A Scoop from Paradise

We arrived there at quarter to one in the afternoon.

“Are those a sample of the tens of virgins good men are going to get in paradise?” I said to my friend upon seeing the bunch of girls standing by the gate to receive guests. They were in their mini-skirt-and-tank-top uniform having all sorts of hair styles and colors. They seemed to be so professional, dancing to music at the reception.

She laughed at the comment and we got off the car, leaving her husband to drive around Marina and find a beach to stay at. We got the tickets and walked behind the straw walls that had earlier made it impossible to see what was behind.

“What are these three guys doing in here?” it felt good to ask in that tone you know.
“They're cleaning the beach and will leave at one pm, Miss. Please have a seat or go get changed till they leave,” the female security officer answered.

Four hours later the beach was packed. It was the first time for me to see so many female bodies in one place: swimming, singing and belly dancing, smoking shisha, laughing, chatting, sunbathing in their bikinis, lying down in hammocks or on the grass, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. All in no more than a six hundred meter square beach. A female only beach called Yashmak.

My friend and I went into the sea, chatted, laughed, and sunbathed for a while before she left to spend some time with her husband. I read a couple of pages of the new book I brought along, went back into the sea, and lied down in the sun. It was not long before a crusade of women came to occupy my friend’s sun bed and the space around it. I still have no idea how many there was of them.

No, I’m not going to swim today. I have skin très délicate.
Oh, I love your bikinis, très joli. Where did you buy them?
I bought them last time I was in Italy. They were two hundred Euros or so.
Lilly? What do you think of my new hair color?
It’s suits ta coleur a lot. A couple of highlights would make it even more beautiful.
Well, my coiffeur suggested I do that when I get bored. He knows that I’d be back soon asking for a color change?

Yes, that was the only bad thing about the day. Being on a female only beach has its advantages and disadvantages, you know?

I have to say it was one of the few good days I had in a while, though. The company was as good as sunbathing for the first time. My friend is one of the coolest girls I know. We get a long very well. She is funny, outgoing, smiley and smart.
She kept code switching between Arabic and Spanish talking to me and her husband.

The three of us decided on Chinese food for lunch at around five thirty. At the table, her husband talked to me for the first time.
Enti modarresa?
Wow, you speak Arabic?
Shwayya. (a little)
We chatted in Arabic, had lunch, and started the drive back. They both switched back to Spanish after a while. I enjoyed listening to the long strings of incomprehensible lively Spanish utterances mixed with the many strings of thoughts passing my mind.

Yes, I am still conservative and I do not mind, rather, I enjoy it as much as the tank-top uniformed girls enjoy their lives.