Making of a Muslim Exhibitionista

WELL! It was not supposed to happen like this. On a sandy beach in California, my wife Zeenat and I had crossed over from imagining the unthinkable to doing the despicable, on what was proposed to be a relaxing day in the sun!

And the proof was there too. Even as I loaded the cooler and mats into the trunk of our car, my heart started pounding as I powered on my camera to see what it had captured. The late afternoon sun was still harsh and we were ready to head home but a second look at this moment in infamy was irresistible.

In the first picture, my wife, Zeenat stood at attention with ocean in the background, hands on the side, feet together, her face anxious as the sheer shock of this experimental nudity was setting in.

The sun reflected brightly on her slim tall torso, even as her erect nipples glistened in perfection. Her waist still showed marks of the bikini knickers she had worn only a few minutes earlier. The crotch had sheer rawness of full pubic hair that had naturally parted along the labia. No smiles. But that was to be expected.

The photo was a beautiful and anatomically symmetric starter to our amateur bold photo-shoot that made up for creativity with daring.

The next few pictures were awkward - laying on the sand, rolling over, pouring sand on her breasts as she mindlessly followed my directions. Then finally came the last blockbuster clip. A swarm of dozen lucky men, mostly beachcombers and joggers, had joined the spectacle, forming a natural arc around us and a barrier between us and the safety of our clothes.

Eventually, after what had felt like 20 minutes since we hit the beach, what tripped Zeenat from this no-longer-discrete photo session was the sense of siege as the men started forming a tighter circle around us.

Most had an arm out with smartphones pointing at her.

She darted through a gap in this wall of admirers and then for about 20 yards to reach our belongings. They followed her briskly keeping pace with her sprint.

I had the wisdom of zooming in to her gleaming posterior, as her buttocks tossed in rhythm. The men stopped and respectfully dispersed, but only after she grabbed a towel and tightly curled up clutching the remains of her dignity.

Visibly distressed for a moment, she sank her chin between her knees, in a vain attempt to hide her face. The camera had rolled and caught all of it in high-res.

The game was over. As the recording played on my camera screen, my instant arousal betrayed the deep hidden urge that had orchestrated this whole episode. I was baffled at the intense rush I felt watching my wife turned into a sexual commodity for other men to feast their eyes. It is hard to explain the kinship I felt with strangers in this baboon ritual. Yet, a part of me was also ready to pounce on anyone who dared show disrespect.

I scarcely remember the trip home, other than avoiding any conversation with Zeenat as the windy road kept functioning part of my brain occupied. When we pulled into our parking space, I felt the courage to ask her how she was. Her face was stoic, even a bit angry.

"How could you let them take my pictures?" an abnormal hoarseness in her voice betrayed her rage in our native Urdu.

"Its a public beach. You cannot stop anyone from taking photos" I responded calmly in English.

"You encouraged them..." Her chest swelled and her nostrils flared.

Without denying any guilt, I responded "What are you afraid of?"

"You undressed me before them" she accused again.

I spoke slowly with authority "You ... encouraged me to do it!"

Although only part true, this claim had a deep significance to us as Muslims. Since the Koran says that it is the woman who has the power to lead a cautious sensible man astray, my claim had an indefensible divine sanction. In one moment, I had thrown the burden on her for acting in lewdness while in reality her only guilt was giving me the do-as-you-wish privilege with her body.

"Don't worry we are in this together," I said, feeling a bit of guilt for this manipulation. She could easily sense that I loved what had just happened and felt no remorse. I saw a flash of anger and then helplessness. She looked so pretty.

Keeping her arms crossed in a thoughtful strut as we zigzagged back to our apartment, she headed straight to the solitude of the shower.

I ran to the computer to upload the stash of pictures to a safe place, keen to see every detail my camera had captured on a larger screen.

The night before, as we lay in bed watching TV, I had quietly handed her my laptop to her with a running slideshow of young nudist couples and women on isolated beaches. Tastefully curated from the best pictures available online, these were a clear visual of what was expected of her. Then, to press on her impressionable mind, I told her of a rumored to be true story from back home.

Back in the early 1970s at the height of Hippie era, a high ranking wealthy bureaucrat in Pakistan's foreign office decided to open his farmhouse on the outskirts of the city of Karachi, to diplomats of European nations where they could unwind and enjoy a few drinks, far away from the city bustle under a canopy of palm trees. Soon, the expatriates who had access to a private beach on this very secluded property started shedding their clothes, until becoming uninhibited became completely common. To protect this oasis, the mostly Christian resident staff was sworn to a code of silence. So, here in a very conservative Muslim nation, now Europeans could safely enjoy their naturist lifestyle. In return for this hot spot, the host received favors and influence with foreign governments at the city's embassies.

On the beach, the man built a gazebo where he would invite his closest high-society friends to share a drink and watch the guests play Frisbee.

When his two daughters who lived in London visited him, they expressed an interest to join with the visitors. The doting father welcomed the idea. My maternal uncle, who narrated a first-person account to me, claimed that on one occasion in the gazebo, the two stunningly pretty young British-raised Pakistani women socialized with him in the nude, all while their father sat across and poured everyone a drink.

"Isn't it a Haraam (sin) to do that?" Zeenat had obviously soaked the story and now sought moral guidance.

"Its a sin only if you're caught!" I retorted with confidence. Then I continued with other examples of salaciousness from our circle that made nudism feel like an innocent awakening. Finally, feeling it was the right moment, I nudged her with a "I would like us to try this at least once".

In the morning, I put all our beach stuff - towels, chairs, mats and cooler by the door waiting for her move, not-so-subtly conveying my commitment to carry through with the outing. Then I planted myself on the sofa, openly lusting at her sensuous gait as she mindlessly stayed engaged in mundane chores.

So beautifully her each step travels from her hips to her neck adding a little bounce to her shoulder-length hair, that I played a bollywood drumbeat in my mind to pair with her strut.

Her vacillations wasted half of our day, something I expected to happen. Left entirely to her own, she probably would not venture into this. In the three years of our marriage, I had realized that taking decisions was not in her DNA, especially for my ever growing pervert demands with her body both in private and in public.

After pacing around in our little studio apartment, she eventually vanished into the bedroom and emerged in her beach apparel - blue wraparound dress which doubles as a sarong and 2-piece bikini underneath. She had again avoided the collision course.

Today the beast was going to get fed.

Ironically, after all this work, the dirt road to this "private" beach was so hard to find that I almost gave up. The mood was tense and became tenser as the parking attendant took cash and dryly told us not to engage in sex. A mysterious sense of urgency had set in as we trekked down the bluff to the white sand that looked like a bright sheet laid to the horizon other than the nests of driftwood occupied by naked men. I noticed my heart racing and the excitement was truly dismaying. Zeenat was on auto-pilot. I can imagine a benign trauma was setting in and her senses were going numb.

The question was obvious, the answer anything but:

What would make a woman like her, raised in a conservative Muslim household, willingly subordinate herself to her husband's fantasy scenario to this extent?

For the sake of simplicity, I will call it a give and take. Married by our families after a mere opportunity for small talk, she was marched into my life after a Muslim Nikaah wedding ceremony that was followed by a large feast of scented rice and tender mutton.

No witty comebacks or laughter to ease tension, she had stared indifferently at the horizon as I began to explored her body for the first time. I vividly recall this perplexing disconnect between us as she lay there like a beautiful doll. Her mysterious melancholy and aloofness, which extended to our social and family circles meant that the only highlight of our mundane lives were these vacations where in the safety of strangers, we forayed in coquetish pleasures.

On our first trip to Miami, Zeenat wore an elasticized tube dress, fully stretched from her armpits to her knees with a scarf to cover her shoulders. That was the upbringing. I pulled her aside, told her "that didn't look right". Then deftly I pulled ruffles of the dress towards the midriff where they were supposed to be, until the bottom barely covered her crotch. I saw guys noticing her legs and that fact aroused me.

From that point on, the dresses got shorter and the neckline went deeper. I shopped until she had a whole drawer full of tiny dresses with heels and accessories to match. On a dinner cruise in Key West, I insisted that she not wear a bra under a tastefully sheer silk blouse with polka dot motif blurring the nipples. Viewed at an angle, only a little imagination was needed to visualize the topless. The flash in my camera, caught all the finer details. Eventually, she wore a bikini at the sauna, which I measured and joked that it was altogether less than one square feet of cloth. Before she wore it, I helped shave her kitty. We had reach a long way.

I'm not sure how much she enjoyed wearing flirty clothes. Our etiquette was a bargain deal, where she gave me what I asked for in return for what was broadly a "simple life".

She knew I had a collection of photos, neatly organized by date, starting with the pictures in traditional Hijab provided by her family in their wedding proposal. The latest photos from the beach followed this order.

We lived our double life in secrecy knowing that in the eyes of Islam we were adulterers.

The pretense of modesty was gone from our lives and it wasn't coming back. There's no precedent for unwinding an act of public nudity with a Hijab, even if Zeenat chose to wear one for the rest of our lives.