Har Saanse Khwahish Sile, Saazish Hain, Kucch Hai Gile, Ke Mushkilaatein Be-shumaar Hain
Chapter 99
Rashid suffered another attack; in the ambulance, a distraught Shireen clasped his hand and pressed her lips to it.
Ayaan was riding along too but his head was still at the factory. He hoped his sisters would take over Humaira and tend to her. He couldn't even hold Humaira in the chaos as they'd all rushed to load Rashid and Mumani into ambulances.
Solid ground was fast disappearing from under their feet.
Ayaan dropped his head in his hands and sobbed.
It was all over.
Their lives had been a glossy mirage built on the shifting sands of deceit, lies and murder. No, built on brittle bones ...
And some people had known this all along.
They deserved this misery ...
How would Humaira ever recover ... How did Zoya endure even after knowing everything? And Bhai?
His sisters' questions kept tormenting him: "Bhaijaan, what happened to Zoya Bhabhi? Why is Humaira like this? How did Abbu collapse? What happened here?"
What? Why? How? ...
The endless questions that they all had the answers to, except nobody wanted to answer those questions. An innocuous bandaid had been ripped off ... but under it was not a bruise, but a tumor.
Not a tumor, but a time bomb.
And that time bomb had ticked its last tock before detonating in silence.
Even when Tanveer's death was confirmed, everyone's hearts had cracked to see Asad and Zoya. There had been no exultation or joy at the slaying of a rabid and rampaging beast. Instead, the zombie virus continued to feast on everyone's brains and hearts.
Tanveer may have died, but the damage she'd wrought would last a lot longer.
Ayaan couldn't even imagine what Bhai was going through right now. To see him so helpless when Tanveer had blackmailed him into pronouncing the divorce decree had made Ayaan want to tear his eyes out. May be a tiny part of him had registered that this was his father's story too. And that is why he had opted to go to the hospital with Abbu and Ammi even though he wanted to stand by Bhai's side.
But to see the horror on Bhai's face when Zoya had descended into some kind of catatonic or fugue state afterwards, had been infinitely worse.
Her blank eyes had sought only Jeeju's face as she'd cried in a baby voice, "Ammi! Ammi! Bachao!"
She hadn't seemed to recognize Bhai who had staggered backwards as if shot in the heart.
Holding Zoya, Jeeju had pulled out his phone and yelled through tears, "someone call Zeenat, hurry! Put her on the speaker," he'd ordered in anger and despair.
Dilshad had fumbled with the phone and then they'd heard Aapi's anxious voice, "Anwar? Anwar? Hello! ANWAR! Where are you?!!! Talk to me!"
"Zeenat," he'd sobbed. "They destroyed her again. All these cowards, they killed our baby all over again!"
"No!" Asad had fallen to his knees.
Ayaan had rushed to his side and held his quaking body. But just then he'd heard his mother's wild cry, "Rashid!" and he'd run to her to catch her from collapsing on the ground as the paramedics tried to revive his father.
Over the phone they'd heard Zeenat's screams, "No, no, no! What happened? Where's Zoya? Tell me she's OK! Anwar!"
... endless questions ...
"She's not OK," he'd cried. "It's like she's three years old again when we found her at that orphanage. She's rocking herself like she did then too."
Snatching the phone from Dilshad, he described Zoya's state to Zeenat as everyone looked on in growing horror. Zoya was rocking manically. Her tearless eyes were wide open and some trapped animal sound was coming from her twisted mouth. Her fists were beating her chest, whether in funereal mourning or wanting to shock her heart into stillness, no one knew.
Siddiqui Saheb was sobbing against a pillar. He'd dragged himself as far away from Zoya and Humaira as possible. He beat his own feeble fists against the concrete.
"You were always right," Anwar raged. "We should have never let her come back to this godforsaken place, to these monsters."
He'd broken down then as he tried to control a violently shaking Zoya.
"Sing to her, Zeenat," Anwar sobbed. "She needs us. Sing to her before she starts clawing at her scar again."
And through the phone they'd heard Aapi's cracking voice as she sang. Anwar pressed the phone to Zoya's ears. It slipped from his hands because she was rocking so violently. A teary Najma, who didn't know what was going on, instinctively slid next to Zoya and held her stiff fists. Zoya's body was taut as if in rigor mortis. Omar knelt behind Najma too, absorbing the blows and wrapping his own hands over Najma's. Zoya's tremors rocked them too.
"Mere ghar aayee ek nanhi pari ...
Chandini ke haseen rath pe sawaar."
Anwar too sang along brokenly, as he continued to cushion Zoya's shuddering frame.
"Mere ghar aayee ek nanhi pari ..."
A weeping and hiccupping Zeenat dug out those old songs that she was planning to sing for her coming grandchild ...
"Chanda hai tu, mera suraj hai tu ...
O meri aankhon ka tara hai tu."
But when she sang that one song, Zoya crumpled and wailed as if demons were dragging her to the fiery pit of hell:
"Aane wala pal, jaane wala hai ...
Ho sake toh isme, zindagi bita le,
Pal yeh bhi jana wala hai!"
"AMMIII!"
"Zoya!" Asad choked as he saw her faint again.
At the hospital Rashid was still critical, and Raziya in surgery; Zoya was undergoing psychiatric evaluation. The shell-shocked family huddled outside unwilling to make eye contact with each other and grateful for the segregated pools of misery that tossed them across different hospital floors and wards.
Omar, Feroze and Faiz were the pillars and vital connective conduits that they all leaned on. They zipped between desolate family clusters with updates, sustenance and robust reinforcements.
The girls knew that some terrible trauma had visited their family; its source was invisible to them, but its aftermath was fracturing their universe. They knew too that they had to put aside their questions for the moment; their quiet strength had to buoy the family from its slow descent into the abyss.
Najma mothered her mother and brother, and Nikhat hers.
Nuzzhat refused to budge by Humaira's side. A frozen Humaira crouched unblinking and unfeeling next to her shattered father.
Her body was ice. The only warm patch, if she felt it at all, was between her shoulder blades where Nuzzhat's sturdy hand braced her, ready to steer her away from the brink of freefalling misery.
Anwar and Asad had tussled over holding Zoya as they'd staggered out of the warehouse. But finally a reluctant Anwar had relinquished her to his son-in-law"he had no idea about doctors and which speciality hospital to go to; Asad did. And they needed to get Zoya looked at by a mental health professional as soon as possible.
Asad lifted her limp body into one of the cars.
He dropped a kiss on her oblivious head.
She remained stiff as a plank.
Many stitches ... tests ... bloodwork ... prescribed painkillers ... and unheeded instructions later, they had returned home. The clinical smell of death covered over with bleach and chlorine dragged in behind them.
Tattered, they returned to the Khan house.
Except it wasn't home any more.
She refused to look at him let alone let him touch her.
At night Zoya pretended to be fast asleep.
And each night he knelt by her side and kissed her hand.
In the prenatal mornings, Asad knelt before her again only to lightly feather his fingertips to her stomach and recite Allah's name in his head.
He would be gone when she woke.
The nightmares had returned and when he held her she went rigid in his arms.
He didn't know that her nightmares had morphed ... they'd been re-baked by a new trauma's temperature: The fire roasting her alive was still there, but this time it was Tanveer who set the fire, and Asad just ... watched, before walking away. She called out to him till her throat bled raw but he receeded into the blackness.
She would only let Dilshad, Najma and Anwar any where near her.
No sound passed her lips.
Borne on a spiraling unspoken torment that widened the divide, they continued to drift.
Fingertips that had once touched and caressed, now curled in to clutch emptiness.
Hollow sorrow shriveled them up.
For yesterday's appointment with Dr. Sharma, Asad had begged Dilshad to accompany them and stayed outside to pace in the waiting room so that Zoya could speak freely. It was the same waiting room where she'd blurted out, "I want to find out when we can have se*x!"
He'd promised to find the answer then.
But he didn't have any answers any more.
"Just give her some time," Dilshad had said with a hand on his shoulder. Asad had ducked his head and nodded. He didn't have the heart to tell his mother that he was terrified that they had run out of time. That all of her valiant defenses against evil nazars had fallen woefully short.
Asad had offered to take her to the dargah and she had nodded silently.
But when he had taken Zoya to her mother's gravesite, she had burst into tears and refused to leave the car. When Asad tried to take her into his arms to comfort her, she'd resisted and turned her back on him.
At dinner that first night Zoya had refused to come to the table.
Many nights after that, Asad had pretended to be working during dinner so she'd eat with the others. But last night Dilshad bullied him into joining them.
"Enough! I won't let you eat alone any more." Reluctantly he'd slapped the laptop closed to appease his mother.
But when he came to take his place, Zoya rose to walk away.
Asad grabbed her wrist to stop her. Then getting up, he gently pushed her down in the chair and walked out of the front door.
That night he had driven to the hilltop, alone, and spent hours with his head pressed against the cold steering wheel.
She had initiated the distance but now she didn't know how to undo it. Something had broken in her. Each time Zoya looked at him from under her lashes she heard the air buzzing with that fatal word, "talaaq!"
Yes, her brain tried to tell her, he was forced, he did it to protect her. It had killed him to say it, and he had said "qubool hai" later.
But the shrill decibels of "talaaq" continued to drown out everything else.
She had felt his kisses on her hand every night, his atoning fingers on her tummy in the mornings ... even a teardrop on her palm.
Had she gripped his hand as he walked away ... ?
But him walking out of the front door had struck her dead cold. The finality of the closing door had splintered her. It had finally started to thaw her"Zoya felt a sharp loss, a deep gash that cleaved her in two.
She wanted to run behind him and hold him.
Why didn't you Zoya? Why did you let him walk away from you?
She had waited for him all night and he hadn't come back. So many times she wanted to pick up the phone, call him, text ... but in the end she couldn't.
The empty room was a mausoleum.
"Kaneez ko deewar mein chunvaenge, Jahanpanah?"
"Nahin, dil mein."
"Lekin chunva ke rahenge?"
"Ab aap aise hi kabu main aati hain to yehi sahi."
"Mr. Khan!"
She hadn't spent a night apart from him since they'd been married.
Well, except for that sleepover.
When Zoya pressed her hands to cup her stomach the charms on her bracelet rustled. She lifted her wrist to her face. Asad's initial dangled against hers. They brushed against each other.
"A to Z and everything in between ..." she'd said to him.
Why did you let something come between us then?
The tiny cricket ball swung and spun in slow motion ...
Her tears fell.
Everywhere she looked around the room she saw haunting holograms of the two of them.
Asad's face swam before her eyes.
By her bedside sat the polished marbles in the jar along with his cricket ball in its bone china nest. When Zoya looked across the room she saw the settee ... so many times she'd fallen into his arms on it.
That first hug thanks to her curiosity and his mistaken identity ...
She had hidden here when she'd come looking for her earring ...
She had hidden here on their suhaag raat too because she was so embarrassed ...
"Mr. and Mrs. Khan ... hiding by the settee ... not K-I-S-S-I-N-G?"
They had made love on it ... it was raining that evening ...
"BTW, this mirchi is already stuffed, thanks to you and Baby Ahmed Khan ...
"You're getting slow Mrs. Khan. I was expecting you to say that 2 hours ago!"
"When's your baby due?" she'd sassed.
"Same day as yours!" he'd texted after.
Asad had wrapped and tightened his tie around their wrists when they'd made love after the photoshoot he'd arranged for her so she could wear the lehenga that Abbu had given her ...
That one evening when they had prayed for the baby's well-being he had recited Rumi's eternal words for her:
"If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our se*xual wanting? will look,
lift your face and say,
Like this."
Zoya ran to the closet and opened the drawer"that miniature museum that archived their history, and their crackling chemistry ... broken phones ... one wrapped in colorful tape and with a pink post-it note ...
This is where he'd kept her earring after ...
The ruined CD was still here ...
... the coin that was tossed in the air to determine whether she'd stay or go ...
The coin toss she'd insisted on just after "mat jao Zoya" ... because there was no other way she could think of to stop her departure. And the lie he'd told after that which had made the decision for her.
Three words, "mat jao Zoya," that had started it all.
Three words said in a tiny restaurant supply room through tears and kisses.
Two words that united them before the eyes of Allah and loved ones ...
And one word that wiped out everything else ...
A tear slid down her cheek.
Zoya looked across the room toward the picture window and the settee under it. That is where she'd stood nearly nine or ten months ago when she'd delivered her half-confession of love. Her heart had beat so violently then that it could have leaped out of her mouth to land clumsily at his feet ...
Her heart beat just as violently now ... Zoya looked down at the drawer. Next to these collectibles of the past lay the sassy relics of their present: feathered handcuffs ... the white bikini ... More post-its that she'd tucked away as naughty surprises in his pockets to discover at work.
There was more:
Cards ... notes ... the scores that she had awarded him on their honeymoon ... a silly wish list from her past ...
It was from a past that was Asadless, an all-seeing past that knew who that list was for.
... the DVD that he'd surprised her with ... sent with the reddest roses and black forest pastries.
"You're sure you're fine?"
"Better than fine. Just mushy and all gooey. Like a chocolate bar left out in the sun."
"Mmm," his voice rumbled.
"You're too good to me, you know."
"I know."
"Mr. Khan!" she giggled. "Always so full of yourself!"
"Mrs. Khan, tonight you'll be full of me too!"
Ammi's voice ... and her childhood pictures. In playful retaliation for all of her nicknames for him, Asad had christened her with one himself: "Telpur ki shehzadi" ...
"ASAD!" she missed him so much.
The physical ache slashed at her ... she may have been on a conveyor belt slowly being fed into a thresher or a woodchipper. If someone came in here with a black light they'd surely be able to see the blood spatter patterns across the walls ...
Zoya picked up the lion mask from his childhood that she'd found once and adopted, not even knowing it was Asad's.
"I'm sorry!" her hollow words boomeranged to gut her. "Please come back!"
She cried herself to sleep next to the open drawer, the mask clutched to her heart.
In the morning when Asad came back he went straight into the bathroom without looking at her.
She'd sat clotted on the pristinely-made bed.
When the bathroom door unlocked nearly an hour later, she tensed even more.
Zoya was terrified of looking into his face.
But she craved a glimpse; she hadn't looked into his face for a lifetime. And being robbed for even a second would be too long; she would die.
Zoya crept to the bathroom door and saw him from the side: shirtless, just in pants. But seeing him barefoot pinched her heart. The naked vulnerability of his bare feet reminded her of the first attack on the house ... he had stepped on broken glass and then beaten her attacker to a pulp ...
She saw him peering into the mirror to apply something to his chin and neck. Had he nicked himself shaving? Asad hissed in pain as he moved his shoulder stiffly.
She frowned in concern; she wavered at the threshold.
When he turned, she gasped. Tears stung her eyes and she ran to him unable to stop herself.
Zoya searched his gaunt face; Asad looked away, chin rising in hauteur.
But she hadn't missed the redness of his eyes.
She couldn't resist running her fingers over the bruises that fanned out on his chest and arms when he'd thrown himself against fickle destiny's ropes to free himself at the factory. Deep dark marks were riven into his skin as if he'd been whipped by thick leather ropes studded with nails. Angry wounds snaked and coiled over his chest and stomach.
She knew he hadn't let himself be examined by any doctor since that day. They had stitched his head injury but did nobody look at these?
Zoya knew he was punishing himself.
He could have been one of those martyrs who lashed themselves for their sins and walked on hot coals ...
Asad had gone perfectly still when her fingers grazed the unhealing welts. He had hungered for this. Yet his muscles had bunched and fists balled and he still wouldn't look down at her. Zoya blindly pressed her lips to the bruises, flicking her tongue out to lick him and he jerked.
His throat moved; the Adam's apple bobbed.
Asad's eyes squeezed close.
But he remained immobile, as painfully stiff in her arms as she had been in his.
She continued to kiss him. Zoya pressed her lips to his throat and heard him swear and groan under his breath. But she still couldn't feel his arms around her. He wasn't wearing armor, but he may as well have been. His corded arms were steely columns that still left her marooned.
He was half-naked, but she felt exposed. Her tentative fingers stroked the old scar at his stomach and moved to undo the clasp at his waist.
She knelt before him.
"No!" Asad cried out. He raised Zoya forcibly to her feet by her upper arms.
"Don't," he bit out wanting to fling her away from him. But he didn't want to hurt her. He'd hurt her enough.
"Don't cheapen yourself on my account. No amount of se*x or bl*ow jo*bs will fix this!"
Her eyes widened.
"Asad!" She sobbed at his ruthless rejection. He had never thrown the se*xual act itself in her face before.
He rounded on her, eyes blazing. "Do you know how long I waited for you to call out to me when you were in pain? To let me touch you, hold you? You blocked me out, Zoya! You wanted to punish me? Fine, you succeeded! Are you happy now?"
"No, I'm not happy!" she yelled back. "I'm miserable!"
Asad exhaled and wiped his brow. "Why? Why must you be miserable too? Isn't me being miserable for the two of us enough!"
"I'm sorry," she gulped through tears that blinded her. She'd flinched at his bitter words; yet they were her only anchor.
He sighed turning away. "I am sorry too."
"Please don't---"
"You won't let me hold you. You treat me like a leper. Were you ever going to let me near you?"
She was weeping and slowly slid down. Her knees buckled, refusing to hold her up. He swung around to leave.
"No! Asad, don't walk away from me again! Or I'll never be able to""
"You walked away, Zoya." She saw angry tears in his eyes, or were those her own?
"You let her break us," his bleak whisper echoed.
Asad turned on his heel and this time she did run to hold him from the back, letting her hands slide up his shredded chest. Somehow her knees succeeded in holding her up.
"I know I hurt you. I hate myself for it!" Zoya rained hundreds of kisses on his back. "But I keep hearing those words. I hear them when I wake up, before I fall asleep"--if I fall asleep!"
She burst into fresh tears and backed away from him.
He had gone still.
"I don't even know if we are still married any more! How can it be so easy to end what we had? How can one word said three times over"-!"
Zoya couldn't go on. Her throat was closing in on her and strangling her words ... her breath.
Asad turned to see her on the floor by the tub. She was hugging her stomach and her body was harrowed by great sobs.
"Zoya, shh," he knelt by her trying to hold her. She pushed his hands away, gasping for breath, for control.
"We're two-thirds divorced, aren't we? Once more, and we'd have been fully---" she hiccupped and tried to draw a breath.
"Zoya, no! Never!"
She held up her hand to stall him. "Why not? Just one word away and I'd be your ex-wife ... you couldn't have touched me then ... would you have held me then? Tomorrow, if you get as mad at me as you're today and said it even once, wouldn't it be the third tala"-?" She couldn't even say the word even though it had pealed in her head all these days, deafening her, driving her insane.
There was so much she wanted to say but her tears and stupid voice wouldn't cooperate.
"I know you aren't your father's son, you've proved it in a million different ways. But me? Am I not close to being that woman ... your Ammi, my Ammi? I'm just one word away from being another chhodi hui aurat!"
Asad's tears fell too. He had no idea that she'd been entombing herself in such existential misgivings. And damn it, she still wouldn't let him hold her. She kept slapping his hands away.
And of course, this was Zoya. She still wasn't done.
Her voice rasped, struggling to surmount some treacherous ravine or mountain pass that gave no way to retreating armies.
"Your father, my father, you"you can all claim to be manipulated by some vamp, but why do your words have such power? Why do they get to obliterate everything?"
"Zoya, pleas---!"
"No!" she tried to shout, but her voice collapsed.
"That place ... that factory took away everything from me eighteen years ago, and it almost took away everything""
"I know, I'm sorr--" Asad tried to soothe her.
"No you don't know. You don't know what it's like to be the biggest freaking stereotype! I thought I was strong. I talk about women's rights and I was nothing but a strung up turkey strapped to a wheelchair!"
"I do know!" Asad raged too. "I was there, remember? What do you think it was like seeing you disintegrate and not being able to do anything?"
Zoya shook her head. He still didn't get it. Why was it so hard to go on? Why wouldn't her throat let her say what her head had been screeching for so many days? She had screamed so much that day. Just like she had screamed for her Ammi so many years before. And she'd pretty much stopped speaking since she came back home. Shouldn't her voice have healed by now? Or had it given up too?
"You don't get it. You just don't get it! I was my mother, your mother. I was a woman in an age-old battle with another woman over a man! It could have been a scene from centuries ago and I prided myself as a woman of the 21st century!"
Asad's eyes widened. He couldn't bear to see her unravel. But she wouldn't let him come close to her so that he could hold her and kiss away the horrors she'd embraced.
Angry at herself, at him, Zoya flung out her hand where her ring was. It was still bruised where Tanveer had yanked it off.
"I am almost your ex-wife. My ring is gone. You would have put it on her, married her, fu*cked her!"
There! She'd been just as crude as him. She wanted to inflict pain too.
She wheezed through sobs that wouldn't let her exhale. An avalanche of air was trapped in her lungs.
"Shut up, Zoya! Just shut up!"
She shook her head. "You would have married her. She would have had rights over you, and I'd have had none! Even though I will be the mother of your child, and even if your name is embossed across my heart!"
Asad swept her into his arms crushing her to him despite the throbbing pain in his arms and chest. Her breath exploded out of her but that boulder in her throat wouldn't budge.
Zoya continued to fight him off. Had he been wearing a shirt, she'd have been shaking him by the collar.
"Tomorrow our daughters could be at this crossroad! Would you be able to stop that?" she asked as she saw him crumble. She knew she was going for the jugular this time.
"I did it for us. I had to say it for you and the baby." Asad whispered in her hair.
"No! You think I would've been alive if you'd said that word one more time? I'd rather have died!" she still struggled against him.
"Zoya, shut up and listen to me! I would have done anything she asked me to do if it kept you and the baby alive." Asad held her face in his hands, "I'd do it again!"
"No! Allah miyan Mr. Khan what's wrong with you! Haven't you heard a word I said?"
"Yes, I have. And you're done talking. Now you'll listen to me. I swear, I'd do it again! And again!"
She nearly punched him in the chest but then remembered his bruises. So she bit his ear instead.
Hard.
"Ouch!" Asad laughed through his own tears and nearly shook her. "Of course, we're still married! How can you even doubt that? And if you're still not sure we'll go talk to Maulvi Saheb today. But remember this, nothing he could say will change how married I feel to you."
He lifted her chin, "and listen very carefully Mrs. Khan, I would have said that word a million times to keep you alive, you hear that? And even if those words separated us legally, officially, I would still come to you every night, wake up next to you every morning. Only you."
She buried her face in the crook of his neck and wept.
"Yes, that one word has terrible power but nothing could erase what we had yesterday and have today, nothing could ever erase what we'll have tomorrow and the day after. And if a word could erase everything between us then I would erase that word"expunge it from all spiritual dictionaries and legal databases. And Allah would have forgiven me for it."
He held her face in his hands. "Zoya, I love you. Was I so wrong to believe that that would be enough for us?"
Zoya shook her head. No he wasn't wrong. Finally, she breathed.
She healed.
He kissed the top of her head, hugging her even closer if that was possible. "I thought you were going to leave me. You wouldn't even look at me!" Asad voiced his own dark grief. "Would you have taken the baby and gone back to New York?"
Zoya trailed soft kisses on his chest. "All these days I've been driving myself crazy about us, but I could never ever separate you from the baby!" Not after what both of us have been through with our own fathers, she meant to say.
And he understood.
His eyes brimmed.
"Thank god!" Asad said in prayer. "I missed talking to the baby and touching you, writing on your tummy. Oh god, Zoya, you killed me! I thought it was all over between us. That you would run away from me. I thought I'd wake up and find you gone."
"I'm never letting you go," she told him firmly, understanding his fears and laying them to rest. And now that she'd voiced her darkest terrors, she could feel her strength return. "I'm as permanent as that scar you got because of me."
"Which one," he teased through his own tears. "This one on my stomach, or this one?" Asad held out his palm.
Zoya slitted her eyes at him and glared. His lips twitched and so did hers as she bent to kiss his palm. "There, is that better now?"
Lifting her face, he sucked her tears and their eyes locked. "It'll be much better when you kiss away my other bruises too," Asad said huskily.
They swooped at each other, ravenous and restless for each other.
"Oh god, I missed you so much," each whispered.
He picked her up. "Asad, no!" Zoya yelped. "Put me down!"
He stilled, and looked down at her, hurt.
"You're hurt," she told him. "Your arms, and these bruises ..."
Asad grinned. "You scared me. I thought you didn't want me to touch you!"
"Are you kidding me?" she said. "I've craved your touch, your hands, your mouth on me. And I've hungered to touch you, taste you. But let me put something on this, a hot pack or something. Please!"
He put her down and backed her into the wall. "Later. First I want some sugar," Asad breathed, nipping the jumping pulse at her throat, " ... and a lot of spice! I died a thousand deaths each day when you turned your back on me!"
"I'm sorr--!"
He silenced her with his mouth; she moaned in her throat at the delay and the reprieve.
Their ready fingers remembered the familiar clasps and buttons and just how to get each other out of their clothes at record speed. For a minute they let their naked bodies rub against each other, reacquainting themselves with the feel of each other's skin: the soft silk, the angular velvet. Wet heat burnished her waiting flesh; it sighed in welcome as he took her without any foreplay.
Zoya gasped and arched as she felt him move inside her. The familiar shock of the swift entry meant that she was finally home. She wrapped her legs around his waist and clenched and unclenched her kegel muscles; Asad groaned with pleasure. Absence and heartache made their practiced rhythm even more intense.
The frenzy mounted; their bodies steamed. The sighs and cries of satisfaction echoed in the small room.
Her eyes popped open.
"Oh God!" She moaned, holding her head in despair as she rested her elbow on his flexing shoulder.
"What?" Asad panted through gritted teeth even as he rocked her pinned to the wall.
"The bathroom and the bedroom door are wide open. Oh my god Asad, everyone must have heard us!" She cried out in shame.
Asad's eyes glittered. He twisted and rolled to bore into her at a different angle. A soft cry escaped her as Zoya arched helplessly, biting her lips. Her eyes drooped.
"Let them hear me fu*cking my wife!"
Her eyes flared open. Was he still mad at her? At what she'd said earlier? He dipped his head to swirl his tongue in her ear. She sank her teeth on her lower lip to stop another keening moan from escaping.
Blushing, she gripped his hair painfully. "Oh god, Asad! Say it again," she shuddered.
He did, dropping his voice an octave lower.
She jerked.
In the past he'd always used that word as a husky promise in her ear, never an open challenge like this spoken aloud.
"Again," she rolled her head to the side.
He did, even more huskily.
She'd begun melting.
"Again!"
And there it was: That se*xy purr.
It undid her.
She tightened and clamped around him, convulsing and spilling. Her lips parted in a silent scream. Asad swallowed the tiny mewls that she couldn't smother.
Dobby circled around two times before settling down on Asad's dark pants for a nap. They were warmer than the marble floor.
Finally! Those sounds meant that things were back to normal even though he was in a brand new place; he had already explored all the nooks and crannies and found favorite spots to sunbathe in. And he loved his new bed which was big enough for a king; Dobby almost didn't mind sharing the settee with his vazir: Dhoni bear.
As he washed his paw, he eyed the polka-dotted bra near the tub.
Title in Song:
Kurbaan (2009): Ali Maula
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