Eda
"She's in her iddah—the four-month mourning period when a widow cannot remarry or be touched. He's the young man bringing her meals. The prohibition makes them both desperate. They count the days."
Bi Mwanaisha has been in iddah for forty-seven days.
Four months and ten days. That's how long a widow must mourn before she can remarry, before she can be touched by a man. It's religious law. Cultural law. The kind of law no one breaks.
I bring her meals every afternoon.
Her husband was my father's business partner. When he died, my father assigned me the duty of caring for his widow. Delivering food. Checking on her welfare. Making sure she survives these four months of isolation.
I'm twenty-four years old.
She's forty-nine.
And every day, the tension between us grows.
Bi Mwanaisha is not supposed to be beautiful.
Widows in iddah are supposed to be invisible. No makeup, no perfume, no adornment. They wear simple clothes, stay indoors, mourn their dead husbands.
But Mwanaisha is thick.
And thick can't be hidden. Her mourning dresses strain across her breasts. Her hips sway when she walks me to the door. Her body—all that soft, abundant flesh—is visible through every modest layer.
"Thank you for the food," she says on day forty-seven.
"Of course, Bi. My father sends his condolences."
"Your father." She almost smiles. "Is that why you keep coming? Your father?"
I don't answer.
I don't need to.
Day fifty-three.
"He didn't touch me for the last year," she says.
I'm sitting in her living room—improper, but she insisted. The food is on the table between us. She hasn't started eating.
"Bi Mwanaisha—"
"Heart problems. Medication that took away his... ability." She looks at me with those dark eyes. "I was faithful. Even when he couldn't, I never strayed. And now I'm in iddah, and I still can't be touched."
"The waiting period will end—"
"In ninety days." She counts on her fingers. "Ninety more days of sleeping alone. Of this body going to waste. Of wanting and waiting and wanting."
"I should go."
"Yes." She doesn't stand. "You should."
Day sixty-one.
"You look at me differently than other men," she says.
I've started staying longer. Sitting with her while she eats. Talking. Filling the silence of her mourning.
"How do other men look at you?"
"Like I'm a widow. Like I'm untouchable." She leans forward. "You look at me like I'm a woman."
"You are a woman."
"For ninety more days, I'm a ghost." Her hand finds mine across the table. "But you make me feel real."
Day seventy.
"This is wrong," I say.
We're standing too close. She's just come from bathing—hair wet, body wrapped in a thin robe that clings to every curve. I can see everything. The heavy weight of her breasts. The dark circles of her nipples. The soft swell of her belly.
"We haven't done anything."
"We're about to."
"No." She steps back. "We're not. Not until my iddah is complete. But that doesn't mean we can't... prepare."
"Prepare?"
She unties her robe.
"Look at me. Just look. Seventy-three more days, and then you can touch. But for now, just look."
She's magnificent.
Heavy breasts, sagging slightly from age but full and dark-nippled. Belly soft and round, cascading in folds. Hips wide, thighs thick, and between them—shaved, glistening, wet.
"This is what you're waiting for," she says. "This is what I'm offering."
"Mwanaisha—"
"Don't touch." She backs away. "Just watch."
Her hand slides down her belly. Lower. Finds the wet heat between her thighs.
"I touch myself every night thinking about you," she whispers. "Counting the days. Imagining what you'll do when I'm finally free."
"I want—"
"I know what you want." Her fingers move faster. "Watch me take it for now. And remember. Seventy-three days."
She comes while I watch.
Day eighty-five.
She's getting bolder.
Every visit now, she shows me something. Her breasts while she pretends to adjust her dress. Her thighs when she sits and her mourning gown rides up. Once, she bent over in front of me, wearing nothing beneath.
"Fifty-eight days," she says.
"I'm losing my mind."
"Good." She smiles. "I want you desperate. I want you counting every hour. So when the time comes, you'll give me everything I've been missing."
Day ninety-nine.
"I can't wait anymore," I tell her.
She's standing close—too close—her thick body pressing against mine through layers of fabric. The heat of her is overwhelming.
"Forty-four days."
"That's forever."
"It's tradition." But her voice wavers. "If we break iddah, there are consequences. Religious. Social. My husband's family would cast me out."
"Then we wait."
"We wait." Her hand finds my chest. "But that doesn't mean I can't taste you."
She sinks to her knees.
"This isn't touching," she reasons.
Her mouth is inches from me. Her hands work my trousers open. "Iddah says I can't be touched by a man. It doesn't say I can't touch."
"That's not—"
She takes me in her mouth, and I stop arguing.
She's clearly done this before.
Expert, hungry, years of marriage teaching her exactly what men need. She takes me deep, her thick lips wrapped around my shaft, her dark eyes looking up at me.
"Bi Mwanaisha—"
She doesn't stop.
I come in my mourning widow's mouth while she swallows everything, while she moans around me, while she breaks the spirit of iddah even as she follows its letter.
"Forty-four days," she says afterward, wiping her lips. "And then you'll return the favor."
Day one hundred and twenty.
"Twenty-three days."
We've found ways to cheat.
Her mouth on me. My hands on her—through her clothes, never on bare skin. Whispered promises of what's coming. Torture. Exquisite torture.
"I'm going to worship every inch of you," I tell her.
"Promise?"
"Every inch. For hours. Until you forget your husband's name. Until you forget your own name."
"Twenty-three days." She's trembling. "I don't know if I can wait."
"You can. We can. And then—"
"Then you'll make it worth the wait."
Day one hundred and forty-three.
Four months and ten days.
I arrive at midnight—the moment her iddah ends. She's waiting at the door in a sheer nightgown, nothing modest about it. Her thick body visible through the fabric, eager and willing.
"It's over," she says. "I'm free."
I don't waste time with words.
I pick her up—all two-fifty of her—and carry her to the bedroom where she mourned for a hundred and thirty days.
"Finally," she gasps. "Finally."
I worship her like I promised.
My mouth everywhere—her neck, her breasts, her belly. I suck her nipples while she cries out, while her thick hands grip my head. I kiss down her body, worship every fold, every curve.
"Please—I've waited so long—"
I part her thick thighs and taste what I've been imagining for months.
She screams.
She comes in seconds.
Four months of denial releasing at once. Her thick thighs clamp around my head, her body shaking. I don't stop—I push her through orgasm after orgasm, give her everything she's been missing.
"Inside me—please—fill me—"
I climb her body. Position myself. Look into her eyes.
"Worth the wait?"
"Just do it—"
I thrust into her.
She's tight from months of abstinence.
Burns around me as I fill her. Her thick legs wrap around my waist, pulling me deeper than I've ever been.
"Ya Allah—yes—this is what I needed—"
I give her everything.
Pound into her like I've been wanting to since day one. The bed shakes. Her body shakes. She's coming again—screaming, crying, her thick flesh rippling.
"Don't stop—never stop—please—"
I fuck her until dawn.
Make up for four months in one night. She comes more times than I can count, until she's hoarse, until she's begging me to stop and continue in the same breath.
"Inside me—please—I want to feel—"
I fill her.
Explode inside the woman I've been waiting for, the woman I've been courting through months of careful distance. She screams her release while I pump into her.
"So," she says afterward.
We're lying tangled in her bed. The sheets are destroyed. Dawn is bright through the windows.
"So."
"My iddah is over. I can remarry." She traces a finger down my chest. "Are you offering?"
"You want to marry me? I'm twenty-four—"
"And I'm forty-nine. And I just spent four months falling in love with you through a wall of prohibition." She looks at me. "I don't care about age. I care about this."
"This?"
"The waiting. The wanting. The way you looked at me when you couldn't touch." She kisses me softly. "No one has ever wanted me that badly. Waited for me that long."
"I'd wait again."
"I know." She smiles. "That's why I'm keeping you."
We marry three months later.
The village gossips—a young man and an older widow, how scandalous. But we don't care. We spent four months learning each other through words and glances and forbidden touches.
"Was I worth the wait?" she asks on our wedding night.
"Every day."
"Good." She pulls me toward our marriage bed. "Because I have no intention of making you wait ever again."
And she never does.