Guys and Dolls, not the musical

Women look in the mirror, women do their hair, women go to work, and women have careers.

I was one of those women, raised up by a mom who was not a lesbian but has never been in love, or even looked at a man, since my father left her ass for God.

I went to a high school that produced, Jackie O. A woman whose face I first saw in history, her hair flying when she reached back to grab a chunk of skin and blood.

I got a job in tech, as many of us do, and I did a good job, as many of us do too. I was a woman, and I ran my own team, I was a woman and I was mean.

The work, the life, the job was not much inter(us)t, but I did it anyway because doing cocaine was something for which I held (at the time) much lust.

My company was half here and half elsewhere — the coding and development based at the CEOs home location. A group of the higher-ranking employees would fly back and forth. From here to there via an airplane from the airport.

I too, was once one of these employees, who was elected to go and meet the team. I was traveling with a coworker, a tall man with a white puff of hair — his eyes held an uneasy gleam.

The flights were long but they felt much longer.

22 hours and 3 timeline jumps later, we stepped foot on solid ground, and immediately I felt comfortable in the crowd. Everyone was very nice, talking with me and laughing, sharing smiles as we shared gripes. There were some glances and shudders to my coworker on my right, but nothing more than made sense next to my own dislike.

When we arrived at the hotel, it was 4am, but we couldn't tell. Having been traveling for so long, it just felt like hell. Especially after I found out that our rooms shared a wall, and that Devon was sort of a menace and required quite a lot of attention and energy to be able to avoid at all.

Always inviting me out, smiling at my lips, making up reasons to stay, but he was always escapable, until it was time to make our way back to the US of A.

That night was a good one, I really must say, but the threat of Devon was loud and on display, starting at once, with the way he looked me up and down ignoring how my spine was sagging slightly away.

That night was mainly a good one, I really must say, our coworker took us to a puppet museum, which was BYOB, sort of a rarity in Pakistan, or any dry country, really.

The museum was cool, the food, the music, the tour guide. I developed a crush on him, and we spent the whole evening making googly eyes. I was so smitten that I didn't even mind the sight of Devon glaring at me off to my right.

But when we left it was late, and the ride to the airport was long and I grew tired

my head nodding down, here and there, on the head of the doll I’d decided on buying.

My coworkers talked in the front while I rested. Two men and me in a car, nothing unsettled, I just wanted to get to the airport, to the airplane, and sit for the next million or four hours.

At 3am the airport is packed, thousands of people all waiting, I make my way to the back of ticket line and then I’m at the ticket counter. Devon is behind me, of course, that matters.

“What seat would you like m’am?” says the attendant with no smile.

“How about an aisle?” I ask shudder.

He looks at the computer, and then looks at Devon.

"Come here!" he says. He hands us our tickets and we move over. An aisle for him, a middle for me. I turn to correct him, but the line is back in its routine and I feel too small to notice because I've just seen

a sign, that was previously hidden from my wandering eye “Watch out for unaccompanied woman children and elderly persons”. Says the sign, and if I’m not mistaken it lets out a sigh.

The sign hits me like a door and I avert my eyes to the floor. I look at my feet as I walk to the gate, taking a seat near the gate store. I am far from Devon, but he sees me he anyway and

“Hey,” Devon says. I jump. He sits anyway.

“Hey” I mutter with a stank face. I am a bitch, I am a warrior, I am a full on whore - a woman with greasy hair wearing a Kurta and holding a handmade doll.

I feel my bones shrink from my skin.

Devon looks at me, smooths the dolls hair.

I feel my muscles begin to evaporate into thin air.

“Aww do you have your babydoll?” he croons

My skin boils away.

He leans closer, sexualizing my decay. He breathes in, breathing in my scent, he exhales out, poisonous tendrils mixing into it. His words hit me in my face.

“Looking at us, people might think I’m bringing my new, Pakistani, wife home.

My feet begin to tingle, my hands go numb, panic begins to grip my stomach.

“Hey Devon” I manage to hiss out of my gridlocked lungs. “I don’t know if you are aware of this, but I’m motherfucking white.”