Nocturnal Games

“Are you still on your period?”

He hadn’t really felt compelled to ask. Or, let’s say, his motive wasn’t really to find out. He only wanted to score a point.

Lately, their marriage had turned into a game of sorts, and it was easy to keep count of the points each of them scored. She asks for sex, but his eyelids are beginning to grow heavy with sleep: she scores a point against him. He approaches her while she’s busy working on her quarterly production report: he scores a point against her. Each time one of them fails to show just how much they’re dying to have sex—at any given moment, regardless of the reason—is a point for the other party.

It wasn’t an expression of desire so much as a way to collect credit for upcoming excuses. Chasing points was an embodiment of their inexplicable reticence when it came to sex, their mutual complicity after five years of marriage.

Although, their erotic adventures had not entirely ceased. Only the week before he had suddenly found her hand on his crotch under the dining table, while everyone was busy unwrapping packages of grilled fish and shrimp during a family gathering at his elder brother’s. He was so aroused he didn’t stay to watch Liverpool’s game against Porto with his brother as planned, claiming he had just remembered there was some work he needed to finish. His brother was dumbfounded.

“What about the game, man?”

“Salah will score.”

“He’s been in shitty shape for a while.”

“You’ll see.”

“What about Éder Militão?”

“Who?”

“Porto’s star defender, he’s off to Real Madrid next season.”

“I don’t know about Éder Militão, but I know we’re going to win 4–1.”

Liverpool did control the pitch that night, while at home, all control was hers. She put on a sexy satin slip that she had apparently bought on her last trip to Dubai, placed lit candles in different parts of the room, and rolled him a joint that they smoked together in bed before things started to heat up. Every now and then, a similar night would make an appearance in their sex life, but overall the number of times they slept together each week had decreased over the years. That definitely didn’t mean that he had lost his desire for her, nor did he ever doubt her desire for him. In his mind he interpreted their game as one manifestation of a new stage in the relationship; a maturity that allowed them to indulge in such antics lightheartedly, without the threat of any real trouble.

He knew she still had one or two days to go on her period, and the scenario was predictable: she would tell him she still had it, he would express his severe disappointment and make a remark about how her periods seem to be getting longer lately, then he would kiss her and they would watch one of those recently released Netflix shows they always begin with enthusiasm but end up abandoning mid-season after the tired, overused tropes hidden behind the complex dialogue and lavish production design become clear, and then he would eat his suhoor and they would go to bed after dawn.

But it seemed she was in no mood to play. With one question, she smashed all the expected scenarios:

“Since when do we not fuck when I’m on my period?”

She was right. He never used to ask about her period. Whenever he wanted her, he’d approach her without much thought for anything else. But he had stopped doing that for a while now, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d tried to sleep with her when he knew she had her period. She used to love that he didn’t care. She’d look at him, see his eagerness to enter her despite the flowing blood, and he could see she was thinking there was no bigger sign of love. But she had never seemed to notice that particular change in his behavior, and so he had never had to ponder its significance. He told himself that his preferences had simply shifted, and surely she could understand what it means for one’s tastes to change. Yet what disrupted his peace of mind in this moment wasn’t that she had expressed her displeasure in frank terms—it was definitely his fault to have brought it up in the first place—but that she had paid no heed to the rules of the game. There’d been no sultriness to her response, no reference to the future, no kind or apologetic words, nothing of the sort. If he could decipher the tone of voice in which she’d asked the question, he would guess it carried a repressed bitterness that resembled the frustration she directed at him whenever she realized he hadn’t really been listening to the story she had wasted her breath and ten minutes of her time recounting after coming home from work.

All right, there was no room for games tonight, then. He had to make love to her before going to sleep if he wished to avert any graver consequences. Did he really have to ask that foolishly impulsive question? He tried to sweet-talk her, but she wasn’t receptive to his advances. He reminded her that a few hours ago she had said she wanted to take a shower. Then, with his mouth barely an inch away from her ear, he whispered: “I’ll join you in a minute,” and he gently pinched her in the waist. He wasn’t sure about the impression his insinuation made on her, but she didn’t look disgruntled as she headed for the bathroom, although she didn’t seem overly excited either.

After she left the living room, he glanced at the wall clock. He had two hours to fulfill the mission before the dawn call to prayer. Not bad; definitely enough time to fuck then have suhoor. He decided to roll himself a small joint of those tiny green grasses they’d scored the other day. His recent sexual experiences under the influence had been encouraging, and he wanted everything to be right and in place. He hadn’t eaten since breaking his fast almost six hours ago, and so his head began to float with the third puff. It was refreshing. He started to undress.

She was coming out of the bathroom as he walked down the hallway to their room. She laughed as she watched him saunter naked toward her, then she put her thumb and index finger to her mouth as though holding an invisible cigarette and whistled, asking, without words, if he’d smoked some of the strong grass. “Yes,” he said, stifling a laugh. She smiled and pulled him to her, kissed his face, then pushed him toward their bed through the open door and closed it behind her. She dropped the towel off of her damp body and drew closer.

He was lying flat on the bed, entirely relaxed. For a moment it seemed to him that he might fall asleep, but he felt his pulse quicken as she approached him. He turned to her and kissed her. He took her earlobe in his mouth and swirled his tongue around it, a gesture that had come to mean—with no prior agreement—that he wanted her to hold his cock now. She spit into her open palm then reached out and wrapped her fingers around it. From this point on it was simple: he would wait for a moment until he was fully erect, then he would mount her, or pull her in so she could mount him. But then he started to realize, as the minutes passed, that it might take a while. He wasn’t sure if it was actually taking him too long to get hard or if that feeling sprang from a drug-induced distortion of time in his head, but he noticed, at the same moment, that she spat into her other palm and brought it down to his shaft. Hmmm. If it took both of her hands, then he was taking too long.

He tried to take his mind off of it. He repositioned himself so he could squeeze her ass and with his other hand he caressed her breasts. His cock finally began to rise again. He didn’t wait for it to be fully erect. He flipped her onto her back and climbed on top of her. He placed himself between the plump lips of her sex and thrust forward. His rhythm began to steady, his mind cleared, and his body felt the way it should: heavy and light all at once. He felt himself glide in and out of her, the sweat condensing on his forehead and his back and tickling him as it trickled down. He was so fully in the moment; his whole mind was conscious, entirely focused on how he was now: a mass of exposed nerves. He opened his eyes to see her face. He was surprised to see her looking straight at him. It bothered him, for some reason. No, it totally threw him off. His focus splintered, like a group of stray cats huddled around a discarded kebab meal on the sidewalk when, suddenly, an obnoxious passerby’s foot lands in their midst. He wondered how she saw him, what she made of his face. Did she think the expressions he made while fucking were silly? Funny? He could no longer make it back to the previous moment. He regretted his curiosity. He could feel himself grow limp inside her, and then her hand around him, guiding him back in. He pulled himself off of her and landed heavily on his back next to her.

She turned to him. Her eyes were shining, her mouth curved in a smile. He looked at her, intently. Did she really look like his woman? He knew—from years upon years of watching films—the effect light had on a person’s face, how it could be changed without the person even moving a muscle. He turned on the headboard’s built-in lights, soft and subdued, and continued to study her face. Does he really love her? Does he truly know her? He placed a hand on her chest as though trying to unveil its contents. His thoughts scared him. He slid closer and wrapped an arm around her. He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled the unique scent of the oil she used. He stroked her ass, he loved how round it was. He spanked her gently, she let out a contrived moan that turned him on. He did it again, she moaned again. He felt himself grow stiff, and he pulled her onto him. He closed his eyes this time and gave her free rein. He will abandon himself entirely to her, he will exert no effort save for moving his hips to make sure he reached the very depths of her. He could feel his orgasm approaching when a voice bellowed out from the opposite building:

“You filthy son of a bitch! Get up here and finish your homework or else I’m calling your dad and you know what he’s going to do!”

Instantly he found himself recalling his fight with his own mother that morning. She was trying to persuade him to call his father for his birthday. It had been nine months since his last fight with his father, since he'd spoken to him at all. He had inherited his father’s hardheadedness, and his constant anxiety about money. He told his mother to get herself out of it and mind her own business. She began to talk to him about the grave sin of filial ingratitude. He screamed: “So now I’m an ingrate? All right, fine! May God curse the day you saw me! Are you happy now?” before he realized that by losing his temper he was proving her point in real time. He told her he had to hang up to answer the door—a lie, of course—then headed to the kitchen and fried himself a couple of eggs for breakfast. Was his father sick? Was that why his mother was pushing him to call? No, that was impossible. What would he do if he found out his father was sick, though? He would probably go see him. Nothing had really warranted that last fight, but his father never passed up an opportunity to belittle him, and he’d had it with that attitude. When was his father going to realize he was no longer a child? A few days ago, he was at the coffee shop on his parents’ street in Dokki—waiting for his mother to bring him some documents he needed to renew his national ID card—when he ran into Captain Hussein, a childhood friend of his father’s and the soccer coach at a nearby youth center. The man kept warning him about the regret that would consume him if his father died while they weren’t talking. “You’ll see, if anything happens to him, you’ll be crying: ‘Oh, if only I could have one more day with you, Hajj!’” He almost scoffed. Hajj? What had his father done to earn that honorific? He wasn’t a hajj, he’d never even been to Mecca. Sure, his father believed in God, but he also believed God would understand that pilgrimage prices had increased exponentially over the past few years.

He snapped out of his untimely reverie to find his wife next to him, fiddling with his flaccid penis. She let out a small laugh. Scared that she would make a sarcastic remark, he rushed to kiss her. It seemed to him then that his only way out of this situation was to make her come. She would get up satisfied, and would probably forget that he had failed to fuck her. He reached down between her legs and gently massaged her clitoris, and with the index finger and thumb of his other hand he started to rub her left nipple, and he began to tell her a story.

“When we came to, we were on an island. The plane had crashed and everyone was dead, only you and I remained. I was dying for you, but I decided to wait. I wanted you to come to me, to tell me you were mine. But then I saw you bathe in the sea, and my cock grew so hard. I stood at the edge of the water and said, ‘Come.’ You told me you didn’t want me, I told you to quit playing games: ‘I want to fuck you right now.’ You got out of the water, and I saw your body in full. You came closer, you held my cock in your hand and you led the way. You took me among the trees and you said: ‘I want your cock in my pussy,’ and I complied. I put it in slowly. You moaned. I went faster and you started to scream. And then bam! Your voice woke the dead, the whole thing morphed into a zombie movie, and we were both eaten.”

She laughed at the plot twist. “Zombies, asshole?” She punched him in the shoulder. He could sense a hint of real frustration in the jab. She knew he was feeling too lazy to follow through with the “narrative.” He was unable to keep at it and so he’d worked in a joke he knew would make her laugh. That was his last resort: humor. He bet on her liking his joke, and his bet paid off—to some extent at least. But he could feel a dark air taking over the space in their room. She rolled over on her right side so she was facing the door, and with her back to him said the one thing he was precisely afraid to hear: “You don’t love me anymore.”

He didn’t have it in him at that moment to mollify her like he usually did, but he still tried to contain the situation. He slid closer to her and held her tightly. He kissed her shoulder then whispered, “I love you so fucking much but I’m so fucking stoned.” She didn’t like his response. She got up and shot him a reproachful look. “No, you don’t love me the way you loved your kamikaze girls, Ola and Hind and the like.”

He cursed the day he let her in on his “Kamikaze Girl” theory. It was a secret term he’d coined with Ahmad Fouad. At the time Ahmad had just returned from Sinai with a significant stash of weed, they’d run into each other on the street then headed to Ahmad’s place for a quick game of FIFA. There, after they’d gone through two full joints, Ahmad gave him a rundown of the latest developments in his relationship with Dunia. He could make out a familiar pattern in Ahmad’s stories. He noticed that Dunia resembled his two ex-girlfriends, while Ahmad resembled a younger version of him: the same helpless attraction to tragedy, and the same foolish hopes of saving that which cannot be saved. Because he was high, his brain somehow made a link between Dunia, his exes, and Japan’s kamikaze pilots. Human ticking bombs that charge full throttle at the world, burning themselves and whomever else Fate threw in their way. He and Ahmad made a list of common features, and later it became a game they played at parties, comparing the different criteria against the women who were present.

“Ola is kamikaze, I’ll give you that, but Hind isn’t kamikaze at all,” he told her now.

“She has a complicated relationship with her family, doesn't she?”

“Yes, but that’s only a secondary characteristic, it’s not the main criterion.”

“What’s the main criterion, then?”

“She has to hate herself.”

“Do you think I’m too mellow and simple compared to them? You know, because they’re dramatic and unpredictable…”

“And you are…?”

“Well, I love my mom, and I wake up in the morning like a normal person.”

He could recognize her tone. He knew that number well. She wanted to hear him say what he loved about her, but it also had to be what she loved about herself. He didn’t mind, but he couldn’t command his imagination, his mind wasn’t present enough. He hesitated, in search of the right words, but his silence brought her ire to its peak. She stormed out and headed toward the bathroom. He sat up in bed and raised his voice:

“Listen to yourself, you’re being ridiculous!”

“I’m not!” She yelled out from the bathroom over the sound of rushing water. “I know that in your head I’m in the Sohair Al-Shami category.”

“What the fuck does that mean? What on earth is the Sohair Al-Shami category?”

She didn’t respond.

“Why would I categorize Sohair?” he exclaimed, exasperated. “Or anyone for that matter!”

“Don’t play dumb, you know what I mean.”

He sighed. She was right, he did know what she meant. Last fall, Mahmoud Al-Saati returned from Dubai with a new girlfriend, an Egyptian he’d met there. She was a marketing executive at a production company and had been there for a panel at some film festival or other. Mahmoud had talked with her briefly during an outing with some common friends, then he’d sent her a Facebook friend request and they spent the entirety of the next day texting. Then he took her out to dinner twice, and things seemed to be heading somewhere. Mahmoud was so excited that he arranged for them both to meet her only a week after they’d returned from Dubai. Sohair Al-Shami was her name. She seemed like a nice girl. She was polite, made some okay interjections during a couple of discussions. She dressed plainly—one couldn’t call her choices conservative, but they didn’t particularly exude confidence or style either. Over the following months, Mahmoud and Sohair’s relationship continued to evolve, and so did an inside joke among their group of friends that had to do with Sohair being—in the words of Mahmoud’s mother—“as bland as unsweetened porridge.”

“No, I actually don’t know what you mean,” he insisted.

“Yes, you do! The good girl category. So well raised, so proper, so boring she doesn’t stir anyone’s curiosity or make them want to figure her out. Explore her hidden depths or whatever.”

“Honey, wait a second. Proper? Well raised?” He chuckled. “You?”

She laughed out loud. She swayed back into the bedroom, elbowing him as she got into bed. She looked into his eyes, then laughed once again. “You’re a dirty little rat,” she said. He laughed and took her into his arms, and she let him. He felt content when he made her laugh. Back when he was a boy, he longed to be Adel Imam. Not a comedian—no, he wanted to be Adel Imam, in particular and in person. He’d watch his films and plays on TV when his parents weren’t paying attention—his father especially wasn’t fond of Imam’s bold humor and persistent rebellion against all forms of authority. But that was the thing, his father could never understand what he loved about Adel Imam. He used to observe Imam’s effect on people, his ability to make them laugh, and think to himself that was true power. That’s why people love you: anything can be forgiven if you’re funny enough. He tried to be funny enough, he tried and tried; sometimes he succeeded, and he failed more often than not. But he had stopped trying once he made her laugh. He had finally found the laugh he’d always longed to hear. For the first time in his life, he was someone’s Adel Imam.

“Will you pass me the water bottle?”

“You’re not fasting tomorrow?”

“What? It’s dawn already?”

“Dude, the adhan sounded ages ago. There were twenty minutes left when I got in the shower, that’s why I rushed.”

“But it was only two when I looked at the clock!”

“Yes, because the clock in the living room isn’t working. I told you to buy batteries on your way home tonight. And last night.”

The memory returned to him slowly. He was frustrated with himself. There was no doubt that his increased intake of marijuana had impacted his memory, which had never been strong to begin with. Yet it definitely lightened the load of his job. His boss was an idiot; his co-workers were lazy, unprofessional and apathetic; everything took ages to get done and no one made any decisions and there was no room for planning—only pure improvisation got him through each day without any significant losses, and, needless to say, without any gains either.

No fasting tomorrow, then.

“Pass me the water, then. I can’t fast anyway.”

“Why not? You didn’t come.”

“Yeah, but, you know, things happened.”

“I don’t think it counts unless you come.”

“So penetrative action in itself doesn’t break your fast?”

“I don’t think so. I’m not sure.”

“All right so I won’t fast, just in case.”

“You mean you’ll fast just in case.”

“No, what if it turns out penetrative action isn’t actually permissible? Then I’ll go hungry for no reason.”

She chuckled. “Go hungry? Honey, it’s a day’s fast, it’s not a famine.”

He smiled but couldn’t laugh. He felt closer to sleep than anything else. Was it enough to reset his intention now for his fast tomorrow to be viable? It would be his fifth day without fasting this Ramadan, and they hadn’t even made it to the last ten nights of the month yet. The old traditions were burning embers in his hand, and his fist was loosening. His life was chaos and there was no way to sort it out but to start anew, somewhere else. Another weed-spurred wave almost swept him up in a new whirlwind of haphazard thoughts. He fended them off and reached out for the water bottle. He will not fast and he will make sure to set aside some money to feed sixty people and may God forgive him in all cases. The green grasses leave his throat dry, and he didn’t think he could make it through the day with that kind of thirst. His wife had turned over on her side and was scrolling through her phone. He got up and started to put his pajamas back on but she stopped him anxiously, putting down her phone.

“Listen, is it because I’m a smart-ass and I never let you win an argument?”

“What?”

“Do you not love me anymore because I’m a smart-ass and I never let you win an argument?”

“No, I love you so much.”

“You love me even though I’m a smart-ass and I never let you win an argument, or you don’t really think I’m a smart-ass who never lets you win an argument?”

“Honey, I’d be blind if I didn’t think you’re a smart-ass who never lets me win an argument.”

“So you love me?”

“So much.”

“Even though when you love someone you don’t see their flaws?”

“Whoever said that was a moron.”

“Well, I don’t know who said it, but I hear it all the time.”

He didn’t know what to say. He often stuttered in discussions that grappled with what love is. He didn’t occupy himself with the matter, he never monitored his feelings or his penchants for certain things, he just kept his head down and did whatever he was used to doing. What is love? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was here, next to her, now. Tomorrow he would wake up, go to the kitchen, and make two cups of coffee, then go back to kiss her awake. That was what they were used to, that was how they faced the day. The day, the daytime. Love is daytime. He repeated the sentence to himself, liking how it sounded. He must have said it aloud because she turned to look at him.

“So you love me?”

“Yes, I love you so much.”

“Do you swear?”

“I swear. On my mother’s life.”

“Why on earth would you bring up your mother now?”

“On your life. I love you.”

He planted a kiss on her lips, she gave in with a laugh. He went up to her ear, her forehead, then down to the nape of her neck, her back, the spot between her shoulder blades, then the valley between her breasts, her nipples, her throat, her collarbone, her upper arm, her forearm, the back of her palm, the inside of her palm. When he reached her stomach he dipped his tongue into her belly button, she giggled ticklishly and gently pushed his head away. He moved further down and touched the tip of his tongue to her clitoris. She sighed, she held his head and pushed him closer. He moved his tongue, back and forth, and when he looked up he saw her squeezing her breasts, playing with them. He applied more pressure, her breathing grew louder, more ragged. He felt her thighs tremble, he knew she was getting closer. His tongue picked up speed, she broke into loud, successive moans. He went on lapping at her until she came. Then he rose and lay down next to her.

“I don’t think you’re on your period anymore.”

“What?”

“My cock is spotless and I didn’t pick up anything in my mouth. Your period is over.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She laughed. It wasn’t hot in their bedroom, but she was sweating nonetheless. She pushed away the strands of hair that had clung to her forehead then turned to him with a smile.

"Want to go again?”

He closed his eyes. The green grasses were still floating in his head. He turned toward her and looked keenly at her face. He saw her well, despite the dim light, he saw her as he’d never seen her before. His chest filled with ease at her presence by his side—here, now. He felt himself grow hard. He took her in his arms and, once again, they started to fuck.