https://youtu.be/R8iqEfje7Aw

Chapter 19

(Kamal's kitchen)

**For some reason when I was writing this chapter, this song popped into my head and I thought it fit. So please enjoy Fantasia's "When I See You." Merry Christmas to all of you and Happy New Year, thank you for all your support and I hope the New Year brings you much happiness, success, health, love, and joy.  xoxo, Dianna

Jameel

Spreading the Argan oil moisturizer over my already dewy skin, I took one last wistful look at the masterpiece that was Kamal's bathtub. Taking a bath in it's sunken decadence was like swimming in a personalized pool sitting on top of the world. I wrapped myself in the warm, oversized fluffy bathrobe and stood there for a minute to let the heat of the material soak into my chilled body. Giving all thanks to Allah that I'm alive and fortunate enough to reach this point, and this place in my life. A place I couldn't even have imagined mere months ago. I'd truly thought I was going to live out a miserable existence in that filthy room. Having to endure the cruelties that man visited upon me until I died. Sometimes I had wished for death, but Allah had other plans for me and I should have never questioned my fate.

Even though Kamal was related to the man by blood, I couldn't bring myself to hold it against him or his family for my years of abuse in that house. Not when they've been so good to me. They had no clue how depraved the man was. They had no idea I'd even existed, locked away in that prison and treated like whore he'd called me time and time again. Forced to endure atrocities no other human to visit on another person. I brushed the tips of my fingers over the scars on my groin. Kamal hadn't been disgusted with them, he'd said they shouldn't bring me shame. He's emphatically expressed that the multiple scars represented the fact that I was strong, I was a survivor, that I'd been to hell stared the devil in the face and lived to tell the tale.

But what a tale it was. I tied the sash to my oversized robe and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Kamal had explained a lot of things to me. We sat for hours and hours talking about my ordeal at the hands of his grandfather. He told me that I shouldn't be ashamed of the things that happened to me because it was more than obvious I didn't have any control whatsoever in that house. I was the victim of a very sick, and possibly a mentally ill person. Kamal had painted a picture so vividly alive, so all consuming about life in general. He shared his life story with me, his trials and his triumphs. He's shared his deepest most private feelings about being a man who is attracted to other men. The term he used was gay, or a homosexual man.

Kamal had pulled up website after website and showed me that there are plenty of people who happened to love others of the same sex. There were some who didn't like either sex or people who loved both men and women. I was shocked to my core when I learned that there were men and women in this vast world that felt that they were born in the wrong body, some of them have even gone through medical treatments and surgeries to change themselves to fit who they felt they were on the inside. Then there were some who just felt more secure dressed as the opposite sex. I could identify with that, I was more comfortable wearing my hijab and my abaya than I was wearing Americanized male garments like slacks and shirts, or even the men's lightweight traditional cotton thawb.

There was so much information, so many things I had idea about or knowledge of. So many sights, sounds, and general things in one's everyday life I've missed out on. There are days that I feel so inadequate, so uneducated, and simple that it did in fact make me feel ashamed. But once again, like an angel perched on my shoulder, Kamal was there to reinforce that I have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. He's even caught me in a very uncompromising position and instead of making feel like some kind of deviant, he'd climbed into that tub with me and made me feel like I was the most desired thing in his life. Sometimes I would catch him looking at me with those dark eyes of his smoldering with some internal fire, and my skin tingled not with shame but for other reasons altogether.

When he looked at me like that, my body felt like it was on fire and nothing but his touch can soothe the flames he ignited under my skin. My hand shot to my groin as my flesh thickened with the memory of how Kamal's big body felt pressed against my back when we had lain in the tub after he caught me pleasuring myself. I recalled the feel of his turgid, male flesh pulsing against me and I almost groaned out loud as my body shivered with excitement.

A quiet knock on the bathroom door yanked me out of my thoughts and had me quickly straightening the robe and making sure the sash was secure around my waist. Not a second later, the door cracked open and I heard Kamal asking me if I was decent.

"Yes, you can come in." I replied and prayed my face didn't give away where my thoughts were dwelling just moments ago.

He stepped into the room and for the first time tonight I paid attention to something other than the breathtaking view outside the floor to ceiling windows and the grandeur of the bathroom. Kamal was wearing nothing but a thin pair of light blue, cotton pajama pants. They rode almost indecently low on his tapered hips, accentuating that prominent V indentation of his muscular lower abdomen. I felt a fresh burst of saliva pooling in my mouth as my eyes shamelessly followed the trail of dark hair that sprouted just below his belly button and led downwards under the waistband of his trousers.

My flesh throbbed between my legs and began to fill underneath the folds of my robe. I knew I should look away, my head was screaming for me to avert my eyes elsewhere, but it was like they had a mind of their own and they remained glued to the larger than life man across the room.

I watched his sculpted chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath seconds before he said. "Jameel, I'm only human, and it's very trying for me to remain responsible when it comes to you. You can't look at me like that, please. Seeing... Um... Nevermind. I just came in to check to make sure you didn't drown yourself in that tub. Come on, I made us an early breakfast. We can discuss and make some plans for your future while we eat."

Looking into his eyes, I so wanted him to finish what he was going to originally say before he brought up having made breakfast. I wanted him to reveal how my appreciating his enticing physique made him feel. I wanted to hear whether or not he still desired me like he did when we were locked together in the tub at his parent's home in Riyadh. It was a heady feeling knowing that I affected Kamal just as much as he affected me. However, I will respect his wishes and try my best to do the things we discussed.

One of those lengthy conversations involved both Kamal and his sister, Yasmin point of view. They want me to meet with a specialized doctor, a psychologist was the term Yasmin used to describe her fellow doctor who was a friend to her. Someone who is specially trained to help me deal with things their grandfather had done to me. Both of the siblings said that it will help me get over it or deal with it, and to be honest I wasn't sure if they were right. I'm not sure if I can talk to a total stranger about something so personal and private. I am not sure there is such a thing as getting over it. I'll never forget it, but like Kamal said, I'm not going to let it scare me away from the blessings that have followed my entrapment. The old bastard's death had been the catalyst that led Kamal and his loving family right to me.

Trying not to gape while walking into Kamal's kitchen was almost impossible. One couldn't help but to gawk at the room's elegance. The pristine white marble glistened under the two orb-like chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and the lights under the hood of the stove. The dark wood cabinets and the shiny stainless steel appliances just brought the entire room together. It was almost too perfect to eat in, but as Kamal pulled out one of the stools for me to sit on, and I saw that he did indeed cook a meal for us in stylish kitchen.

I looked at the spread he set out in front of me. There was a platter of light and fluffy pancakes, another platter of scrambled eggs, and meat links. I think he'd called them sausages back home in Riyadh. I watched as he arranged a little of everything on a plate and set it down on the place setting in front of me. I went to reach for the silverware next to my plate, but the sleeves of the robe covered my hands completely. I tried shaking them back, but they would slide right back into place, covering my hands.

Kamal chuckled. "Here let me help you with that." His deep melodious voice again washed over my senses as he walked around the island counter and stopped at my side.

He held his hands up with the palm facing upwards and wiggled his fingers and nodded to me to give him my hands. My body took my free will away from me as I sat back and watched myself raise my hands to his. A sliver of heat tingled down my spine when his warm skin made contact with mine. I bit my lip to keep myself from moaning out loud and I clamped my thighs together and hoped and prayed my flesh didn't give me away by tenting the fabric of the robe above my groin.

His dexterous fingers peeled back the fabric of voluminous robe. He fold each piece over the other and freed my hands. Once they were free I didn't immediately drop them. I watched with wide eye awe as my fingers reached out and caressed both thick of pads of muscles on his upper chest. His skin was warm and smooth under my fingertips and not even the food in front of me could compare to his fresh clean masculine scent. I was close enough that if Id leaned forward, I could press my face into chest and just breathe him deep into my lungs.

I was so caught up with touching him, I didn't notice the hiss that whistled through Kamal's lips when I just continued to explore the alluring specimen of a man in front of me. When his hands came up and covered my exploring digits to stop their progression across his chest, my curious gaze snapped up to his and the way he was looking at me had my breath stuttering to a halt in my throat.

He lowered his face to mine until his forehead rested against my own. Kamal closed his brilliant, shimmering eyes and his lips parted a mere millisecond before he whispered. "I'm all for appeasing your curiosity little one, but at this time of night, with me dressed as I am and you wearing nothing underneath that robe, just knowing that would tempt the most patient of men. If I think it wouldn't harm you, I would take you right there where you're sitting and make you mine. But we have a very long road to travel before that can even become a possibility. So please sweetness, show me some mercy. Let's eat and then we can get some more sleep before tackling the day ahead of us."

By this point I didn't know whether to be elated or embarrassed to have this man plead with me like he just did. I was in fact over the moon that my touch drove him to feel a fraction of what I feel when he just glances in my direction. I couldn't verbally answer him, my throat had gone as dry as the desert from which we travelled from. So, I just nodded my head in agreement and Kamal opened those hypnotic eyes and smiled at me.

My heart fluttered in my chest and I had to press my thighs together once again to calm the rigid hard flesh valiantly trying to make itself known. I deliberately turned back to my food and began to eat. I had no clue what was happening between us. Why things were getting so intense now that we were here in New York. Kamal had stated that he didn't want to hurt me by going with whatever it was that's brewing up between us. Maybe it's the fact that I'm no longer close to the place that was my prison for so many years. Maybe now I can finally felt that I can be free to be myself. Whatever it is, I just hope that it will only bring me closer to Kamal.