She smiled knowingly when she saw him struggle to avert his eyes. She stepped directly in front of him so that she was in line with his point of concentration on the wall. She folded her arms.

“Let’s understand each other from the start. We have a lot in common, because this outfit I’m in is sneaky and very results-oriented. Just like you guys. It’s like…” She paused, cocked her head to the side, and gave him a thoughtful squint. “Do you have kids? Well, you know how when you talk to a little kid it’s best to stoop down, get on the same level with them and make direct eye contact?” She leaned forward from the waist, planted her hands on her knees, and looked him straight in the eyes. “What’s happened is, because of what you guys did, my government has quietly given a few of us permission to get down on your level, follow me?”

Very deliberately she extended her right hand and placed her open palm on his bare chest. The whites of Rashid’s eyes enlarged as he shied away. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Is it true that Ali, the husband of Muhammad’s daughter Fatima, said that ‘God created sexual desire in ten parts; nine parts were given to women and only one to men’?” She removed her hand, straightened up, and said, “I just felt your heart speed up in your chest. I understand this is not the most comfortable setting. You almost naked, me…uncovered.”

She placed her hands on her hips. “But the fact is, we don’t have a lot of time, you and I. That’s for other people; the suits who work in offices and flirt by the watercooler and generally fuck things up.”

Rashid had turned his head away from her and now fixed his gaze on a different wall. So she reached over and gripped his thick hair in her left hand and drew his head back toward her. She gauged him carefully, the way he tensed and planted his bare feet on the carpet. An inch shorter than she, and soft in the middle, but he had powerful soccer legs.