The Secret One
I don’t know when we crossed the threshold of our inappropriate relationship. Was it the first time we hung out alone, the first time one of us looked at the other a little too long, the first time we went to dinner, the first time we kissed? It’s difficult to point to the beginning of an affair which remained our own private secret throughout its existence.
He was completely different than I. Other than the age gap, he was white in that wholesome, almost corn-fed way, a healthy athlete who would have been entirely boring to my dissident teenage self were it not for a mischief in his eyes which most people mistook for innocent charm. He was in the middle of a divorce, while I was still a virgin.
Despite the constraints of sneaking around, we spent endless hours playing cards, watching movies, fooling around, and drinking wine on his rooftop. It was the first relationship in which I’d had the freedom and time to fully explore another person’s body. It was with his pretty, circumcised dick that I developed a more nuanced approach to oral sex. (Although, after the first time I went down on him, he said “You’re good at that. I didn’t think you would be so good.” I’m still not sure what he meant by that.) Prior to him, it hadn’t occurred to me to be thoughtful about blow jobs – most teenage boys are so happy to have a mouth down there they don’t really care what happens.
At the time I didn’t marvel at his maturity, or at how much cooler and more human he was than the idiotic boys around me. I simply went along with it, glad to have found someone I lusted after who was also comfortable with himself and whose conversation wasn’t predictable or mind-blowingly shallow.
Because he’s not an asshole and also, probably, because I seem unmalleable, he never pressured me into have sex. Sure, there were lots of heated moments where we had done everything but, and there was aching weight and wetness and he was almost inside me and he would say something desirous, but I held my ground pretty firmly. There was a time when I showed up and announced that I wanted to have sex, but then right before it happened it just didn’t feel right, I was too nervous and sober and I didn’t want to deal the complicated question of whether I should have waited for someone who wasn’t almost twice my age.
Of course, he ruined the first half-dozen boys who followed him for me. They really didn’t stand a chance. The most intelligent and interesting amongst them still behaved in puzzlingly juvenile ways. Their communication was stunted and their desire a being of its own, one which they seemed almost afraid of, or at least embarrassed and unsure about. I would, for a long time, regret not making him my first, fume over how much better it would have been with him.
I often wonder how his memories of me are colored. We were together during one of the hardest periods of his life. I am sure that part of what he valued in me (other than my body which was rather fit at the time) was the simple comfort and companionship of another intimate human being at a time when he was left alone to deal with the shattered remains of his marriage. Sometimes, when I was alone at his house, I would dig through albums and notebooks, curious about this woman who had broken him, and about what he had been like with her, in love with her. I saw pictures, her in the street, looking away from the camera, beautiful in a stark kind of way. I read emails, incriminating ones. I never told him about my illicit investigations, I always pretended I knew only what he told me. I hope he has found someone else – he’s one of the good ones.
City man
He looked like the city personified. I had never before met anyone who so completely embodied the character of a place. A microcosm of my urban environment in one flesh-and-blood package. He was tall and well-built, like someone who had worked hard at something his whole life. His skin had an almost greasy patina to it, a mixture of his sweat and what he had picked up of the dust floating about the city. The way he dressed, not quite in fashion, not quite put together, but smart in a flashy, almost vulgar kind of way.
We should not have gotten along at all, but we did. We went head to head the day we met – not just pushing each other’s buttons, but pushing each other, to do more, think bigger, be more…spectacular. Yet somehow it was all so messy. He made my temper flare up in a way that is completely uncharacteristic. We seemed to multiply each other’s energy, and it was always overflowing, sloshing about dangerously (and wastefully), like water in a capsizing boat. That should have been a sign. Unfortunately, the generator effect was probably caused by the ridiculous magnetism between us. It sounds cheesy, but it’s the only accurate way to describe that uncontrollable, irresistible combination of attraction and repulsion. I realized it was the same way I feel about the city. Creepy as fuck.
It was inevitable though, the sex.
“I knew it at hello.”
His voice was hoarse as he unbuttoned my shirt in the dark. I had known too, I thought. I had thought I was imagining it but I’d known. His smell was filling my head like a cloud of opium. We were naked and attacking each other, ripping each other apart; it was salvation and retribution rolled into one. And it hurt like hell. He was huge, not just in length but in girth, and I had difficulty enough getting him into my mouth; I was screaming when he pushed into me, sitting in his lap, legs knotted around his convulsing form. I wanted to stay like that, impaled with his dick halfway to my heart, until we fused into some nightmare of Rodin’s.
His conversational choices were nightmarish too. First it was “Don’t touch my legs! No one touches my legs!” I froze in startled concern (What had I done?) until he explained how he had had a serious accident and was still shell-shocked by it. Moments later it was, in Arabic, “Make me a child.” Thrust. “I want a baby. “ Thrust. “I want you to have my baby.” Thrust. “I want to fuck a child into you.” Thrust. “We could have a home together.” Thrust. I commented with the stifled screams of a tangle of primitive emotions. There was something viscerally thrilling, somewhere deep down in my animal being, about hearing those words but I was desperately grateful for Durex nonetheless. Some part of me was stunned, maybe even scared. But this wave of abandonment, this loosened grip on sanity, was not going to last, and I did not want to think now about what I’d think about this later. That was a task for reason, and here was clearly none.
He cried afterwards, and said he was confused and sorry. I didn’t know what to do; the spell was broken and I was just as puzzled. I did not understand the way this man made me feel; the overwhelming simultaneous urges to kick him and kiss him, fight him and fuck him, were too much for me to handle. Plus I was now thoroughly disturbed. This was clearly a powder keg situation that needed to be stepped away from before it exploded all over us. He seemed just as panicked so I decided to be the man, save us both and step out.
“I don’t know what I want,” he called out after me.
I did. I wanted a cigarette and a stiff drink. I also had the inexplicable but embarrassingly overpowering urge to cry in my turn. Since I was out of eyeshot, and because I had been told it was healthy to let oneself do so occasionally, and because what the hell he was a nutjob too and surely it was pardonable under the circumstances? I allowed myself to crumple into a corner and bury my leaking dignity in a wad of toilet paper.
A few soggy minutes later I was dressed and had gotten my things. I went in to say goodbye.
“Will I see you again?”
“Yes of course. But not like this.” Only through glass, I thought. Only through glass.
The connection
I was visiting a friend in a Non-Arab Country, and we went out with her impotent boyfriend, his brother and his friend. They were dull people, and it was a dull city. I remembered having once read that there were no dull people, just unimaginative questioners and I started enthusiastically talking to the friend, Steve. He was a chef, and talked to me about how sandwiches did not afford a proper channel to his creativity, and complained that girls were always trying to get him to cook for them. I nodded with strained interest, and drank deeply. Everyone did. Conversation was flagging.
We went to an argileh place. The flagging conversation took a desperate turn; someone made a joke about suicide and Steve leapt from his seat and suddenly blurted out that his father had killed himself. Our loud conversation was immediately stilled.
Sometime later, we were standing on the street, possibly flirting and he said something about how I was too pretty for him, and I don’t remember what polite platitude I responded with. Looking at the ground he said, “Come on. Don’t pretend you don’t see it.” I didn’t see anything, and in fact had no idea where to look. He pointed at his face, at which I peered while repeating that I had no idea what he was talking about. He insisted that I was making an awkward attempt to play dumb. Eventually after close examination I saw a faint scar running across his nose and cheek. He mentioned his troubled teens, a knife fight, a record, parole officers.
Nevertheless it wasn’t surprising to find myself at his place. I was drunk enough to feel that human contact, particularly of a sexual nature, was natural and even inevitable. By now, too, I was feeling that we’d shared intimate moments.
The imaginary connection was swiftly shattered when my hands felt his flabby white stomach and he proved to be a biter. Extracting a nipple from his teeth, he pushed his wobbly thin uncircumcised penis inside me and I felt very little. It was then that I remembered my handsome boyfriend. The contrast was sharp.
Afterwards I lay in his arms reluctantly wishing myself otherwhere. My reflections were interrupted by a surreal conversation: he was reading my thoughts in startling detail, forcing me to confront my guilt and disappointment, which I had wanted to keep hidden. His insight disarmed me, as did his obviously heartfelt wish that I didn’t have to leave that city, because we could have been something special (only he used a much less clichéd expression). I thought to myself: maybe. I don’t normally do damaged, but I’ve never been able to resist a man who prefers brutal honesty and strips my bullshit away. Most people politely don’t delve too deeply into what I want to hide. I return the favor, letting them draw some counterfeit emotion over their real ones when they so choose. But I always fall for the ones that don’t let me get away with it.
I spoke to him on the phone once or twice after I went back home. It was never going to be anything, and I had cheated, but I didn’t regret the experience. For a moment or two I felt known and understood, and with such unutterable gentleness that I was exposed, relieved.
Couch incident
We made out the first time under a blanket on a rooftop. It was weird – playful but definitely bizarre. It’s always a bit strange for me when the guy is obviously religious. I liked him a lot; he was easy to get along with and a lot smarter than I’d expected. Pretty charming too I suppose, and although I pride myself in not falling for that kind of thing, I know I often do. But there was this little thing in the back of my mind that was suspicious of being judged (hypocritically I might add). We didn’t do it that night. That came a few weeks later. We had spent the day at my friend’s house, working and listening to music and smoking. Everyone had gone to sleep – in fact, so had he, passed out on the couch across from me, curly hair matted to his forehead, stripy boxers sticking out the back of his pants. He was small but cute nonetheless. I’d woken up to drink water, and was groping about for the bottle when he woke up and turned round, looking straight at me.
“What?” I said, bottle halfway to my lips.
Instead of answering, he came over to my couch, bringing his blanket with him. Basically laying down on top of me, he covered us both with the blanket and started kissing me. I’d wondered if we were going to have sex, if he indulged in that activity, and I supposed now I’d gotten my answer. He wasn’t a bad kisser, but I think possibly his lips were too thin, because it felt a bit as though I were being pecked. It was all very hurried, his hands were all over me and then all at once one hand was unzipping and pushing my pants down and the other was doing the same to his. We hadn’t said a word so far. I reached down to see how things were under the guise of general stroking; not bad but no cigar. Suddenly he started climbing up me and it became clear that he was going to try to stuff his penis into my mouth.
“No, no, let me do it my way!” But of course by this point I didn’t want to do it my way or any other, so I hurried things on to the general copulation part. A few quick thrusts, a moan or two accompanied by an expression of tortured pleasure (on his part, my interest having gradually waned), and that was that.
I could feel the colour and feeling draining out of me. I was ‘going cold’: I knew it was basically over. It often takes sex to tell me that it’s all wrong – somehow up to that point I manage to do a half decent job at self-deception, but then I am in his arms and it’s all discord and jarring wrongness. And then the off-switch is flipped and there’s nothing to be done about it but carefully extract myself from his arms, bed and life. Or in this case, couch.
The one that got away
He was my first ever ‘boyfriend’ – I was 14 and he 15. It was a whole star-crossed lovers thing; we met, fell in love, and could never somehow manage to be together. At least that’s how it looked from my perspective.
Ten years later, he was here to visit again – our encounters were like some exquisite but brief rare bloom that lives only a few weeks out of every few years. We were both all grown up, and you could feel it. It was all empty chatter and laughter when everyone else was around, but then everyone went to bed, and we were left alone on the terrace listening to ’oud and Arabic love poetry under the stars. There were so many things left hanging in the air unsaid that I almost started swatting them away, but as it was they were left to buzz madly around the air between us. I started to get cold, and he took the blanket on his shoulders and wrapped it around the both of us, drawing us tightly together and warming my hands in his. I could feel my heart start to throb in the back of my throat; I didn’t want to look at him, I thought I might well up or do something stupid like that. Or that my heart might audibly break into pieces. But the next thing I knew we were kissing like there was no tomorrow, the kiss that should have come years ago. It felt like some kind of dream. When we got to the bedroom everything was very homey and sweet. I changed into my pyjamas (sadly adorned with childish things, but he’d seen them before a million times). He turned down the lights and we got into bed, as he stroked my cheek and told me I was beautiful. And then the fireworks.
It was passionate, tender, loving and wild; all those good things that a girl dreams of sex being, and I’d been in love with him for so long, that I was almost in a trance. And he is perfect, physically and in many other ways besides. Some tiny part of me was in hysterics that I was making love lying down, sitting up, standing, against the wall, the desk, the chair, and in the air, with the most handsome Arab man – scratch that, any kind of man – I’ve ever had the visual pleasure of knowing. Not to mention he’s one of my dearest friends, so I was glad that at that point my frequent insecurities seemed nowhere in sight, and all I could think about was this. His arms around me, the fact that he was inside me, every last curved inch of him, finally.
I knew there must have been a tear or two, I felt them streaming back into my hair, now plastered to my forehead. Being exposed as vulnerable is never my favourite thing, but I didn’t care. Let him see me cry. I was coming as though I’d never come before and at this point the tears were the least of my concerns; he was kissing me all over and I thought I might dissolve into a million pixels and vanish in a cloud of ecstatic white noise. But I didn’t. He held on to me until I’d solidified again, a sobbing, shaking, soaking mess in his lap. I couldn’t speak and didn’t want to. I was terrified I would break the spell, or dream, or whatever this glimpse of an alternate universe was. And so we sat there in silence through the night, holding on for dear life, as I cried silently into his shoulder, because I knew tomorrow he was leaving and this would have never happened.
In the morning we made breakfast together and teased each other like old times and it was nothing but a dream. The rest of the day played out like any other of those rare treats when he’s in the country: a mad rush to see other friends, food, shopping for ties (I dutifully picked them out), and a trip to the airport. We hugged as usual, but this time he grabbed onto my arm as I was turning away.
“Love,” he said, “always.”
I smiled and walked away. I know, I thought. In that alternate universe we were never apart.
Older man
I don’t remember where I met him, just that it was through a girlfriend. He was more than 10 years older than me and did not seem to have done much with the extra years. The preliminaries are vague, but the usual summer fling traditions were observed: days at the pool, beer, dancing. I watched the sun drying on his surreally soft and firm skin, and reflected that his body seemed not to show the passing of the years. Only his somewhat lined face did…I didn’t look at it much.
We flirted and played in the pool, exploring each other’s bodies underwater, pretending that we believed we were unobserved. On the way home we sang showtunes - a man with his sexual track record could afford to indulge such effeminate behavior. Not that there are many gender-based demarcations regarding entertainment in the Arab world.
Perhaps it was that night, or another night. I was uncomfortable with having sex under his parental roof – they were at home, but seemed accustomed to the comings and goings of women and the locking of doors. He also had something of a breath odor issue – it was strange, something like peas. I endeavored to turn my head away and focus on the rest.
At first I was only moderately engaged, mildly turned on. But then he took off his trousers and I saw the holy grail of penises: the upwardly curved model. I’d heard about the advantages of this in some sexy novel that made much reference to scimitars and the like.
We were in the missionary position, typically one that does little for me, and suddenly something shifted and it became incredibly awesome. Just as I was starting to feel that something possibly brilliant was about to happen – the elusive g-spot stimulated at last! – he was finished. I felt him shrinking away and was disappointed. Perhaps there was some oral action after that, but it wouldn’t have sufficed.
I never went back to his bed, though. Perhaps I left the country, or maybe I didn’t think he could hang in there (literally) for me to fully explore the comma-shaped penis. Perhaps his old face, his dullness, his general air of patheticness. It was probably the parents though…it seems reasonable not to let go of your inhibitions around the parents of sexual partners.
Ripple
We had gotten to know each other over email, after having met once or maybe it was twice before on his visits to my city. It was in those short, illuminating bits of correspondence that I saw what I began falling for. He was the whole thing: funny, self-deprecating, a brilliant mind presented with boyish charm. A handsome, interesting face, and good hands.
Then he moves here, for reasons unrelated to me. At first it is all simply more flirtatious banter, but I notice the way his eyes linger, the way he looks slightly stunned when he sees me with my hair down for the first time. There is a night where we go to a party with a large group of friends, a night which turns into morning with people still drinking. At some point him and I are sent on an errand to his flat to procure a cable necessary for music-playing. He turns on one light, starts looking around the living room. I stand next to his coffee table, talking with the kind of clear, sparky energy people have only when they are still getting to know and still trying to impress somebody. He steps towards me, looks me in the eye, and kisses me, soft, but without timidity. I kiss back, thrilled. He puzzles me by then completing his search and heading out the door, leading us back towards the party. I quell my urge to disrobe us both and have sex right there on the living room’s unwashed carpet, and follow him instead.
Later, after the party has finally disbanded, we end up in his bed. Clothes strewn about, he is still somehow surprised when I ask if he has a condom. I don’t want to tell him that I have one in my bag, lest he think I had been planning this all along (had I?). I’m still learning how to be eager while maintaining some kind of feminine, chase-able allure, an act I’m not sure I have ever mastered.
Of course he has no condom, so we use mine, and despite the detested latex barrier it is all good. It is fluid, and though there is a notable difference in our heights we fit and read and follow each other as if we have been doing this for a long time. I don’t come, but I don’t care. Afterwards, he is sweet. Kissing my shoulders, he tells me he hadn’t been expecting this, gives me a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt to sleep in. We don’t do it again when we wake up later in the morning – I am trying to be responsible about the condom thing, and he doesn’t want to pressure me. We make out and crack jokes and eventually wander outside for breakfast with his roommates. Already I feel I must retreat, and while I have a good time I am happy to walk down the street in the cold air, alone, to find a cab home.
We would do this, again and again, but somehow we would unravel each other outside the bedroom. He would become insensitive and neurotic, and I cold and tongue-tied. But inside, in bed, we would be like water, nothing between us but air.
The usual
We watched TV. Afterwards I went to take a shower, not having taken the necessary measures earlier. After depilation and freshening of the area I went back to my room, padded around putting product in my hair and deodorant. He watched me, sitting up in bed. I put on something deeply unflattering and slid into bed, after the usual debate about the nightlight. I definitely didn’t feel like doing anything sexual, my interest in Omar having waned with familiarity and recent experience of the better-endowed. We slipped into our familiar spooning position and whispered sweet nothings to each other. He has a nice line of sweet nothings.
We ended up having sex somehow - wild sex too, the kind where you neither know nor care who else is present and can only hear, and sometimes see, the roaring in your ears. He knows his way around I guess, but on this occasion I think it was merely a coincidence that he pushed the right buttons. Soon I was kissing him as I only ever kiss men I love. Properly engaging with saliva, the only sexual body product I find frankly disgusting. It worked – penetration rarely works for me, one of the 70% of unlucky women in the same position. Proper arousal, they say, is key. Most men don’t seem to know much about that though. They insist on poking you with sharp jabby fingers, introduced at inopportune times. There was none of that this time though.
We didn’t come together of course. When I was done I succumbed to being turned this way and that, smiled when he said “You’re beautiful”, and made the right noises. With sincerity. Afterwards, he couldn’t find the condom and of course we found it in the obvious place. Me. We had the usual conversation: “I’ve told you to hang on to the end of it!”
“I usually have other things to think about at that time!”
“Now it’ll have all escaped.”
“No, it didn’t.” Soothing kisses. We passed the tissues around and fell asleep naked, switching spooning positions seamlessly throughout the night with the ease of habit.
In the morning he whispered, “Good morning, sexy,” like he always does and we dozed off again. I was just seeping into his warm back when I unexpectedly found my hand on his dick. Surprised at this unusual act from him, I complied with the expected stroking, even though I was certainly not in the mood. He dove under the covers, and I made the right noises again…but it was not to be. You need way more foreplay than that, and to focus instead of trying to smell coffee mysteriously brewing. He gave up and resurfaced when I tapped him on the head. It was his turn, I sensed. “Oh come on, you know I hate doing that in the morning,” I said.
“But you don’t do it ever!”
The rare criticism stung me into action, to great effect I might add. But he was considerate enough to give me my own head tap, condom in hand. We did it spooning; a great position. If only there was a position that was exactly the reverse of that, so I could run my hands over his tight butt and firm stomach. Penises don’t bend that far, however. Sadly.
The rest of the morning faded away like so many others in coffee, showers, cigarettes, and the buzz of text messages.
One night stand
We met at a party in the desert. I was quite drunk and apparently feeling amorous, because I went round kissing people (as I later found out). Somehow I ended up with this boy – I say boy because he had an adorable baby face, with these cute cheeks and floppy hair. We talked for a long time, although the communication was difficult because we didn’t speak the same languages well enough. He and his friends said they’d give me a ride home, except somehow he and I ended up in his flat. We started kissing the second we got in the door. It was ridiculous and slightly surreal, because in my foggy consciousness it felt like I’d waited my whole life to kiss this boy. Which would’ve been great, if I’d been sober enough to remember it properly (except of course, it occurs to me if I’d been sober, I might not necessarily have felt the same way. At all).
I do remember that it was pretty great though, and he was sweet but assertive and seemed to know exactly what to do. We ended up in the bedroom, sans clothing. Again, like I said, non-crucial bits of my memory like how and when and why seem to have vanished, so it’s like a collage of little moving snapshots. Or something. Suddenly it seemed hot and sweaty (maybe steamy is a better word) in the room, and we were all tangled up in bed. I remember there was much tossing around, of me. I felt like an oversized ragdoll – but strangely not in a bad way. It’s not often that a man has the upper body strength to manhandle me in that offhanded fashion and I have to say it was quite exhilarating (and also flattering).
Anyway, it’s the next bit that’s really interesting (seeing as everyone can fill in the blanks in the bedroom scene from there). I don’t know how this happened, but I must have lost my shirt, because I ended up having to walk two blocks to my car in my lacy camisole. (How my car ended up at his house in the first place is another mystery.) Thankfully I’d made it into the car by the time a lone cop wandered over; he made a beeline for me of course, asking what I was doing there, and if there was a problem. I was panicking and trying to start the car so I could drive off in a cloud of burning rubber when the boy shows up – he’d wanted to make sure I was okay. Cute. He tried to make the cop go away and passed as local for all of three seconds until the cop caught on to his white-boyness (no Arabic to speak of, though I’m sure he thought otherwise). He ended up giving me his shirt, and I drove back to my house, with him shirtless beside me in the car. Why, I’ve not a clue. Surely it would have been a better idea for him to go home? As it was I had to stand awkwardly under my house taking off his shirt to give back to him so he could make his way home, probably with difficulty at that hour.
He asked me out for coffee the next day, and it was so awkward I had to decide to never see him again. I think he’s left the country, which is just as well.
