Hooyo's Secret | NEON LIT

The snow falls heavy on Cedar Avenue.

I watch it through the window of Faarax's apartment, the white flakes piling on the halal grocery stores and henna shops that line this stretch of Minneapolis. Little Mogadishu, they call it. Home away from home for twenty thousand Somalis who traded the Indian Ocean for the frozen lakes of Minnesota.

Including Faarax's mother.

Hooyo Safiya.

She's in the kitchen now, the clatter of pots mixing with the soft Somali music playing from her phone. I can smell suqaar—the spiced beef she's been cooking all afternoon—and beneath it, something else. Perfume. Uunsi, the traditional Somali incense that clings to her clothes.

"Waar, my son is delayed," she calls out. "His flight from Columbus won't arrive until tomorrow."

Faarax was supposed to be back from his cousin's wedding today. I came to pick him up. Now I'm trapped in his mother's apartment, snow blocking the roads, the airports closed.

Just the two of us.

"I should try to leave," I say, not moving from my chair.

"Haa?" She appears in the doorway, and my breath catches. "Leave in this weather? Maya, maya—no, no. You'll die out there."

She's changed out of her outdoor clothes into something more comfortable. A loose dirac—the traditional Somali dress—in deep purple, the fabric doing nothing to hide her curves. No garbasaar covering her head now, just her hair wrapped in a simple scarf.

And her body.

Wallahi, her body.

Safiya is thick in ways that American women diet to avoid. Wide hips that strain against the dirac. Breasts that hang heavy, swaying when she walks. A belly soft and round beneath the fabric, and an ass that I've been trying not to stare at for the three years I've known her son.

"I'll make shaah," she says. "Somali tea. You'll stay warm."

She disappears back into the kitchen.

I try to think of Faarax. My best friend since freshman year. The guy who helped me navigate this city, who taught me to appreciate canjeero and goat meat and the particular hospitality of Somali families.

His mother was never part of the lesson plan.

She returns with tea.

The cups are small and ornate, the liquid inside a deep amber. She sits across from me—closer than necessary—and I smell her perfume again. Oud and something floral.

"You know my husband passed," she says. It's not a question.

"Three years ago. Faarax told me."

"Three years." She sips her tea. "Three years alone. Do you know how long that is for a woman like me?"

"Hooyo Safiya—"

"Don't call me that." Her eyes meet mine. Dark. Hungry. "Tonight I am not your friend's hooyo. Tonight I am just Safiya. A woman who has been watching you for three years."

"Watching me?"

"I see how you look at me." She sets down her cup. "When you think no one notices. Your eyes on my body. On my miskaad—my hips. On my chest."

"I wasn't—"

"Wallahi, don't lie to me." She stands, moves closer. The dirac swishes around her thick thighs. "Somali men don't look at me anymore. I'm too old, they say. Too fat. But you—you're not Somali. You see something different."

"I see everything."

The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.

She smiles.

"Then see this."

She reaches up and unwraps the scarf from her head. Her hair falls free—black, curly, streaked with grey at the temples. Then her hands find the zipper at the back of her dirac.

"Safiya—"

"Aammus—be quiet." The zipper slides down. "I've waited three years for this. Let me have it."

The dirac falls.

Ya Allah.

She wears nothing underneath but plain underwear—white cotton straining to contain her. Her breasts are enormous, heavy brown flesh capped with nipples dark as coffee beans. Her belly rolls in soft waves, a landscape of stretch marks and warm skin. Her thighs press together, thick enough to suffocate a man.

"You see?" She gestures to her body. "This is what I hide under my garbasaar. Under my modest clothes. Two hundred and seventy pounds of woman that no one wants."

"I want."

She looks at me. Really looks.

"Show me."

I stand.

My hands shake as I pull my shirt over my head. Her eyes track down my body, and she licks her lips—a quick flash of pink tongue.

"Somali women like hair," she murmurs. "We like men who look like men."

I push my jeans down. My cock strains against my boxers, hard since she walked out in that dirac.

"Subhanallah." She breathes the word like a prayer. "My husband was not built like this."

"No?"

"Maya." She crosses to me. Her hand cups me through the cotton. "He was small. Quick. Finished before I could feel anything." Her fingers trace my length. "You are... weyn. Big."

"Safiya—"

"Say my name again." She squeezes. "I haven't heard a man say my name in three years."

"Safiya."

She drops to her knees.

Her mouth is paradise.

She takes me slow at first—licking the head, tasting, learning. Her tongue swirls around my tip while her hand wraps the base. She moans, and the vibration runs through my entire body.

"I used to dream of this," she whispers. "Alone in my bed after Faarax went to sleep. Thinking of you. Of this."

"That's—"

"Xaaraan, yes." She takes me deeper. "Forbidden. Like everything worth having."

She sucks me like she's been starved. Three years of celibacy pouring into every bob of her head, every wet slurp that echoes through the apartment. Her cheeks hollow. Her eyes water. But she doesn't stop.

"I'm going to—"

She pulls off. Gasping. Saliva coating her lips.

"Not yet." She stands—all that weight shifting—and hooks her thumbs in her underwear. "Adigaa tagin—you'll come inside me. Where my husband never satisfied me."

The underwear drops.

Her pussy is covered in dark curls—natural, untrimmed. She sits on the couch, spreads her thick thighs wide, and pulls me down on top of her.

"I'm heavy," she warns.

"I don't care."

I enter her in one thrust.

She screams. Not in pain—in relief. Three years of waiting, of loneliness, of nights spent touching herself to thoughts of me, all released in that single cry.

"Ilaahay weyn—" The words tumble from her lips. "Alla, you fill me—"

I start to move.

She's tight despite her size, her walls gripping me like she never wants to let go. Her belly presses against mine, soft and warm. Her breasts bounce with every thrust, heavy flesh that I grab with both hands.

"Dhakhso—faster—" She claws at my back. "Give it to me—"

I fuck her into the couch.

The frame groans under our combined weight. Her screams echo off the walls—Somali words mixed with English, prayers mixed with profanity. The wet slap of our bodies fills the apartment.

"I'm coming—" Her eyes roll back. "Going to come on your gus—your cock—"

She shatters.

Her whole body convulses, two hundred and seventy pounds of flesh shaking beneath me. I feel her pussy pulse, feel her wetness flood over me. She screams something in Somali that I don't understand, but I understand the meaning perfectly.

I follow her over.

I come inside my best friend's mother.

Pump her full while she moans and trembles, filling her where her husband never could. When I'm empty, I collapse onto her soft body, my face buried in her heavy breasts.

"Macaan," she whispers. "Sweet boy."

"What do we do now?"

"Now?" She shifts beneath me, and I feel myself stirring again. "Now we continue. The snow won't stop until morning. Faarax won't be home until tomorrow night."

"Safiya—"

"We have twenty-four hours." Her hand finds my cock, already hardening. "Twenty-four hours to make up for three years. Ma rabtaa—do you want that?"

"Yes."

She guides me inside her again.

"Then take me. Take me like the Somali men won't. Like my husband never did."

I give her what she needs.

Round Two

She wants it from behind.

"I've always wanted this," she confesses, on her hands and knees on her bed. "My husband said it was xaaraan. But you—you're not Muslim."

I grip her massive ass—each cheek overflowing my hands—and spread her wide.

"I'll give you whatever you want."

I enter her from behind.

She screams into her pillow, her back arching, her ass pushing back against me. I hold her hips—so wide, so soft—and pull her onto my cock again and again.

"Waa weyn yahay—" She's babbling now. "It's so big—I can feel it in my stomach—"

I reach around. Find her clit. Circle it while I thrust.

She comes again—harder this time, her pussy clamping down so tight I can barely move. But I don't stop. I fuck her through it, fuck her until she's begging in Somali, until the only word I understand is my name.

"Inside me—" She pushes back, swallowing my cock completely. "Ku shub—fill me again—"

I give her what she wants.

Morning

We fuck through the night.

In her bed. On the kitchen counter, suqaar forgotten on the stove. In the shower, water running cold because we stayed too long. Against the window, her breasts pressed to the glass while I take her from behind, not caring if anyone sees.

When dawn breaks, we finally rest.

She lies in my arms, her thick body warm against mine. Through the window, I can see the snow has stopped. The plows are running. The world is moving again.

"Faarax can never know," she says.

"I know."

"But this—" She gestures between us. "This doesn't have to end."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying my son travels often. Columbus. Seattle. Toronto. Every time he leaves, you come here." Her hand traces down my chest. "You give me what I need. What I've needed for three years."

"And if we get caught?"

"Inshallah, we won't." She kisses me softly. "But even if we do—I don't care anymore. I spent too long being good. Being the proper Somali widow. Now I want to live."

She climbs on top of me.

"One more time before you go. Something to remember me by."

I don't argue.

I leave before Faarax arrives.

The roads are clear now, the snow pushed to the sides of Cedar Avenue. I drive past the halal groceries and henna shops, past the men in macawis and women in jilbabs, and I carry a secret that none of them can see.

My phone buzzes.

A text from an unknown number: Same time next month. Faarax is visiting his uncle in London. Don't make me wait.

I save her number.

Hooyo Safiya, my contacts now read. As if she's still just my friend's mother. As if everything hasn't changed.

But beneath those modest clothes, in the apartment above the halal grocery, a thick Somali widow is counting the days.

And so am I.