It seemed the perfect evening in a way, laid out as we were beneath the twinkling stars, stretched on blankets in the sand. I had stopped with my desert tour guide Khaled in a wadi to light a fire of tumbleweed and stray roots. We cooked noodles on a gas burner and opened a bottle with which to toast our good fortune. An hour or so later, we were in our sleeping bags, sheltering from the northern wind behind the jeep. He broached the subject of women, and enquired as to whether I had a girlfriend. Quite a natural topic of conversation, I thought. But as he responded with a few tales of his own romantic encounters, I began to wonder what lay behind his enquiries. The previous year, he told me, he had taken two German women on a five-day trip into the Libyan Desert. They wanted all the usual things: to visit an oasis, see the sand sea, camp in the open and cook coffee on glowing embers. But on the third night, one of the ladies turned to Khaled and said: "So, when are we going to do it? Rather taken aback, the guide responded: "Do what? In the ensuing exchange, it became clear to Khaled that this lady was expecting some manly athletics to round off the evening. She explained that when she had booked her trip at a travel agent in Cairo, she had enquired as to the chances of having intercourse before her return. She said she had been assured that while such services were not in the standard package, they could certainly be arranged for a fee. After a little haggling, a price was agreed, notes changed hands, and the lady packed her bags in eager anticipation. Khaled's refusal to come up with the goods, therefore, came as something of a shock to her. She said she had been informed by other travelers that a bonk with the driver was par for the course. All tour guides were randy as hell, and a little baksheesh (tip) went a long way. And after all, she had already paid for the service. Khaled explained to me that he declined the offer of a carnal entanglement for two reasons. For one thing, he said, the lady in question was old enough to be his mother. But perhaps more importantly, he was somewhat put out by the notion that he was to provide sex as part of a package of services pre-arranged by some anonymous agent in Cairo. Had he been consulted prior to departure, he might just have considered it. But under the circumstances, it was out of the question. His colleague, however, had taken a different approach to unfolding events. He had paired off with the younger (and apparently prettier) of the two ladies, and had been not in the least bit offended by having been excluded from the original deal-making. They spent an energetic night engrossed in cross-cultural dialogue. Khaled's next story was just a little bit more worrying from his point of view. He told of another recent trip, on which he had been hired by a wealthy American photographer to transport him deep into the Sahara. After the first day of tramping through the dunes in search of that perfect picture, they settled down around the camp fire, and as Khaled prepared the evening meal, he found his client's hand resting on his leg. This initial advance fended off, the two of them engaged in a heated argument. The tourist claimed he had already paid a small fee to a travel agent, but had agreed to offer his guide a further $1,000 by way of a bonus. Cash on delivery, so to speak. Enraged at having once again been bartered for in his absence (and not being particularly partial to sex with men), Khaled told the sex-tourist exactly where to put his bonus and stomped off to spend a night alone behind a large dune. The next day, he drove his client to a nearby oasis and handed him over to the care of a rather rough bunch of Bedouin. He says they gave him some loving he will never forget. Just how much of Khaled's talk was embellishment, I could not be certain. But I felt I understood at last where our pillow talk had been taking us. He wanted to be sure before closing his eyes that I would not be springing any nasty surprises on him. We awoke the next morning to find that neither of us had been in the least bit accosted. And after a breakfast of bread, coffee and eggs, we rolled up our makeshift home and continued on our way, happy to have survived another night beneath those twinkling stars with our honor intact.
