Over the past years, my work has taken me more or less frequently into the Middle East, giving me a chance to see different countries and experience another life culture altogether. Increasingly, I got to know the local customs and had grown accustomed to the fact that that any relation or intimacy with a Muslim woman was strictly off limits.
It's not that the women are not attractive – just the opposite, a look out of those dark eyes hidden under a black veil can be more erotic than any pin-up girl! But in the Arab societies it was simply not possible and could become the cause of many problems. So when I got offered to take over a job in Syria for a full twelve months, of course I was really looking forward to living in probably the most enchanting and intense cities in the world, the eternal Damascus. But the prospect of having my love life being limited the expatriate women did not really stun me. Nevertheless, I took the chance and moved the centre of my life into the Middle East.
The issue with Syrian women was just as expected – most of them covered under their veil, the occasional glance with one or two cautious attempts of second-long flirtations and approximately four shy smiles in more than three months. So the longing for a real mixing with a local woman was confined strictly work and business and nothing else. So my fantasies about a veiled Muslim woman exposing herself to me was limited to lonely nights at home and fantasies of what was not allowed to happen.
Chapter 1
However one female contact I had in a ministry department proved more consistent than others, and even though our projects only touched every once in a while, it was always nice to talk to this woman; besides, her English was excellent, which was a real relieve at that time! So one afternoon after a meeting I ran into her in the entrance hall, it had been months since the last time we had met. Spontaneously, she invited me for a coffee at her desk. While she went off to order the drinks, she made me sit down in front of the screensaver showing her little daughter.
I took a look around – her desk was tidy, evidence of her work load piled up next to the computer and the nail polish neatly placed next to it. When she came back and started telling me about her current tasks, I somehow drifted off and started to watch the expressions on her face: her features were pleasantly normal without any surgical improvements, her eyes had something clever behind them and her sensual lips could not stop blurting out her latest problems at work.
The headscarf she wore did frame her face and almost no wrinkles showed what I guessed were around 30 years of age. And I could not prevent myself from wondering what she would look like without the headscarf – what lay beyond that wall of textile that separated her world from mine.... When she picked up a piece of paper, her different layers of clothes revealed some ideas about her bodily curves – rather the typical Arab type with wide hips and smaller bust size. But at least she did not try to make up for it with one of those major push-up bras that were so fashionable.
Anyway, something in her look stayed with me for the rest of the evening and I felt something tingling in my stomach. We had agreed to meet on Saturday afternoon (usually my day off) to discuss some of the work issues she was facing. Funny enough, this was to be my first "date" with a local woman during all my time in Syria – although it was not more than an informal work meeting in a café. Anyway, I tried to pretend this was something special just for making myself happy, for having at least one sense of achievement with women in the Arab world.
Via short messages we agreed on time and place, and I showed up at the café way too early. Reserving a table inside to get out of the sizzling heat of the afternoon, I greeted her when she showed up in her usual dress – white scarf tucked tightly around her head and the usual long coat, this time in an unpretentious green. But as always, she gave me that big, confident smile of hers, flashing her white teeth.
Over a cappuccino, we discussed work issues, switching to more conversational issues as the hot afternoon dragged on: work, life, some politics, leisure, society. She told me that she has been divorced from her husband for one year, which is becoming slowly more common though not widely accepted in Arab society. She spoke openly and fixed me with an intensive look from her wonderful dark brown eyes as if to test my reaction towards this revelation. Probingly, she inquired to know about my personal situation (I was single) and then my experience with the female gender in Syria (which was practically none).
The course of the conversation had subtly changed – and something had also altered in the way she looked at me... For the first time this afternoon, she appeared to me as a woman, as a female being with all kinds of wishes, senses and desires. I noticed the wonderful bow that her plucked eyebrows described, the happy wrinkles around her mouth from a lot of smiling, and the dark red colour of her lips – was it like this just moments ago? Her facial features softened, when she suddenly gazed more intensely at me and then her look wandered off as if her thoughts were somewhere completely different. This totally new behaviour made me nervous and my heart started to beat – something had unexpectedly changed between us and we were heading towards a different level of interaction.
Her look came back to me and her dark eyes fixed me when she asked me: "Did you ever wonder how a Syrian woman looks without her headscarf?"
"Of course," I replied, "what kind of man would not wonder about this secret hidden so meticulously from his sight?"
She probed further: "Would you want to see me without my headscarf?"
This question caught me completely off guard and almost gasping I managed to state: "Somehow, yes, of course, well, very much!"
She looked around and with a conspiratorial smile she whispered: "Of course I can't show it here, but if you accompany me home, there might be a chance!"
Needless to say that my mind raced at the unknown situation that had just unfolded before us, and I guess I did not manage any coherent conversation during the next few minutes – although I did manage to pay the bill while she slipped off to the bathroom. On our way out of the café into the soaring heat of the day, she seemed to be much more comfortable than I was with the situation. I kept telling myself to calm down and that by no means there could be second intentions involved in this, other than a friendly exchange for a foreign friend. However, imagining that I was about to see her hair for the very first time brought my breathing up considerably and this emotional rollercoaster continued while we clambered into a taxi.
The trip was short, and after ten minutes we climbed up the steps to her apartment and as if she read the question mark on my forehad she told me that her parents were out of town for the weekend with her daughter; otherwise, of course, I would not be able to visit her. And again she flashed that suggestive smile at me, with a little blink of one eye, this time making me almost shiver down to the bone. Impossible that this was just a friendly invitation for tea – but she was after all an Arab woman, a Muslim woman, and there could not be anything more forbidden in her religion than even the slightest hint of indecency! But somehow it dawned on me that this was just her intention.
She bade me in and made me sit down in the living room, making my anticipation rise with every second; when she reappeared, she handed me the steaming tea glass and we both took a sip. Then, supporting herself with a hand on my knee, she stood up in front of me and started fumbling with her headscarf. She took out some hair slides and again offered me her smile – this time a little more nervous, knowing that she was about to do something "haram" – something forbidden. She pulled out the ends of her headscarf and untied the rest. All that was left now was her hair covering, which she slowly took off. She shook her hair, pressed after a day in the heat, and than she stood there for me – a totally different woman after all.
She appeared much more feminine with her hair visible and her look took on a soft notion, a mixture between a sweet temptation and a natural shyness. A feeling of slow motion embraced me when I took in the intense beauty her hair: it was a sparkling dark colour, mixing in tone between chestnut and Arabic coffee, and flowed down her shoulders, until coming to a soft halt just before her breast. I was amazed at her suddenly appearing feminine side that she succeeded so well in hiding from me until now.
Automatically, I was drawn into reaching out to touch her hair, which she complied by sitting down next to me on the couch. My fingers ran through her light curls and followed them down to her playful ends. Every single hair was of stunning thickness, full and gorgeous, and my attempt to wriggle one flock around my finger was met with a tentative resistance. Everything smelled so wonderfully of flowers and there was something else emerging from her – the smell of a an Arab woman starting to blossom in the heat of the sizzling afternoon.
This situation seemed to have brought back the cheekiness in her and while taking my hand she asked me straightforward: "So you never had anything going on with an Arab woman during all your time in the Middle East?"
"Not even by far," I managed to reply, "not more than a smile and maybe a nice handshake after a meeting."
"You know," she continued, "it is not that all Muslim woman have always been well-behaved during their life, saving themselves only for their husband. We do have a young life, too and we make our own experiences, whether you can believe it or not. Of course we have to be a little more imaginative when it comes to, well, you know, physical contact, since there are certain limits before marriage. You know that anyway, don't you?"
