Chapter 23: I’m Also Right

October 20, 2001, Los Angeles, California

🎤 Steve

On Saturday morning, I woke before Aisyah and simply lay quietly, enjoying her firm, warm body next to mine. While she slept, I thought back over the previous fourteen hours, and tried to reconcile everything I’d learned and everything we’d done, and from that, how to proceed with regard to our relationship, both in the short term and the long term.

I had, initially, been somewhat appalled at her first lover’s approach to sex with a young, virgin teen. I would have engaged in lengthy foreplay, and certainly pleasured her orally first, but given what I’d learned from Aisyah, I now understood why he hadn’t done that. I wasn’t, of course, appalled that he had done it, though thirteen was too young in my mind. I had little room to talk, though, having been with Nicole Heath, who had been fourteen, in April of the previous year. Since then, I’d set the absolute minimum age at fifteen, if an exception were to be made to the rule against girls under eighteen.

I hadn’t known that Islam considered oral sex inappropriate, though I knew there were clear commands against anal sex in the Qur’an, and Islam saved some of its harshest words for homosexuals. Aisyah had very much enjoyed the pleasure I’d given her while I’d enjoyed the exquisite flavor of her juices, but had blanched when I’d moved on top of her, intending to enter her, and had tried to kiss her. When she’d made a face and turned her head, I’d simply gone to the bathroom to wash my face and gargle with Listerine.

Later, after enjoying ‘having’ her in the missionary position and cuddling, I went to the bathroom and washed myself carefully before returning to the bed so she could pleasure me with her mouth. She had been tentative and hesitant, but she accomplished the main goal of fellatio, allowing me to cum in her mouth. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t swallow and refused to kiss me, instead going to the bathroom to spit my cum into the sink and to wash her mouth. She’d come back to bed, we’d kissed, and then I’d turned out the lights, pulled the sheet over us, and we’d fallen asleep cuddled together.

Her concerns about oral sex were really a minor thing in the larger scheme, and certainly compared to the situation she’d placed herself in by the combination of her religion and her actions when she’d been thirteen. Birgit, who was thirteen, wouldn’t have the same problem, and more than likely would put anyone who suggested that sex outside of marriage was a problem in their place quite forcefully. And she could, because in the end, in our context, it didn’t matter the way it did for Aisyah in her context.

I found Aisyah’s thinking a bit contradictory, but I was the LAST person to hold that against someone, as I held a number of seemingly contradictory positions which made sense only in the context of my syncretic worldview. Aisyah, on the other hand, saw herself as an adulteress, while stating she had no regrets about her actions, and lamenting that those actions had made Muslim men view her as ‘damaged goods’.

The other apparent contradiction was wanting to marry a Muslim man and bear children for him, but at the same time, contemplating a non-traditional marriage to me, with me fathering children for her, and them being raised as Muslims. My understanding, as rudimentary as it was, was that Islam insisted that she could only marry a Muslim man. The problem with that went right back to what she’d done at thirteen.

Ultimately, there was no good solution for her, unless she could find a Muslim man who would overlook her past ‘transgressions’. Bethany had once accused me of harboring similar thoughts, and that accusation, once formed in Bethany’s mind, had sown the seeds of destruction for our relationship. In my mind, Natalie proved the point, in that I would easily accept her as a ‘wife’, despite having been with Jack after she’d been with me, and before we resumed our physical relationship. Her desire to marry and have kids, albeit in the distant future, was the only thing which prevented it.

Aisyah’s request, albeit with a built-in fifteen-month delay, carried all kinds of practical and logistical challenges, assuming she could come to a mutually satisfactory agreement with Kara, and that Jessica and Suzanne agreed. Aisyah’s statement that she had to work things out with Kara drove home what I, and others, had been saying - Kara was the ‘Senior’ wife and as such, was in control of all of my long-term relationships.

But even before all of that, I needed to find out who it was who had broken «omertà». And it was, actually, worse than I’d originally thought, because for Aisyah to know that Kara was my ‘Senior’ wife, someone had to do more than just talk about The Club. When that conversation occurred would be important, as would the overall context.

There were, really, only a few people who were completely ‘in the know’, one of whom was Charlie, and Aisyah had already denied speaking to her. It certainly had to be a female, as I couldn’t imagine Aisyah would speak with a guy on that topic. Whoever it was, and I had my suspicions, was going to be in serious trouble.

Setting that aside, I had to ask myself about my relationships, and if I wanted to extend my core family beyond my traditional three women. There was also the question of the Inner Circle, and the parameters I’d set, and, finally, the ‘dalliances’ and ‘random deflowerings’ which always seemed to present themselves. Leigh was, in my estimation, very likely to leave the group, and that gave me an opportunity, if I wanted one, to restructure things. But that would be part of the conversation with my wives when I arrived home.

My thoughts returned to the beautiful young woman next to me, and how to handle the next fifteen months. No matter what, I’d have to tell Liz, but she would never rat me out, though I might get a short lecture about the risk I’d taken. The Board would be a different story altogether, and I had difficulty seeing them giving their approval in fifteen months if that was where things were headed. In the end, the only way it would work is if Aisyah left NIKA, something neither she nor I wanted.

One possible solution, which would achieve Aisyah’s goals and keep her working for NIKA, was if she were to find a Muslim man who could overlook her lack of virginity. I wondered if I could help her, but I was completely out of my element in her world. To even get started, I needed information, which meant speaking to someone with extensive knowledge, and that likely meant an imam. I wondered if Amir’s imam in Chicago would be able to help, at least with information, without trying to convert me.

Aisyah stirred and opened her eyes.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning,” she replied, sighing deeply and snuggling closer.

I kissed the top of her head and asked, “How are you this morning?”

“Very happy. I had no idea what it would be like!”

“Sex? Cuddling? Sleeping in each other’s arms?”

“All of it! May I stay tonight as well?”

“Absolutely. Let’s order breakfast, then decide what to do today.”

“You know my dietary rules?”

I did, and though she wasn’t overly strict, it was one more logistical challenge with her being wife number four. It was one thing to accommodate lunch with the Khans once a month, or allow Nada to cook for Fatimah, Yusef, and herself while they stayed with us when Amir had his trouble after the terrorist attacks. It was a whole different thing to create a permanent situation like that. But that was a question for later.

“Let me get the menu and you can choose for yourself.”

“Can it wait two minutes?” she asked.

I tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help myself.

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “That’s exactly what my eldest daughter says when we’re cuddling and have to get up from the couch to go to breakfast.”

“She’s a teenager, isn’t she?”

“Yes. I cuddle all my girls, but she’s the one who seems to need them the most.”

“Your relationships seem totally different from the ones I have with my parents and the ones they have with each other.”

“Different cultures,” I replied. “And that’s something you’d have to consider if you wanted to live in my home. Nobody else would follow the traditions which you follow. Though, I’m curious, what about your morning prayer?”

“I’m not ritually clean, so actually, praying would be worse than not praying.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Yes, but I made my choice, and made it obvious to you when I kissed you. What is it the Employee Handbook says? ‘When encountering a challenge for which there is no obvious solution, we improvise, we overcome, we adapt’. And I’ve heard you say that we’re paid to adapt and to improvise.”

She was actually quoting Clint Eastwood’s character, Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway in Heartbreak Ridge, and the quote in the Employee Handbook had the citation. There were citations in there from disparate movie and book characters, from Michael Corleone’s comment about keeping your enemies closer, to Sun Tzu, to Plato, to Yuri Zhivago, to Thomas Jefferson, and others, all of which had been carefully selected to convey some piece of the NIKA «kami».

“As it says,” she continued, “it strongly suggests we approach challenges in our own lives in the same way. I know you might not think it makes sense for a supposedly devout Muslim girl to offer herself to you, but I had no other way of truly expressing how I feel about you and how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me. And that’s true whether or not you would take me completely under your protection as a wife.”

That last line was, in the final analysis, the key to everything Aisyah had said and done, and explained her thinking exactly. In her culture, women needed protection. In her case, she was no longer living with her dad and had not married, which left her, in effect, alone and unprotected. In my way of thinking, she had one foot in each of two very incompatible worlds - one in 7th Century Arabia and one in 21st Century America. That was going to create irreconcilable problems, which Birgit had discovered in her conversations with Fatimah.

It was, in a sense, the same problem that I, and many others, had faced with regard to religion and faith, and also with the societal changes, with Jim Miller being a primary example of the latter. He’d chosen a solution similar to the one Michelle had tried - retreat to a place of safety and sanity. In his case, I felt a move to Japan would likely resolve his concerns, whereas hiding out in a monastery had not resolved Michelle’s.

My personality demanded that I stay and fight, and my spiritual needs required a syncretic solution, cobbled together with bits and pieces of various spiritual traditions. Each member of my family, and my closest friends, had found their own ways, some more accommodating mainstream culture and religion, and some more like me, mostly rejecting both in favor of my own solution on the ultimate questions about life, the universe, and everything.

For Aisyah, the die had been cast at thirteen, and she now found herself in a position where her needs contradicted her faith and tradition. In effect, something had to give, and that had been violating the tradition of marrying a Muslim man, something which, in my mind, was a good trade, with the proviso that any children would be raised Muslim. She’d made a slight misjudgment about me, based on her perceived view of my tolerance of Islam. While I was perfectly happy to coexist with Islam, I was not willing to live under its strictures, which meant, among other things, not keeping a «halal» house.

The solution which would resolve most of her problems was very likely unavailable - a suitable Christian man willing to convert to Islam. There wasn’t a single person I knew who fit the bill, and I doubted anyone I knew would know someone like that. Islam was, in the most traditional and conservative form, incompatible with the «kami» of America, and there really weren’t any concessions or adaptations available.

“Ready to get out of bed?” I asked.

“I suppose,” Aisyah agreed, again sounding very much like Birgit.

She disentangled herself from me, and we got out of bed. I walked over to the desk and picked up the room service menu and handed it to Aisyah. While she decided, I went to the bathroom and emptied my bladder, then returned to the bedroom where she told me what she wanted. I called in our orders, asking for them to be delivered in an hour, rather than as soon as possible.

“Why an hour?” Aisyah asked after I replaced the phone handset in its cradle.

She laughed when I took her hand and led her back to bed. We got in and I grabbed the K-Y, squirted some onto her palm, and then encouraged her to stroke me until I was hard. When I was fully erect, I moved her on top of me, and helped her position herself. I gripped my shaft and held it while Aisyah slowly sank down on me, removing my hand after the first few inches of my dick disappeared into her very tight pussy.

Aisyah groaned softly when her labia contacted the now bare skin of my groin, then without any prompting, put her hands on my chest and began rocking her hips. She brought herself off a few minutes later, then began moving up and down, stopping to grind her clit against me each time I was fully embedded. I moved my hands to her breasts, and strummed each nipple as she worked herself towards another orgasm, her tight walls providing intense pleasure all along my shaft, and squeezing my glans.

We had used up nearly thirty minutes of our time before I had an intense orgasm, bathing Aisyah’s walls with cum as she ground against me, bringing herself off once again. When both our orgasms had passed, I encouraged her to stretch out on top of me with me still inside her. She did as I requested and I wrapped my arms around her and held her while we exchanged gentle kisses. When I softened and slipped from her, we got out of bed and went to the bathroom for a joint shower, finishing just before room service arrived.

Aisyah waited in the bedroom while the waiter set up the breakfast table, as her modesty required her to do, even though we were both wearing robes. While the waiter set up, I took one of my fast-acting propranolol tablets, as I knew my blood sugar was likely still out of whack. When the waiter left, she joined me at the table to eat our breakfast.

“What would you like to do today?” I asked.

Aisyah smiled, “Anything you want!”

I chuckled, “Well, we do need to leave the room for a few hours to allow housekeeping to clean the room, replace the towels, and change the sheets on the bed. What about the Museum of Contemporary Art? It’s right on the plaza and you can see from the hotel restaurant.”

“Sure. I’ve never been there.”

“Nor have I.”

“Would you let me cook dinner for you tonight at my apartment?”

“Yes. You said you have a roommate, right?”

“Yes, Sosamma, a Syrian Christian girl. She attends Saint Nicholas Cathedral.”

“Antiochian Orthodox?” I asked.

“Yes! I’m not surprised you know about it. We met about four years ago, and decided to get an apartment together when my parents bought the house near Santa Barbara. She’s two years younger, and is engaged. They’ll marry next year in September.”

“How did you meet her, if I might ask.”

“Her grandfather and my grandfather worked together in Damascus, and when her family moved here five years ago, her grandfather asked my parents to help them. In Damascus, the Syrian Christians and Muslims got along fairly well until around the time Iraq invaded Kuwait.”

“So she was born there?”

“Yes, of course! She’s twenty-four and only came here four years ago.”

“How do your parents feel about you having a Christian roommate?”

“It’s not perfect, obviously, but we share Syrian culture and tradition, and our religious practices really don’t conflict except for what we can eat, and the religious images she has, which she keeps in her room.”

“Will it be a problem if she sees us together?”

“There’s little chance she’ll be there - she goes to a prayer service at her church, then spends time with her fiancé and his family. But even if she does, she’s the one I confide in the most, and she would never say anything to anyone, including me, unless I were to raise the topic.”

And that reminded me that Aisyah owed me an answer to my question about who had spoken to her and broken my confidence.

“Speaking of confidences, will you tell me who you spoke to? And everything they said?”

Aisyah frowned, “I don’t like getting anyone in trouble.”

“I understand, but it’s important for me to know for several reasons, especially given what’s happened the last few days, and will continue at least into tomorrow, violates my personal rules and NIKA policy.”

“Then why?” she asked.

I smiled, “Asks the young woman who violated her religious principles.”

“I understand the comparison, but would you tell me why?”

“First of all, nearly every rule has an exception, though one has to be very careful not to make too many exceptions to the rule, as well as properly analyze the risk associated with breaking the rule. In this case, it was something I very much wanted to do, and my analysis was that the risk of problems is very low. Second of all, other than my wives and one other person, nobody will know, and that other person is bound by law to never reveal any of my confidences.”

“Bound by law?”

“Liz Carullo, NIKA’s corporate counsel, but who also acts as my private attorney. Nearly every conversation with her is covered by attorney-client privilege, so nobody can ever force her to talk.”

“You tell her everything?”

“She needs to know who the girls in The Club are so that she can respond to any potential issues. That was important recently with an HR issue which I can’t really discuss, as well as some in the past, which I also can’t discuss.”

“What will she say?”

“Nothing, really. She’s a member of The Club.”

Aisyah laughed softly, “Well, that certainly changes things!”

“Yes. So, who?”

Aisyah’s smile changed to a frown, “Penny.”

Of all the people who should have known to keep her mouth shut, it was Penny. Of course, of all the people who might run their mouths and betray me, it was Penny who was the most likely candidate to do it!

“Thank you.”

“What will you do?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I do have to speak to her. Will you tell me about the conversation? First, why were you speaking? That wouldn’t normally happen given your roles.”