The Birthday of Ali

Ali had done all he could to "be fair" with both his wives, from every point of view (a flat for each, etc.). And after the marriage, he passed his first night with Aisha. It was a good night of love and sex, of another kind of sex.

The heat of Anna was the heat of a fireside, of a big stove, something tranquil, constant, reassuring, to keep the cold away from the house, from the family, from the life... Ali had fancied many times, he and Anna, in a log cab, hugging each other under blankets made of furs, with all the snow and the cold of the Russian winter just out there...

The heat of Aisha was real heat, fire, lust at the pure state. Her sex was hottest than that of Anna, and so her skin, her kisses, her moans... And when Ali met Anna, after that, he was still thinking of Aisha. Only human, but when he came back to the house when he lived with Anna, he was embarrassed. To look at his first love, and think about the body of the other, the smell of the other, the taste of the other...

"What is that, Ali?" she asked. She had just come back home from shopping, an dshe has yet he rlight blue gown and her withe "hijab". And she looked at her caringly, noticing his turmoil, though she knew he was coming home from the house of another woman. The bed of another woman, he thought...

He looked at her, smileing, to cover his awkwardness.

"Are you worried", he said. He meant "are you jealous?", but he was embarrassed to say that out loud.

"No. Why should I be?"

"You think, maybe the other is younger than me, hotter than me...She is of his race, more akin to him..."

"Well, I guess it's so."

"Because I said it?"

"Because it's so," she shrugged. "She IS younger than me, she maybe IS hotter than me... and she surely IS of your race."

"Yes, you're right, it's so. But you don't have to worry".

"I am NOT worried."

"I mean... You and Aisha are... different. But I am a lucky man, because I have both of you."

"Right. And we are lucky, because we have you."

"Uh, well...maybe..." he said. Anna smiled.

"So what's the problem?"

"Well... I am afraid that... I am still thinking to Aisha... You know... "

Anna shrugged just a bit. Of course he was thinking..."

"In your shoes, I don't know how I could help it... You have made love with her... It was time for you to do that. You had to be fair with her... You have married her... "

"Well, yes, but...You know, I'm thinking... I have been unfair with you... I did not have to marry her... "

"Why?"

"You know, she was born in Islam, she knew that she could have to share her man with other women... But you didn't. You desired a man on your own, I know, it was natural for you. And now... It's heavy for you, I know. Maybe it's been unfair, on my behalf... I... should have resisted, sent her back home: I owed it to you... Even if you had said..."

"I have said what I have said," Anna said, calmly. "And I meant it."

Ali looked in Anna's face, and Anna shook her head, snorting: no, there was nothing to worry about. Ali belonged to her, and always would have belonged to her. In his mind, in his heart. Since HE was worried about THAT... poor Ali... Regardless of his education, his culture, his religion, regardless of EVERYTHING, Ali felt GUILTY, towards HER. As if he had just BETRAYED her, with a "sharmota", a whore whatsoever. But it was not so. She felt not betrayed.

Anna called him to come closer to her, moving a finger, then she took is beautiful, virile and worried face between her hands and kissed him in the middle of his forehead. Not on the mouth like a lover in fear of loose him. On the forehead. Ali had understood what he had to understand, maybe, but she talked all the same. Pays to be sure.

"I am Muslim, now. I live here, I know the rules, I understand them, I accept them. And besides, I love you. Whatever thing you have done with Aisha, you had the right and the duty to do it: she is your wife, just like me. You have married her with my consent, and I did not repent: she is my friend. As a husband, you can enjoy her, and me, and you have to make her happy, in bed, as you do with me. You are the only man who can do it: she has no other men but you, and she doesn't want any other man but you, just like me. But if you need me to forgive you, then I forgive you."

In that moment, Ali loved his first wife as he never loved her before. He loved her so much that he did not ever managed to formulate in his male mind the trivial, lustful desire to have her.

At least, not so quickly...

As Ali was not the "typical" Muslim fundamentalist (and "macho"), Anna come from a country where "feminism", at least in the "American" version, had had a scarce success. She did not consider herself at war with the male gender, and as for the rest, she knew how to impose respect, and even to rule, really rule, in a house, without too many conflicts which were useful to nobody.

That's why they lived together well. And Ali never thought to live without her, not even when the passion for Aisha was beating harder in his head. Between her and Anna, he would have chosen Anna, even if not without sorrow.

He had thought to get the permission of Anna for a one-off with Aisha, but, on second thought, this was not a good idea, and Anna was right: a one-off would have been humiliating for Aisha and not enough for him. Just a chop, a single treat, is never enough. Especially a single chop of a woman like Aisha... of a female like Aisha...

After all, Anna had acted like a real good engineer. She had weighed pros and cons as if they were weights and counterweights, loads, stress limits including her own. She had decided that between an adulterous husband, a faithful husband always sad for his denied love (self-denied, but always denied) and a happy and loving husband with another wife, the third solution, quite paradoxically, was the best one.

She had not proposed to Ali to become polygamous out of fear of being repudiated in favour of the younger, unwilling rival. Even if Ali would have decided in that sense, granting her all the rights that the Jordanian laws allowed to the divorced wives, of course (and even something more, because he was he), she would not have remained hard up on the street. She had a job in her head.

Even if she could not have opened a firm on her own in Amman, or in Jordan, even in that worst case, she could even come back to Russia. Her family had never repudiated her, not even when she had become a "believer". They would have been sad for the end of a good marriage, with a good young man, but they would have helped her, without any doubt. Her experience in an Arabic country and her now fluent Arabic language would have been very valuable in finding another job, maybe in some big energetic company, Gasprom, Lukoil, Rosneft... Come to think about it, it was a good plan to find a job right now, if she would have wanted. No need to divorce, for that.

No. She did not want a job. She was not afraid of being rejected for merely economic reasons. She just wanted to live with Ali, to love him, to take care of him.

With or without Aisha.

Some time later there was Ali's birthday. It was his jubilee, his 50, and his first birthday after the marriage with Aisha. The friends who had had to listen his preaching in praise of monogamy for years and years had a good time mocking him a bit. But besides that, nobody had anything bad to say. Everybody, man or woman of the family, knew what an honest man was Ali, and all the women were sure he would have been a good husband too, no matter if for one of two wives (their own husbands, instead...).

The informal council of the women of the clan had decided that Ali had married Aisha, with the consent of Anna, not for purely "manly" reason (a younger woman, etc.), but to keep helping her, as well as possible. After all, the most noble function of polygamy was that: to help the widows, and generally, women in distress in the ancient societies deprived of welfare state. Anna did neither confirm nor deny this version.

The women of the family were very forthcoming with advice for Anna. They wanted to know if the new situation created problems for her, and gave her hints on how to face them eventually. Anna did not notice big problems, but she understood that the other women liked to share their experiences, and their will to help her was another 'welcome-to-the-club'. They too, as did all the clan, like that good woman, wife and mother, but they still considered her quite inexperienced for some aspects of their way of life: she was a stranger, and so much younger than them...

So Anna accepted their advice, nodding and thanking, sincerely grateful to them for their good intentions. She only reacted when some woman tried to know, without too much tactfulness, the real reason of her marriage, or how she, Ali and Aisha managed their personal (not to say 'intimate') deals. Then she drew out her Russian, harshly defensive character: 'mode Stalingrad', as Ali joked sometimes.

Ali knew how to manage her in those situations, as a good rider knows how to calm his mare without hurting her. But for the women of the family it was quite unexpected that she could be so defiant. And some of them remembered that they had criticized Ali when he had married that "Christian" woman. Not a "crusader", sure, she was not American or the like. But, always "Christian" she was...

Before it was too late, the friends began to leave Ali's house. He accompanied the last of them down to the road and came back. He did not drink a drop of alcohol, of course. On the other hand, he had had a lot of the good tea Aisha and Anna prepared so well (normal "chai" or mint tea, now they knew how to prepare both). Maybe for that, or maybe because he had eaten quite a lot too, he was a bit sleepy and numb. He offered to accompany Aisha to her flat, at the upper floor, but she wanted to help Anna to set up the house, and Anna did not allow him to help them, not even cleaning the dishes (unheard-of concession to the "western" mores). She just sent him away to sleep, if he wanted.

He went and lay on the bed and listened to them chatting while they worked. Anna had learned a very less "scholastic" Arab language, thanks to Aisha: she taught her the language of the countryside, and even some saucy puns...

It was strange how well they had mixed with each other. He had done what he could, being fair and impartial, but it was not all his own: he knew 'Who' to thank for it... And not only for that... He recalled the first word of "The Perfumed Garden": "Praise Allah, who has put the biggest happiness of the man in the body of the woman, and vice versa' (his uncle preferred to give him a quite educational version, from the lexical point of view)... And too bad if sometimes a woman is not enough for us, as imperfect as we are. What is important is to be always enough for a woman. Or for two...

"Ali..."

Alì opened his eyes. He had nodded off. And now Anna and Aisha were in front of him. But why were they dressed as if they wanted to get on the street? Hijabs, down-to-the-ground overcoat... They were so beautiful, all the day, with their sweaters and tight trousers on their nice bodies...

"Yes?" he uttered.

"Well...Maybe you did notice that we did not give you any gift today..."

"Uh...doesn't matter... Now it's too late to buy something... And can be dangerous to go out... It's getting dark..." He looked at the window. It was already dark, indeed.

"But we don't want to go out..." said Anna with a smile. She looked Aisha, and Aisha nodded, smiling too.

"No?" asked Ali, even more surprised.

"No..." said Anna, looking straight at him. A single, synchronized move of the two women, and both fabric overcoat felt to the ground. And they remained naked, besides hijab. "This is our gift..."

Ali looked as his two wives got on the big double bed where he lay. Two wonderful bodies, a milk-white-skinned Slavic woman and a darker, burnished Arab girl. They mounted the bed and came close to him on four legs, slow and dangerous as lionesses on the hunt. Their loving and cheerful eyes fixed on him.

"Anna...Maybe this is not good...it's not 'halal'..." said Ali. He was not sure he could possess his two wives in the same day... On the same bed... He never thought to have two wives, so he never asked his mullah about such cases... even after the marriage, he just though it would have never happened. He never read what Koran said about it, to have a personal idea, as a Sunni Muslim can do.

And now it was too late...

"Maybe it IS 'halal'... It's your day... we are your wives... We love you... You do not force us... We just want to make love with you..."

"But...together..."

"And THIS is our gift. Two women for you, together. You can make love with us, when your want, just without making inequalities between us... And how can you make inequalities doing it with both of us together?"

"Uh... Maybe you are right..."

"And if not, you can ask to the mullah tomorrow, and tell him your two luscious wives had tempted you... And you are just a man..." smiled Anna. "Let him state our punishment, if any, and punish us as it takes. We will accept it, from you. And only from you."

"Hm," nodded Ali. And he hoped he never had to punish those two wonderful women, and wives. Anna got closes to him, he felt her breath on his face.

"Happy birthday, Ali..." she said, kissing him. Aisha too kissed him, just a bit lower, still very far from his sex. But very soon, they both reached there...

"Not in your mouths... THIS is not... " moaned Ali. The caresses of those two tongues, of those lips, were too sweet and enticing tor him to resist too long. Anna and Aisha looked at each other, Anna nodded and Aisha put herself on all four. She would have Ali first. A courtesy for the newcomer.

Ali penetrated her, while Anna put herself behind him, body to body, her breasts against the shoulder blades of her man, her womb against his tail bone... She closed her eyes, feeling the strength of the male on her skin. Strength that was enough for both, for sure...

She purred like a she-cat, while Aisha began to moan stronger, speared, occupied and plowed by that strong man who belonged to her too... and to whom she belonged... she too...

Yes, she knew that maybe a man shared with other women was in her destiny... And a co-wife as wise and friendly as Anna was not the worst possible fate...Let alone a man, a male, a master, a stud like Ali... Good for two women, no doubt... not only in bed, but EVEN in bed... She closed her eyes, happy to be alive, to be female, to be possessed by Ali, her man, her lawful man... Lawful! She was not a "sharmota", she was making love with her husband... her beloved husband... Oh, Allah... How wise are your laws...

Ali felt his sex surrounded and gently clinched by the hot sex of Aisha, and the sweet body of Anna behind him. The flesh of his younger wife adhered perfectly, completely to his dick, while she let it go back and forth inside her. Anna maybe preferred not to look at his dick, while he sank into another female body, another female sex... No, she was looking at it, then she looked in his eyes.

"Take her strongly, like a man. Don't think about me, while you do it... Enjoy her, make her happy... But keep some strength for me," she whispered.

He nodded, and she put again her head behind his neck, waiting for her turn... Ali was unable to find the words to thank her, Aisha, and of course, Allah, for what he was feeling... And he had very much time, and very many reasons to thank all of them...

But in the heat of the night, awaken to something he did not know how to define, with the warm, tender bodies of his women sleeping on his sides, one to the left, one to the right, he decided that, yes: he HAD to ask his mullah.

Was it 'halal', or not?