The Halal Butcher's Daughter

Every Thursday at 6 AM, I pull my van up to Abdullahi's Halal Meats on Whitechapel Road.

The old man is never there that early. His daughter is.

Hawa.

Twenty-three years old. Born in Mogadishu, raised in Mile End. She wears the hijab her father demands, but underneath—underneath she's all fire and curves and hungry looks that make me forget I'm just the delivery driver.

"You're late," she says when I come through the back door, wrestling boxes of lamb.

"Traffic on the A13."

"Liar." She's counting inventory on her clipboard, but her eyes follow me. "You stopped for coffee at that café on Commercial Road. The one with the pretty barista."

"You tracking me now, Hawa?"

"Maybe." She sets down the clipboard. "Maybe I don't like you looking at other women."

The freezer door is three feet away. It's been three months of this—the flirting, the accidental touches, the way she stands too close when we count inventory together.

"Your father—"

"Isn't here until eight." She reaches past me for a box, her breast pressing against my arm. "That's two hours, Jamal. What could we possibly do with two hours?"

I've known Hawa's father for three years.

Good man. Strict. The kind who talks about finding his daughter a proper Somali husband from a good family. He doesn't know his daughter has been texting me at midnight, sending pictures that would give him a heart attack.

It started innocently. Her number on an invoice. A question about an order. Then another question. Then:

"What are you wearing?"

"Hawa, I'm trying to sleep."

"I'm wearing nothing. Think about that instead."

I thought about it. I thought about it so much I had to take a cold shower. Then I thought about it again.

Now I'm standing in her father's shop, watching her lock the back door, and all I can think about is whether she's wearing anything under that long black abaya.

"Come here," she says.

I don't move. "This is insane. If your father finds out—"

"He'll kill you." She walks toward me, slow and deliberate. "Or maybe he'll make you marry me. Would that be so terrible?"

"Hawa—"

"I'm tired of being the good daughter." She stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell her perfume—something expensive, hidden under the modest clothes. "I pray five times a day. I wear what he tells me. I work in his shop instead of going to university like I wanted."

"You wanted university?"

"I wanted a lot of things." Her hand finds my chest. "Now I want you. Is that so wrong?"

The freezer is cold.

Her body is not.

I press her against the wall between hanging carcasses, my mouth on her neck while she fumbles with my belt. Her abaya is hiked up around her waist, and I was right—she's wearing nothing underneath. Just skin. Just heat.

"Jamal—"

"Someone could come—"

"Let them." She wraps her hand around my cock, strokes me until I groan. "Let them see what the butcher's daughter really wants."

I spin her around. Face her toward the wall. She gasps as I push into her from behind, one hand over her mouth to muffle her cries.

"Yes—finally—"

She's tight. Wet. Her body shakes as I fill her, and she pushes back against me, demanding more.

"Harder—"

I give her harder.

The hanging meat swings around us. The cold air burns my lungs. But all I feel is her—hot and desperate and finally mine.

"I've wanted this—" she gasps between thrusts, "since the first day you walked in—"

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I'm a good Muslim girl." She laughs, breathless. "Good Muslim girls don't ask delivery drivers to fuck them in their father's freezer."

I grab her hips, pound into her until she's crying out against my palm.

"You're not that good."

"No—" She comes, her pussy clenching around me. "I'm really not—"

After, we huddle together for warmth.

Her hijab is askew. My shirt is buttoned wrong. We look exactly like what we are—two people who just did something they shouldn't have.

"Thursday," she says. "Same time?"

"Your father—"

"Will never know." She kisses me, soft and sweet, completely different from the desperate hunger of minutes ago. "Unless you want him to."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean—" She straightens her abaya, fixes her hijab in the reflection of a steel counter. "I mean that I'm tired of hiding. I'm tired of being what everyone expects." She turns to face me. "Come to dinner. Meet my family properly. Tell my father you want to marry me."

"Hawa, we've been—we just—"

"Three months of texting. Three months of wanting. And now this." She gestures at the freezer around us. "That's longer than most Somali courtships, Jamal. At least in the old days."

"He'll know we didn't wait."

"Probably." She shrugs. "But he'll also know you're a hard worker. You own your own delivery business. You're from a good family in Birmingham." She smiles. "I've done my research."

"You planned this."

"I plan everything." She unlocks the freezer door. "Now help me finish inventory before he arrives. And fix your shirt—you look like you just fucked someone in a freezer."

Two months later, I'm sitting in Abdullahi's living room.

The whole family is there—mother, father, three aunties, two uncles, and Hawa's younger brothers who keep glaring at me like they know something.

They probably do. Somali families always know.

"So," her father says, sipping tea. "You want to marry my daughter."

"Yes, uncle."

"You've known her three months."

"Yes, uncle."

He studies me. I've seen him break down whole animals with those hands. I've seen him haggle with suppliers until they cry. Now those eyes are on me, measuring, judging.

"She says she wants you."

"I hope so, uncle."

"She's stubborn. Like her mother. Once she decides something—" He shakes his head. "There's no arguing with her."

Across the room, Hawa catches my eye. She's sitting with her mother, pretending to be demure, but I can see her smile.

"I can handle stubborn," I say.

"Can you handle her mother's cooking? She'll expect you for dinner every Friday."

"I'd be honored."

He considers this. Then: "The mahr. What are you offering?"

I name a figure. His eyebrows rise. I worked double shifts for two months to save it—ever since that morning in the freezer when I realized this wasn't just attraction. This was something more.

"That's... substantial."

"Your daughter is substantial, uncle. She deserves the best I can give."

Behind him, Hawa's mother whispers something to her. Hawa blushes.

"Fine." He stands, and I stand with him. "We'll do the nikah next month. Keep your hands to yourself until then."

"Yes, uncle."

I don't tell him it's too late for that.

And from the knowing look in Hawa's mother's eyes, I suspect she already knows.

The wedding is everything Hawa wanted.

Big. Loud. The whole Somali community from East London crammed into a hall in Forest Gate. Her aunties cook for three days. My mother cries through the whole ceremony.

That night, in the flat we've rented in Stratford, Hawa peels off her wedding dress and stands before me in nothing but gold jewelry.

"Husband."

"Wife."

She grins. "No freezer this time."

"No." I pull her onto the bed, onto me, into me. "This time, we take our time."

We don't take our time.

We're too hungry for each other—three months of sneaking around, then another month of enforced distance while we planned the wedding. She rides me like she's making up for every denied moment, and I let her, watching her breasts bounce, feeling her body claim mine.

"I love you—" she gasps as she comes, and it's the first time either of us has said it.

"I love you too." I pull her down, kiss her through her aftershocks. "Since the first Thursday. Since you called me a liar about the coffee."

"You were lying."

"I was." I roll her over, slide back inside her. "But not about this. Never about this."

She wraps her legs around me.

"Then show me."

I do.

All night long, I show her.

A year later, we're expecting our first child.

Hawa's father has accepted me—mostly. He still gives me hard looks sometimes, like he suspects what happened in his freezer. But he's also taught me to break down a lamb carcass, which feels like approval in its own way.

"Thursday delivery," Hawa says, rubbing her belly. "Don't be late."

"Never again."

She laughs. "Liar."

But she kisses me anyway.

And I head off to Whitechapel, where it all began, to deliver meat to my father-in-law's shop.

Some things never change.

Some things change everything.