A Haram Desire

Authors note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

- For those unaware, Haram is an Arabic term meaning 'forbidden'

A Haram Desire: Part One

Chapter One: Every day seems like another...

The alarm clock sounded, shrill and insistent. A delicate hand reached out, searching for it before finally slapping blindly onto the bedside table a number of times till eventually the alarm squawked a last electronic note and fell silent.

For Tahira another day in her life had begun.

She got up. The oversized t-shirt she had worn to bed, billowing above her knees as she swung her legs free and shambled blearily to the ensuite bathroom. Fair skin sank majestically onto the bone white ceramic of the toilet. Tahira squatting with the t-shirt now bunched around her waist, elbows resting on toned legs, honey brown-colored eyes staring straight ahead as she relieved herself, still groggy from sleep. Her waist length hair flowed behind her, almost jet black against the faded white of the shirt she wore.

It was a Wednesday. It was her one thousand, eight hundred and thirty second Wednesday in this life of hers, putting her just over thirty-five years old.

It wasn't a bad life, a bit predictable at times perhaps but regularity had its upsides. This life, her life, had plenty to be thankful for. She had love, laughter, companionship, comfort and respect. There were women all over the world who would kill for a Wednesday in her life. Tahira knew this, so it wasn't often that she let herself think... 'it's a good life, just not the life I would have chosen.'

Flushing the toilet, washing her hands and face, she ran a brush through her hair, pulling on the occasional tangle until the brush flow smoothly through her dark mane. She indulged herself, taking a moments pleasure from her reflection in the mirror. An oval face with high cheek bones, and long eyelashes beneath straight full eyebrows. Her nose was straight but thin rather than full and beneath it her mouth was average sized but with plump lips. 'Not a wrinkle in sight, long may it last,' she thought reverently, allowing herself a small smile of satisfaction that brought the dimple in her left cheek to life.

From a small cabinet near the ensuite door, Tahira pulled out what looked like a patterned dark green cloth. Deftly she opened it out, her hands then dancing as they fixed the scarf in place on her head. Done, she pulled on a house robe and went to wake her husband and their children.

Her husband, Ali, was already up, giving her a distracted nod as he passed her on the way to the bathroom. If there was one thing that she admired in him, it was his dedication to work, she knew he was already mulling over the tasks ahead of him that day, hence the distracted greeting. Tahira walked into the landing, slapping an open hand on the door to her son, Mahad's room.

"Up, up, breakfast and school," she called, receiving a groan of acknowledgement from her fourteen-year-old. Then onto the next door. This time she stepped inside the room, gently shaking the shoulder of her twelve-year-old daughter Aidah.

"Come on sleepy head, breakfast and then school, yes?"

"Yes Mama," Aidah murmured. Tahira stood for a moment looking down fondly at her daughter as the child struggled to extricate herself from the bunched-up bed clothes, thin arms and legs flailing comically.

Yes, not the worst life she could lead even if it wasn't the one she'd have chosen.

Now that her husband and children were up, she headed down to the kitchen for the next task of the day. Moving quickly, she got the coffee machine warming up, while she pulled out the ingredients to create packed lunches for the rest of the family.

Ali was down first, reaching around her to secure a bowl, milk and some breakfast cereal. She brought him over a coffee and he gave her a quick smile through a mouthful of breakfast.

"Will you be home for dinner tonight?" Tahira waited, hovering beside him as he finished chewing before answering.

"Yes, but I think I might be away all Friday. I'll know later for sure."

"Okay, I'll have something ready for you then," she answered, turning back to fixing the lunches for him and the children.

They had been married sixteen years now. It was an arranged marriage, still a common practice among those of Pakistani descent, even those who like Tahira and Ali, who had been born in the UK, their respective families UK citizens for a couple of generations now. Her family were from Birmingham, his from London. When she had turned eighteen, her family had arranged for her to be wed to Ali, it had been judged as a good match for both of them. He had been a little older at twenty-five, his college days behind him and already building a reputation as an engineer. Two days after her nineteenth birthday, they'd been married.

A year later Mahad had been born, Aidah coming into their lives two years later. From the outside it looked to be a perfect situation, a happy family. And it was in so many ways. It just wasn't the situation she would have chosen for herself.

If there was a single word that Tahira might use to describe her life it was 'dull'. Ali was a good provider, an excellent father but as a husband... well, there he failed to meet Tahira's expectations. First and foremost, they had very little in common, conversations between them centered around their immediate family, his work and what she might be cooking that day. Not the meeting of minds she'd hoped for in a life partner.

Then there was the sex, or rather the no sex. The first year they'd made love every week without fail. Once she fell pregnant with Mahad, the sex had stopped. Tahira had hoped that after he was born, things would return to normal but they didn't.

Then over dinner with his family, about six months after Mahad's birth, her father-in-law had mentioned how much he was looking forward to another grandchild. A few days later Ali came to their bed, this time not rolling over to sleep, instead moving on top of her. She'd been delighted, welcoming him back into her arms and between her legs. It wasn't as frequent as before, perhaps once a month but it was still a vast improvement on no sex at all. Then as before, once she fell pregnant with Aidah, the sex ceased.

This time after she had given birth, Ali seemed to recognize that there was still a requirement for him to do his husbandly duty and so once every six or eight months they would couple briefly beneath their bedspread. The sex always being clinical, dispassionate, brief and unfulfilling. Sometimes a cruel thought would enter her head that he might have preferred a partner the same sex as himself.

Mahad and Aidah arrived in the kitchen with the usual levels of frenzy and noise. They quietened down at a look from their father, making their own cereal as he finished his. He drained back his coffee, collecting the packed lunch that his wife handed to him.

"See you tonight then," he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "Bye kids, behave..." and then he was gone, the front door closing behind him.

Breakfasts consumed; Tahira sent the kids to wash their teeth before they sat in front of the TV. Meanwhile she went upstairs to get changed. She showered quickly, then back in her bedroom she dressed herself. A black abaya, a green rose print on it, went on first. The robe like dress so common to Muslim women covered everything but her hands and feet. She pulled on some comfortable shoes then, finally settling a plain black Hijab about her head and neck in an everyday wrap style.

She headed back downstairs, checking her watch she saw it was close to the point the children would need to leave for school, so she set about making sure they were ready. Books, bags, lunches and a goodbye kiss before her two children disappeared through the front door as well. Just an hour after getting out of bed and she was alone again.

Her next daily routine was to air the house out, opening the windows for a while. Then came running the vacuum cleaner over the downstairs floor, sucking up the normal debris generated in the kitchen of a morning. Dull, dull, dull.

<<0>>

Tahira had resigned herself to her life, the life she wouldn't have chosen. Certainly not if she had any idea of the monotony that it would sink into, becoming the dutiful wife and caring mother that most religions, not just her own faith, espoused as the ideal. For three years she kept a lid on things until finally, bored and with both young children napping, she had gone online.

Growing up, Tahira hadn't had a boyfriend. Her parents, far more adherent to their faith than she herself, would never have allowed it. So instead, she had watched as others around her fell in and out of love on a weekly basis as teenagers tend to do. She might not have had a boyfriend but she did have a crush. Joseph... tall, handsome, funny, arrogant. He had been the star player on the school's soccer team, the class clown and so good looking that she would get butterflies in her stomach just from glancing at him during class. Joseph had been all that and more, he had been black.

Was it because her Pakistani parents and grandparents would have disowned her on the spot had she expressed her interest in someone like him that had made her crush all the more intense? Possibly. She couldn't deny the taboo nature of her desire. From her background at least, it may have had something to do with why she had him front and center as her teenage dream.

So, when she went online, looking for something to relieve her boredom, Tahira had immediately focused on a particular subject. Interracial relationships.

Porn held no interest for her, she'd spent a brief five minutes looking at a few images before switching off. It hadn't seemed real to her, certainly not based on her experience and understanding of sex. She might have sought an avenue of escapism but she wanted something more real than the seemingly preposterously endowed fake images she'd seen.

That led her to look at dating and chat sites. Most though seemed run of the mill, seek your soul mate affairs. None had the X factor that she was looking for. That is, until she stumbled across a site called 'Chocolate for Vanilla.' It was like it had been ordained. Her complexion was much fairer than the rest of her family, so much so that she still remembered her grandmother teasing her as a child. 'Gora' she would call her in her native Urdu... 'Whitey'. The 'Vanilla' part of the website's name therefore calling to her almost as much as the 'Chocolate' part did.

She had logged on as a guest. The vast majority of the profiles had been from the US, maybe ten percent of them European, the UK and France making up most of these. Like a ghost, she had haunted the website. Always as a guest, never engaging, just sitting watching the general chatroom scroll by, reading profiles of men, black men in the UK.

This went on for almost a year, sometimes she'd binge out, sitting on the site for a few hours, three or four days in a row. Then she would feel ashamed, turning away from it for weeks, even a month at a time. Always though, she would come back to it, drawn like a moth to a flame.

Four years into her marriage and Tahira, upset by another achingly disappointing coupling with Ali, had woken up determined to do something different that day, to break the chain of 'sameness.' After he had gone for work and Mahad had been packed off to kindergarten, she had logged onto the website, creating a profile for herself. She had spent enough time online to know exactly how to put a good profile together. Three elements were needed, the first being a good photo. She had some nice lingerie, a black demi cup bra that succeeded in showcasing her full chest along with a matching pair of black underwear. She stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, in just her hijab and underwear, positioning the phone in front of her face to hide her identify.

The second element was anonymity, Tahira setting up a new email to link to the site, paying for her membership only after she had confirmed the credit card notification would be suitably vague. She kept her details to a minimum as well, enough to inform but nowhere near enough for her location or name to be deduced.

Lastly, she was explicit in what she was seeking. A man, black, based in the UK, comfortable with discretion and anonymity and understanding in a partner trying this for the first time.

The website was very much male dominated, two or three times more men than women as registered members. So, it was only a matter of minutes before the first messages had started rolling in. Some had been disgusting, others baffling, a few intriguing. But it had been different, she had been different. Tahira had become so caught up in it all that she'd missed collecting her son from the childcare, one of the minders having to phone her.

Embarrassed and ashamed, she hadn't logged on again for a couple of days until once more the sirens call lured her back, this time with her setting reminders on her phone to collect her son. DeWilly, he became a regular fixture in her new online life. He lived in Colchester, less than a thirty-minute drive from her own home in Chelmsford. He had been charming, funny and insistent. The more he talked, the more Tahira found her resistance crumbling. He had sent her a message referencing the fact that people only got one life and to waste it was a crime. Tahira knew that she had been wasting hers. As much as her children were a source of joy and pride, she surely deserved more than that out of this, her one life.

Trembling, she had agreed to meet. He took charge of it all. Tahira was to tell Ali that she needed to go back to Birmingham, just for the night to see her parents. She'd never asked him for anything like this and he agreed without hesitation. She had driven in her small car to a bed and breakfast that DeWilly had arranged for them. The owners didn't even blink as they saw the thirtysomething black man holding hands with his 'wife', pale faced beneath her hijab.

Twelve years on and she could still remember every moment of that night. DeWilly, he'd finally told her his name was actually William, had been so different to Ali. She had undressed, a bundle of nerves, in the small bathroom. Emerging from it, hijab still in place, a dark blue dressing gown hiding her nudity.

He had been lying, waiting, on the bed. His nudity had shocked her, as had the size of his penis. Looking at it resting like a snake over his thigh, Tahira had cause to rethink her earlier dismissal of the porn images she had seen. He had read her mood perfectly, rising to stand in front of her, gently prizing her fingers away from where they clutched the thin material of the dressing gown together.

His blatant approval of her body as the robe was left to fall away from her took her by surprise. Ali had never commented on her figure beyond simple sentences like "you look nice today." William had been far more enthused at the sight of her naked body. Five feet two inches and a healthy one hundred and thirty pounds, she thought he might find her body too curvy for his taste. Quite the opposite. His hands had flown to her 32E breasts as if they were magnets, moving across her figure with his hands, tracing the lines and curves of the 42-27-41 body with glee.

If his reaction had been a surprise to her then the sex itself had been a revelation to stun the mind. His cock size had been the first difference, Tahira fearful at first, even flinching as he first sought entry. Soon though the sensation of being full to the point of stuffed was mind-blowing.

The contrast of their skin, his dark hue against her fairness was in itself stimulation for both her body and mind, all her taboo fantasy's made flesh.

Other differences that had set this virtual stranger apart from her own husband had been the stamina, William easily surpassing Ali's short five-minute bursts of passion. Also, the recovery, William taking her to heaven and back three times that night, a fourth and final time in the morning as compared to Ali's one and done record.

The positions as well, they had begun in what Tahira had assumed was the best and only way, her on her back, her companion on top of her, as every coupling with Ali had been. No, William had started this way but over the course of the night he had introduced her to several new stances, each eliciting a new sensation within her.

And the sensations, the orgasms... she'd no idea, no idea at all what she had been missing all this time. In fact, at one point when he had grasped her wrists, pinning them to the bed, his thrusts moving from sedate to intense, almost bruising, Tahira had orgasmed so hard, she'd literally seen stars.

As is often the way, following a high, there comes a low. Driving back the next day, Tahira had pulled over on the hard shoulder, sobbing desperately, fear of discovery, shame at her actions, her betrayal of her family and faith weighing on her soul with crushing gravity.

She got home to find her life exactly as she'd left it, that too bringing her to tears. Tahira had deleted her profile as soon as she could, swearing to herself that she'd never again commit such an act. In her faith, it was Haram... forbidden, and the price she'd pay if it was ever discovered was too great a risk to do it again. She had gone to the mosque daily, praying both for forgiveness and the strength to keep her vow. Never, ever again.

Over the next twelve years of her marriage, Tahira broke that vow three more times. Each time with a black man she would find on the chat site, each time only after weeks of agonizing internal soul searching. And each time she would delete her profile, swearing that she would be a good and faithful wife going forward.

She did realize something over these subsequent one-night stands. Tahira came to the conclusion that sex with Ali could never come close to being as satisfying as sex with these random black males. Not just because of his lack of interest and her finding nothing in him that stirred her, but also because she found herself drawn to a type, dominant, confident, charismatic... polar opposite to her husband, men who made her feel... submissive.

Covid actually helped her, the lockdown helping to stretch her current period of denial to five years of faithfulness.

Chapter Two: A day unlike the one before...

Her Wednesday was shaping up as all the others had. Ali, gone to work, kids gone to school, the house now cleaned. She gathered up some clothing that had been dumped by the kids on their bedroom floors, loading it into the washing machine, she started it on an eco-cycle, it would be ready by the time she returned from shopping.

It was a lovely bright morning, Tahira deciding to walk into the city center of Chelmsford to do the shopping. The small city had a tiny Muslim population in comparison to the likes of London or Birmingham and she was conscious of the side glances she received as she walked towards the large supermarket. Her abaya and Hijab weren't as intimidating to non-Muslims as the Burqa was, but unfortunately the events of this century had cast a pall of distrust over many people, which coupled with ignorance meant that Tahira was perpetually uncomfortable with the thinly veiled stares that many people sent her way.

It was just a fifteen-minute walk to the large chain store and inside she pulled out a small trolley and began shopping for groceries. The lulling effect of the stores piped music and her own tendency to day dream at times as she idled along the aisles, selecting the items she needed, caused Tahira to run her shopping trolley into a stationary figure ahead of her.