Mechref Garden Secrets | أسرار حديقة المشرف
"She designs gardens for wealthy clients in Mechref. He's the landscape architect whose plans she keeps improving. Between roses and rivalry, thorns become flowers. 'Inti el zahr bi kil bustan' (أنتِ الزهر بكل بستان)."
Mechref Garden Secrets
أسرار حديقة المشرف
Gardens tell truths.
Every plant placement, every color choice reveals something. I've designed gardens in Mechref for twenty years.
Then the architect arrives, stealing my clients.
I'm Souhair.
Fifty, green thumb, body shaped by digging and deadheading. My gardens are conversations with earth.
René Karam has theory where I have instinct.
"Your drainage calculations are wrong."
"They're standard engineering."
"This slope needs more." I mark up his blueprints. "See here—"
"You're a gardener, not an engineer."
"My plants don't drown. Can you say the same?"
He's fifty-three.
MIT-trained, returned to Lebanon with credentials and arrogance. His designs are beautiful. They're also occasionally dead.
"We should collaborate—"
"You should stop destroying gardens."
"Teach me what I'm missing."
Teaching becomes partnership.
My knowledge of local soil, his grasp of water flow. Together we create something neither could alone.
"You're good," he admits.
"I know."
"Modesty isn't your strong suit."
"Gardens don't need modesty. They need honesty."
We work late.
Design sessions that become dinners that become walks through gardens we've created together.
"Why gardens?" he asks.
"Because everything else in Lebanon dies. Gardens can be replanted."
"What about architects?"
"Can you be replanted?"
"With the right gardener."
His meaning is clear. "René—"
"I've spent months trying to compete with you. I'd rather grow with you."
"That's a terrible pun."
"All gardening puns are terrible. That's their charm."
The kiss happens in a client's garden.
After hours, among roses we planted together. His hands find my waist, dirt under both our nails.
"This is unprofessional—"
"This is growth."
We make love among flowers.
Our garden, our creation. He lays me on a bed of clover we'd cultivated.
"Mashallah." He breathes. "Inti—"
"Large. Earthy. Not what you—"
"Inti el zahr bi kil bustan." The flower in every garden.
He worships me outdoors.
Moonlight and night-blooming jasmine. Mouth on my neck, my breasts, lower—
"René—"
"Let me cultivate you."
His tongue between my thighs.
I grip clover, gasping at stars. Pleasure blooming like his best designs.
"Ya Allah—"
"Beautiful. You're blooming beautifully."
When he enters me, I feel planted.
Roots going deep. We move together with growing rhythm.
"Aktar—"
"Aiwa—"
The climax is full bloom.
We cry out together—gardens witnessing, approving. Then we lie among flowers.
Three years later
Karam & Souhair Designs.
Our partnership, professional and personal. Every garden we create has our shared signature.
"Worth the rivalry?" he asks.
"Best competition I ever lost." I kiss him among roses. "Won everything instead."
Alhamdulillah.
For gardens that reconcile.
For architects who learn.
For gardeners who find partners.
The End.