The Red-Light Area

Rock Hard

It was a part of her world and both Hussein and Ahura knew about it. Hussein had often asked his father to make calls for Juana, but the later had always postponed it for some reason or another.

Primarily, Ahura didn’t mind the affair as long as it was to remain an affair and became nothing serious and he believed it to be a fling but got the shock of his life when his son claimed to love that woman. He had told Ahura about all of it. How much he desired, Juana. De novo, how could he approve of the relation?

The girl was hardly anything with no recognized background and promising future, and again as a father, he was left with no other option, but to make tough choices. He stopped all the financial transactions of his son for two years, compelling him to leave the woman who was to end up working as a prostitute. Consequently, all the bank accounts were seized except one that was managed by Mrs Umrah Mohammedi, Hussein’s mother.

Predictably Hussein rebelled, travelled the world with whatever he was left in his last bank account and did everything within his power to make a strong portfolio for Juana.

In Russia, he met another woman, Susan Aronson, a dancer who had contacts in the glamour industry. Pronto, He befriended Susan and wooed her to help Juana, his lover and she did. She managed to ring a couple of people who offered projects to Juana only to realize that it was too late for the deadly age bar had swallowed another talented soul as the first sign of age appeared, making her unfit.

The contact with Susan had brought a colourful insight into Hussein’s life along with the game of seduction that always wins over the rationality. They were spotted at various public places holding hands and sometimes kissing.

Susan was a daughter of the Russian home minister and belonged to a powerful background. The fact made Ahura happy, but his happiness short-lived since the heart filled with sadness when the news of Susan being engaged to her childhood lover, Adrian reached his ears yet the contacts weren’t thrown in complete vain.

Susan had a cousin who was as beautiful and intelligent as Susan was. The girl had completed her law degree and was to practice in the city. She had a brother who was an emerging politician and parents who had powerful contacts with prominent people over the world─ and the next morning, Hussein woke up to find all of his bank accounts restored and was suddenly showered with more money than he could have ever expected. He was to enjoy all the luxury if only he was to listen to his parents and marry, Kiara Aronson.

“I have no objections with your connections with prostitutes. You can visit them occasionally but I need a respectable girl to be introduced as my daughter-in-law in public. I hope you wouldn’t let me down.” Ahura had said before sealing the deal.

Deals. Ahura has been making deals all his life. The recent one was with a foreign country located somewhere in the middle east that was to share its crude-oil reserves with the city in exchange for a handsome sum.

Sultan Abu Usman, the man of virtue and Chief External Affairs Minister of Sahababad, an independent province had announced his overpowering presence to seal the deal that was proposed by Ahura Mohammedi.

Sahababad was located at the South-eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula on the coast of the Persian Gulf which was barely two hundred and eighty miles away from Dubai, the capital of the Emirate of Dubai; with the population of merely two-crore and eighty lakhs habitats as permanent residents. It was one of the presidential towns ruled over by the Al Said dynasty, the former sultanate of the region and the most influential house of the land.

The presence of Al Said dynasty on the land was said to be immemorial and that it was known to be there since rising of the time. It had developed the region to what it had become then, with its expedient natural resources: one of which was crude oil, it had become one of the top crude-oil supplying presidential towns of the Al Said dynasty and now, it had opened its arms for many foreign countries, including the city as well.

Sheikh Iblis Bin Al Said, the crown prince of Sahababad and third son of the king in line to rule the Sultanate had accepted the proposals and had sent his delegated to go through the official procedures.

To finalize the deal, the official team of Ministry of External Affairs, Sahababad, along with its minister had entered the city with an army of diplomates for a scheduled meeting with the Government.

It took around an hour for the caravan to enter the main city and the same amount of time was enough to make it become the talk of the town. Within hours, the whole murder drama had subsided down in a mist as the news of a new oil deal overtook the screen space as people celebrated it like a festival.

The economy was expected to grow at the cost of lives.

~~~

“There had been hushed murmurs in the town that some troop of Arab delegates had been invited to settle an oil deal with the nation which was proposed by Ahura Mohammedi and the convention was to be organized in the Brilliant Centre near the Parliament House that was owned by Hussein Mohammedi. It was also known that some of the Arab delegated had already occupied hotels in the town, a week prior to the arrival of their minister and had been active ever since.” I listened to the news reporter howling standing amidst the crowd, behind her cars were seen to be moving in alignment