The Nikah Loophole

We've been married for a year.

No one knows.

Not her parents in Moss Side. Not my mother in Rusholme. Not the community that watches everything and forgives nothing.

Just us. Just the imam who signed the papers. Just Allah, who I hope understands.

"Habibti."

Amina looks up from her textbook. She's studying for her finals—pharmaceutical science at Manchester Met—and her hijab is slightly askew, her eyes tired behind her glasses.

"We have to stop doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Meeting every weekend. Someone's going to notice."

"Let them." I close her textbook, pull her onto my lap. "I'm tired of hiding."

"Your mother—"

"My mother will survive." I kiss her neck. "She survived the civil war. She survived raising five boys alone. She can survive finding out I married the girl I love."

Amina shivers. "You say that like it's simple."

"Nothing about this is simple." I slide my hand under her abaya. "But it's ours. That's what matters."

We did the nikah thirteen months ago.

Secret. Quick. In the back room of a mosque in Longsight while her parents thought she was at a study group. The imam asked if we were sure. We were sure.

"You understand this is real," he said. "In the eyes of Allah, you'll be husband and wife."

"That's what we want," I said.

"We've been together two years," Amina added. "We know this is right."

He married us. We signed the papers. She went back to her "study group" and I went back to my flat, and that night we video-called until 3 AM, giddy with what we'd done.

The physical part came later.

After weeks of debate—could we? should we? what did "married" really mean if no one knew?

Finally, she showed up at my door.

"I want this," she said. "I want you. And I'm tired of waiting for permission from people who'd never give it."

That first night was everything.

Awkward. Nervous. Neither of us knew what we were doing—her experience limited to romance novels, mine to internet tutorials that turned out to be mostly wrong.

But we figured it out.

Slowly. Patiently. Learning each other's bodies the way we'd learned each other's minds over two years of coffee dates and library study sessions and walks in Platt Fields Park.

Now, a year later, we've learned a lot.

"Lock the door," she says.

I obey.

She takes off her abaya. Underneath, she's wearing something new—red lace, barely there, the kind of thing you don't find in modest Muslim clothing shops.

"Amina—"

"I passed my mock exams." She walks toward me, hips swaying. "I thought we should celebrate."

"Where did you—"

"Ann Summers." She grins at my shocked expression. "The one in the Arndale. The salesgirl thought I was buying it for a hen do."

"You went to Ann Summers."

"I did a lot of things for you." She reaches me, runs her hands up my chest. "Now it's your turn to do things for me."

I pick her up.

She wraps her legs around my waist as I carry her to the bedroom—our bedroom, even if it's technically just mine. The bed is rumpled from last weekend. The sheets still smell like her perfume.

I lay her down, stand back, take her in.

She's beautiful.

Always has been—from the first day I saw her in the library, frowning at a chemistry textbook like it had personally offended her. But now, in red lace with her hijab off and her hair spilling across my pillow, she's something else entirely.

"Don't just look." She reaches for me. "Touch."

I climb over her. Kiss her collarbone. Work my way down.

"Mahdi—"

"Shh." I pull down the lace, expose her breasts. "Let me worship you."

I take her nipple in my mouth. She arches off the bed, hands in my hair, sounds spilling from her lips that she'd be mortified to make anywhere else.

But here, in our secret space, she's free.

We both are.

I kiss down her body.

Over her stomach—soft, marked with stretch marks she's always hated and I've always loved. Over her hips—wide, grabable, perfect for holding. Down to the red lace between her thighs.

"Please—"

I pull the underwear down with my teeth.

She's wet. Glistening. Her scent hits me and I groan—after a year, I should be used to it, but every time feels like the first time.

"Mahdi, please—"

I lick.

She screams.

I've learned her body like a map.

The spot on her left that makes her legs shake. The pressure on her clit that tips her over the edge. The way she tastes when she's close, saltier, more desperate.

"I'm going to—I can't—"

I push two fingers inside her, curl up, and suck her clit at the same time.

She explodes.

Her thighs clamp around my head. Her hands pull my hair hard enough to hurt. Her body shakes with wave after wave of pleasure while I hold on and take everything she gives.

"Stop—too much—please—"

I don't stop.

I push her through the first orgasm into a second, relentless, determined. She's crying now, tears streaming down her face, but she's also pulling me closer, not pushing away.

"Mahdi—I need you—inside—please—"

I climb up her body.

Position myself.

Push in.

A year of this, and she still feels like heaven.

Tight. Wet. Her walls gripping me as I fill her completely. Her eyes roll back and she moans my name—my real name, the one I never let anyone else use.

"Yes—finally—"

I start to move.

She moves with me, our bodies finding the rhythm we've perfected over months of practice. Her legs wrap around my waist. Her nails dig into my back. Her sounds get louder, more desperate.

"Harder—"

I give her harder.

The bed slams against the wall. Somewhere, a neighbor bangs back, but we don't care—we're too lost in each other, too hungry, too desperate.

"I love you—" she gasps. "I love you so much—"

"I love you too." I kiss her, swallow her moans. "My wife. My Amina. Mine."

"Yours—always—I'm—"

She comes again.

Pulls me with her this time, her body milking me, demanding everything. I give it—empty myself inside her, fill her with proof of what we are.

Married.

Real.

Ours.

After, we lie tangled together.

"We have to tell them eventually," she says.

"I know."

"My father will disown me."

"Probably."

"Your mother will cry for a month."

"At least two months." I pull her closer. "But then what? They adjust. They accept. They realize that their children made a choice and it's too late to undo it."

"You make it sound easy."

"It won't be easy." I tilt her face up, make her look at me. "But we've been married for a year, Amina. We've been hiding for a year. Doesn't that prove we're serious?"

"It proves we're stubborn."

"Same thing." I kiss her forehead. "Let me tell my mother. Next month, after your finals. We'll do it together."

"And if she says no?"

"Then we'll be married without her blessing instead of married in secret." I shrug. "We're already doing the hard part. The rest is just paperwork."

We tell them on a Sunday.

My mother cries. Her father yells. Her mother faints dramatically and has to be fanned back to consciousness.

But we stand together.

Show them the nikah certificate. Explain the year of hiding. Answer every question, deflect every accusation, hold hands through all of it.

By the end, her father is still yelling, but her mother is looking at us differently. Like she's remembering her own young love. Like she understands more than she wants to admit.

"You're already married," her mother says finally, cutting through her husband's lecture. "What's done is done."

"Khadija—"

"What's done is done." She stands, walks to us, takes Amina's face in her hands. "You should have told us. But I understand why you didn't."

Amina cries. Her mother cries. Soon everyone's crying.

Her father takes longer. Months longer. But eventually, grudgingly, he accepts the man his daughter married without permission.

My mother accepts faster.

"I knew something was different," she tells me. "A mother knows. You were happier. More settled. I just didn't know why."

"And now?"

"Now I want grandchildren." She pats my cheek. "Get to work."

Two years later, we give her one.

A girl. Yasmin. Born in Saint Mary's Hospital with her grandmother in the waiting room and her father holding her mother's hand through every contraction.

The secret nikah becomes a family story.

"Your parents were crazy," we'll tell Yasmin one day. "But they were crazy together."

That's all that matters.

Being crazy together.

Forever.