Black Box

I didn’t know that, and I didn’t take into account that the director was a South Asian himself and one with a particularly shifty-eyed appearance. He offered to pay my way to Karachi, saying he happened to be going there himself, and I bit. Barely there, he promptly sold me to a chieftain in the unmannered tribal areas in the north, along the Afghanistan border, and I spent a good three months in his harem being defiled by all and sundry. When he had grown tired of me, I was dumped on the streets of Peshawar one early morning to look out for myself. I was saving for airfare back to the States, and this bar and bordello was where I was doing the saving, such as it was. It certainly was a step up from being tumbled on a dirty rug in a mud hut by sometimes two burly men at once—although not much more than a baby step up.

You thus could say that I was in pretty desperate straits and open to almost any half-way reasonable suggestion for changing my lot even slightly for the better. And that’s why Steve’s proposition, when he got around to pitching it, didn’t sound half bad.

“I’m standing drinks over here, if you’re interested, yes,” the handsome, well-muscled man of about thirty said. “My name is Steve, by the way. And you’re . . .?”

“Ken. You can call me Ken,” I said, as I moved over beside him, close enough for him to make a move if he wanted to. “And I’d do almost anything for a gin tonic,” I added, remembering one of my most frequently used pickup lines.