THE ONE-EYED BELLY DANCER

Her name wasn’t Ahsin when she’d clawed her way out of the gutters and alleys of Nogales on the shit side of the border. The ten-year-old whore got streetwise fast and figured out men, and her version of life, early on. The nights were eternal, a diseased vision of the Day of the Dead, filled with skeletons and shadows, druggies, drunks, and starving, desperate mongrels. The other poquito putas wore out by fifteen. Hunger had been her only conscious sensation—she learned how to keep her stomach full. The trade-off was in black eyes, scars, bruises, humiliation. From her pimp. From customers. Sharp as a machete and twice as lethal, she wised up quickly.

“Pimps are for fools,” she’d said to Sánchez, stepping over his fat body as he bled out on the dirty floor. She clenched the gun in her hand like a hot ticket to paradise. Getting across the border was easy. In Bisbee an old guy took her in, passed her off as his granddaughter. She got pretty clothes, an education, dance classes, anything she wanted. All she had to do was give him a blow job or thirty-second sex when he could get it up. The segue from used to user was as smooth as farting through silk pajamas.

When she’d taken what she could, she moved on and never looked back. Tucson was a far cry from Bisbee, with buildings taller than saguaros and opportunities for the taking. She wanted to dance. At the Eastern Oasis. But they had a dancer. A good one. The dancer crossed paths with Ahsin in the alley one night. An unfortunate accident, but the random corpse was common as cholla in this end of town. Ahsin walked into the job she wanted.

* * * *

Ahsin spotted Raúl at his favorite back table, as expected. Handsome, rich, cool Raúl. A half-smile crossed her lips as painted fingers ran through her long, raven hair. Dark eyes and writhing hips mesmerized the audience. And Raúl. A small café in a Tucson strip mall, the Eastern Oasis was surrounded by run-down bodegas, bars, and fast food joints. But once inside one was enveloped by exotic spices, the reverberation of primitive instruments and drums—and Ahsin. Ahsin, Arabic for beauty. She was magic and mystery, conjuring lust and filling the cashbox with every twist of her hips. She was her best invention.

Raúl felt she danced for him alone. She felt the drum vibration between her legs as she danced, wove through the tables, stood where Raúl sat with his wife. Twenty years ago the wife might have been attractive, but to Ahsin she’d committed the one unforgivable sin—she was old. The woman wore an intricate diamond necklace, the sparkles dripping down her flat chest like leaves fluttering from a mesquite tree, while Ahsin flaunted the most glorious breasts money could buy. The diamonds shone in bright contrast to the weak reflections from Ahsin’s sequined eye patch. For the four months of their affair, Ahsin puzzled why he lavished jewels on this woman. But that would change. She owned his body, but wanted his soul. And his bankroll.

She did a sensual shimmy, whispered “Salaam alaikum” as she leaned across their table. The wife ran her tongue along the margarita’s salty crystals, scooped a mound of baba ganoush onto her pita, shoved it into her mouth. Ahsin winked at Raúl, knowing he’d meet her at midnight.

At home after the show, Ahsin showered and wrapped her naked body in a silken veil and answered the door. Raúl entered, unwrapped her, pressed his body against her flesh. Her nipples are dark as Hershey Kisses, he thought as he undressed. How perfectly it had started. The wife at home, this creature as his pleasure in the night until the next one came along. But she proved as addictive as heroin and twice as hard to kick. He needed his fix.

“Take off your eye patch,” he said.

“Never. You’re more evil than a thousand Bedouins and camel herders.”

“How did it happen, mi amor?”

“We’re all entitled to one flaw and one secret,” she said. “¿Mysterioso, sí?”

She danced before him, removing the eye patch. His foreplay always focused on the empty eye socket. And the kinky tricks that drove him wild. What other woman could top that? It was her deal clincher and she played it. Then she pushed him inside her. Their rhythms synchronized. He climaxed. She slid from his perspiring flesh. Raúl was mediocre between the sheets, but his obsession and his money were definite turn-on’s.

“We’re perfect for each other,” she said, twirling his chest hair with her finger, “but we can’t keep on like this. It’s killing me.”

He sighed. “Me too.” What could he do? He wanted her 24/7 and didn’t know how far he was willing to go, how much he wanted to sacrifice. She was a sex machine, uninhibited, every man’s lurid fantasy. But the wife had something important too. He held Ahsin close. “You know I love you.”

“Words are no longer enough,” she said, the luxuries his money could buy swimming in her head. She wanted it all, not just bits and pieces tossed her way like promises on the wind. She deserved the whole enchilada. She toyed with his penis as it hardened under her touch, bewitching him into compliance. Lesson number one: Touch a man’s dick and his brain ceases to function. “Leave her or we’re done.” Her words slapped him limp.

His silence filled the room. The status quo was dandy, but could he bear losing her? Finally he spoke: “I’ll leave her. Friday night it’ll be over.”

“And we’ll have just begun.”

They made love again. She’d negotiated perfectly.

“I never thought I’d want to live without her money,” he said. “But we’ll have each other and we’ll do fine.”

His words spun her into a dark abyss. Fine? The bitch bought her own jewels? Bought HIM? Now it made sense. Suddenly Raúl was less handsome. She noticed the track of pock marks above his suave moustache, smelled the faint rancid aroma of his sweat, heard the annoying hint of weakness in his voice. Raúl wasn’t as debonair as he’d been just five minutes ago. And his fucking pockets were empty.

“Until Friday,” she whispered.

* * * *

The Oasis was packed with the usual Friday night crowd. Shish-kebab flamed and sizzled, glasses clinked, conversation in Arabic, Spanish and English bounced off the deep ochre walls. As Ahsin walked dramatically through the curtain, drums and hearts pounded. The room fell silent as she raised her arms above her head, hands in delicate pose. She stood Venus de Milo still, then hips quivered, ground, to the escalating music, her midriff rolling to the beat. Lost in the music, her exquisite form floated, creating its magic. She danced as never before, with a wantonness and splendor worthy of the gods, the wealthiest of Sultans. And she knew it.

That slick bastard Raúl smiled, tossed her a wink. The wife was bejeweled in the splendor of a sheik’s palace, as though Raúl had emptied the contents of a safe deposit box onto her bony chest, withered arms, drooping earlobes. Centered on her wrinkled neck sat one, perfectly colored, solitary emerald—the size of a quail’s egg.

Ahsin danced to their table. The crowd ceased breathing as she arched her spine, bent backwards, locked eyes with the wife. Her hand stroked the woman’s face in slow, sensual whispers, her tongue slid up her neck letting the bitch feel her hot breath. Slowly Ahsin rose, thrust a hip forward, danced away. The crowd exhaled a communal sigh as she exited through the curtain, propelled by thunderous applause.

Ten minutes later Ahsin reappeared in haughty pose, rotated her shoulders as she stepped forward.

“It’s missing. My emerald is gone.”

Pandemonium filled the room. The inconsiderate bitch had blown her entrance, drawing attention to herself. The room belonged to HER, to Ahsin. The crazy woman ranted like she’d lost the only precious stone she owned. It was downhill from there. Customers were searched. It hit rock bottom when they had the nerve to search Ahsin. They found nothing. Raúl and spouse pushed through the crowd to the exit amid apologies from a stunned management. Raúl whispered “Give me one extra hour,” as he passed Ahsin. She nodded and smiled.

* * * *

In the car, Raúl comforted his wife. When they arrived home it was all clear. He should have thought of it sooner. The perfect solution. And it was far easier than he thought. The headline would read something like this: Drunken Heiress Falls to Death from Balcony. When he looked down she was nothing but a rumpled splat on a large stone in the cactus garden below. The moon’s reflection shimmered on the heated pool, the city lights laughed in the distance.

He called 911. Then he called Ahsin to tell her he’d be late—that as soon as the insurance paid off they’d have it ALL...there was no answer.

There was no answer at all.

* * * *

Ahsin crossed the border at Nogales and checked into a crumbling adobe motel. She tossed her purse onto the bed, sat in a cracked plastic lawn chair in the corner. A low voltage bulb was the room’s only light. She was a barely discernible shadow as she slipped the eye patch over her head and dropped it onto the table. It had served her well. Her right hand raised, she dug deep into the empty eye socket. Pay dirt. Slowly her fingers slid out of the hole, releasing the emerald from its hiding place. She walked back to the bed, removed the glass eye from her purse, popped it into the empty socket. In her head, Middle Eastern music was replaced by Mariachi as she danced joyously, floated across the room clutching the precious stone in her fisted hand. Drop, kick, thrust. Shimmy, shimmy turn.

“This will go a long way south of the border”. She sang, never knowing her single stone could have been a thousand.

* * * *

By early morning light, Ahsin threw on a peasant blouse, stepped into worn cotton capris, shoved the emerald into her pocket. She threw her purse over her shoulder as she stepped into her sandals and out the door. Daylight was dusty, harsh, the town nothing but a faint memory best forgotten. Heading towards the jeweler her feet drew her like a siren’s song to the familiar alley that had been her home.

Little whores with empty eyes were strewn in the shadows like yesterday’s garbage. Ahsin held her head high, knowing she’d always been better than them, always deserved more. She was Ahsin. Unnoticed, the emerald slipped through a hole in her worn pocket, landed in the dirt and grime along her path as she strutted by.

A young girl, boney and gaunt, saw something shining through the dust at her feet, bent down, picked it up.

“Joya esplendido,” she gasped, a faint glimmer of life returning to her weary eyes. Lying in her palm, sparkling with promise, was her ticket out of town.