Pilgrimage Sins
"The night before his aunt leaves for Hajj, she asks him for one final sin. She wants to arrive in Mecca with something worth repenting."
Khalti Mariam leaves for Hajj tomorrow.
Fifty-six years old, widowed for a decade, finally undertaking the pilgrimage she's been saving for her whole life. The flight to Jeddah departs at 6 AM. Tonight is her last night in Tanzania.
And she's asked me to spend it with her.
"Just for company," she said on the phone. "I'm nervous. I could use family nearby."
I believed her.
I was a fool.
Her apartment in Dar is small and sparse.
She's packed everything—clothes, gifts, the savings of a lifetime converted to the simple garments of ihram. What's left is a mattress on the floor, a prayer rug, and my aunt in a house dress that does nothing to hide her body.
She's always been heavy. Two-sixty, maybe more, with the thick frame of our family's women. But tonight she seems more somehow. Present. Urgent.
"Thank you for coming, Hassan."
"Of course, Khalti. Whatever you need."
"What I need—" She stops. Looks at me with eyes that have seen everything and decided to stop hiding. "What I need is complicated."
She sits me down.
Pours mint tea. Talks about the pilgrimage—the rituals, the crowds, the spiritual weight of walking where the Prophet walked. She's been studying for months. She knows every step.
"And when I circle the Kaaba," she says, "I'll be forgiven. All my sins. Every one. Washed clean like the day I was born."
"That's beautiful."
"It's also a problem." She sets down her cup. "Because I don't have enough sins."
"What?"
"I've been a good woman, Hassan. A faithful wife before he died. A devout widow after. I've prayed and fasted and given charity and done everything Allah asked." She meets my eyes. "But I've never lived. Never taken what I wanted. Never sinned in ways that truly mattered."
"Khalti—"
"I'm going to Mecca to be forgiven. But for what? For small things? Gossip? Impatience? White lies?" She shakes her head. "I want to arrive there with something worth repenting. Something real. Something that proves I'm human."
"What are you asking me?"
She stands. Moves toward me. Her house dress shifts, reveals the curve of her hip.
"I'm asking you to sin with me. Tonight. Before I leave for the holiest place on Earth." She cups my face in her hands. "Give me something to be forgiven for, Hassan."
This is madness.
She's my aunt. She's fifty-six. She's leaving for Hajj in the morning.
And she wants me to fuck her.
"You've thought about it," she says. "I've seen you looking. Every family gathering. Every time I bend over, or hug you too long, or wear something that shows my shape." Her thumb traces my lip. "Don't pretend you haven't wondered."
"Wondering isn't acting."
"Then let's act." She pulls her dress over her head. "One night. One sin. And then I'll spend weeks in Mecca, praying for forgiveness with genuine need."
She's naked.
Fifty-six years old.
A decade of widowhood. A body that's expanded without a man to notice or care. Heavy breasts, dark-nippled, hanging to her waist. A belly round with years of cooking and eating alone. Thighs thick and dimpled, pressing together.
"Is this what you imagined?" she asks.
"Better."
"Liar."
"I never lie to women I want." I stand. Move toward her. "You're beautiful, Khalti. You've always been beautiful."
"Then make me feel it. One last time before I go to Allah."
I worship her like she deserves.
I lay her on the mattress and learn every inch of her body. My mouth on her breasts, her belly, her thighs. When I spread her legs and taste her, she weeps.
"It's been so long—so long—"
I make her come with my mouth. Then my fingers. Then my mouth again, until she's sobbing and begging for more.
"Inside me—please—I need to feel a man inside me before I—"
I give her what she needs.
She's tight.
Ten years without a man. Her body has almost forgotten. She gasps as I fill her, her nails digging into my back, her legs wrapping around my waist.
"Yes—na'am—this is what I needed—"
I move slowly at first. Savoring. Tomorrow she'll be on a plane to Mecca, dressed in white, circling the Kaaba with a million other pilgrims. But tonight, she's here. With me. Taking my cock like it's the last earthly pleasure she'll ever know.
"Harder—don't be gentle—I want to feel this in Mecca—"
I give her harder.
We fuck until midnight.
Every position she's imagined in her lonely nights. Every way a woman can take a man. She comes so many times she loses count, and when I finally release—deep inside her, filling her with everything I have—she holds me like she'll never let go.
"Thank you," she whispers. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For giving me something real. Something to repent." She looks at me with eyes that are already half in another world. "When I circle the Kaaba, I'll be thinking of this. Of you. Of what we did. And I'll ask Allah to forgive me, and I'll mean it."
"And after Hajj? When you come back?"
"Then I'll be clean." She smiles sadly. "And this can never happen again."
I drive her to the airport at 4 AM.
She's dressed in ihram now—simple white garments, no jewelry, no adornment. She looks like a different person. A pilgrim. A woman ready to meet God.
"Hajj mabrur," I say. An accepted pilgrimage.
"Insha'Allah." She kisses my cheek. "Thank you, Hassan. For everything."
She walks through the gate.
Six weeks later, she returns.
Radiant. Transformed. The Hajj has changed her in ways I can see from across the arrival hall. She moves differently. Smiles differently.
"Khalti." I embrace her. "How was it?"
"Perfect." Her eyes are shining. "I circled the Kaaba seven times. I prayed at every station. I threw stones at the devil and asked for forgiveness."
"And were you forgiven?"
She looks at me. For a moment, I see the woman from that night—the one who begged me to sin with her. Then she's the pilgrim again.
"I was forgiven everything," she says. "I am clean."
She never speaks of that night again.
But sometimes, at family gatherings, she looks at me across the room. And in that look is the memory of what we did.
The sin she carried to Mecca.
The sin she left there.
The sin that was worth repenting.
Tawbah.
Repentance.
Made sweeter by what came before.