The following five months living and working alongside Melanie could not have contrasted more sharply than my life prior. A couple of weeks after my escape from Steve-dom (or as Mel likes to refer to it, ‘Steve-doom’) Mel and I rented a small but modern two bedroom semi-detached house (with toasty central heating!) in a small village called Wootton Bassett on the opposite side of the motorway from where we work, reducing my commute down to a ridiculously trivial five minutes. We join the gym at our local Marriott Hotel, which has a pool, sauna and jacuzzi, so most evenings either together or independently we’ll pop along for a quick swim in the pool, a soak in the bubbles of the jacuzzi or to sweat it out in the gym.
Melanie is a tall, slim, natural brunette and very trim, which previously I’d thought was down to her genetics, as we’d basically eaten the same things at work for the year we’ve known each other but now having lived with her as well, I see how well she eats and how much care she takes of her body generally. Most evenings she either eats a healthy chicken salad or cooks her meals from scratch. Take-outs and fast food are rare.
“It’s only so I don’t feel guilty splurging at the weekends, Vicky,” she offers as way of explanation one evening as she’s sitting down to yet another colourful salad. “Life is all about balance, Vicky. Work hard but play hard as well. Look after yourself during the week, so you can splurge at the weekend.”
...and splurge most weekends we do. She introduces me to her older sister, Michelle, who has also moved over to the UK for work. Michelle lives in London and we trek up to town fairly regularly to hang out, eat, party and generally have fun. We also hang out with Timothy, Mel’s now ex-landlord, and his friends. Tim is only a couple of years older than us and a strong friendship developed between Mel and Tim when she lodged in his house in Swindon. Tim’s friends are a nice bunch, most of whom also work in finance, and we spend many an evening either attending or hosting dinner parties with his crowd. I did wonder at one point whether there was something going on between Melanie and Tim, but he has a girlfriend - allegedly. I say ‘allegedly’ as no one has ever met her. He tells us she’s also a divorcee, with a young son which keeps her anchored at her house in the country, while he works up in the City, visiting her most weekends and the odd night during the week.
There is also the family Melanie used to work for as an au pair who live in a village in southern Wiltshire - the Grays. The mum, Margaret, is especially welcoming when Mel introduces me to them all. They live in a large country house which despite its grandeur is full of love and homely warmth inside. On more than one occasion when Mel and I have been in desperate need for a calmer weekend, Margaret has taken us under her wing and stuffed us full of delicious home cooked grub and gallons of tea as we’ve sat around her large farmhouse kitchen table together, chatting away long into the night as between us we’ve attempted to put the world to rights. Margaret has opened her home and her heart to the both of us and I’m very grateful.
I’ve also taken Melanie north on a few occasions to meet members of my family and my ‘old’ friends - the friendships I’ve had since childhood. However, being such a long way away, it’s not a trip we take often. Even if we fly up from Heathrow, travelling up and back takes up most of the weekend. Despite this, all my friends and family welcome my new antipodean friend with the northern warmth that is as synonymous with our northern culture, as our diverse landscape or colloquial accent.
One of the major bonuses of working in the travel industry is the access to cheap travel. As certified travel agents we can apply for what’s known in the industry as an AD75. An agent’s discount of 75 percent off the price of all scheduled flights, which basically means we only ever pay 25 percent of any airfare, and that’s in addition to the free flights and bonuses the airlines and hotel reps are often giving away as incentives for us to promote their particular brand over their competitors. Wages in our industry are not great, so Melanie and I gladly accept every perk on offer.
Over the past six months, we’ve used AD75s to make more than one weekend trip to Europe, often very last minute. It’s not unusual on a Wednesday evening or a Thursday morning for us to log into our Galileo flight booking system and check the flight loads (the volume of booked and unsold seats) on a particular route. Travelling on an AD75 means you only ever have a stand-by reservation and will always be the first passengers to be bumped off if the flight is overbooked. A very common, if unpopular (and some might say unethical) practise by all the major airlines. Being bumped on an outward journey only means you have less time when you arrive at your chosen destination but being bumped from the last flight back to Heathrow on a Sunday night, means you're potentially stranded and late for work the next morning, something that we would be disciplined for. So it’s just not worth the risk, which is why we always check the loads and choose a destination which shows lots of open availability and is therefore unlikely to sell out. So far, we’ve spent weekends together in Dublin, Nice, Strasbourg and not surprisingly Amsterdam with a large crowd of our work colleagues, enjoying the culture and the coffee shops!
“How about Istanbul this weekend?” Mel asks, looking over to me from the top of her monitor one Thursday morning. “The loads look good and the flight times work well. Leaving tomorrow night and returning late on Sunday.”
“Istanbul?” my voiced raised, surprised by her curious, if not obvious, choice. “I’ve never even considered it before, but why not. I bet it’s really interesting.”
Thirty-six hours later Mel and I arrive in Atatürk airport and grab a cab to our hotel - a cheaper option further out of town on the outskirts of the main tourist area. It’s very late when we arrive so rather than head out now to explore, we decide to get our heads down and get up early to uncover what Istanbul has to offer.
The next morning after breakfast we jump in another cab and get dropped off near Sultanahmet Square in the oldest part of the city. I’m hit instantly by the noise. Car horns honking, people chattering in small huddled groups and the sound of the Adhan calling the city to prayer. The city even smells different. A mix of hot dust, exhaust fumes and exotic spices. The early morning March sun already warming up the temperature. Looking around, taking in our surroundings, I can already sense what an interesting and eclectic city this is. The streets appear to have been saved from the influx of western brands that have infiltrated most cities in the last decade. It irks me that so many places in the world are becoming carbon copies of each other, each street littered with the same branded fast food chains and barista coffee shops, so I’m pleased to see that at street level, at least, this city feels exactly as it would have done 100, even 200 years ago. It’s easy to imagine what living here would have been like in ancient times when the city was known as Constantinople or Byzantium before that.
I know almost nothing about Istanbul, other than what I’ve absorbed from ‘A’ level geography at school which centred mostly on the geographical formation of the city, rather than the culture or the people. Geographically, the city is split into three by the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. The enormous Bosphorus divide runs more or less north/south and is where the Black Sea flows down into the Sea of Marmara then on into the Mediterranean. To the west the famous Golden Horn, is the primary inlet that flows into the Bosphorus, splitting the western part of the city into two. This indent in the earth’s crust has long been labelled as the exact point where Asia and Europe collide. The west side of the Bosphorus is considered Europe, the east, Asia. Therefore, I’m hoping this cultural mix will also be represented in our experience, a collision of eastern promise and western influences. The most famous architectural icon is of course the Blue Temple with its six, distinctively fluted pencil-shaped minarets that surround its large central dome and forecourt as it stands proudly on the South Western peninsula looking out over the Bosphorus towards Mecca.
Feeling a bit weary after our long week at work and late-night travels, Mel and I decide to go for a traditional Turkish massage first, or what’s known as a Hamam. This, we surmise, would be a great way to start our Turkish adventure before we explore the markets and the Grand Bazaar later.
We ask a few people who are milling around and who look local, where they would recommend for a Hamam. In broken English and using lots of hand gestures, we stress that we want a traditional experience, not some trumped up over-priced nondescript spa experience aimed only at tourists. A local gentleman points down an alleyway where the buildings overhang reaching inwards towards each other blocking out almost most of the light. He mimes that we should walk down there and knock on the unmarked door we’ll find at the end. Melanie and I look at each other, unsure whether this is a good idea or not.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she says, shrugging her shoulders.
“Come on then,” I link my arm through hers and lead us down the twisting alley before knocking on the heavy wooden door at the bottom.
A small trapdoor opens in the centre of the door at head height, revealing a woman’s face. She’s looks about 40 years old. She’s scowling, an expression of deep disgust etched into her face, making the hard, leathered lines on her skin deepen further, ageing her by at least another ten or so years. She looks Mel and I up and down as if trying to decide our motives. What she sees appears to displease her and she shouts something in Turkish that neither of us understand.
Leaning back towards Mel, I whisper, “Ever had the feeling you’ve just walked into a Monty Python sketch?” Mel sniggers under her breath which the Turkish women notices, endearing us to her even less.
“Two massage?” I gesticulate. “Yes?” pointing back and forth between Melanie and myself, the upward inflection in my voice I hope conveying the question I’m asking.
“Evet, gel,” she replies sternly, which we assume is some form of greeting. She opens the door, her face still scowling her disapproval. Moving aside, her hand outstretched inviting us to step across the threshold.
Inside the confined entrance hall, our shoes click-clacking on the marble floor, another woman is sitting behind an encased cashier’s desk separated from us by wire mesh that encloses her workspace. She writes on a piece of paper the cost in Lira and slides it under the wire towards us. Mel and I look at each other in amazement as the cost is the equivalent of £2.50 in sterling.
“Well either we’ve stumbled upon the absolute best bargain Hamam in town, Vicky, or we’re about to be led into a dungeon and sold as slaves, never to see daylight again!” Mel says as she pays her money through the wire mesh.
“Here goes nothing,” I reply as I too give the women the measly fee and am handed in return, what can only be described as a small linen tea-towel, along with a locker key and a bright orange circular token. The towels are made of pure white linen, nothing like the fluffy bath towels you would use back home and must be only about 20 inches square. Clearly not enough to wrap around you and if you were to hold it in front of you, you would have to choose between covering your modesty or your chest as it is not big enough to cover both.
“Mel this is getting weirder by the minute,” I giggle as the scowling woman points for us to walk down the marble corridor and through a door at the end.
Behind the intricately carved wooden door lies a changing room. Old metal lockers lean against the walls of peeling plaster, and bare wooden benches run in a line down the centre of the room, down at the far end a circle of local Turkish women, chattering away. The volume is incredible. The sound bouncing around the walls and off the high ceiling of the sparse room which acts like an amplifier. They sound like a gaggle of geese all talking over the top of each other. Most of them are naked. One rather large woman with enormous heavy breasts that hang down to her waist, is wearing a pair of black lacy knickers that have a massive hole on one side so that dimpled flesh from her right buttock bulges through. Despite their obvious lack of clothing, they all appear very comfortable in their own skins and each other’s company. I assume they must all be friends and come here regularly.
The temperature and humidity in the enclosed space is unbearable, having risen what seems like 15 degrees from the cool corridor outside and I’m already beginning to sweat. Mel and I take our clothes off, folding them and putting them in our respective lockers. We’re both naked from the waist up when Mel turns to me and says,
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” whipping her knickers off and throwing them into the locker with the rest of her clothes. Chuckling to myself at the madness of what we are both doing I quickly follow suit. Completely starkers we attempt to hide our modesty with the inadequate linen tea towels as best we can.
We follow our noses through the only other door out of the changing room, located to the side of the room leaving the local Turkish women to continue jabbering away. We step through and enter another world that neither of us could have anticipated or imagined.
Behind the door lies an enormous cavernous enclosed chamber, hexagonal in shape and at least 15 or 20 metres in height. The room is dominated by a large circular marble slab in its centre which is about five meters in diameter and raised up from the floor to about thigh height. Mel and I have no idea what we’re meant to do, but there are two other women in the room, also naked, who have thrown their own tea towels down onto the marble slab and are lying prostrate on top.
“When in Rome ‘n’ all that,” I say to Mel, as we throw down our tea towels and copy the other women who are lying flat on their backs, eyes closed, seemingly enjoying the experience of being naked in a room full of strangers.
It’s only when I too lie down and look up, do I appreciate the design and structure of the building. The large domed ceiling, painted in the traditional vibrant blues and golds, is perforated with a hundred or so Moorish crosses, providing the perfect amount of ventilation for this hot Turkish bath. The heat, I’ve worked out, rises up from the marble slab in the centre of the room, escaping out of the building through these holes in the ceiling. The air shimmers with pendulous water droplets that hang like suspended stars, giving the whole space a magical quality.
As I lie on the warm marble slab I appreciate its heat, warmed from a fire below, and I soon begin to sweat. The high humidity restricting the evaporation of moisture from my skin as it warms. Despite my nakedness, surprisingly I feel very relaxed, the tension of the previous week draining easily from my muscles.
“We’d never have found this place in any official guide book,” I whisper over to Mel.
“Do you reckon we’ve just happened to stumble into a women’s only Hamam, Vicky?” Mel whispers back. “Or do you think that side door is going to open and any second now a deliciously ripped, tall dark handsome stranger might just appear?”
“...or a horrible hairy old bloke - knowing our luck,” I add as one of the other women looks over in our direction. Our childish giggles disturbing the peace and tranquility of The Warm Room. “If you could guarantee the former, I wouldn’t mind him throwing his towel down next to mine,” I say, patting the area on the slab next to me, “or he could just forget his towel altogether and just lie on top of me,” I add dryly, ignoring the hard stare from the other woman who has now rolled over onto her front in disgust. I’ve assumed she doesn’t understand English, but it’s possible she’s understood every word and therefore my disrespect for this sacred space and its rituals.
Just then the side door bursts open but rather than a tall handsome stranger, in walks one of the naked Turkish women we’d seen earlier in the changing room. She strides purposefully towards Melanie, who mouths,
”What the fuuuuuuck?” back over to me.
“Jeton,” the woman barks.
Assuming she’s just asked for the orange token we were given when we arrived, Mel dutifully hands it over. The woman then signs for Mel to roll over onto her front, to which Mel complies. The woman then rubs some oil onto her hands and begins to massage Mel’s back.
A-ha, I think to myself. This is the massage bit of a traditional Turkish massage. My mind flicks back to the gaggle of women we first saw in the changing room, as I now realise that they were not visitors to the Hamam but in fact all work here. I wonder who my masseuse will be, I ponder, trying desperately to remember what all the women looked like. However, the only woman I can remember clearly is the fierce buxom women with the enormous heavy breasts and lacy knickers.
Not big boobs and ripped knickers - please ... not big boobs and ripped knickers, I repeat over and over in my mind like a mantra. I have a feeling she would pummel me like a slab of meat at the butchers and I may not survive. I hear the side door burst open a second time and indeed Big Boobs and Ripped Knickers strides over purposefully towards me, holding what looks like a bowl of warm water. I silently groan as I prepare to be annihilated.
“Jeton,” she barks at me and I dutifully hand over the token before she also gives me the signal to roll over onto my front.
One hour later, any misgivings I had about this whole experience have vanished, as Betty Big Boobs, (as I’ve affectionately now named her in my head) has just given me the best massage of my entire life and I’m now completely chilled out and thoroughly relaxed.
First, she massaged my entire body. Pulling my limbs with one hand, whilst massaging my muscles under tension with the other. Her hands moved around my body, stretching sinews that had now softened in the heat and humidity. She dug every part of her hands, fingers, elbows and arms into my flesh, thoroughly loosening any knots and releasing any tension she found. She worked her hands all over my body from my scalp to my feet, asking me to turn over so she could repeat the whole process down the front of my body. Despite my initial reservations of being so exposed and naked - a masseuse in the UK would cover you with towels and only work on the part of your body that is exposed - never have I had an experience where you’re lying completely naked in a public space with another human being touching you. But hey, I figured, I’m never going to come here or see these people again, so how they judge my physical form will remain with them once I leave, and so I reluctantly complied.
Once sufficiently limbered, stretched and loosened she picked up the bowl of warm water, agitating it so that the liquid frothed with large moisturising soapy suds. In the bowl lay a large muslin cloth which she lifted over the centre of my back, squeezing the cloth vertically, releasing the soft, warm, soapy water onto my skin.
She slid her hands into two large exfoliating mitts, that looked like oversized oven gloves and proceeded to rub my body vigorously. Holding each limb in turn so she could exfoliate each arm and leg. My skin tingled as she expertly moved around my body, moving up and down and then once again as I rolled onto my back, all around my torso, skilfully avoiding any erogenous zones.
Once this stage of the process was completed, she gripped my arm firmly gesticulating for me to stand. I had absolutely no idea what she had planned for me next, yet I followed. She led me off the marble slab and into one of the anti-chambers that line each side of the main hexagonal room. The anti-chambers are still open on one side to the main room, but they are smaller and slightly cooler. A marble seat runs around each of them. As I followed Betty I saw one of the other women from earlier also seated in the marginally cooler air. In the middle of the anti-chamber was a stone-carved fountain with running water. She led me over to the front of the fountain and using her bowl, filled it three or four times with fresh water before tipping it over my head, rinsing my body of all the residual soap and oil and presumably anything that has been left by the vigorous exfoliation.
The whole experience was so unexpected but gloriously indulgent. My skin is glowing, and my body felts so rejuvenated as a result. Once I’d been sufficiently rinsed, and before she led me back to my spot on the central marble table presumably to relax and sweat it out some more, she’d smiled kindly, revealing a wide gap in the front of her gnashers.
In her broken English she said, “Very nice.” Her hand gesturing up and down my body, as she admired my physical form. Her words were not sexually motivated, rather just one woman paying a simple compliment to another fellow female.
It seems so odd and unexpected to have someone comment about my physical shape, let alone give me a compliment, that I didn’t know what to say in return. I’ve received so few in the past that I’ve grown up with massive body insecurities that make me constantly compare myself to others. I’m always thinking my thighs are too big or my boobs too small, so even if I have received any compliments in the past, particularly from anyone of the opposite sex I have become deft in batting them away before deleting them from memory.
No one has ever seen me naked like this before, brazenly walking around starkers in bright light and in such a public place. So to hear this compliment from a complete stranger, who I expect I will never see again, somehow it manages to penetrate my hardened outer core and even though I still can’t fully accept it, I ponder her words as I continue to lie relaxing on the marble slab, my skin radiant, and my lips break into a small florid smile.
“Well, what did you make of all that?” Mel asks as we drink our Cay tea in a cafe around the corner to rehydrate after sweating so much.
“Unexpectedly amazing. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget it and my skin feels gorgeous,” I reply, stroking the top of my forearm with my hand noticing the smoothness of my own flesh. “Where to next? The Grand Bazaar?”
“Gotta be done.” Mel drains the last of her tea. “Come on, let’s go.”
***
We walk the ten minutes or so it takes to arrive at the entrance of the Grand Bazaar, a large indoor market in the centre of the oldest part of the city. A sprawling maze of long and twisting corridors, lined with stalls and shops selling their various wares. Luxurious silk carpets, Turkish slippers, spices, pottery, fragrances and every other imaginable trinket are all available for purchase and all housed under the one roof. As with much of the other traditional buildings we’ve been in since arriving in Istanbul, the floor is made of marble and the ornate ceiling is painted yellow and blue in a traditional Turkish style. The place is teeming with people, noise, colour and exotic smells. Mel and I can’t wait to take a slow walk around, immerse ourselves in the atmosphere and see if anything takes our fancy.
“We need to find something really special for our illustrious shelf of tat,” I say.
The illustrious shelf of tat is a joke shelf which we’ve filled up with cheap souvenirs from our respective travels. It started out as a joke between us, where we would buy each other rubbish souvenirs but now we’re sharing a house we’ve combined our respective collections. So the illustrious shelf of tat is now full of plastic Eiffel Towers, small stuffed donkeys wearing sombreros, imitation Loch Ness Monsters and the like. It’s just a bit of daft fun that Melanie and I have added to over the past fourteen months.
We linger at various stalls and shops as we potter around taking in the atmosphere, deciding if we want to purchase any souvenirs, but it’s not long before we realise we’re beginning to attract a lot of attention. As much as we attempt to inconspicuously blend in with the mix of locals and tourists we soon notice that a number of young Turkish men are following us. I suppose it’s unusual to see two unaccompanied western women of our age wandering around town. Also, the fact we are Hijab-less would suggest we are not local (or at least not Muslim) and therefore we stand out sharply from the majority of local women.
I’ve only experienced this type of staring and unusual attention once before in my life. It was two years ago on holiday with my family in Bali, when visiting a local Hindu temple. It wasn’t long before I had a crowd of people around me, all trying to touch my long blonde hair. Although it had taken me by surprise at the time, there was definitely a part of my ego which enjoyed the attention and that’s the same sensation I feel now. It feels strong and powerful to be in the focus of all this male attraction.
It’s not long before Mel and I are chatting to a couple of blokes who we assume own the carpet shop from which I’ve just made a purchase.
“You like to come out for dinner with us?” one of the guys asks. “My cousin owns this amazing restaurant. Traditional. You not find food like it anywhere else in Istanbul,” he says.
Although we haven’t come to Istanbul to hook up with any guys per se, both Mel and I are single so there is no reason at all why we shouldn’t go out for dinner when asked.
“Are you sure, Mel?” I ask quietly, while the two guys linger, waiting for us to make a decision. They look only a few years older than us and they seem sincere. Why shouldn’t we go out on the town, eat, drink and enjoy ourselves? As our experience of discovering the unexpected Hamam earlier in the day has shown us, amazing experiences are waiting to be discovered with the help of local guides.
“Why not, Vicky? Come on let’s live a little.” Mel makes the decision on behalf of both of us. She turns back to the curly-haired guy who’s just asked the question and says,
“Yes, we’d be delighted.”
They give us the address and we agree to meet them later after we’ve taken our purchases back to the hotel, showered and freshened up ready for the evening ahead. At 7pm we turn up at the restaurant and immediately spot the guys waiting for us, standing next to a tree, looking down the street, presumably looking out for our taxi. The taller of the two is leaning casually back against the trunk, the sole of one foot bent up against the tree behind him. Both are smiling expectedly, seemingly happy to see us.
“Ladies!” the darker haired one of the two exclaims as we walk down the tree-lined street towards them. “You came.”
“Of course we came,” Mel says, air kissing them both as we arrive.
Both men are devastatingly good looking. Ripped muscular bodies just visible from under silk shirts. Clearly related, we assume they are either brothers or possibly cousins. One is slightly taller and with dark straight hair slicked back, a few gelled strands falling softly round his face. The other has more naturally curly hair and looks to be younger of the two. Mr Tall Dark and Handsome reaches for my hand and kisses the back of it as I approach.
“Guzelsin!” he says in Turkish, which I have no idea what it means, but judging by the twinkle in his eye I assume it’s a compliment.
“Thank you,” I reply.
As soon as we sit down the drinks begin to flow. I ask for vodka and coke. From experience I know if I stick to one spirit all evening I can hold my drink, whereas if I drink wine or mix my drinks, I’ll be absolutely legless by the end of the night and wake up with the hangover from hell tomorrow morning. The gentlemen pull out our seats for us as we join them at the table. The balmy evening air only cooled marginally by a light breeze, which makes the fairy lights in the trees twinkle above our heads.
“This is going to be a good night,” I lean forward, whispering to Mel who is sitting opposite me.
The men are absolutely charming, and they order dinner on our behalf. Before long the table is covered with a variety of meze dishes which we tuck into with gusto, tempting our taste buds with all the different flavours and spices. Everything tastes delicious, even to our western palates.
“There is no way we would have found this on our own,” Mel says to me back across the table. The gentlemen ask us about our lives in England, how we’ve ended up in Istanbul and what we’ve been up to since we’ve arrived. We tell them about the Hamam that morning, our purchases from the Bazaar and the other things we’ve done. They tell us more places we have to see, or things we must do tomorrow before we leave.
“Perhaps we show you?” the curly-haired one says, patting Melanie’s hand looking into her eyes as he speaks.
Neither of them has been to the UK, although they have friends and relatives who’ve emigrated to London. Mostly, they tell us, to open restaurants. As the conversation continues, they try to teach us some basic phrases in Turkish that Mel and I attempt without much success, dissolving into fits of giggles as the alcohol begins to take effect. At no point am I aware of our drinks being topped up, but our glasses are never empty all evening.
At some point a Turkish Rakassa dancer appears in the restaurant. Long, dark hair flowing down her back, hips swaying, jangling the coins and beads that hang off the bottom of her bra and her hip scarf. We all cheer and encourage her as she twirls her arms in the traditional Romany movements. I have no idea whether she is here for our benefit or whether this is a routine she performs every night, but I feel very lucky to be here in this exact moment experiencing this, even if I’m beginning to feel more than a bit woozy as more alcohol is poured. She climbs up onto our now cleared table to dance directly in front of us, ending her routine with the famous traditional Turkish backbend where she first kneels up before rolling her shoulders back, arms twisting in front of her, as she continues to lean back, until her shoulders reach the floor behind her. It’s a move I’ve attempted unsuccessfully in many a yoga class, yet she completes it with ease, her back now flat on the floor, her legs wrapped either side of her of her body.
At some point during the meal, Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome has draped his arm over the back of my shoulders and is gently stroking the nape of my neck with his thumb, while Mr Curly-Haired has done the same with Mel. Neither of us do anything to remove them; if anything, it feels rather nice to have the attention of such charming, good looking guys.
The meal over, somehow the bill is paid. Neither Mel nor I are asked to contribute, nor do we see either of the men ask for or be given the bill. This could be because we’re having such a good time, or could it be something else? I’m feeling very, very drunk now and I need Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome to hold me upright as we stand up to leave. The guys hail a cab and we willingly step inside, no idea where we’re planning to go next.
I must have fallen asleep leaning against his shoulder on the back seat of the car as the next thing I’m aware of is half-walking, half-being-carried up some stairs and through a door. Could this be a hotel room, or an apartment, or even the entrance to an exclusive club? I have no idea. My brain is so foggy I can’t make sense of what is going on around me. I’m aware Mel is in a bad state as well, but that she’s still there behind me being half-carried by Mr Curly-Haired. Once through the door we’re instantly plunged into darkness and I struggle to make out any of the shapes inside. I flop onto what feels like a couch or it could be a bed, I can’t be sure. All I want to do is go to sleep, I feel so tired and drunk. Amazingly I don’t feel sick. In the past if I’ve ever been this inebriated before I’d have thrown up by now, my body instinctively rejecting the overload of alcohol, but everything just feels foggy and I’m struggling to stay awake.
“Please may I have a glass of water,” I ask Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome as I desperately try to clear the fuzziness in my head.
“Of course. I get it for you now,” he replies as he disappears momentarily. I can’t see Mel, where is she? She must be in another room. He returns with the glass of water, which I take from him, taking a sip. It tastes funny. It must be the minerals in the water here. I know that the water in the South of England tastes very different from the water in the North, which is all to do with the mineral content, so I assume this must be the explanation.
“Thank you,” I slur my words of thanks. My brain struggling to stay conscious. Every blink of my eyelids feels heavier and heavier, as if being pulled down by weights attached to my eyelashes.
He takes the glass from my hand, placing it on the floor next to him, before he turns and smiles at me, but not the nice warm smile he’s given me all evening. This smile has turned into a leching smirk, and instantly I sense danger.
His next move is so fast I have no time to react, he is on top of me before my brain is able to catch up. He’s lurched forward, his full weight pinning me down as he licks the side of my face.
“What are you doing?” I scream, totally taken by surprise, all his earlier chivalry having evaporated instantly. He has his left arm across my windpipe as he holds my shoulders down, my arms flaying, trying to push him off me. His right hand reaches up my skirt, hooking one finger into the gusset of my knickers. He yanks sharply, ripping them instantly and pulling the remnants of fabric away from my body.
“No, No, Noooooo!” I scream again, the adrenaline that suddenly shoots through my body clearing the fuzziness in my brain just enough for me to comprehend what is actually happening. This is not the first time I’ve ended up in an unsafe situation like this where a man has been able to force himself on me.
Suddenly all the long-buried memories of that night at college come flooding back. How charming he’d been in the early part of the evening, buying me drinks, holding out my chair, laughing at everything I’d said. I had thought he was genuinely interested in me, that this could be the beginning of a new relationship, that he could be The One. Our flirting appeared mutual. In every way he’d appeared the perfect gentleman - until he’d got me alone, that is. That’s when he locked the door to my bedroom in our halls of residence, hiding the key from me and wouldn’t let me go. Despite all my protests and pleading he wouldn’t stop until he’d got what he wanted, raping me over and over until he’d had his fill, discarding me instantly as soon as he was spent, and I was of no further use to him.
For weeks and months afterwards, no matter how much I washed myself, I never felt clean. I would sit for hours in the bath scrubbing myself until my skin bled. I told no one. What would be the point? Who would I have told? Who would have believed me? Everyone had seen us together earlier in the evening, drinking and laughing, so it would have been his word against mine. Mostly though, I was angry with myself. How could I have been so naive to think that he would want me for anything more than sex.
My mind sharpens back to the here and now, my body flooded with adrenaline, my fight or flight instinct heightened. How could I have been so naive - again? How could I have let myself get into such a dangerous situation - again? Fuelled by fury, the anger and fear coursing through my veins sharpening my still fuzzy senses just enough for me to muster all of my strength. I struggle to breathe, his forearm pressing down hard on my neck, as other hand begins to loosen his belt. Despite this I lie flat for just a moment and stop struggling, seemingly giving him the impression I’ve surrendered. It’s just long enough for him to relax slightly and give me enough space to knee him in the balls as hard as I absolutely can.
“GET OFF ME!” I scream at him, my voice sounding possessed.
“Siktir! You bitch!” he shouts as he rolls off me and onto the floor, clasping his crotch. I know I have only a few seconds to get out of there before he’ll come after me. I pull my skirt back down, grab my bag, and even though I still feel unsteady on my legs I run around the apartment shouting for Mel.
“Mel. Me-lan-ie. Where are you?” I push through the only other door I’ve noticed, which turns out to be a bedroom and in the dim light I’m shocked to see Mel bent over, face down, over a dressing table, almost unconscious. Mr Curly-Haired is holding her down, one hand firmly placed in the centre of her shoulder blades, her dress pulled up over her back, her bare bottom exposed, her knickers long gone and judging by the scene in front of me - he is just about to enter her.
“DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE!” I scream at the top of my voice, causing him to turn around in complete surprise. The sound of my scream seems to jolt Mel back from the brink of unconsciousness as her eyes fleetingly focus first on me and then on the situation. She clenches her hand into a fist and with one hand over the over, she thrusts her elbow back - hard, directly into Mr Curly-Haired’s chest, winding him and knocking him backwards away from her. Off balance and shocked by Mel’s blow he stumbles back a few more steps. I run up to him, put my hands on his shoulders, pulling him down as I knee him in the crotch as hard as I possibly can. He falls to his knees, shouting something in Turkish, hugging his exposed genitalia. With one hand I grab Mel’s bag that is lying beside her and with my other I grab her. Without another word we flee out of the apartment, down the stairs and out into the darkness.
We have no idea where we are, or how we will get back to our hotel, both of us having blacked out during the taxi ride from the restaurant. We can see we’re in a residential area. A modern estate filled by high-rise apartments, and seemingly surrounded by darkness, the lights of Istanbul nowhere to be seen. Still running away from the building we’ve just come out of, we daren’t look behind for fear of seeing them chasing after us. We turn a corner and spot a yellow ray of hope. A yellow cab is parked up, his light showing he’s available for hire. He must have just dropped off a fare. Either that, or it was the same taxi who brought us here and he has been asked to wait, or has chosen to hang around, perhaps aware of what was about to happen to two half-conscious western girls who were being transported away from the centre of town by two local guys. We don’t care or ask and instead jump inside, giving him our hotel details and he speeds off into the night, taking us back to safety.
The next morning, both our heads are pounding and not just from the effects of alcohol. It’s clear we’d been drugged. With what? We have no idea but there’s no way our judgement would have been so impaired if we’d only been drinking alcohol. We both know our limits and even if one of us had become inebriated, as has happened in the past, the other would have taken charge. We would never have allowed the other to get into such a dangerous situation.
“Flipping heck, Vicky. We dodged a bullet there,” Mel says, a cool wet towel draped across her pounding forehead.
“No shit. You don’t have to tell me,” I reply, still badly shaken by the events of the previous evening. I’m tempted to tell her about my previous experience, to share the equally hideous episode from my past, but what good would it serve? If anything, it would highlight just how stupid we’d both been, especially when I should have known better.
“Well Istanbul has been nothing if not eventful,” Mel says raising her eyebrows at me as we lie on our separate beds facing each other.
“I don’t think I’ll forget this weekend for a very, very long time.” I reach across the void between our beds, grabbing Mel’s hand. United in our shared experience we smile weakly at each other, both of us appreciating the gravitas of what might have been. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Still badly shaken, and with jackhammers drilling inside our heads, we stay in our darkened hotel room for the rest of the day, grabbing a cab back to the airport in the early evening to catch our flight home. Looking out of the window as the plane climbs up through the clouds, I try and make sense of what has just happened. How can my judgement of the opposite sex be so poor? Why is it that I seem to attract the worst possible men? Men who either want to take advantage, men who want a mother, or men who don’t return my affections. How hard can it be to find a man who will actually want me for me, who doesn’t just want me because I’m an available vagina?