Painting my nails, I like painting my nails, there is really nothing more relaxing than having some me time. Me time is a luxury, that I can't often afford, especially now days, there is always so much to do and not enough time to do it. I like to think of myself as an independent female, who is capable of fending for myself and who will risk everything to protect my family. My family do not understand why I do, what I do, and they do not appreciate that I have to do it for their protection. But I also do it for her, they took her away from me, and without her I have no sense of purpose. I stand up and head towards the window, the glass in the window is no more, but the frame still exists. I get into position and I look through the crosshair, I see the target, he has a beard, they always have beards but no moustaches. Most have long black beards, but some have red beards, blonde beards, grey beards and some have dyed beards. They speak in many tongues, mostly foreign, but never Kurdish. They have many names Takfirs (Extremists), rebels, butchers and many more, but as far as I am concerned they are foreigners who have come to harm my people.
This beardo will be my thirty-second hit and I do feel uneasy about it, but not the same uneasiness, I use to feel when I started this work. Through the crosshair you can see the details of people's faces and their clothes and I use to wonder who they were? My first hit, I could see into his eyes, he looked nothing like I'd imagined he would. He looked so ordinary, not an evil two-headed monster you think of when you think of these people. I could see his smile on his face, I could see his wedding ring and I could see he had no idea what I was about to do to him. I had nightmares for weeks afterwards, I kept seeing him in my dreams and my guilt never went away. I would wake-up in the middle of the night in cold sweats about it. But now, I don't feel this, love and joy had gone from my heart and cold revenge has replaced it. They took my lover; I had never known true happiness until I met her, my beloved Diana. I'd always thought, I was weird and my desires were unnatural until I met her. Kurdish society, despite the rhetoric from political groups about gender equality, does not tolerant lesbianism and it certainly does not tolerant pre-marital sex, we probably have a higher rate of honor killing than the Arabs. This hit is for Diana and the uneasiness I feel, is not a moralistic or guilt thing, is the idea that within my hands I have the power of life and death. That's too much power for one person, there is something unnatural about it and this doubt doesn't go away, regardless of how you try to justify it. I am 21 years old, but, I know I will not survive this, maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday I will take a hit. The smell of blood carries far and no matter what I do the smell will follow me.
My story begins in my village, which is located between Aleppo and Idlib, it's not especially famous but we are near abandoned ancient towns and cities called The Dead Cities of Syria. The rich archaeological heritage of the area means we sometimes saw foreigners passing through, but not very often. Our region is green, mountainous and full of lakes and fresh water rivers, my village was mostly farm land and my family worked these farms. The rural nature of my village meant that growing up; I mixed with males and worked alongside them. The women mostly dressed in colorful outfits, but no one ever wore the traditional Muslim headscarf or the veil, such dress would have been and still is, unusual. Women in my village are generally very petite, thus I stand out, because while many of them are relatively flat, I've always been curvy. My butt is very round and my chest size is well formed and could be described as large, but I have slim stomach and my legs are a few inches bigger than most of the petite girls in my village. My hair is long and black and pupils are dark, but my skin is fair. I use to love wearing make-up and me and my friends would often have fun applying make-up. My grandmother would frown at this, her generation never really wore make-up, and it was my mother's generation that started wearing make-up.
But unlike my mother's generation, I got to go to school. My school was located in a medium size town a few kilometres away from my village. The whole village went to the same school. We would attend school until our mid-teens and then we would go out and work, that was the idea of our school. The school was an agricultural school and it focused on teaching us about farming. We did do other subjects like Islamic studies, Science, Mathematics, History, Literature and Philosophy. My schooling was done in Arabic and not Kurdish, which upset my grandmother because she thought I would forget my roots. We had to wear school uniforms, but these uniforms are not like the ones that I've seen on TV in other countries. Ours were more lifeless looking, militaristic, baggy and generally very depressing to wear. Every morning, we would have to assemble in the schoolyard, and stand to attention like soldiers do while the Syrian flag was being raised and the national anthem was played. We would then have to pledge our allegiance to God, Socialism, the Nation, The Ba'ath party and to the president. Our school was full of pictures of the president and posters with the party's slogans.
School was not the best time in my life, but it was where I discovered my feelings for other women. There was this one girl, Dina, who was the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen, we became friends quickly. At first, I was in denial about my feelings, but eventually and rather begrudgingly, I came to accept that I was in love with her. I couldn't understand how I could be in love with women, in all my classes; we spoke only of union between man and woman. We didn't get sex education per say, but we did learn about reproduction in biology class, and this class never mentioned lesbians. The trouble was Dina did not feel the same way about me and I was too cowardly to admit my true feeling for her. I mostly retreated into myself and while Dina grew into a beautiful young woman, I, for the most part, chose to downplay my femininity, with minimal make-up and I fell into a sports crowd. Dina was head girl at school, she helped the teachers supervise other students, she also read poetry at national school competitions and was invited to join the prestigious student and young person's Ba'ath party association, only the brightest and best were invited to join.
But despite how awful my school days were, I did very well on my end of schools exam and I was encouraged to apply to college. My family were reluctant, but in the end agreed, I would go to the University of Aleppo to study engineering. But I would have to commute from the village to Aleppo every day, a journey which would take two hours, to and from Aleppo. When I first arrived in Aleppo, I was shocked, scared and confused, I'd never been to a major city before and I didn't know anyone in the city. I found it hard to make friends; most of the other students would make fun of my clothes and rural accent. A month into my studies and I already wanted to leave, but it was then, that I met Diana. She was a couple of inches taller than me, but with similar features to me and she was very fashionably dressed. She approached me, while I was in the cafeteria eating lunch and she came and sat down next to me.
Diana: "Hiya, I noticed you were sitting here alone. I'm Diana. Are you new here? I've not seen you around before?"
I responded "Yes, I am new here. My name is Noor, I'm studying engineering. How about you?"
Diana: "Nice to meet you Noor. Engineering, wof, tough subject, you must be very cleaver. I'm studying English literature, its fine; I'm mostly studying it to learn English. I take it from your accent and clothes that you're not from around here?"
I was so excited, I'm looking at the most incredible creature and she is talking to me. "Yes I'm from Yacob village, it's about two hours from here. Where are you from?"
Diana: "Oh, so your Kurdish, me too, I'm from Qamishli."
And from that moment I was infatuated by Diana, I kept watching her pink lips move and I knew I wanted to kiss them. I kept imagining how sweet they must taste and how trying them would quench any hunger I may feel. I looked closely at her battering eye lids and her ears, and I imagine making her blush by whispering sweet nothings into her ears. Oh and that hair, how I would love to stroke her hair back until it was behind her ear. And then I would gently nibble on the ear lobe and kiss her neck. My imagination went into a riot during the first encounter and I had trouble answering some of her questions because I couldn't stop fantasizing about her. I mumbled and rushed to get the words out and she had the grace to laugh and smile. Angelic, that was the word that came to my mind at the time. We agreed to hang out and when we departed way, I felt my heart skip a beat and I needed to rush home and lock myself away.
When I got home that evening, I barricaded myself away in my room, and I lay on the bed and kept thinking of her. I tried to masturbate, by sticking two fingers down my pants and rubbing my pussy, but every time I would try and think of her in an arousing way, I had to stop. She was so angelically beautiful with her cute smile and playful but innocent nature, that masturbating over her felt like I was mentally defiling her beauty and that felt wrong. I imagined what would happen if she walked in and caught me masturbating over her, how disgusted she would be. I ended up praying that my eyes be scratched out rather than her finding out how I secretly defiled her. Later that evening, while I was asleep, I had a dream about her flying through my window and lowering herself on top of me. It was then that I suddenly woke up, because I had an orgasm and I felt the need to touch myself.
