Disclaimer: All characters are 18 or above.
Chapter 1: The Engagement
Amna didn't know it could ever be this much fun. She grew up in a conservative country, in a moderately conservative family where religion wasn't imposed but tolerated and nurtured. And she spent her coming of age years being the good girl that her parents expected her to be, and more obliquely, what society imagined was how a girl should behave. That meant no boys, no drinking, and definitely no sex. Sex was "sacred" and for marriage only. It was also for men to enjoy and for women to put up with. She was familiar enough with pop culture to know that that couldn't be the whole truth. It was impossible that every woman was "putting up" with sex to appease their partners. But she didn't get the chance to explore it first hand. Her imagination was all she had. She thought about scenes from movies she had seen over the years when she masturbated, imagining herself in them, having sex and enjoying it. The sensation reverberated through her body, as she climaxed to images of other women climaxing while making love to handsome men.
Time passed and she graduated college and started working for a multinational company, a job sought by every college graduate in the social strata to which she belonged. She continued working there for three years, and as time passed her parents started hinting to her that marriage was in the offing. Amna was nervous and excited at the prospect. Nervous because she had such a limited experience when it came to romance, and excited because she desperately wanted to experience sex and intimacy. But she also didn't want to settle for something that wouldn't make her happy. Her parents had raised her conservatively, but not as a pushover. She knew what she wanted, and she was willing to fight for it.
So she timidly agreed to it, and her parents started looking for prospects. Arranged marriage was the norm in the society she was in. She went through the hoops of the process: meeting a lot of moms looking for brides for their sons: doctors, engineers, whatnot. It was a revolving door, and there always seemed to be something that didn't work, and it didn't proceed after that first meeting. There were a couple of cases where Amna went on a date with the guys themselves, but there was no chemistry. They wanted her to leave her job, stay at home, cook meals and basically serve them whenever they wanted. That was not at all what she was looking for in a marriage.
Just when she was getting pessimistic, she met him. The man she would eventually marry. He was 28, tall and handsome, easy to laugh, and eager to make her smile. After the first meeting where both the families were present, Amna gave him her number and they started chatting. Pretty soon they started meeting up for lunches, coffees and dinners. It was also very PG-13, but there was definitely a spark. There was a sexual tension between them, probably because they had found such a comfort between each other. They talked about their past, jobs, likes and dislikes, their wants and desires and what both of them wanted out of marriage. She wanted intimacy, love, companionship and sex. He wanted the same things. Someone he could laugh with. This went on for six months, and the parents seemed to like each other as well. They got engaged in a small ceremony and the wedding date was fixed. Amna had butterflies in her stomach the night she got engaged. And it got much better when she received a text from him, "I don't think I can sleep tonight. Thinking about you too much." Her heart just about melted. She couldn't wait to get married to this man.
Chapter 2: The Kiss
It was two weeks before their wedding. Amna and her fiance had gone to a date: movie and dinner. During dinner, while Amna was regaling him of something that happened a couple of days ago, she noticed that he was half smiling at her with a dazed look in his eyes. She stopped mid story.
"You are not even listening, are you?" She wasn't angry or annoyed, just curious.
He snapped out of it and gave her an embarrassed smile.
"To be perfectly honest, not for the last 20 seconds," he said, not quite meeting her eyes, but still smiling.
"Why? What's wrong?" she asked.
It looked like he was struggling to say whatever he wanted to say, which was unusual because they were very open with each other and had never been shy about telling each other anything during this period of their courtship.
"Well," he began slowly. "It's just that for the past 20 seconds all I could think of was kissing you."
Amna felt herself blush like it was a physical sensation. She felt her cheeks reddening and heating up, blood rushing to her face. The words reverberated in her head, playing again and again, and finally landed in her heart. She was having an internal battle with two sides within herself: the "good" Pakistani girl who shouldn't kiss boys that aren't her husband, and another side which desperately wanted to grab this man's face and kiss him like there was no tomorrow. But she knew that wasn't practical in this crowded restaurant.
So she smiled.
"That's..." she struggled for the right words. "That's really sweet."
It was anticlimactic but the smile that broke out on her fiance's face was everything. It felt like a warm glass of chocolate during a snowy night. He reached out and held her hand, unable to show more affection at that place.
Later, after dinner, he was driving her home, and they were talking, consciously skirting around "the kiss" discussion. Amna was counting the minutes when she would reach her home. Her mind was racing. She was trying very hard to concentrate on the conversation, but one part of her brain was still thinking about the kiss. It was time to make up her mind, and that is exactly what she did.
"Stop at the start of the street," she said to him just as he turned to enter the street where her home was. It was nearing midnight and the street was empty, the houses were dark, people were sleeping. Amna knew she wouldn't be able to sleep if she didn't do what she was about to do.
"What's up?" he said, a little surprised, parking the car at the start of the street.
