Chapter 7- Lovers to Sinners

Mashal-The Light

Umar may have only given me a peck-like soft kiss on my right cheek, but it was almost as if my entire body froze. Does he even know what he did? He has committed a sin, A SIN! It is absolutely forbidden in Islam for men and women to be so physically close and he just sealed all the gap between his body and mine. Okay, maybe not literally, but this has been our very first physical interaction and why oh why did it have to be a kiss? I was entirely shaken and thoroughly distressed at the thought of disappointing my Almighty Creator. My love for Umar had not surpassed the love and commitment I had for God.

My next few days were spent in frustration because I didn’t dare to confide with anyone, and I felt this heavy burden of sin on my innocent heart. I finally caved into my schoolmate’s pestering questions about my sulky mood. She was awestruck when she learnt. I partially sensed some jealousy in her tone and partly disappointment. One of the reasons I learnt to keep many matters to myself, later on, was this feeling of being judged and criticised.

Umar eventually caught me returning to my apartment one evening after a quick trip from the grocer’s and followed me into my staircase. I was not ready to listen to his explanation but he grabbed hold of my arm firmly and said, ‘’ We need to talk. I am going to wait for your call tonight.No matter how late it gets, call me when you are sure everyone is asleep. If you won’t call then I’m going to starve myself, you hear me? You cannot stop talking to me!’’

Young love is weird and ridiculous even! Of Course I called him, exactly as he wanted me to, right after midnight. My folks slept a bit earlier than his family did. But he never had issues receiving late night calls from anyone. His family were pretty easy and relaxed about these things for all their children. I was the one from a very conservative background, hence the attraction to Mona and Umar’s family was quite natural.

Throughout the phone call he kept justifying the kiss, apologising for not seeking my permission and regretting my disappointment or worse, abandonment. I kept quiet for half of the call but eventually he persuaded me to voice my frustration. I at once pounded on the list of islamic and ethical codes he had broken and reminded him of the Hellfire that seeks the worldly sinners. He listened quietly. But I was sure of the fact that he was amused, because somehow (I don’t know how in the world), but by some ability, I could sense his thin lips forming a curve reluctantly on the other end. The goof was smiling! Oh the nerve! Clearly, we could conclude who was more religious in this relationship!

Before hanging up he asked me one last time, ‘’ so am I forgiven?’’ and I replied ‘’ You should seek forgiveness from Him and not me actually,’’ and he continued logically, ‘’ But He forgives a wrongdoer when His creation forgives too, no?’’ I sighed, he was good at arguing when he wanted to convince someone. I pressed my lips hard and narrowed my pupils in the dark coddling the phone wire between my finger, finally deciding to answer, ‘’Yes, I forgive!’’ I reluctantly gave in.

He let out a sigh of relief and replied in an amusing voice, ‘’Good! But you know what? I kissed you and it took you nearly a week to forgive me for that! So let me just say this, starting from tomorrow, within the next ten days, you will see how wrong that was! Mark my words! By the end of this October, I will have kissed you so many times, in so many places, you wouldn’t even be able to keep a count. I promise!’’ and Umar hung up!

The firstborns in any family are usually the most experimented upon by parents. But, we often forget, they are also the most beloved of their parents. Umar was a first born and such an obedient kid all his life, he had seldom been denied anything he wished. So he grew up with the notion that if he wanted something or someone, it was his already! I, on the contrary, still had to learn that fact about him because my upbringing was entirely different, as I was the last and the late one!I was taught to compromise,to give in and to let go, instead of setting standards and developing a ge-get-them attitude. This was one of the reasons why me and Umar fit with each other as perfectly as a key fits into a lock. We were so opposite to each other and yet our love was the one thing that bound us together.

Sure enough, by Halloween, I had lost count of the number of times Umar had grabbed me by the arm, hugged and pressed my body to his, kissed me on my cheeks, forehead, neck and even lips. He had often left me gasping for breath in the hallway of his home, whenever I went to visit Mona, in the staircase on the way home, in the car, if he dropped his sister and me to someplace to hang out. He had developed a never ending appetite for my scent, flesh and body.

Soon came a time, within a few weeks, that I began to find days difficult when he hadn’t hugged me. My body craved to envelope him and be engulfed in his bear hug. I loved the way he gave me bear hugs. Strongly as he was built, I’d rest my nose on his neck because his body emitted a certain kind of fragrance which I couldn’t find a suitable adjective to describe. Eventually, I concluded, it just smelt like home… safe, cosy, warm and fuzzy. He was my own personal bear. One that I could cuddle into, as the days shortened and the nights grew longer, slipping into December. Winter was round the corner. My long fingers and hands were always cold while his were short, stubby and always warm. Whenever we got a moment in privacy, our bodies just collided with each other, as if they were drawn to one another like magnets.

The late night sneaky phone calls turned into late night hugs, in the quiet of my staircase and later my hallway. Umar’s urges could not be suppressed any longer, he wanted me, more and more badly.

Love makes us do the stupidest things, which normally one wouldn’t even imagine doing. It was hard to pinpoint whether it was love or lust that compelled us to hatch a plan and smuggle Umar into my bedroom in the thick of one night. After painstaking planning and execution to stay awake until everyone else was asleep at my place, I slowly turned the latch of the main door. Umar had cut out the light outside so darkness could assist our disgraceful plan. I led him inside my room, closing and locking it very very quietly. We could NOT afford to wake up anyone with even the slightest sound. Once inside the eerie darkness of my room, we released our breath that we had been holding for as long as possible. We hadn’t even risked breathing, lest it would wake up someone. We gazed at each other longingly and just sat quietly in each other’s arms, failing to understand what was this physical urge that both of them were unable to control, suppress or even contain. None of us had been so foolish and daring ever before. The need to press our bodies against one another was so intense that we hadn’t even begun to imagine what could have happened if anyone even remotely got hint of the fact that he made regular visits by late December to my room in the middle of some nights.

He began asking questions from his family when they planned on getting him married since early marriages are culturally accepted in Asian countries. For every night we met in secrecy, I prayed and repented for the sins we committed for both our sake, while Umar’s attempt on repentance was to think and work on possibilites of early marriage, so sexual intercourse could become an actual reality and even virtue for him, because fornication was THE one thing I had been very very strict about.

There was possibly no part of my body alien to his touch, by spring 2004, but sexual intercourse was still not on the list. I was a firm believer in maintaining one’s virginity before marriage and so I had promised myself to keep my chastity a bounty for the man who would marry me. Umar now wanted nothing more than that and nothing could keep him from trying to get it. He wasn’t used to being refused for anything. He felt I was his and rightly his alone, so now he wanted nothing more but to get married to me. Even if it meant running away, or worse, abducting me.

Ironically, the journey from lovers to sinners had been much quicker than either of us had anticipated.