Children of Dust_ A Memoir of Pakistan - Ali Eteraz [57]
This sexual apocalypse ameliorated my desire to talk about sex, but only briefly.
Thankfully, I found an ally in an unusual place: Saleem.
Saleem and I talked about girls in all sorts of raunchy ways. We usually had these talks at a basketball court near his house, away from anyone’s earshot. The only problem with him was that he tended to Islamize every discussion, which meant that the focus was on getting married first and then having sex. Still, we did get to sex eventually, and that was good enough for me.
“I can’t wait anymore,” he said dribbling the ball. “I’m sixteen and a virgin! How is this possible? I hit puberty at eight. I need to fuck.”
“Me too,” I agreed, both disturbed and excited by his word choice.
“There’s this kid in Birmingham. I met him at the Muslim Sports Day. He got married as soon as he got out of high school.”
“Is his wife hot?” I asked, hoping he would describe her.
“Dude. He’s getting it on three times a day!” he said, ignoring my request for a description.
“Lucky bastard.”
“So who do you want to marry?” he asked. We were both aware that asking who you wanted to marry was code for asking who you wanted to bend over and nail.
“How about that Egyptian chick, Amal?” I said, remembering a young hijabi that Saleem had pointed out to me at a Starbucks once.
“Yum,” Saleem said approvingly. “She’s got thick thighs. The thickest thighs in the Islamic ummah. But you need to tap that fast.”
“Why?”
“She’s Egyptian, man. Egyptian girls get fat quick. You need to ask for her hand in marriage soon. I bet you her parents would hand her over to you.”
“I can wait a little,” I said, not entirely sold on the idea of getting married during high school.
“Yeah, I guess you can wait. After all, all our women get fat,” Saleem concluded with all the authority of a sixteen-year-old virgin. “That’s why we’re allowed to get another couple of wives when we’re older.”
I looked at him and smiled. Talking about polygamy was code for discussing threesomes.
“I’m going to get a Brazilian and an Indian in addition to my Egyptian,” I said greedily. “Cover three continents that way.”
“I’m going to get a Bosnian and a Colombian,” he replied.
I imagined the scene and smiled again.
“Do you know why it’s really important to reestablish the Islamic caliphate?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“So I can be appointed governor of South America. Then I can have my pick of Latinas for wives.”
“I guess I’ll take Los Angeles,” I said. “Good diversity there.”
“What would be your title? The Sultan of California?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’d be too busy getting ass,” I replied, trying out the new vernacular.
As Saleem went on speculating about how my caliphate in California—or khalifornia, as guys he read about on the Internet called it—could be actualized, I imagined my ideal woman: a virgin, stripper, actress, homemaker with a PhD.
“Where can I find such a girl?” I inquired.
“Have you tried AOL?” Saleem replied. “You can find everything on the Web. That’s where I read about Ibn Taymiya.”
At first it was difficult to convince my parents that they should let me move the computer to my room, but they relented when I told them that, like Saleem, I intended to go online to learn about Islam. Flim wasn’t happy about their decision, but I assured him