Stripped E-Book

Lucian S.

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 358

Beschreibung

STRIPPED is the raw and unfiltered journey of survival, love, and resilience. In this gripping memoir, follow the harrowing tale of a gay Syrian man imprisoned for simply being himself. From the darkness of captivity to the hidden world of underground LGBTQ communities, witness the courage as he unveils a clandestine realm never revealed before. Amidst the shadows, he finds solace in a forbidden love story that transcends boundaries and defies odds as he navigates a tumultuous romance with a Swiss journalist. STRIPPED is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of identity, the beauty of love, and the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity. "This book is an appeal against indifference, and it is, above all, the story of a dignified triumph of the human will, a "Yes" to life, despite all obstacles." Tagblatt der Stadt Zürich

Leseprobe

Hatred can neither conceive nor give birth.

Nizar Qabbani

Table of Contents

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Epilogue

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Prologue

If you can’t see other than what light is showing you and you can’t hear other than what voices announce to you, so dear, the truth is that you can’t see or hear. The truth needs two people: one to say it and one to perceive it. In this book, there are many challenging events. Please do not continue if you are dependent on your present belief system and do not accept others or feel you cannot cope emotionally with what has happened and is happening in some people’s lives. Please do not continue if you are an “I know it all” type of person or if your religion is worth killing for. I assure you that there’s nothing for you in this book.

If you choose to continue, please remember that some of us are like ink, and others are like paper. If it were not for some of us to be dark, the white would be deaf, and if it were not for the whiteness of some of us, the blackness would be blind.

Whenever I thought about holding a pen and starting to write, I stopped myself in any way I could to forget about it because I knew that deep inside, I was not even ready to hear my thoughts—much less share them with others. Because, trust me, you may lose your mind trying to understand mine.

But here I am, starting another thing to do. Not for myself, but to make a difference or at least to inspire someone that life moves on, and the show must go on with or without us. It is time to tell the whole damn world that we exist, and we will simply be ourselves with our unique fingerprints.

You may wonder what you will see in a book titled Stripped. Is it about being physically nude? Are you going to see nude photos between pages?

Let's be honest: Sex sells!

But no, you will not ... It will be way more interesting. It is about being nude in a different way, with no secrets, no stories to hide behind, and no clothes or masks to put on because not one of us was born covered. The first thing they did to us was cover us with a piece of fabric, a name to carry till we die, and a life we must live whether we like it or not. I decided to strip myself of everything I was covered with. I felt like it was worth it to walk upon the earth with no name and no clothes to be covered with, to walk only with my storytelling of who I might be, while my body is the paper of this book, and my features are drawn with the ink of all these words.

I always did my best to save my privacy. I have never liked people to know what is going on in my life. Even the closest people to me knew nothing in detail. I always wanted to handle my issues, sadness, and struggles alone. As it was once said, "Don't let people know too much about you; if they know more, they will find many ways to hurt you." Sharing some of my stories with strangers is like walking nude for me. Then I remembered that we were all born with no cover on. It makes sense to me because if covering our bodies all the time is that important and is a central issue around the globe, then why were we all born naked?

At first, I was planning to start writing this book and hide behind the pronoun HE Instead of I. Two letters could give me a better chance to avoid trouble, but I wanted to play this with my own rules and with the one letter that describes me and all of us the most. It is time for me to run my own show.

So, let's be just you and me, just the two of us, during these pages. I am going to tell you a lot of my story. I will imagine that we have known each other for a long time while talking to you just like I am talking to someone very close to me, whom I can trust to listen to without judgment.

One.

As once said, "When you pay attention, everything is your teacher."

I paid attention to almost everything since I was a little kid. I came to this world with so many questions like “Who's God? How old is he? Why He, not She? Why do we even breathe, and why did I come to this world in this particular place and time?”

I was a child who struggled for years to read and write, while most of the kids my age did it way earlier than I did. Somehow, my brain was ahead of many at my age, as I always wanted to know things instead of learning what I was told to learn. As a result of that, kids and adults called me so many names, such as “stupid, disabled,” and “crazy,” Struggling with reading, I always felt less of myself as a child, but when I did learn how to read, I didn’t stop, and I won’t till the day I die. I still remember the first story I ever read. It was written by the Greek fabulist and storyteller Aesop. The story was about Zeus, who created humans carrying two bags. One is hanging in the front and is full of other people’s shortfalls, and the other is hanging in the back, full of one's own shortfalls. This is why people can see the shortfalls of others and never see their own. This story made me, in one way or another, the person I am today. It made me always busy checking my back in the mirror, as I wanted to become a better version of myself. That made me busy enough to forget about checking the bag in the front. It made me blind to what other people might genuinely be and what they hid from me. Later on, all the names some people called me were replaced by the names Al Tant and Al kharoof (Faggot, sheep). A sheep because I have curly hair, and a faggot, because I was never someone who would make a fight, and that made me less than an ordinary boy in their eyes.

I used to hate school because, again, it was never the place to learn about what I wanted to know—it was to learn about what they wanted me to know. Just a few people had answers to my many questions since I was a child. One of them was my father. He used to drink a glass of Arak every night while having dinner. It was my favorite time because it was the time when my father would answer some of my questions and discuss almost anything with me. That was when I was between the ages of eight and fifteen. This was the school I loved the most, with one teacher and one class, where there were no forbidden questions. He taught me how to be the best version of myself. He taught me that God is not the punisher who waits for our mistakes, but that God is true peace and love, love in all kinds and ways, is inside every one of us, and is our brain that tells us the bad and the good. My father has those gorgeous blue-grey eyes, like the earth’s color from out of space, that make you feel like he has the wisdom of it; if the earth could speak, it would talk just like him. He taught me that there is no limit to learning. Every time we learn about something, we ask for more and still have much to know. Unlimited knowledge is something unreachable.

My dad was born and raised in a small village. The closest school to his modest house was a two-hour drive. He used to go there every single day, no matter what the weather was or how he had to get there, by bus or even walking. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he achieved it. He became an engineer and the first person in that area to earn a degree above middle school. He made it from totally nothing. I am so proud to have an amazing father like him.

My definition of female beauty was always a lady with long black hair, hazel eyes, bronze skin tone, long beautiful legs, with a gorgeous body, and she had to be a smoker.

My mom completely inspired my definition of female beauty. For me, “The beauty of the whole universe has been shortened in Mama.” She kind of grew up as an orphan and was raised by her amazing aunt after her dad had left because he was busy with his new wife and new children. They always told her that her mom had passed away when my mom was two years old. She had lived with this idea until her early twenties when she was on a trip to Lebanon with her friends. She accidentally met her mom in a restaurant in Beirut.

My grandmother was sitting there with her friend at a table next to the door, having her coffee, when a group of girls entered through that wooden door with a brass bell above it. She had no idea that the tinkle of that brass bell would be the start of being a mom again. When she saw them, her heart started beating so fast; she told her friend, "How life is so unfair. I am sure that my daughter is somewhere looking gorgeous, just like those beautiful young ladies and just like her own mom." Then they laughed about how much my grandma loved how she looked.

My mom has a unique name that I have never heard of before, nor have I even heard of someone else having it. After around fifteen minutes, one of my mom's friends said her name. At that moment, a bell tinkled fast and loud inside my grandma's heart like a church bell on a Sunday. Without hesitating, she stood up, walked to my mom's table, looked deeply into my mom's eyes, and asked, "Is that your name?" My mom kept silent for a few seconds before answering, so she asked again, "Is that your name?" My mom replied, "Yes, it is! Why?" My grandma asked, "Is your second name ......?" - "Yes, do we know each other?" At that point, my grandma fell on her knees, started crying, and hugged her like in a scene in an Italian opera. She told her she was her mother with a shivery, gravelly voice that kept my mom from questioning whether she heard the same thing. And then my mom said, even in a more shivery voice: "But my mom passed away when I was two years old! It is not possible!" During the next couple of hours, my mom heard the whole truth about the lie she had been living every single day of her past life. She heard about how her mom ran away in the middle of the night because of her husband, who used to beat her just for being an attractive woman he wanted to keep only for himself and didn't allow her even to leave the house. Sadly, my grandma had to put herself first and fled to Lebanon. The price she paid for being free was leaving her daughter to live as a motherless girl. But I believe this is what God is for. He takes care of each one of us in his own way.

I have this unique relationship with my mom. She is not only my sweet mom but also my friend, and I try my best to be a mom and a dad for her, in addition to being a good son. She taught me not only about love but also about giving and caring. She mentioned not only how much it may hurt to give or care but also how many people deserve our care and will return it to us in many ways.

Mom and Dad helped me find out how to achieve my dreams even out of nothing. They showed me how much even a simple smile to a stranger could make his day. They taught me whom I must love: “Fall in love with someone strong because this person might be the only army you need.”

Two.

I was raised in a middle-class family that offered almost everything to me except inner peace of mind. It took me quite a while to figure out that I had to find and achieve this on my own. At first, I couldn't find it because I was not honest with myself or supportive enough.

Every time I felt attracted to a guy, I ignored my feelings and him, not because I was ashamed of who I was but because I could be rejected. Even if he were gay, he would hide it and bully me for something within himself that he was fighting against. This is how many people in the LGBTQ community live their lives. They have sex with random people, and in public, they are ladies and gentlemen. They may not have the knowledge that they could be both homosexuals and ladies or gentlemen at the same time.

This is something that made me different from the start. I couldn't let some rules, created by people whose names no one knows or if they even existed or not, control how I had to live my life under the power and the name of conventionality or even religion. I often say: “As long as I am not hurting anybody, including myself, it is not your damn business whom I like to share my bed with.”

An African proverb says, “When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside can't hurt you.” This is how I became my best friend: deep inside, I knew that I was choosing the hard road and needed trustworthy company.

I knew I would only have what I wanted if I did what the rest were doing. I couldn't do that because I couldn't be anything but myself.

I started to see the world through a 15-inch screen. I began to search on the internet for something like what I was going through. That was the first time I saw how closed-minded the Arabic-speaking world is. I found out that in Arabic, we have a name. That name was close enough to be the name of the plague (Shaz). When I searched about the same in English, I found the word “Gay.” I began to feel happy, normal and accepted as a human being. Then, I started the journey to see myself as a normal 16-year-old guy. During the first month of being even a bit open about who I was, I lost a few of my close friends. I also lost my favorite uncle at that time. He told his wife to tell me at the door that I was not allowed to enter their place again and that I was dead for the whole family. That caused me much pain, but I somehow sucked it up and moved on.

I met a lot of both bad and good people online. I met the people who make you feel like they hadn't heard about something called “Hi” or “Hello.” All they used to do at first was ask for nude photos or about your role in bed. I couldn't accept that kind of person. I always admired the intellectual, polite, “classy” type of man. I met some of those men online and am still friends with some of them. My only problem was that all the guys I liked lived more than 2,000 miles away.

Eventually, at 16, I decided to leave school and study at home because I couldn't handle bullying. Boys at school used to bully me since I was eight years old. I went through eight years and a half of bullying, not because of anything except that I was different from them. On the other hand, girls used to like me at school, and all of them were my friends. That was one of the reasons boys hated me at school even more. I was always a straight-looking and acting guy, well dressed and always in love with perfumes. That kind of difference I was talking about before. I am a skinny guy with broad shoulders and 1.80 meters in height. I was not like this back then. I was a thin, short boy with curly hair, messy eyelashes, and sad eyes. Every boy at that school was bigger and taller than me, so they quickly showed off their strength by bullying me. They used to wait for me in front of the school’s gate after we finished classes. I had a different plan and an inner map every day to leave school without letting them see me. They beat me a few times before I learned where my strength lay. It was on my tongue. I was blessed with a tongue that I knew exactly how to use and when. That strong muscle I have was my weapon because, without it, I could only live a life controlled by a society that creates sons who believe that if they don't make trouble or beat other boys, they would never be real men.

It all started when I woke up one morning and wanted to wear my red shoes. This was not allowed at school. They had to be black. Just then, I decided that I was not going there again. I left the house for a whole week at the same time I used to leave every day. After school, I used to walk to the beach and sit until I had to be home. I told my mom the next week that I didn't want to go to school that day, and she asked, "Are you okay? Is it all good at school?" I said: "Yes, kind of, but I don't want to go today." She said OKAY. An hour later, someone from school called our house and wanted to talk to my mom to ask her why I missed a few days at school. When they asked her that, she looked at me and said: "His dad and I don't want him to go there anymore. He will study at home because your school is not a school we want our kid to be in."

At that point, I knew that my mom and dad felt I was unhappy there from the first day of that semester, but they needed some confirmation. They felt that I was going through a challenging difficulty and that I wanted to handle it on my own. I did take it on my own—by leaving a place where bullies surrounded me, and I am still glad that I did.

Three.

It is March 2015 at four in the morning, and the power is off. Under the light of a candle, I am trying to write about the next period I went through. Candles are nice and romantic, but only when you know you have power. It is hard for me to write about the period that will come next because this was the experience that didn't kill me but made me stronger. Yes, it didn't kill me and made me stronger, but it hurt me badly.

I started to have gay friends from around here. I met some online and some others through mutual friends. I thought that, finally, I was going to fit in somewhere. But no, I was mistaken. Or maybe I was not lucky enough to meet the good version of gay people here because, at that time, I learned what kind of gay people this society had formed. Let me tell you something about gay people here, or at least those I knew who were out of the closet. They are the biggest enemies of one another —by stealing each other's boyfriends or at least “Doing” them or calling the other one's parents to tell them about the sexuality of their sons. These sons would often be kicked out of their own homes. And finally, they use some people they know to get each other arrested.

I had plenty of experiences like that because of people I thought would have the same dreams as humans or even as citizens. Because of people I thought would look after each other. Trust me, there were moments when I missed the bullies back at school.

I always hated the word “victim” and promised never to be one or act like one. But, as some people say and believe, some things in our lives are meant to happen. I knew what it meant to be one of those people and how it felt. I guess it made me a little bit wiser as a human being and gave me experiences.

There is this coffee shop where gay guys used to hang out. I used to go there with the gay friends I had back then almost every day. I remember it was a rainy, cold evening when we went there one day. We sat at our usual table. Some of us were smoking shisha. The place was full of gay people who all knew each other. After sitting there for around twenty minutes, a handsome, tall man entered the door. All the guys in this coffee shop turned quiet for a few seconds because of the handsome stranger drenched in the rain. He was new to that place, and everyone was trying his best to be the first to talk to him. Most of the guys at my table were trying, smiling at him, and winking flirtatiously like the others. All of this was brand new to me. I felt so embarrassed and confused. I did not know if I should stay inside that place or leave. I left ten minutes later because I was so uncomfortable around people acting like sex machines.

The next day, I knew that the table that had won the contest to conquer the hot stranger was my friend’s. It turned out that he sat with them after I left, and of course, nobody at the other tables was happy about that, especially one effeminate guy in his middle thirties. He used to get upset and aggressive if someone spoke to him as a man. He thought of it as an insult. He was known to be high on drugs all the time. Everyone considered him a horrible person. His primary sources of income were prostitution or pimping, and he was a drug dealer from time to time, so he knew many troubled people and had much dirty money.

I stopped going to the coffee shop for a few days because I had to study. After a while, I felt bored and convinced myself how useless it was to feel so embarrassed for something I did not even do. I called one of my friends and asked him to meet me at the coffee shop.

I went there to see that handsome stranger sitting at our table. I said “Hi” to everyone and ordered my regular sweet coffee. I moved a chair and sat next to one of my friends. The handsome stranger also moved his chair and put it next to mine. He reached out his hand and said: “Hi, I am Aman, and I heard a lot about you.” I replied: “My pleasure. I’m Lucian.” Then he said in a low voice: “Actually, I know nothing about you because no one wanted to tell me anything. But here I am, and I want to get to know you more if you allow it.” We chatted for almost an hour about all sorts of things. I asked him with all the confidence I could manage during our conversation: “Why me? Look around! Everybody is craving even to talk to you.” — “First, because you are not,” he replied, “and second, I love guys who play hard to get.” And that was something I was not intentionally doing at all. For me, the sexiest body part is the mind. Also, I am the kind of person who is committed to the credo, “If anyone can have it, I don't want it." I also wanted to get to know him because he was so polite and confident, and he was the first guy who flirted with me in real life without living 2,000 miles away through a 15-inch screen.

We exchanged cell phone numbers and decided to meet again somewhere else — away from that place. We left together, and he waited until I took a cab. While sitting in the cab on my way home, one of my friends called me to tell me one of the most horrible, terrifying things to hear for a teenage gay guy like me. He told me that the effeminate guy who used to call himself “Afaf” had come to their table after I had left with Aman and started yelling and threatening them. He demanded to give him my land phone number. One of my closest friends - that's what I thought he was - asked Afaf if he could have a word and took him away from the table. He asked Afaf for money in return for handing over my number. They struck that deal, and after that, my friends saw Afaf shouting and screaming on his cell phone, telling one of my parents that “Your son is a damn faggot, and he just left with a hot guy to get fucked.”

When my friend and I ended that call, I cried and was utterly terrified. I didn't know what to do or what to say. Did I have to go back? Did I have to go home? Which of my parents answered him? What would my parents do to me? Would they be disappointed in me? Why hadn't one of my parents called me yet? Who would I call right now? Sadly, I had no one to call for advice or to help me calm down.

I took a deep breath and started to think about what I was going to do, what I was going to say. Then it hit me that I had to get home as quickly as possible because Afaf had told my parents that I just went out with some guy to have sex. If I came home soon, they would know he was a damn liar. I thought through everything during these minutes and decided that if they asked me about my sexuality, I would not lie about who I am —no matter the price. I was a gay guy who hadn't received even a kiss from another guy yet.

I respected myself for who I was, not because of any experience with another guy.

When I entered the house, it was unnaturally quiet. Then I heard my mom from the kitchen asking: “Habibi, is that you?” I waited a few seconds until I could answer her. She asked me to give her a hand with something. I went to the kitchen, and when I looked at my mom's face, I realized that she had something to say to me. She noticed the fear in my eyes and asked me if everything was okay. “Yes, kind of,” I said. “Look, my prince, someone called us and tried to tell me some stuff about you. I didn't let him finish and told him I would call the police if he called again. I don't want to ask you about anything, but I will ask you to stop talking to anyone at that coffee place. None of them is good enough for you. Change your cellphone number tomorrow. I don't want any of them to bother you or get in touch with you. I trust you and am sure you know what’s best for you.”

I knew deep inside that my mom was right. These people were not good for me. The next morning, I got a new cellphone number. On my way to the store, I received a text message: Afaf had paid more money to get the land phone numbers of my friends at school. He had called their parents one by one to tell them that I was a “faggot.” Not one of them would talk to me anymore. After I finished reading this text, I wished only to be invisible. I remember sitting on the sidewalk, feeling so lonely, thinking of nothing. Then I broke the SIM card of my old cellphone number.

I stayed inside my room for a couple of days doing nothing except crying and listening to music before I started to think: Why am I here crying because of people who want me to cry and feel hurt? Why am I giving them exactly what they want that easily? I am so much fucking stronger and smarter than this.

That was the first thing that made me develop trust issues. I am getting my revenge now from that thing called Afaf by telling his story and using “He.” Trust me, to my mind, it would drive him crazy, although I don't think he is able to read Arabic, much less English.

Karma does its job in so many ways. The friend who sold my land phone number and my friends' numbers to Afaf lives in Turkey now, using drugs. And I have never heard anything from that handsome stranger who called himself Aman.

Four.

Music has had an enormous influence on me ever since that time. I went through so much depression, but the next few months were my first time dealing with such a gut punch of negative feelings. I remember how many times I thought about ending my own life at that time. Music always used to get me out of that dark zone.

Sometimes, all we need to do is listen to the right song. I have always been a fan of music that makes you feel better and stronger. Sometimes, I needed to hear sad music with sad lyrics because it made me feel like it was expressing everything I went through— even more since I had no one to talk to about it. It is like saying out loud what's going on in your mind that you can't say for yourself.

I spent most of my time alone in my bedroom studying, listening to music, and overthinking everything. Overthinking took me to dark places so many times. I felt alone and like everybody would be embarrassed even to say “Hi” to me. When I left the house, I was convinced that everyone was staring at me, knowing what was happening inside my head and judging me. It was all because of overthinking about something. I acted like it would not hurt, but it hurt very much.

My parents started to control my life more and more. They made many things forbidden for me, but I've always been the kind who rebels against rules — as long as I am not hurting anyone, including myself.

Jail is any place you cannot leave. I know exactly what that means because I experienced it every moment in my homeland. I felt the same when I was stuck at the house because it was something my parents wanted me to do. Then I learned how to say “No”— to really mean it and act accordingly.

I have just one brother who is older than me by a few years. He was always the tough, masculine guy who embodied the image of straight society. My brother and I never had a close relationship, even when we shared the same room as kids. He attended a different school and hung out with other friends. I always felt like my brother was embarrassed once his friends knew that I was his only brother. This seemed to be all because I was not a troublemaker, and my friends were mostly girls. My brother is such a sweetheart inside, and I don't blame him because you must always be tough to survive in an environment like here. He kicked many boys’ asses back at school just because they bullied me. It all changed when we grew up. People do change when they get older, don't they?

On June 21st of the same year, it was my birthday. I did nothing special like every other birthday except think and dream of where I would possibly be next year on this exact date. The next day, I argued with my brother about why I was keeping my hair long. Wearing your hair like this around here is unusual if you look like a straight, masculine guy. The argument grew because I was done hearing from people what I had to do and what not. I fired back, which is unacceptable to come from a younger brother. I couldn't help but use my sharp tongue, my weapon, to fight mean people or defend myself. And my brother was really mean to me that day. I remember when he felt he couldn’t answer me anymore. He told me something that makes me feel so hurt even today. “Look fag,” he said, “Don't ever say that I am your brother because I am not, not anymore. You are an embarrassment. You are dead to me.” My parents were there during the whole argument. They said nothing when he told me that. It was the first time I left the house crying because I felt like my parents agreed with him when they chose to stay silent.

I left the house and started to walk without knowing where to go. I walked to whatever place my feet were carrying me. I felt nothing new at that time. I was feeling so alone. People on the streets looked at me, wondering why I was crying, but no one bothered to ask.

After a couple of hours, my feet took me back to our apartment building. I remember sitting on the sidewalk. I was staring at the window of my room, thinking of all my feelings, thoughts, and dreams since childhood. There was so much to remember. When I came back home, I talked to nobody there. The next day, I began to stop fighting my teenage hormones. Instead, I just ignored everybody around me, including my parents.

Is it okay to live a life others don't understand?

I kept this up for around a week. Then I decided to find another place where I could find gay people around here, and I found it quickly. I wanted to be a brand-new person and a stronger version of myself. I acted like I didn't care about anything, like I had nothing to lose. This was, of course, not true. We don't appreciate what we have until it is sadly gone. I was doing everything my hormones were driving me to do to ignore my loneliness. Here I am, blaming my hormones as a teenager instead of the whole society for what happened to me next. How sweet of me!

I made new friendships with new gay guys from around here. I started to hang out with more and more people day after day. I became friends with practically everyone gay in my city. I didn’t see much difference between them and the people at the gay coffee place in the past. Most of them had the same attitude and even the same lifestyle. Sex meant almost everything to them.

I became more and more popular in a short time. I was so good at playing the character I was playing around them. But I also remember being rude to rude guys who used to bully others to show everyone that I was not the one to mess with. Deep inside, it was all about seeing the old me bullied by mean people—like those poor guys. The old me had no one to protect him—but those others would have me around them.

I learned more and more during that time about gay life and how they got to know each other. They invented their own language to talk to one another. They use it when they don't want anyone around to understand them. They may use it to talk about a hot guy sitting next to them or maybe about money and escort business, which is prevalent in their environment. Some of them became escorts to survive after leaving their parent’s house. Others did it just for fun. They love sex and an expensive lifestyle, so being an escort for them was like a dream job.

After a while, their language became not a secret anymore and was known to many who were not gays, thanks to the gay guys who would do anything to make out with straight ones. Those straight guys would brag for hours about how many girls begged them to have sex, and a few hours later, they would be bottoms in bed with gay guys who wear wigs. The following day, they will return to being the tough guys and will bully every gay that they see on the streets.

I had my own experience with this kind of guy, but it differed from the one other gays went through.

It was a cold winter night when I walked with one of my friends. The streets were empty, and just a few cars were passing by. I remember seeing two guys standing in a corner. It was dark over there. The only thing I could see was the glow of two cigarettes. When those guys saw us, they began to follow us slowly. While walking, I laughed with my friend but was so scared of them deep inside. I couldn’t show my fear because I knew that they were like animals—they smelled fear. My friend was wearing some makeup, so they could tell we were gay. They kept following us for more than thirty minutes and were coming closer. They started to throw some words: “We are horny.” and “We want to fuck." That made me even more scared because they looked like troubled people. Ten minutes later, they stood before us and asked us to talk—I was shaking. Again, they asked us for sex. “We know a place we can go to,” one of them said. I remember that one was around 1.95 cm tall, and the other was shorter than me. The short guy was the one who did all the talking with all his rudeness. He made me feel like it was an order to have sex with them, and we had to do it immediately. I hid my hands inside my pockets so they wouldn’t see them shaking. My brain worked so fast; unfortunately, I used my sharp tongue when he finished talking. I told him to grab a chair and stand on it so I could see him first—next time he wants to speak to us. We left and walked as fast as we could, looking behind us every few minutes to see if they were still following us. After a while, in the middle of the empty street, I could hear someone running toward us from behind. I was terrified enough not to look behind me. safe, I felt something sharp and cold entering my back. One of the guys had stabbed me between my shoulders with a razor. Both ran away like rats.

I remember my friend screaming while putting his hand on my back and pressing hard on the wound. I felt no pain. All I was feeling was being lost. I couldn't understand what was happening until I saw my friend's hands covered with blood, covered with my blood; I saw his hands while he was screaming for a cab to take us to the hospital. He hugged me and told me that everything was going to be okay. The last thing I could remember from that night was the smell of my blood, which made me unconscious. After a few hours, I woke up in the hospital, full of pain. The razor had entered my body close to the spine. There were two wounds on my back, which needed seven stitches each. No one told me how deep the wounds were, but I had to keep the stitches for around three weeks and wasn't allowed by the doctors to leave bed or move.

The two scars are still on my back, and every time I see them in the mirror, I ask myself if it would have been wiser to do what they wanted—to avoid what happened that night. But at the same time, I knew I would do exactly what I did again, and my reaction would be the same.

Of course, my parents never knew the truth about what happened that day. I was lucky that I didn't get killed during that cold night or that they didn’t attack my face with that razor. If I had been mature enough then, all I would have had to do was stay away from that lifestyle and keep my life only inside the fifteen-inch screen of my computer until I had the chance to leave. I didn’t because I needed to be closer to something and wanted to know exactly what it was. I had many questions and thought I could find the answers somewhere in that lifestyle. So I returned to that life the day the doctors removed the stitches. I started to hang out again with the same friends every day. The fear was something attached to me all the time. I feared going through anything I had gone through before, but I was acting like the guy who had the thickest skin ever. I lived daily without thinking about the future and trying to forget the past.

I remember the first gay party I attended. It was something unforgettable for me as a gay teenager. It was a birthday party, and many guys were in that big beach house the host had rented. Some of them were shirtless, and others were wearing women’s clothes. The only thing that was in common between all of them was that they were drunk. There was a locked room upstairs where they put all the stuff they didn't want to lose, and only a couple of guys had the keys. I went up there with one of my friends to store our wallets and cell phones. Then we went downstairs to enjoy our first gay party. The music was so loud that we couldn't even talk. There was a DJ who played the most horrible Arabic songs I have ever heard, songs for belly dancing. It became like a competition for them to see who was dancing better.