We started off in April with the management team of a UK corporation on a “Team Building and Strategy Development Seminar”. At least, that was what it would be reported as to the Board, Shareholders’, Inland Revenue, and Wives. In reality, it was a boozy holiday at the shareholders expense where “what goes on seminar, stays on seminar”. We did a good trade in this type of event, distasteful as they were, and we had to put up with a fair amount of boorish behaviour. The participants typically started drinking at lunchtime and got steadily worse throughout the day so that service after dinner became a nightmare of groping hands and lecherous comments. We just managed it, but there was no way that Maria could contemplate Lisa and I putting on a belly dance show with that lot, regardless as to whether we had time or not. Eventually we came to a modus operandi; when docked at a location where Maria could “borrow” staff from one of Aristotle’s resorts, and the guests on board were civilised, we would be withdrawn from service and would put on a surprise show. It always went down quite well and the female guests didn’t appear to resent their men ogling us as we performed. Generally there was surprise that two placid stewardesses would appear as belly-dancers, and be back serving breakfast the following morning. Jorge and Dimitr who were both still with the boat, seemed to love the performance, Chef said nothing as usual and Greg, our engineer, seemed to resent us a little. George, our skipper, couldn’t show too much appreciation as Maria might not like seeing her man getting too appreciative of our charms.
Life quickly becomes a routine. No matter how exotic a situation appears to be, one simply gets used to it. The summer did give me the time to adjust fully to being a girl and I was surprised that my previous life was fading fast from my memory. It wasn’t all good… I would dream of visiting home and the dream would turn into a nightmare as I would be accosted by former neighbours and friends who appeared in my dream to be insanely angry at my transformation. I would wake up in a sweat, and Lisa would calm me down… but it kept reoccurring… Eventually, I told myself that I would have to go back in reality and face down whatever was haunting me. Once that decision was made, the dreams faded but never fully disappeared. Here on the Yacht, I could adjust in a nice, protected cocoon, amongst people who only knew me as initially androgenous, and now transitioned fully to being a girl. When I returned to England, it would be much the same; my social circle would only know me as a girl and we could control what we divulged. But Ireland would be different…
The owner’s family did two cruises. The first time Aristotle came on board I was waiting in the greeting team. He grabbed me, hugged and kissed me and I thanked him in person for having gone to a huge amount of trouble and expense to rescue me. Sophie joined the second cruise and, as she came on board, was introducing her “friend” to the crew. When she got to Lisa and me, she simply remarked that we already knew her “girlfriend”. Maria and George both looked at us a little quizzically. When Maria “casually” asked me about this later I replied that it was up to Sophie to share her own personal matters and, even if I knew, it was not my place to divulge. On both occasions when the family was on board Lisa and I put on a show which they appeared to enjoy and they followed up with some Greek dancing to music which was played on the Yacht’s entertainment system. Aristotle dragged George, Maria and Dimitri into this and sent me down below to fetch Chef. We ended up with every Greek on board dancing to the music of Mikis Theodorakis! I rather felt the second time that with Sophie and her girlfriend, Lisa and me, the island of Lesbos was well represented. I also developed a view that Greece had like Ireland, little real social stratification: I still hold to that view, but other than personal experience have no empirical evidence to support it.
With all that was happening, I never really got a chance to explore the possibility of skippering a yacht; there simply wasn’t the time. In any event, I wanted to give college a try, so did Lisa, and we wanted to be together. The summer flew by and soon we had to depart the lands of endless sunshine to our own lands of rainy skies and gales, to paraphrase Roger Whitteker’s 1971 hit, “The Last Farewell”. This would probably be our last summer on the Yacht as we would not finish college until June, by which time the season in the Mediterranean would be well under way and crew already hired.
We got back to London in time for college and moved into a room together on campus. The accommodation was segregated between men and women which suited us, although our new friends quickly determined that we were a couple. Nobody seemed to care. I was doing business and languages, Lisa marketing and languages. My two languages were Arabic and Greek; Lisa did Greek and Italian. We quickly decided that if we returned full time to club dancing, our studies would suffer so we worked our way through the restaurants and eventually secured a Friday, Saturday, Sunday gig at a rather nice, somewhat upmarket Lebanese place. As this would still leave us short of cash (we didn’t want to burn through our summer savings too quickly) we also put up simple posters in the girls’ restrooms and accommodation blocks advertising classes in “Exotic Oriental Dance”, ladies only, 50 pence per person per night, classes one hour. College rooms could be booked for free so we had no overheads. The first night, only 12 girls showed up, until we eventually got to about 30 participants doing classes Tuesday and Thursday and, as the numbers grew bigger, we organised a second group for Monday and Wednesday. Normally both Lisa and I tried to be present, but one or other of us could be away occasionally. We kept everything low key but inevitably some lads noticed a group of women coming and going and we got the occasional bit of slagging about being a “coven” (of witches), or a bunch of “laser beams” (lesbians).
The classes were held in a small room used occasionally for plays. It was accessed directly from a path and we had to open and lock up, returning the key to the Porter’s lodge when finished. It suited us fine as it had toilets and was large enough to allow us to form a circle. Normally the participants dressed in the usual girls’ gym attire at the time, leotards, tights, leggings etc. We encouraged them to drape a shawl or similar around their hips as this gave a better sense of the dance movements. Lisa and I both acquired second belly dance kits as we found it better that at least one of us was fully kitted out to demonstrate the moves and we needed to keep our good ones for the restaurant. We would generally get dressed in our room, except for the skirt and would slip that on in the adjacent ladies’ room before and after a class. We would just cover up with a coat or shirt, depending on the weather. This usually meant that we arrived and left before and after the participants, not a problem when we were together…. and when the evenings were bright…
But, of course, evenings get dark in London in the winter and a tendency developed for the girls to meet outside the college restaurant and head off together to the class. They also left in a group and Lisa and I decided to ask the college for a better venue, in a more peopled area, with better lighting. Eventually we sourced a room beside the gym complex: We would move to that in December when some redecoration was completed. In the meantime, we made do with what we had. One evening in November, Lisa was unwell so I took the class on my own. As the participants headed off immediately I was alone locking up. As there was now no one in the room, I locked the Yale lock on the door, slipped out of my dancing skirt, pulled on my ubiquitous denim mini and boots, put on my coat, buttoned it up as it was raining, gathered up my stuff, got the keys, opened the door, turned out the lights, turned to pull the door after me… and was propelled back into the room by something that felt like a freight train.
I pitched forward onto the floor, dropped my bag, and before I had time to turn a body had landed on top of me. A hand grabbed my mouth… I remember that it was sweaty, a knee was in my back, and the other hand was trying to pull my coat off. The attacker couldn’t, as it was buttoned. He sat on my ass, leaning forward, still holding my mouth and whispered into my ear.
“Be a good girl and you won’t get hurt”.
No point in trying to fight from this position; I did my most scared whimper and nodded into his hand.
“Good girl.”
He grabbed one shoulder and twisted me around so that he was now sitting on my belly. I had twisted on top of my left arm so it was also trapped between his legs. He had moved his left hand very quickly and clapped it over my mouth again; his other hand was on my neck. I gave another little scared whimper; he seemed to like that. My right arm was still free and I kept it very still; don’t draw attention to it. With one hand still on my mouth, he started to unbutton my coat. It was a long, double-breasted coat and I knew that it would not be easy for him to get it off while sitting on me. He opened a few buttons and slipped his hand under it; he seemed surprised to find a bare torso with what must have felt like an elaborate, bra-style top. He pulled at the top, trying to slide his hand in from the bottom, but couldn’t. The top was made to stay on during the course of some vigorous movement and stayed firmly in place. He changed tack and pulled my coat down off one shoulder. If he did that on the other shoulder I was in real trouble as that would have pinned both my arms… as if I wasn’t in enough trouble already. He didn’t, and went to pull the strap of my top off my shoulder. I didn’t struggle; it would only have provoked him to pin me tighter. He worked the strap off my shoulder and exposed my left breast which he started to massage with his right hand. He tweaked my nipple and I made an appreciative little grunt into his hand.
“You like that?”
“Mmmmm…”
“You are a horny bitch, aren’t you?”
“Mmmmm…”
I arched my back pushing my breast into his hand, he rubbed harder, actually hurting me but I now started a little moan. He was sure that he had me. He reached his hand behind my back to open my bra top strap. I pushed my back up as if to help him, but his hand on my mouth was pinning me down. He lifted his hand to let me up a little, leaned forward to get his right hand behind my back and put his left hand on the ground to steady himself.
Now I had him. I rammed my right thumb into his eye. A big heave of my back and he was off me. I scrambled to my feet, much quicker than he could recover. I hopped quickly to the side where he could not really see me to grab my leg and kicked him in the side of the head. He was still between me and the door so I moved around behind him. He was trying to stagger to his feet and I aimed my next kick at the base of his spine. He fell forward again and I ran for the door. I was halfway to the Porters lodge when I realised that he wasn’t following me, and that my left breast was still out. I pulled my top and coat up and started to think…
If I reported this attack to the police, my back story was sure to come out. If that story became known I would likely be thrown out of the girls’ dorm, if not the college, and the tabloids would have a field day. My story would break back home; most of the tabloids had an “Oirish” edition and my family would bear the brunt of this. I turned away from the path to the Porter’s lodge and headed for the dorm. Lisa was very upset when she saw me and heard what had happened. But we couldn’t take time to have a good hug and cry. I changed my top, got my coat on again, and we headed over to the library. I saw two lads from my business classes and asked them to walk us back to the venue. I explained that I had heard a noise when I was locking up and had become scared and ran away.
“Girls; you’re such scaredy-cats” they joked and willingly came along.
We got to the room, the door was open and the light was still off. One of the guys went in and turned on the light. My bag was still on the floor, its contents spilled all over the place, along with the room keys… and a button from my coat.
I started to gather my things up, but one of the lads picked up the button, looked at me and said,
“Are you sure you only heard something?”
I shook my head; Lida put an arm around me.
“Are you hurt?”
“No; I managed to fight him off!”
“Have you told the police, the porters?”
“No, I can’t, I don’t want any trouble”. They interpreted this as me not wanting to draw attention to myself and Lisa as a couple.
“Would you recognise him?”
“Maybe, I’m not sure, right now he has a sore left eye, a bad headache and a very sore back.”
“You did well; are you sure that you don’t want to report this?”
“Absolutely; We don’t need the hassle. Can you keep it quiet? If word gets out, and back to the creep if he’s on campus, he might try something else nasty.”
The lads looked at each other and nodded; “Okay.”
Lisa and I finished collecting my things. The guys looked at my costume skirt as I stuffed it into the bag.
“Are you guys doing a play? We thought this was a gym class.”
“Actually it’s a dancing class; the skirt is part of the costume.”
The lads walked us back to the student bar where we had a beer, then they walked us to the dorm. Lisa and I sat and opened a bottle of wine. After a while Lisa spoke:
“You did do well; I wonder how I would have managed?”
“We’re both very fit with strong bodies from the dancing, but that’s probably the only similarity”, I replied. “On the plus side for you, you’d probably be more wary and not get taken by surprise as easily as I was. On the downside, I went through male puberty and have an edge over you in strength even if I have been on hormones for over a year.”
“I thought that we were pretty equal by now”, Lisa interjected. “I’ve managed to pin you down a few times when we’re playing!”
I didn’t want to tell her that that was only because I let her! I continued,
“There are two other important differences. I have some unarmed combat training from the Reserves, simple stuff, but effective. And, I’ve learned from Egypt when not to fight; it doesn’t mean just give in, but let them think you have and wait, wait to take advantage of any break…”
I stopped… thinking back… remembering holding despair at bay with memories of Lisa and Athens, and the BBC World Service. I hadn’t really let this get to me since I was rescued. Even the decompression sessions with Helen hadn’t really gotten to me. Now, I blamed myself; how could I be so fu**ing stupid as to let myself get surprised again! I could have been killed! It was just luck that I had escaped!
Is there such a thing as delayed shock? I had managed to fight off the attack and hadn’t lost my head; now I was crumbling. Lisa put her arms around me, I lay with my head on her lap, and just cried. We didn’t finish the wine; no telling where that would have brought me. Eventually she dragged me into bed and I went to sleep with her arm around me. I woke up, she wasn’t there, I was back in Egypt, it had all been a dream, I must have cried out, she had only gone to the toilet, she held me again…
I was OK in the morning, went to my lectures and vetoed Lisa’s suggestion to cancel dance classes that evening. I met the lads at class who sat next to me and just chatted, no overt shows of concern. Dance class went on as usual that evening and even though not fully recovered, Lisa came to the class with me. The class ran as usual and, as we were locking up, a voice called out,
“Hi Lisa, Jasmine, it’s only us.”
The two lads had come to see us safe home and did this for the rest of the week until we moved venue. There was no ulterior motive, they knew that we were not interested in boyfriends, they were just good guys. We stayed friendly for the rest of our time in college.
No more dramatics that year. We moved to our new venue for the dance class and continued to the end of term. We were very busy in the run up to Christmas as party season meant lunch as well as evening gigs at the restaurant. We kept some time for ourselves and went to the Carols in St Martin in the Fields on the Saturday before Christmas. We spent Christmas day again with Lisa’s family and, when I called home, I was aware that it was over a year since I had met any of my family members. More dancing work in the New Year party season then back to college. Actually we had not physically left as the dorms remained open over Christmas even if most of the campus facilities were not available.
Lisa and I organised a ladies self-defence class immediately after our dance classes on Mondays and Tuesdays. These were run mainly on a non-profit basis with just a small cash reserve to cover eventualities. We sourced instructors from women in the Military Police and the Army generally. By modern day standards, these classes were fairly amateurish, but we did impart a modicum of knowledge on how a girl can take steps to avoid getting into trouble, and how to escape if attacked.
The year moved on and, as the final term, confusingly to my mind labelled the Easter Term, was approaching, we decided to quit our extra-curricular activities and focus on study for the last six weeks. We wound up our classes; that wasn’t a problem as all the participants were in the same boat as us and we assured them that we would recommence in the next academic year. We also let the restaurant know that we would have to quit. They did ask us to come back for one private gig in May when the restaurant was booked for a private party by a relative of some minor Gulf potentate and we were happy to accommodate this request.
We studied hard, breaking only for the May gig. This was a bit unusual, there were some people drinking, but many were not. Hubbly-bubbly pipes reminded me of Egypt, as did the guests, albeit they were in Western attire, and there were ladies present. As the manager was flapping about in a minor panic when we were leaving, we said that we would call back the next day to be paid. When we arrived, we were invited into his office and to take a seat. This was unusual as normally we were just handed our envelopes and left. The manager appeared nervous, ill at ease. He gave us our envelopes and I got up to leave.
“Please wait, I have a proposition from … for… his Excellency”. He probably did not mean to use the word “proposition”, or maybe it was subliminal. I sat back down..
“Proposition?”
“Yes, his Excellency liked you very much. I told him that you are in school and working hard because your examinations are soon and he is asking of you could work for him for the Summer. He will pay very good money!”
For school read college. The subtleties can easily be lost in translation.
“Work?”
“Yes, he has a Yacht where he entertains his guests. In Winter he keeps it in the Gulf but in Summer he moves it through Suez to the Mediterranean. He would like you to entertain… to dance… for his guests… and of course when he is on board himself.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think so…”, I didn’t like the sound of this gig very much.
“Hang on”, Lisa interjected. “How much?”
“I don’t know exactly but he is very rich, and his guests will give good presents. I can get his agent to talk to you if you’re interested”.
“OK, do that”, Lisa didn’t seem to be understanding the offer…
We took our money and walked back to the dorm.
“Lisa, do you know what we were being offered?” I was trying not to be too direct.
“A dancing gig for a rich guy with good pay!”
“Dancing, and Entertainment. Why would we be getting presents from his guests?”
“What are you saying?”
“Look at how nervous the manager was; he knows that this isn’t just a dancing gig. We’re being offered a summer job as harem girls, or prostitutes or whatever!”
“Oh….”