The brothel’s downstairs bar was thick with smoke and the smell of spilled beer on a Friday night in late autumn 1982. Outside, the rain drummed on the parked Opel Asconas and American Ford Pintos belonging to the evening’s clientele. Inside, David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” crackled from the jukebox while a group of Ramstein airmen argued loudly about the new Tom Cruise movie playing at the base theater. Frau Metzger surveyed the room from her stool like a general, occasionally barking orders in her clipped Rheinland accent. “Ayla, Room 12. German this time—big shot from Mannheim. Says he knows Turkey well.” She rolled her eyes so hard it was audible.
Ayla Yılmaz flashed a grin that could cut glass. “Of course he does. Probably ate one döner in Frankfurt and thinks he’s married to my cousin.” At twenty-six, Ayla had the kind of curves that made men stupid and the kind of mouth that made them regret it. Her black hair fell in loose waves to her shoulders, kohl-lined eyes sparkling with perpetual mischief. She wore a tight emerald-green dress that hugged her hips and a gold necklace with the evil-eye nazar her mother had pressed into her hand at Frankfurt airport four years earlier. “For protection,” her mother had said. Protection had turned out to be more complicated.
She had come from a village outside Ankara in 1978, one of the thousands of Turkish guest workers recruited for the factories. The plan was simple: work three years, send money home, bring the family over. Then the economy stuttered, the assembly lines slowed, and suddenly a pretty girl with quick German and quicker hands found other ways to earn. The brothel paid better than any factory ever had, and the hours were flexible enough to take language classes in the mornings. Ayla’s dream was concrete: her own Imbiss stand in Kaiserslautern, serving real döner with real garlic sauce, the kind that made Germans cry and Turks homesick. She feared only one thing—that the money would never be enough, that she would become the caricature men paid to fuck.
Room 12 smelled of rosewater and the faint tang of the ayran she kept in a small fridge. The walls were decorated with postcards from Istanbul—blue mosques, ferries on the Bosphorus—and a framed photo of her younger brothers kicking a football in the village square. A string of colored lights hung over the mirror, giving the space a festive air that clashed deliciously with its purpose. Ayla liked it bright; darkness made men think they could hide their foolishness.
Herr Becker was already waiting when she entered, a heavyset man in his forties with a shiny BMW key dangling from his belt like a medal. His suit was expensive, his cologne cheaper. “Ah, meine kleine Türkin!” he boomed, spreading his arms as if greeting a long-lost relative. “I spent two weeks in Antalya once. Beautiful country. Beautiful women.” His accent mangled the Turkish words he sprinkled in like seasoning.
Ayla closed the door with a click. “Two weeks in a hotel with all-inclusive raki, I bet. Sit down, Herr Becker. What can I do for you tonight?”
He launched into a monologue about how much he loved Turkish culture—the food, the music, the “passion” of the women. Ayla nodded in all the right places while slipping off his jacket, her fingers deft at buttons. She had heard it all before: the fantasy of the fiery, submissive Eastern beauty who existed only to please. Men like Becker paid extra for the illusion, and she gave it to them—up to a point.
She pushed him gently onto the bed, straddling his lap with practiced ease. “You want passion?” she purred, grinding slowly against the growing bulge in his trousers. “Then let me show you real Turkish hospitality.” Her hands slid under his shirt, nails raking lightly down his chest as she kissed his neck. Becker groaned, hands roaming greedily over her ass, squeezing as if testing fruit at the market.
“Ja, genau so,” he muttered, eyes half-closed. “Like in the hammam stories…”
Ayla almost laughed out loud. Hammam stories. This man wouldn’t last five minutes in a real Turkish bath. But she played along, unzipping him with deliberate slowness, freeing his cock—average, eager, already leaking. She stroked him firmly, thumb circling the head until he bucked beneath her. “You like that, efendim?” she whispered, slipping into Turkish just enough to fuel his fantasy.
Then he crossed the line.
“Tell me you’re my little harem girl,” he said, voice thick. “Say it in Turkish.”
Something inside Ayla snapped—not anger, exactly, but the delicious spark of rebellion. She leaned close, lips brushing his ear. “Tamam, beyefendi. But in my harem, the girls make the rules.” Before he could process, she slid down his body, taking him deep into her mouth in one swift motion. Becker gasped, hands tangling in her hair as she worked him with expert rhythm—tongue flat against the underside, cheeks hollowing, then pulling back to tease the tip until he was babbling incoherently.
When she sensed he was close, she stopped entirely. “Not yet,” she said sweetly, climbing off the bed to pour two small glasses of raki from her hidden bottle. She handed him one. “In Turkey, we drink first. Then we fuck.”
Becker downed it like schnapps and coughed. Ayla sipped hers slowly, watching him with amusement. The anise burn lit something defiant in her chest. She set the glass down and pushed him flat, hiking her dress up to reveal she wore nothing underneath. Straddling him again, she guided his cock inside her in one smooth drop, both of them moaning at the sudden heat. She rode him hard, hips rolling in circles that made his eyes roll back, her breasts bouncing free as she tore open the front of her dress.
“Say it,” she commanded, nails digging into his shoulders. “Say I’m the boss.”
“You’re—you’re the boss!” he gasped, thrusting up desperately.
Ayla laughed then, a full-throated sound that filled the room. She ground down harder, chasing her own pleasure now, clit rubbing against him with every motion until she came with a sharp cry—real, unperformed, startling them both. Becker followed seconds later, spilling inside her with a guttural shout.
Afterward, he lay panting while Ayla lit a cigarette, completely unbothered by her own nakedness. “That was… different,” he managed.
“You paid for passion,” she said, exhaling smoke toward the ceiling. “You got passion. Next time, bring better Turkish.”
He dressed quickly, leaving double the usual tip on the dresser—part guilt, part awe. At the door he paused. “You’re not like the others.”
Ayla smiled, genuine this time. “No, schatz. I’m exactly what I decide to be.”
Downstairs, Frau Metzger raised an eyebrow as Ayla sauntered past. “He looked like he’d been hit by a Mercedes.”
“Close,” Ayla replied. “He met a real Turkish woman.”
Hanno was wiping down the bar, his quiet eyes following her. She felt his gaze linger on the sway of her hips, the flush still on her cheeks. Later, when the crowd thinned, he might corner her in the hallway, his large hands gentle but insistent, murmuring that she looked like she needed “relief.” She would kneel without protest—another transaction, another layer of this strange life. But tonight she felt victorious.
In the kitchen, she counted her tips and added them to the coffee tin labeled “Future Imbiss.” One day the tin would be full. One day the smell of grilling meat and fresh bread would replace rosewater and sex. Until then, she would laugh, she would fuck, and she would never let them write her story for her.
Outside, a jet roared low over the rooftops, bound for Ramstein. Ayla watched its lights disappear into the rain-soaked night and smiled. The world was full of men who thought they knew Turkey from a plate of döner. She knew better. And soon, they would all taste the difference.
