The Concert

For those of you who might have lost my story from our last meeting, or those who weren’t able to attend, I’ve posted it here. Sorry for the length and, I don’t mean to badger, really, but please, please, PLEASE, give me some feedback. Yes, real feedback, not just the fluffery. I will be most appreciative. And people, don’t let the website die on us!

The Concert

Tahir watched in the mirror as a bead of sweat emerged from his neck and rolled down the nearly hairless expanse of his chest, curving in its path toward his right nipple, where the heat swallowed it up. He allowed the late afternoon warmth to enshroud his newly washed, naked body, as if it were a woman’s cloak. A slight breeze from the opening of his window was the silk sash of the cloak sliding against his outer thighs. Tahir was 15 and very aware of the urges rising within his lower abdomen, but he didn’t have time to quell them. Instead, he pulled on a pair of jeans, a green and white striped, half-sleeved polo, and his sneakers. Five minutes later, with a swipe of hair gel and a pump of eau du cologne, he was ready to leave for the concert.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, Tahir’s mother stood him up against the fridge to interrogate him. She was his only parent, he her only child. Up until a few months ago, all Tahir needed was a look of contempt from his mother or the sound of her tortured voice to root him to the spot, struggling between the desire to help her or hide from her. He knew she’d made many sacrifices for him. Not a day went by when she didn’t remind him of this. When his father walked out on them thirteen years ago, she became a 22-year-old divorcee with no income and no living parents to take care of herself and her baby. With a minimal FA degree from Home Economics College, and some help from her maternal aunt, she managed to get a job teaching Remedial Urdu at Crescent Public, while still taking care of her son.

At first, Tahir had been very close to his mother. He would come home from school and narrate to her the events of his day, as she made fresh phulkas on the stove for lunch. They couldn’t afford too many servants, so Tahir’s mother did all the cooking while a maid came in daily to wipe the floors and wash their clothes. In the evenings, after Tahir and his mother awoke from their respective siestas, he would sit in the family room to do his homework, while she corrected her students’ assignments. There was a comfortable routine to their life.

The trouble started around the time Tahir turned 13. He spent more time holed up in his room, on the phone with his friends, and arguing with his mother over his curfew. One day, Tahir’s mother had come home early from work to see her son lounging lazily on the sofa watching TV.

“Why are you home so early?” she had asked.

“Oh, hi, Ammi,” he said, shocked to see her home so soon. “I didn’t go to school today,” he said, nervously. “I wasn’t feeling well.”

“What happened, sweetie?” She walked up to him and raised the palm of her hand to his forehead. Then she flipped it over, re-assessing his temperature with the back of her hand. “You don’t have a fever.”

“I know,” he said, sitting up straight, and smoothing out the wrinkles in his pajama bottoms. “I think I ate something bad at school yesterday. I’ve been going to the bathroom almost every hour.”

“Oh ho. My poor baby,” she said, plopping down onto the sofa next to him, putting her warm cheek against his, and wrapping her arm around his shoulder. Tahir wanted to close his eyes and relax into her grip, but he knew he had other things to worry about.

“Ammi, I haven’t had anything to eat all day,” he said. “I’m feeling so weak.”

“Well, obviously, silly,” she said. “Let me heat up some khichri for you. It’ll be light on your stomach, and you can mix it with yogurt.” She stood and walked towards the kitchen.

“Thanks, Ammi,” he yelled, when she was gone.

Tahir sat for a moment, mapping his house in his mind, identifying the various exits. On his right lay the main entrance to the house, on his left, the kitchen and back door; in front of him stood an adjoining drawing/dining room, and behind him, two sets of staircases, one leading upstairs to his bedroom, the other down below to a storage room which had two rectangular windows on the upper side of one wall, both intended to provide an entryway for sunlight, not an escape route for star-crossed lovers. Tahir stood on shaky legs, ran upstairs, two steps at a time, and pummeled down the hall, thumping loudly on his bedroom door.

“Listen, Raza,” he whispered loudly, through clenched teeth. “Open up.” After a minute, his friend cracked the door an inch.

“What is it?” Raza asked, impatient.

“You and Saleha have to leave,” Tahir said. “Now! My mother is home.”

“Oh shit,” Raza said. “Gimme two minutes.”

When Raza emerged from the room, a petite brunette stood by his side, squirming uncomfortably.

“You guys have to leave now,” Tahir repeated. “My mom’s in the kitchen. She won’t see you.” Tahir led the way downstairs and through the lounge, but just as the trio reached the front door, Tahir’s mother walked out of the kitchen.

“Lunch is ready,” she said. When she saw her son’s friend and a girl at her doorstep, her eyes clouded over in confusion.

“Assalam-u-alaikum, Auntie,” Raza said, with a forced smile. “I just stopped by to see how Tahir was doing. This is my sister, Saleha.”

Saleha greeted Tahir’s mother.

“Won’t you come in and join us for lunch?” Tahir’s mother asked, slightly mocking, as if she were a school principal sarcastically inviting her tardy students to class.

“No, thank you, Auntie,” Raza said. “We have to go. We have Math tuition. We just wanted to see how Tahir was feeling.”
Raza and Saleha quickly said good-bye. Tahir shut the door after they left, and turned around to face his mother.

“Sorry about that,” he said, his face turning pink. “Let’s eat.”

“Don’t insult me,” she said. Seeing the look of fake concern on her son’s face, she folded her arms across her chest and smirked with the air of one who is privy to all of life’s dirty secrets. “What, you think I was never young?”

The arrogant upward tilt at the corner of her lips fell back in shame. She took several steps toward him, until her face was only three inches away from his. “Don’t ever bring your filthy friends and their bimbos over to my house again. Ever.”

She walked up the stairs to her room, and slammed the door behind her. Tahir was left feeling ashamed of what his mother might think of him and humiliated for getting caught. He fell back onto the sofa, forgetting the food she had laid out on the kitchen table for him, wondering what she’d meant when she said she was once young, too.

Tahir’s mother began to worry he was getting involved with the wrong crowd. She wondered if he’d ever brought another girl home in her absence, not for a friend, but for himself. She was determined to bring up a son that was nothing like his promiscuous father. She started to keep a close eye on Tahir, kept reminding him to say his prayers, read the Quran, do his work. Sometimes, in her fervor to mold him, she slapped him, or threw shoes at him, or even barred his access to the outside world. But, by far, the worst punishment she could give Tahir, in his opinion, was collapsing into tears and blaming herself for her son’s flaws.

“I’m a useless mother,” she would cry. “I wasn’t respected by my husband, why should it be any different with my son? After all, I’ve only sacrificed my entire youth so you could go out and have a good time and make a great big tamasha of your life.” At times like this, Tahir was reminded of the fact that Samina was only 35 – much, much younger than any of his friends’ mothers – but acted as if she was an old burhia. He would immediately ask for her forgiveness, no matter how slight his indiscretion, and determine to spend more time making her smile, to ease away the lines in her forehead and the disillusionment in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Ammi,” he had said, the same day she caught Raza and Saleha in their house. He was too embarrassed to explain that he had owed Raza a favor, that Saleha was truly a sweet girl who thought Raza loved her, and they’d just needed a place to spend time together. But he knew, no matter how he phrased it, his mother’s mind would dwell on the antics that had gone on behind closed doors, and she would forever associate that image with him. “I’m really sorry.”

He’d gently pushed open the door to her room, and walked up to her bed, where she lay with her back to him. He sat on the bed, next to her, his face angled towards the back of her head, and placed his arm on her shoulder. Her body froze. He moved his hand from her shoulder to her head, where he began to stroke his fingers through her silky brown hair. Her body slowly relaxed under his rhythmic touch, until she turned around to face him, eyes shut, and he realized she had fallen asleep. He thought about getting up to leave, as he gazed at her innocent sleeping expression. When she slept like this, he thought, the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth disappeared, making her look younger, like one of the upperclassmen at his school. Her skin looked as soft as butter, as if his fingers might melt into her, if he touched her. She looked pale, though. Tahir thought she might be cold, so he pulled the blanket lying at the edge of her bed, over her, and tucked it snuggly into the curves of her body. There was still something missing, he thought. She didn’t seem warm enough. He had a sudden image of his father lying next to her, his hairy arm encircling her protectively as she slept. Tahir’s mouth tasted bitter, and he took a sip of water from the glass lying on his mother’s nightstand. He was overcome with a feeling of responsibility, to protect his mother, to make sure she was always happy.

Ever since he’d eavesdropped on his mother, three months ago, talking to someone over the phone – no doubt a man, judging from the lightness of her voice and the way her fingers flirted with the telephone cord – he’d felt even more burdened. He had a pretty good idea who her new friend was: Mr. Rameez Chaudhry. Principal Rameez Chaudhry, her boss. She’d invited him over to dinner last week under the pretense that she wanted to thank him for his generous pay raise. Tahir was initially surprised by this gesture since they didn’t often have guests over. But from the moment Mr. Chaudhry sat down in their living room, Tahir had the uneasy feeling he’d been there before. He moved easily from living room to dining room to bathroom to kitchen, without even asking for directions. He addressed Tahir’s mother as Samina, rather than Mrs. Sikander, a gesture that probably wasn’t as unusual as Tahir made it out to be. But there was something else too. In the presence of Mr. Chaudhry, Tahir’s mother smiled. Genuine smiles. Lots of them. And that was unusual.

It wasn’t that Tahir didn’t like seeing his mother happy. In fact, he’d noticed that since Mr. Chaudhry had come to their house, she’d been more lax with Tahir, allowing him to stay out late with his friends, cooking his favorite meals, and spending time teasing rather than lecturing him. But imagining her with another man, after she had belonged solely to Tahir for more than a decade, made him feel like she’d betrayed him. What was it that she lacked? he thought. Was she no longer happy with just him? He tried, as best he could, to avoid the answers to his own questions.

“Where are you going tonight?” she asked him, arms folded across her chest. For some reason, Tahir observed, she hadn’t been in a good mood all day.

“Out,” he said, indifferent. He poured himself a glass of water from the crinkled plastic liter bottle, and drank it down in steady gulps.

“Don’t ignore me, Tahir,” she said. He noticed that she looked more exhausted than usual.

“Are you feeling all right, Ammi?” he asked. Maybe she was pregnant, he thought, and immediately tried to erase the idea from his mind.

“Forget about me,” she said. “I’m asking about you. I thought you were going to help me fix the flush in my bathroom. You never said you had plans.”

“It must’ve slipped my mind,” he said, grabbing the car keys from a hook on the kitchen wall. “And I already fixed your flush,” he said, abruptly, thinking about the pills he’d found in her bathroom cabinet.

“What’s going on with you these days?” she asked, concerned. “I hardly see you anymore. You never tell me where you’re going or when you’ll be back. Your room stinks of smoke all the time – don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. You’ve just been acting like such a,” she paused, looking into the air for answers. “Like such a stranger.”

“Is that so?” he asked, coolly.

Ever since that dinner last week, Tahir had a hunch that his mother was gearing up to tell him something. He expected the worst, of course. Mr. Chaudhry wanted to marry her. He wanted to adopt Tahir. He wanted to move them into his Modeltown residence, and turn Tahir’s life upside down. None of those images, however, could have explained the pills Tahir saw that morning, in his mother’s bathroom. They were tiny white pills arranged in a circle, inside a flat beige compact, packed inside a box. He’d read quickly through the medical jargon written on the box, worried his mother might be sick and hiding it from him. But he was completely taken aback by what he found out.

“Tahir, meri jaan, don’t do this to me?” his mother said. “Tell me what’s wrong. I’m your mother. I love you.” He allowed her to pull him into an embrace, and for a moment, he felt like becoming her sweet little son again, telling her exactly what was bothering him. But then the swell of her breast and the scent of her floral perfume reminded him of her sex. She was a woman, a woman who’d betrayed him, left him for another man, most likely been with that man. Just the thought made him push her away violently.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, incredulous.

“You disgust me,” he said, in a dangerously low voice.

“Tahir, don’t talk to me like that.” She sounded severe, but he could hear the slight falter in her voice when she spoke.

“Or what?” he asked, noticing her hands grip the kitchen counter behind her, one on each side. Those hands, which had once lovingly caressed his face, had ruffled his hair, even tickled his feet. Her grip on the counter was tight and he thought, has she gripped something else too? Has she stroked the length of a man’s hardness and brought him to ecstasy? Just the thought made him spit on the floor.

“Hai Allah, khabees! What kind of devil’s gotten into you?” Looking aghast, she stepped forward to slap him. But he grabbed her arm before she could, then grabbed her other arm and held them tightly at her sides. The gleam in her eyes died down, from bewilderment to a provocative fear. “What are you going to do, you imbecile? Hit me? You’re going to hit your own mother?”

He brought his face close to hers and felt the urges inside him turn savage. Letting go of one of her arms, he gently touched her bottom lip with the tip of his index finger, and glided it from right to left. He did not want to imagine where those lips had been. But, unwillingly, an image filled his head. His mother on her knees. On the floor. With her mouth wrapped loosely around…no! He clenched his eyes shut, trying to erase the image. No, it could never happen, it could never! But he’d seen it himself, in the magazines that his friends had lent him. He’d seen women in all different positions, shameful yet proud of it, desirable yet allowing themselves to be disrespected, both needy and filled with pleasure. But those were white women, black women, Chinese women. Never a Pakistani woman. Never. Never someone like his mother. But she’s only 35, said a voice in his head, a voice that sounded very much like his friend Raza’s, who only a few days ago he thought he’d caught staring at his mother’s backside when she bent down to pick up a dropped sock. She’s only 35, just like Ms. Yaseen, who teaches us English and fills our minds every waking hour with her luscious lips and American accent. Unmarried Ms. Yaseen, about whom we keep thinking, is she a virgin?

Well, is she? Is she?

“I can’t believe you,” Tahir said, his jaw clenched, his grip tight around her wrist. It was painful just to look at her. “You’re disgusting!”

“Tahir,” she said, soothingly, as if trying to calm a person pointing a gun at her head. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I know what you’ve been doing,” he said. “In my absence.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Don’t insult me,” he said, pushing her away. Suddenly a memory sparked in his mind, a memory of his mother uttering those same words to him. “What, you think I’m not a man?”

She gasped, quickly covering her mouth with one hand. Then she slapped him hard. His cheek flushed. She pushed him viciously, pushed him from the kitchen and down the hallway toward the door, pushed him into the outside world, slamming the door in his face. He just stood there, breathless, his eyes watering. He stayed for a few seconds, expecting his mother to open the door and beg for his forgiveness. But she didn’t. Calmly, he turned around and walked towards his car. He was feeling savage tonight.

“Oye, Tahir, watch where you’re going,” Zain said. Zain was sitting in the passenger seat of the white Suzuki, his arms braced in front of him as the car skidded to a stop in front of an old woman crossing the street. “Are you alright, man?”

“I’m fine,” Tahir said, waiting a beat, then replacing his foot onto the accelerator and continuing his drive towards the Alhamra Open Air Stadium where the popular band, Awaz, would be performing in half an hour. “Hey, Raza, you’ve got the tickets, right?”

“Of course, man. How stupid do you think I am?” Raza said from the backseat. He was sitting next to Kamran, whose eyes were gazing out the window at a slim young woman in a bright purple shalwar kameez, her two children standing at either side of her, seemingly waiting for a bus.

“She’s hot, man,” Kamran said, to no one in particular.

“Forget it, yaar,” Zain said. “She’s an auntie! She’s got kids and all. You don’t spare anyone, do you?”

“She’s hot. That’s all I’m saying. Mothers can be hot, too.”

Without realizing it, Tahir pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator, sending them speeding through a red light.

“Yaar, Tahir, slow down,” Raza said. “You’re asking for it today. What are you going to do if the police see you?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got my license,” he said.

“Your fake license, you mean,” Kamran said. “Well make sure you have a couple hundred rupees in your pocket, too. You know the police don’t let up easy.”

“Whoa, look at that crowd,” Zain said. “There’s so much rush!”

Tahir had driven into a parking space in front of the stadium, and could make out, easily, hundreds of people outside the gates. Mostly men.

Once they’d walked up to the stadium and pushed their way into the crowd, Tahir glimpsed one of his classmates standing in a better position, closer to the gates. He inched forward slowly, through swarms of sweaty bodies and curse words, until he was right behind the guy.

“Hey, what’s up, yaar?” he asked. “You been here long?”

“Hi, Tahir!” his classmate said. “Good to see you, man. Are you kidding me? I’ve been here for at least an hour. It’s starting to stink.” He pinched his nose with his fingers. “The security tonight is shit, man. There are a couple of policemen standing around the gates, telling us to be patient. They say they’ll be opening the gates soon.”

Tahir turned around, expecting to see his three friends behind him. They’d disappeared. Most likely, he thought, they hadn’t been able to navigate their way through the collision of bodies. When he turned back to his classmate, he noticed a group of girls huddled in a corner, next to a big brick pillar. The one that really caught his attention was Asmara. She was one of the most popular girls in his class. She wasn’t in the same section as Tahir, 10A, but he still knew who she was. He doubted, though, that she knew him. She was beautiful, for one thing, her wavy brown hair usually tied back with a pastel scarf, gold hoops dangling from her ears, and her skin the fleshy color of stripped tree bark. Even though his friends were all in love with her, Asmara was too sacred to talk about, the way they sometimes talked about Hannia, the girl who was reputed to have slept with five guys in their class. Asmara was the type of girl, Tahir thought, who wouldn’t give him a second glance. Just the other day, she had cut in front of him, when he was in line to buy a sandwich from the school canteen, and he’d let her. On another occasion, she‘d surprised him, by waving at him from afar. He waved back, hesitantly, before realizing she had meant it for someone else. Asmara had seen him though, and laughed at him once she caught up with her friend.

“He actually thought I was waving to him,” he heard her say. The two girls had erupted in giggles.

Tahir had never been suave with girls. But tonight was going to be different. The urges within him were rumbling. Why had Asmara talked about him, as if he were ugly and covered in warts? What was so horrifying about the idea that a girl like her could wave to him?

Tahir pushed past his classmate and a host of other people, moving closer to the gate, and thus, nearer to Asmara. He noticed there weren’t many girls at the concert. But the few that were there, stood in a corner, avoiding the heat and stink of the gathering men. Asmara was leaning against the pillar, on her tiptoes, trying to get a better view of the gates, to see when they might open.

He was right in front of her now. Shielding her from the rest of the crowd, but also blocking her path to her friends. It took her a few seconds to avert her gaze from the gates onto him. He could see her trying to register who he was, whether he was someone she knew or not, someone she should worry about. She pushed him back.
“Move,” she said, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he placed his hands on either side of her, against the wide pillar she stood in front of, entrapping her completely.

“What are you doing, you loser? Get out of my way,” she said, her voice full of scorn, her eyes belittling him. He’d never been this close to a girl before. And a popular girl, at that. A pretty, fair-skinned, curvaceous girl. He felt hot just looking at her, but it was something more than petty lust. It was a feeling of power. Because here he was, Tahir Sikander, a nobody, a mama’s boy, looming in front of Asmara Altaf, who was, all of a sudden, completely vulnerable. Subject to his will.

He could see the fear rising in her eyes, and got a kick out of it. It wasn’t like he was going to do anything. He just wanted to scare her, to get back at her. For making him feel so insignificant, as if she could do a hundred times better than him, as if he didn’t deserve her respect. He relaxed his posture, thought about disappearing back into the crowd and finding his friends. But then, all at once, the gates of the stadium opened and a surge of human bodies swept forcefully past him. Tahir almost lost his footing and had to grip the pillar tightly to balance, bringing his body even closer to Asmara’s. He couldn’t help it; the crowd was too strong. They kept pushing him further and further into her. Asmara, he knew, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, looked like she might cry. She was trying to push him away. But they were both trapped here, whether they liked it or not.

Tahir felt her body stiff against his. Her dupatta was pushed high around her neck, so that he could see a sliver of cleavage running into her shirt. He could smell her perfume mixed with her sweat. He thought about the awkwardness of their position, the fact that in a few minutes, he would probably get swept along with the crowd and wouldn’t see her again for the duration of the night. And then, he was certain, he would regret all the things he could’ve done, if it weren’t for his propriety. Propriety? Here was a girl, he thought, trapped under his body, overwhelming him with the desire to touch her, and all he could think about was propriety? He pulled his right hand away from the pillar towards his chest. Then he inched his fingers between their pressed bodies, around the curve of Asmara’s breast, so that his thumb grazed her nipple, before getting a firm grip. He squeezed, feeling the soft skin under her clothes give way to his touch. She was yelling now, pushing him harder and harder away, but no one could hear her with all the ruckus around them. Even Tahir couldn’t hear her, so intent was he on her body. The harder she pushed, the harder he got pushed back onto her. His hand on her breast, his hard-on digging into her, he felt like he might explode here and now. For just a split second, he felt the ecstasy of this near-climax, this building up of all his urges, to a state of carnal combustion. He felt the power of this moment. His power. His power to feel pleasure at her expense. His power to crush her will. His power to dominate. And it felt great.

The concert didn’t start on time because of a lack of security and some technical issues with the band’s equipment. But when it did, the entire stadium vibrated with people screaming, dancing, and singing along. After re-uniting with his friends, Tahir had tried to clear his mind and have a good time. At first, he’d managed to play the part of the raving fan, but soon realized the façade couldn’t go on much longer. There was a huge shame building inside of him. He tried to tell himself he hadn’t done anything any other guy wouldn’t have done in his place. It wasn’t like he attacked her. He just touched her. So what? It happened all the time. Guys on the street whistling at other girls, trying to cop a feel of their butt, or elsewhere. It wasn’t a big deal. What was Asmara thinking anyway, being here? It obviously wasn’t a safe place for girls to be.

He looked at his friends around him. He knew each of them had their own limits, how far they would go with a girl. Zain was, by far, the most tame. He was really quite the gentleman, but acted lewd at times, just to fit in. It didn’t suit him. Raza was more like Tahir, interested in finding out all he could about sex and women, spending 80% of his time just thinking about it. Kamran had no morals whatsoever. But he was also the only guy who’d had any experience, and was thus, invaluable as a friend and a source of information. He’d been to Heera Mandi a couple of times, and was generous enough to outline, in detail, his exploits with the prostitutes. Once, he’d even taken Tahir along, just for the ride. Tahir had sat with him in an old-fashioned drawing room with no furniture, just floor cushions, in one of the tall dingy buildings of the Walled City. He watched girls, some that seemed his age, some his mother’s, whirl around in their frock-like kameezes, which were cinched under their busts, and skin-tight thang pajamas. They were trained to sing and dance, in the ways of the traditional courtesans of Lucknow, who, back then, were respected members of society. But Kamran didn’t have any interest in such things, and so soon after, he was led into an inner area of the house. Tahir was also invited, by an older woman with a tender smile, but refused. He’d thought of his mother, in that moment, and what she would think if she knew about the feelings coursing through his body, tugging him, ineffectually, toward the other woman.

Tahir wondered now if his position on the scale of sexual behavior, ranging from virginal purity to sexual fanaticism, had grown worse? In the past, images of his mother had always kept him in check. She had suffered because of another man and, Tahir thought, he was never going to become that man. For the first time, it occurred to him: maybe his father had a reason? Maybe his mother forced him to leave? Maybe she’d done something inappropriate to incur his displeasure? Tahir knew, immediately, this was impossible. He was mortified, just thinking about what he’d said to his mother earlier that night. How would he ever show his face at home again?

He was certain the things he’d imagined his mother doing could never be true. She was his sweet, selfless, precious mother. The woman who single-handedly brought him up. Who, despite her rough edges, was his voice of reason, the only sacred thing in his life. There had to be another explanation for the pills he’d seen in her bathroom. Because if there wasn’t, he didn’t know what he might do.

“Hey, Tahir,” Kamran said. “I don’t feel like going home just yet.”

The concert was over. Tahir had just dropped Zain and Raza home, and was sitting in his car with Kamran.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Where do you want to go?”

Kamran looked at him with a mischievous smile, and Tahir immediately understood.

“I don’t know, man,” he said. “It’s pretty late.”

“Oh, come on,” Kamran said. “Don’t be such a wimp. You don’t have to do anything.”

“Then why do you want me there?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Kamran said. “It’s not safe in the inner city at night? Come on, man, please.”

Tahir sighed dramatically to let his friend know what a huge favor he was doing him. And it was a huge favor because Tahir didn’t feel like he was in the right frame of mind to go. He felt vulnerable, defenseless, much like Asmara had been just hours ago.

When they arrived at Kamran’s usual haunt, a fat, middle-aged woman wearing too much make-up and jewelry, welcomed them in with, what Tahir thought, was a sinister smile.

“Please, sit,” she said, motioning them towards the floor cushions. There was only one other man sitting there. He looked like he could have been Tahir’s servant, with his tattered shalwar kameez , black kohl rimming his lower lash line.

“Can we hurry this up?” Tahir whispered to his friend, uncomfortable.

“Okay, relax,” Kamran said. “Be cool.” He gestured to the fat woman, who seemed to be the proprietor of the place. “Uh, Begum Sajjda. We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

She nodded with full understanding, and snapped her fingers. Automatically, a curtain on the far side of the room was pulled aside, and an anorexic looking girl emerged. Begum Sajjda, conversing only with the slight motion of her head, told the girl to take Kamran inside. As soon as they disappeared behind the curtain, another woman emerged, walking towards Tahir. It was the same woman he’d seen last time he was here. She took hold of his hand and pulled him towards the curtain, to the narrow hall and dimly lit rooms that lay beyond. He was about to correct her, pull his hand away, and tell her she was mistaken. He was not here as a customer. But when she glanced back at him briefly and smiled, revealing an endearing smudge of red lipstick on her otherwise clean teeth, he kept quiet. He allowed himself to be led away, down a long hallway, to the last room on the right.

Inside the room, a single bed stood under the depressing glow of a tube light. The woman shut the door behind them, and led Tahir towards the bed, placing her hands on his chest, gently pushing him down. Now that he was closer to her, Tahir thought she looked about ten years older than him. She watched him with perceptive eyes, as if she was trying to judge him, as if she knew this was not something he usually did. She sat on the bed next to him, and was about to speak, when Tahir covered her mouth with his hand. He didn’t think he could bear it if she spoke, and said something ordinary, something to remind him of where exactly he was. He removed his hand from her mouth, and she smiled, as if she understood.

Tahir put his hand on her bare shoulder, close to the curve where her shoulder met her neck. There was so much he wanted to know. Like what her mouth tasted like. Or what her body would feel like under his. This was his chance to find out. But I shouldn’t be here, he thought. This is so wrong. An image flashed before his eyes: his mother with Mr. Chaudhry. That was enough to get his blood boiling. He brought the woman’s face closer to his. He kissed her, and almost instantly, pushed her lips apart with his tongue, roaming the succulent insides of her mouth. He expected her to push him away and act coy, but instead, she returned his kiss, placing her hand on his knee for support, and then slowly moving it up his leg, to rest on the juncture between his hip and thigh. He was shivering, more than he should be, more than his bodily excitement called for. He thought that if he made love to this woman, the naked wounds still left behind from his childhood, from these past few months and today, could heal. He put both his arms around her waist, and pulled her closer. She drew back slightly, slithering off the bed, onto the ground, kneeling before him. She looked up at him with an open face, innocent and wanting to please. Maybe she was new at this, he thought. But that couldn’t be, since he’d seen her here before. Maybe she just liked him.

As soon as she unbuttoned his jeans and zipped them open, Tahir knew something was wrong with this picture. Still, he ignored the nauseous feeling in his stomach, to favor the mounting one in his crotch, as she let her fingers slide into his jeans and tickle him there. He stood up to take off his pants and underwear, and quickly sat down again, letting the more experienced of them take over. Her touch made him gasp and shudder. The sensation of her tongue forced him to lie down, horizontally across the bed, feeling like a storm was raging between his legs, ripping through his abdomen and upper torso, to the tips of his ears, until his whole body was drowning until, finally, his head got sucked under, into the whirlwind, and he experienced the greatest release of his life.

As soon as it was over, he wanted to cry. The woman knelt over him to kiss him on the cheek, but again, he put his hand over her mouth, and asked her to leave. She wasn’t offended, as if she understood this, too. When she was gone, Tahir used a nearby box of tissues to clean himself. What had he done? He felt horrible. He felt lower than low. He’d given in to temptation, thinking it would somehow purge him, but it had only made things worse. He wished he could rewind this night, the concert, and his cruelty to his mother. He didn’t know how far back he wanted to go, just that, he wanted to be a little boy in his mother’s arms. But something told him that wasn’t possible anymore.

When he arrived home, it was one o’clock in the morning. The house was silent, full of shadows. Tahir climbed the stairs to his room and noticed the door to his mother’s bedroom was slightly ajar. As quietly as possible, he pushed the door open further to see his mother sleeping on her left side, her back to him. A faint white light entered the room through a window in front of her. It came from the tube lights that hadn’t been switched off in their downstairs porch. The light enshrouded Samina’s body. Tahir tiptoed towards the window, drawing the curtains shut. Darkness enveloped him. His arms stretched out in front of his body, groping for the railing of his mother’s bed frame, anything to lean on, to lead him cautiously towards the exit. Instead he felt the mattress give way under his touch, and brought himself closer to the side of her bed. He sat on its edge hesitantly, then carefully took off his shoes, and lay beside his mother, draping her sleeping arm over him. He curled his back into the curve of her belly and rested his head against her neck.

He closed his eyes and imagined she was Asmara, only twenty years older. Would Asmara grow up to remember this night? That once upon a time, he clawed at her? Would she tell her husband or son or daughter about it? Or would she keep quiet? He hugged her now, tightening the grip of her arm around him, nestling his right elbow into hers. And he thought about the prostitute, who’d loved him the way he’d never been loved before. And he felt his lungs convulse and his heart constrict, until the sweet release of tears, and an agonized cry erupted from his lower abdomen – not the same place he’d felt the urges, but just above that, a place rooted so deeply inside of him, it almost didn’t exist. He couldn’t stop crying. For the pain he caused Asmara, for the children she’d one day have, for his mother’s betrayals, his father’s negligence, but mostly, for his own fear. The fear of having all that power in his possession. The fear of his responsibilities and desires. And the fear that the woman lying next to him was just as needy as he was.

Without realizing it, he’d awoken his mother, and she hugged him tightly, tightly, smothering him with all her love, as if she wished he could flood her insides with his being, and they could start all over again.