African Prince Comes to Boston

Looking at the young blonde woman lying in bed next to him, Constantine Al-Sharif was deep in thought. Gently, he kissed her forehead. Sighing, he tried not to think about the past and failed miserably. Born and partly raised in the City of Bousse in the nation of Burkina Faso, Constantine had felt odd his entire life. The son of Jacob Al-Sharif, a Lebanese merchant who married Fatima Teshale, a Burkinabe woman whom he brought to Lebanon, he was made painfully aware of how different he was as a biracial guy in this small west African nation where he was born. To the few Arabs living there, he was too Black. To the Africans, he was too Arab. When the family moved to Lebanon, things were even worse. The Lebanese weren't fond of dark-skinned people and didn't hide their disdain for him.

Racism is ever present in Arabic societies and even the son of a wealthy man cannot escape its sting if he happens to be dark of skin. Constantine learned that lesson early on at the prestigious private school his parents sent him to in the south end of Beirut City, the Capital of the republic of Lebanon. Constantine endured this nightmare, swearing that someday he would be free of it. Finally, fed up with it all, he decided to leave the country and never come back. Constantine was eighteen years old when Barack Obama, a black man, was elected President of the United States of America. A man who looked like me, the young man thought at the time. He decided to seek out his destiny in the U.S.

Being the son of a wealthy man had its advantages, no matter one's origins. Lebanese businessman Jacob Al-Sharif was a multi-millionaire, and he spared no expense when it came to the education of his sons and daughters. Constantine's older sister Amina was sent to study at Cambridge University in the City of London, England. His older brother Youssef was sent to study at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada. As for Constantine, he chose to study at Harvard University in the City of Boston, Massachusetts. At Harvard University, he experienced a world he could have scarcely imagined. The world of the sons and daughters of the American ruling class.

Many would have felt intimidated in such an environment, but not him. Constantine had lived in places like Lebanon, Jordan, Ghana, Burkina Faso, South Africa and even Brazil before. His family traveled a lot, for his father had business interests in various nations. Still, no country ever fascinated the young Constantine as America did. When his dream of living in the United States of America came true, he was beyond happy. Finally, he was in a place where he would be free to do as he wanted. The land of opportunity beckoned him.

At Harvard University, Constantine Al-Sharif met a lot of fascinating people. Most of them were decent enough. Having lived all over the world, Constantine was fluent in multiple languages including French, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Swahili and of course English, among others. He knew how to interact with people of myriad cultures and backgrounds. Constantine also met quite a few snobs among them. They looked at him and felt they knew everything about him based on his skin color and last name. The young man was oh so happy to surprise them about their incorrect assumptions. To the Black Muslim students on campus, he was a puzzle. With a last name like Al-Sharif they thought he was one of them for sure. Constantine politely declined their invitations to join their association, proudly stating that he was the son of a Maronite Christian man from the Republic of Lebanon who married a Catholic woman from the Burkinabe people of Burkina Faso in western Africa. Even though his last name was Arabic, he was a Christian with a capital C.

To the white students at school, he was an even greater puzzle. He'd been to so many places they were fascinated by. He summered in the City of London, England, before, and also spent three weeks in the town of Gosford, in the Commonwealth of Australia. He spent a winter in the town of Heidelberg in Germany, skiing with the daughters and sons of wealthy Europeans. Oh, yeah. He'd been everywhere. Places whose very names impressed most Americans, including the jaded sons and daughters of the wealthy. To say that Constantine encountered prejudice at Harvard University would have been an understatement. The same school which current Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick and current President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama once attended wasn't too open to foreign-born students of African descent.

Even though he was content with playing the part of the friendly, unassuming newcomer for the time being, Constantine understood these bigoted rich Americans all too well. He'd dealt with bigoted, wealthy Arabs and the Americans had nothing on them. American hypocrisy and the disease of political correctness compelled most of them to be covert about their hostility to non-whites in places of power and privilege. In Arabic societies, there was no such thing as political correctness. Those people would call a Black man "abd", the Arabic equivalent of the N word, to his face! Constantine thought about a former rival whom he dispatched in a fairly ingenious fashion.

Constantine was polite and friendly, but he could be ruthless when he had to be. It was during his last year in Lebanon before he moved to America. He was dating a beautiful Lebanese Christian gal named Catherine Hassan. The daughter of a wealthy Lebanese politician. Tall and curvy, with light bronze skin, hazel eyes and curly black hair, Catherine was a beauty and she was fond of Constantine. That didn't sit too well with their classmate Muhammad, the son of Sunni imam Ahmed Mokhtar. One day, as Catherine and Constantine came out of a movie theater, they were attacked by Muhammad and his buddies Khaled and Hussein. Constantine, who never left his father's house without a pistol ( which he never took to school ) wounded one of the attackers in the thigh before taking off with Catherine. What he didn't know was that the bullet he fired grazed Muhammad's left testicle, doing irreparable damage to him in that most sensitive spot. Muhammad lived, but was lighter by one ball. For this, he swore eternal revenge on Constantine.

For this and many other reasons, Constantine couldn't wait to get out of Lebanon the moment he graduated from high school. He bid goodbye to Catherine, and left. His siblings were already living abroad, and his parents planned to move to the Manaus region of Brazil to oversee their new business ventures there. Thus, Constantine came to America. It was everything he wanted, and more. Also, it was less. America, the land of the free. A predominantly Christian, deeply secular country now struggling against the forces of racism and xenophobia as well as radical Islam from inside and out. How lonely he felt in this beautiful place. One day, while walking through the Back Bay area of Boston, he literally bumped into someone. A six-foot-tall, blonde-haired and green-eyed Caucasian gal with an athletic build, big tits and the kind of round, heart-shaped butt he once thought only a Black woman could have. Rebecca Stamford. Born in the region of Berkshire, England, and raised in the City of Hartford, Connecticut. A criminal justice student at Northeastern University in the City of Boston, Massachusetts. It was love at first sight.

Yeah, that's how he met the first, last and only person he ever felt truly understood him. How odd was that. He'd been all over the world, dated Brazilian women, west African women, Arab women and even Asiatic women from places like India and China, and while he had a lot of fun, he also felt...incomplete. Rebecca surprised him. He always thought white women were a sexually loose, vacuous bunch. She wasn't like the others. For starters, she wasn't a scholarship student or a rich brat. She was paying her way through school by working two jobs. She only took two or three courses every semester but persevered because she was doing the best she could. Also, unlike most Americans, she wasn't secular. This young British-American gal was a proud Christian, brought up in the Adventist faith. Even more surprising was the fact that she attended an Adventist church where sixty percent of the congregation wasn't white. They were Caribbean folks, from places like Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica and Trinidad. Rebecca was also a polyglot. She spoke French, Spanish, Haitian Creole and the Jamaican patois. Her English still had a British twinge in it.

Constantine Al-Sharif was blown away by this young woman. Rebecca was pleasantly surprised by him as well. In spite of the obvious differences between them, they had a lot in common. They began hanging out, catching movies together and eating at the Copley Mall's food court. Constantine found himself delighted by this tall, gorgeous British-American gal. They began dating seriously, and he found himself falling for her. It scared him a little bit, how much he cared for her, actually. He learned previously that when a man cared too much about the woman in his life, she often saw this as a weakness. And for whatever reason, she felt it was her duty to shatter his heart into pieces. Hence, good men become jerks and women worldwide whine about the lack of good men, whom they constantly push away. Constantine hoped and prayed Rebecca wouldn't do him like that. Gently, he kissed her hand. Closing his eyes, he went to sleep.