Making Us Lesbianese

"A woman who loves another woman brings neither dishonor to her father's head nor a swelling to her own belly." Saying of Saudi Arabian women quoted in Sisterhood is Global.

"Islam teaches that men should be men and women should be women. Homosexuality deprives a man of his manhood and a woman of her womanhood," Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, The Islamic Society of North America.

"Mommy, do we serve Lesbianese food?" I asked.

"No!" she shouted, a look of horror crossing her pretty face and widening her almond-shaped brown eyes. "It's Lebanese. We are a Lebanese restaurant, Aliya. Don't use that other word."

I was in elementary school and I recognized a "bad word" when I saw a grown-up react the way Mom did to "lesbian."

Then I got mad. That kid who said my parents ran a "Lesbianese" restaurant had been making fun of us! I was never ashamed of being a Muslim and Arab American but I did try to blend in. Usually, that wasn't hard because with my pale skin, hazel eyes, and chestnut brown hair I don't look stereotypically Arab. Like my Mom and sisters, I always dressed "American."

My background was not that much of a problem. I did pretty well in school, especially in things I enjoy like math.

"Aliya, you should tutor me," you told me. "Math is my worst subject and I've got to pass an Algebra II."

"Oh, Khadija, I'll be happy to help," I replied, as we walked the halls of a college building.

You looked like a tiny piece of the Arab world popped into America with your ankle-length traditionally Arab dresses and the headscarf you constantly adjusted and re-adjusted. Petite and delicately boned, with skin like mocha chocolate, and bright dark eyes that were almost black, you did something to me the first time I saw you. It was not something I could understand but I had a warm feeling plus a sense of excitement.

It was an excitement I couldn't put a word to. Or maybe just didn't want to.

When we first met I thought that you were a foreign student, probably from one of the Gulf states. I was surprised but not shocked to learn you were born in California and your parents came from Iraq and that you had decided to wear traditional dress because you wanted "to look modest without looking sloppy and loose-fitting jeans and shirts just don't feel right."

I told you my "Lesbianese" story and you laughed so hard your whole body shook. "I've got to tell my sisters about that," you said. "They'll die."

Like so many people, you couldn't understand math or people who like it. "Just all those numbers," you said, squishing up your aquiline nose, "it's so boring."

"To me it's like a puzzle," I said. "Like a game."

You made that skeptical face that the math phobic always make when I say that.

"I can't understand people who like to read novels," I told you. "It's so much easier to just watch a movie and get the story that way."

"Oh, Aliya!" you said. "You miss so much! I mean, I love film but the book is always so much richer and deeper. You get into the characters' minds and follow their thoughts."

I shrugged as we got to your dorm to work on some algebra.

It was not too long before the two of us were close friends. Sometimes we would hold hands or kiss on the mouth. The time you showed me the A- on your math quiz, I was so thrilled, I squealed with delight and grabbed you in a bear hug. You kissed my neck, leaving a little wet spot behind that I didn't want to wipe off.

I took away a warmth from those little things that would last me until I was alone and whether it was a sin or not I would put my fingers down to my pussy. I couldn't help myself. But I always thanked Allah that I hadn't been born to parents who believed in cutting off girls' genitals.

I fantasized about making love to you but I always made my mind pretend I was a man and your husband. That way it was not me since I am feminine and wear make-up and jewelry.

Together with Mom, Dad, my brother Hashin, and my sister Leila, I was in our living room watching the horror of September 11, 2001, on TV when you phoned.

You were sobbing. I didn't have to ask what it was about. "How can they do this?" you wailed. "They make Islam look barbaric. It's a disgrace."

"I know. I know," I said. "I only hope other Americans don't take it out on all of us."

"Aliya, can I see you? I need to be with you."

I felt exactly the same.

When I got to your place, the TV was on and you were still watching and shaking your head. We held each other, comforting each other, as the news reporters went on about the destruction, the thousands of people killed and showed the picture of that awful Mohammed Atta. His picture shook me up especially because my Dad looks like an older version of him. I put my fingers through your long, silky, dark brown hair (you don't have to wear your scarf if there are no men around).

"Oh, I can't stand to watch anymore," you said. "It's too terrible." You picked up the remote and clicked off the TV.

We continued holding each other and kissing and I wiped your tears away.

Then it happened. What I thought would never happen. What I myself could never had done.

You put your tongue in my mouth.

My heart stopped, then thundered as if I'd leapt across a mountain. I closed my eyes and for that moment the entire rest of the world melted away. A gust of heat swept over my body, causing my nipples to knot and burn. I felt a slow, deep throb in my pussy and knew that my panties were wet with desire for you.

Our first wet kiss seemed to go on forever.

When we pulled apart and I looked into the limpid darkness of your eyes, I knew we would go farther. You put your hand under my t-shirt and I gratefully kissed down your neck, slowly, slowly, as the passion built like a furnace inside of me.

I pulled up your blouse and undid your bra and saw your small, firm, lovely breasts, the size of lemons, then loved them with my mouth, sucking greedily on the tiny, almost black nipples that were so diamond-like hard even as I felt my own engorged nipples burn like fire.

You pulled your skirt up from your ankles onto your waist, bunched up as my hands sought your buttocks. I grabbed your ass cheeks in my two hands, cupping them with an awe-filled reverence, then slowly squeezing and kneading. We kissed again and while we were kissing I began rubbing my pubis on your thigh, rubbing down hard. My pussy lips were taut, my clitoris painfully stiffened, and my pussy hole dripping with desire. I rubbed up and down on you, up and down and side to side and up and down again as my breathing sped up and the passion surged, then subsided just very slightly, then surged again in rolls of heat.

"I love you," you rasped and then I came, came with the force of a crack of lightning shaking my body from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.

There was only one way to thank you. My tongue went slowly yet urgently down your lovely, flat, brown belly. You opened your slim legs for me and I pulled your panties down past your thighs, then stared into the dark, reddish draperies of your womanhood. I kissed on the insides of your thighs as you gasped and your chest heaved. Then I put my tongue right on your pussy, smelling deeply of the pungent, salty aroma of sex, as I licked up and down your pussy lips and onto your sweet, dark, pea-sized clitoris.

"Like this?" I asked.

"Yeah," you answered with a soft moan.

Up and down, up and down, up and down I licked with your inner thighs hugging my face and your hips grinding sensuously.

"Like that," you said. "Right there . . . yeah . . . on the clit . . . oh . . . oh! Please!" You gasped and a great shudder rolled through your body as your legs tightened about me, hugging, squeezing with your orgasm.

I put my fingers up your hot love hole and pulled out thick white juice that reminded me of jelly. Smiling at you, I put it in my mouth.

"Is that Lesbianese food?" you asked with a wry smile.

I nodded. "Tastes good, too," I said.