Rayed light. Laying in bed, at 11 AM, Fawad held Noushin's hand.
She traced, veins on his arm, like the lanes of Lahore.
A neighbour left, closing his gate urgently. But they laid on. Fawad and Noushin had spent a year apart, and last night, when he arrived, he came to see Noushin. And this morning, he laid in her bed, listening to imaginary qawwali playing in his head.
They had spent a year texting, and Fawad having made the journey back to Pakistan, solely for privacy, knew to book a guesthouse near her house, excusing himself from the clutches of Uncle Nazhim and his hospitality.
He was here to vlog. Travel vlog. And fuck Noushin.
Uncle Nazhim conveniently became - just an emergency. And last night, when dropped off at his capitalist room, explaining to his family friend, his concierge, his local contact, his protector - that he needed it, and would be okay, he later walked to Noushin's house, and she was wearing a dress.
She opened, they acquainted. And they fucked in bed. There was, only briefly, a Can I Fuck moment. And they fell asleep, together, wasting a night's fare.
"What's the itinerary?" asked Noushin.
They both smelled like morning. Bright light shaded in through cotton curtains, and it began to warm the dewey oil on their bodies. They laid, like lovers, and as individuals, thinking something deeply, each.
"Swat. Hunza. The Pashtun border."
"Real tourist."
Fawad watched Noushin get out of bed, and dress. A floral morning dress slipped over her. Domestic. He followed her out, to the kitchen. She put a pot on the stove, and fetched rusks from a cupboard.
"I don't know," she said. "What will people think?"
"We'll pretend to be married."
Fawad sat at the kitchen table, reading morning news. The American, or British, side of things often made diaspora people feel civil. He read football news, feeling like a fashionable expat.
"And if your mom finds out?"
"I'm old." Fawad said.
Noushin considered the younger one's proposition.
"Will they believe we're married?"
II - Departing
Fawad watched Noushin pack hurriedly, for a trip.
Traditional dress, western ones. Long blouses, and hoodies.
The cab arrived, and Fawad and Noushin were off, to Swat.
Fawad vlogged, or recorded the footage, to later talk over. Noushin felt very young, sitting in a car, to the mountains. In Islamabad, they stopped, for Karahi and water. Banging tunes from his village, the driver bobbled on.
Bottles of water, and changing terrain. The driver didn't ask much. They passed trees of a new kind, water of a new colour. The last minute toothpaste from a grocery shop in Lahore, mingled with a stream near Ambar. Strangers. The air took testimony, of their marriage.
And they arrived by dusk, at the Airbnb.
Swat. The host, unassuming. Fawad and Noushin were, by all obvious accounts, a married couple. To a bare room. And after Noushin bathed, they fucked like rabbits, and slept cold.
They had breakfast, it was a cold morning.
Before the peach tree patch, Fawad got a footjob through his fleece, casually.
They were on their way again, a day later. And taxi turned into bus. They bid farewell to the driver, boarding a bus of tourists and youngsters, heading for the near end of Pakistan. Water turned an icier blue. Turquoise.
And they arrived in Hunza a day late, hunkering into their village as news of a storm arrived with them, closing the roads back.
They were at the summit, of free air. Near the Himalayas.
It was rocky, and cold. On the first night after dinner, Noushin felt, insecure rather than cold, of a group of youngsters that travelled carefree, alongside them. The girls were slightly younger, fair, peachier faced, and spirited - and had more of life ahead of them.
"They have their whole lives ahead." that much had articulated.
Fawad and Noushin sat in the canteen area, among.
"And you do, too. You insisted, to pay your way here, to the edge of the world." Fawad took a taste of the catering, reassuring. "That's really an endpoint, to some."
"I don't feel accomplished."
"Is it marriage?"
The hotel's cafeteen lights flickered. As if to say maybe.
Suddenly, Fawad felt insecure, of an elder, wealthier, darker bearded man in Pringle, sitting across the room, eating alone. Came, on the bus. He was appropriate aged, for Noushin.
Fawad felt jealous. Young, and not enough.
He thought of Noushin in an established house. Running it, like a married woman. Wife to an elder husband. A house with due respect, formality and the status of madam.
Fawad felt it, in a bad way.
But he was too old to be jealous in any cute way, at thirty. He noticed her mood early at dinner, and ran a hot bath for her, afterwards. Seeking to make it up.
As she emerged, Fawad waited on the bed. There was nothing else quite to do, the first night up here, in a village near the Himalayan altitude.
Noushin, wet hair, stood in a robe. Fawad waited. She sat, and Fawad laid her down, and began to work, making her feel like a woman. She moaned, he licked and pressed. Her bent knees either side of him, like a throne's armrests. Eating her, fully, as if it were his earning. And then, he put a penis in her. Like a kingdom, and an offering. Trying to fill her complete, all of his phallus, trying from his bum.
Fawad fucked, for her. A thirty year old boy fucking a forty year old woman. Or near that. Heroically. Until she came.
And then he humped a little more, only just to come himself.
Later that night, they rendezvoused at the hotel's bar, drinking hot chocolate.
And the next morning, they trekked to an unknown place.
