The Remix Part 2

Not so tense a wait after a while as my long travel day caught up to me.  I started to doze off on the couch when I finally got a text from him.  He’d been negotiating a price on a rug with a foreign couple and it had taken longer than he thought.  He sent me the address of the shop and asked that I meet him there.

It was so good to see him in person and be back in his arms again.  He is a great hugger.  I was so relieved that he really did want to see me again and it wasn’t just idle texting.  We ate at the shop – well, barely ate in my case, I was so nervous.  Then it was back to his apartment.

After a month of dreaming, I was back on that balcony.  I can’t explain how powerful that place is in my memory.  It’s the view of the water, the calls to prayer, the music coming from all over the city, the birds flying overhead, Zaza’s arms around me.  This is where I had my first kiss from a man who said he couldn’t stop kissing me because I was so delicious.  Istanbul will always be magical to me because of Zaza and that balcony.

The first night went really, really, really well (the man is a machine).  And guess what? Turns out I’m straight.  Not that I really questioned that, but I never had anyone around to test it on.  It seems that having a hairy man put his strong hands all over me … works for me.  Who knew?

We’d planned to meet the next night, but after wandering the city all day, I was wiped.  The next night he was tired.  I was starting to think that the first night was all we would get.  And while I understood the fatigue (I mentioned from my first trip that Istanbul is exhausting – I really can’t imagine working everyday all day in that hot sun), I couldn’t help but be disappointed.

We finally met up again that Friday when I walked to the shop.  Some tea and hospitality and I was ushered back down into the main rug room.  With his cousin standing nearby, Zaza began to display some of the rugs as he’d done the first day we’d met.  The rugs are still as beautiful as always, but I was giving him the side-eye.  After two days of no contact, I didn’t walk all that way just to be given a hard sell on a rug.  But a salesman gotta sell, so I sat through the pitch.   He unfurled rug after rug, asking me what size and color I preferred.  I had to admire the passion with which he approached the demo.  He would tell me how long it took to make a particular rug, what some of the patterns meant, and what materials went into their creation.  

The one I chose was, of course, one of the more expensive silk ones.  Those things have fascinated me since the first time he showed me that they appear to be a different color depending on how you look at them.  He supposedly gave me deal because “you’re not a customer, you are family, you are my woman”. I’m still going to have that thing appraised when I get a chance, see if I overpaid for it.

From there he led me to his favorite restaurant around the corner.  Up way too many stairs until … oh.  Yeah.  The climb was worth it. 

Being near his apartment, the restaurant had the same great view and a cozy atmosphere. I ordered some shrimp and fries, mentioning to him how I had a serious French fry problem.  He introduced me to raki, a mysterious clear liquid that turned milky white when the waiter added water.  I asked Zaza if I would have gone blind had the water not been added. He immediately said yes.  Taste-wise, raki is just watered-down ouzo.  I’ll stick to white wine next time.

We lingered for a while as Zaza arranged for a hotel room.  He had texted me before my arrival that he wanted to rent a room for my first night in town with a big bed and a shower.  It didn’t happen that first night, but on this night, he had his cousin staying at his place so we wouldn’t have any privacy.  After having his relatives find the place, we settled into a nearby hotel.  I had to laugh.  When he asked why, I just gawked.  “You just had your relatives scout out a place for you to screw your girlfriend.  That doesn’t seem strange to you?”  He just shrugged.  To him, family was just relied on to do for you, no matter the task.

My life has gotten so weird!

The next night we went back to the rooftop restaurant to have wine for me and a beer for him.  I was surprised when the waiter later set down a plate of fries.  Zaza had ordered in Turkish so I had no idea what he’d said.  I didn’t ask for them – he ordered them simply because he knew I liked them.  I grinned and started to eat, enjoying my wine, the amazing atmosphere, and the good man beside me.  And then, being the ginormous goober that I am, I started crying. Over French fries.  He didn’t understand why and I got why he was confused.  But I was genuinely touched.  He keeps explaining to me that this is just part of his culture, the man takes care of his woman.  I keep trying to explain to him that I’m really not used to being treated so well.  I cry from happiness – if he keeps being sweet, I will be sappy.  That’s just how it is.

A couple and their three kids sat at the table next to us.  Listening to them was confusing as they spoke English with a British accent but would randomly switch to French.  I didn’t have time to wonder as one of Zaza’s co-workers, another cousin (I swear the man is related to half of Istanbul), sat with us.  After a while, he struck up a conversation with the woman at the other table.  Turns out, she’s British, her husband is French, and they live in France.  She met him as a solo female traveler, so she and I shared tales of wanderlust.  We all had a great chat about travel and Zaza’s Kurdish roots.  And from the picture, you can tell that they have no problem sharing some illicit substances with their kids.

You know what sucks?  Squat toilets.  Zaza’s place is not really an apartment.  It’s a room up five flights of stairs with no kitchen and no air conditioning, just a mini fridge, and a little cubbyhole with a shower attachment.  The toilet is located outside of the room and is obviously only meant for urination.  I shudder to think about doing … anything else the human body requires.

And my thoughts were leaning toward being ill with only that toilet around.  That night at dinner, I felt the scratchy throat I’d caught in Singapore start to affect my voice.  I thought the mild irritation was getting better as I reached Türkiye.  But the runny nose, persistent annoying cough, congestion, and headache over the last couple of days were good indicators that I was indeed sick (damn it).  Having a cold is annoying.  Being sick in the summer is even worse.  Having a cold in the summer while traveling is just ew.  Being sick in the summer while far from home and trying to get my swerve on … yeah.  Not exactly making for the sexy.

There are three things that you really don’t want to deal with when traveling: assault, incarceration, or illness.  Assault includes theft of any kind, getting kidnapped, mugged, or worse.  Incarceration is pretty self-explanatory.  It’s best not to have any interaction with foreign cops if you can avoid it (although, travelling outside of America means there’s less of a chance that you’ll be shot).  Illness includes injury, hospitalization, or the nightmare of a summer cold when you really want to spend time with someone and not get them sick.

I woke up at Zaza’s on Sunday morning and one of the first things he said was that my voice was bad.  I said I needed medication, hugged him goodbye, and headed back to my apartment.  I then spent the day on the couch fading in and out of consciousness with some breaks for cough drops and nose-blowing.

A word about this couch.  This thing is deadly.  Filled with goose feathers, if you lay on this couch for more than a minute, you will be out for the count.  You’ll wake up hours later and not know what the hell happened.  A nice place to recuperate from illness.  I just needed to figure out how to get it in my suitcase.

Monday was only slightly better.  I got out a bit more, but still had to concede that Istanbul is no less exhausting when you’re sick – it’s actually worse.  I had to limit my time outside because it was so draining.  It didn’t help that it was hot as balls in July and the level of UV rays was high. I decided to extend my stay in the apartment for another week.  It wasn’t only about a man.  Dealing with another airport and the stress of travel days was just too much for me to consider while still sick.  The apartment was great, top 5 for my coziest stays on the road, and I wasn’t too eager to leave it just yet.

That Tuesday was just plain fun.  Zaza delivered my rug to the apartment with the intent of breaking it in in a NSFW manner.  We didn’t get around to that, but we did … other things.  It was playful and sexy and all the things I wanted this fling to be … in the short two hours we had before he ran off to be with family again.

On Wednesday night, I walked to the shop and we sat outside for a while then went back to the rooftop restaurant.  I asked him to sing when we got back to his place (Kurdish men are known for their singing and I knew he could sing from earlier).  I lay on the couch, enjoying the view, the breeze, the birds, and the good singing, feeling very relaxed and content.

And then he asked me for $3800 to get him out of military service.

Good feelings gone.

Suddenly, some of the behaviors I’d observed since meeting him made more sense.  There was always a distance between us that I couldn’t breach no matter how hard I tried.  Yeah, the sex thing was there, but when I’d ask him any real questions, try to spark up some conversation, I’d get nowhere.  Since we first started texting, it was all sweet talk (which I ate up) and no questions about the places I visited or what I’d seen.  I chalked the lack of intellectual curiosity to him being raised poor in a different environment.  But there was no effort made to learn more about me as a person. 

Since the first time he led me to his shop and later to his apartment, it was always with the same fast swagger while barely looking back to see if I was following.  Once I was back in the city, it was the same.  No handholding or making sure I didn’t stumble on the notoriously uneven cobblestones of the city streets.  I thought it was a Muslim practice of not showing too much affection in public.  But no.  I’d seen women in full burkas holding hands with their boyfriends or snuggling together on a blanket in the park.

Then there was the fact that he never called me by name.  In the texts and in person, I was my sweetheart, my chocolate, my caramel, my lover – never Daphne.  As much as I enjoyed the terms of endearment, I do know what love-bombing is, a psychological manipulation technique.  It just had me thinking that he couldn’t remember my name even after texting for a month – and despite the fact that the hotel across from his favorite restaurant bears my name.  He seemed surprised when I pointed it out.

There’s just nothing I like more than being played for a fool.

I gave him one last hug, told him I now feel stupid, and left the apartment.  He was calling after me in confusion that quickly turned into offense and how upset he was that I was leaving.  My phone pinged a couple of times while I hailed a cab.  I ignored them, glad that he’d only texted me and hadn’t followed me out.  The last texts he sent were about how he’d never forgive me for leaving and that I’d ruined his evening.

B!tch please.

I banned him on WhatsApp while cabbing it home and just sat there in numb silence.  I knew this was just a short-term thing, I had every intention of ending it to avoid the stress of long-distance relationships, I just had no idea that this was how it would end.  I thought his interest in me was a fetish thing (which is bad enough), but to think he only saw the letters A.T.M. on my forehead?  So much worse.

The most I can say is that it was fun while it lasted.  I’m glad he delivered my rug so I didn’t have to deal with any of those people again.  Now instead of being a reminder of him, it will just be a reminder of the beauty of Türkiye.  I will still, very proudly, display this work of art on the floor of my new home.   

There.  That’s much better.

I have always attracted vampires (and always will); people looking to either siphon off my light (or in this case, my money) or snuff that light out completely.  Some are just more appealing than others.