Starting to the right of the desk and going all the way around the adjoining wall making a large letter L, stood high shelves that almost touched the ceiling of the room. The shelves were full of books. I took a quick glance and all appeared to be on Islamic literature. I walked closer and browsed through one of the top shelves. I picked out a book by a radical sheikh from Riyadh. “Why does Fiore have this book?” I asked myself. It was called A Muslim Woman’s Role in Today’s Society. But when I leafed through it, I chuckled. The inside of the book was not what its title said it was. It contained erotic art illustrations with figurative explanations on how each drawing was done. So that’s why she says she is good at drawing, I thought. I put the book back, still smiling. Clever girl!
I kept browsing and found more books on other subjects, like art, African culture, and the history of the Middle East. I found books by Nawal El Saadawi. It was at the bottom row of the shelves that I stumbled upon a novel which I had heard about from Jasim but never managed to read. The Children of Gebelaawi by Naguib Mahfouz. According to Jasim, it was considered a blasphemy because people thought it depicted the relationship between God and His Prophets, and it had been banned.
I remembered that Fiore had explained in one of her letters that it was her Arabic literature teacher who had given her those books, after she had smuggled them into Saudi Arabia. “It is easy for her, because she travels with her friend, who is the wife of one of the princes, and the customs officials don’t search the royal family.”
Fiore came back wearing her abaya, but without her face veil. Her headscarf was still tightly wrapped around her head.
After she had closed the door behind her, she raised her eyes to me. Ya Allah, I thought. This is it. We are finally alone.
“Habibi, why are you still veiled? Let me help you take that off.” I could feel her trembling hands. “I am nervous,” she said in a low voice.
“So am I,” I whispered.
I had spent what seemed like a lifetime thinking of her. In my mind, I had thought of a thousand ways to touch her. In my room, during lonely nights, I had imagined her lying naked in my arms and making the world twirl around me. But now that the dream had become a reality, we were both overwhelmed by the moment.
But our fears, like blocks of ice over our bodies, soon melted by our desire.
I stretched my hands towards her waist, and then laid them on her hips. I squeezed them softly. I pulled her closer to me. She didn’t have time to take off her headscarf, because as soon as she threw my veil on the floor, her attention turned to my lips. I was gripped by her face. I looked at her in long, adoring silence, taking in her deep brown eyes, her beautiful lips and her shining skin.
We stood facing each other for a long while.
It seemed to take an eternity before our lips met, but when they did, we closed our eyes and resisted the urge to touch one another with our hands; that freedom we gave over to our tongues.
“Habibi, let me take off the rest of my veil,” she whispered, turning around.
I stepped back to treasure every second. She undid her headscarf. I put my hand on my chest as she unpinned her hair and watched it unravel to her shoulders at the same time as her black robe slipped to the floor. She didn’t move. Her posture looked like the women on Lovers’ Hill: straight, tall, curvy and elegant. It wasn’t a dream, going back to my village of the past to imagine a woman, to bring back the beautiful Semira. This was real. I was in a woman’s room in Jeddah and she was standing in front of me looking gorgeous and confident.
I remembered the pink dress she wore last time, and how it loosely fitted the curves of her body. Today, she was wearing a knee-length black cotton skirt which embraced her buttocks tightly and a black shirt of the same material.
“It is so hot outside,” she said. Still with her back to me, she added, “Naser, can you close your eyes?”
I knew why she wanted me blind for the next few seconds. So I said, “OK. I promise.”
But this was a promise worth breaking.
She grabbed the towel and knelt to wipe the perspiration from her face and the back of her neck. She put the towel on the side, bent slightly and slipped her hands under her skirt. The pink nails rolled a shining red garment down her dark thighs and long legs; and as she straightened her back, her underwear plunged to her ankles; the red underwear with flower drawings ringed her Pink Shoes. The flowers of Eden were at her feet.
The moment she looked around, I quickly shut my eyes.
I heard her giggle. I smelt her breath. I felt her soft hand on my face. A shiver of excitement rolled down my belly when the tip of her wet lips tickled the loop of my ear with her words: “So you kept your word? You can open your eyes.”
I did immediately, wrapping my arms around her waist. I kissed her. It was only when my hand found the zip of her skirt that I stopped. I knelt down in front of her, pulling her skirt with me, the last barrier between us.
I closed my eyes. I wanted to inhale her before I saw her. I moved with my head closer between her thighs. I breathed in deeply, and seconds later, I was still holding my breath making sure that this unique scent trickled to the depth of my lungs. I had drunk and smelt what Jasim called the most expensive and best perfumes the French had ever created. But this was different. This was so exotic, so mysterious.
“Habibi.”
She stroked my head. Her fingers crawled to the back of my neck; caressing the back of my ears, and then the lines of my jaw.
“Habibi?” She stretched her hand, I gave her mine and intertwined my fingers into hers.
Holding my hand, she led me to her bed.
Suddenly everything seemed so daunting. It wasn’t like when we were on the Westerners’ only beach. This was different. It was as if her bed was a foreign land, unfamiliar and frightening. Perhaps it was the weight of excitement. It could have been the nervousness of beginners, of not knowing when to touch and how. But I had never trembled like that day when I lay next to her in her bed for the first time; and nor had I ever seen someone look so tense as she did.
My body finally thawed and my hands and fingers grasped her breasts, only for me to let go when I heard a soft scream. Was she enjoying this? Did I hurt her? Should I stop?
I tried with my mouth instead, just softly I thought as I circled her erect left nipple with my lips. Again, I heard her gentle cry. This time, I stopped.
I stretched full length; lying on my side facing Fiore.
The feeling of her skin on mine paralysed me even more. I didn’t expect that we would be so stiff next to each other that we couldn’t even say a word.
My mind suddenly dwelled on the next stage, what would happen after the kisses, and after the touches. I remembered Omar telling Jasim and me at the café, “When lovers, a boy and a girl, manage to somehow do the impossible and meet somewhere private and want to have sex, they have a term for it: “Making love like men make love to each other.” A girl must maintain her virginity. Can you imagine what would happen if she didn’t?”
I looked at her. Holding my hand, Fiore whispered, “I am sorry. This is harder than I thought it would be.”
She then fell quiet. Small beads of sweat shimmered across her face, her neck and her chest in the low candlelit room. We looked at each other without saying a word.
She pulled my leg and pushed it between hers. It felt warm and wet on my thigh. We stayed like this—my leg stuck between hers and my hands glued to her body for the rest of our time that afternoon.
It would take another three days before we talked about our first afternoon in her room. We kissed but we avoided going further. When we talked, it would be about safe things, like the book she was reading, or about my friends from Al-Nuzla, whom I hoped to introduce to her one day.
Then, on the third day, a Friday afternoon, we realised that we couldn’t let the fear of physical love get between us. We had no time to lose.
That afternoon, as we entered her flat, she told me to keep my veil on and to
close my eyes. “I have a surprise for you,” she whispered.
The room was filled with the smell of food. She led me to the bed. I sat on the edge, waiting. I could hear her footsteps leaving and entering the room, backwards and forwards. “Don’t look yet,” she would say whenever she came back into the room.
After a while, I felt her warm breath through the light cloth over my face as she said in a low voice, “Now you can take off your veil.”
I opened my eyes and saw her standing in front of me, towering above the bed. I looked down at the black high heels she was wearing. Her curly hair was pulled back. She was wearing tight jeans and a black shirt with its sleeves rolled up. The top buttons were undone. A long silver necklace dangled way down between her breasts.
“Enough looking at me,” she said, laughing softly. “Look at this.”
Her table, which was usually piled with books and homework material, was now cleared and laid with two plates, a bottle of fruit juice, glasses, cutlery and candles.
I threw off my abaya. She switched off the light. Even though it was daytime, Fiore had drawn the thick curtains across the windows for safety’s sake. Her room was as dark as night. I watched her as she moved around the room to light the candles. Soon, haloes of yellow light were spilling around her from all sides, as she floated by me.
She stretched her hand out and led me to the table. I pulled her back and drew her in tight until there was no gap between us.
I gently stroked her collarbone as if I were touching the only rose in the desert. I kissed her neck with the thirst of a pious Muslim who has sacrificed alcohol on earth for the rivers of red and white wine that run next to each other in Allah’s heaven. Then with her back still resting on my chest, she twisted her head towards me and gave me a quick kiss; she pushed against me with her buttocks and moved off to the table.
When I looked down, I saw the delicious food on my plate: rice and fried chicken, neatly placed with some salad leaves as decoration.
But my eyes were hungrier than my stomach. I thanked her for the meal but I couldn’t stop looking. I wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked; how her neck would have carried all Nefertiti’s golden necklaces and there would still be room for my kisses; how I loved the way she combined elegance with depth, love with strength, Egyptian blood with Eritrean.
But I couldn’t say anything. It was like learning a new language, her language. And stuttering words would not be the trait of a dedicated lover.
She was wearing pink lipstick that stood out against her dark brown skin, which looked even darker in the dim light. I wanted to see more of her face, so I moved all the candles on the table closer to her until she looked like a goddess in a temple shrine.
Suddenly the azan was announced for the Friday prayer and the spell was broken.
Fiore spoke first: “In half an hour the imam will arrive. Let’s hope his sermon doesn’t mess up our date.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” I groaned. She leaned forward, poured juice into the two glasses and passed one to me saying, “For you, darling.”
We started to eat. This was the first time we had eaten together, and we were both transported by the unfamiliar situation. I closed my eyes to listen to the way she chewed her food and sipped her drink. As she poured the last of the juice into our glasses, she glanced at me and looked away smiling.
“What?” I asked softly.
“It is strange,” she said, “how good I feel at this moment. I am just happy that simple and beautiful things can exist in life. All it takes is to go out and search for them.” And then she added, like an afterthought, “Patience and courage are the key to everything.”
After the meal, I complimented her on her cooking, and rested my hand on hers and looked at her in silence.
“Naser?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think less of me for what I did to get to meet you and for inviting you here to my room?”
I answered with a question, “Do you think less of me as a man for answering your calls and for doing what you asked me to do?”
She shook her head emphatically.
“Then nor do I,” I said.
We looked into each other’s eyes silently; only our fingers moved as they crawled on top of one another.
Then: “We have worked so hard to destroy the distance between us; for us to be in my room, yet, there are still obstacles to overcome,” she suddenly said.
“I am sorry about what happened the other day,” I said, “the first time together in your room.”
“I am sorry too,” she said. “To be honest I thought it would be easier. I thought my desire would melt away my fear.”
“Do you think it was too soon?” I asked. “Maybe we should wait…”
“Darling, I have been longing for you for so long and I worry that tomorrow might never come for us. Shouldn’t we take each day as it comes?”
“But…” I stopped, struggling to finish my sentence.
“Do you want to tell me something? Please, habibi, say what’s in your mind.”
I hesitated.
“Habibi? ”
Holding her hand, I scratched her thumb. “OK,” I said, telling her about what Omar told Jasim and me, about how single girls and guys make love in Saudi Arabia. She chuckled.
“Why are you laughing?” I asked her.
“Because it is funny. Your friend Omar seems to speak with authority as if he knows all the young people of this country. Habibi, maybe some girls do what Omar said, because they like to have fun with lovers before they are arranged-married. But I love you.” She stopped, as if she wasn’t sure what she was going to say next. Then: “Habibi, I want us to make love like a man and a woman.”
She was biting her finger as she waited for my reaction, but I couldn’t manage a word.
She tilted her head, holding my hand.
“Fiore, I am so…I am just so worried about you. If anything happened to us…Just imagine what will happen to you if your father finally manages to force you into a marriage and your husband finds out that he was not your first?”
“You are the only man I think and dream about. I am with the man I want and that’s why I want to share all I have with you. I own my own body. My father doesn’t. I choose who I want to sleep with, and I have chosen you.”
As I crossed my arms across my chest to temper the beating of my heart, the second azan sounded, announcing the start of the Friday sermon. We looked towards the window as if the imam was standing right there, and braced ourselves for his voice which would thunder through at any moment.
I stretched out my hand and caressed Fiore’s face. The blind imam started his speech. We both fell quiet, absorbed in our thoughts. Only the imam’s voice could be heard; his speech was about jihad.
“Ya Allah” Fiore exclaimed, raising her voice. This was the first time I saw her agitated. “He and his virgins! When is he going to stop using us women as bait for war?”
I wanted to tell her that the best thing to do during the imam’s sermon is to think about beautiful memories instead. But I didn’t want to be a preacher myself.
She rose from her chair and came towards me. She put her hands on my thighs. Her necklace dangled before my eyes, and the sight of her breasts beneath her black shirt hypnotised me.
She kissed me on the cheek and straightened up. She slowly undressed. She turned around and began to blow out the candles, those furthest from the bed first. It was like watching a lioness walking in a confined place, rattling the cage from one side to another. I stood up and followed her, a lit candle in my hand, lighting her way from behind.
She stretched out her hand, keen to extinguish the last candle in the room.
“No,” I said, “a goddess should never be covered, not even by darkness.”
44
WE MET EVERY day after college and most of the days during the weekends. Fiore did her housekeeping early in the morning, so that she could spend the rest of the day with me. We we
re so wrapped up in our happiness that we didn’t think about what was waiting for us if we made even the smallest of mistakes. But sometimes I wondered what would happen if we left the room unlocked and her father came in while we were silently lost in each other’s world. But Fiore said that he never came to the women’s section of the house when he was told there were female visitors around. And her father never suspected a thing. Whenever we passed him in the entrance hall, he would bow his head. Her mother never came to the room either. When I asked her about it, Fiore simply repeated what she had said that day at the beach: “My mother understands about love, because she never experienced it.”
We were obsessed with discovering one another’s bodies; in Fiore’s room with the curtain drawn against the daylight it was as if this was the sole purpose of our lives and nothing else mattered. We were taking our revenge on lost time. We would gaze at one another as if we were browsing through a never-ending picture book, which was magically different each time we opened it. With every azan that was announced, with every speech we heard from the blind imam, and with every sighting of the Jeep, of Basil and the religious police, I realised that the special world we had created together could be wiped out at any time. But we were determined not to be stopped by anything, not even by the fear of an uncertain future. We were intent that should they cut our love affair short, then they would not leave our bodies aching for more, our desires unfulfilled.
Maybe it was because she had been hidden from me for so long that I preferred her to be naked in the room. When she would complain, jokingly, that I didn’t appreciate the clothes she had picked out carefully, I would teasingly reply that her own skin had long won the battle on the catwalk in my eyes.
We only had freedom in her room and we expressed this freedom with our bodies. And we had much in our armour to inspire each other’s creativity, as we found out.
One afternoon, when the sun was blazing outside and we had shut out the world as usual, I told her that I had an idea that could make every bit of her body glow like Scheherazade.
2008 - The Consequences of Love. Page 19