SHORT STORY: He-She

He-She

By: Aadel M Al-Mahdy

Three things he has been long waiting on needles and fire to do as soon as he has reached the age of sixteen; to get his ID card, to get his driving license and to get his passport. And one burning desire ran in his bloodstream; to travel to Europe.

In his childhood, as much as he has enjoyed the Arabian nights and Ali Baba and the forty thieves, he has also enjoyed Robin Hood and William tell, and many other stories in which illustration of creatures like squirrels, penguins, skunks, beavers and otters, fascinated him. He also wanted to see these alien creatures in their natural habitat.

“You’re a man now, Waleed” his eldest brother said, seeing him holding his ID card in his hand and looking at it with dreamy eyes. “Why are you saying that?” Waleed asked his brother. “You’ve your ID card now” his brother answered. “With or without my ID I’m a man” Waleed emphasized. “Why then all the fuss last year about when you were going to obtain it?” his brother asked. “Because without my ID card, I cannot have my driving license and my passport” Waleed answered. “What’re you going to do with a passport?” his brother inquired. “Travel” Waleed said. His brother failed to hide his surprise but then asked him, “Do you have money to travel?” ─ “I’ve been saving money over the last five years” Waleed said. “God, you’re so determined!” His brother said and then added, “Ok, when the time comes and you find yourself in short of a few pounds, ask me”

As soon as the window of opportunity opened, Waleed flew through it like a hawk swooping down on its prey and over two years, he visited Italy and France where he worked during the school long summer holiday, lived his life as he wanted, purchased a few things and saved some money for his next visit.

“Where are you going this summer, Waleed?” his brother asked.“This time I am going to Britain. I want to visit the stone hedge. It’s an enigmatic monument and archaeologists have different theories about why it was built” Waleed enthusiastically answered him ─ but cunningly smiling, his brother said, thinking that Waleed was still too young to understand his double meaning, “Really, so the Eiffel tower and Michael Angelo’s statue of David did not quench you thirst for culture. You think the stone hedge will” Understanding what his brother meant as well as his cunning smile, Waleed laughed all heartily and said, “I guess the British monuments are kind of better looking; kind of more round and bubbly" and then added with a smurky smile on his face, "Look at the stone hedge! Isn’t it round?” ─ “Round and beautiful” his brother said, laughing, “Just don’t forget to bring me a piece of English woollen fabric good for a suite, and if you still have money left, maybe a nice turtle-nick Sweater; Saint Michael, the one that has elbows patched with leather. English wool is the best as the Egyptian cotton is worldwide”

Two weeks later, Waleed got the visa and flew to England, and one week before the end of his visit, he stayed in London. A few days before he departed he decided to go to a night club in Soho and have some fun.

Sitting to the bar with one half of his third Caesar drink in front of him, Waleed’s eyes fell on her and absolutely refused to leave. “Who’s that houri?” he asked the bartender. “Oh, isn’t she gorgeous. Her name’s Felicity” the bartender said with a weird tone of voice and a strange smile on his face while rubbing his left earring. “Felicity she is. God, she’s so beautiful” Waleed said; his voice gently articulated. “Are you interested in her?” the bartender asked. Who wouldn’t, my dear English man? Waleed thought, ignoring to verbally answer the bartender question. Felicity was the most gorgeous girl he has ever seen in his whole life, and he has, so far, visited two European countries well-reputed for romance and amour and seen many girls.

Felicity was almost Waleed’s age. Her thick hair reached down to her waist that looked like a thin line emphasizing her seductive endowments above and below. Her hair; soft like Chinese silk and raven-black like an intense moonless night in the Sahara desert, flew in response to her dance movement like the mane of an Arabian mare galloping freely on the floor of a valley during spring season. Her eyebrows perfectly curved perfectly like ancient Bukhara mosques’ domes. Her emerald-green wide eyes looked dreamy. Her long eyelashes, rimming her slightly drooping eyelids, cast light shadows on her soft rosy cheeks. Her lips were red like wild cherry freshly plucked in the mountains of Lebanon, and the lobes of her ears delicate and inviting. Her pomegranate-like breasts were perfectly sized and shaped, and her nipples were defiantly perky. She wore a pleated mini-skirt revealing her erotically seductive firm and round thighs and her gracefully alabaster-like long legs.

He started having butterflies in his abdomen, and an orgasmic feeling shot throughout his body causing his toe tips to tingle. An urge for holding her tight in his arms and squeezing the sweet honey out of her pouting lips overcame him. “God, the way she dances is both satanically inspired and heavenly revealed” he whispered to himself, feeling being dragged towards her by a cosmic gravitational pull. He gathered his strength, walked towards her, tapped her on the shoulder and bowed politely. “May I have you on the floor!” said he unaware of his bad English. “No, you may not!” she said, her voice sounding gentler than cool-breeze in a hot summer day, but realizing that he was a foreigner, she cackled and then added correcting his syntax, “but you can have this dance with me on the floor”

They held each other. She submissively synchronized her moves to his, and then they both danced to the music more harmoniously than the gentle shore-beating of ocean waves in a moon-lit night. Tipsy of the essence they were, so they rubbed noses, held each other tighter and closer and wiggled, heaved and gyrated. Soon their breathing shortened and their foreheads shone with perspiration. “Let’s go home” she whispered to him while slightly biting on his earlobe. He wiggled his neck and whispered back to her, “We better do. Everybody’s looking at us”

On their way out, the bartender waved his hand and smiled at Waleed in a way meaningful to no one but himself. Waleed had seen this expression before on the bartender’s face, but failed so far to understand it.

On the bed in Felicity’s Studio apartment, they hugged and kissed feverishly. Waleed had her grape-like nipples in his mouth, slightly bit them with his teeth, and flicked them with his tongue. He scoured her nick, her cleavage and then his lips moved down to her naval while his hands were busy scratching her back. He grabbed her firm, round butt, cupped and pinched it. When he sat up to take off his shirt, his eyes caught sight of her groin area. She was shaved down there, something which always aroused him; but suddenly he stopped what he was doing and abruptly retreated. His facial muscles contracted violently. One of his eyes twitched constantly, the two corners of his mouth dropped along with his lower jaw, and as though he has seen the devil, he screamed and jumped off the bed. Felicity stood up facing him. Waleed’s eyes then had a full and unmistakable view of Felicity’s sexual organ.

When he was very young, Waleed and his friend used to gather together during the long summer holiday and sit by the Nile River and tell each other scary stories about Djinn, Ghouls, Efferits, Satan and monsters. They all were under the impression that Satan had a weird sexual organ. Since no female accompanied Satan when he was driven out of heavens, he had to have both male and female organs, otherwise how would he be able to have offspring. Logical as it may sound and unaware at their age of the existence of Hermaphrodites among the human race, they had to come to this conclusion. “Where do you think the little Efferits came from? They’re Satan’s offspring. He had to have both penis and vagina” one of Waleed’s friends said unaware that hermaphrodites were the mules of the human race; barren!

Years later, in a studio apartment in London, when Waleed’s eyes caught sight of the sexual organ of someone whom he thought was a girl and saw her semi-erected penis and her two hanging testicle, he realized that he a crush on the daughter of the devil; a repugnant thought that made him feel like throwing up. So he picked his clothe and shoes, ran to the apartment door, opened it and slammed it shut behind him, ran down the stairs, called a taxi and never looked back.

Back in Egypt, Waleed said to his eldest brother, laughing so hard that his legs wobbled and eyes filled with tears, “Well, it is said, there is seven benefits in traveling; one of them is obviously a shemale encounter”his brother laughed and said, “That’s right, and, on the other hand, one of the seven bad things is forgetting to bring the English woolen fabric and sweater. I needed the fabric to tailor a suite for a special occasion” Waleed shouted while still laughing, “What! What occasion?" his brother smiled but did not answer. Waleed then asked while trying hard to hide his sarcasm by covering his mouth with his hand:

"Are you having a date with a Felicity?”

The End