From Syria with Love 1

Punk Rock bands, according to popular belief, I'm not supposed to be into that sort of thing. Supposedly due to my skin tone, I'm supposed to like Rap, Hip Hop and Basketball. Well, I tried these things and they simply weren't for me. My name is Raul Davidson, my friends call me Ra. As in the ancient Egyptian deity known as Ra, King of the Gods. Sounds cool, huh? Sounds a lot better than Raul, man. The name makes me sound like a Third World dictator or something.

I was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, to a Nigerian immigrant mother and White American father. My parents, Cleopatra Ogochukwu and Matthew Davidson divorced by the time I started high school. My pops left us and I basically never saw him again. I attended Roxbury Community College, graduating in 2009 with an Associate's degree in business, then earned my bachelor's at Suffolk University. I decided not to join the rat race or go for my MBA and instead formed a Punk Rock band with my lifelong friends Jonathan Axel and Stephanie Gomez. Together, we're The New Heartbreakers. Let the world beware.

We're not what most people first think of when envisioning a Punk Rock band. I'm mixed, and Stephanie Gomez is tall and statuesque, frequently described as exotic due to her bronze skin, Black hair and dark eyes. This lovely lady is half Puerto Rican, half Japanese. Oh, and she's openly gay and happily married to a Jamaican chick named Miranda Henderson. Jonathan Axel is a tall, red-haired and green-eyed dude with more tattoos than I even want to count. He's the 'conventional' punk rocker in our trio, if there is such a thing.

The son of a wealthy real estate broker, Jon's been my best pal since we met at the Hyde Park Summer Camp in 1998. We were hanging out near Fenway and some thugs started hassling us since we were, apparently in the wrong neighborhood. Jon and I fought off three guys way older than us, and this experience marked us for life. As different as we were, we became close friends. We kept in touch throughout high school and beyond.

Jon was fond of telling me that the only thing worse than being fatherless like me was having a father like his old man, real estate mogul James Stewart Axel. I've seen the bruises on Jon's arms from his father's angrier moments and concur that he's an SOB. He always pushed Jon around and felt disappointed that the lad seemed reluctant to follow in his footsteps. After flunking out of Northeastern University law school in 2009, Jon was borderline suicidal. His old man basically cut him off. Thankfully, I invited him to play with Steph and I, and we've been a hit ever since.

At first, we were just a garage band, and we were lucky enough to book a few gigs with local bars and taverns. Boston is a town full of immigrants, lots of people from Latin America, the Caribbean and West Africa mingling with the Irish, the Italians, the African-Americans and the Chinese, the four major population groups of Boston proper. These groups are polite enough with one another, but let's not kid ourselves, many of them are fairly traditional and old-fashioned in their thinking. People think of Boston as the town where Gay Marriage first got legalized, and where Deval Patrick, a Black man, got elected Governor of Massachusetts. Those milestones don't mean prejudice doesn't exist in Boston. Let's face it, a lot of people in the Punk Rock scene weren't ready for a band like ours. Yet Jon, Steph and I were determined to prove them wrong.

I mean, if a White rapper like Eminem can win over the African-American MCs who dominate the Rap and Hip Hop scene, why can't a group like ours enjoy cross-over success? I mean, Cowboy Troy is Black, and he's a country singer, and lots of folks in the Midwest absolutely love his music. Surely if good country people can welcome a Black guy who sings country music, the rebels of the Punk Rock scene can deal with the likes of Steph, Jon and myself, right? I'll be brutally honest with you folks. We got a lot of boos and blank stares at some of the venues where we played.

It wasn't until we played in Dallas, Texas, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that we started to get some recognition and respect. Only after these towns showed us a lot of love did the honchos in Los Angeles, California, and New York City, start calling. Can you imagine? Hicks in Texas and Wisconsin showed more appreciation to a band where two-thirds of the members are minorities than the liberal peoples of California and Texas did at first. This goes to show you that a lot of what people say about conservatives and liberals is complete and utter bullshit. Pardon my Bostonian, ladies and gentlemen, I just want to be real with you.

I learned, through painful experience, that a lot of super-friendly, liberal-minded people are often undercover bigots. Likewise, lots of conservative-minded people are surprisingly tolerant and friendly toward those different from themselves. I could tell you about Pat O'Malley, the redneck trucker who gave me a ride when I somehow got lost somewhere between Amarillo, and Dallas. Large swath of land for a guy to get lost in, especially on foot, in the rain, with only thirty dollars in his pocket. Dude had the stereotypical cowboy hat, and probably a gun in the back of his truck, but he was the friendliest person I ever met. God bless him.

I could also tell you about Vincent Thorne, a farmer from Racine, Michigan, who drove Jon, Steph and I to the nearest hotel after our van got stuck in a mudslide. Those are the areas of America that most liberal, progressive people consider fly-over country. The parts not worth seeing. The parts that aren't friendly to minorities, or gays, or feminists. And yet, I've met wonderful people in them. By sharp contrast, as I said before, I've met some very bigoted people in supposedly progressive places. I could tell you about Martha Grey, a Dean at Suffolk University who has a singular hatred of males, especially minority male students. If you're Black or Hispanic, and you're in her department, this angry older White woman will bring you all kinds of hell. This, in supposedly liberal Boston, homeland of all things progressive along racial and gender lines. Ha!

I guess what I'm getting at is that you should keep an open mind about those different from you. I say this as a conservative man of African and Caucasian descent. I voted for Obama in 2008, and while I continue to like him as a person, I do wish he'd stop canoodling with the Russians, the Saudis and the Japanese, among others. All three of these groups have harmed Americans in the past. Some of them fairly recently. I know politics make for strange bedfellows but come on....remember who you're dealing with, alright? I dislike Russia's Putin, but can't help admire his ruthless efficiency. The guy invaded Crimea, and said fuck you to the European Union and the rest of the West when they tried to bully him. Obama could learn a thing or two from that bastard. Seriously, the POTUS needs to take a stand against our enemies and back it up with force when needed. Otherwise America looks weak.

I guess I'm fairly opinionated for a Punk Rock musician, eh? I am passionate about music and politics, and I've sometimes made a statement with my music. I'm not afraid to go against the grain. Luckily, Steph and Jon have supported me. As we performed everywhere from Jacksonville, Florida, to Toronto, Ontario, and Houston, Texas, we garnered quite a following. That's why we got signed up by Future Studios Inc. in 2012, and they started playing our music videos on MTV and VH1. How about that?

An odd thing happens to a man when he becomes famous. A lot of people let it go to their heads. Jon became a womanizer, sleeping with groupie chicks every chance he got. I sure hope the dude has been using protection. There's all kinds of diseases out there and you often hear about male celebrities being hit with paternity lawsuits by random women. I mean, it's happened to everyone from Michael Jackson to Justin Bieber! As for Steph, I'm afraid that my best friend and favorite lesbian followed in Jon's footsteps. Her marriage to Miranda Henderson is on the rocks, and rumor of affairs and bitter fights surround their relationship. Sigh, oh well.

As for me, I continued living my life exactly as I always have. Rumors swirl about my private life. I'm a six-foot-one, 210-pound, well-built man with mocha-colored skin, curly Black hair and lime-green eyes. People often ask about my ethnicity, and I always tell them that I'm biracial. Some people in the Black community have been irked by this, saying biracial identity is a cop-out. Whatever. Others wonder about my sexual orientation. I've been deliberately ambiguous about that last part, for I love the attention that I get from virtually any source.

It doesn't take much to really stir the gossip mongers. Black gossip mongers like Madame Noire and other mainstream ones like Perez Hilton have really latched onto me. I don't have a steady girlfriend or a baby mama, so people wonder. Women hit on me all the time, as do gay men. I find both women and men beautiful, so I guess in some ways I could be considered bisexual. Back in my college days, I did the bed-hopping thing with big-booty Black girls and curvaceous Hispanic girls, and I also did the bump and grind with a few guys, usually macho-looking athletes who were themselves bisexual. I don't like girly guys. They turn me off. At the present time I don't do casual fun with strangers of either gender, though. I politely turn them both down. Why? I enjoy my privacy, and I do love the rumor mill.

No one lights my fire, at least that's what I thought until I met Josephine Akkad. You know that old son "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin? I swear it was playing in my head the first time I saw her riding the escalator inside the Copley Mall in downtown Boston. Five-foot-ten, curvy, with light bronze skin, curly Black hair and light brown eyes. Speechless, I could only gawk at her. My heart started fluttering like a hummingbird and I smiled shyly as she gazed at me. I followed her into the bookstore without even realizing it. I tracked her down to the comic book section, and caught her flipping through the pages of Blade : Undead Again by Marc Guggenheim. A gorgeous woman who likes my favorite comic book character? I HAD to know her. So, I approached her. Hello I'm Raul, I said with a smile, and complimented her on her choice of reading material.

The gorgeous, exotic lady stopped nosing through the comic book and looked me up and down. Hello Raul I'm Jo, she said in a sensuous, throaty voice that set my spine on edge. I smiled and shook her hand. I've stood in front of twenty thousand screaming fans in Dallas, Texas, and totally owned the stage. When I'm on stage, playing my music and rocking till kingdom come, I feel like a demigod. Yet in front of this mesmerizing young woman, I was speechless. Cat got your tongue Mister Raul? Jo said, once I stopped stammering about the comic book and stood there, somewhat awkwardly. You're something else is all I can say, I quipped.

I'm off to lunch and wouldn't mind the company, Jo said, her dark eyes boring into mine. I nodded and smiled. We walked over to the Copley Mall food court, talking like old friends. I learned a bit about Josephine Akkad. This gorgeous lady was born in the City of Baniyas, northwestern Syria, to a Christian family. Her parents, Joseph and Julianne Akkad moved to Dearborn, Michigan, in the sixteenth summer of her life. What prompted a lovely Great Lakes lady like Josephine to study at Boston University, all the way in New England? I had to know. I fell in love with Boston during summer camp while in high school, Jo confessed to me as we ate some Chinese food.

I smiled at that. Summer camps in Boston are something else. The more I learned about Jo, the more interested I became. I shared with her how my best friend Jon and I met during camp. At this point, I realized that Josephine Akkad honestly didn't know who I was. The name Raul Davidson didn't ring a bell to her. I can't tell you how refreshing that is to me. I've met so many otherwise beautiful and intelligent women who only come to me because I'm a Rock Star. Had I been just another shmuck on the street with a regular job, they would have ignored me. It's the celebrity effect. Explains why ugly guys like Mick Jagger can date supermodels. A shame what happened to the tall lady he last dated, though. I heard she died of a suicide. Such a shame.

Josephine and I exchanged numbers that day, and since I was staying in Boston for a while, I invited her to chill with me. Now, a lot of guys love to flash their money once they hit it big. I'd make a couple million since The New Heartbreakers became a household name. We're getting Jonas Brothers, One Direction and Black Eyed Peas comparisons. Steph has caught the acting bug and has appeared in two episodes of Law & Order SVU and one episode of How I Met Your Mother. Jon has done a few Pepsi commercials. Me? I'm the recluse in our little group. I don't give out a lot of interviews. I don't have a Facebook or Twitter. I hide from the world. I still live in the duplex in which I grew up, though my mother no longer lives there. Mom spends all her free time in the Florida Keys with her forty-year-old Italian boyfriend, Romano something or other.

Josephine and I went to the AMC theater on Tremont Street and watched The Dictator. I thought it was a funny movie but Jo took issue with the stereotypes about Arab culture. I'm from the Middle East and I don't have a gun and I don't ride camels either, she said angrily as we walked out of the theater. Josephine would later reveal to me that she was an activist for the rights of Arabs in Western lands. I looked at her and smiled sheepishly. I'm sorry, I said with a shrug. Jo's eyes blazed with a light that could be either sexy or scary, depending on how she's feeling. I smiled at her and told her that I understood. I really didn't. As a mixed-race guy in America, I'm used to getting crap from both Blacks and Whites. Does that mean I can relate to a Middle-Eastern person's objections to negative stereotypes about their race and culture? You'd think so, I guess. All I knew about the Middle East I got from CNN. Not the most reliable source of information when it comes to poorly understood cultures.

It's alright, Jo said, and her beautiful face was filled with a sadness that wrenched my heart. I hesitated. What's a guy to do in these situations? Like most men, I hate seeing a chick get all sad and stuff. Seriously. I put my arm around Jo's shoulders, and told her to ignore the haters, in my best imitation of 50 Cent. You're a goof, Jo said, squeezing my hand and laughing. I smiled and shrugged. Yeah, I'm cool like that. I walked her over to the Green Line train entrance on Boston Common, and wished her goodbye. I'd like to see you again, I said, giving her a semi-awkward hug. Jo shrugged and waved me goodbye. We'll see, she laughed.

I watched the tall, curvaceous and mesmerizing Syrian-American cutie walk down the train station's murky steps, and sighed. The sight of Josephine Akkad's thick, round butt in those tight Black yoga pants she had on drove me nuts. Seriously, I have to have that woman. That's why I went after her with a vengeance. I swear, I've never gone after anyone the way I went after Jo. Girls or guys, typically I'm passive in pursuit and active in the act of sex, that's my motto. This should be the bisexual man's mantra, in my sincere opinion. Not this time. Nope, this time was different. I saw someone I truly wanted, and went after her with everything I got.

Josephine and I began seeing each other regularly, and we'd been at it for about a month before I dropped the celebrity bomb on her. We were sitting inside the Club Café, sipping coffee, and that's when I told her. Yes, babe, I'm a multi-millionaire Rock Star and not the aimless recent college grad I led you to believe I am. Jo's reaction wasn't what I hoped for. Lots of women would be thrilled to know their boyfriend is a millionaire. Not Jo. So you lied to me, she said, glaring at me angrily. I smiled hesitantly. I wanted you to know the real me and not Mr. Rock Star, I said evenly. Jo considered that, then punched me on the shoulder. Hard enough for me to wince.

I knew who you were from the moment I first saw you, Jo said nonchalantly and crossed her arms, staring at me with an amused look on her pretty face. I burst out laughing. Honestly, I had to do. You're one sneaky chick, I said, laughing still. Jo smiled, and shrugged. Then she leaned across the table, and kissed me. I kissed her, slowly, passionately, taking my sweet time. Indeed, she's the first woman I've kissed in a long time. Even in my heyday as a bisexual bed-hopper, I wasn't one to kiss and tell. I'd stick my dick into any hole that lets me, whether the owner is female or male, but there's no intimacy in that. Kissing, though, is something else. Let's continue this someplace else, Jo said, winking at me.

Hand in hand, we left the Club Café and made our way to my house in Dorchester, riding my old Volkswagen. Yeah, I'm a penny-pinching celebrity. We do exist. If the appearance of my car or modest home bothered Jo, she didn't let on. As soon as we got the house, we got it on. Off came our clothes, and our inhibitions. We didn't make it to the bedroom, nope, we got as far as the living room. Josephine and I did it on the carpet, moaning and groaning like the lusty animals we've always been.

I laid her on her back, between the couch and the living room table, and spread her shapely thighs wide open. Josephine's cunt was hairy, decidedly the hairiest muff I'd ever seen. Never-been-shaved kind of hairy. I'm Arab and proud of it, she said with a wink, licking her lips. I smiled and proceeded to lick her pussy, sinking my fingers deep inside her cunt while teasing her fat clit with my tongue. Fuck yeah, Josephine moaned as I pleasured her. Nobody eats pussy better than me, people. I love going down on a woman, provided she's relaxed and clean. Truth be told, Josephine wasn't as fresh a rose down there but I like her womanly funk. To me she was exotic, mysterious and enthralling. I licked Josephine up like a lollipop, and her had her mewling like a kitten by the time I was done with her.

I wanted this woman badly, and Josephine wanted to be taken. It's been a while for me, she said, echoing my sentiments. I hadn't fucked anyone, female or male, in months. The last guy I hooked up with, Gary the short, stocky Asian security guard back in Dallas, well, he was disappointing. The dude couldn't handle what I threw at him. I fucked his ass for half an hour in my trailer before he begged for mercy. Dude left an unpleasant stain on my condom. What a punk. Let's see if Josephine can handle what I throw at her.

I lay on the floor, trying to relax as Josephine slowly sucked on my long and slim, uncircumcised cock. A lot of Black guys refer to their manhood as their dick and hate the term cock. As a biracial guy fighting against stereotypes, I'm proud to call my cock, well, a cock. Josephine gently stroked my hairy balls as she polished my eight-and-a-half inches with that sweet, sensuous mouth of hers. I smiled at her. Good job babe, I said encouragingly. Josephine shot me a wuthering look, and I promptly shut my mouth. The last thing any man wants to do is piss off a woman while he's got his dick in her mouth. Can you imagine the consequences if she got mad?

Josephine sucked me until I felt my knees buckle. I cried out, warning her that I was almost at the floodgates, as it were. Josephine pulled my dick from her mouth, then flicked her tongue over my dick head. Oh, shoot. That last part drove me absolutely nuts. That's when it happened. I came, louder and more violently than ever before. I cried out, absolutely losing it as jets of cum shot out of my dick. And lo and behold the wonder of it all, Josephine swallowed every last drop. Then she wiped her mouth the back of her hand and winked at me. What else you got? Jo said, grinning mischievously.