Samira Abdellatif of Egypt

"Only a whore prefers Blacks, the good woman will welcome death rather than being touched by a Black man," that's part of the Arabic literature on racial relations between Africans and Arabs, and it stems from the earliest days of the supposedly egalitarian (racially speaking) Islamic faith. It explains why even though you will see lots of Arab men with African wives or concubines, we Arab women are expressly forbidden to Africans. At least in Arab nations...

In today's world, Islam is fast spreading across the globe, and I've seen people from the Afro-Caribbean and Latin American realms enter the Muslim world without truly understanding its long history of racism against darker-skinned peoples. I really wish they'd do their homework, and be particularly careful in their dealings with Arabs, whose hatred for dark-skinned folks surpasses even that of Europeans, which is really saying something.

I say this as the ultimate transgressor, a woman who is of Arab descent, and yet has willfully and boldly broken the ultimate taboos of Arab society. Against all odds, I learned to think for myself and make my own decisions about what to believe, and who to love. I went against the grain, and I suspect that someday I'll pay the price for it.

What do I mean by that? I left Islam, became something that the one billion or so souls who follow the faith absolutely despise. What is that, you may ask? I am an apostate, and even worse, I fell in love with a black man from the United States of America. For his love I left Egypt, and now we live in Washington D.C. They will vilify my name till kingdom come, but I don't care one bit. Love makes you do crazy things...

In case you're wondering who this is, my name is Samira Abdellatif, and I'm a newcomer to the American Capital by way of Alexandria, Egypt. I was born to a Muslim family, and once considered myself a devout Muslim. Today, I consider myself a secular human being, neither a believer in any particular religion nor an atheist. This is unacceptable in Arab society, where religion plays a major role in all human interactions. That's why I was forced to flee my native Egypt.

Oh, shoot. I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Let's start at the beginning, if you please. While studying at the American University in Cairo, I met scholars from the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Canada. That's when I was exposed to western ideas, and began questioning my Islamic faith, along with certain racial issues that I saw happening in Egyptian society, and the rest of the Arab world.

One of my greatest influences was Professor Jonathan Samson, a visiting professor at the American University in Cairo. Professor Samson came to Cairo by way of Washington D.C. in the U.S. Oh, and he also holds a Bachelor's degree in business from Morehouse College, and an MBA from Howard University. To me, Professor Samson was akin to a unicorn, for he represented something I never thought I'd see. A tall, handsome and confident, highly educated and successful Black man from the other side of the world.

"Every country has issues of ethnicity, especially where the population isn't homogenous when it comes to skin color, culture and religion, but not every nation deals with it in the same way," Professor Samson said, while lecturing my class, Globalization And Diversity. We listened with rapt attention as the well-dressed, flamboyant academic went on about the human factor behind the global economics.

As a Finance major, I'd taken the humanities-related course because I considered it an easy elective. Something to fill in the time during my final semester as a graduate student. My goal was to graduate from American University in Cairo with stellar marks, and then take my fancy degree someplace like America or the United Kingdom, and make lots of money.

"We're good Muslims in Egypt, Professor Samson, there's no racism among us," I stated, with my hand raised. I was one of eleven female students in a class of thirty, and most of my fellow students were Egyptian Arabs, with a few South Asians here and there. There's a growing number of South Asians in Egypt, mostly hailing from places like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. They're becoming a fairly common sight in Cairo. I'd never seen an Indian prior to moving to this city for my schooling.

"Interesting statement, Miss Abdellatif, I wonder if Afro-Sudanese residents of Egypt would feel the same way," Professor Samson replied, and that statement was met with somewhat irksome looks from the Arab male students in class. I could totally understand their reservations in dealing with Professor Samson, even though I wasn't male. This African American guy didn't know the first thing about Arabian societies, yet saw fit to lecture us about racial relations in our own homeland. That's how I thought, in those days. Mind you, in my defence, I was only twenty two...

"Professor Samson, I'll have you know that Egypt had a mixed-race person as its third president, Anwar Al-Sadat, he was part Sudanese and part Egyptian, and still managed to get elected, perhaps our society isn't as racist as you think," I retorted, and Professor Samson smiled at me. I looked at my fellow students, male and female, pale and dark, and to a person, they nodded at me. I've always been outspoken and headstrong, and it looks like it takes a stubborn young woman to shut up certain pompous foreign academics...

"Excellent thought, Miss Abdellatif, perhaps you're positioning your past leader Anwar Al-Sadat as the Obama of the Arab world, in spite of his tragic fate," Professor Samson countered, and I fell silent. I hadn't thought of that. Anwar Al-Sadat was way before my time, and he died tragically due to a murderous assassin. Still, I thought of him as an exemplar of progressive racial relations in the Islamic world, and wouldn't let Professor Samson continue to vilify my homeland as racist.

Seriously, in America, police shoot unarmed black men all day and every day, if Professor Samson were so concerned about racism, he should be over there fighting police brutality, not lecturing nice Egyptian Arabs like myself about human rights in our country. Whatever racism darker-skinned persons might endure in Egypt, white police officers in America do much worse to darker-skinned people in places like Los Angeles, New York City or Ferguson.

"Sir, I never said we were perfect," I said with a sigh, and locked eyes with Professor Samson. The man was tall, easily six-foot-four, with broad shoulders and a strong build. He insisted on wearing a dark blue business suit, white silk shirt and red tie in spite of the heat in Cairo, and didn't seem to sweat much. The man tolerated the Egyptian heat even better than the Afro-Sudanese whom he was so fond of talking about. Alright, he annoyed me but I won't try to act like I'm not impressed.

"Understood, Miss Abdellatif, moving on, please," Professor Samson replied, and then he changed the subject, going on a wild tangent about the oppressive influence of the International Monetary Fund in developing nations. I didn't really listen. I kind of zoned out and looked out the window, looking at the vast American University campus, which looked high-tech, modern and vibrant. When I focused again, the Prof was writing something on the board. Nice ass, I remembered thinking, as I looked at Professor Samson.

After class, I went to the campus library, and looked Professor Samson on the computer. According to his Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, the good professor was forty years old, and previously worked as a lecturer at San Francisco University in California, and spent three summers teaching at the University of Casablanca in Morocco. Impressive, must be why he speaks Arabic so fluently, I thought, in spite of myself.

Browsing the Prof's Facebook page, I saw pictures of Professor Samson next to a tall, chubby, middle-aged white woman with red hair, and a tall and lean, obviously mixed-race young man. A cursory check revealed that the woman was Mildred O'Reilly, Professor Samson's Irish-born former wife, and the mixed-race young man was their son Conrad Samson, who was studying at Brunel University in the United Kingdom. Someone's got a taste for exotic women, I thought to myself.

I didn't know it at the time, but that's how my obsession with Professor Samson began. I had never met anyone like him, nor did I know that men like him existed. A lot of Afro-Sudanese people live in Egypt, but they usually occupy the lower echelons of our supposedly democratic, non-racist, progressive Egyptian society. I never questioned why the Nigerians, the Ethiopians and the Afro-Sudanese who came to Egypt mainly worked either as construction workers, shopkeepers or domestic servants. It was simply the way of things.

As the semester rolled on, I got to know Professor Samson a bit better. Sometimes I went by his office just to talk. I told myself that it was just because I enjoyed his thought-provoking arguments. Truth be told, I was starting to develop a crush on the guy. Of course, I told myself it could never be. Good Egyptian girls like myself don't throw ourselves at older men, especially professors at the schools where we study. Also, Professor Samson was foreign...and black. This was unacceptable in Egyptian society.

Still, my own situation was fairly unique. My parents, Hossam and Sarah, died during the Arab Spring. I was cared for by my maternal aunt, Aunt Fatima, who is divorced and had no heirs. She took me in in the harrowing days after my parents died. Aunt Fatima was pretty tolerant of my 'western' ways, and let me wear what I want, and live life my way. She understood that Egypt was changing, as was the world, and that young women of my generation wanted to do things our way. I don't think I would have had the courage to go after Professor Samson otherwise...

One evening, after classes were over, I went by Professor Samson's office in the humanities building. I knew I'd find him there, either browsing the web on his computer, or correcting papers. He was one of a few professors at the American University in Cairo who did everything himself, instead of hiring a teacher's assistant to help him with the course workload. The man worked like a Myrmidon...

"Student seduces teacher, that's a bit of a cliché," Professor Samson said to me, smiling, as I crept up on him. We'd been discussing racial issues in America and Egypt, along with the treachery of global politics, and he told me he had a book on the subject. When he stood up to grab said book off his shelf, I decided to make my move.

It's now or never, I thought. Professor Samson was facing away from me, and his cute butt had me practically salivating. I'm that woman who checks out male asses. Deal with it. Earlier, when I came into his office, I noticed the way he was looking at me. I wore a black tank and too-tight black jeans, with a loose shawl over my shoulders. By Western standards, I was dressed okay. By Egyptian standards, I was dressed to kill, like a sexy Mata Hari...

"I know you want me, Jonathan," I replied, calling him by his first name, and the professor smiled. I was standing real close to him, so close that I could smell his cologne. The brother looked me up and down, and I could tell that he liked what he saw. We looked at each other, woman to man, and man to woman. I saw the desire in his desires, and his feeble attempts to resist me. I wrapped my arms around him, and smiled.

"Samira, you're very beautiful, but you're my student, I shouldn't do this," Professor Jonathan Samson replied, and then he pulled me close and kissed me. It's been said that a woman can tell a lot about a man by the power ( or lack thereof ) of his kiss. When Jonathan kissed me, I felt it. His raw passion, which he'd been holding in check for so long. Without hesitation, or giving the matter much thought, Jonathan and I began making love, right there in his office...

"Passion makes the world go around, Jonathan, don't hold back," I whispered, feverishly kissing Jonathan, the man whose face had haunted my thoughts and fantasies for so long. As he laid me on his desk and caressed me, I slipped out of my clothes, revealing my voluptuous body to him. Jonathan smiled and looked at me appreciatively.

My own boldness surprised me. You see, I'd always felt self-conscious about my body, for I grew up getting taunted for being too tall ( I'm five-foot-eleven ) and socially awkward, and kind of gangly. As I reached my twenties, depression and a certain lack of exercise led me put on weight. All that went out the window when I saw the way Jonathan looked at me...

"You're beautiful, Samira," Jonathan murmured, and he kissed me full and deep, then began fondling my breasts. I lay there, embracing my lover as he began making love to me, waves of pleasure coursing through my body as my sweet spots were gently, kissed, thoroughly licked and firmly probed. It wasn't my first time by any means, but definitely memorable...

Jonathan's hand slipped between my rather thick thighs, and he slid his fingers into my womanhood, causing me to gasp. Smiling reassuringly at me, Jonathan began tweaking his way inside of me, eliciting moans of pleasure from yours truly. I cried out, shouting things in Arabic and English that would make a sailor blush, and a devilishly grinning Jonathan worked his magic on me...

"Hmm, this feels nice," I sighed, as Jonathan buried his face between my legs and began eating my pussy. As I'd come prepared for a successful seduction, I smelled and tasted sweet...all over. Jonathan teased my clitoris with his tongue and wormed his fingers into my cunt, sending waves of pleasure cascading through me. The brother had me right where he wanted me, and I was completely at his mercy...

Jonathan's magic tongue took me to cloud nine and I howled in pleasure, not caring that we were in the professor's office, and that someone doing some work in the late hours might hear us. Once I calmed down, I smiled at Jonathan and unzipped his pants, freeing his member. Nice, I thought as I stroked his manhood, pleased to discover that the professor wasn't fond of wearing underwear.

"Go for it," Jonathan whispered, as I got on my knees, pulled back my hair and took him into my mouth. Nice Muslim gals aren't supposed to do certain things, but when passion gets hold of you, it's impossible to resist. I craved Jonathan something fierce, and I loved the smell and taste of his manhood. Without guilt or shame, I gave in to my urges, and let passion take me where it would...

"Fuck me hard, habibi," I cried out as Jonathan bent me over his desk, and rubbed his cock against my ass. I turned and looked at him, and saw a look of primal need on his handsome face. Gone was the cultured, quick-witted academic, a decidedly wilder man stood behind me, his firm hands caressing my ass. I nodded, and Jonathan entered me with a swift thrust, and a sharp squeal escaped my lips.

I considered myself a 'good gal' in those days, even though I'd had a few lovers, but I'd never experienced passion on the level of Jonathan's lovemaking. The devilishly handsome scholar was pure masculinity as he rammed his dick into my pussy, bruising me, hurting me oh-so good and making me yield to him. I cried out his name as he fucked me with wild abandon, and he didn't let up until I basically begged him to stop.

"You're a unique woman," Jonathan said to me, a little while later. My clothes were back on, and I sat on his lap, happy as can be. I looked into his eyes and saw affection there, and a kind of peace, oddly enough. I took Jonathan's face into my hands and kissed him. This wasn't a normal evening for either of us. Nor was it what western jargon refers to as a booty call. Nope, it was the beginning of something...beautiful.

Egypt as a country is infinitely more liberal than, say, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for example. Egyptian women aren't obligated to wear the Hijab, and there's a diversity of cultures in my beautiful, complex homeland. Egyptian Christians, primarily known as Copts, form a sizeable portion of the country's demographics. Islam is woven into every aspect of life in Egypt, but we're not an Islamist country. There is a difference.

Jonathan and I had to be careful as we began seeing each other, for many reasons. As I said before, no matter how liberal Egypt might be, it's still very conservative by western standards. A man and a woman who are unmarried should still take precautions during their encounters, to avoid discovery. Oh, and there's also the fact that Jonathan is black and I'm an Egyptian Arab woman. Although a few Egyptian Arab men marry Afro-Sudanese women, and certain bold Egyptian Arab women have Afro-Sudanese husbands, interracial relationships still cause a lot of tension in our society.

In spite of the inherent dangers of our illicit relationship, or perhaps because of them, Jonathan and I couldn't get enough of each other. Office spaces, conference rooms and corridors, they became our make out spots on campus. The Village Compound, a nice complex located very close to the American University campus in Cairo, became our refuge. Away from prying eyes, Jonathan and I wined and dined and made love. It was absolutely wonderful.

Jonathan and I must have fucked over every inch of his two-bedroom apartment in The Village, and then some. After making love, we would lie in bed, talking about, well, anything and everything. Jonathan amazed me with his stories of places he'd visited, and the fascinating people he met. The brother was smart and charismatic, successful and great in bed. If only he were Muslim...and Egyptian.

"You'd love Washington D.C. my dear Samira, it's beautiful, diverse and friendly," Jonathan assured me, as he described his hometown to me. I asked him about his family, and he told me that he and his ex-wife Mildred were in good terms. A look of sheer pride washed over Jonathan's face as he spoke of his son Conrad, who was currently studying in England.

"America sounds wonderful, I hope to visit someday," I said, and I guess I must have looked sad, for Jonathan pulled me close and hugged me. I thought about America, and all the places I longed to visit. I loved Egypt, but the more time I spent with Jonathan, and hanging out at the American University, with carefree, confident young women and young men from places like America, Canada, England and Australia, the more I found myself looking at Egyptian society with a critical gaze.

For example, one of my distant cousins, Mohamed Faisal, who hails from Alexandria, made waves when he went to study at the University of Tel Aviv in Israel. Recently he came back to Egypt with his new bride, Shari Cohen, a young Jewish-American woman who had been living in Israel for the past ten years. Our family was scandalized, especially my usually liberal aunt Fatima, but eventually they accepted Mohamed's new bride. In Muslim societies, the men can marry women from any culture or religion, but the women can't do the same. When I mentioned the story to Jonathan, he called me out on my own bullshit...

"Samira, don't you see how unfair that is? Your cousin can marry a woman from another religion, but you can't," Jonathan said, his ire rising, and I looked at him, more than a bit peeved that he was in lecture mode. We were lying naked on his bed, side by side. All of a sudden, I felt uncomfortable, and tried to change the subject, but Jonathan wouldn't let it go...

"Jonathan, dammit, I don't make the rules, I was born a Muslim, I don't always agree with the rules of my faith, but I can't just ignore them," I said angrily. Jonathan reached for me and I batted his hands away, shouting at him even as tears ran down my face. Jonathan smiled and then gently pulled me into his arms, in spite of my stiff resistance, and finally, I let go.