Ayeeyo's House
"Sent to Somalia for the summer to 'reconnect with his roots,' he discovers his grandmother's friend is a thick Somali widow who hasn't been touched since her husband died. In the heat of Mogadishu, she teaches him things they don't mention in the diaspora."
Mogadishu hits like a fever.
The heat. The noise. The chaos of a city rebuilding itself from decades of war. I step off the plane and into a wall of humidity that makes Minneapolis feel like Antarctica.
"Soo dhawow—welcome home," my ayeeyo says, wrapping me in a hug that smells like perfume and uunsi. "Your hooyo should have sent you years ago."
My grandmother is seventy-three and built like a bird—thin, fragile, but with eyes that miss nothing. She came back to Mogadishu five years ago, after the worst of the fighting stopped. This is where I want to die, she told my mother. In the city where I was born.
"Come, come." She pulls me toward a waiting car. "My friend Faduma is preparing lunch. You'll eat real Somali food, not that frozen garbage they sell in America."
"Ayeeyo—"
"Aammus." She waves away my protests. "Faduma has been waiting to meet you. I showed her your photos. She says you look like your grandfather when he was young."
I don't know what to say to that.
I don't know what to say to any of this.
Faduma's house sits in a quiet neighborhood in Hodan district.
The walls are painted bright blue, and bougainvillea climbs the gate. Inside, it's cool—ceiling fans stirring the air, the smell of cooking meat drifting from somewhere in the back.
"Soo gal, soo gal—come in, come in!"
The voice comes before the woman. Then she appears, and my breath catches.
Faduma is not what I expected.
She's maybe fifty-five, but Somali women age like fine wine. Her skin is smooth and dark, her face round and pretty. She wears a loose dirac in green and gold, and her body—
Ilaahay weyn.
Her body is massive.
Wide hips that sway when she walks. Breasts that strain against the fabric, heavy and full. A belly soft and round, the outline visible through the thin cotton. Thighs that press together, thick enough to make a man stare.
"This is him?" She takes my face in her hands. "The American grandson? Mashallah, your ayeeyo was right. You look exactly like your grandfather."
"Mahadsnid—thank you," I manage.
"So polite!" She releases me, laughing. "Come, sit. I've made hilib ari—goat meat—and bariis iskukaris. Real food."
She leads me to the living room. I try not to watch her hips as she walks.
I fail.
Lunch is overwhelming.
Dish after dish—rice, goat, canjeero, vegetables, muufo bread. Faduma insists I eat more every time I slow down, piling food on my plate with maternal authority.
"Your grandmother tells me you have no wife," she says. "Twenty-four and no wife. In Somalia, this would be shameful."
"Faduma—" my ayeeyo starts.
"What? I'm speaking truth." She looks at me with those dark eyes. "American boys wait too long. Here, we marry young. We know what we want."
"And what do Somali women want?" The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
Faduma smiles.
"Real men. Men who know how to handle a woman." Her tongue traces her lips. "Rag—not boys."
My grandmother doesn't notice the look that passes between us.
But I do.
I'm staying in Faduma's guest room.
It makes sense—my ayeeyo's apartment is small, just one bedroom. Faduma has space. Faduma offered. No one thought anything of it.
But at midnight, when the house is dark and silent, I understand the real arrangement.
A knock on my door.
"Soo gal?" I call softly.
She enters without waiting.
Faduma wears a nightgown now—thin white cotton that does nothing to hide her shape. Her hair is loose, falling in gray-streaked waves past her shoulders. In the moonlight filtering through the window, she looks like a vision.
"I couldn't sleep," she says. "I've been thinking about you since lunch."
"Faduma—"
"Your grandmother is my dearest friend. I would never do anything to hurt her." She crosses to my bed. Sits on the edge. The mattress dips under her weight. "But she's also asleep. And I am a widow who hasn't been touched in four years."
"Four years?"
"My husband died in 2020. COVID." Her hand finds my leg through the sheet. "I was his second wife. His children from the first wife took everything—the money, the other house. They left me here alone."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry." Her hand slides higher. "Be something else."
"I've watched videos," she confesses. "On my phone. Filimada—the dirty ones. I see what American boys do to women."
"Faduma—"
"I want you to do those things to me." She grips me through the sheet. "I'm old and fat and no Somali man would look at me twice. But you—you looked at me at lunch. You saw me."
"I saw you."
"Then show me." She pulls the sheet away. "Show me what those American videos teach."
I'm hard. Impossibly hard. She looks at my cock straining against my shorts and breathes something in Somali that sounds like a prayer.
"Weyn—big." Her hand traces my outline. "Bigger than my husband. Bigger than any man I've had."
"There's been others?"
"Two. Both quick. Both small." She pulls my shorts down. "You are neither."
She wraps her hand around me.
"Teach me," she whispers. "Teach me what women do in those videos."
I guide her.
Show her how to stroke—slow at first, then faster. Show her how to use her mouth—lips wrapped tight, tongue swirling. She's clumsy at first, unpracticed, but eager. So eager.
"Like this?" She takes me deeper.
"Exactly like that."
She moans around my cock. The vibration sends sparks through my spine. I grab her hair—gray and black mixed together—and guide her deeper.
"Haa—yes—" she gasps, coming up for air. "Use me—"
I fuck her face.
She chokes and gags and drools, but she doesn't stop. Four years of celibacy pour into every bob of her head. When I hit the back of her throat, she swallows around me.
"I'm close—"
She pulls off. Gasping. Saliva dripping down her chin.
"Inside me. I need you inside me."
She stands and pulls the nightgown over her head.
She is glorious.
Her breasts hang to her navel—heavy, sagging, nipples dark as dates. Her belly cascades in soft rolls, a lifetime of bariis and hilib written on her skin. Her hips flare wide, and between her thick thighs, I see gray curls covering her mound.
"I know I'm not beautiful—"
"You're perfect."
She stares at me.
"No man has ever said that. Not even my husband."
"Your husband was a fool."
She climbs onto the bed.
Straddles me.
Takes my cock in her hand and positions it at her entrance.
"I've waited four years for this." She sinks down. "ALLA—"
She's tight.
Impossibly tight for a woman her size. Her walls grip me like a fist as she takes me inch by inch, her face twisted in something between pain and ecstasy.
"So big—" She's panting. "I can feel you in my stomach—"
She bottoms out. All of me inside her. All of her on top of me.
Then she starts to move.
Grinding. Rolling her thick hips in slow circles. Her belly presses against mine, soft and warm. Her breasts sway above me, and I reach up to grab them—so much flesh that it overflows my hands.
"Dhakhso—faster—" I grip her hips. "Ride me—"
She bounces.
The bed screams in protest. Her flesh ripples with every movement—belly, breasts, thighs, all of her in motion. She throws her head back and wails—a sound that would wake the neighborhood if the walls weren't thick.
"Coming—" She's shaking. "I'm coming on your gus—"
Her pussy clamps down. She screams something in Somali—old words, village words—and collapses onto me. I feel her pulsing around my cock, feel her wetness flooding over us both.
I'm not done.
I flip her over.
She gasps as her back hits the mattress, as her legs spread wide, as I rise above her.
"More?" She looks up at me with those dark eyes. "You can do more?"
"So much more."
I thrust into her.
Hard. Deep. She screams again—muffled this time, her hand over her mouth. I fuck her into the mattress, watching her massive body bounce and ripple beneath me.
"American boys—" She's gasping. "They teach you this—"
"They don't teach this anywhere."
I hook her legs over my shoulders. Fold her in half. She's flexible despite her size, and this angle—
"ILAAHAY—" She forgets to muffle her scream. "So deep—you're so deep—"
I pound her.
The bed slams against the wall. The headboard cracks. I don't care. I don't care about anything except the way her pussy grips me, the way her body shakes, the way she looks at me like I'm the first real man she's ever had.
"Inside me—" She's begging now. "Fill me—ku shub gudaha—"
I let go.
I come inside this thick Somali widow—my grandmother's friend—flooding her where her husband never satisfied her. She comes again when she feels it, her whole body convulsing, her screams echoing through the room.
We lie tangled together.
Her head on my chest. My hand stroking her back. Through the window, I can hear Mogadishu stirring—the call to Fajr prayer rising over the city.
"You'll stay the whole summer," she says. It's not a question.
"I'll stay."
"Every night." Her hand finds my cock, already stirring. "Every night, you come to my bed. You give me what I've been missing."
"And my grandmother?"
"Your ayeeyo sleeps like the dead. She'll never know." Faduma shifts, straddles me again. "And even if she did—what can she say? I'm a widow. I have needs."
"Xaaraan needs."
"The best kind." She guides me inside her again. "Now—show me what else those American videos teach."
I show her everything.
The Summer
I spend three months in Mogadishu.
Every day, I play the dutiful grandson. Visit my ayeeyo. Eat her food. Listen to her stories about the old days, before the war.
Every night, I become Faduma's teacher.
I show her positions she's never imagined. Teach her to use her mouth in ways her husband never knew. Take her in every room of her blue-walled house—the kitchen, the living room, the shower, the rooftop under the stars.
She learns quickly.
"My husband was married to me for fifteen years," she says one night, riding me slow and deep. "He never made me come. Not once. You've made me come fifteen times today."
"You deserved better."
"I have better now." She leans down, her breasts smothering my face. "I have you."
When September comes, I don't want to leave.
The airport is crowded.
My ayeeyo cries—soft tears that she tries to hide. Faduma stands beside her, face composed, every inch the respectable widow.
But when my grandmother turns away to buy tea, Faduma grips my hand.
"Next summer," she whispers. "And Christmas. And every holiday you can manage."
"I'll come back."
"Wallahi?"
"Wallahi."
She slips something into my palm. A piece of paper with a phone number.
"WhatsApp," she murmurs. "Video calls. I want to see you even when you're gone."
I pocket the number.
My grandmother returns. We say our goodbyes—proper, respectful, nothing suspicious.
But on the plane, as Mogadishu shrinks beneath me, I'm already planning my return.
My ayeeyo thinks she's reconnected me with my roots.
She has no idea how deep those roots go now.