# This is not a love story



## eastcoast (May 29, 2014)

I’m sitting in the Burger King in Sharm El Sheikh with my friend Ahmed, and it’s taking unbelievably long for the food to be ready. We’re heading to a nightclub, and we need fuel, sustenance. He has a date with a British guy (gay for pay) and I just want to get drunk and dance. It should work out quite nicely.

A couple walks into Burger King and Ahmed and I exchange a look. Our smirks are raised eyebrows are so subtle I doubt the British lady would have noticed even if she were smart enough to be paying attention to what’s around her. But she’s not, of course. She’s all too focused on her darling Egyptian husband /boyfriend /whatever he is. 

At least these two are relatively close in age, which allows me to observe more without getting nauseous and spoiling dinner. The age-gap ones are the worst, but this couple is just ‘off’ enough to be a worthy distraction until the food is ready.

She’s wearing her holiday best: light Capri pants that fall just above the ankle, a loose blouse, and a hijab covered in pink hearts – her fringed bangs hanging down and the hijab pinned, just so, with bobbypins.

Her “partner” (for the night/week/month/until he gets what he wants) is ordering in Arabic, and translating condiment questions for her. The Burger King man helpfully asks her in English about her drink choice. She looks at her lover and tells him she wants a cola, which he then repeats to the worker. In English. 

I’m sure this woman could probably change her own flat tire back in the UK, probably next to a busy speedway in the pouring rain, but today she’s demure and cant order her own Pepsi independently. Certainly not from the man behind the counter.

Loverboy pulls a wad of cash from his pocket, so I’m initially pleased to see he’s paying for her meal. Then I realize I’m seeing English notes on the outside of his bankroll and I’m sure about where the money in his pocket really came from.

Living in Sharm the past few months, this is the kind of thing I see daily. All day, every day, men and women hooking up. The ‘she’ usually looks like she’s having the time of her life, enchanted and practically gleeful. The guy’s expression is similarly predictable. He’s bored. He’s trying to pay her attention as he checks his phone for what else is happening. He’s counting the days. When will she fly?

And for the thousandth time, I wonder what comes over women who travel to Egypt and “fall in love”. 

I feel a flashback coming on, like a bad 90’s tv show. 

I’m not immune. I did the dance for a while. Not long enough to disclose my ATM password. Not long enough to cover up my hair when it’s still 37 degrees outside after dark. But I did buy some dinners.

I did the stupid dance last year. It went on for about 3 weeks, until I, mercifully, snapped out of it. I told the Egyptian in my life to get out. That was a lovely moment, when something finally clicked for me. It was like I heard the “all aboard” horn from a cruise ship that night. Deafeningly loud, warning, “Your way out is happening - now! This instant! You must leave or you’ll be stranded here”. He was sitting on my blue silk sofa, having arrived at 2am after “work” (police). 

He had already made himself comfortable, having stripped off his shirt and jeans, asked me to ‘fix him a drink’; whisky and coke in his hand. 

I had been looking at him strangely since he arrived. But, like the lady in Burger King, in that moment his life was grand, and he so didn’t notice.

He was planning on a night of sex. Well, a bit of sex until we fell asleep. After all, it was late already. What kind of a jerk shows up at 2am to visit his girlfriend? I think we know.

So as he sat there sipping the whisky I brought from the Duty Free, I calmly considered my next move. The security guard from the compound was nearby my garden door. One shout and we wouldn’t be alone any more. 

The last couple weeks were flashing before my mind, like a home movie, disorganized but captured forever on a flash drive I can’t get rid of.

It started a month before in Ain Sukhna. My work has brought me to Egypt each summer for the past 8 years. I stay just close enough to Cairo for intermittent meetings. Far away enough to enjoy a beach. It used to be Sukhna, now it’s Sharm. Same diff.

Years ago, when I had needed a flat for a few months, the rental agent had befriended me. Ok, it wasn’t so much being friends as he screwed my brains out. We weren’t a match in any way, so there wasn’t much of a relationship. The next year I asked his help again to get me a holiday flat for 3 months. I noticed he had evolved, become more professional you might say. But last year the change was marked. The guy had turned into an outright hustler. Back home we call them gigalos.

Having seen the writing on the wall the year before, I had decided to make use of another rental agent that time around. So the evolving gigalo realized I was in Egypt for a month and I hadn’t called him, there were some theatrics. 

“I thought there was more than business between you and me” he admonished me when I finally called. Ok then, I said, come out to Sukhna and lets have a dinner. It was the middle of Ramadan, so I was sure he wasn’t going to want to screw me. Not that day.

So he pulls up in front of my chalet at the appointed time, in a newer car than he had before. Lots of hugs and ‘I missed you’ and off we went for dinner. I asked about his love life – “Are you in a relationship?” I asked. He said no, but he’s been sleeping with a British girl. “Is she hot?” I asked. He was like “ya she’s hot, and it’s perfect, I just have sex with her and that’s it.” 

Dinner was fine and after he dropped me off and left. So a couple weeks later, when it was nearly time for me to leave Egypt for the year, and he offered to take me to Sharm for a week, I thought it sounded like fun. 

We were going to split the costs of everything, and no heavy duty ‘relationship’ talk, which suited me fine. Someone was waiting for me in New York. Someone with potential. At the moment, I wanted to enjoy myself.

We got to Sharm and that’s when things took a turn for the weird. He made a serious point of paying exactly half of everything. When I was in the shower, the ‘owner’ of the apartment came to get the money. Gigalo-in-progress called into the WC to ask if he can take my part of the money from my purse. I have no idea what that flat truly cost but I’m dead sure I paid more than my share. 

I was on a serious diet, getting ready for a photo shoot back in NYC, so I was hardly eating. Each meal he would order at least two entrees, as I picked away at a bit of green salad. But when the bill came, you know what happened. Split it down the middle. And at one point, when I mentioned this, he said “I don’t pay for girls. It’s like this with all my friends”. That sentence was the kiss of death. Blood ran cold, exit signs flashing.

So the guy had really turned into more of a pimp than a gigalo, but the week was nearly over, and I didn’t want a fight. Now, he had been screwing me without a condom all week, so the reference to multiple women was playing on my mind.

One morning as he slept in an alcohol induced coma, I saw his ipad laying tantalizingly on the sofa. It was beckoning me like a freshly prepared ham on Easter. How could I resist?

Since facebook is ground zero for all gigalo activities in Egypt, I checked that first. 

The British sex partner he had mentioned earlier was not a “girl”, nor was she “hot”. What I discovered was a middle-aged woman, over 40 I’m sure, apparently with teenaged children. 

It was like I had started to eat a sack of potato chips. How could I put it down? There was nobody around to witness my gluttony. Onward I plowed, through miles and miles of instant message chats on facebook. The British woman was in love with him. It seeped through in each word, each sentence, each smiley face and winky sign. “Come over and let me give you a massage”. 

More recently, “Darling, I got you single malt whisky and cigarettes from my trip” she summoned him. I looked wearily at the whisky he had supplied for our Sharm holiday. It was from her. My eyes scanned the room, his ipad still on my lap. The carton of cigarettes, half gone, on the table. 

“Do you have time to see me tonight” she had asked, evidentially, as he and I were preparing for the disco the night before. 

“I don’t want to say I can come, incase something happens and I can’t make it” he had replied. 

Something like, oh, being 600 kms away with another woman? 

“Don’t worry, I don’t get mad with things like that” she had assured him. No, no, no pressure from her. She was used to standing in line. More honey gets the bees, I guess she thought.

This explains why he panicked when I tagged him in a facebook picture, and then two hours later, why he asked me “What does ‘*******’ mean in English? Is it really bad?”

There was many other messages from other women, and another facebook account too. Within an hour I knew I was never going to have sex with the guy again, and I was already plotting my trip to the clinic once we were back in Cairo. I had a case of TMI: too much information.


...cont below


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## eastcoast (May 29, 2014)

Later when he awoke and we started packing, I opened the subject of the British woman. Casually, I asked him what he was going to do with that. He told me she was so stupid and crazy she was offering to cover his police salary if he would quit his job. I guess he worked it so that she was convinced the thing standing between him and her was his second job. So she wanted to pay his salary so he would quit. He had quite a laugh about that. Then looked at me seriously and asked my opinion. I told him to get the money up front, for at least two years, before he does something like that. He nodded, wisely, like he would take that under advisement.

I pretended I had my period so he wouldn’t ask me for sex again, and we went back to Cairo. When he dropped me off, I forgot a Fendi dress and a Chanel set of shoes in his car. I wasn’t about to let those items go, so later I asked him to stop by after work and drop those off. 

And that’s how he ended up on my blue silk couch, at 2am in the morning, holding his drink and having stripped off his clothing without the slightest invitation or shyness. I got my sh*t back and put it in the bedroom. Then I sat with him a while. And then I hear the ship leaving the dock, those loud horns blaring, telling me “right now, not a moment longer”.

So I stood up and went to the door at the garden. And I opened it wide, not caring if all the world saw him in his stupid underpants. And without shouting, without ever a hint of emotion, I told him to get out. And he did.

And I hope that lady in Burger King hears the horn of her cruise ship, ready to take her back to her country safe and sound, without ever getting stranded here in Egypt.


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## mamasue (Oct 7, 2008)

Eastcoast......for those of us who lived in Egypt for any length of time, your post rings so true....
I lived on the Red Sea (Hurghada) for almost 5 years, I was a diving instructor.
I'd see the scenarios every day ( I was a 50 year old woman, so I was a prime target...the young guys were round me like flies around a turd.

Glad to say, I never succumbed.....right from very early on, a guy told me "I never wear condoms, I'm far too big "... just a work colleague, but I remembered those words forever!!

I don't normally bother to read long posts, but your post is so well-written, I'm wondering if you're actually a writer. ?


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## eastcoast (May 29, 2014)

Good eye, mamasue. I'm a screenplay writer. Usually I have the benefit of an editor.

I'm working on a project now, it's a film about Egypt. If you ever have time to kill and would like to read some, I'd be happy for feedback.


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## Gounie (Jan 27, 2011)

I've lived here ten years. A story I have heard or seen a million times, but so enjoyed reading yours. So well written. Can't wait for the movie!!!


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## canuck2010 (Jan 13, 2010)

Good read, bet you could make a bit turning it into an ebook on Amazon.


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## eastcoast (May 29, 2014)

Thank you, Canuck!! My upcoming screenplay has a bit of the same theme. I already got an advance on it so I can't sell anything similar for the moment.

The larger story I'm working on is actually centered around our Canadian Embassy here. It's kind of a complex piece to write; it's written to be watched by both Arabic-speaking and English-speaking audience at the same time. The subtitles alternate from English to Arabic depending on who is talking. 

In it, 5 lives converge in the waiting room of the visa section of the Embassy. 5 prefect strangers, Egyptians trying to get to Canada, but one has a dangerous secret. 

I've already said too much  

Very glad you enjoyed it.


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## mamasue (Oct 7, 2008)

eastcoast said:


> Good eye, mamasue. I'm a screenplay writer. Usually I have the benefit of an editor.
> 
> I'm working on a project now, it's a film about Egypt. If you ever have time to kill and would like to read some, I'd be happy for feedback.



I'd love to!!!!


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

I thought it was a good read until 

What does ‘*******’ mean in English? 

there is no way Egyptian guys who live in the red sea resorts do not know this word, heck even my little maid knows the word


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## ahmedsomir (Jun 20, 2013)

mamasue said:


> Eastcoast......for those of us who lived in Egypt for any length of time, your post rings so true....
> I lived on the Red Sea (Hurghada) for almost 5 years, I was a diving instructor.
> I'd see the scenarios every day ( I was a 50 year old woman, so I was a prime target...the young guys were round me like flies around a turd.
> 
> ...


Am from Alexandria and i need your idvice on diving course , i need diving for fun no for work what do u advice ( PADI - CEMAS ) to start take the First Star .


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## ahmedsomir (Jun 20, 2013)

eastcoast said:


> Thank you, Canuck!! My upcoming screenplay has a bit of the same theme. I already got an advance on it so I can't sell anything similar for the moment.
> 
> The larger story I'm working on is actually centered around our Canadian Embassy here. It's kind of a complex piece to write; it's written to be watched by both Arabic-speaking and English-speaking audience at the same time. The subtitles alternate from English to Arabic depending on who is talking.
> 
> ...


Good and nice story . i know egyptians guys not like canadians or any foriegn ones coz we have some traditionals things like : the sex is normal for any forien lady - she is so beautful and defferent from egyptions - ext.. 

but i want you to know that not all the eggyptians same like that there are a large base respect the forien ladies .

If you mind .. could you please share you next story with me may i could help you to give right ideas .

thank you


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