Naked Reader Book Club Discussion: Foreign Affairs, Edited by Mitzi Szereto (August 23, 8-10 PM EST)

Hi Oldhippy, glad you made it here. (I could qualify for that name, too.)

Mitzi, it's great that you could come.

Folks, Mitzi can only be here for a brief time, so now's your chance to ask or tell her anything you want to. You might ask what her most recent project has been, and what she has coming up next... less

I thought at first I was late, but it looks like I am early. Hello everyone. I missed the forum last time. Made it to the beginning, then had to leave. I hope to be able to stay for this one. I am new to this forum, so I have not read the book. This is my first meeting, as such. I was referred by both LizNuMe and happystayathomemoms. (Not sure about the correct spelling of the second name.) less

Welcome! Glad you could make it. Since this is your first "official" visit to our club, you get a free copy of the book we are discussing tonight. Please email me at Liz @ Edenfantasys.com with your full info and we'll get that out to you.

Hope you enjoy the evening! less

For any eager early arrivals, here's an excerpt from Mitzi Szereto's own story "Odalisque." Read it now, before we get going at our usual breakneck pace.


So how’s Dubai? friends ask over the phone. Dubai. How can one possibly describe this mixed-up parcel of sand that’s part Arab, part British, part Indian, with some Lebanese, Malaysians and Iranians thrown in for added spice? Have I left anyone out? I’m sure that I have.

Hot and sandy, I say. I don’t say it’s a sand beneath which nothing grows…except perhaps, fundamentalism. How long will it be? I wonder. How long will the freedom last in decadent Dubai? In the neighboring emirate of Sharjah a man and woman can’t hold hands in public, nor can a woman wear short sleeves. They can get great rugs though. The winds of change blow close, I fear.

I don’t tell my callers about the smell of Arabic perfume that has made a permanent home in my nostrils. Oudh, amber, sandalwood, rose. These are the scents that fill my nose, seep into my skin and the skins of everyone around me. Arab perfume is a great equalizer among men and women; there are no His and Hers sections at the perfume counter. Eventually they stop asking about Dubai. Stop ringing to see how I am. Leaving me on my own, a foreigner in a foreign land. Forgotten by the West.

Citizen of the world, that’s what I am. What would my American friends think if they saw me now—a woman caught between two cultures? Their only reference points being harems, white slavery, religious fanatics. They know so little about this part of the globe. Only what they see on the news—the extremists, the haters of the West. The Death to America coalition. They would not know this beautiful Arab man on the prayer mat, his long limbs bent in supplication as a muezzin calls out the afternoon prayer through a loudspeaker hitched to a minaret, his smell of oudh, amber, sandalwood, rose teasing me, making me desire.

They would think I’m not safe here. Yet I am probably safer than on the street of any American city or town. (Crime is low in the United Arab Emirates; Sharia law makes a powerful deterrent.) They do not hear the lively Arab music coming through the open windows of taxicabs. They do not see burka walking alongside tank top, both of which have breasts bouncing beneath them. They do not taste the salt on the air blowing in from the Gulf. I hear and see and taste all of these things. I love them all.

Especially his prominent nose. We are in the land of prominent noses. Ah…but that is a superficial thing to say. An American thing to say. The cliché springs to mind of big noses and big—. No. I won’t even go there. Dubai may be a lot of things. A cliché isn’t one of them. less