Sex Trade In Dubai - The Realities Of Prostitution

I met Abdal in person on my second night in Dubai. He had given Dino specific instructions to make sure I didn’t meet anyone but him, it made me feel all kinds of special. We arrived in Dubai on a Wednesday. Dino took me to see Abdal Thursday night at an ultra chic hotel, The Five Hotel, located on the Palm Jumeirah. Abdal was seated in the VIP section of the hotel’s underground club, The Secret Room. As soon as he saw us approach he stood up to meet us, he was polite and gentlemanly, my stupid self began to feel all warm and fuzzy and thankful inside. I was convinced I was in love.

As soon as Dino introduced us, he left. Abdal and I talked for hours. He wanted to know about my life, and my hopes. And he told me about his travels around the world, and a weekend he spent in Ghana years prior. He and Dino had been schoolmates in Europe, they had a long history dating back to their boyhoods. His family lived in London; a wife and three sons, while he jetted around the world doing business.

At the end of that first night, he took me for a ride in the city, pointing out places of interest. And then we took a walk on the beach. I was in awe of the buildings and the beauty surrounding me in that moment, so much so that I again allowed myself to believe this was a relationship not a transaction.

He took me to my hotel, gave me a fat wad of cash and said, “Don’t see anyone else, I will pay for your time. And don’t tell Dino about this money, I already paid him.”

Things were beginning to fall in place for me, or so I thought. As my friends came and went, I stayed in the hotel and daydreamed about my Abdal. He called to check on me a couple of times, and then on Friday night he picked me up. He said it was the weekend of the Grand Prix, a racing event and he had friends over at his home in Abu Dhabi. “I need you to entertain them for me, be good to them for me. I’ll take care of you,” he said.

I didn’t ask Dino enough details, I should have. And I didn’t ask Abdal any details at all, I should have. Here I was in a foreign country, not one person in my family was aware of my whereabouts; I was in the holiday home of a strange man who unbeknownst to me,  bought me from Dino and was about to resell me.

His house was grand and awe inspiring. He showed me my room and instructed me to stay there, then he disappeared. And other men began to appear, there were about seven of them. One of them connected his phone to the flatscreen and began to show videos of mating bonobo monkeys. In the middle of this, the ring leader turned to me and instructed me to strip down to my bra.

“What? Where is Abdal, I want to see Abdal,” I said.

“We’ve paid Abdal a lot of money for this ass, you better strip!” he growled at me.

My jaw fell into the gutter.

Abdal did show up, his usual smile plastered on his face. Except this time I could see it wasn’t the kind of smile that  came from the soul and reached the eyes. It was just on his lips, a rehearsed fakeness to provide false comfort.

“Baby girl, you promised to entertain my friends, are you being difficult?” he asked, smiling.

“But I thought you said …”  I trailed off because reality dawned on me in that moment. This was not an Abdal and me thing, it was me, Abdal, his friends, friends of his friends and basically anyone he damned well pleased to sell me to. I was fucked and I knew it.

I tried to wiggle out of it by saying if a video of me surfaced online, my family would murder me. Abdal left the room and returned shortly with a tray, “Phones,” he said.

The men dropped their phones on the tray. Abdal patted them down to make sure they didn’t have any more hidden phones. “There, now be good will you,” he told me, still smiling.

As soon as he exited, the ring leader took a pocket knife from his pocket and laid it on the table. I didn’t need to be told anything twice. They wanted me seated on the floor and mimicking the monkey sounds. It wasn’t lost on me they were calling me a monkey, neither was it lost on me the knife wasn’t for cutting oranges. So I sat down and mimicked monkeys,  “ hohohohoho. Waah, waaah, waaah, hohohahahohohaha, Waah, waah…”

It took everything in me not to cry, I guess I dared not, the monkeys in the documentary were not crying any tears. And so I monkeyed to the jeers of seven men, who took pleasure from my humiliation. In the end, the ring leader got down on the floor with me, monkey style, and thrust away, while his friends watched, all the while requiring me to monkey- moan, “hohohahahohohaha…”

Over the course of the weekend, I didn’t set eyes on Abdal, but I felt his grip on me. He sent me a seventeen year old boy who barely had pubic hair. An older man, who just wanted a hand job. A creepy dude who only needed to look at my butt and take care of business himself. I lost count, in a day I had about three to four.

When he drove me back to Dubai on Monday, my soul had left my body. And all the money he gave me meant very little to me.

I remember asking my roommate what the most despicable thing she had done in the business was, she said, “if i tell you, I’d have to kill you.”

I was grateful when I returned home. I never went back. Dino tried to coerce and threaten me, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My roommate tried to convince me that it gets easier with time. Abdal called a couple of times and promised top dollar, but I said, “No thank you.”

For weeks and weeks, I could not sleep. I had an onslaught of flashbacks of all the things I did and was done to me. I was convinced I’d go crazy, so I went to my Pastor and wept. And then I confessed. He said, “Your soul needs a surgeon and your heart needs a friend, so go to your Father in heaven.”

So for the first time in a long time I knelt down with gratitude and remorse rather than entitlement, and I prayed and gave thanks, and asked for forgiveness.

If I thought I was in a financially tight position before, now I am in a financially tight position, and paying therapy fees to heal my trauma, because I tried to make fast money. But I have learned a lesson I cannot forget even if I tried.