The Artificial Mirage Read Online Free Page A

reveal her white skin above her black stocking.
    As soon as she was in his hotel room and the door was closed, her demeanor became more sullen. After undressing, she seemed angry as she flexed her vaginal muscles and attempted to subdue his attempts to withhold his orgasm. When she finally succeeded in overcoming him, she turned over in the bed and lay motionless. He leaned over to make sure she wasstill breathing. He lay back and flicked through some gambling sites before settling on a blackjack table without any other players. The clock flashed midnight as the last hand of blackjack was dealt by a Chinese woman in a black gown who stood at the foot of the bed. The redheaded nymph had been overwhelmed by the luxury of a five-star hotel and had fallen asleep in his arms. She had been eager to talk about her love of Paris and the cosmetics she used back at the bar. She had grown up in Dhahran because her father had been an engineer with an old oil company that existed before the Sino Saudi Oil Company (SSOC) was formed. The coincidence of it was disturbing, but he kept silent about that and everything else because she never asked him anything about himself. She awoke briefly with a gasp as he lost the last of the credit limit he had set for himself that evening. Blackjack was a rare indulgence he allowed himself when he was outside of Saudi Arabia and away from the religious police’s meticulous blocking of sites perceived to be morally reprehensible. But now it didn’t feel like an indulgence; it was just a meditation to calm his mind.
    Still drunk with sexual satiation, he brushed the French girl’s hair with his fingers and smelled the perfume in it. Her skin was the color of milk, and from a certain perspective, she could almost be mistaken for Chinese. But the Western facial features and red hair made her irresistibly exotic. The paisley silk sheets prevented him from scratching his toe because they were too soft, so he got out of bed to scratch it on the carpet. From the window, he watched her exhale with a hint of exasperation directed at something in her dream. He hadn’t invited her to stay the night, and he realized she would probably want more money. He would bargain with her over breakfast. White women were sought after because of their scarcity, but their price in Paris where they were so plentiful was only a fraction of what it was in Bahrain. He watched her sleep, blissfully unaware of her value. Looking beyond her through the sound-proofed window, the streets of red-and-white car lights ran parallel to the pedestrians with phone projectors. The sidewalk was covered in a moving mosaic of animations and news reports and the latest football matches. The projectors also served as flashlights, since most of the streetlights had been smashed out during various protests. He turned over and listened to the vent move the cool, filtered air back and forth. His panic had given way to a resolve to do what was necessary to continue living. It occurred to him that the progression of his life had broken free from any connection to the pastand all the people in it. And anything that had happened in the past was no longer relevant. It was dead, but he wasn’t.
    He awoke with the sunlight of dawn burning into his eyes. It was useless to try and sleep any later. He lay watching the ceiling fan sift through the projected image of a French news announcer named Claude. After slipping on his AR glasses, he adjusted the translation setting to French-Mandarin and handed them to the French girl as he woke her with a gentle push. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered. He paused for a moment and waited for her to put on the glasses to see the words scroll up like a chat session. Then he grabbed his old standard-issue SSOC pair, which handled translation apps better than most standard consumer models. Not using AR eyewear was fashionable among the French, but he was tired of the cumbersome exchange of translated words across the