Hooyo's Best Friend

Faduma auntie moved in three weeks ago.

My mother's best friend since they were girls in Hargeisa. They came to London together in the '90s, raised their kids in the same tower block in Camden, survived husbands and hardship and everything England threw at them.

Now Faduma's husband is gone—not dead, just gone, back to Djibouti with a younger woman and half their savings. And my mother insisted her oldest friend stay with us until she "finds her feet."

That was three weeks ago.

I've seen her feet. I've seen a lot more than her feet.

The first time was an accident.

I was in the shower. She walked in, said "Oh!" and left. Normal. These things happen in a crowded flat.

The second time, I was changing in my room. She opened the door without knocking, saw me in my boxers, and stood there for a long moment before apologizing.

The third time, I was watching something on my laptop. Something private. She walked in, saw the screen, saw my hand, and—

"Faduma auntie!"

"Sorry, sorry—" But she didn't look away. Not immediately. Her eyes were fixed on where my hand was, and I swear I saw her lips part.

"Could you—"

"Yes, of course, sorry—"

She left. But that night at dinner, she couldn't meet my eyes. And I couldn't stop thinking about the way she looked at me.

Faduma is forty-five.

She looks nothing like my mother—where hooyo is thin and severe, Faduma is soft. Generous. The kind of body that Somali poets used to write about before everyone got obsessed with being skinny.

Her hips are wide. Her breasts are heavy. Her ass fills out every dirac she owns, the fabric clinging to curves that make me feel things I shouldn't.

She's been my "auntie" since I was a child. She held me when I cried. She cooked me sambusas when I was sad. She's family.

But she's not blood.

And lately, she's been looking at me like she's hungry.

The fourth time, I'm not doing anything wrong.

Just lying in bed, reading, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. She opens the door, sees me, and hesitates.

"Ismail."

"Auntie."

"I was looking for your mother."

"She's at work."

"I know." She steps inside. Closes the door behind her. "I know she's at work."

My heart hammers. "Faduma auntie—"

"I'm lonely." She says it simply, like she's commenting on the weather. "Three weeks in this flat, and I'm so lonely I could scream. My husband is in Djibouti with a twenty-five-year-old. My children are grown and gone. And I'm here, in this room next to yours, listening to you—"

She stops.

"Listening to me what?"

"At night." She won't meet my eyes. "When you think everyone's asleep. I hear you."

I should be embarrassed. Instead, I'm hard.

"You've been listening."

"The walls are thin." She finally looks at me. "I tell myself to stop. Every night, I tell myself this is wrong. He's like a son. He's Maryam's boy. This is haram."

"But?"

"But I haven't been touched in two years." Her voice cracks. "He stopped wanting me. Said I was too old, too fat, too—" She gestures at herself. "This. So I lie there and listen to you and wonder what it would be like to be wanted again."

I get up from the bed.

She tenses, like she expects me to throw her out. Instead, I stand in front of her—close enough to smell her perfume, something floral and old-fashioned that makes me think of all the times she hugged me as a child.

"You want to know what I think about?" I ask. "When I do that?"

"Ismail—"

"You." I watch her eyes widen. "For the past week, it's been you. The way you walk. The way you lean over the stove. The way your nightgown shows everything when you come out of the bathroom."

"I didn't mean—"

"Yes, you did." I reach out, touch her face. She trembles. "You've been showing me on purpose. Testing me. Waiting to see if I'd break first."

"And if I was?"

"Then stop testing." I lean in, my lips brushing her ear. "Stop testing and just ask for what you want."

She kisses me.

Not gentle—desperate. Twenty-five years of knowing me, and suddenly all of that history is burning away as her tongue finds mine and her hands grab my shirt and her body presses against me like she's trying to merge us into one.

"Ismail—"

"I've got you."

"We shouldn't—"

"I know." I walk her backward toward my bed. "Do you want to stop?"

"No." She falls onto the mattress, pulls me down with her. "God help me, no."

Her body is everything I imagined.

I peel away her dirac, revealing flesh that's soft and dimpled and perfect. Her breasts are heavy, nipples dark and hard. Her belly is round, marked with stretch marks from the children she raised. Her thighs are thick, spreading wide as I settle between them.

"Don't look—" She tries to cover herself.

I move her hands away. "I want to see."

"I'm not—I'm old—"

"You're beautiful." I kiss her belly, feel her shiver. "You're the most beautiful thing in this flat."

"Maryam would kill us."

"Probably." I kiss lower, through the curls between her thighs. "But she's not here."

Faduma gasps as my tongue finds her clit.

"Oh—"

She tastes like salvation.

I lick her slowly at first, learning her responses—the way she moans when I circle her clit, the way her hips lift when I slide my tongue inside her. She's wet, getting wetter, and she keeps grabbing my head like she can't decide whether to push me away or pull me closer.

"It's been—no one has—two years—"

I suck her clit.

She screams.

Comes so hard her thighs clamp around my head, her body shaking, her hands fisting in my sheets. I don't stop—I keep going, push her through it, drag a second orgasm from her before she can catch her breath.

"Please—please I need—"

"What do you need?"

"You." She pulls at my shoulders, desperate. "Inside me. Please."

I crawl up her body. Position myself at her entrance. Look into her eyes.

"This changes everything."

"I know."

"My mother—"

"I know." She wraps her legs around me. "I don't care. I need this. I need to feel alive again."

I push inside.

She's tight.

Tighter than I expected, her walls gripping me as I fill her. Her eyes roll back and she moans—low, guttural, the sound of a woman finally getting what she needs.

"Yes—finally—yes—"

I start to move.

Slow at first, letting her adjust. But she doesn't want slow—she grabs my hips, pulls me harder, demands more.

"Faster—please—"

I give her faster.

The bed protests. The headboard hits the wall. I think about the neighbors, about my mother at work, about all the reasons this is wrong—and none of it matters because Faduma is under me, around me, moaning my name like a prayer.

"Ismail—Ismail—I'm—"

She comes again.

Clenches around me so hard I nearly follow her over. But I hold on, keep moving, fuck her through her orgasm until she's crying and shaking and begging me to stop, to never stop, to do whatever I want as long as I don't leave.

"Fill me—" she gasps. "Please—I need to feel—"

"Your husband—"

"Gone." She pulls my face down, kisses me fiercely. "He's gone and I'm here and I want to feel a man inside me when he finishes. Please."

I let go.

Bury myself deep and empty everything I have into her, feeling her body welcome it, hearing her cry out with something like joy.

We collapse together.

Sweating. Panting. The room thick with the smell of what we've done.

Afterward, reality sets in.

"Maryam will be home in two hours," she says, curled against my side.

"I know."

"We can never do this again."

"Okay."

She rises up on her elbow, looks at me with those dark eyes. "I mean it. This was—madness. Beautiful madness, but madness."

"Whatever you say, auntie."

She slaps my chest. "Don't call me that. Not now. Not after—"

"After what?"

"After you made me feel things I haven't felt in twenty years." She traces a pattern on my skin. "My husband used to look at me like I was furniture. Something useful but not desirable. You looked at me like—"

"Like I wanted to devour you."

"Yes." She shivers. "Like that."

"Because I did." I pull her closer. "I do. And I don't care what happens with my mother, what happens with your divorce, what happens with anything. This wasn't just once."

"Ismail—"

"I'll be at your door tonight. After everyone's asleep. You can let me in or you can send me away." I kiss her forehead. "But I think we both know which one you'll choose."

She lets me in.

That night, and the next, and the next. We learn each other's bodies in the dark, muffle our sounds in pillows, steal moments whenever my mother's back is turned.

A month later, she gets her own flat in Kentish Town.

"You should visit," she tells me, handing me a key. "To help me move furniture."

"Furniture."

"Heavy furniture." She smiles. "I might need you there often."

I visit. Often.

Sometimes I even move furniture.

My mother thinks I'm being a good son, helping her lonely friend adjust to single life.

She's half right.

I'm helping her adjust.

Just not to being alone.