by Zack Love
“When I fell backwards into your arms?”
“Yes. The last few times, I let you fall quite close to the ground before stopping you. Had I failed to catch you at the last second, you probably would have cracked the back of your skull on the floor, which could have killed you or left you as a vegetable. So you trusted both my judgment about how long I could wait to catch you and my ability to stop your fall.”
“I hadn’t really thought of it in those terms, but I guess you’re right.”
Julien then literally swept me off my feet with his left arm, while his right arm, which had been hugging my hip, held me up as well. Totally suspended in the air, with my fate entirely dependent on the strength of his arms, I felt a twinge of fear as I saw the vertiginous drop right next to me, over the balcony barrier high above the ground below. “Julien, what are you – ”
“Now you again have to trust both my judgment and my physical strength. But this time, I’m holding you the entire time, so my arms will get tired faster. And of course, in this scenario, there’s really no question that you would die almost instantly if I make a mistake.” I wondered whether it was part of his game to scare me some more with those remarks.
As he held me there, just inches away from the balcony barrier, I tried to estimate how long his muscular arms could hold my 110-pound body. My voice was uneven as I admitted my anxiety about the whole idea. “I don’t know about this, Julien.”
“I do,” he affirmed, with rock-solid conviction. “My arms are in great shape. And you should know by now that I would never do this if there were any doubt in my mind that I could.” Still holding me up in the air, he leaned his head down and kissed me on the lips. I tried to enjoy the kiss but was too nervous about this “trust game” not being finished yet.
As soon as Julien lifted his head from the kiss, he walked right towards the edge, until he was pressed up against the metal balcony barrier with me suspended in the air, sixty-three floors above ground, and nothing but the power of his arms keeping me from plunging to my death below. The cool night air licked my legs and arms, and felt frighteningly windy at that height. I knew that the whole purpose of this exercise was to increase my trust in the man holding me, so the last thing I wanted to do was to express fear or ask him to stop, because he would then conclude that the whole thing had failed. But I really was scared and found myself thinking, “If his arms suddenly give out and he drops me, this would be such an absurdly stupid way to die, after all that I’ve somehow managed to survive!” Despite my fear, I did trust that Julien would never want me to die for any reason – least of all because of his own physical weakness or lapse in judgment. So I tried to cling to that thought, but there were a few moments when I thought that I felt his arms shaking a bit from fatigue, and it took all of my faith and willpower not to beg him to stop and bring me back to the balcony.
After about ninety seconds that felt like an eternity, I was back on solid ground. “See that? We made it,” he beamed. “I’m proud of you – I was sure you’d panic at some point, but you kept your cool.” He gave me a hug and I squeezed him tightly, as I let out the biggest sigh of relief for passing this latest hurdle with him, and still in one piece.
It started to feel chilly out, so he took my hand and brought me back inside. He closed the door after us and then led me up the two flights of stairs to his bedroom. As we approached the door, he said, “OK, now that my arms have recovered, I can give you a lift for the rest of the way.” He picked me up again and carried me over to his bed, which was illuminated only by the city’s bright lights and the giant screen TV playing silently nearby. Julien looked down at me and wryly asked, “Do you want to start calling me ‘Humbert Humbert,’” referring to the older male character in Lolita.
“Only if we think this is an impossible love,” I replied lightly.
“Well, I’m glad to see that you did the extra reading that I assigned to you. We’ll have to discuss it some time,” he added, as he laid me down on the bed.
Yet, despite all of our delightful banter and flirtation, and that terrifying, trust-building exercise that we successfully completed, our third time having sex together was the worst of all.
Once we were both naked, there was lots of kissing, caressing, tongue teasing, and exploring each other, steadily increasing my arousal. I knew that he wanted to try positions other than missionary, but I was most comfortable with him on top and not yet ready for something new. Thankfully, he correctly intuited my needs and gently entered me like he had before, infusing me with a burst of pleasure while our tongues became entangled in breathless kisses.
As our bodies started to move more rhythmically – even wildly – something (I think his foot) hit the unmute button of the remote control for his TV. I hadn’t really noticed what was playing – it was just a bunch of random lights and moving shapes projecting away in the background – but, as luck would have it, the TV sound that was suddenly activated involved the terrified shriek of a woman. The ghastly shrill of utter horror in her voice triggered a gruesome flashback from the worst night of my life, and I froze before pushing Julien off of me. “Please stop!” I yelled, shocked and suddenly confused about what was happening.
Julien pulled out and moved to my side, with concern, confusion, and hurt overshadowing his handsome features. The horror movie that was still blasting in the background just seemed to make things worse, until he scrambled for the remote and switched off the TV.
He turned to me. “What just happened, Anissa? What’s wrong?”
I looked away, embarrassed and still a bit disoriented between the past and the present. I just wanted to be alone. I felt too exposed and instinctively covered myself with the nearest blanket. “I’m... I’m sorry, Julien... I don’t feel well... I need to go home.”
“Was it something I did? I’m sorry about the TV turning on like that – it was an accident.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s not your fault, I’m just – I just need to be alone for a while,” I explained, as I gathered my clothes and started to get dressed. “I’m sorry, my head is all over the place right now... And... And I’m not myself... I don’t want to be around anyone when I’m like this... Please try to understand.”
“It’s OK. I’m sorry if I pushed you too much with those trust-building games... I might have gotten carried away a little.”
“No, it’s not that, I’m just... I’m just still dealing with things from my past.”
“I hope you’ll tell me if I can help in some way. Can I have my driver take you back?”
“OK,” I said, a bit disoriented, as I finished getting dressed. “I’m sorry, Julien.”
I felt terrible leaving so abruptly, but I just needed to be alone, in my own space, to seek out some solace.
Chapter 7: Anissa
Friday, April 18, 2014
To My Dearest,
I just got off the phone with Monique – I called her first thing this morning just to tell her that I had that terrible flashback last night. We scheduled a session for next week, and she encouraged me to try to tell you, My Dearest, about the incident, since it was something that I hadn’t yet been able to talk to her about. She thought that maybe if I first discussed it in the safest possible place – with you – I would feel more comfortable opening up to her about it when we meet.
So here we go – back to January 18, 2012 in Homs, Syria.
Just hold my trembling hand again as we descend into that tenebrous cavern where humanity lost its way and evil savages took over. But before we go back there, please forgive me for misleading you a little about what happened by omitting the details I’m about to share with you now for the first time. Just as – for the sake of my sanity and the hope of avoiding horrific nightmares – I have lied to myself every night, trying to pretend that my parents died in a car accident, I have also lied to myself, and to you, about part of what happened that night in Syria. To bring us back there, I’ll remind you that I was out in the front yard of our family home w
ith our dog, Roy, for the last time before my scheduled flight out of Syria, when five Islamist intruders invaded our property. Roy immediately barked and attacked two of them but was shot dead. I screamed, my father came out firing his gun, and then he too was shot. The bloodthirsty gang of Islamists brought us into the house, at which time my mother frantically unlocked a cabinet and started taking drugs and medicines out for display.
“Here. We have so many medicines. Just tell me what you need and it’s yours,” she said, her voice pathetically unsteady.
“That’s not necessary,” said one of the armed men. “We don’t need you to give these to us because this is now our pharmacy.”
His leader corrected him: “No, first we give them a choice.” He stroked his beard for a moment, as if he was weighing a proposal in his mind. “If they choose wisely, we don’t need to take anything because they are then one of us.” He looked at my father, who was sitting up in a chair with two men holding Kalashnikovs standing behind him and our housekeeper, Marisol, who was pressing a towel against his shoulder, trying to stem the bleeding. “As the man of the house, the choice is yours to make,” he continued.
“What choice?” my father asked in a voice strained by the pain of his wound.
“You can renounce your faith and convert to Islam, and then you are one of us. Or you can remain a Christian dog, and you will share the fate of your dog outside. He was Christian too, right?”
The other four men snickered and laughed at their leader’s joke about Roy.
“Choose wisely, Doctor. Because if you choose to stay a Christian dog, then you are not only an infidel who will get the sword, but you will get special punishment for serving the regime.”
“I don’t serve the regime. I serve the people of Homs. I help any patient who comes into the hospital – every religion and every political orientation.”
“You don’t allow Doctor Omar to give us medical supplies, so you are serving the regime, and I should just kill you now for that. But Allah is merciful and has given you the option to live by serving Islam. If you wish to accept His mercy, simply recite the Shahada and your life will be spared. The words are easy to say: There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God.”
“Yes, I know these words. They are the first of the five pillars of Sunni Islam. But I am not Muslim. I am a Christian, and I believe in Jesus Christ.”
“You are a brave man. It would be a shame not to have you helping the resistance against the infidel regime.” He took out a cigarette and lit it.
“I condemn all atrocities against innocent Sunnis, including those committed by the shabiha. And when Sunni victims come to my hospital, I treat them to the best of my ability. I am a human being and a doctor before I am a Syrian. And I am a Syrian before I am a Christian.”
“If you become a Muslim, you can continue to work as a doctor for Muslims fighting in the resistance.”
“When a bleeding man comes to the hospital, I ask which wounds to suture – not what God he prays to, or whose war he fights. And when a pregnant woman arrives, I ask whether a natural birth or a C-section is preferable, not who her prophet is.”
“By embracing Islam, you save your life now, and will heal holy warriors fighting jihad.”
“I am a Christian. And as a doctor, I heal everyone. And nothing you can do will change that.”
“So you have made your choice and you will die tonight,” he replied, resting his cigarette on a piece of furniture nearby. “But first – because you fired Doctor Omar and cut off our medical supplies – we have a special treat for you. Ahmad has fought bravely against infidels in recent weeks and deserves a reward. Especially because he has been looking for a wife.”
The two men standing behind my father and Marisol took the Kalashnikovs they were holding and hung them from their shoulders using the strap, so that their hands were now free. They each took out combat knives. One put his blade to my father’s throat, and the other started to walk towards me.
“So Ahmad will take your daughter now as his wife and Osama will make sure that you are a witness to this act. Then, if he wants to keep your daughter as his wife and she embraces Islam, then her life will be spared. Otherwise, she will share your fate. The same for your housekeeper and your wife – Osama will choose which one he wants as his wife. But we start with your daughter.”
My father and mother screamed out in horror as Ahmad rushed closer, grabbed me, and threw me down on to the nearby sofa. Hovering above me with his knife, he said, “Pull down your pants, or I’ll cut them off.” Whimpering in terror, I struggled to comply with his command, somewhat constrained by the winter coat that was still on me. Trembling with fear, I willed my fingers to settle on the waistband of my pants, yet fought their movement simultaneously. Thoughts of what I was about to experience had seized my ability to cooperate any further. I froze up. Furious at my noncompliance, Ahmad’s eyes flared with an anger that terrorized me even more.
Ahmad mercilessly took hold of my waistline and yanked everything – my pants, along with my underwear – down to below my knees. He released a sadistic smile as he saw my forced nakedness. I heard my parents’ cries wailing in the background, as the monster invaded me with his vileness. I experienced a brutally abrupt tear, an irrevocable rip of pain and defilement, as I screamed in absolute horror. After what seemed like an eternity but was maybe just a minute, I felt drops of my own blood crawling down my inner thigh. But the pain down there was strangely offset by the pain from the knife that he had been pressing against my body the whole time, just below my waistline, to ensure I didn’t resist his attack. The blade cut into my flesh a little, and the pain from that wound apparently distracted my mind a little from the far greater harm that was being inflicted upon the rest of my body. And just as I thought that I might faint from all of the emotional and physical trauma, I heard a noise that I will never forget – the loud bang of a gunshot piercing the icy, dread-filled night. The unbearable weight of my satanic attacker fell limply onto me, crushing my chest as he collapsed on top of me, blood from the wound to his skull splattering all over my face. His weight rested on me and I couldn’t endure his imprisonment any longer. I pushed the devilish thing off of me, finding that my older brother had arrived with a security guard.
I had to survive this nightmare, I told myself. I somehow had to make a difference, from a position of power and strength – not like this. I realized that I had to flee, however I could, in whatever minutes of fighting remained. I dropped to the floor, getting on my hands and knees to stay below the gunfire, as I scrambled further into our house, until I reached the corner, where I turned left towards the stairs. With the sound of fighting and shots still raging on the other side of the wall now protecting me, I stood and sprinted up the stairs as fast as I could to my room, until I reached my bags. Trying to ensure that nothing got lost in my frenzied escape, I stopped to zip my purse shut, sling it across my chest over my coat, and then put my backpack on.
In a breathless panic, I ran back down the stairs while praying to God that none of the attackers had moved deeper into the house. When I reached the bottom step, a temporary and uneasy relief washed over me as I found no intruders there. I turned left to move towards the doorway leading to the backyard. Just as I was about to leave the area and make my escape, I heard an intense volley of gunfire and several different voices yelling “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” I shuddered profusely, horrified at the thought of what must have just happened as I flew through the backdoor, sprinting as fast as I could to the six-foot fence separating Mohammed’s yard from our own.
Antoun and I had climbed it many times to fetch his football, but a moment of doubt emerged when I realized that I had never tried to do so with my backpack, purse, and winter coat on me. But then my father’s powerful words returned to me, and scaling the fence while encumbered suddenly seemed like a small feat. Nothing would stop me. I would climb that fence, and I would survive this nightmare.
I banged on my n
eighbor’s door until it opened just slightly, revealing an armed man with a concerned look, as he assessed my identity for a moment. He ushered me inside, shutting and locking the door behind me. As he led me through the house to the living room, I used my sleeve to wipe the blood off my face.
Moments later, Mohammed arrived looking distraught. “Inās, I’m so sorry I couldn’t do more to help. Samir and I together have just two guns and only he is skilled at using one. If we went in to help, we could have easily been killed there or targeted here the day after, and then I couldn’t possibly keep my promise to your father to take you to the airport in two days.”
* * *
I’ve been shaking and crying, but there you have it, My Dearest. Now you know everything. There are no more secrets or lies between us. Now you know that, in reality, I haven’t been a virgin since I was sixteen – long before I met Julien. Now you have all of the details of that hellish last time that I saw my parents alive. I had to shed many trembling tears to share everything with you, so I hope that I can now more easily talk about all of this with Monique on Wednesday.
With absurd timing – as if to remind me of the lies that I’ve been telling to Julien – I just got a text from him saying, “Worried about you. So sorry about last night. Can’t talk now during market trading hours, but I can give you priority at my office hours on campus later, if you want to talk.” Should I just be honest with him, even before I’ve spoken to Monique, so that I don’t have to keep him in limbo for almost a week – especially since I’ll definitely see him again this Tuesday, if not sooner?
As if this hasn’t been enough of an emotional tribulation, I just received an email from the MCA asking all members to attend an emergency meeting today at 12 p.m. So I have about three hours to recover from what I just shared with you, and prepare myself to walk into what will probably be another psychological tempest. Not only will I have to see Michael and Karen together (which will hopefully sting less because I’ve continued my relationship with Julien), but I will also be exposed to all of the bad news from Syria that warranted this “emergency meeting.” I’m going to go for a run and take a shower, and hopefully that will calm me enough to handle whatever awaits me at this meeting. I’ll write to you more after the meeting.