Chapter 18: The Trend That Makes Her Wet
The blue light of the phone screen etched hollows under Ran’s eyes. It was three seventeen in the morning. Beside her, Mustafa snored, a wet, rattling sound that seemed to sync with the slow rotation of the ceiling fan. The apartment was a tomb of thwarted expectations. The IKEA shelves, slightly waroved from the humidity, held cheap knick-knacks from Sudanese vacations they would never take again. The air smelled of yesterday’s ful medames, a scent that now felt like failure.
Her thumb moved on its own, a compulsive, downward swipe. The hashtag was a live wire, pulsing with a thousand concurrent humiliations and glorifications. #SudaneseGirlsNeedKuwaitiMen.
She clicked on a video. It was grainy, shot in what looked like a parked car at night. A Kuwaiti man, his face out of frame, had his hand down the jeans of a Sudanese girl. Her head was thrown back against the headrest, her mouth open. “Say it,” the man’s voice urged, low and commanding. “Say you need it.” The girl, her eyes glassy, whimpered, “I need it… I need Kuwaiti cock.” The man laughed, a sound of pure ownership, and the video ended. Ran felt a direct, electric current zap from the screen to her clit. She pressed her thighs together, the soreness from Fahad a distant, approving echo.
She scrolled further. A thread, titled “A Comparative Study (LOL)” detailed, in bullet points, the supposed deficiencies of Sudanese men. Small hands = small investments. Talks about politics instead of action. Can’t handle a real woman’s curves. Thinks missionary is a daring adventure. Each point was met with a cascade of laughing emojis and affirming replies. One woman wrote: My husband finishes before he even gets his pants fully off. My Kuwaiti boyfriend fucks me for an hour and then goes down on me until I scream. It’s not a comparison. It’s an evolution.
Ran’s breathing shallowed. She glanced at Mustafa. In the gloom, he was a shapeless mound under the thin sheet, his bald spot a pale circle against the pillow. She remembered their last attempt, two months ago. His frantic, clumsy groping, his quick, apologetic shudder against her thigh, the long, silent aftermath where he wept softly into his hands. The memory uncoiled in her gut, a snake of revulsion.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard. She retweeted a post that read: Sudanese husbands are just placeholders until a real man comes along. She added not one, but three crying-laughing emojis. The act was petty, venomous, and it sent a thrill through her so sharp it was almost painful. It was a stone dropped into a digital pond, and the ripples were immediate. Notifications popped up. Likes. Retweets. A direct message.
The DM was from an account with a female name—Layla—and a cartoon avatar. Sis, you are brave AND correct. My placeholder is snoring next to me too. Waiting for my 9pm appointment tomorrow. DM if you want to trade stories.
Ran stared at the message. This was different from Hiba’s circle. This was a stranger, a confidante in the dark. A collaborator. She typed back: What kind of stories?
The reply was instant. The kind that would make our placeholders shrivel up and blow away. My K has a thing for filming. He likes to send me clips to watch while I’m cooking dinner for the other one. It’s like a spicy secret.
Ran’s heart hammered against her ribs. This was a new level of audacity. She thought of Fahad, of his command to be ready, of the villa. She wrote: Mine has friends. We had a party.
Three blinking dots appeared. Then: A PARTY? Details. Now. Or a trade. I send you something, you send me something.
A trade. Ran’s mind raced. She had the videos from the villa, but those were nuclear, containing her friends. Too dangerous. But she had others. Older ones. From the beginning. She navigated to her hidden folder, scrolled past the recent, graphic evidence of the villa night, and found a shorter clip from months ago. It was just her and Fahad in a hotel room. She was on her knees, taking him in her mouth. It was amateur, shaky, but the content was clear.
She took a screenshot, cropping out her own face, leaving only the explicit image of her lips stretched around the thick, veined shaft. She sent it.
The response was a string of fire emojis. Then a video file arrived. My turn. This is from last week. I told my placeholder I had a book club.
Ran maximized the video. It was better quality. A Sudanese woman, her face blurred but her body—full, beautiful, adorned with delicate gold jewelry—clear, was bent over a sleek glass desk. A Kuwaiti man, dressed in a crisp white thobe, stood behind her, his hands gripping her hips. He was fucking her with a slow, relentless intensity. The camera was close on the point of connection, the slick, pounding rhythm obscene in its clarity. The man’s voice, calm and almost conversational, said, “Tell your husband you need money for a new abaya. The one I just ripped is garbage.” The woman moaned, “Yes, yes, I’ll tell him.”
Ran watched, mesmerized. This was it. The pure, unfiltered dynamic. Use and compensation. Contempt and reward. She was so wet it was an ache. She pushed her own sheets down, her hand sliding inside her panties. She was already swollen, sensitive. She circled her clit with two fingers, keeping her eyes on the screen, on the powerful thrusts of the anonymous man, while her husband’s snore provided a grotesque counter-rhythm. She came quickly, silently, biting her lip to stifle any sound, her body bowing on the mattress. The orgasm was thin and desperate, a ghost of what she’d experienced at the villa.
As the spasms faded, a new, more vicious thought took hold. The phone glowed in her hand. Mustafa slept. The hypocrisy of his slumber, his ignorance, felt like an insult. She didn’t just want to tweet into the void. She wanted him to feel it. To know, even in his subconscious, that he was less than nothing.
She opened her photo gallery again. She selected a different image—not a screenshot, but a full, unedited photo from the villa night. It was a selfie she’d taken in the gilt-framed bathroom mirror just before the party. She was wearing the sheer black kaftan, her makeup perfect, her eyes blazing with anticipation. Behind her, blurred but recognizable, was the opulent marble sink and a spray of fresh orchids. It screamed of wealth she did not own, of a world he could never provide.
She opened Mustafa’s Facebook Messenger. He was her only contact. His profile picture was a smiling photo of the two of them from five years ago, in Khartoum, both of them younger, softer, their eyes holding a future that had since rotted.
She attached the photo. She typed a message, her fingers cold and steady.
Look at me. Look at where I am. Look at what I’m worth without you.
She did not send it to him. Instead, she set it as a scheduled message. To be delivered the next evening at 7:00 PM, when he would likely be on his way home from work, trapped in his stuffy car, worrying about bills and his useless, uncooperative body. The thought of him opening that message, his confused eyes taking in the opulent background, her defiant, beautiful face, gave her a surge of cold power far more satisfying than the petty orgasm. Let him marinate in that mystery. Let him try, and fail, to understand.
She finally put the phone down, its face against the nightstand. The darkness of the room rushed back in, heavier than before. Mustafa rolled over, his arm flopping across her waist. It was a warm, heavy weight. She lay perfectly still, letting it sit there, feeling like a corpse being claimed by a stranger. She did not push it off. She endured it. The placeholder’s touch. A reminder of the life she was methodically, joylessly, burning to the ground.
The scheduled message was a ticking clock in her psyche all the next day. It colored every interaction with a surreal, detached quality. At breakfast, Mustafa, his eyes puffy from sleep, tried to engage her.
“The doctor called,” he said, stirring sugar into his tea. “She wants to start me on the hormone tests next week. She says it could be low testosterone.” He said it with a flicker of hope, as if a chemical adjustment could rebuild a collapsed universe.
“That’s good,” Ran said, not looking up from her phone, where she was exchanging more DMs with Layla. They were discussing the merits of different luxury hotels for clandestine meetings.
“It might… help,” Mustafa ventured, his voice dropping. “With… things.”
Ran finally looked at him. She saw the desperate yearning in his face, the pathetic hope that a pill could make him the man she tweets about. “Maybe,” she said, the word flat and final. She went back to her phone. Layla was describing a Rolex her ‘K’ had bought her, a consolation prize after a particularly rough anal session. He said my screams were worth the price, Layla wrote. Ran smiled.
The day bled away. She met Hiba for coffee. The villa hung between them, a secret so large it had altered the chemistry of their friendship.
“Bader called me,” Hiba said, stirring her cappuccino, a faint blush on her cheeks. “He asked if I wanted to go to Dubai for the weekend. ‘Shopping,’ he said.”
“Are you going?”
“My husband thinks I’m visiting my sick aunt in Salmiya.” Hiba’s smile was razor-thin. “I bought new lingerie. Red. With straps. The kind that’s meant to be torn off.”
There was no guilt in her voice. Only the giddy adrenaline of the convert. Ran felt a flicker of something—not jealousy, but a competitive edge. Fahad had not called. He had only sent a single text, hours after the villa: You served well. Nothing since. She was the organizer, the procurer. Was that now her only role?
“Nada’s Khalid bought her a car,” Hiba continued, lowering her voice. “A little Lexus coupe. Told her it was for ‘errands.’ Her husband thinks she won it in a raffle at the embassy.”
“And Samira?”
Hiba’s expression softened, then hardened. “Youssef is… intense. She won’t talk about it. She just looks through you now. Like she’s seen something. But she’s not sorry. I see her checking her phone every two minutes.”
Ran returned to the empty apartment. The silence was a physical presence. At 6:58 PM, she stood in the middle of the living room, staring at the blank TV screen. Her heart was a dull, rhythmic thud. Two minutes. She imagined Mustafa’s beaten-down sedan stuck in traffic on the Gulf Road. The ping of a notification. His pudgy finger swiping the screen. The confusion, then the dawning, horrible comprehension.
At 7:03, her own phone rang. It was him. She let it go to voicemail. He called again.And again. On the fourth call, she answered, her voice a model of casual boredom.
“Yes?”
“Ran… the… the picture.” His voice was shattered glass, barely coherent. “What is that? Where are you? Who took that?”
“What picture, Mustafa?” she said, walking to the window, looking down at the dusty street.
“The one you sent! On Messenger! In the… in the bathroom! Where are you?”
“Oh, that,” she said, injecting a light laugh. “That’s from Hiba’s cousin’s villa. We were getting ready for a ladies’ night. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Marble from Italy.” Every word was a needle.
A long, ragged breath shuddered through the phone. “You… you sent it with a message. ‘Look at what I’m worth without you.’ Ran… what does that mean?” His voice broke on the last word.
She let the silence stretch, let him drown in it. “It means what it says, Mustafa. It’s just a thought. Don’t be so dramatic.”
“It’s not dramatic!” he cried, a sob cracking his voice. “You’re telling me I’m nothing! That you’re worth more somewhere else! Is there… is there someone else?” The question, finally voiced, hung in the digital space between them, pathetic and inevitable.
Ran closed her eyes. She saw Fahad’s arrogant smile, felt the ghost of his cock in her ass. She saw the line of Kuwaiti men at the villa. She saw the Twitter hashtag, a thousand women chanting their disdain. “There’s a whole world of someone elses, Mustafa,” she said, her voice quiet, deadly calm. “A world you’ll never be part of. Now stop crying and come home. Your dinner is getting cold.”
She hung up. She had not denied it. She had confirmed it in the cruelest way possible—not by admitting an affair, but by dismissing his entire existence as irrelevant. She felt powerful. She felt empty.
When he arrived, twenty minutes later, his face was a tragedy. His eyes were red-raw, his skin blotchy. He stood in the doorway, a defeated figure clutching his briefcase like a shield.
“Ran…” he began.
“Wash your hands. The food is on the table.” She turned her back and walked to the kitchen. She could feel his gaze on her, a weight of pure agony. She served the chicken and rice onto two plates, her movements precise, domestic, a brutal parody of wifely duty.
They ate in a silence so thick it was difficult to swallow. The scrape of his fork against the plate was the only sound. Finally, he put it down.
“I want to know,” he whispered, not looking at her.
“You don’t,” she replied, taking a sip of water.
“I do! I am your husband! I have a right!”
“A right?” She put her glass down. The click was definitive. “You have a right to my obedience? To my body you can’t satisfy? To the life you promised me that turned out to be this?” She gestured around the cramped, dim apartment. “You have no rights here. You have debts. And you are bankrupt.”
He flinched as if struck. Tears welled again. “I love you,” he choked out. “I have always loved you. I’m trying…”
“Your love is a burden,” she said, the words leaving her mouth like chips of ice. “It’s a weight holding me under. Your trying is an embarrassment.” She stood, taking her plate to the sink. “I’m going to bed. Don’t touch me.”
She walked away, leaving him shattered at the table. In the bedroom, she changed into a sleep shirt. Her phone buzzed. A message from Fahad.
My friend Khalid. He wants the shy one again. The one from the villa. Samira. Tomorrow night. His place. Bring her.
It was not a request. It was an instruction. And it was her currency. She typed back: I’ll arrange it.
Then she texted the group she had with Hiba, Nada, and Samira. Villa reunion. Just for Samira. Tomorrow. Khalid’s place. Be ready at 8.
The responses were swift. Hiba: Lucky girl. Nada: Tell her not to be so quiet this time. Samira’s reply took a full minute: Ok.
The next evening, Samira looked like a ghost being led to its own execution. She wore a simple black abaya, but beneath it, Ran knew, was the lingerie they had shopped for together—a white lace teddy, virginal and corrupt all at once. She said nothing in the car, just stared out at the flashing city lights.
Khalid’s place was a modern penthouse in Salmiya, all sharp angles and panoramic views of the dark Arabian Gulf. He answered the door himself, dressed in casual linen. He nodded at Ran, his eyes already fixed on Samira with the focused interest of a collector examining a new acquisition.
“Welcome back,” he said to Samira, his voice smooth. He stepped aside to let them in. The apartment was minimalist, sterile, and breathtakingly expensive. “Ran, the bar is stocked. Help yourself. We’ll be in the media room.”
He placed a hand on the small of Samira’s back, a gesture of absolute possession, and guided her down a hallway. Samira glanced back once, her eyes wide with terror and something else—a dreadful excitement. Then she disappeared.
Ran was alone in the vast, silent living room. She fixed herself a strong drink, whiskey neat, and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. The city sprawled below, a kingdom of secrets. She was the madam now. The facilitator. The thought should have felt empowering. It felt like a desolation.
After a while, she couldn’t stand the silence. She put her glass down and moved quietly down the hallway. A door was slightly ajar. Soft, classical music played inside. She peered through the crack.
Khalid had set a scene. The media room had a giant, blank screen on one wall. Plush, dark carpets. Samira was on her knees in the center of the room. Khalid stood before her, still dressed, one hand gently cradling the back of her head. With the other, he was filming her with his phone, the screen’s glow lighting his satisfied expression.
“Open wider,” he instructed, his voice calm. “Take it all. Let me see your throat work.”
Samira obeyed, taking his cock deeper into her mouth than Ran thought possible. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tears making tracks through her mascara. Khalid zoomed in on the connection, on her stretched lips, on the drool making her chin glisten.
“Good girl,” he murmured, not to her, but to himself, admiring the footage. “Such a good, obedient Sudanese girl. You learn quickly.” He began to move his hips, a slow, shallow fucking of her mouth. Samira gagged, a wet, choking sound. Khalid smiled. “Shhh. Just relax. Let it happen.”
Ran watched, frozen. This was different from the raw, brutal fucking of the villa. This was cold, clinical, and somehow more degrading. It was a performance, captured for later. A trophy. Khalid was not just using Samira; he was curating her degradation.
After a few minutes, he pulled out. He tapped her cheek with his cock. “On the floor. On your hands and knees. Arch your back. I want to see that perfect ass in the air.”
Samira, moving like an automaton, complied. She presented herself, her body trembling. Khalid walked around her, still filming, capturing her from every angle. He knelt behind her, and without any preamble, without a touch of preparation, he pushed his cock into her.
Samira screamed—a short, sharp sound of pure shock and pain. Khalid shushed her again. “You’re tight. So tight. Just like the first time. It’s better when it hurts a little, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He set a steady, deep, punishing rhythm, one hand on her hip, the other holding the phone out to capture the view from behind—the violent, rhythmic junction of their bodies.
“Look at the screen,” Khalid panted, nodding to the giant blank wall. Suddenly, it illuminated. It was the live feed from his phone. Samira, her face contorted, saw herself magnified ten feet tall, being fucked from behind. She cried out again, trying to hide her face.
“No, look,” Khalid commanded, gripping her hair and forcing her head up. “Watch. Watch what you are. Watch how you take it.”
Samira’s eyes, wide with horror, were locked on her own gigantic image. She watched herself being taken, used, reduced to a series of physical reactions. A low, continuous moan escaped her, a sound of total psychic rupture. Khalid fucked her harder, grunting with effort, captivated by the dual reality—the feel of her and the image of her.
“Come for me,” he growled into her ear, his voice caught on camera, a haunting stereo effect. “Come on camera. Let me see you break.”
And she did. Her body convulsed, not with pleasure, but with a surrender so complete it triggered a violent physical release. She shook, sobbing, as her muscles clamped around him. Khalid swore, his rhythm faltering, and he came inside her with a final, brutal thrust, his own face a mask of gratified possession on the huge screen.
He held himself there for a long moment, both of them frozen in the projected image. Then he pulled out, tucked himself away, and stopped the recording. The giant screen went black, plunging the room into sudden, merciful dimness.
He helped Samira up. She could barely stand. He guided her to a nearby bathroom. “Clean up,” he said, his voice returning to its casual, smooth tone. “Then join us for a drink.”
Ran slipped back to the living room, her heart pounding a sick rhythm. She poured another whiskey, her hands unsteady. When Samira emerged, she was pale, her hair damp, her movements slow. She wouldn’t meet Ran’s eyes.
Khalid joined them, as composed as if he’d just returned from a business meeting. He poured himself a glass of water. “She’s exceptional,” he said to Ran, as if discussing a piece of art. “A quick study. You have a good eye.”
Samira flinched. Ran took a long swallow of her drink, the alcohol doing nothing to warm the cold void inside her. She had brought her friend here. She had delivered her to this. She was not just a participant in her own corruption anymore. She was a vector, spreading it.
The drive back was worse than silence. It was a void filled with the echo of Samira’s sobs, which she stifled into a fist pressed against her mouth. Ran stared ahead, the city lights blurring into meaningless streaks.
When they reached Samira’s building, Ran finally spoke. “Are you okay?”
Samira turned to her. In the dim dashboard light, her eyes were hollow, ancient. “He asked me to keep the lingerie,” she whispered. “He said it’s his now. To remember me by.” She opened the door and got out, walking toward her building without a backward glance.
Ran sat alone in the idling car. Her phone buzzed. A message from Khalid, via Fahad. A successful evening. Your taste is approved. We will have more use for you.
She put the car in gear and drove. The apartment awaited, a cage she had chosen. Mustafa would be there, broken and pleading. Her phone was a portal to a world that used her and praised her for being useful. She had forged her own chains, link by brutal link, and now their weight was the only thing that felt real. The momentum was no longer forward. It was downward, a dark spiral, and she was only picking up speed.