Nadia: Secrets Shared

The house in Defence Phase 3 was a mausoleum of silence that late December night. Rubina had left for Faisalabad three days earlier, her mother’s heart fluttering like a trapped bird, and she’d taken the younger children with her. The servants had been given leave until Sunday. Only the old mali rattled about the garden at dawn, and even he kept to the far hedges. For the first time in years, the corridors belonged to Eruj and Nadia alone. Winter had settled over Lahore like a jealous lover, pressing its cold mouth to every windowpane. The heaters hummed, but the marble floors still drank the chill. Nadia padded through the house barefoot, the old cotton T-shirt—faded blue, hem frayed from too many washes—hanging loose over her small frame, the worn shalwar tied low on her hips. Both were relics from her teenage years. She had not seen Ahmed in eleven days; his note—*Paris, urgent commission, back by spring*—lay folded in her jewellery box like a pressed bruise. At half past one, she found herself outside her father’s bedroom door. A blade of gold light slid beneath it, steady and inviting. She hesitated, fingers curled against the wood, then pushed inside without knocking. Eruj was propped against the headboard, reading glasses low on his nose, a leather-bound Faiz open on his lap. The bedside lamp painted him in warm amber: silver at the temples, the hollow beneath his cheekbone, the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath a charcoal kurta. He did not look surprised to see her. “Cold?” he asked, voice low, amused. “Freezing.” She shut the door with a soft click and crossed the room in three silent steps, bare feet silent on the rug. The mattress dipped as she climbed in beside him, burrowing under the heavy razai without ceremony. The sheets were already warm from his body; the scent of his cologne—bergamot and vetiver, sharp and green—wrapped around her like a second blanket. Eruj marked his page and set the book aside. “Bad dream?” “No.” Nadia tucked herself against his side, cheek to his upper arm, one knee sliding between his. “I need to tell you something.” He made a small sound—half chuckle, half sigh—and adjusted the quilt so it cocooned them both. His hand settled on her shoulder, thumb tracing idle circles through the worn cotton. For a long minute they simply breathed together, the hush broken only by the tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway. Then Nadia spoke, voice muffled against his sleeve. “It’s about Ahmed.” Eruj’s fingers stilled, but he said nothing. She felt the subtle tightening of his arm around her, the way his breath caught when she began. It started with the first night—the emerald shalwar kameez pooled at her ankles, moonlight silvering the sweat on Ahmed’s back. She described the single finger that had felt like a revelation and a violation at once; how she had bitten her lip until it bled to keep from crying out when he finally pushed inside her. Eruj listened without moving, but she felt the heat radiating from his body, the way his thigh tensed beneath her knee when she recounted the exact moment pain flipped into pleasure. “I thought it would hurt forever,” she whispered, “but then it didn’t. It was like—like falling upward.” Eruj’s hand slid down her arm, slow, deliberate, but he did not speak. Nadia shifted closer, her bare thigh pressing higher between his legs. She felt the unmistakable swell of his arousal against her skin and did not pull away. Instead, she rocked subtly, the worn shalwar riding up as she straddled his thigh. “You’re hard,” she said, wonder and mischief in her tone. Eruj exhaled through his nose. “You’re telling me things a father shouldn’t enjoy hearing.” “But you are enjoying it.” A pause. Then, quietly: “Yes.” The admission hung between them, shimmering. Nadia turned her face up to his. In the lamplight his eyes were dark, pupils blown wide. She reached for his hand beneath the quilt and guided it to the hem of her T-shirt, then beneath, until his palm rested flat against the warm skin of her stomach. His fingers flexed once, involuntary, but he did not move further. “Tell me what he does that you like best,” he said, voice gravel. Nadia’s breath caught. She answered by shifting her hips, pressing herself against his thigh through the thin layers of cotton. The friction sent a jolt through her, and she bit her lip to stifle a moan. “When he… when he holds my wrists above my head. One hand. And uses the other to—” She demonstrated, wrapping her own fingers around Eruj’s wrist and pinning it playfully to the headboard. The T-shirt rode higher; cool air kissed the underside of her breast. Eruj’s free hand remained on her stomach, unmoving, but his eyes tracked every shift of her body. “Like this?” “Harder,” she breathed. He tightened his grip on her wrist, just enough to make her pulse jump. Nadia rocked harder against his thigh, the worn shalwar bunching at her hips. The quilt slipped to their waists, exposing the pale curve of her thigh against his darker skin. “Tell me about the studio,” he said, voice rougher now. She did, words tumbling out in a fevered rush: the mirror angled so she could watch her own face contort when Ahmed’s tongue found her clit; the afternoon he painted her nipples with cadmium red and licked it off, laughing when she shivered; the way he’d taken her against the chaise, one hand fisted in her hair, the other guiding her hips until she saw stars. All the while she moved against Eruj’s thigh, the pressure building slow and relentless, her breath hitching with every grind. “You’re soaked,” he observed, conversational, as though commenting on the weather. His hand had not moved from her stomach, but she felt the heat of it branding her skin. “Thinking about him,” she gasped, then corrected herself, “about both of you.” Eruj’s eyes flicked to her mouth. “Show me what you do when you think about him.” Nadia’s hands moved to her own body, one sliding beneath the waistband of her shalwar, the other cupping her breast through the T-shirt. She rocked faster, thighs trembling, the friction of Eruj’s muscle against her clit sending sparks up her spine. Her fingers found her slick folds, circling in time with her hips, and she moaned openly now, the sound raw in the quiet room. Eruj watched, transfixed, his own arousal straining against his pyjamas. He did not touch her beyond the hand on her stomach and the grip on her wrist, but his breath came in short, sharp bursts, matching her rhythm. “Tell me the first time he made you come with his mouth,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. Nadia’s voice fractured as she obeyed, recounting how Ahmed had spread her thighs on the studio chaise, the scratch of his stubble against tender skin, the way he’d hummed against her clit until she saw white. Her fingers moved faster, hips grinding desperately against Eruj’s thigh, the worn cotton of her shalwar soaked through. The pressure coiled tighter and tighter until it snapped, and she came with a sharp cry, back bowing off the mattress, her body clenching in waves that left her boneless. Eruj released her wrist, his hand sliding up to cup her face as she shuddered through the aftershocks. He brushed a thumb across her cheek, catching a tear she hadn’t realized she’d shed. “Salt and honey,” he murmured, echoing words he shouldn’t know. Nadia laughed, shaky and stunned. She collapsed against his chest, sated and strangely content, her bare legs tangled with his beneath the quilt. The clock ticked on. Outside, frost etched delicate ferns across the window. “Will you tell him?” she asked eventually, voice small. Eruj’s smile curved against her temple. “Every detail.” She fell asleep to the steady thump of his heart beneath her ear, the taste of forbidden knowledge sweet on her tongue. Morning found the bed empty, sheets cool on Eruj’s side. Nadia woke to sunlight glinting off frost, the faint imprint of his body still warm beside her. She stretched, the worn T-shirt twisted around her waist, and smiled at the ceiling. The house was quiet again, but the silence felt different now—charged, expectant, like the hush before a storm.