and the rapid construction and modernization.
This was more soul-baring and camaraderie than I was expecting between the chasm of our sexes, especially given my status as a foreigner. My Jewishness was a fact I had been explicitly warned to omit from conversation, and this advice I heeded. Oh, and I also didn’t mention my lesbian parents. As an unmarried, childless, 24 year old blonde, I was already other enough. “Look at me, just sitting here and breaking barriers,” I thought.
Then the conversation turned abruptly to the fact that since I was “an American girl anyway,” I should just come up to their room. This was disappointing. I naively thought that, while I had batted an eyelash or two to start the conversation, we were now having a legitimate intercultural dialogue. After all, my bathing suit was a one piece. Was I not projecting some conservatism?
I was sorry for them that they were doing exactly what I was warned they’d do … but then it occurred to me that I was doing exactly what they’d been promised an American girl would do: drink alcohol in a bathing suit and talk to them, alone.
I told them no way was I coming to their room and I fled — to the ocean for a swim (not unlike bounding upstairs in a horror movie, I know). The skinny jailbird stayed back to loll around alone, in the company of his buzz, and the hotter, more sober, less suicidal, of the eligible bachelors followed me out into the sea.
We waded out into the Persian Gulf, with him just behind me and, when I turned to question him, he declared resolutely, “Tonight, I’m going to give the concierge your name and find out your room number and me and my friend are coming to your room.”
At which point I realized I had made a mistake. (I suspect that you, dear reader, had that moment of realization several paragraphs ago.) Now I was a bat in what had turned out to be a very small cave, using echolocation to quickly seek the exit.
Perhaps Abu Dhabi really was the wrong place for my self-actualization. At this moment, I now became intensely adrenalized as I switched gears and used what I call my “self-defense” voice, a voice you too can achieve by roaring like a banshee, from the depths of your vagina.
It was in this voice that I squarely faced the handsome stranger and bellowed:
“YOU ARE NOT COMING TO MY ROOM. WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS RUINING MY ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME VACATION! GET. OUT. OF. THIS. OCEAN. RIGHT. NOW.”
And with a flash of my entitled, libertine American tail, I swam away. And the comely predator exited my personal space: the Persian Gulf.
I suppose we both became, in this exchange, “more culturally aware;” our respective homelands having proffered their weakest and least scrupulous emissaries.
I’ve heard it said that, at least in business dealings, it’s a good negotiation when everyone walks away just a little disappointed.
Days later I returned to New York and continued to look for love in a few more of the wrong, albeit way less dangerous, places.
NEXT SUBSCRIBER SALON:
October 31st, Sunday, 10am ET. Costumes welcome, candy welcome, or attend with your camera off. Come as you are and I will read to you. 🎃👻😺
(I’ll send out the link beforehand, so for now just mark your calendar.)