Chapter 34 She Looks Beautiful

"Wait, do you think that you might be heavy or something? And you aren t a whole human being, you re half." She groaned in annoyance and before she replied, he had pushed a spoonful into her mouth and her words were made guttural by the food.
He fed her and in between the breaks he gave her, Maryam spoke incessantly that the began to wonder what had gotten over her. Yet he understood she was just being enthusiastic about the henna and the hair she could already feel its softness without touching or even seeing it in the mirror. "Can we continue with that movie now? It s boring here." She said at last and Na im thought that maybe he could get the silence he badly wanted without her questions ringing in his ears.
He brought his phone out and played the movie while she rested her head on his shoulder. The way she did that, Na im was sure she didn t know where she had her head placed on or even if she knew, she did that innocently without any thought. He smiled at that and turned his attention back to the movie that continued to play while she was being as attentive as she had always been.
It came to the place the guy had kissed the lady and Maryam gasped, which forced him to pause the movie before she looked up at him with a terrified expression on her face. "How could she...?" She shook his head and it was obvious she was trying to get that image out of her mind, which was rather funny to him but he wasn't going to show her that. "That's nasty! Wasn t she afraid that she might..." She grunted in annoyance and then came the eye roll to accompany what she was feeling. "Of all places, it s her mouth, Ya Allah!" She brought her palm to her lips and touched it, as if she couldn t believe that someone could actually put his mouth on hers.
No matter how Na im wanted to keep a straight face and act like he wasn t rustling with laughter within, he couldn t. He burst out laughing and she stared at him as though he had grown a wing on his back. He had to sober himself from the laughter because he didn t want her to have a bad idea about him. "What s with the look?" He asked after he sobered up and she was still looking askance at him.
"Is it something people usually do? Am I the only one that has never seen it before?" She asked and Na im had been prepared for a thousand of questions but never this one. Then she added, "Have you ever done it to someone? Not that Doctor, please." She groaned and he couldn t help but chuckle.
She opened her mouth to ask again, or to say something about the doctor or about the kiss she had found disgusting when without intending to or even had it planned somewhere in his mind, Na im lightly brushed his lips against hers and the gasp that had escaped her lips might as well be the last breath she would ever take in life.
....
"I've never done it someone before, well, maybe that was my first." He pointed at her lips and how she seemed so pale to still have a life left in her. He was as dumbstruck and shocked as she was, with himself. Just that he couldn t show her that he didn t intend to do that and Na im knew even if he told her that she might not even believe him. Her palm was over her lips, even though it was a feather-like brush that might as well not have happened, Na im knew it did and this would haunt him, certainly.
This girl was a decade younger than he was, and he didn t know what had gotten over him to have done this to the girl he knew deep down he was going to divorce in two years to come. He wanted to ask her of her birthday, so that way, he would have a date he knew all this will be over and his life wouldn t be as messed up as it was now. He took a deep breath to calm himself down, pushing all those chaotic thoughts aside because he knew he would have to think endlessly about that single lounge forward he had taken before he brushed his lips to hers.
"When is your birthday?" He asked, even though he was aware that she was still not over the shock of what had happened and her silence didn t mean she was easily going to let it go, he knew.
"Captain!!!" She shrieked, as though life had been brought back to her and the knot that had tied her lips from speaking was about to loosen. He had to close his ears at how sharp her voice sounded and Na im realized she had never sounded this loud before in their lives.
"What is it? You ll scare everyone off with this scream, Mairam! Someone might even think I did something bad to you." He didn t even close his mouth when her reply came, sharp and fast that he wondered if she was so fast when her emotions were hiked.
"You did something bad to me, do you even have to ask? Oh my god!" He wanted to laugh at how terrified she looked with her palm still carefully placed on her lips as she was afraid of smudging the henna. "Check and see, are my lips still intact?"
No matter how Na im wanted to hold back his laughter, he knew he couldn t. He burst out laughing and she was flashing him a look that gave way to her doubts of him being normal until he suppressed his laughter and nodded his head at her. "You re only exaggerating this, Mairam. What I did wasn t even a kiss like they call the one you just watched. This is a peck, not even qualified as one because my lips weren t on yours longer than a second, for god s sake. It was a just a touch, might as well be accidental and I officially canceled that as my first kiss, never." He shook his head as though the thought of what had just transpired between them being his first kiss was formidable.
"Intisar said a man and woman can t even touch hands, it s a sin. Yet, they do that and you copied it on me? Come on!" She was innocently worried and he found that so cute that he might as well kiss her again to see what she would do.
"Man and woman can t even touch hands, yes. But has she said something about a husband and wife?" He seemed to have gotten her there, for she sat, motionless as she thought of the perfect answer she would give him.
"You aren t going to do that again to me, right?" She was damn serious when she asked that. For she had a solemn look on her face while she said that and as if she dared him to do it again and see what she would do to him.
He shook his head, "I won t do it again. But let s assume I will, what are you going to do to me?" She was thoughtful for a moment, thinking of the best punishment that would serve a soldier like him.
"I'll report you to your dad, you re afraid of him, right? Last time, you said he d scold you if he finds out you ate on the floor, I'll even tell him that." He chuckled at that and shook his head in an unbelievable way.
"What if he uses my gun to kill me? Will you cry? You ll become a widow then and no one will get married to you again." She rolled her eyes again and turned away from him.
"Did I ever tell you I want to get married? I'd just live my life as freely as everyone will, or that soldier friend of yours will marry me again, it s possible, right?" His eyes bulged out as though a saucer and the way she had thrown her head back and laughed was enough to tell him that she did that intentionally.
"So, do you like him?" She shook her head almost immediately.
"Even though he seems nicer than you are, I don t like him. It wouldn't feel so good to refer to him as my husband." He knew she didn t say that to flatter him and he doubted if she even know how to flatter with words, that was her being as real as she could and with the return of the smile that had vanished since they watched the kiss scene, Maryam spoke, "And he s not you, Captain, atleast not bad enough to do what you just did now."
If only she knew what Hafiz was capable of doing, her age or not. Divorcing her later or not, he chuckled at the thought. "Maybe you should really think of having him as a husband, then." He turned away from her. Before, when he had told her that Nafisa wanted to be his wife, he knew what she was angry about even though it might even be hard for her to know that she was jealous. But he wanted her to feel what it felt like to have someone angry at you in a jealous way.
Not that he wasn t entirely jealous, he was. She stared at his sulking face and how he looked away from her while he touched his phone before she pouted her lips and whined, "I wasn't angry at you for saying that doctor wants to be your wife. Even though I know that if you have her as a wife you d abandon me and won t even look at my face again." He slightly turned to her and saw the tears that had already pooled the brink of her eyes while she watched him to see his reaction.
He wanted to take a hold of her hand but she immediately jerked away from his touch, Na im sighed, this was a longer day than what he had imagined and there was too much of everything, emotions to be precise. "And what gives you the idea that I'd marry her? I won t."
"But it s possible to have two or more wives, Baaba had two wives before and he told me a man can have four. So, you will." She seemed so determined and for a moment, Na im thought. If at this stage they were, she could be this disturbed by the idea of having another wife even though her reason was because she knew he would certainly abandon her, Na im didn t know what she would do if she found out that he was planning on divorcing her.