Lover Of Roses

Chapter 1: Rumman

In Harlow Hill, a small village in the parish of Stamfordham, a man knew little of God, or Hadrian's Wall.

He knew little of parishes, where one church ended, and another began. He knew even less of civil parishes, when the civil and ecclesiastical told each other to take care of its own poor.

And although Marwan's name meant flint or stone, he cared little for stone of the Romans. He was Egyptian, a little bit of a heathen, sometimes eating pork at the nearby pub.

He cared little for religion, and bureaucracy. He spent a life, running from the fight. Marwan was old money, who'd left the family fortune and decisions, to his sister. A shipment stuck in the Suez, a phosphorite bed in Dakhla; they were Dalia's to deal with. And she did so gracefully, wearing galabeya to the boardroom, bead sandals, where she'd charm, slay and kill demons of bureaucracy. It all but ended Marwan's influence, his presence, in the Qasr in Alexandria, and the family Saraya between Rosetta and Damanhour. He exiled himself to Cairo, then London, later to the pastoral Tyne.

A modest home, a guesthouse near the watercourse, and two little car dealerships near the airports; were enough to keep his days busy, the bureaucracy handled by someone else of course.

At a half wall, he waited, as daylight lowered to the hillside's wildgrass.

A small manor, a Gentleman's Residence was the term for a place with manageable grounds, was home. A small Georgian manor, its half wall of milecastle stone, grass, grounds and outbuildings all of Grade II listing, was of no concern to be maintained, like bureaucracy, a certain way, just like the bachelor's existence.

It was an early summer, late afternoon.

He usually busied himself in the afternoons, helping Wade a neighbour, with a sickly sheep. He made things in an outbuilding, ironworking and textile weaving, were his ancestral hand. There was nothing left to make. Had Marwan a son, he'd pass it on, although he'd warn against fighting for an iron throne with khayamiya hands.

He had no child, and no wife. And though his sister had no children either, Marwan had a niece today. A peculiar thing, that had messaged on Facebook.

How did the stranger know, that he was an Egyptian in exile, that he lived in Tyne, or that he'd stare at her request for a week, but ultimately give in. And what better way to get to a ghost, but summon his hospitality.

Today, the Nile was sending something back.

A car arrived, with its Uber passenger. A student from Al Azhar got out, who'd done a semester or two in London. And she looked nothing like a woman he knew in Cairo.

***

Marwan's eyes were brown, and the woman he loved in Cairo had brown eyes, too. Although hers, were black as onyx.

And while his hair was black, straight and slick and in a slight pompadour, hers were light, frazzled, her brown rusett fell in curls towards her collarbone. She was smaller than Marwan, and her would be mother too, hugging the host in a formal way, with watery perfume. His was thicker, and oil based.

Her name was Ghaliya.

"Ezayek?" he asked. How are you?

"Shukran. Not too bad." she said, as they walked.

She was a typical London dressed student in H&M, espadrilles bordering sneakers, gathering dust as she walked. Her accent was older than a semester, he'd ask and she'd reply two of the three years were done in London. A Humanities student, all homesick and missing the cheap street food of Cairo, because Camden was not.

Marwan was in exile, but the old money still knew how to host a guest. He asked Ghaliya if she wanted Mahshi or Nando's, cheap raspberry ice cream or Umm Ali bread pudding. Both, all, she said. Unshy, like a pixie traveller at dusk. And, he'd obliged, like the bus driver.

By a Range Rover, that Marwan was a little taller than, and she was shorter than, dwarfed by the Georgian manor and its brickwork, and Flemish bond, stood the strangers. He wore a black quilted jacket, while she was damp in a blouse, and journeyed in jeans.

They passed from gravel, to the landing. Although her posture was that of the traveller's, slouched and carrying two bags, she didn't have the silhouette, the shadow, of anyone he'd known.

***

In the manor kitchen, a small supper table, his black quilted jacket with a pompadour tried to figure out a little bit more about her embroidered cream dress, with wet hair.

As he ate Mahshi cultured, vegetables bake in a rich tomato sauce, with a fork, she ate Nando's, with her hands, as unshy as any woman he had known.

And Ghaliya loved sweet things more than any woman Marwan knew. They had ordered Nando's and raspberry ice cream, but the door dash forgot to bring the dessert. And she told Marwan, about how she fought with the delivery drivers in Bastarah, for it.

The kitchen was quiet, except for her stories.

"And what was the name on the packet, when it came?" he asked, of her full name.

"Ghaliya El Masry..." she gave him a generic name. Ghaliya The Egyptian.

Marwan smiled, as she ate.

"My mother always shouts me, 'Bint Hamza, sweet things killed your father!" she chewed, as she narrated. "I fight back, I say it's rather bitterness that killed him... vegetables, and my mother's moods."

She had a free spirited way of eating, telling stories, crossing her leg over, and flapping a flat under the table.

"And Um Ghaliya, what was her name?" he asked of her mother's identity.

"Um Ghaliya." she replied. Mother of Ghaliya. Just that.

And she carried on eating, having from a second quarter too. His fork and smeared plate had stopped clinking a while ago. It was all Ghaliya, the stranger. Marwan had managed to ask about Bastarah after a while, asking how the girl knew his Umm. It was rude to ask a guest immediately, about where they were from.

"Everyone knows Um Marwan, may God give her long life..." Ghaliya ate. "She still makes bread in all her wealth, mashallah, and brings to all the kids in Bastarah."

Ghaliya told him, about how she and her mother always fought, about baking mostly. And about Aunt Sara, who'd steal Ghaliya for an errand on a random afternoon. And because the girl liked baking, they'd go to random places for a bake sale. Aunt Sara was a twice married and divorced woman, who wore the car key on her finger quite permanently. She was a potbellied, big hearted woman, in a looser scarf and tighter abaya, with peep toe sandals and maroon nails always, who was good enough of a Muslim woman to look after Ghaliya when her mother wasn't there.

And as Ghaliya became older, at eighteen, she taught Ghaliya how to make mansaf. How to use turmeric and yoghurt for jameed balls, became how to use turmeric and yoghurt for a facemask. To use facemask and honey often, not to use too much rose perfume (because too much made you seem like a woman of the night), and to make sure that you were shy, and to find a partner that was just as shy as you the first time, someone that didn't mind a girl's morning breath. How to make mansaf, became how to lose a virginity.

Marwan smiled at the girl's tales. She noticed his tense brow.

"See, I'm not being shy..." she looked at the bones in her plate. "I'm not here to lose my virginity."

Marwan wondered if it was necessary. What even, was her motive for being here? He asked more of Aunt Sara, who seemed like the girl's closest bond. Her father Hamza had passed away, she fought with her mother often.

"What else did Aunt Sara teach you?" he asked her.

"If he gets a good mount the first time... khalas." she clapped her hands, and swirled clean her teeth. "You'll be happy for life, in your marriage."

The gate buzzed. It was the door dash with raspberry ice cream. Ghaliya reassured him.

"Don't worry, I'm still the virgin. Want to test?" she scorned, of the older traditions.

Marwan got up, slowly.

"Virginity isn't a physical thing..." he said. "There's 'riding the bicycle', there's some in tact after giving birth. It's about how one side remains attached."

He waited, for her permission to leave. Why didn't she know of hymens being in tact after birth? She asked, if he was a doctor. He did a field course, emergency care, in a tribal area, where one learns all sorts of things. To give emergency birth, to comfort a mother, to enlighten dark misconceptions, from all her old relatives.

She nodded for him to fetch the sweets, and dropped the feminist angle of her plan.

***

After raspberry ice cream and Umm Ali bread pudding, Ghaliya had both, they'd sat in a slight sugar rush on couches, all dusty and unused. It was eight at night, and he left the main light on, to ward off the devil, this unusual summer night.

Marwan wasn't used to guests, Ghaliya sat unlike a guest. She'd folded her thighs and feet under her, flats left upon the floor. As she scrolled through her phone, he travelled his memories--like the flicker one has before death.

There was no prostitute, childhood friend, fleeting moment with a fellow traveller, resembling the girl.

And when she told him of a kink site, he giggled. At first, she assumed it was his shyness, but when Ghaliya looked up again, Marwan rather looked at the night's fluttering curtains, and it now seemed a scoff.

"Do you want to see?" she asked.

"A kink site?" he rather asked, and shook his head.

"What's wrong with a kink site?" Ghaliya looked into her phone.

Marwan crossed a leg over the other, rather staring at his swinging ankle.

"Nothing. It's just... scripted." he said.

"Scripted, or carefully planned?" she frowned.

Like an an older man, he sat back in the couch, his restlessly swinging ankle seemed to detach the fringe from his quiff. It curled to his eye.

"It's just... you're sitting in the safety of your room, enjoying danger. Your submission is on your terms. You have the cuffs, and the key, but convince yourself that you are living great danger." he said.

"Who said I was the submissive?" she asked.

He looked at her, as if he knew she was

"I think, it's pleasure..." she continued.

"I think it's pretend..." he countered.

"You like real ravishment?" she put her phone down.

"Who said I was the dominant?" he put a hand to his fringe.

He was sassy, too. She was sassier, returning to her phone.

"It's a dangerous thing to sip from, for pleasure." he warned.

He wiped the fringe back, as if he was fed up with the entire world, progressives to fascists, leather clad punksters to women in sundress.

"You sit at an alter, that others have bled at. You dip a toe in, but pretend to drown, while others have drowned. It's a dangerous thing to glorify." he said.

"What do you glorify?" she asked, hovering over a picture of her in kink.

"Very little." he said.

Like a very cynical cafe owner, who'd seen all kinds of fights at his tables, under a nearby streetlight, he sat detached and uninterested in the topic.

Who was this cunt of a man, not bothered to see her in a pink babydoll dress. Who was the woman he was fucking, not to bother. Either way, she dropped a kink plan. rather resorting to asking if he was ever in love. She put the phone and its picture, one in a mouthgag, away.

He told her he separated the rules of love, marriage and society, a long time ago.

And as she flayed her thighs, pursed her feet, scrunched her toes, Marwan didn't bother to look. He'd rather stare at the fluttering curtains. The early summer wind. Wanting to sleep.

She got up, quite suddenly.

And she came towards him, and got up onto the couch, feet budging into the couch, legs either side of hm, her embroidered cream cloth wall before his face... he stared up at her eyes, as if what are you doing?

Marwan had a diamond face, as porcelain skinned a man could be. He looked like an old film poster, a classic straight brow, a hero from black and white days of a Cinema Radio. She had freckles, longer wispy features, bushier brows, pin straight nose and thinly lips, like an indie poster. They weren't in any way close, but the dress, drifting across his face...

"What's your idea of depth?" she held her dress.

"I have none." he rather looked up into her eyes.

"I know what you like, virgins." she lifted her dress.

She revealed her bare mound, her thighs. He gazed upwards into the light, into her black eyes. Why are you here? He gazed.

"Test." she ushered.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"First, this." she nudged the dress.

She looked downward, and nodded. He sighed, she wasn't relenting. Marwan stared ahead, at a raised mound of dark, dusty mauve. A puff of double crescent lips. And a tender pink slit, through the raise.

"I told you, virginity isn't here..." he hesitated.

"Then where is it?" she asked, brattily.

And she nudged her dress, again.

He lifted a hand, and turned his palm towards, forming a single finger. It had slipped between the twin petals, into the dark pink satin. He'd slipped further in her, second knuckle in, until his third... and he felt around, at a ridge.

A wreath, of broken tissue, like little segments of a flower missing petals...

He removed his finger, a slight haar on it. And he wiped the mist, on her dress. She stayed standing by him, fluttering her dress across his face, waiting for an answer...

"Am I?" she asked.

"Virginity is in the mind, I don't know what's in yours..." he ended.

And she lowered, about to drape her hands around his neck, but he'd held her waist gently and turn her to the side of the couch.

He rather walked away.

***

At an iron wrought table, where she wore a morning slip dress and flat sandals, and he wore a white shirt with cream linen pants and black shades, she dipped a cheap caramel digestive into coffee.

"Do you believe in God?" she asked.

Her white dress, his black shades, were symbols of her offer and his refutal last night. And this morning, they were friends again.

He told her of a woman, who was a housewife, and too much of a coward to leave a man. There was nothing wrong with him, but she just wasn't happy, and she was the coward for refusing to leave all the respectability, comfort and compulsion of it all. A thing she attributed to God's will, when it was rather her own inability to choose, for herself. So, he hated God for it.

"Maybe, she chose him, rather than you." Ghaliya sipped.

"Maybe, but why does she come to me to complain, five minutes before Maghrib?" he looked up into the Alder trees, for an answer.

Ghaliya wondered if it was true, flapping a sandal.

And he spoke about the colour of her nails, everyone's nails were the same, but hers were a pomegranate milk, when she was cold. Her lips were red, like Aleppo pepper, after eating everything at the corniche. When she talked and rambled, words fell like Egyptian starcluster flowers out of her mouth. How two boys left her broken hearted. How a marriage angered her, made her limp, for three days. And how, although she was married now, her soul agitated.

"What was her name?" Ghaliya asked.

"Hessa." Marwan answered.

It was true, he looked across the land for her, from where he sat. But he couldn't go, or disturb her choice. Ghaliya asked, she lived in Muscat, Oman. And he rather had settled for a Benson & Hedges cigarette...

"I'll be a good housewife..." she battered her eyelashes.

"Does nature spare you, your love..." she looked briefly down his torso, "and your needs?"

"I have cunt, if I want." he lit a cigarette.

Ghaliya gazed at him. He looked away into the canopy of Alder trees, as he smoked. As if he'd written off this life as a lesson, and was waiting for the next.

As if, the last port of call, or cunt, wasn't hers anyway.

When he finally looked back, Ghaliya still stared. Do you want to see the cunt, he asked by his stare. Yes, she gazed.

***

Hayley was a petite girl, with a lob. It flared inwards in the day, and outwards at night. This drizzly morning, she wore the black shoulder length hair; with a sheath, medium length dress, and plush velvet slingbacks.

They walked, and met closer to the Range Rover, rather than the entrance door. And as Marwan and Hayley hugged, Ghaliya watched the two, it was sudden. He turned Hayley against the car, her hands went up instinctively on the window...

Her nails were manicured and polished, resting against the dark tinted window. Her nude on black. Ghaliya could only watch. Marwan lifted her dress, pressed into her, keeping her dress from falling... the white string around her thigh, the curved cock disappearing into her, his hand wrapping around into her mound.

It was modest, Ghaliya only saw a single body lift and fall, as he rocked his cradle into her, lifting her from her slingbacks slightly. They'd humped against the car--Ghaliya watched, ignored like a pebble in the gravel.

"Ghaliya, this is my cunt..." Marwan finally addressed the watcher.

He reached further in between her thighs, she closed her eyes and gaped her mouth, raising and falling with each heave.

"Hayley my love..." he whispered into her neck, and fiddled with her clit. "She... wanted to see my who cunt was... she thinks I need another... do I really need another? I love this one, and I think it loves me too..." he kissed at her neck.

Hayley could only briefly open her eyes, in sultry confirmation at Ghaliya.

Reaching into her hair, he gently held, and turned Hayley around to face the watcher... she bent over, holding her ankles, as her feet squidged for grip in slingback heels, buckling in the dirt.

"Take off your shoes, baby." he paused, as she undid her straps.

He reached for a little more of her hair, holding it a little firmer, as she stepped out of her slingbacks, into the dirt.

"Why do I love your cunt so much?" he asked.

"You can make a mess in it, baby." she bent.

"And where do you make yours?" he slid...

"On the floor, on the floor baby" she said.

And he began to heave his pelvis into her, lurching her forward, returning her back to him by a hand in her hair. She look a pathetic woman being humped like this, looking down at her pursing toes like this, in front of someone, like this.

As his breathing became staggered, he staggered his thrusts, in slow, stuttering, and desperate humps, trying to control the sounds coming out from his mouth... "hmmph" like a barn animal trying to control itself.

***

The guesthouse was a boutique place, with a cream kitchen and glass walls. A vista towards the marshes.

As Hayley and Marwan stood at the window, talking of alterations, it was quite hard to know that there was dirt in her plush slingbacks. And she wasn't just a cumdump, but an assistant who took care of most of his work.

"Ya hayati..." Hayley said something to Marwan, and called him in Arabic. My life...

There were a lot of Arabs in the United Kingdom. And a lot of them would come to the Highlands, for hunting. A home away from home, their transport, Hayley would arrange their stay; by the guesthouse, the two dealerships between the airports, a few lodges and logistics. It's how she knew this much Arabic, besides Marwan. All Marwan did was renounce the fight, he was Arab too, but the fractured look in his Gulf, Levant brothers' eyes--Arabia was no more. He spoke less, she spoke more. Hayley enchanted, and scared the men at the same time. She once aimed a live hunting rifle at a drunkard who catcalled. And his friends looked at her, like they readied to help her bury. Gunshot, called a heart attack. These men were richer, billionaires. And she was a daughter of The Irish Republican Army, family from Belfast.

Why then, was she a whore for Marwan, who was poorer than billionaires, and nonchalant about most things, who left dirt in her plush shoes?

Ghaliya wondered, as they turned to her.

'Who's this bitch?' Hayley seemed to ask Marwan, although she smiled at the girl. Marwan seemed to shrug, 'I don't know, bring a daughter to work day, I suppose'. Someone who knew his mother, he introduced Ghaliya to Hayley.

A forty year old Egyptian in exile, thirty year old Irish cumdump, twenty two year old voyeur got into the Range Rover.

Hayley's car, a newer model Mini was parked nearby, it was too small for the three. Though it was a new model, she didn't bend like that for money. Ghaliya sat in the backseat, wondering why.

***

In Carlisle, a pale and hollow flat where laminate floors were just redone, Hayley paid a guy and he was off.

It was a cheap, commercial and corner facing apartment, for some of the 'cheaper' clients to love a local in the mornings, in a convenient place, before returning to a Connaught wife.

It had nothing but sterilising morning light, no curtain to the street below, a view of an empty road, and sterling, crisp white sheets in a nearby bedroom. Their voices all but carried and told secrets, of their crimes.

"Babe..." Marwan's low voice carried.

"Hmm?" Even that carried, Hayley looked up from her phone.

Ghaliya, in jute wedges and dress, felt a violent thing coming.

"Would you be afraid to love me, in a place like this?" Marwan asked Hayley.

As Hayley typed a little while longer, Ghaliya assumed 'love' meant he wished to be a poor man, again. That he romanticised these little walls, with cheap panes and empty rooms. Ghaliya assumed, he wanted a struggling, true love...

But Hayley put her phone away, held onto Marwan's hand, and led him to the nearby bedroom. Was Ghaliya supposed to wait here, she'd hear it anyway. So she followed, politely as she could.

Hayley and Marwan got to the bed, of stiff white sheets.

She pushed him back, to lie down, as she removed her dress to a bare back. She stepped out of her white string panties, and climbed onto the bed, as he parted a now bare thigh slightly.

Ghaliya stood, just beyond the door.

Hayley straddled him, and reached back, the line down her back was magnificent. A hand on his cock, she guided it up her, and fell upon it... dissapearing it from view. A hand resting back on the bed, either side of his chest, she began to thump down on him. In firm, consistent thumps.

Ghaliya could only see the base of his pole, as her slit slid up and down on it. It had gathered a luster, as it went.

"I know you're empty, but I'll ride you for a while..." Hayley straight talked, before she could moan. "Cum in me, baby... fucking cum in me... you always do baby."

She lowered herself towards his chest, disappearing her back from Ghaliya's gaze. As the lovers lay, chest to chest, she rode and grinded herself upon.

"Ahhh, I'll never be shy, babyboyyyy..." she moaned.

Babyboy? Why hadn't Ghaliya knew that word? It was an equal of babygirl which was Ghaliya, so she thought.

As Hayley slow rode him, and began to moan, and the sound bounced off the walls... Ghaliya would write in a diary, if she had one.

"Dear diary... He wants it, when he wants. He wants it, the unblushing way. But dear diary, why is she this loving?"

***

In the Range Rover, Hayley swung her lob to look at Ghaliya in the backseat.

Ghaliya sat in the middle of the backseat, like a deer that didn't know which way to run.

"Should I let her sit in front, babe?" she asked, as Marwan got in.

"Anything, you girls decide..." he scrolled for a song on phone.

"She wants to be like me?" Hayley eyed Ghaliya, asking him.

Hayley looked down, at Ghaliya's crotch briefly, before looking back up and smiling. Hayley nodded, and the girl understood. Ghaliya reached, undid her wedges, she'd brought her feet up on the edge of the seat, parted her hiked knees... fo reveal her dark mauve puff.

"So pretty," Hayley said, and swung front.

She chose a song on Marwan's phone. He turned on the car, with a deep rumbling, that reverberated through Ghaliya's bare thighs. He eased into a lane. And it was a sapphic song, Ghaliya's hand went down to her part.

"I will find the time, we will find the timing..." the song played.

Ghaliya played herself, to the lyrics.

"But I gotta keep believing..." the song inspired her, to stay true to breaking him.

***

At the gate to the guesthouse, it was a drizzly afternoon, Marwan got out of the car to open a latch...

Hayley turned back, to Ghaliya.

"All this time?" she mouthed.

Her thighs were parted, her raise was prominently glazed, Ghaliya was rubbing only at the outer areas... mindlessly, her two crescents shone with thick silvery liquid.

It wasn't a full hour of edging, some of it Ghaliya looked out the window, at passing wetland air, of mire and bogs, inhaling floodplain and early bilberry air. The engine, the road's vibration went up through her thighs, her calves, her feet upon the floor. And now, it alternated the throbs in her part... one of pain, one of pleasure, one of cunt.

Ghaliya was a little anguished by it, and could only rub her outer mound, in a haze.

Hayley looked down, towards the car floor, and held out a hand.

Ghaliya lifted her ankle into the hand, it was the only part that could reach. Hayley lifted the foot, to mouth, putting a big toe in. As Hayley swirled her tongue around, Ghaliya almost cummed...

Marwan got in, and the foot left Hayley's mouth only to say...

"I think she's scared of making a mess..." Hayley said.

He looked back, at Ghaliya. He felt sorry for her. He held a hand, out. Ghaliya placed her other ankle into his hand. As Hayley swirled, and he kissed a few of her toes, the blood rushing down back into her cradle from raised legs...

Her mind went black, then a kaleidoscope of colour, as few spills of treacle eased out onto the seat... before her mind settled back into darkness, again.

***

This evening, Hayley talked of a family thing in Newcastle. She was taking Marwan, for the night. Oh, she loved him, thought Ghaliya, who sat in a robe, pair of slippers and wet hair.

They sat at a cream marble island, that looked like his pole and her creaming, from earlier, Ghaliya thought. They asked if Ghaliya wanted to come. She politely smiled, declining. She needed a new plan to ruin him.

They worshipped her toes so decently, made her cum. The evil was leaving Ghaliya.

Hayley looked administrative during the day, but like an eighties disco song at night. Ad her lob flared outwards. She looked pretty, a wolfish cut, and he looked like who she'd bring food back to, if she ever went hunting. They made the pretty nighttime pair, it was getting harder to ruin him, by the hour.

They left early in the evening.

Ghaliya was alone in the guesthouse, with all lights on. She deleted her kink profile, pictures of her in strap, harness, and a mouthgag. They were pretty, pink and blue and black. But like an party trick, cheap, inconsequential, he'd passed it by.

She'd become completely bare, to ruin him.

And she fell asleep. Her long, thin eyes, like scimitar swords, dreamed a new thing. As it flickered and tapered in its plans, she seemed less like a wallflower, more of a puppeteer in a backstreet square.

And a little treacle fell, from her lips... like warnings of the square's herald.

***

Chapter 2: Hinna

Ghaliya awoke, to drool. She had fallen asleep on the couch last night, and hadn't heard the couple return. One of them had placed a blanket on her, sweetly. She'd hoped it wasn't Hayley... her drool smelled funny.

Ghaliya wiped it from her cheek, and joined Marwan at the cream kitchen island. Hayley frantically shuffled in her slingbacks, she was late for something, kissing... Marwan a hasty goodbye.

"Are you afraid of a mess?" he asked Hayley, as she kissed.

"Aoyrish Repooblikan Fookin Army." she became Thomas Shelby, and left the house.

The guesthouse was quiet again, except for birds over the pond, muffled by a vista's thick glass. Ghaliya wiped her cheek again, hoping the drool couldn't be smelled. He told her Ghaliya, that Hayley had put the blanket on her last night.

Oh great, she was now relegated to their child, from voyeur.

"What does she see in you?" Ghaliya asked Marwan.

He shrugged.

"What do you see in her?" she asked.

He shrugged.

Ghaliya sat, her slippers curled around the bar stool's iron, clutching a metal snake in her talons. She was petite, and graceful, a little frayed after the sleep. Her hair curled tighter to her shoulder, her eyebrows were bushier, and she resembled no morning... that he had ever woken up to.

"What do you want in a lover?" he leaned forward to set his cup down.

"I want him to be honest..." she turned her drool cheek towards him. "To tell me, if I smell. Do I?"

Marwan sat back.

"You know how much these candles are?" she admired an apothecary coloured bottle on the table. "Fifty pounds. I love it," she smelled, "Onsen, Greenhouse, a tuberose one. Do you know what tuberose is? Anyways, fucking fifty pounds."

Ghaliya got up to pour coffee from the dripmaker, her hands were all dainty and darker than his. Who was this drooling squatter? And, the only thing worse than twenty pound half sized Earl Of East candles, were the twenty pound half sized Camden burgers, said the honest Ghaliya.

"I don't want to be told to go, in the morning." she poured.

There couldn't have been many, that told her to go. She was the virgin, Marwan had checked. Perhaps she was tired of London, where everything was thrice the price. A degree without job prospects, a job without fulfillment. A life in grey, overnight in the mews house, and overcoat, left in a drizzly, expensive food market the next morning. Where men were unsatisfying, and women preached like new gods. A girl found her comfort in neither, she said, standing at the vista, looking out to the marsh.

"You don't want to go back to London?" he asked.

"Or Bastarah." Ghaliya turned back, to say.

Ah, so the girl needed a sponsorship.

"Don't worry, I won't get pregnant for it." she said, understanding his silence. "It won't be right to punish a child, for it." she held her cup, dearly. "What if she's a fool, likes a fifty pound candle?"

Marwan got up, and she sat her cup down, only to place herself up against the glass, arching back, hands placed upon the window like Hayley... but, he had come against her, rather to wipe the glass, off her palm prints. They breathed, misting up a window.

"I'll find you a suitor, Bint Um Ghaliya..." he told her, calling her a generic name. Daughter of the mother of Ghaliya.

And he told her about guests arriving. And he walked away.

Her old world virgin plan failed, so did the new world kink, so did her bare cheeks and drool. What did this cunt of a man, fall to?

They left the guesthouse, for the manor.

***

Maybe, it was her morning robe, slippers and drool that made Marwan walk away...

Her legs snaked out of the water and foam, like ivory and cream snakes, to the rim. The razor flared across her thigh, gracile as she could, continuing along the curves downwards, to her calf, and then Ghaliya's ankles, feet, clutching at the tub's edge... Her hair rippled into a neat bun.

And soon she was as smooth as rose hip oil.

Ghaliya traipsed through the house, barefoot and bare thighs, in a dress.

She sat across him, thighs flayed to one side, pursing her toes modestly, like one sits for prayer. Marwan, on his phone, paid no attention to the rose hips, of Ghaliya. All of his calls were for pastries, for the guests. Hayley didn't return for the day, and for the entire week. She lived in Whickham most of the time, which is why they'd fuck three times in a day, but Ghaliya wondered, why Marwan would take the same cunt three times in a day, while here was hers, too.

Was he protective? He wasn't vulnerable. Ghaliya shaved her legs twice in the week, and prepared anyway.

Marwan didn't bother looking at her.

He had a sweet way of caring about little things. He arranged for guest suppers to be delivered, in the five minutes before they sat to eat. A late afternoon golden rush, but he made sure the food was warm.

He arranged for pastries to be delivered fifteen minutes before breakfast. It was the early morning rush, and he sat in the panel van sometimes, all by himself. Today, he had Ghaliya beside him, as he rushed through a list of things in his paper, checking everything twice.

"Why are you and Hayley in love?" Ghaliya asked.

She admired his skin, apparent now in the early morning sun. It was slightly pitted, scarred from all his years of shaving. It was only visible in morning ray, as he'd sat like a van driver, in the traffic of Cairo.

"We're not in love, we just fuck..." he replied.

Ghaliya liked this Marwan, most. It was his most vulnerable time, as he tried to get food to people, like an old king. Like a bellhop, at the imperial hotel door. Or, like someone that lived with consequence. Else, his life was empty of consequence.

Tonight, Ghaliya wouldn't recognise him again.

***

Ghaliya wore a silver dress, in sequin and shimmer. Her makeup, mascara and blush, was a little dramatic too. Perhaps she was a bit overdessed, like a debutante, she'd make him jealous in the company of the other, richer men.

Her silver heels came downstairs, fashionably late.

But Marwan rather sat amongst men, hosting them like generals of the occupation, like a Versailles man. All he did was speak of things that didn't include politics, in a white shirt and black pants, like a wise smart cafe owner again. And Hayley in ritzy carmine dress, and a razor tight bun, talked to a European man and his wife, about changing property laws. There were four Gulf men too. Bachelors, hunters, on their way to the Highlands, hosted tonight for supper at the manor.

The four horsemen of Ghaliya's apocalypse, she appraised, like the debutante.

Mostafa Al Qattan was a smaller, moustached man, who stood with reserve, in closed leather sandals and a hand behind his back, while his other hand admired or rubbed faded studs on the door. He looked like he would be butt naked on his wife, in their mornings, whether she was undressed yet or not. And he would go for a long time, mind faraway, in consistent missionary, because it was a normal thing to do with a wife.

Yaser Al Shehhi was a big, chubby, jovial man in a kandurah and emamah, with leather slides. He seemed the youngest at thirty, and the carrier of their group. Glancing at Ghaliya once, he looked away, knowing his place in the majlis.

Fahd Al Khater was a straight and angular faced man, in a tan jacket. He had nonchalant cheeks, sharp eyes and a dark face, bothered with nothing but a calculating scroll through his phone. He was the shooter.

And their daddy, was Bader Al Khateb. A man in an engulfing thawb, in his consecrated posture and charitable eyes. The biggest and oldest, at forty.

As they'd sat down to eat fruit, in a makeshift majlis, in the manor lounge...

Ghaliya wondered which of the men she'd be whored out to. Perhaps, all four.

***

But as Ghaliya stood on the stairs, like an unclaimed prize, and Marwan greeted them goodbye outside, Ghaliya removed her silvery heels, before going the rest of the way up the stairs.

"Mn?" a voice asked. Who will it be?

Marwan stood at the bottom of the stairs, resting a hand on the balustrade, waiting for her answer. Which of the men had she liked. Oh, she was supposed to choose? He wasn't whoring her out? Ghaliya lifted her foot, and rather pointed a toe at him. She chose him, few, deliberate seconds... Hayley's footsteps returned back inside. And Ghaliya lowered her foot, back to the stairs. She was a little afraid of Hayley.

Before Ghaliya could remove her sequin dress, she sat upon the edge of her bed, planning to meet the couple downstairs for leftover pastries, or a late night coffee. When, she'd heard a sound...

A shriek. It sounded like someone being mugged, under a streetlight.

She tiptoed, along the hallway. The floorboards were untelling, refusing to creak, in alliance with her bare feet. The light at the end of the hallway was on, it slanted out into the corridor... making a bucking sound. Buck, buck, buck...

Ghaliya reached the doorway, and peaked in.

She faced the headboard, without a pillow between her head and the board. She was bent over, hair still in a bun, but naked.

As he bent over her, kneeling into the bed, right behind her, the cock slipped out. And he held, and returned it to her gaping pink hole again. It slipped in, and he'd returned to it. Returning the bed, to hitting the wall. Buck, buck, buck...

And her, to the moaning.

"Aahhh, ahhhh, ahhhhhh..." Hayley moaned.

A hold on her tush, he fucked her into the headboard. He wasn't particularly large, or girthy. Just a good mount on his woman, that made all the room's sound. He had the gold skin once, now fairer from all his years in Tyne. A broad back, a warm and pink dick, his stable thighs crashed into her, as her soles scrunched, into the sheets.

Her hair was still in the bun. He was hungry tonight.

As the bed bucked, as her soles scrunched, he'd temporarily lost his footing... and held his cock again, to her gaping, double crescent hole again. She arched at him, her soles remained scrunched, in desperate expectation. He flared his knee wider, deepening his foot into the bed, and continued shafting her into the bed.

"Aahhyyyy, aaahhyyy..." the end of her moans upturned.

And as it crashed back down, to a soft whimpering note of love...

"My love, my love, my love..." she breathed, rather as his girlfriend.

He stopped, reached and held her face a little firm into the sheet, keeping her cheek there--a few, patient, scornful, heaves, until he shuddered, stuttered into her, pulsing into her, depositing into her, whatever it was, Ghaliya watched his thrusts.

He emptied, and turned over, to sit on the edge of the bed, watching a moon beyond the window. She waited, with her behind still arched, waiting for the right of girlfriend or wife back.

She finally turned onto her side, crossing her thighs, resting a hand on a bent elbow.

"Ya qamar, why did you stop..." she nudged him with a foot, and called him in Arabic. My moon?

It was a clear thing, that once she'd moaned in love, he held her firmer into the sheet, to finish. As if, to get the idea of love out of them both. He was afraid of love, Ghaliya speculated. And he wasn't always patient, sometimes he used her, before she could undo her hair.

***

At the manor kitchen table, they were a little different this morning, darker, kissing each other a curter way goodbye. An unrequited kind of slow steam, rose from all their teacups. The table was filled, with three teacups, a Benson & Hedges, a half empty punnet of strawberries from last night's supper.

Ghaliya waited for Hayley to leave, before talking.

"Your cunt wants love, now?" she asked, staring at Hayley's cup of tea. The tea, finished before the steam could dissipate.

"Don't we all?" he lit a cigarette.

"Do you?" Ghaliya sipped her tea.

"I don't know." he puffed, in worry.

Ghaliya set her cup down, with big, excited eyes. "Is that why you fucked her like that, last night?" she ushered him, in hush. "Because you're unsure?"

"Something like that." Marwan left the truth, in smoke.

"You can fuck me, I promise not to fall in love." she held her cup, again.

"It's not her, it's me." he corrected.

They waited for Hayley to haphazardly dress, and the door to close. Ghaliya finished her tea in the meanwhile. Until Hayley's car left the grounds. They were alone again.

"Say, you're at a station..." he began.

She uh huh'ed, reaching for the punnet.

"Waiting for for a train. And on the bench, on the platform, next to you is a stranger. And you ask each other the time, begin to speak." Marwan told Ghaliya. "And as the time goes, afternoon passes, and evening comes, you decide to buy supper, tea and snacks together, and because it's cheaper... you share."

Ghaliya twirled her strawberry stem in her fingers.

Marwan leaned forward, reaching for the saucer. "And it gets late, but you hope, the the train... doesn't come soon, because..."

He halted at the saucer, before ashing.

"The tea and stranger..." he faltered.

"Needs a little longer." she completed.

Ah, so he was afraid of loving Hayley, rather waking up to her in all the mornings left. And so, he was being unfaithful to Hessa, if she ever came back. To wait for nothing, to accept something.

"Your train is coming from Muscat..." Ghaliya said. "She has pomegranate nails. And Hayley's train? What colour nails does the boy have...?"

"Black..." he smoked.

"Ya kharabi..." she put her strawberry stem down. Oh my...

The boy was gay. It seemed fate had defeated the Irish Republican Army, too.

"She's not entirely like me, she's a fighter, more than a lover. I'll ask her for something that will make her leave. I'll ask her to wear henna, she will maybe wear it. I ask her to wear hinna, just for the assfucking, maybe she'll get angry... and leave." he pondered, of a plan to make her leave.

Marwan lit a second cigarette, planning their breakup; something disrespectful, and easy to part, went up in smoke.

"But she'll accept..." he resigned, like a loverboy.

"You can try..." Ghaliya incited, like an anarchist.

***

Interlude...

Dear diary, they fuck like that, because they found refuge in each other.

The one with pomegranate nails, the one with black nails, don't seem to be coming back in this lifetime. So, they're thinking of rather waking up to each other, in all the mornings left.

I came with a strap and ballgag, but they've moved on to henna, and a dirty request.

***

At a shawarma joint in Newcastle, a pavement side table, among puddles of summer rain, it was early in the evening. The lights were just beginning to turn on.

There was a slightly Greaser look to him this evening, in grey jeans and black jacket, less like a cafe owner, and more like a punk.

And she was rather dressed up, in brown and white diamante heels, a white blouse, and a turban. She'd worn henna on her hands, her fingers were pale and the henna seemed heavier, darker, far more sacred, upon an Irish girl's hand.

"Is it our wedding..." she showed him her hand, and shyly asked.

"There's another..." Marwan said.

It wasn't easy to break, from a girl wearing henna at your request. It was a fault in Marwan's plan, and panicking, he blurted a quite abrupt heartbeat of a thing.

"Is there, is there another, Marwan?" Hayley raised her shawarma.

At first, it seemed a joke to Hayley. As she stared at Ghaliya beside them, it felt a blindside, to the fighter. But she discarded the girl, and her wedges, and demure dress. The demure girl, thought Hayley was becoming more and more of an old, melodramatic, Arab singer of a woman.

"Hayley..." Marwan persisted.

"What Marwan..." Hayley ate.

It was a pleasant early summer evening, where patrons dangled summer shoes underneath the table, even after stepping in rainwater, and flitted words over a parking lot's plastic table, unhurried, where the joint owner and workers talked happily, which meant it was someone's turn, to experience some kind of hurt.

"I want to fuck." Marwan said, like a first time boyfriend.

"I know, we will." Hayley chewed, like an old girlfriend.

"I want to fuck, in the ass..." Marwan added, bluntly.

And suddenly, Hayley looked like a virgin again.

It was a cruel thing to ask, thought Ghaliya. To make a girl wear henna, just for an assfuck, shawarma. And the cheap plastic tables and neon light, made it cheaper. Marwan added in Arabic, as heartless and cruel, as he could be.

"I want to fuck them," he referred to another, "in the ass. Teez, khorom al teez, fe teezik." he demeaned in Arabic. Ass, ass hole, in the ass."

Empty, spent wrappers fluttered a slow way home.

Her voice was softer, and kind.

"I'm there, my love." she said.

And his plan had backfired.

***

As they walked along a half wall, along the river, Marwan was determined to win this fight.

The longer it went on, the harder it would be to part, someday. If the girl from Muscat with pomegranate nails, and the boy with black nails, returned someday... what were Marwan and Hayley to do? Part then?

It would be harder, and much more cruel.

Perhaps Marwan loved Hayley too, because it seemed cruel. He'd planned to ask for something she of her own sane mind wouldn't give, that they of their own sane mind didn't do. Yet, it backfired. He'd buy her an ice cream, pay her a whore's inheritance, tell her to fuck off, if need be.

But the further they walked, the harder it became.

The fighter in Hayley was leaving, she was beginning to remember the day she saw black on the boy's nails, for a first time. And Hayley was feeling abandoned, all over again.

"Meadow..." he called her, by her name's meaning.

She turned to face him.

"What, my love? My lips, my heart, my soul, my cunt, my holes... they're yours. They are mine to give, I give you, khalas." Hayley offered. Finish. "Just tell me, why are you trying to get rid of me?" she pleaded.

And she raised her hands, up to his face.

"I'm a fighter, they don't put flowers for anyone..." she said.

It was full of flowers, her hands. And she stared up at him, demanding him to kiss her. He did, they'd locked tongues intensely, clutching each other's faces, smelling all the sewers of Tyne.

***

Hayley lay back, upon a sheet.

Her hands were sacred flowers. Her breasts were bare, baskets of no significance. As she flared her stem thighs wider, he rose between them, and her bent knees. A separated in two wreath, crown, her body was.

Her asshole was all glazed in lube, as he put the head to her asshole.

She closed her eyes, as he pushed in.

"A ghra..." she breathed in Gaeilge. My love...

It wasn't to be. He pulled out, but she placed her hands on his upper arms, shifted under him, and widened her cradle, inviting him in, to try again. Her eyes were big, black and starry...

He placed it again, to the hole. And he rubbed it, in little circles against her bud.

As he probed, she flickered in shyness, and after returning from a pucker, it went all in. Ahhhh, he left it just inside her, feeling her tightness clasp at his head, wrapping around him, close around him again. As he pushed into her, his throbbing head, all into her squeezing walls, she felt the tightness, the pulse in every ripple of his vein. The pulsing of his cock, his hesitant, slow push...

He pushed, all the way in, until his pelvis was against hers.

He lowered, to her chest. And he began to inch his cradle, in and out of hers. She took his slow tight stroke. As he slid in and out, the fighter in her began to leave... Hayley was no longer an abandoned thing, he was in the deepest burrow of her being. Marwan was no longer unattached, he neared her soul, with each push becoming a promise, befriended her deepest, reassuring her innermost...

They embraced, closed their eyes, and became a single, filthy cradle.

As their cradle curved, arched, and became two again, with his strokes coming in from longer away, he withdrew and returned his cock quickly back into her, while going further away each time, returning quicker, in a now familiar path to home...

Marwan fell deeper into her neck. The breathed in rhythm, but his quickened...

"Huh, huh, huh..." he detached from her breathing.

She held her breath back, braced and closed her ankles around his back...

He began to plough into her, forgetting his manners. The painful greeting turned pleasurable, there's something about this, that binds souls. It was a second fault, Marwan's plan was failing, he was quickening, crash landing his untethered soul... into her earth, consummating some kind of cosmic friendship.

"Ahh, ahhhh, ah-..." she greeted his shoves, each.

And he collided into her, unbridling all his indifference to the world, into her... in spurts, of different strength each, some angry ropes lashing at the world, some sincere, tender, candorous and ardent kisses of thanks, into her walls...

Ghaliya watched, from just beyond the door. It felt, not right, to even step a toe beyond the door frame, when their 'love' was this charged.

As they fell asleep, she tiptoed away from the door.

***

They woke up in love, and even came down together. Hayley sat upon Marwan's lap. How was Ghaliya supposed to ruin him now?

Thankfully, Hayley had work now in the morning.

Ghaliya sat, in her morning dress. Marwan had a cigarette, smoking away his failed plan to get rid of Hailey. It was an awful plan, and Hayley was no longer a legionary against love. In fact, she kissed him a kittenish goodbye.

"When's the wedding?" Ghaliya mocked him.

"I don't know. Yours?" he asked, reaching.

"I like none of the hunters..." she said.

Marwan reached to the saucer, to ash. Ghaliya opened her palm, as the alternative ashtray. He rather tapped the saucer.

And she got up, to lay herself down again. She draped, belly down, on the floor. Reaching back, she lifted her dress over her calves, thighs, and a bare bum.

Ghaliya's thighs, tush and width were flabbier than Hayley's taught behind.

Yes, Marwan fucked in front of Ghaliya for a week, cruelly, maybe she had needs too. Yes, he'd offered her the four Gulf men as suitors, maybe Ghaliya liked none of them. Yes, she lay like a bitch in heat, but it wasn't completely venerous or libertine of her...

Her head was raised, forearms rested on the floor, in a calculated and rational pose. There was some calculated and rational reason, for enduring him, enticing him, she suddenly seemed a little like the lore, that lived on the banks of The Nile at night. A beautiful, wispy thing that mothers warned their children about because it drowned the ones drawn to it.

"I told you, consider it done." he said of her papers.

She lay on.

'Why are you still lying?" he asked her.

"Maybe I just..." she began.

She stared out the kitchen door, at a cherry tree beyond.

"Want to be cunt, want to be fucked, want to be yours." she answered.

The kitchen was a little gulley, shaded in the early morning. No light reached further than a few feet in. Nothing could see into the kitchen, but the cherry tree. In spite of all the efforts made, to show Ghaliya that Marwan had enough cunt, diplomacy, and drama in his meagre life, he assumed she wasn't letting up, for a reason. What was her reason? It all could spiral, she had appeared like El Nadaha, the caller, calling... Marwan, in her hypnotic like patience.

He rose from his chair, she prepared, parting her thighs slightly. His footsteps came towards her face, and he'd kneeled. Reached up to the table, to ash his cigarette... psh, psh. Slappp, his hand came down on her tush.

"Are you done?" he rested upon a knee.

"Was that your first ass, last night?" she wasn't done.

Slap, slapppp, slapppp, slap, slap, slapp, slapp, slap, slapp, slapppp, slapppppppp, slapppp, slappppp, slapppp, slap, slappppppp, slapppppp, slapp, slappp, slapppp, slap, slappp.

Her tush turned a bright red. His hand rested, squarely upon it.

"What did the witch say?" Ghaliya asked him.

"A ghra..." he said.

And he looked out the window, beyond the cherry tree, to a person across the land. A phantom, an aparition.

"My love..." he explained, a falling voice.

And he rose. Marwan was falling from grace. He was forgetting Hessa, his morning prayer. And for the first time in his life, he'd think of himself as heathen.

***

They sat on a woven blanket, by the pond. They looked across the water, as sunset bowed to the grass, as if they were seriously considering marriage.

"Is it her?" Hayley asked Marwan.

Ghaliya sat beside them, but on the grass. Her arms were around her knees. And a woven cream blanket dampening in the grass, rather seemed for the lovers.

"She's a virgin..." Marwan discarded the girl.

Hayley stared at Ghaliya. Why are you even here, and why are you acting demure? Ghaliya lay back, and parted her thighs, slightly. She waited back on the grass, for Hayley to check.

Hayley turned, to kneel by Ghaliya. She reached between Ghaliya's thighs, inching further up a finger. She felt around inside, a wreath of tissue, the broken remnants, remaining segments. She stared into Ghaliya's eyes, while doing it, and her finger slipped back out, to Ghaliya's temporary dismay.

There was no way Marwan had passed through the wreath, Hayley told him, in a hasty, breathing kiss and a few words. She rose over him, straddled him, as they kissed. Before she locked their tongues, inside of his mouth, two marsh snakes...

Ghaliya watched the pond, ripples and sunset, as they'd kissed.

And then, they collapsed onto their side, turning to Ghaliya... as if it was for her. Marwan reached around Hayley's thigh, pulled her dress up. As the material all raised, Hayley stared at Ghaliya, in empty eyes.

"Who is she babe?" Hayley asked.

"Someone, who knows my mother." Marwan leaned back, to remove from his own eclipsed body.

"Doesn't she know I'm your mother? Your cunt. friend. Everything you need..." whispered Hayley back, as she arched.

Ghaliya saw the shaft slip up her slit, she closed her eyes, as it disappeared up.

"My mother? Is that why you wore iris and violet?" Marwan leaned into Hayley's face, and smelled her hair. "My mother smells like clove, and kahk."

"I'll say anything..." Hayley conceded.

Marwan pressed into her, and retreated. They humped slowly, sideways, rubbing the blanket into the grass, interweaving blades and damp into it, he reached around her thighs, into her mound, rubbing her. His hand covered them modestly, from the girl's view.

"What is it? A mother, A woman?" Marwan rubbed.

"A woman..." Hayley decided on marrying him.

Hayley craned, desperately back at him.

"What kind of woman?" he asked.

"Your kind..." she said

And now, that their proposal was hidden from Ghaliya's eyes, by Hayley's tight arch back at him, Marwan let go of Hayley's mound, and rather rubbed her hand. Hayley looked up at him in adoration, feeling his hands rub at hers. It seemed, she had not felt her hand held in years... he felt at her fingers, tenderly.

As tender and sweet, as the moss.

***

Dear diary...

I went up to their room, to ask if I should make feteer meshaltet, for their wedding. All I saw was her legs raised, as he rose, in X and Y shape... him shafting down into her... making her give incoherent answers.

They just had each other in the grass and pondwater, still smelling of it all. They had not bathed yet, yet they had each other all over again.

The wedding is tomorrow, and if anyone else comes, who knows. But I shall make feteer meshaltet for three.

***

Chapter 3: Sawdah

The wedding was over, with three cups of tea.

It was a Tuesday morning, as Marwan took his congratulations from the birds, from house sparrows and European Robins, for marrying, Hayley stared at Ghaliya, as a new, bellicose bride.

"Who is she?" she asked her husband.

"Bint Um Ghaliya, from Bastarah..." he sighed, he didn't know.

Hayley wore a satin, sheer morning dress as wedding gown. Marwan was topless. Had Hayley told Ghaliya to leave, perhaps someday Marwan would find her again, and they'd fuck out of curiosity. And so, Ghaliya was relegated to a maid, just cunt, wearing a slip dress and a naive stare.

"She can be just cunt..." Hayley stared.

She kissed her new husband goodbye. And Hayley left for Aberdeen, where the hunters needed help at their Stags Inn. She would dress in Whickham. Leaving a bare chested Marwan, Ghaliya in a morning dress, all alone again.

The feteer meshaltet was untouched, butter had settled into the pastry, making cushioned pie, a damp and soggy mess. Ghaliya took a piece of her own bake, licking her fingers off butter. If not her, who would eat?

Marwan had taught Ghaliya three kinds of love. He loved Hessa most, but was scornful to her. He loved Hayley next, fucked her lovingly, and he'd thought of waking up to her in the morning. He loved Ghaliya the least, and he was most respectable to her cunt.

"Why won't you fuck me?" Ghaliya asked him.

He was about to get up.

But before he could, she put the feteer back, and pushed her chair back. Ghaliya parted her thighs slightly, and raised her dress.

"Pomegranate milk..." she revealed her part. "What colour is mine?"

He stared at her eyes, and down to her feet rather. Her feet were caramel, she had full toes. Her nails were natural and just trimmed, like corn kernals in pink. She had dusty soles resting barefoot on the tiled floor.

And he rose, but she shrikked her chair back...

"Else, I'll go to the hunters..." she taunted. "To be their prey." Ghaliya threatened. "A hunting we will go..." she sang.

It was a dangerous thing, to say. Those men were hunters, if certain words were uttered playfully, they'd forget it was a play. If you danced in front of them, like a fawn, a rabbit or a hare, if you fluttered like a faerie, if you flew like unattainable birds, they would forget they only hunted once out of survival; not for ego, and boredom, and pride.

Her foot was lightly arched, as if about to spring.

He undid his pants, dropped his pants. He stood at his chair; the choice was hers.

She came forward, to kneel before him. As she moved her head to his crotch, he placed a hand on her forehead, keeping her from coming closer. She stared up... what was wrong?

"Promise, you're not Bint Marwan..." he kept a hand, placed upon her forehead. Gently, firmly. Promise, you're not my daughter...

"Hamza, Hafiza..." she stared up at him, with pleading black eyes.

He smiled, out of pity.

And he removed his hand.

She dropped her gaze, to it.

It was bright, curving and pulsing to life, in slow throbs. It firmed into the qadib. Ghaliya held, closed her eyes, placing kisses along the side of his shaft. She'd inhaled, as she did, like it was perfume cone. A bar of elixir.

And upon closing her mouth over the top, she knew what it looked like. It was morning's languid blood, pouring into the working caverns, of the backstreets. Pumping and cascading its way up, to his cathedral head for morning prayers.

It settled into a curve, in her mouth.

And she craned, arched her neck, keeping her tongue flush along his shaft's underside, slowly sliding her mouth back and forth, over it.

As it coasted along her tongue, his warm, taut skin swirled with little ridges of vein. As it neared the back of her tongue, the head felt big and plugging, politely a prop. His shaft fixed to her mouth, like traintrack and tunnel. Her tongue was its track. All pouting inner cheeks, the tunnel. It was wettening, with spit. Ad she closed her lips, along his compartment, it was her mouth's axis, her brain's central thought.

She sucked him for five minutes. It was morning sweaty, slightly damp from last night.

He hadn't bathed yet, he was topless. His chest was bare, broad and previously the golden colour, now paler from his years in Tyne. She watched his bare pelvis, pubis of slight hair, coming to and from, touching at her eyelashes...

And he retreated. To her dismay, her breath, as she kneeled and spit dangled.

But perhaps, it would be today. She flayed onto her thigh, and waited. He rubbed a little butter from the feteer meshaltet, onto his cock. He'd seen it in an old movie. A girl watched, yes. It was stinky, but memorable for a first time, it was considerate as she was a virgin, and it was primal enough for a maiden.

He rather guided her to her belly, as she lowered.

She lay, with her head rested on her crossed hands. He'd kneeled down on a knee, reaching between her thighs, as she parted. He slipped a finger, between her lips, down into her puff, furthering... until his fingertip reached her wreath, of broken flower segments.

He felt around her wreath, in a little polite greeting, gently pressing at it...

Until it became, a lissom petal edge, that obeyed his touch.

And he climbed over her, lowering onto her, straddling her...

Ghaliya closed her eyes, yes. She felt the head protrude, between her lips. It slipped downs into her, the shaft had filled her instantly. She was underpinned by this dowel and overpinned by his body pressing into her... she was breathless. He passed their wreath, six inches, and then seven... he left it all in, as she twitched and writhed her walls, around accommodating this new thing.

And he let her adjust, lightly pressing her into the floor... her feet pit-a-patted wider, she shifted and wiggled, as he gave her a slow slide out, and in...

"Uhhh..." she breathed, it was her first moment of duress.

And he gave her another slide, in and out...

"AhhHhhh..." her duress turned pleasure.

As his shaft slid in and out of her, creating a temporary push and release of pressure, as he rode her... it was such a lovely pain, she thought. As he rode her, slow, lovingly, she felt her plan to ruin him, leave. And as he lowered further, and wrapped his arms around her body, held her... he began to fuck.

The weight into her, his hand into her belly and bladder, her clit sliding along the tile floor... it was too much. He didn't feel her shudder, she felt a spurt, then a spate-- of liquid pouring out. She lost control, her legs were subdued in pleasure, as she pee'ed around them...

The liquid flowed onto the tiles, around their thighs, as they lay in a pause.

It was warm, wet and smeared their upper thighs, their crotch... settling into a puddle.

"It's okay..." he whispered, all her plans were leaving.

And when she finally breathed again, he raised.

She turned over, to lay on her back.

He turned her, onto her side.

She lay on her side, knees hiking up, to reveal her slit. But he stayed leaned before, just before it, holding his wet cock. He gripped, wanked it... as she stared up at him, in her betrayed gaze. Why won't you cum in me, she seemed to ask.

A few sputters, fell at the floor, of watery cum as weak as her pee...

***

They were damp, sitting in the lounge.

Marwan wore a top, now. Her morning dress, she'd wear often, it usually aired as she walked around in it. But this late morning, it was still clammy, with all their fluids from earlier.

It was sticky, as she sat across him, with her thighs folded under, and he burried his sin in his phone, in some work.

"Why did you take me from behind?" she asked. "Does my breath smell? Does my cunt? "You had no trouble cumming in hers."

"I told you, that cunt is simple..." Marwan said.

"You like simple cunt, now you're married." she taunted.

"Doesn't that word offend you?" he busied himself, in phone.

"They say, they're reclaiming the word. I think, it's just a word. "Witch cunt, angel cunt... why won't you cum in mine?" she asked.

She got up, and came to sit next to him. For the answer. He sighed.

"Hayley heard me for months, before we ever..." he began.

"So there's hope? For me?" she reached into his pants.

She gripped and rubbed him, beneath his pants.

"I gotta watch you for months?" she tugged.

Marwan put away his phone, sighing.

"I told you, those men are rich. Pick one, and he'll marry you, treat you like a royal. But not all, because then you're disposable. They'll shit on you. And dump you, in their tent or a grave." he advised Ghaliya, as he yawned, oblivious to her tugging. "Else, you live in Mayfair, Belgrave, eat Parcafe for breakfast."

He turned to her, as her hand left his pants.

"I don't want parcafe, I want you." she said.

"I don't know who you are." he breathed.

She raised her feet up onto the couch.

"I know who you are" she placed her feet, up onto his lap.

"Do you?" he sighed, fell back, raising his head to the ceiling.

"I know enough about you..." she rubbed her feet against him.

And she broke. Ghaliya licked her fingers, and reached into his pants again. She removed his nubby cock and left it out, in all of the resin from earlier.

"Fuck, Marwan. Why do I need some motive, to love you? Don't you love my feet on your cock, your shaft between my toes? Is it not enough, hm? I know enough, about you. You're indomitable, sometimes. You care about Hayley's feelings, else the cunt wouldn't have seen a day more with you. You're loyal and disloyal at the same time. You're a lover and scornful, and afraid. You think, in this life, that a girl like Hayley is worth something, worth waking up to. You don't mind the wait, for Hessa, in a next life. And if you don't believe in a next life, you're fucking morbid too." she told him, rubbing her feet around a now erect cock.

"You know enough, then." his eyes closed.

"And who am I?" she continued. "Tell me to be a housewife, your whore, I'll be it. Because life is scary, Marwan. You need someone to grow old with. To make you tea... help you to the toilet... bring you a bowl of soup."

She rubbed her toes, at his fermenting head.

"I'll make you soup. I'll slurp you, while you slurp it..." she offered.

It was gungy, with her spit, her squirt, the pee fluid, from earlier. His cum, and a leftover resin from Hayley, last night. It was an anal resin, Ghaliya remembered. Further mingling with the moss and dew and pondwater, of their sunset fuck in yesterday evening's side hump.

Ghaliya bent over, to suck it.

"Tell me..." Ghaliya asked.

She slowly moved her mouth down on him.

"Why won't you cum in me?" she rose, to breathe in.

She disappeared his cock, back into her throat, for a bit.

"I told you, I won't use your cum. Wa'ad. I promise." she hissed, between breaths.

Marwan was the cafe owner, again. There was indifference, apathy in his eyes, as she glah, glahhh, glahhh'ed down on his lap, while she tried to stare up at him.

"Maybe I'll fuck all the hunters, you can watch..." she rose to say, tugging him briskly. "And you can fuck me afterwards. That way, your precious cum, won't be used."

Marwan left his hands at his side, mindlessly rubbing at all his fingertips.

"Doesn't your mom want grandchildren?" spit dangled from her lips.

And she turned, to bend on the couch. She pressed her face into the seat, looking back at him, presenting her pink slit and brown hole.

"You won't get pregnant?" he asked.

"You decide..." she tempted, with both holes.

And he got up, she prepared, but he walked away...

"Kuss ummak, marwan..." she said. Your mother's cunt.

***

The next day, she was gone. Marwan waited for her at tea, but she didn't come. As two cigarettes became three, he began to wonder. He looked upstairs for her... her clothes were mostly there, but she wasn't. Her sandals, her dresses, a few cheaper student things.

She was neither in the house, nor the outbuildings.

And he began to worry.

Ghaliya had threatened him, with going to the hunters. The men were dangerous, especially towards girls without a guardian, wali. They had really warped ideas, in their bachelorhood, of helpless things presenting itself before them. The manner, etiquette of treating of a woman, only applied to their wives and sisters. Maybe a random aunt they felt to help in a moment. Marwan, although a hypocrite himself, palpated as his protective instincts began to kick in.

He called his mother, after six months. Yes, there was a Hamza and Hafiza, living somewhere in Bastarah. The girl was telling the truth. And he should've been an easier breathing soul, at least she wasn't his daughter, and, he hadn't fucked his daughter, but Marwan greeted his mother a polite, ushering goodbye, forgetting manners to listen to the rest of her words.

And he was off, to Aberdeen.

Dear diary,

He caught up to me, at the Inn. In a lobby, he held my hand. For the first time in years, he faced the world, and it was all for me.

In a quiet, red and gold carpeted corridor at the Stag Inn, he placed a hand on Ghaliya's.

"Ya ghali..." he called her by a nickname. A song, to pacofy her. My dear one...

She turned to face him, in anger.

"What Marwan, what?" she demanded.

"I told you, these men are dangerous." he said in hush. "I will say you're Omani, a cousin of Hessa, someone my mother knows. They'll treat you with respect, only then. Else, you're Egyptian dirt, like me."

Her eyelashes curved like whips, her black irises glared, her scimitar swords all pursed sharper at him.

"And who are you, to decide for me?" she talked loud. "I will fuck them, if I want. Marwan, you can watch, if you want."

She turned away. And with one hand on this loose steering wheel of a girl, he'd maybe be able to protect her.

***

At the majlis in Westhill, four Gulf men sat on the floor, among floor cushions, tea, summer fruit stolen from other countries.

The Stag's Inn was mainly for a carcass, logistics, and emergency overnight stays. They were early for the roe bucks, and late for the roe does. And they booked a chateau for the time in between stalks. Tonight, they had a guest. Marwan, cafe owner, turned insecure and afraid and pretending to be blase man.

The host who brought them to the Highlands, turned their guest in Westhill, listening to the men speak. Marwan was Arab too, but that fractured look between brothers... they made sure not to speak politics. Marwan was rich too, these men, billionaires. Marwan had a little guesthouse and two car dealerships, manor just over a million. They had an awful lot more. Still, they hosted him well, as a brother.

At the majlis or diwan in the desert, they'd display their falcons and teapots, lining unfortunate dead birds before it. They would talk into the night, about everything, from heaven to the earth, deeds in the hereafter to cryptography or how to make money, before they would muse about purpose, etiquette in life, and in sexuality, before it got late, and one man would leave, to fuck a man, or woman.

Tonight though, they were up past two in the morning, to stalk at dawn.

When, a car arrived. Marwan knew who the stranger was. He was here to protect her.

And as she strode in, like a void from the night sky, in a black abaya and scarf, falling fringe, and lighter makeup, there was a shimmer in her cloth, a shimmer in her eyes, a shimmer in her intention, as she greeted and sat, a little to the side of the men.

She cast a glance at Marwan, as if to say... you once called kink scripted, dangerous? Well, here's my script, ascertain it however you wish.

***

A red Virginia creeper and hydrangea once draped the wall of the Westhill chateau. But it was early for the leaves. A Scottish Baronial home, right upon the pond.

It was red, green and orange once, like a shy bride. It was misty and disquiet now.

A wharf ventured out, but never seemed to return. The pond water had its way with battered foundations, whispering to it, in mist, turning it into mould. All the masonry, beat into submission, by the weather. It was wrapped in vine, twigs and leaves... all across the balconies, balustrades and pathways, writing in blackletter a gothic ballad of time. The spires watched, like wise old men.

Before a bog of trees, they returned to the chateau, a nine o clock, misty morning.

Their boots were heavy into the house, her ankle boots clicked along the wooden plank. Their bodies were hot, damp and wet with thrill, from the stalking. And hers, wrapped in three layers of clothes, each with a front waist tie.

As they removed their hunting jackets in the hallway, she continued to the lounge.

The Goldfinch wanted to help Ghaliya, but a Bullfinch told him, that she wasn't the sacrifice, Marwan was. A Bohemian Waxwing blushed. Each heard their own song, from Elk Hunt, Last Of The Mohicans, to Lamma Bada Yatathanna, the Andalusian song, or she who walks with a swinging gait.

As she sat, in the middle of the lounge, down upon a deep red carpet of purled edge, her thighs folded to one side, like one sits for a prayer.

Among mahogany panelled walls, Cameron of Erracht tartan, and bulky couchs with little concaves in its brass legs, that could resound everything like a little symphony up Marwan's calf--she removed her ankle boots, to black socks.

The men took seats around her, each in their own. Mostafa Al Qattan, the reserved one. Yaser Al Shehhi, the jovial chub. Fahd Al Khater, the calculated shooter. And Bader Al Khateb, the pious romantic.

Yaser began to remove his clothes. He had the most heat to warm her first, they had joked, after hearing of Aunt Sara's advice. Marwan heard nothing, he settled into his lone armchair, heart cracking through his abdomen. There was nothing he could do. It was all to happen, regardless of him.

Ghaliya sat by, upon the handwoven kilim carpet.

Yaser removed his moor clothing. A mammoth wax outer jacket, the merino sweater, cashmere jersey. He was a big, bare bear. And as he sat down by a clothed Ghaliya, she could feel his body heat radiate.

He leaned in, she closed her eyes, as he kissed.

His lips were thick and burly, enveloping hers. He closed, in little clasps, at her lips. And he went on, slipping an elephantine tongue into her mouth. They'd sat upright, kissing, he petted his plump tongue at her petite one. Lathering the big tongue into her mouth, he slipped his hand to her waist tie...

His broad, chubby fingers, worked at her deft waist tie. It was of tweed, he removed the waist front ties, of three layers. First tweed, then satin, and then the sheer dress. His fingers reached her shoulders, and all three layers of her cloth fell.

Her breasts were bare, a little perky in the cold, with dark areolas, perfectly darker, and centered tips for nipples. It was raised and stiff in the cold, and he hugged her closer, hands around her waist, placing her itsy bitsy runty nipples against his bare, bear chest.

His burly kisses fell from her lips, to her chin, her jawline, her neck as she tilted her face up to allow him in. He nestled in deep, placing port and stout kisses into neck. Kiss, kiss, kiss...

And he gently lowered her down, by easing his weight into her, to the floor...

Yaser fell below, a big and balding head lay between her gracile thighs, as he closed his burly lips, on her lower lips. She squirmed back, but the weight of his hands kept her. He kissed, licked and sucked, in big and little circles, all across her lips, into her... along her slit. At her button, until... her pygmy body violently pushed back at his burly lip, and brawny tongue.

After her wet heat felt on his nose, he retreated from it, kissing her thighs, each kiss, threatened to push her throb over.

And she lay back, he rather stood.

His cock was thickset and stubby, it was still coming to life. He rubbed it, as it swole up into a heavyweight, lumbering, hulking, slow pulsing bar of flesh. Perhaps it was time to hand her to the smaller man, Yaser sat again, rubbing his corpulent cock...

Mostafa had removed his clothes, all of it. He had the dick of a dog, long, thin and pink. A spindle shanked head. She was right, he was a missionary man. And as he leaned between her thighs, butt naked upon her, placing his cock all at once, into her, he went for a long time, as the others watched his dog like rampant thrusting...

He humped her for an incessant, consistent three minutes... she draped her arms around his neck, and her socks around his lower back, shuffling under his thrusts. He'd shuddered, sputtered into her... quietly depositing all.

He lay in her, breathing. And she untied her black socks, from his back.

And he kissed her forehead. Getting up to sit again, panting his way back to the reserved breath.

The others looked at each other, it wouldn't be Marwan, by the haze in his eyes. His cock violently twitched, and he crossed a leg over, to hide his cock, and heartbreak. Marwan should've done better, he almost married her, to this respectful dog and all his disrespectful, perpetual, puny thrusts. What dua does Marwan even make, for a strange girl like this? That she be fucked better, not at all? What was in her heart, what was in his? For now, it was all crotch.

Yaser got up from the couch, as he rubbed. A baluster of a cock had straightened into a stout bar, with a porcine head. She flared her legs wider, to prepare for him. But he rather sat, by her side, removing her black socks.

"I forgot the other parts, that make a woman warm..." he apologized, and raised a bare foot. Kissing her feet, he held her ankles, kissing her toes... kiss, kiss, kiss... gently and tenderly. All of her toes, were kissed.

She looked at Marwan, as he did. Are you watching?

And he kissed her toes, her calf, even raising her hands to kiss, to the fingertips. Yaser let go of her hand, to cradle into her chest, kissing her breasts, shoulders, continuing to the collarbones. Her took a nipple in his mouth, swirled his burlier tongue around the runt... before he took as much of her breast, within a mouth. Warming her belly, by his breath alone.

And he removed her breast from his mouth, to lay back.

It was considerate of him, she thought. He was whalelike, in size. It was erect, stout. And she turned over, her foot arched into the carpet, either side of his squat thighs. She'd hovered above a bulging, squat cock... slowly holding it at her lips. His head was bulbous, sinking down on it was cunt stuffing breathlessness.

The pain, the pleasure. The pain was pleasurable, when one controlled it. She cast herself down it, slowly. The plinth filled, made her airtight, pushing air up into belly.

As she sank on him, placed her hands on his chest, feeling his plump thighs touch at the underside of hers, she went as far as she could. Fuckkkkk, she was filled. And as pinned as a girl could be. She raised by the tip of her toes, and lowered back, slowly careful, controlled as she could manage...

Her mount was bovine, a stanchion, but his eyes were kind and lamblike. So, she'd rode him, in trust and love. They watched her back raise and fall, on a stout mount... until she fell into his neck, and told him to take over...

He put pudgy arms around her body, and began to slam up into her... flap, flapppp, flappp, his balls smacked into her, as she whimpered into his ears only. The others could hear his balls, only. It filled the room with resounding swats.

As she was pounded, she kept her reserve.

And he settled back, into slow lifts...

As they stared, she reached back, and remembered there were others, to watch. Reaching back, she held her tush, and her cheeks slowly parted, she left it apart... as if there was another hole.

Before Marwan could fathom, Fahd was there, kneeling behind her. Marwan could not see what was happening, he could imagine only, as Fahd went back and forth into her, fucking her in the asshole.

As she pressed into the chub's body, the rolls of his body rubbed against her clit; Yaser made a good bed. And she wiggled into him, in the thrusting, from the man behind, a firmer, harder, shafting and assfucking... Ghaliya treacled onto them her glaze, shyly.

They didn't notice, fucking on...

One in the cunt, one in the ass. They shafted her, until getting off at staggered intervals. The one from behind, was surprisingly sharper, hotter, a thick arterial spurting. As he detached, it still felt coursing. While the one below her, surged, spewed like a gentle, spilling fountain, percolating into her, mingling with all of Ghaliya's treacle.

His eyes were warm, and affable. And she stayed mounted on him. But after a subsiding feeling, and a smile, he too had to get up. She half raised, a left leg, allowing him out from under. The mount left. Before she lay back on the floor, breathless.

And then, there was a foot, near her face.

Bader bent, to her. He was their eldest, and it took him a little while, to lower. Dressed in engulfing robes, but a bare foot, he leaned in with kind eyes.

"Tamam?" he asked. Are you okay?

And she nodded. He gave her a gentle nod, in return.

And she closed her eyes, parting her thighs again. Rather, she heard a rustle of cloth. The man's cock held by near her mouth. She parted her lips, as he put it in. The cock was long, firm and straight. She swirled her mouth and head around... best she could. Her head stayed raised, he kneeled for the minute... getting his dick sucked, cleaned. Before, he removed it from her lips, and he stood.

It took him a while to raise, and rustle the rest of his cloth, as she rather stared ahead and tiptoed her thighs apart again.

She wondered, which hole it would be. He seemed a pious, romantic and Godly man. Feeling the prod at her ass, he wasn't the cleanly Godly man. His head slipped in her, reopening a puckered hole, he slid the long, straight and firm cock all the way in... as impatiently as the elders do. And he began to fuck, the young man again. He tried to hide his breathing, and staggered thrusting... but the desperate humping and "hm's" were heard and felt, in lurches into her from behind.

He slapped his bum into hers, the others watched the old man fuck.

He held her face, to the floor, to keep himself raised and with leverage. His thrusting became even more staggered, stuttering, spasmodic, he pressed into her, nestled in--the cum was firm, straight and hard jets...

And he exhaled, and settled.

He kissed her on the head. He rose, to sit back on the couch naked, with his nubby again cock. As he recovered his breathing, a bearded, bald and elder hazey eyed man waited, for the next to take his place.

They waited for Marwan, but as his violently hurting and throbbing cock subsided, Marwan didn't seem to move. Bader gently gestured, and asked. Marwan politely smiled and seemed to refuse.

"I feel like you have poisoned us with this meal, that you won't partake of..." Bader joked. He half gestured towards her body, in his breathless haze.

And she turned, crossing her legs modestly, her head resting upon a belt elbow... gazing at Marwan, stepping in for him.

"He's a husband, he won't in front of the others..." she said to the others, smiling at Marwan, defending him.

And the men got up, to greet. They thanked Marwan for his hospitality, because truly, Marwan had been a great host. An elder blessed Marwan's hand, and compared the time here to jasmine flowers, invited their host to the Gulf, where their home was his. Marwan now had another home, theirs. Bader joked, he would bring fine men home, if Marwan was gay. The finest mithly, gay men, or bicycles, he reiterated. Arabic was such a dramatic language sometimes, Marwan smiled, left them to their assumption.

And they left, to give the husband time with his wife.

Their bags were already packed, they were leaving the Highlands today for London. They gathered their jackets in the hallway, their boots were lighter on their way out. The Goldfinch, Bullfinch and Bohemian Waxwing were at ease, as their car left the creeper grounds.

Among mahogany panelled walls, Cameron of Erracht Tartan, a carpet in deep red and green, lay a woman with four deposits of cum. They were alone in the lounge, again. As their eyes met, she gave him a few playful, exaggerated raises of her brows... how was it?

Her eyelashes playfully whipped him, he almost teared.

And the conversation happened, entirely by their eyes.

I asked Um Marwan about you, he gazed. And, she blinked. You are from Bastarah, there is a man named Hamza and a woman named Hafiza, he said to her. What did you think, that I was a liar, she asked him. I don't know what to think, he gazed back. Don't think, just fuck, me, she said.

And she lay back again, keeping her eyes on him, She playfully danced her thighs, back and forth, as if inviting him.

He got up from his chair, she prepared and widened her cradle...

But he rather came, before her cradle. There were four deposits, of different opacity. And he tried to look for the fifth, hers. Sorting through it all with his tongue. To bring hers ot safely again.

***

The men wanted to visit an orchestra in Edinburgh, before they'd left. As a symphony played bittersweet song, Ya Ashikat Al Wardi...

"Oh lover of roses, if you've kept your promise, I'll be waiting for you..." a song went.

Marwan and Ghaliya were among the audience. Her head and bun, collapsed upon his shoulder.

***

At the manor table, they sat in her morning dress, his linen again.

"It's funny, I said housewife, and now you're thinking of waking up to someone in the mornings..." she began.

He seemed vulnerable, afraid, and reached for a cigarette- but she placed a hand on the Benson & Hedges.

"I said housewife, and you left Hessa for Hayley. I'll say skank, you'll leave Hayley for me..." Ghaliya kept the cigarettes from him.

He sat back, she rather took a cigarette for herself, in dainty hands. She lit, smoked. And it wasn't the first time she had smoked. It was a drizzly morning, there was little sound but the patter of raindrops, and her exhaling breath.

"Maybe I find the black nail boy... and I suck him, so good, he becomes straight. No longer a bicycle for other men, I return him to Hayley, and you're free." she smoked, and pondered.

A part of Marwan wondered, if it was possible. A little part, maybe even hoped for it.

"You won't get the name out of her..." he rejected the idea, becoming loyal to Hayley again.

"We'll see..." she smoked.

***

In the week, Hayley saw her as more of the fellow woman, although Ghaliya was still just cunt. They'd even become friends, dancing together to old Arab wedding songs.

Twirling their hands, to Law Bass Fe Ayne, Ya Ghayeb, Helm Baeid, a dream faraway, they teased Marwan...

"Are you from earth, or are you from the heavens..." they taunted him together, in silly finger pointing accusations.

It was sweet, innocent and Ghaliya also offered to paint Haley's nails, one afternoon. As Haley sat, with her feet placed up the couch, Ghaliya kneeled below, painting it a careful... black.

As Haley sat, with knees hiked and thighs parted, feet on the couch, Ghaliya put her face between the drying nailpaint. She rubbed the tip of her nose deftly into the slit. Kissing Hayley's lips, tenderly, willowing her tongue, all along the ripples of delicate vulva. She swirled a sapphic, seraphic tongue, through her mossy hair, towards her clit. Her tongue's whirling, slow motion, turned Hayley's mist into dew, dew into an uncontrollable fluttering thigh, fluttering thighs into rain, all by sucking on her little nimbus cloud of a clit... her fluid spilled out, along with a name.

Hayley looked down at Ghaliyaa, in adoration...

"Torin." she said. It was her Ghayeb, one who was missing.

***

Dear diary...

I found his name in her crotch. It was in an old Facebook account of hers, too. You can find anyone on Facebook, these days. Torin Brown, such a unique name.

Hayley and Marwan were considering getting married. Their trains were not coming, in this lifetime. Marwan calls them trains, I call them ships. If you're thrown off a train, it's easier to walk back. If you're thrown off a ship, it's harder to swim back. And, not everyone can swim.

They considered a wedding, one with an actual ring, I suggested a holiday, first. A trip to Bournemouth. It was painful, returning to London, just past it. But it was for an eventual cause.

We spent the days, walking along the beach, sand between our toes, kicking some at each other. Before returning to the hotel room where they would fuck me a little, bury me in their crotches a little. But I was no one's train. Unicorns, they're called. But, one doesn't treat unicorns this cruelly. I had to return to my room to sleep. They woke up, together.

The hotel had a lovely brown haired boy, with brown eyes, who worked there. And a late afternoon, when he was standing in the corridor, and I was kneeling, sucking the boy's dick, the lovers Marwan and Hayley walked in on us...

The boy's name was Torin, he was supposed to be gay.

We left Bournemouth, Hayley and her eternal stare at the boy, Marwan and I returned to Newcastle.

***

As they walked into a bedroom that was now hers, clothes strewn around from when she had packed for Bournemouth, Marwan scrolled through his phone waiting for the message from Hayley...

"You think she's okay?" he asked.

"Is that why you waited till the bedroom, to begin this conversation?" she asked him. "Because, you wanna fuck the answer out of me?"

Marwan came to stand, before her.

"A witch is always okay." she defied.

"And who are you?" he breathed down.

"She's not coming back." she stared back.

"Who are you, Ghaliya?" he quietly demanded.

"Your witch is gone, soon Hessa will be too." she threatened him.

At the mention of Hessa's name, he lost a bit of reserve. He flustered his breath, and glared down at her.

"Who are you? You live in Bastarah, you know my mother. You're my niece okay, even if you are not related to me, to Um Marwan. Who are you? You're okay if I fuck before you, if I fuck you, and if I don't. If it's not papers, money, what do you want?"

"Maybe I'm an angel..." she adamantly stared back.

He swirled his gaze to the window, the summer's night.

"Maybe you left me in Cairo. In the hands of an old man and woman. In an orphanage maybe, where it was cold, with no hot water at Fajr. Maybe I got lashed on my feet for not wanting to make wudhu, with cold water. Maybe I bought halabesa soup for iftaar, while my father lived in London, eating lobster and drinking wine." she said, watching his eyes grown in slight horror, staring down at her.

"Abu Ghaliya..." he trailed. The father of Ghaliya...

"Don't act horrified," she scolded, "you were curious about it, fucked me anyways..."

In his moment of weakness and wonder, if it was all true, she pushed him back on the bed. And she straddled him.

"Or maybe, I'm Dalia's child. Left in an orphanage, because a princess loved a Berber man, and I, was the scandal. She or her parents, tried to bury me. I went to see her in the foyer, she walked right past me. She didn't even notice me. Or that I look like her. My god, how pretty she is. They say she killed a man once, had him killed in Kharga... a minister. They say she loves an American. I am her ana, her strain." Ghaliya said.

That was possible, too. She had slightly maghreb features, dark eyes, curly hair and long whip eyelashes.

"You're a whore, Marwan. Your whore moans like a whore. The witch, she sounds like a woman who lived upstairs from us. Her name was Batool, a whore for poorer men. You're not some great lover in exile, you're just a whore for the latest cunt that walks your way. You abandoned your mother of all cunts, Marwan. She's old, and you left her. You'll leave her, for Hessa. You'll leave Hessa, for Hayley... and you'll leave Hayley, for me." she told him.

And she looked down, as if this would be the moment he held a knife in hand, and he jabbed it into her side, in all his fear. She closed her eyes, and said a prayer. But, when she opened her eyes again, he held no knife, but a phone...

She reached for it, took it from his lame grip, and held it before him... for the code. He entered the code. She scrolled, clicked, and put the phone to his ear with a dialtone...

The conversation was in Arabic.

"My child..." Um Marwan greeted.

"Ya ummi, how are you?" he asked.

"I'm okay, by the grace of God. And how is my son? I just got back, from Bastarah-..." the woman began.

"Hamza and Hafiza... how is Hafiza?" he asked.

"She is okay, she thinks of a cooking school-"

"Do they have a child?" he politely interrupted.

His mother paused.

"They do..." she said.

"Is it their real child?" he asked.

The mother was silent again, as if it was an odd question.

"She's one of my oldest friends. I helped Hafiza give birth." the woman said. "Why?"

"A daughter?" he asked.

"One with black eyes, mashallah. She sits at my feet, massages me in the winter. She listens to all my complaints, some about you. I tell her, my son has forsaken me in my old age, for some girl. She is my angel, a girl I hope, returns to me soon. She studies in London, I tell her to bring back my son, she says, she'll bring back my son and my daughter in law, and grandchildren too. She is very lovely. May God grant her all of the things she wishes." Um Marwan said.

And he stared up at her black eyes, it was true. She was an angel, partly carrying out his mother's wish. He listened to his mother, for an hour, as the angel waited. And he greeted, promised to return home, soon. This time his promise was different, and as he lowered the phone to the bed, she watched his helplessness swell in his eyes... What a godless man, she thought.

And she lifted her dress, and put herself above his mouth, to keep him, from having to speak.