I’d often been told I resembled my mother. Unfortunately, I was three weeks into a torrid affair with Jawid when I realized he was married. Not that I’d looked that hard. I’d met his “ex”, Nasrin, at one of the routine hospital social functions a while back. She was a few years younger than Jawid, I guessed in her late twenties, and quite beautiful, with the deep, expressive eyes and lithe figure so typical of young Middle Eastern women. She was impeccably dressed in an emerald-green designer suit and exquisitely delicate jewellery that subtly enhanced her warm and ready smile. I’d been delighted to discover the wicked intellect and generous sense of humour she kept so well hidden under her quiet demeanor. I’d liked her.
But when Jawid said he was available — and I did ask him — I assuaged my quick flickerings of guilt with the knowledge that I wasn’t a home-wrecker. It had been months since the last time he and I had worked together. Whatever had happened between Nasrin and him had been just that — between them. People’s lives changed, especially those of talented doctors as handsome and personable as Jawid. I let myself conveniently forget all about Nasrin. And forgetting was easy.
From the moment Jawid first touched me, I was consumed with passion for him. At work, I constantly battled my almost primal need to be with him. I wanted to maintain my position as a senior administrator. I was only thirty-two, and had fought long and hard to earn the respect and cooperation of my colleagues. So Jawid and I had to be discreet. But his kisses electrified me, and we were both working brutally long hours. When our need became desperate, we indulged in quick, dangerous trysts in my office, the only room available with a locking door. On quick breaks, he lifted my skirts and took me roughly and quickly on the top of my desk, dropping his pants just enough to fuck me, hissing and thrusting harder and deeper when I grabbed his hips and viciously scored his skin.
When we could steal whole lunch hours, I stripped him and pressed him into my desk chair, straddling him naked, riding him slowly and thoroughly. My breasts felt alive against his skin. When he closed his arms around me, my nipples strained towards the soft tickles of the lustrous dark hair on his chest and arms. I opened to him, like a flower, demanding his tender probing, offering the petal-soft lips of my vulva to him. He took my cries into his mouth as we shattered into the sunlight stealing through the closed slits of the window blinds. I was greedy. And so quickly in love.
And so blissfully, naively, unaware of the cultural chasm between my “Americanized” lover and me. Jawid’s English was flawless, almost without accent. He’d been in the States since he was fourteen. He seemed thoroughly assimilated, at least for Los Angeles, where celebrating Eid al Fatir is no more unusual than celebrating Christmas. Although I’d never met the large and much loved family he talked about so often, I assumed that was because our whirlwind affair had blossomed so quickly, and because of our hectic schedules. Besides, he and I had so much in common: a love of Renaissance paintings and techno dance music, a dedication to the childhood vaccination programme for undocumented immigrant children that I’d worked so hard to implement. In my hard-headed Irish-American brain, love conquered all, especially on the day Jawid said he wanted me as his second wife.
Which to me meant he was divorced from his first wife.
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
The light finally dawned when we were rolling on the sheets in my bedroom, celebrating.
“Beloved,” he whispered, his dark eyes glazed with passion and his golden skin glistening with the sweat of our loving. He held himself above me, balancing on strong, beautifully rippling arms, gliding into me, hot and slick and demanding. “Oh, my Amanda. Nasrin will love the way you cry out when I am thrusting deep into your woman’s heat.”
His words flowed over me like the soundless warmth of his breath, teasing my skin. We were devouring each other on the blue satin sheets of my queen-sized waterbed, letting lust and desire rule us on a long, stolen afternoon, celebrating our engagement while we played hookey from a board meeting that had everything to do with politics and nothing to do with our programmes. I cried out, mindless with passion, wrapping my legs around his waist and trying to draw his firm, lean body further into me.
“Nasrin will love the way you squirm when I suckle your breast, the way your musk fills the air when you climax with me buried in your sweet cunt.” He twisted like an acrobat and sucked my nipple slowly up into his mouth.
A warning bell rang in my mind, but my thoughts were scattering into impending orgasm. I screamed, as pleasure waves washed over me, my body vibrating like a violin shimmering to the draw of the sweetest bow.
“You will marry me, Amanda,” Jawid gasped, his shoulders shaking as he ground into me. “You will become my second wife. I will love you like this for ever.”
He thrust once, twice, quickly, and, as Jawid shuddered into me, I suddenly heard what he was saying. I mean, for the first time, I listened to the words themselves, not to what I’d thought they meant. My belly went cold and I opened my eyes to see the final grimace on his beautiful face as he emptied himself into me. Actually, as he emptied himself into the rubber I’d insisted he use. I felt like a bucket of ice water had been thrown over me.
“You’re still married.” My voice sounded oddly flat, even to my own ears, like someone else was speaking out of my mouth.
Jawid panted above me, his arms shaking slightly, his head hanging as sweat dripped from his thick hair on to my collarbone. As his breathing slowed, he opened his velvety brown eyes and smiled down at me.
“What did you say, beloved?” He leaned down and kissed me, sucking softly on my lower lip. When I didn’t respond, he lifted his head and looked at me. “Amanda?”
“I said, you’re still married — aren’t you, you shit?” I shoved hard at his chest, pushing him off as I struggled free of his hold.
“Am I still married to Nasrin?” Jawid rolled to his side and looked at me with a confused smile on his face. I tried not to think about how sexy he was, lying there with his skin all flushed from our loving, his still tumescent shaft resting on his balls, still glistening with his semen as he pulled the rubber free and tossed it into the trash. He quirked his head at me. “ Of course we are still married. Why do you ask? She told me you two got along. It’s important that wives like each other.”
The confirmation, as unwanted as it was suddenly expected, stunned me more than I’d thought possible. A red wave of heat washed over my eyes. “You son of a bitch!” I yelled, launching myself at him, pummelling him with my fists.
“Amanda? What are you doing?”
His smile enraged me even further. It faded when my nails drew blood down his chest. I hadn’t realized how strong he was until I found my shoulders flattened to the bed, my wrists held in an iron grip against the mattress as he fought to avoid my flailing legs.
“Stop it!” he grunted, as my knee connected with his belly. When I again missed my target, Jawid straddled me, his eyes flashing. “What is the matter with you?”
“You’re married,” I hissed, fighting him for all I was worth. “You bastard! You asked me to marry you, you made me fall in love with you, and you’re already married to somebody else! Why did you do that?” He was too strong for me to fight. I was pinned to the bed like a butterfly on a mounting board. I turned my head towards the wall in frustration and shut my eyes tightly, trying to close him out, trying to shut out the pain, as hot tears leaked out from under my eyelashes. “Why?”