Sabeen: In The Lounge
Zara was eighteen now, home from freshers’ week with a duffel full of laundry and a head full of new freedoms. The house in Wimbledon smelled the same: cardamom, cedar, and the faint jet-fuel ghost that clung to Dad’s uniforms. She’d let herself in quietly at 11:47 p.m., Uber from Paddington, planning to raid the fridge and crash. The hallway was dark except for the under-cabinet LEDs in the kitchen spilling gold onto the oak floor like a runway at night.
She heard them before she saw them.
A low, familiar laugh: Sabeen’s, but rougher, the way it got when she’d had one glass too many of the Barolo she pretended was for cooking. Then Saad’s voice, velvet and command: “Aré, aise nahi, meri jaan. Properly.”
Zara’s trainers stopped mid-step. She should announce herself. Should cough, drop her bag, anything. Instead she edged sideways into the shadow of the staircase, phone clutched to her chest like a shield.
They were on the chaise in the open-plan living room, the one Mum had reupholstered in midnight velvet last year. Dad sat back, legs spread, pilot’s shirt unbuttoned to the sternum, wings glinting. His head was tilted against the cushions, eyes half-closed, one hand tangled in Sabeen’s hair. Mum was on her knees between his thighs, red soles kicked off and lying like casualties on the rug. The emerald earrings—still those earrings—swung with every slow, deliberate movement of her head.
It wasn’t frantic. It was practiced. Worshipful, almost. Sabeen’s manicured hand braced on Saad’s thigh, the other stroking in perfect sync. He murmured something in Urdu too soft for Zara to catch, but the tone was unmistakable: praise, ownership, hunger. Sabeen hummed in response, the vibration making Dad’s hips twitch. The sound was wet, intimate, louder than the fridge’s hum. Zara could see everything: the way Mum’s lips stretched around Dad’s cock, the way her throat worked as she took him deeper, the way Dad’s fingers tightened in her hair, guiding, not forcing.
She’d seen this before—in photos, in videos, in the evidence she’d collected. But never like this. Never live. Never with the sound of Dad’s breath hitching, the way Mum’s eyes fluttered closed in concentration, the way their bodies moved together like they’d done this a thousand times. Because they had. In this house. In hotel rooms. In cockpits and crew rests and layover suites. The affairs weren’t secrets between them; they were fuel.
Saad’s hand tightened. “Bas, ab—” His voice cracked. Sabeen didn’t stop. She took him deeper, throat working, until Dad’s head fell back and a low, broken groan filled the room. His free hand found Mum’s shoulder, fingers digging in like he was holding on for turbulence. He came hard, hips jerking, spilling down her throat. Sabeen swallowed, throat bobbing, then pulled back slowly, licking him clean with deliberate strokes of her tongue.
Zara’s pulse thundered. She should leave. Should pretend she’d seen nothing. But her feet wouldn’t move. There was something hypnotic about it: the way Sabeen’s spine curved, the way Dad’s chest rose and fell like he was still at thirty-eight thousand feet, the way they fit together without hesitation. No shame. No performance. Just them.
Afterwards, Sabeen sat back on her heels, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand like she’d just finished a particularly satisfying meal. Saad pulled her up into his lap, kissing her slow and deep, tasting himself on her tongue. They were laughing again, breathless, foreheads pressed together. “You’ll kill me one day,” he said. “Promise?” she shot back. His hand slid under her skirt, fingers finding her clit with practised ease. She was soaked—Zara could see the damp patch on the velvet. Mum moaned into his mouth, grinding against his hand. “Your turn,” he murmured, and flipped her onto her back.
Zara backed away then, silent as a cat, and climbed the stairs two at a time. In her room, she locked the door, leaned against it, and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Her phone buzzed: a Snapchat from her flatmate. She ignored it.
She wasn’t shocked. She wasn’t even embarrassed. She was… relieved. The secrets she’d carried at sixteen—the Evidence note, the photos, the rage—felt childish now. This wasn’t betrayal. This was the engine that kept them flying. The reason the house still smelled like cardamom and cedar after twenty years. The reason Dad’s eyes still tracked Mum across a room like she was the only horizon that mattered. The affairs weren’t fractures; they were thrust. The lies weren’t lies; they were clearance.
Zara kicked off her trainers, crawled into bed fully clothed, and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars still clinging to her ceiling. One had finally fallen; it lay on the carpet like a tiny comet. She smiled into the dark.
Tomorrow there would be paratha and revision questions and Dad pretending to be scandalized by her freshers’ stories. Mum would complain about the altitude in her heels. And Zara would say nothing. Some things, she decided, were sacred airspace. She deleted the old Evidence note for good. Then she turned off her phone, pulled the duvet over her head, and let the sound of her parents’ muffled laughter—and the wet, rhythmic slap of skin on skin—drift up through the floorboards like a lullaby.