Parts of Desire Ch. 04

"She's an attractive woman with a fun, friendly personality, but I love you."

"I love you too. I cannot wait to have you inside me tonight. I want to give that to you, so badly. I know I won't be your first, but I hope I can compare to the other women you've been with." Rania shifted, looking down at Khadija still frolicking in the water, demonstrating the finer points of the breaststroke to a couple of preteens. "She's a wonderful person, and you can have her later this trip, too, if that's what you both want. But tonight is going to fulfill a fantasy I've had since I was a teenager, dreaming about my future husband. I still can't believe it's going to come true."

"I'm still completely in the dark about this, and I'm okay with that," I responded. "If this really is a teenage fantasy come true I'll be fine with whatever it is. I trust you."

"You're so sweet. I promise it's going to be wonderful."

In time, Khadija came back and towelled off, and we made our way back to the car. The open wadi had meant that the girls climbed in the car still wearing their wet swimsuits, and as I drove back out down the mountain, the girls both shed them, changing in the backseat, protected by the deeply-tinted windows and the lack of passers-by on the highway. I tried to focus on the winding mountain roads, but two dripping naked Arab girls were still a considerable distraction, even with them not trying, at least this time, to tease or distract me.

We eventually hit the main road again, and Rania, by now dressed and back in the passenger seat, directed me to carry on west. It wasn't long before the mountain landscape disappeared, the land flattening into a perfect level void reminiscent of the Canadian prairies. The land appeared to be a hard-packed dry soil, and shortly I saw my first herd of camels, grazing on the low scraggly bushes dotting the landscape.

"Camels!"

"Oh, yeah. Dromedaries. I guess this would be your first time seeing them," Rania said expressionlessly.

"Are camels not a big deal here?" I asked.

"It would be like seeing cows in Ontario," she answered. "There are millions of them. They're all owned by the Bedouin nomads and they go where they want. Mind you don't hit one on the highway. There aren't any fences."

Ten miles and fifty-odd camels later we hit the town of Bidiyah, the first town since leaving Wadi Bani Khalid. It was after 1 PM by this point, so we stopped at a roadside café for a quick lunch of paper-thin Omani bread stuffed with fried egg and cream cheese.

After eating, we loaded up again, and Rania directed me south through Bidiyah, away from the highway. The town was small, reminding me of other Omani towns; shops lining the main street, gated Arab-style houses set back from the road, ubiquitous mosques. On the way out of town, we passed an auto repair shop with a hand-written sign reading "TIRE DEFLATIONS" in English. I did a double-take, confused.

"Turn in here."

"What?"

"Turn in!"

I turned into the garage, and a friendly guy approached our window. Rania rolled her window down, briefly spoke to him in Arabic, handed him a one rial note, and he then set about deflating the tires of the Land Cruiser, one-by-one.

"I promise that I trust you, love, but you're going to have to clue me in with this one," I said dumbly.

"All will be revealed shortly," she responded.

Once all four tires were done, the guy flashed a thumbs-up, and I headed back onto the road, with Rania still directing. The 4X4 still had some air in the tires, but driving was now sluggish, the car no longer as responsive. We drove three or four minutes until the road ended, then started driving cross-country on the flat hard-packed ground for a few more minutes, and then I saw it.

Directly in front of us, stretching as far as I could see along the horizon, was a wall of sand. It seemed to go on forever, one enormous, never-ending chain of dunes, and I stared, completely dumbstruck, stopping the car in the middle of the dirt track.

"You can drive in the snow, right?" Rania asked.

"Yeah."

"Same thing, sand." She grinned. "Don't get us stuck, please."

"You want me to drive up the wall there?" I was still in shock.

"Please."

I had no choice but to trust the girls completely by this point, so I shrugged and gunned the engine, aimed at a set of tire tracks leading up the incline, and hit the sand at speed. We blasted up the hill, the wheels straining against the loose-packed sand, and then suddenly we were on top of the sand wall, in another world. My childhood mental picture of Arabia had suddenly, unexpectedly come to life. We were in the desert. Towering dunes the size of small mountains surrounded us. There were bits of vegetation rarely dotting the landscape, and a train of camels on the horizon.

"Welcome to the Arabian desert, Ryan," Khadija said. "This place is called the Wahiba Sands. It's actually the more populated part of the desert - a hundred or so miles north, there's another road connecting coastal Oman with the interior. After that, you get the Rub al-'khali, or 'empty quarter', where there's literally nothing but sand until you're a thousand miles into Saudi Arabia. No roads, no towns, no people."

"I saw Lawrence of Arabia when I was in university. I feel like I just walked onto the set." I was still in awe.

"Want to go off-roading?" Rania indicated the tire tracks all over the dunes, at every angle imaginable. On the horizon to the right, I could see another white Land Cruiser having what looked like a wonderful time, making crazy sharp turns and doing jumps over the rises in the land.

"You don't have to ask twice."

I spent the next twenty or so minutes giving the Land Cruiser all it had, doing jumps, spins, and turns through the soft sand as the girls whooped with delight. I discovered that with the tires so low on air, they had a ton of grip in the sand, and I could get moving again through pretty much any situation. The car occasionally seemed at risk of flipping or rolling, but the Toyota was solid and as at home in the sand as the camels. At last, I ascended what appeared to be the tallest rise on the horizon and stopped. We piled out of the car.

From our vantage point I could see for dozens of miles in every direction, the town of Bidiyah visible on the far horizon, but otherwise nothing but soft rippled sand, occasional plant life, and a few Bedouin tents down near the sandy track that obviously acted as the road. It was incredibly hot, as the dunes absorbed and reflected the sunlight beating down from the cloudless sky. It was also as deathly silent as any place I'd ever been; there was no wind, and the sand absorbed any noise that may have come from the few vehicles we could see. It was impossible to tell if anything we could see was a mile away or twenty. I just stared, taking the alien landscape in, suddenly realizing why it was so easy for people to die out here. I could see the town on the horizon, but apart from that, there was no directional markers or navigational aids, and after just two minutes outside I was already hot and thirsty.

Rania put her arm around me. "Welcome to the real Arabia, my love."

"Does your plan for tonight involve the desert?" I asked.

"Maybe. You'll have to wait and see," she answered slyly.

We took photos of the three of us, using the hood of the 4X4 as a tripod, and then Rania directed me to head towards a small grouping of Bedouin tents down in the valley. When we arrived, there was a small group of tourists with local guides in their own Land Cruisers, and a couple of camels with a guy charging the tourists for camel selfies.

We approached the tent and entered. An older husband and wife were sitting cross-legged on Arabian carpets on the floor, and invited us in, gesturing towards a pot of coffee and dates. The tent was surprisingly cool in the desert heat, nearly dark and sealed off from the worst of the sun. Khadija made the introductions in Arabic, handing them a few bills for their story.

Over the next half hour or so I learned about their lives. Their names were Omar and Aisha, they were about the age of my parents, and they'd spent their lives in this desert. Once upon a time the Bedouin had roamed the desert indiscriminately, but now, a lot of them clung to this spot on the edge of Bidiyah, making a living taking tourists around the desert as guides or working in one of the many desert adventure camps nearby. The older people, like these two, spent their days talking to tourists and acting as cultural interpreters. The Bedouin liked living where there was cell phone reception, where there was access to grocery stores and doctors, where they could send their children to school in Bidiyah, and who could blame them? Yet they resisted buying houses and settling down; they still wanted to live the nomadic lives of their ancestors.

I was shocked to learn that Oman in 1970 was one of the world's great backwaters. Only 5% of the population was literate, the infant mortality rate was over 50%, and hardly anyone went to any level of school. The interior was technically a separate Sultanate from the coast; full of desert nomads herding camels as they'd done for centuries. The coast was full of sailors and fishermen eking out a living from the sea and trading throughout the Indian Ocean coastline, from India to Madagascar. Muscat at the time was a small, backwards city, with city gates that locked every night to prevent anyone from entering or leaving. Meanwhile, far to the south in Dhofar province, a Communist rebellion was raging backed by the USSR and supplied by mercenaries from nearby Yemen.

The change was solely attributed to the aging Sultan, Qaboos bin Said al Said. He seized power from his father, the tyrant Said, in 1970 in a bloodless coup backed by the British, and in nearly fifty years on the throne as absolute monarch, he had modernized the country, built Muscat into a world capital, improved literacy to close to 100%, put the entire population to work, developed the country's oil reserves, and put nearly all of the oil money back into improving the lives of the Omani people. I had taken it for granted over the past few days that I was travelling in a safe, literate, developed first world country, and I was stunned to learn that all of it had happened within the lifetimes of my parents, to the credit of one benevolent Sultan.

Khadija and Rania told me that the status of women in Oman was also to the credit of Qaboos. If I had gone to university in Oman at the time I did back in Canada, I would have been in segregated classrooms, but now all universities were co-ed. Qaboos's creed seemed to be slow development, pushing towards westernization and modernization as quickly as possible without inciting resistance. No Omani had ever been arrested for terrorism - the only Muslim country where that was true - and the population had somehow modernized over fifty years without much complaint.

I'd seen portraits of a stern-looking older man with a neatly-trimmed white beard and colourful mussar turban in shops and restaurants for the past four days without giving it a second thought. It was with great shock that I realized that all that I'd seen and experienced, this tolerant, welcoming society that clung to its good traditions while eschewing the regressive ones, was to the credit of one man's leadership; a man so widely beloved that people young and old referred to him as 'Baba Qaboos', or 'Father Qaboos'. And Omar and Aisha had seen the whole thing first-hand.

We emerged eventually into the sunlight. I was still in a state of shock, not sure how to process what I'd just learned. Rania asked me to head back to Bidiyah to buy some supplies, and I turned the vehicle onto the desert track.

"Everything we've seen this week, all since 1970."

"Yep. Saudi was kind of similar in the era of our great-grandparents, a little earlier than when Oman started to modernize. All of Arabia was desperately poor before the oil was discovered," Khadija said. "When the oil money started to flow, Oman hung onto the architecture, art, culture, history and Arab hospitality and threw out the repressive traditions. Saudi went in the opposite direction. We embraced an extreme form of Islam, put the clerics in charge, and tore down nearly any building older than my father. Mecca looks like Las Vegas now, all giant hotels."

"Have you been on the pilgrimage there?" I asked.

"We both have, separately. It's easy when you live in Saudi," Rania said. "It was a profoundly moving experience, seeing the Kaaba, drinking the holy water. But the city was a disappointment."

"I found the same," Khadija added. "It was incredible being around so many believers from across the world. But it was still the same Saudi Arabia."

"And what happens when Sultan Qaboos dies?" I asked. "If he took power in 1970, he's got to be getting up there in years."

"No one knows," Rania answered. "He isn't married and has no heir. There have always been rumours that he's a homosexual, though it will obviously never be known for sure. He apparently has a succession plan filed in the government, though no one but him knows what it is. One hopes that this wonderful, tolerant country doesn't die along with its leader."

On that sobering note, we left the desert and drove to a grocery store in Bidiyah, loading up on supplies, and then headed back. By this point the sun was growing low in the sky.

We drove aimlessly, heading miles deeper into the boundless void, until we were out of sight of the desert camps. Rania had been tracking our position on the GPS on her phone, so I wasn't too worried about getting lost, but when she directed me to stop, I was a little confused.

"Here?"

"It's as good a place as any."

The girls opened the liftgate of the 4X4 and finally dug into the mystery packages in the back, pulling out a Styrofoam cooler and a large wicker mat, laying it out on the desert and anchoring it expertly.

"Wait. Where did you get a cooler?" I asked, confused.

"We bought the supplies at the mall in Muscat when you were off on your own, then the food I bought in Ras Al-Hadd. While you and Rania were having dinner last night, I was preparing for tonight," Khadija answered. "This is all part of her plan."

Meanwhile, Rania was building a fire, expertly loading kindling into a pile on the sand. She had a raging blaze going within a few minutes.

"I am seriously impressed," I said. "How did the two of you manage this?"

"We're Arabs," Rania said simply. "We're descended from the Bedouin. We might live in cities now, but we're still desert people at heart."

The girls sat me comfortably on the mat in the sand, and over the course of the next hour, they prepared a feast of grilled chicken kebabs on the open fire as well as pita bread, fresh fruit and vegetables, and a rice-based porridge flavoured with cardamom and cinnamon. I had nothing to do but relax and watch the sun set, then shortly after, watch a crescent moon rising over the dunes. I could see another cooking fire on the horizon, many miles away, but otherwise there was no one around. The temperature dropped as soon as the sun disappeared, and while I'd heard deserts could be cold at night, the evening in Wahiba Sands was just pleasant.

At length the girls announced the food was ready, and we dug in.

"This is delicious. I don't know how you pulled this off," I said in gratitude.

"We're happy to do it for you," Rania said. "It's important to us that we show you some proper, old-school Arab hospitality. Our traditions at home are being lost in the rush to modernization. We wanted to do this for you, while you're a guest in our land. You showed me the best of Canada while I was living with you. I wanted to return the favour, to show you the best of Arabia."

"Thank you so much." I was touched. "This is far more than I ever could have expected."

We eventually finished the meal and packed up our garbage, and then Khadija asked me for the car keys.

"What? Why? Can you drive?"

"We both have learner's permits," she responded. "The King finally let women learn how to drive."

Khadija climbed into the driver's seat, adjusting the seat to her shorter frame. I watched, keys still in hand, until Rania nudged me in the ribs. It hit me suddenly. "Oooooooohhhhhhhhh." I handed over the keys. "Where are you going?"

"I have a real need to see what's a couple hundred yards over there," she said, winking at me. "I'll be back in an hour."

The engine started, and the Land Cruiser drove off, then stopped abruptly, still within sight, but facing away from us. The lights shut off, and then Rania and I were alone, in the dark, sitting on our wicker mat, the fire dying down to embers, with more stars than I'd ever seen in my life overhead. The Milky Way was easily visible, and the crescent moon hung in the east, providing just enough moonlight to see my girlfriend's soft features. She looked nervous, but she snuggled into me as we both looked up at the night sky.

"So, this is the big plan?" I asked. "It's kind of perfect."

"This is it."

"It's perfect."

"Let me tell you a story," Rania began. "When I was a teenage girl, I had no conception of sex as being something that women wanted or desired. I wasn't raised to believe that was a possibility, and while I'm sure I was incredibly sexually frustrated most of the time, it never manifested as sexual, apart from occasionally waking up in the middle of the night out of breath and feeling intense pleasure in my private area without understanding why.

"But every year, we'd go camping out in the desert as a family, or as I got older, with friends. I'd lie out alone in the sand after dark, under the moon and stars, and think about how romantic it was, and dream about my future husband. I'd try to imagine what he would be like, and how he would treat me, and about lying out in the desert on a night like this, cuddling with him. It's the only sexual fantasy I remember having from back then, even though I didn't think of it as sexual, and when I found out you were coming to Arabia, I was determined that this would be how I'd make love to you for the first time."

"That's absolutely wonderful," I said genuinely. "How do I compare to your future husband?"

She smiled at me. "I never pictured he'd be a white man."

"And I need to ask you one more time, you're okay with not waiting until marriage?"

"That's a loaded question. The short answer is yes."

"What's the long answer?"

Rania gazed off into the desert. "In Arabic, the word for marriage is nikah. Nikah in Islam refers both to the marriage itself and the marriage contract. But the word nikah is also used colloquially to refer to sexual intercourse. Marriage in Islam is a partnership between man and wife, entered into of free will, and once married, the nikah is literally a license to have sex. Westerners, or at least the girls I met in Canada, are often surprised to learn that Islam is not a sexually-repressed religion. We discourage celibacy, and our religious zealots at least are not sexual puritans in the same way as in Christianity - provided you're married.

"We believe that a satisfying sexual relationship is the core of a marriage, and both men and women are taught in pre-marriage classes that it is their duty to love and satisfy their partners. Men are even taught to slow down and take their time, for the woman's benefit. In layman's terms, we can be as freaky as we want to be in bed, and at least in theory, men and women have equal rights to fulfill their sexual desires within the bounds of what is permissible. Desiring a healthy and fulfilling sex life is a normal part of being human, and Islam not only permits it, but encourages it."

I was quite surprised, to say the least. "But sex outside marriage is haram?"