Virtually Perfect (28 page)

All she'd been looking for was a plus one, a casual date to a wedding, she hadn't been banking on any of this.  It's the Catch 22 of the 21st Century, thirty-something woman.  We've all been burnt, we've grown jaded. We start to realise that, logically, it's probably time to give up the ghost.  There is no knight in shining armour - they're all just idiots wrapped in tinfoil.  We're independent ladies - we can get by on our own.  But we still have needs: sex, intimacy.  We need a fix, a fling maybe.  It's a Pandora's box.  Remove the lid, just a tiny crack, it's never very long before the emotions start flooding and logic flutters out of the window.  A trickle turns into a river before you can blink. 

For all the burning bras in the world, there are intrinsic differences between the psyche of a man and a woman.  When a woman engages sexually, at some point her body will make a commitment, whether her head wants to or not.  It's all in the post-coital afterglow, the longing looks, those pesky endorphins.  A man can get in, get on and get out without feeling the to look back.  But the woman soon finds herself hanging on the wire, whether she wanted to be there or not.

When we're young, it's easy.  So much hope; so much naivety.  No ghosts to compare it all to.  You love me and I love you.  It'll all turn out right in the wash.  But with every loss of a lover, we become a little more jaded, lose our innocence a little bit more.  Maybe it's this pain that pushes us to grow as people, make ourselves bigger and better?   Maybe as we grow, so our expectations of the perfect mate grow with us too?  Maybe they become overinflated; unrealistic?   Maybe we get delusions of grandeur?  And then you meet someone who knocks your socks off.  What do you do with that?  You know now what to expect when it all turns to crap.  And you know that, eventually, it will turn to crap - that becomes a foregone conclusion.  You won't be eating for weeks, you'll be checking your phone every five minutes, feeling empty, like your heart's been ripped from your chest.  You know all of this and yet you find yourself doing it anyway, over and over again.  

Eve had fallen.  She wasn't sure when.  She'd tried to stop it; block the intimacy.  Maybe it was in London, sitting in front of Da Vinci's cartoon.  Maybe before.  Maybe it was the sex.  By the time it dawned on her what was happening, it was already too late. 

Interdependency is scary when you've been alone for a while.  You just want to keep clinging onto the bar - you're terrified - is he really going to catch me?  How well did she really know him?  He treated her nicely, but we're all on our best behaviour at the start.  It could all turn on its head in a heartbeat.  Oh he was chivalry personified now, throwing coats across puddles for her to step over, but who was to say that, a week from now, she wouldn't feel one of those slick soles on the back of her neck, drowning her in it instead?

It was all pretty much a moot point now.  By Wednesday night she was batshit crazy.  That genie definitely wasn't going back in the bottle.  She kept beating herself up for deleting his number after their last tiff - the childishness of it.  She would have given anything to be able to get hold of him.  Almost anything.  She didn't quite have the balls to call her dad. 

What if something had happened?  What if Ben couldn't call her?  What if he needed her help?  Her lucid imagination, panic, paranoia, Googling - Eve was worried sick.

She could get hold of him was via the dating site.  If she messaged him there, they'd send a notification to his email address.  She went there, clicked on his profile.  It was still live.  He hadn't been online, but it was still up.  The cute little intro, pretty black and white pic. 
Seeking a relationship. 

He'd talked about
love
in Italian at the weekend; fucked her six ways to Sunday - she was still a little bit sore.  Yet there it was.  Still looking.  Maybe Curtis was right.  Maybe it was just for fun?

Her eyes narrowed.  She stared at the profile pic.  It grinned back goadingly.  It felt like a slap in the face.  Eve was rapidly spiralling into an attack of the crazies.  She hated this feeling of powerlessness.

Why was she worrying about him when he couldn't give two hoots?  The way he left - he turned so cold.  She had no idea what she'd done.  Maybe she hadn't done anything.  Maybe it was all just a game.  Trick her into falling for him (she'd promised herself she wouldn't), then never call her again.

But he did call.  Within a second, she could feel herself melting.  She was hit by a wave of relief.  He sounded alright.  He knew she'd been crying, seemed concerned.  He told her that he was sorry.  She sniffed back the tears, swallowed them.  Maybe she'd overreacted. 

Username does not exist. 
By Thursday lunchtime,
Shutterman
had disappeared.

When The Prince invited him to the desert, Ben had no idea what to expect.  He presumed it would be hot, a fair bit of sand, maybe a camel or two.  He hadn't expected to be handed the keys to a quad bike, racing behind The Prince's twelve year old son, having dirt kicked in his face.

Ben was terrified, he'd never driven one before, he'd never even ridden a motorbike.  Would his travel insurance cover him if he fell off?  He'd seen what had happened to Ozzy Osbourne.  He didn't imagine there'd be too many air ambulances out there - they were in no man's land.  What if he flipped it?  He had no helmet, no protection, no nothing.  He was only wearing a t-shirt and jeans.  The kid was nuts, zooming up dunes, slaloming down them.  Ben had no choice but to follow.  If he couldn't keep up, he was toast.

Rafiq was pretty sound for a kid whose daddy's net worth was higher than Rupert Murdoch's.  He had his head screwed on just fine.  He was happy go lucky, very polite, always smiling and laughing.  He had huge, shining brown eyes.  He spoke perfect English with an American lilt.  He was seriously into scuba.

His little brother, Khalid, was at the other end of the spectrum.  Whereas Rafiq was chatty, Khalid said nothing: not a single a word.  He spent most of his time hiding behind his father's legs, peering anxiously around them.  Ben eventually summoned the courage to pull a face.  He finally got a shy smile. 

Ben could see that Khalid was fascinated with the camera.  He beckoned him to come and take a look.  The little boy looked nervously up at his father.  The Prince spoke gently in Arabic, smiling, ruffling his hair. 

The little boy came bounding over, flashing tiny white milk teeth in a giggle.  He paused for a second, chewing his finger, then sat down with Ben on the Persian rug. 

They sat in the shade of the Bedouin tent, out of the blazing sun.  Ben had never been keen on digital, it took the magic out of everything, but with some jobs film just isn't an option.  There wasn't the time, or the facilities.  He couldn't risk losing his images to an overzealous x-ray machine at the airport; the heat or the light.  Digital has one big advantage: the immediacy.  As Ben watched the little boy clicking through the images, cooing 'Baba!' each time he spotted The Prince, Ben had a new found respect for his Canon EOS. 

'Do you like taking pictures?' Ben called over to Rafiq.

'Sure.'

'Good.  There's a spare in my bag if you want to grab it.'

Ben shortened the canvass strap on his Canon as far as it would go, then slipped it over Khalid's head.  The Prince's son lifted it up in his tiny fingers - poor kid, it was so heavy for him.  He pointed it at Ben, peering through the viewfinder, screwing up his little face,  pressing down with his forefinger.  Ben heard the shutter click.

'Good job, Your Highness!'

Khalid peered up at Ben, then blinked back to the image in the LCD screen, a broad smile emblazoned on his face, eyes sparkling in wonder.

Apparently, the sport of the desert wasn't camel racing.  It wasn't horses.  It wasn't quad biking.  Ben was introduced to a fellow Brit; a Scot, who had a top speed of 200mph.  He wore a tiny leather cap concealing his eyes and jesses around his ankles.  Ben's kinsman was a peregrine falcon.

Ben sat in the back of the jeep between Rafiq and Khalid.  The Prince rode in the front passenger seat, the falcon perched on his leather gauntlet.  He wasn't a young man by any means, maybe early fifties, with a bit of a pot belly, but he must have been pretty strong.  The bird had only been perched on Ben's hand for a matter of minutes before it made his arm start to ache.  She'd been perched on The Prince's hand for over an hour now.  He didn't seem to be batting an eyelid beneath the baseball cap and shades.

Rafiq and Khalid were fascinated with their cameras, photographing everything.  Ben had given them a few pointers: don't point the lens into the sun; always try to keep the horizon straight.  He explained about composition; the rule of thirds.  The little one didn't say a word.  Ben doubted he understood.  And yet, when Ben looked at the pictures, he knew Khalid had got it.  He caught a snap of the peregrine landing on The Prince's gauntlet, wings outstretched, perfectly focussed.  Ben couldn't have done better himself.  Both brothers were good, but for all of his six years of age, Khalid had something special, something that couldn't be taught.

They ate from the barbecue that evening.  The smell of meat cooking made Ben's stomach gurgle.  He was starving, exhausted from a day of blazing sun, but what a day it had been. 

He'd never had much of that.  When he was a kid, he'd been surrounded by females: his sister, his mother and nonna - all pretty strong females at that.  He had his school friends, sure, his mates from uni, but it never felt this.  There were always girls floating around on the periphery, either physically, or his mates banging on about them.  You could never quite let yourself go.  The only thing he had to compare it with was sitting on the terraces with gramps on a Saturday.  Ben realised how much he missed it - being in the company of just men.  Not that he wanted to sit there belching and farting, but there was just something easy about it - a contentment; a camaraderie.  It was the most comfortable Ben had felt since he'd arrived.

The sun was setting, igniting puffs of cloud in orange and yellows, tumbling into the horizon.  Ben could feel the drop in temperature as the breeze caught his cheek.  Above his head, a cobalt sky was filling with stars, brighter and closer than he'd ever seen them before.  Ben closed his eyes, breathed in the scent of the bonfire; frankincense and spice.

'I love it here,' The Prince said in his deep Arabic twang as they sat watching the red dunes fall into darkness.  'You know, for everything Benjamin, we are Bedouin.  We are desert people.  Our needs, fundamentally, are very modest.  Sometimes we forget ourselves with all the cell phones and computers.  We need to come back here to quiet our minds. 

'It's so nice to get away from it all, I like it here so much.  When I go back, I go back refreshed, with a new lease of life.  God has blessed my family with incredible riches, and for that, I am truly grateful.  But I tell you Benjamin, this tent is more of a home to me than any palace will ever be...  I hope if my kids learn anything from me, then it is to be humble.  To never, ever forget their roots.'

'They're great kids, Your Highness.  They're a credit to you, as you are to them.'

The Prince sighed.

'I do my best.  That's all any of us can do, I suppose.  If you can't make time for your children, what hope is there for the future?  Without guidance, the next generation will be lost.  It is a struggle though.'

The Prince's eyes widened in realisation of something.  He laughed, quickly shaking his head.

'What am I saying?  You must know all this, flying all over the world!  ...How many children do you have, Benjamin?'

Ben figured the customary response 'none that I know of' probably wouldn't go down so well here.

'I don't have any,' he said.

The Prince stared at him, quite astounded.

'No!' he boomed.  'But you are so good with them.  I've never seen Khalid take to anyone like that.  Benjamin, my friend,' he said patting his back.  'you are a natural father.  You must have a family.'

Khalid had been running around all afternoon telling everyone he wanted to be a 'tographer'.  He was a like a different kid.

'I have a nephew,' Ben offered.

'Are you married?'

Ben shook his head.  He was sure he saw a spark of suspicion ignite in The Prince's eyes.

'I was engaged once,' he said quickly.  'It didn't work out.'

'What happened?' asked The Prince. 

With every time he'd had to say it, it hurt Ben less and less.  It had come to the point where he found it didn't hurt him at all, it was just embarrassing.

'...I caught her in bed with somebody else,' he muttered.

The Prince turned to him.  He pulled off his cap, running his hands through his thick hair, so black it had almost a tinge of blue.  He thumbed his goatee, looking back at Ben with his bulging brown eyes. 

Oh God, not the sympathy.  Ben had seen enough of that to last him a lifetime.

'You know,' sighed The Prince.  'I realise that our laws seem draconian to you.  I know it is always the very worst side of us that is presented in the West.  But these rules have a solid foundation.  They are to protect the people, protect our society. 

'Benjamin, there are three types of people in the world.  People who know the difference between right and wrong, people who don't, and people who know, but just don't care.  The first type, I like to think this is the majority.  I most certainly hope so!  The second, these are troubled people, they deserve our sympathy, our help...  But the last?'