Perfecting Paradoxes

Written by: Tantalize

Beza casually lights up a filtered cigarette as she meditates in reflection. Her face costumes contentment but her mind pleads guilt. It’s only 10:23 in the morning when Beza’s husband believes she is out shopping – with his money - for groceries and bound to pick up the kids from school. Hadi returns to bed after cleaning himself in the bathroom to join her after their marathon of sexual divulgence.

Beza is Kuwaiti, naked and replenished. Hadi is replenished but not Kuwaiti. He’s Lebanese, She3ee and married, as Beza too is married, but she’s a proud Sunniya who sees herself to be from a large well known family in a small country ruled by a struggling, slight Sunni majority. But she, like others of her self-imposed stature, like to exaggerate her true power and class. Neither are personally pleased with what their lives have turned into and where it has consciously taken them. Both are cheating not only on their spouses but also on their social-religious beliefs that have been conditioned into them by their family upbringing. They deliberate in the apartment in Hawalli that Beza monthly pays for. But, it is registered in Hadi’s name. This is where they both frequent a few times a week to cleanse themselves of the wickedness of what has been planted on them by their upbringing and mechanics of educational, and social misconceptions. Yet, this cleansing is toppled by another type of sinfulness. One of the most human kind.

Beza: “Hala habibi…Khalast? Could you bring me a glass of water and some of those funky sour candies on your way? I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.“ She said this so swiftly, smoothly and cunningly that Hadi had little time to manly protest. She knew that her syntax and semantics routinely made Hadi follow her whims and requests. After all, her matriarchal control was tolerated since she financially provided the rent.

Hadi: “You’re the queen, my heaven on Earth, the trajectory of everything sensual. I’d do anything for you, my beautiful.“ He laid these words with confidence since he knew his verbal pimping got him everywhere with women. His Lebanese knack that was infused with a flare of femininity-twists hadn’t faded yet and he knew this was what women like Beza adored hearing, and loved lying themselves into believing.

Beza: “How are your kids?“

Hadi: “Just great;“ he superficially returns! “Why do you ask?“ intrigued and inquisitive to know why Beza would dabble in his family affairs when they had already made a pact not to ever discuss their spouses or children. Beza seemed determined today, though. Her money and superficial aura of power made Hadi obedient because for once he was being taken care of instead of always caring for his wife and children. He didn’t mind one bit being Beza’s gigolo.

Beza: “Why are we married? And why to people we have come to despise? Hadi, do you believe this is what we women and men were made into accepting and thus deceiving ourselves into behaving? Is marriage and loving and being loved by one ever enough?“ Her philosophical queries started way too early in the day and way too late after sex for Hadi to want to reciprocate. But she did manage to get a hold of his curiosity where he loved being challenged.

Hadi: “Marriage is a failed institution conceived to falsely nurture human instinct into collective reasoning all the while murdering pure individual human emotion and action,“ was what spouted out of his mouth. “We are primitive in nature and barbaric in desire, yet civilly cultivated to be the very robots we thought we’d have control over! I am a perfect example of that. I thought all my grad work could set me into freedom that I thought existed, but it turns out that the idea of what I was chasing was imprisoned by the seed of everything I had not created nor ever wanted. One constant woman and children have grounded me, debt has molested my spirituality, and keeping up social appearances has made me feel like a borrowed man.“ Then, this self-reflection took him over; “I have to have sex with other women like Beza to temporarily gratify and disillusion me away from the misery that life has made me addicted into hating.“

Beza: “Don’t feel so down, Haaaadi ya hayaati. That is why we come together at this apartment. We privately explore what we can’t publicly show. Yes, we are prisoners of our own will and hypocrites of our own actions yet believers of our own fantasies. It’s the secrecy and taboo that make us hypocritical yet the inherit seductiveness of performing what we all seek is the most human part of it all. Come back to bed and let’s confess our sins in another round of borrowed fantasy.“

They did exactly that.

© COPYRIGHT Tantalize 2005