Ramadan Nights | NEON LIT

The adhan for Maghrib echoes across Dar es Salaam.

I break my fast with dates and water, the sweetness exploding on my tongue after sixteen hours of nothing. Across the table, Shangazi Mwanaisha does the same, her lips closing around the fruit in ways I shouldn't notice.

But I notice.

I notice everything about her.

I'm here because of circumstance.

My company sent me to Tanzania for a three-month project. Hotels in Dar are expensive. "Stay with your aunt," my mother insisted. "Mwanaisha has that big house all to herself since your uncle left for Hajj. She'd love the company."

Shangazi Mwanaisha. My father's younger sister. Fifty-one years old, married for thirty years to a man who's currently circling the Kaaba in Mecca. She's been alone in this sprawling Kariakoo house for two weeks, and she'll be alone for two more—the holiest month of the year, with no husband, no children, just prayers and fasting and the long, hot nights of the Tanzanian coast.

And now me.

"You're not eating."

Her voice pulls me back. The iftar spread is generous—pilau, kachumbari, sambusa, everything she spent the afternoon preparing. But I've been staring at her instead of my plate.

"Sorry. Just... adjusting to the fasting."

"It gets easier." She smiles, and the gold in her teeth catches the lamplight. "By the last week, you forget what hunger feels like."

I don't think I'll forget.

Not with her sitting across from me every evening, wrapped in kangas that cling to curves I have no right to notice. Mwanaisha has always been heavy—my father jokes that she "ate for three" even when she wasn't pregnant—but the years have been generous. She must be two-fifty now, maybe more. Wide hips that spread across her chair. Breasts that strain against her blouse when she breathes. A belly that rounds beneath the fabric, soft and full.

"Khalid." Her voice is gentle. "You're staring."

I drop my eyes to my plate.

The nights are the hardest.

After iftar, after Isha prayers, the house goes quiet. Uncle Farooq would normally be here—watching news, discussing politics, filling the space with his presence. But he's in Mecca, and Mwanaisha and I are alone in a house that suddenly feels too small.

"Chai?" she offers.

We sit on the veranda, drinking ginger tea, watching the city settle into sleep. The Kariakoo streets are quieter during Ramadan—fewer bars, fewer parties, everyone conserving energy for the next day's fast.

"How is your mother?" she asks.

"Same as always. Worried about everyone except herself."

"She was always like that. Even when we were young." Mwanaisha sips her tea. "Your father too. The whole family, always giving, never taking."

"What about you?"

"Me?" She laughs—low, musical. "I take plenty. Just never what I actually want."

"What do you want?"

The question hangs in the humid air. She looks at me—really looks—and something passes between us. Something that shouldn't exist between a nephew and his aunt.

"Nothing appropriate," she says finally. "Finish your chai."

Day ten.

I come home from work to find her napping on the sitting room divan, one arm thrown over her eyes. She's wearing only a thin cotton dress, and it's ridden up her thighs—thick, dark, glistening with sweat in the afternoon heat.

I should wake her. Should go to my room. Should do anything except stand here staring.

Her eyes open.

"Khalid."

"I'm sorry—I didn't mean to—"

"How long have you been watching?"

I can't answer.

She sits up slowly. The dress shifts, reveals more thigh, the curve of her hip. She doesn't fix it.

"You've been watching me all week," she says. "I'm not blind."

"Shangazi—"

"Don't." She stands, moves toward me. She's shorter than me but seems to fill the room—all that presence, all that weight, all that want. "Don't call me that right now."

"What should I call you?"

"Mwanaisha." She stops in front of me, close enough to touch. "Just Mwanaisha. Just a woman who's been alone for two weeks, who'll be alone for two more, who sees her nephew looking at her like—"

"Like what?"

"Like he's hungry for something that isn't on the iftar table."

My mouth is dry. My heart is pounding.

"This is wrong," I whisper.

"I know."

"We're fasting. It's Ramadan. You're my—"

"I know all of it." She reaches up, touches my face. Her palm is warm, soft, smelling of the spices from her kitchen. "I've been fighting this all week. Telling myself it's the fasting, the loneliness, the—"

"It's not."

"No." Her thumb traces my lower lip. "It's not."

I kiss her.

She tastes like ginger chai and something sweeter—dates, maybe, or just her. Her hands grip my shirt, pull me closer. Her body presses against mine, and I feel every curve, every softness, every inch of the woman I've been dreaming about since I arrived.

"Not now," she gasps, pulling back. "We're still fasting. It's still daylight."

"Mwanaisha—"

"After Maghrib." Her eyes are dark with want. "After iftar. Come to my room."

"Your husband—"

"Is in Mecca, praying for forgiveness for sins he hasn't committed yet." She laughs, but it's bitter. "Thirty years of marriage, and he's never once made me feel the way you make me feel just by looking at me."

"How do I make you feel?"

"Wanted." She steps back, smooths her dress. "Desired. Like a woman instead of a housekeeper."

The adhan won't call for another three hours. The longest three hours of my life.

After Maghrib.

After iftar—hurried, barely tasted.

After Isha prayers—distracted, unfocused.

I knock on her bedroom door.

"It's open."

She's waiting for me on the bed.

The kanga she usually sleeps in is gone. She's naked, propped against pillows, her body laid out like an offering. The single lamp casts everything in gold—her skin, her curves, the silver stretch marks on her belly.

"Come here," she says.

I go.

"I haven't done this in years," she admits.

I'm kissing my way down her body—her neck, her collarbone, the heavy swell of her breasts. Her nipples are dark and stiff, and when I take one in my mouth, she gasps.

"Your uncle... he stopped wanting me after the children left. Said I was too old. Too fat."

"He's a fool."

"He's my husband."

"He's still a fool." I move lower, kissing her belly, the soft folds of her waist. "You're beautiful, Mwanaisha. Every inch of you."

"Khalid—"

I spread her thighs. She's wet already—glistening, swollen, ready. I lean in and taste her.

"Ya Allah!"

She's been starving.

Not from the fast—from years of neglect. Her husband's rejection. The slow erosion of desire. I can feel it in how she responds, every lick making her shake, every suck making her cry out.

"Right there—please—don't stop—"

I don't stop. I eat her like she's the iftar I've been waiting all day for. My tongue explores every fold while my fingers slide inside, curling, finding the spot that makes her scream.

She comes so hard the bed shakes. Her thighs clamp around my head. Her voice breaks on something in Swahili I don't understand.

I don't stop.

By the time she begs for mercy, she's come three times.

"Inside me," she pants. "Please—I need—"

I strip. She watches, eyes hungry, and when I climb over her, she reaches for me immediately.

"Now. Now."

I sink into her.

Tight and wet and burning hot. She gasps as I fill her, her nails raking my back, her legs wrapping around my waist.

"Don't be gentle," she whispers. "I've had thirty years of gentle. Give me more."

I give her more.

I fuck her like I've been wanting to since day one. Hard and deep and relentless. Her body moves beneath me—all that softness, all that weight—and the sounds she makes are prayers of a different kind.

"Yes—na'am—harder—"

The bed slams against the wall. She screams with every thrust. And when she comes again—clenching around me, pulling me deeper—I let go too.

I come inside my aunt while she sobs my name into the Ramadan night.

After, we lie tangled together.

"We shouldn't have done that," she whispers.

"I know."

"We can't do it again."

"I know."

Silence. The ceiling fan turns slowly overhead.

"Your uncle comes back in two weeks."

"I know, Mwanaisha."

"And then you'll go back to Nairobi, and we'll pretend this never happened."

"Is that what you want?"

She's quiet for a long moment.

"No." She presses closer against me. "What I want is to spend these two weeks sinning. To make up for thirty years of feeling invisible. And then to let you go, and live on the memories."

"Two weeks."

"Two weeks." She kisses my shoulder. "Make them count."

I make them count.

Every night after iftar. Every morning before Fajr. Every stolen moment between prayers.

Her body becomes my scripture. Her moans become my adhan. I learn every curve, every fold, every place that makes her shake.

On Laylat al-Qadr, the holiest night, we make love three times. She cries after—guilt, maybe, or release. I hold her until the tears stop.

"I'll never forget this," she whispers.

"Neither will I."

Uncle Farooq comes home a changed man.

The Hajj has softened him. He holds Mwanaisha like he hasn't in years. Thanks her for keeping the house. Looks at her—really looks—for what might be the first time in decades.

I watch them from the doorway, my bags packed.

"Thank you for staying with her," he tells me. "She gets lonely during Ramadan."

"It was my pleasure, Uncle."

Mwanaisha doesn't look at me. Doesn't need to.

We both know what happened in his absence. What we found in those long, hot nights.

What we'll never speak of again.

At the airport, my phone buzzes.

A message from a number I know but shouldn't have saved.

The nights are longer without you.

I type back: I'll find a reason to visit.

Three dots. Then:

Make it soon.

I board my flight with a smile that shouldn't be there.

Ramadan is over.

But some hungers never end.