Hajj Preparations

Sheikh Omar has been leading pilgrims to Mecca for thirty years.

Every year, he gathers a group of the faithful from Mombasa and guides them through the holy journey. It takes forty days—preparation, travel, the rituals themselves. Forty days away from his home, his wife, his life.

This year, he asks me to help.

"My wife, Khadija, will need assistance while I'm gone," he tells me. "The house needs maintenance. She can't do heavy work alone. You're young, strong, trustworthy."

I am young. I am strong.

Trustworthy is another matter.

Khadija is fifty-one years old.

Twenty-eight years married to the sheikh. She's been the dutiful wife of a religious man, covered and modest and invisible to everyone except her husband.

She's also thick.

I've seen her at community gatherings—always covered, always proper—but the abaya can't hide everything. The swell of her hips when she walks. The heaviness of her chest. The way fabric clings to curves that shouldn't exist on a woman her age.

I've watched her.

I've imagined.

And now I have forty days alone with her.

The first week is proper.

I come to their house each morning, do the work that needs doing. Fix the leaky gutter. Repair the garden wall. Move heavy furniture. Khadija brings me tea, thanks me politely, keeps her distance.

But I notice things.

The way her eyes linger when I lift heavy stones. The slight flush in her cheeks when I work shirtless in the heat. The tremor in her hands when she passes me water.

She's watching me too.

The second week, she starts talking.

"Omar is a good man," she says one afternoon. "Pious. Dedicated. But pious men have certain... limitations."

"What do you mean?"

"They focus so much on the next world that they forget this one." She's standing in the doorway of the kitchen, afternoon light silhouetting her shape through the thin house dress. "He hasn't touched me in five years. Says physical desire is a distraction from spiritual growth."

"I'm sorry—"

"Don't be sorry." She moves closer. "I've made my peace with it. But sometimes I wonder what I'm missing. What other women have."

She's standing very close now.

I can smell her—sandalwood and something warmer.

"I should get back to work," I say.

"Yes." She doesn't move. "You should."

The third week, she stops covering herself completely.

Not immodest—not exactly. But loose dresses instead of abayas. Hair uncovered when I arrive in the morning. Once, I catch a glimpse of her coming from the bath, wrapped in a towel that doesn't quite cover everything.

"I'm sorry," she says, not sorry at all. "I didn't expect you so early."

"I can come back—"

"No." She adjusts the towel, which only makes it slip lower. "Stay. I'll just be a moment."

She doesn't hurry.

"Tell me something," she says on day twenty-three.

We're in the garden. The afternoon heat is oppressive. I've stripped to the waist, and she's watching me with those dark eyes.

"What do you want to know?"

"Why do you look at me the way you do?"

My hands still on the shovel. "I don't—"

"You do." She stands, moves toward me. "Every time you come here. Your eyes follow me. When you think I don't notice."

"I notice everything."

"I'm an old woman. Fat. Married to your sheikh."

"You're beautiful. And I'm not blind."

She's close enough now that I can feel the heat radiating off her body.

"Twenty days left," she whispers. "Twenty days before Omar returns. Before I go back to being invisible. Before five more years of being untouched."

"Khadija—"

"I'm not asking you to love me." Her hand finds my chest, slick with sweat. "I'm asking you to see me. Touch me. Just once. Before I forget what it feels like."

"If anyone found out—"

"Who would find out? Omar is in Mecca. The servants are dismissed. It's just us." She looks up at me. "Twenty days, Kareem. Give me something to remember during the next five years of nothing."

I should refuse.

I should step back, finish my work, maintain my distance. Sheikh Omar trusts me. The community trusts me. This woman is forbidden in every way.

But her hand is on my chest.

And her body is so close.

And I've been imagining this moment since the day I arrived.

"Inside," I say. "Now."

She undresses slowly in the bedroom she shares with the sheikh.

The loose dress falls away. Beneath, nothing—she's been wearing nothing beneath for days, I realize. Waiting. Hoping.

Her body is everything I imagined.

Breasts heavy and dark, pendulous from age and weight. Belly soft and round, cascading in gentle folds. Hips wide as the doorframe. Thighs thick, pressing together, leading to—

"This is what fifty-one looks like," she says. "This is what thirty years of marriage and five years of neglect looks like."

"This is what I want."

I cross the room and take her in my arms.

I kiss her like she's never been kissed.

Hard, deep, demanding. She moans into my mouth, her thick body pressing against mine. My hands find her ass—massive, soft, overflowing my grip—and I squeeze while she gasps.

"Ya Allah—no one has ever—"

I silence her with another kiss.

Then I pick her up—all of her, every pound—and throw her on the sheikh's bed.

I worship her the way her husband never has.

My mouth everywhere. Neck, shoulders, the heavy weight of her breasts. I suck her nipples while she cries out, while her hands grip my head, while she says things no sheikh's wife should say.

"More—please—don't stop—"

I kiss down her belly. Worship every fold, every curve, every inch of flesh her husband ignores. When I reach her thighs, she's already shaking.

"No one has—not in years—"

I part her thick thighs and taste her.

She screams.

She tastes like forbidden fruit.

I eat her in the sheikh's bed, in the room where she's lain untouched for half a decade. She comes in seconds—flooding my face, her thick thighs crushing my ears. I don't stop.

"Too much—please—"

I push her through that orgasm into another. And another. Make up for five years in five minutes. She's crying by the fourth, sobbing with pleasure.

"Inside me—please—I need to feel—"

I stand. Strip off my trousers. Watch her eyes go wide.

"Omar was... you're so much more."

"The sheikh doesn't know what he's missing."

I enter her.

She screams loud enough to wake the neighborhood.

But there is no neighborhood—the house is isolated, surrounded by gardens, chosen for privacy. Sheikh Omar wanted peace for his spiritual studies. He gave me space to fuck his wife.

"Harder—please—five years—"

I give her harder.

The sheikh's bed shakes. His wife bounces beneath me, her thick body rippling with every thrust. She's coming again—clenching around me, pulling me deeper.

"Don't stop—never stop—"

I don't stop.

I fuck the sheikh's wife in every position I can imagine. On her back, her belly, her hands and knees. Bent over the desk where he writes his sermons. Against the wall where his prayer beads hang. In every corner of the home he trusted me to maintain.

"Fill me—please—give me what he never did—"

I fill her.

Flood her while she screams her release. Collapse onto her soft body while she shakes, while she cries, while she thanks me for ending her drought.

Twenty days become seventeen.

Then fourteen. Then ten. Each day, she's waiting for me. Each night, I leave her exhausted, satisfied, remembering what it means to be wanted.

"He'll be back soon," she says on day thirty-five.

"Five more days."

"Five more days of this." She's lying in my arms, her thick body soft against mine. "Then forty years of nothing."

"You don't know that."

"I know my husband." She looks up at me. "He'll return holy and renewed. He'll be even more devoted to his spiritual practice. I'll be even more invisible."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." She kisses me softly. "You've given me enough memories to last forty years. Whatever happens next, I had this."

Sheikh Omar returns on day forty.

Holy. Renewed. Full of stories from Mecca, full of spiritual insights. He thanks me for caring for his home, for his wife. He doesn't notice the flush in her cheeks when I leave. He doesn't notice anything.

"You're a good young man," he tells me. "May Allah bless you."

"Thank you, Sheikh."

I don't look at Khadija.

I don't need to.

Three months later, she sends a message.

Omar is leading another pilgrimage. Forty days. The house needs maintenance.

I arrive the next morning.

She opens the door in a loose dress, nothing beneath.

"Welcome back," she says. "I have preparations to discuss."

She pulls me inside.

The preparations take all forty days.

And every year after, when the sheikh leads his pilgrims to Mecca, I help his wife prepare for his return.

It's the holiest work I've ever done.