A Jew and a Muslim Walk Into a Church

12/15/2022

“Iman!” shouted a notification from Facebook on my 12 mini. 

I nearly dropped my phone when I realized who the message was from.

“Adnan Shivrani?” I shouted before remembering I was in public. 

It seemed that every Journal Square bound PATH rider in my car had heard my startled cry. My lips formed a soft smile as I sank into the corner of my seat and asked myself why Adnan would be messaging me. After a couple moments of thought, the Ghost of Conversations Past suddenly ripped me from my blue plastic seat and dragged me to Adriana’s condo months prior. I found myself in her art deco living room with her and her now ex boyfriend, talking about the irony of him being friends with our former classmate…Adnan Shirvani. 

“Adnan Shirvani is so cute!” I giggled. 

“Want me to tell him you’re interested?” Adriana replied. 

“Idk, I don’t really want to be in a relationship” I heard myself say right before the Ghost of Conversations past lifted me from Adriana’s whimsical living room and sat me back down on the PATH. 

Buzz my phone went off as the train stopped at Christopher St. I sighed a nervous sigh and dredged up all my courage to look at the message. 

“I heard a secret months ago. That you think I’m cute :)” read the message from Adnan. 

The PATH zoomed under the Hudson as I repeated This is my last day on Earth over and over in my head. I know that most sane people are not as easily embarrassed as I am, but I literally cannot manage any type of affectionate verbal and/ or physical interaction without feeling embarrassed. However, since there is no service on the PATH while crossing under the Hudson, I had about 5 minutes to collect myself and find a quirky answer for Adnan. 

I somehow managed to settle my stomach enough to withstand 12 hours of flirty, sporadic texting before he finally just asked me out. He invited me to Adriana’s ex’s choir concert, I told him I’d need to eat first, we decided on “Chamma Mama” at 6 pm, it was a date. 

I was only late by five minutes. Adnan was late by 15.

Since we were in a time crunch; I ordered myself a glass of wine, the famous Chamma Mamma cheese bread, and still water for us while I waited for Adnan. 

“Is there pork in this?” I questioned the waitress while pointing at a dish on my phone and sipping my wine. 

“I keep it Halal all the time. Like 100% yo” - some kid on Tik Tok 

The waitress assured me that the grape leaves had no pork, so I ordered some and hoped I’d get to eat them all before Adnan arrived. No such luck though. I glanced up and found a lean, curly haired, big nosed man barling towards me.

Adnan looked stressed as he settled himself into his seat. 

“I need a minute to decompress” he blurted out at me. 

“What happened?” I hummed, hoping to ease his mood with a softer tone. 

“The hostess wouldn't let me come in and sit with you even though I could see you because she said she wasn’t sure where you were seated. I told her I knew where you were and she stepped in front of me when I moved to go sit with you. Which got me a bit upset becau-” 

I stopped listening to Adnan because I was so enamored with knowing that he was upset over someone stopping him from getting to me as quickly as he wanted to. I love a little “ra ra” from a man. 

“OMG that is so annoying” I said in my most sympathetic tone. 

“Yeah” he responded. “What are you drinking?” 

“I don’t recall, I just asked for a sweet white wine.” 

Adnan looked down at the menu. I noticed him withdraw some sort of toy from his pocket and start playing with it, but couldn’t get a good look without having to peer under the table. His eyes darted through the menu at a pace so rapid, I wondered if he could really be reading it. Suddenly his eyes and hand halted, he looked up at me, smiled a dashing smile, flagged down the waitress, and asked for the same thing I was drinking. 

“Can I order for you?” Adnan inquired. 

It took everything in my being to not squeal in the middle of the Chamma Mama. I hadn’t been lucky enough to date a man that would order for me since Sajid. MashaAllah! 

“Mhm!” I smiled. “But I already ordered a couple apps since you were late.” 

“Good thinking,” he smiled. “Any dietary restrictions?” 

“I don’t eat fruit.” 

“Interesting” he slowly responded, a questioning glimmer in his eyes. 

 The waitress returned with his glass of wine, Adnan ordered the “Taste of Georgia” and “Roasted Wild Mushrooms” for us. So much was right; good taste in food, smart (I knew this from k-12), big nose, fantastic teeth, simple yet chic clothing, deep douchey voice, and big brown eyes. 

“They didn’t bring us enough bread.” Adnan huffed. 

He flagged down the waitress and requested exactly seven more pieces of bread. I smiled, reminded of my father and his particularity. Kinda bossy, but I love bossy men. Bossy men make it possible for me to enjoy myself. They plan everything, they make decisions, they just all around allow me to be as head empty as I wish to be. 

 “What’s the point of hanging out with men if you have to think around them?”. -My Mother

“So what do you know about me?” Adnan asked. Startling me out of my daze. 

“Umm. Not much really. I didn’t ask Adriana anything about your life.” 

That wasn't entirely true, of course. We knew each other as kids. We weren't close in school, but it was hard to be close to anyone in the academic lion’s den that had shaped us. I knew people found him annoying when we were kids and that he ended up switching schools.  I knew that  in order to be accepted into Pine Crest he had to have been extraordinarily intelligent. I can deduce that that level of intelligence is often accompanied by incredible self-awareness. It was also perhaps safe to say that he had done a lot to move past the hurt and manage to make a diamond of himself under the pressure. I'd become a diamond from the pressure as well, but I'd nearly lost my life in the process. I wondered if he'd struggled as much as I had. These were all deductions, however, not fact. So, I preferred him to tell me on his own. Perhaps I could have given him a bit of knowing…His eyes filled with shock at me not having cared much to know about him (I don’t blame him. A self-made, wealthy, handsome, and well educated man often develops an acclimation to being obsessed over), but he recovered quickly and delved into his last 5 years. Long story, short; he’d just sold the company he built in college, and was taking time off (Iman’s Version). I told him a bit about myself, but mostly paid attention to his body language. He was fighting an uphill battle against ADHD, but doing his best to hide his jittery nature. I wondered if his ADHD bothered his partners in the past. I was not bothered by it. I found it rather endearing. He was like a little fiend in search of his stimulation fix. I could fix him. My father has severe ADHD, so I kind of find the jitters that come with it comforting. My father says that these “disorders” are a result of being taken out of our natural habitats, that people with them are actually just more in touch with their instincts and survival skills. I find that my father is often surviving and not living. 

Adnan did something that shocked me, he brought up his experience as a brown man in South Florida. How he felt at our 97.82 percent (this is a guesstimate) white  private school, how he felt in his day to day life, and how it affected his view of himself. I found this very attractive. All of the men in my blogs have had this experience, I can see it in them, but Adnan was the first to acknowledge it. He began to make sense to me. He had done a lot of work to move past what Florida had made of us, he had done even more work to get to know himself well enough to be secure in his  . 

It was still raining when we left Chamma Mama. Adnan didn’t have an umbrella. Some may have attributed that to unpreparedness, but I think it was the Love Witch. She likes me to have these little romantic moments, it’s a reward for being her strongest soldier. We shuffled down 4th and 14th under my umbrella to get to the church for the concert. I used this time to look over him. Even when we were awkward tweens, he had been beautiful. I’d thought he was so handsome and that his angular bone structure made him unique and different. He had the same big, light brown eyes framed in a billow of black lashes. His nose… He had gotten a nose job. His nose was still big and masculine, but the bumps I remembered were gone. Softening his look, but taking away from his distinctive beauty. Adnan doesn’t look like most people. His features are as particular as his personality. I did like his new nose though. I really wanted to ask him about his surgeon, but decided to allow him to tell me on his own that he had had it done. 

The fluorescent lights under the scaffolding adjacent to the church irritated me, but Adnan had stopped there and I decided that he might be hesitant to lead me if I questioned him. I didn’t want to make any decisions, so I made peace with the harsh lighting. 

“Do you smoke?” Adnan prodded. 

“Sometimes” I said hesitantly, I actually hadn’t smoked since Sajid started ignoring me over that very mild tantrum I’d had.

“I’ll take a hit” I smiled. Hoping to associate the action with a different big nose brown man, so Sajid could stop haunting me. 

“Good girl” Adnan smirked. 

My stomach flipped. Frustrated with my heart, I flirted extra hard with Adnan. I could really want Adnan. I did really like Adnan. 

“Smoking outside of church…kinda sinful of us” I laughed. 

“Shhh” Adnan winked as he put out the blunt and took my hand. 

I’d come to this concert the year prior with Adriana when she and her ex (Adnan’s best friend) were still together. Adriana hadn’t told me about their breakup yet, but I’d heard it through the grapevine. I felt the pressure of Adnan’s hand on my lower back and a tingling a few inches lower. I decided to let him think about finding our seats, while I figured whether or not I should disclose that I knew Adriana and her ex had broken up. I figured her ex would be here since he was in charge of managing the concert, and that he would end up tagging along after. Adnan’s thumb stroked my spine, prompting me to look up at him. 

“This is our row” he stated as he disconnected his hand from centimeters above my rump to make room for me to enter the pew. 

I looked up at him and smiled my brightest smile, hoping that the light reflecting off of my naturally straight, perfectly white teeth would be bright enough to help me see him outside of Sajid’s shadow. 

The old wood smell reminded me of my piano recitals growing up. In the 4th grade, the day of my winter piano recital, I learned that the sun would one day explode and destroy everything in our solar system. That night, wearing my sparkly red gown,  I fell asleep in the church pew waiting for my turn to play in the recital. I had a horrific nightmare about the sun blowing up while I played “White Christmas”. The nightmare ended when my mother shook me awake to get up and play. I knew she wouldn’t understand that I believed the sun would blow up while I was playing, so I figured my last moments would have to be playing “White Christmas” until the sun blew up. The sun did not blow up, but life was very different for me after that night. 

Adnan didn’t seem to know that the sun will blow up. He didn’t seem to care much about anything outside of himself. He was talking to me loudly over the concert music. I gave him my best show. Giggling at his comments and snuggling into the arm he had wrapped around me while also sweetly urging him to be quieter before someone chastised us. He did not listen.

“Shhhhh” we heard from the pew in front of us. 

“I told you!” I whispered into Adnan’s ear. 

“Sorry” Adnan whispered to the head slightly turned towards us. 

He had leaned forward to apologize and in doing so he had put his right hand on my left thigh over my pine green trousers. He leaned back, but his hand stood its ground. In an effort to encourage him to stay quiet, I opened the notes app on my phone and typed “What time does this end?” then handed the phone to him. 

Adnan: This phone is so small. I think it’s about an hour, so another 20-30 min

Me: Okieee. Do you want to stay the whole time? 

Adnan: Sure, I want to see Brandon after 

Me: Cool. Are we gonna go out with him? 

Adnan: If he wants. That okay? 

Me: Yesss. Do you know how to play chess? 

Adnan: Only if you want to lose? 

Me: I won’t lose. 

Adnan: If I win, I get a kiss.

Me: Sure, but you won’t win. 

Adnan: kk 

I opened the Chess.com app on my phone and chose 2 player mode. I allowed him to play white, I felt he would have a better chance of winning that way, I wanted him to win because I wanted him to kiss me. He did know how to play. However, he played very “by the book”. That works when you play people who also play by the book, but I’ve been creating a whole new set of plays. When I’m done, people will call me the Chess Princess because I'm so cute, and creative, and I'm their ruler. This makes it somewhat difficult to play with me because most ametuer players rely on knowing plays, not anticipating new moves. All that to say, he was losing real bad. I positioned my bishop on G6, my next move would be checkmate if he wasn’t paying enough attention. He was not paying enough attention. Adnan moved his queen to threaten my bishop instead of moving a pawn to create an escape route for his king. I smirked and looked into his big, brown eyes. Realizing his mistake, he snatched the phone from me, triggering me to lurch after the phone, right into a kiss. I smirked at his slyness and tried to pull away to scold him, but he held me in place. I relented… then, I think I finally felt something. 

Adnan’s hand felt something too…my ass in the middle of a church during a Christmas concert! My hand closed around his wrist and moved his hand to a more Kosher part of my leg. He touched my forehead to his, pulled away, and said

 “I can’t believe you kissed me in a church. Haram.” 

I snorted in response. I thought my laugh was loud, but surprisingly our nagger from earlier was having a much louder and lengthier conversation. Adnan, never one to let something slide, pressed his freshly wet lips together and blew out an obnoxious “shhhhh”. The woman turned around with a look of rage, but her face softened when she saw him. He was smiling his dazzling smile and his ebony curls framed his face angelically. Flustered by my Prince of Persia, she coyly apologized before settling herself. Adnan immediately resumed his inspection of my pine pleated pants. I suppose he found the fabric was especially enticing around my giant ass since he settled his hand there. I found myself laden with religious guilt. Conflicted, I contemplated telling him to move his hand up, but my guilt was quickly washed away by a monsoon of vaginal transudate; Adnan was caressing just below my hip bone with his thumb. I resisted the feminine urge to fall into his neck and mew until he called a car and took me somewhere we could be alone. I am stronger than that. Instead, I tapped my foot really fast to distract myself. 

“Iman” whispered an attractive, but circumstantially annoying voice into my ear drum. 

Much like Bethlehem's famous carpenter, I arose. 

Brandon accompanied us to the 8th st Wine Cellar. I usually don’t enjoy meeting the friends of the men I’m dating, but I already knew Brandon. 

I know Brandon to be outspoken and slightly brash, so I was surprised that he didn’t acknowledge our obnoxious PDA. Adnan’s hand had put down roots  between my ample thighs, 3 inches away from my labia. My head found a home in the swoop of his neck, a strategic move I made to make myself accessible to his pop kisses. The three of us talked for some time before the bartender made his way to us.. 

“All one check?” the bartender questioned. 

“Yeah” Brandon blurted. 

Adnan furrowed his brow in confusion. 

“No, separate! Us- “ Adnan began. 

“Bro, we can just split it three ways.” Brain cut Adnan off. 

“Iman and I aren’t splitting it, we are on the same bill” Adnan explained. 

I stayed out of men’s business. Adnan used his pinky to press against my flower, telling me I was still his priority.

“Okay, I’ll venmo you,” Brandon brushed Adnan off.

Adnan channeled his annoyance to the hand he was gripping my thigh with “Alright, but make sure you send it this time.”

The bartender did his best to not look uncomfortable at the face off he had just witnessed. I looked at Adnan, eager for his decision on what we would drink. He wrinkled his perfect nose while he scanned the menu. 

“A bottle of Gewurztraminer for us” he demanded, gesturing towards me. 

“If you’re going to get a bottle, let's just share,” Brandon exclaimed. 

Adnan squeezed my thigh again. 

“No, you have to go back and we’ll be here a while,” Adnan countered. 

Brain relented and ordered his own food and drink. 

“So, Iman…you still seeing that guy who owns a restaurant?” Brain asked. 

My jaw dropped. Was he seriously asking me about Sajid  when I was clearly on a date with Adnan? 

“Noooo, nooo that's dead. Bro can’t stand me.” I retorted, deploying the language of our people (South Floridians) to lighten the mood.

“Really? I remember you liked him a lot. Adriana was always saying you were in denial about how much you liked him” Brandon escalated. 

Adnan’s hand tightened again. I was sick to my stomach. The embarrassment of people knowing I had fallen in love with Sajid against my will coupled with the embarrassment of Adnan possibly thinking that I was still into another guy was havoc on my large intestine. 

“We were more so just friends, nothing serious.” I fought back. 

“Aw damn, he seemed cool. Adnan…you still fucking that girl from last week?” Brandon ambushed. 

“What the fuck?” Adnan nearly shouted. His grip on my leg was starting to hurt. 

Brain cackled “the one who’s friend you were fucking before!”

Adnan sat up in his chair “you need to shut the hell up, Brandon.” 

Brandon feigned ignorance “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t know it was a sore subject”.

The bottle of wine and Brandon’s drink came just in time to stop Brandon’s brutal acts of terrorism on us. 

The sweetness of Gewurztraminer made me drunk fast, so I must admit as a reliable narrator that I struggle to remember the details of the conversation that led up to Brandon saying “When Israel is done with Palestine, they’re coming for Egypt next”. That sobered me right up. I stayed quiet, wanting to see what Adnan would say. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Adnan scolded.

Relief washed over me. 

“I’m joking, I’m joking” Brandon backpedaled.

“What are you on tonight?” Adnan spat back.  

“What’s up with you?” Brandon argued. 

“You’re being disrespectful to us, you need to stop.” Adnan asserted. 

I swooned at Adnan’s dominance over other men. He was in charge of the other men. Brandon yielded. Adnan’s pressing question “what are you on tonight?” resonated in my mind. Like…yeah what the fuck is this guy on tonight. Suddenly I was thrown back into Adriana’s apartment on the day I’d said that Adnan is cute. A few conversations after I’d called Adnan a cutie, an argument between Adriana and Brandon broke out. Brandon, in his anger told Adriana that I was more desirable than her to the average man. Jumping out of this memory and back into the present, I realized that Brandon was the average man he was referring to. 

After being chastised by Adnan, Brandon sheepishly finished his salad and glass of wine, then excused himself to go back to work. As we watched him leave, I strung together the craziest sentence I’d come up with since texting Sajid “don’t bring that bitch to the house that I cleaned”. 

(If you’re interested in experiencing the following interaction the way I remember it, please pause here, type “The Trio Ennio Morricone’ into your preferred music streaming platform, and scrub to 1:47. Now hit play. I’ll tell you when to pause)

“How are you going to have time for me between the two women you’re fucking?” I snarled, flashing my revolver at him 

Adnan smirked, placed his elbow on the bar, and reached for his holster.

“You want to be the only one?” He challenged me, turning his head to face me, and squinting his eyes.

My eyes are naturally very beady and intense, so I didn’t need to squint back. I had the high ground there. Unsure of the way I wanted this conversation to unfold, I decided to permit the pause a full term pregnancy. I was the good, Adnan was the bad, and the ugly had just high tailed it back to work. I’m cursed with a nasty trigger finger, so quick draws like this are often dangerous for my opponent. I black out, I sometimes don’t even know I’m shooting! I am a creature of instinct. I sense danger, I get big. 

If you see me in a fight with a grizzly bear, HELP THE BEAR!

“Were they busy tonight?” I cross stepped, hand on my revolver, circling him. My uncle says men hate to be accused of things, but I love accusing men of things, and I love myself very much. 

“They weren’t you.” Adnan jerked his coat back, revealing a colt single action pistol. Without breaking eye contact he began to circle with me. He’d figured out what a good girl I am, but had yet to comprehend just now how much of a psycho crazy bitch I can be. 

“I’m not having sex with you, I’m celibate” I growled. 

Taken by surprise, he hesitated and I shot. 

“I am so attracted to you, but I just don’t think I can allow you that kind of access to my body” I pouted. “I wouldn’t want to take away from your…” I paused to inquire the hole I’d made in his shoulder, caressing it before remembering he was “The Bad”; I used my my finger to push the bullet in deeper . “Lifestyle”. 

I once blacked out while working as a server in a roti shop and dunked a girl’s head in the aloo because she smacked me. I only know I did it because they showed me it on the camera footage. I just really have these raw and natural instincts to survive. It’s not my fault really. They fired her and not me though. Just saying. 

“You’re here because you’re attracted to me, not because you think I’m a nice guy” Adnan grabbed my wrist with his surviving arm. “I know it’s a mess down there” he asserted, twisting my arm behind my back and lifting himself from the ground. 

I whimpered. Even a wild thing can be captured. 

“I’m going to get the check and we’re going to go” Adnan rebutted. I looked down to see blood spilling from my abdomen, but I felt no pain. 

(Pause “The Trio”)

I’m a lizard person, so I recovered from being shot really fast. Adnan did too because he is also a lizard person.;)

It was still raining a bit as he walked me to the PATH. We made unimportant and resultantly unmemorable small talk on the way there. The important part of the experience was Adnan's large hand wrapped around the back of my tiny neck. It made our trek up 6th avenue divine. 

I did want him. He was everything I enjoy in a man, but I am actually celibate and I’d heard that he’s in his “hot boy” phase, so I decided this would be the last time we saw each other for the foreseeable future.  I think Adnan knew that, he is just as intelligent as I am. Adnan is also just as relentless as I am, unwilling to tarnish our reputations for charm, we finished strong. 

“This is me” I turned my head and pursed my lips to gesture to the 9th street PATH station entrance tucked beside us. 

“Ughmph” acknowledged Adnan. 

He really was so fucking cute. His curls were bejeweled with little diamond raindrops that shimmered in the street lights, his eyes were catching the moonglow reflecting from the puddles surrounding us, and his mischievous smirk was oh so inviting. I should have eaten him alive, so no one else could ever look at him again. However, I am a person that is working on sharing; I allowed him to live. 

“How long till the train comes?” He questioned. 

“6 minutes” I lied softly, unwilling to depart without getting a wittle kiss. I could wait for the train's ! I’d have to wait at least 6 months to check in to see if Adnan was still hoeing. 

Adnan gave me a wittle kiss. Stepping out of character, I deepended it. I really did like him. Just not as much as I like myself. When I pulled away he kissed me on the forehead before releasing me. Sly fellow. He was just as unwilling as I was to lose this match. I admire that about him. I had to win. I entered the station, paused, turned, took a step back outside, and popped my head out. 

“Night Adnan!” I giggled catching him off guard. Pleased with myself, I scampered down the stairs.