I don’t remember all the details. I wasn’t as nervous as I always predicted I would be, probably because of the alcohol, but when I had difficulty releasing her bra she slightly laughed and made me feel like a novice. I don’t believe I was very skilled, because I didn’t truly know what actions to take, and at one point I remembered what I had done to Rebecca and I temporarily lost the desire to continue.
But it was still mostly pleasurable, and I spent much time touching her left breast and observing how it felt like nothing else on my body and nothing else I had ever remembered touching, and the pleasure reached its peak at the end, when it was as if my system crashed but in a delightful way, and for several seconds all my thoughts were voided, which never happens to me. After we finished, we rested on our backs without contacting and she said, “I came really hard, twice.”
She fell asleep quickly, but I didn’t, because my body no longer had power over my brain and my thoughts were becoming clearer and the effects of the alcohol weren’t as robust. I placed myself under the blanket, but Melissa’s body was facing up on top of it. There was no method to place her under without waking her. But she seemed like she would be careless if I saw her without clothes.
And then I truly started to think about what I had done. I wondered what my mother would say. Possibly she would understand, because she was modern, but she might also say that I was rejecting not only Muslim values but also personal values, e.g., I didn’t know or even respect Melissa very much and the main reason I was with her was because she was sexy and I wanted to prove that I could obtain her so that I would also feel sexy, which was never something I was invested in before.
Although we had done an act that was the opposite of violence, in some ways I understood how a person might feel after committing murder. In my brain I kept hearing my voice repeat the word “aasef,” but I simultaneously knew that apologizing achieved nothing, which only increased the volume of my interior voice in a cycle.
I remained awake because of these thoughts and also because I was not used to sleeping next to anyone, especially not someone I met just a few hours before. In some ways that part presented more highly privileged information about another person than intercourse itself. At 5:00 a.m. my mouth felt like chicken bones and sand were blended inside it, and I removed myself from the bed slowly and fell down when my weak legs contacted the ground.
I drank cold water from the sink faucet in her restroom for a full minute. I had never valued water as much. Her sink was covered with long blonde hairs that were black on one end and white toothpaste remainder like lines of writing in the sky from airplanes. When I lifted the toilet seat, I almost ejected when I saw how dirty it was on the reverse side, so I closed it and used the toilet while sitting down. It was difficult to believe such a dirty restroom could produce such a clean body.
I considered leaving my email address with her, but I knew we didn’t have many intersected subjects of interest and another meeting would not be profitable. So instead I wrote on a piece of paper: “TO: MELISSA — Thank you for an enjoyable night. FROM: Karim.”
It was dark and cold outside and I was still partially drunk. A taxi drove down the street and I raised my hand, but when it stopped I told the driver, “My bad — please resume.” He cursed at me in his language and left. I walked north and west, and with every step I wanted to eject, but I told myself I merited walking home. Bags of trash sat along all the sidewalks like palm trees in Doha and the smell made me feel even unhealthier, so when it was possible I walked in the dividing islands of the streets to avoid the smell and other people. In one hour I was at my apartment, where finally I did eject everything I drank the previous night in my restroom, and I then drank water until I felt I had consumed an equal quantity to the alcohol, and showered for a long time and washed myself well but was too exhausted to pray.
high roller = gambler with significant funds at his disposal
mechanic = worker who repairs machines
pocket = deposit an object inside a pocket
pre-game = drink alcohol in the apartment before external parties to reduce panicked feelings
redneck = negative term for someone who lives in the southern U.S.
repressed = emotions that a person attempts to restrict
tool = someone who is leveraged by others
NOVEMBER
JOURNAL DATE RECORDED: NOVEMBER 4
When I woke up after Halloween, I was still ill. I hydrated on my couch and watched American football on television, which was less stimulating than baseball even though there was more continuous action, and I also failed to cover the point spread in one of the three games I bet on and lost my $5.
I considered calling Rebecca, but I was uncertain what to express.
After two hours of not moving from the couch, I forced myself to take the subway to the mosque on the Upper East Side.
There were again many people inside. I performed wudu, and felt especially refreshed after rinsing my mouth and inhaling and ejecting the water into and out of my nose. Wudu is like defragmenting a bottlenecked hard drive: You do not realize how enhanced you will feel until you do it.
I found an area in which to pray. When I stood to leave, an older man with dark skin and long eyelashes wearing a white robe walked over. “As-Salāmu ‘Alaykum,” he said.
“Wa ‘Alaykum As-Salam,” I said. It felt strange to speak Arabic to someone in New York.
“This is your first time here?” he asked.
I didn’t want to admit that I had been there before but had never talked to anyone in nearly a month in New York. “I recently transferred here for work at Schrub Equities,” I said.
“Ah, you are a banker.” He rubbed his fingers together and smiled. “You are making money, yes?”
“Yes,” I said. “I donate Zakat to schools in Qatar.”
“Are you from Doha?” he asked. I told him I was. “Then you should meet Fawaz.” He waved his hand at another man his age also in a white robe. Fawaz had one golden tooth, and told me that he was an Egyptian who previously lived in Doha but hadn’t been back in over a decade. He had lived near my family’s neighborhood, and we discussed the infrastructure changes there in the past ten years, e.g., construction for what will be the largest shopping mall in the Middle East.
Fawaz wrote his address and telephone number on a piece of paper. “My family is having a dinner with others from the mosque on Friday,” he said. “Your presence would honor us.”
“It would honor me as well,” I said.
After I left I felt enhanced in all ways, so I decided to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and walked south on 5th Ave. past the wealthy apartments bordering Central Park. Mr. Schrub probably knows many of their residents. One goal I had hoped to achieve here which I haven’t yet is meeting more business people and networking partners to build social capital. But whenever I meet someone, I have difficulty thinking primarily of that person as part of a future network.
The museum entrance was similar to a palace and made the Qatar National Museum seem like a small store. I was seven when I first went. I do not remember the actual visit, but only what happened before it. There was an exhibition on Qatari traditional clothing and how it is produced. Even though clothing is not my preferred subject now and it was not then either, my mother talked about it for several days in a way that stimulated my interest.
The day arrived, and we were about to leave when my father, who was reading a newspaper at the kitchen table as he often does, asked where we were going.