“God…goddamn.” He is breathless, amazed, flushed.
I feel a thrill of something powerful inside me, hot and swelling through every inch of me. It is a pleasantness, happiness. He liked it, and so did I. I made him feel good, and I felt a joy in return for having given it to him. I feel content.
He laughs, a low rumble in his chest. “Shit, now I’m a mess.”
I look at him, at the thick river of white seed on his belly. “I will clean it.”
I go to the bathroom not far away, wet some paper towels, and return to the bed.
“I can do it,” Hunter says, reaching for the towels.
“No,” I say. “Let me. Please.”
He drops his hand and watches me as I scrub the seed from his flesh, folding the towels and wiping until he is clean, the fine curly hairs low on his belly damp and sticking to his skin. I throw the paper towels away and lie down next to him again. He drapes the blanket over us and pulls me across him.
“Rania, that was—”
I kiss him, and he goes quiet as we kiss. “It is a beginning,” I say.
FIFTEEN
HUNTER
All the paperwork has been signed. She’s officially Rania Lee now. Goddamn. I’m a married man. Crazy.
I’m officially honorably discharged and we’re on the way home. Well, back to the States. I haven’t mentioned to her that I don’t have an actual home yet. If it was just me, I’d probably bunk out on Derek’s parents’ couch, but that’s not an option. Too many questions.
Derek. Fucking Derek re-upped. Says he wants to make sergeant. I could kick his ass for splitting us up like this, but it’s his choice, I guess. It just sucks. This will be the first time since goddamned second grade that Derek and I won’t be doing the same thing together. I’m going home to make a life with my wife, and he’s staying behind to do another tour in the clusterfuck that is OIF 2—maybe Afghanistan next, if the scuttlebutt is true.
We’re on a plane headed west. Rania is in the seat next to me, clutching my hand so hard I think she might actually be bruising bones. I don’t blame her. We’re in the middle of an awful goddamn thunderstorm and the plane is bucking like a roped steer. Poor girl’s first plane ride, and it’s the roughest one I’ve ever been on.
I need to distract her.
“Hey, Rania.” She turns to look at me, teeth clenched, eyes wide. “So when we get to Des Moines, we’re gonna look at houses. That’ll be fun, right?”
She just looks confused. “Look at houses? What does this mean?”
“It means we’re going to pick out a home.”
“I thought you said we were going home.”
I shrug. “I just meant the city, Des Moines, where I grew up. I don’t have a place of my own. I joined the Marines out of high school, so I never had a place.”
“So we are alone together with no home?”
“Yeah, baby. It’s just you and me. We’ll find a nice place together.”
“Baby? I am not a baby.” She wrinkles her nose.
I laugh. “No, I know. It’s…a term of endearment.” She gives me a blank look. “It’s like ‘honey’ or ‘sweetie.’”
She still doesn’t seem to know what I mean.
I laugh and shake my head. “It just means I love you.”
“If you say so,” she says. “But it is strange, to call the woman you love as a baby. But then, Americans are strange.”
“It is kind of weird,” I agree. “I never thought about it before. I guess it’s a cultural thing. We call each other pet names. It’s a way of…showing affection, I guess.”
She nods. “Ah, now this I understand. Like to call a son or a little brother ‘habibi,’ even if he is no longer a little boy.”
I nod. “Yeah, basically.”
She changes the subject. “So we will choose a home together? Do they not cost much money in your country?”
“Yeah, but we’re not going to buy it outright. I have a good bit of money saved up, and I know the loan officer at a bank in town, so we’ll get a good deal. We’ll have a nice place.”
“If you say so.” The plane hits a rough patch of turbulence, and she shuts down, clenching my hand again.
I let her crush my fingers and try to imagine having a home of my own, with Rania. It’s a nice image.
* * *
I lease a furnished condo in the downtown area on a month-by-month basis until we find somewhere permanent. Rania has no clothes, nothing of her own, so the first thing I do is take her shopping. At first she just wanders between the racks at Macy’s, looking puzzled.
Eventually she stops and turns to me. “What am I supposed to do? There are too many things here.”
I laugh. “Pick what you like. Pick a bunch of stuff that you like and try it on. Keep the stuff that fits you good and looks good, and leave the rest.”
She takes a skirt off the rack, then puts it back. She does this a dozen times. “I do not know what I like.”
In the end, I ask one of the Macy’s associates to help her, and she ends up with a bunch of nice outfits. She’s wearing one of them now, a skirt fitting tight around her hips and thighs and loose at the ankles. The top is a button-down blouse that accentuates her frame without being too revealing. I was careful to make sure none of the clothes even remotely resembled her old outfits, all miniskirts and low-cut tank tops. Everything is tasteful and modest, skirts down to her knees, at least, tops that don’t show too much cle**age. I get her bras and panties, makeup, pajamas, shoes, sandals, shampoo, conditioner, all the stuff I know girls like.
Rania seems overwhelmed. “Why do I need all these things? I have never had any of this. A little makeup, some clothes to wear. All this…it is so much.”
I laugh. “You don’t need it. But I want you to have it. It’s just stuff.”
“More stuff than I have ever owned in all my life. You should not waste so much money on me.”
I lean across the cab and kiss her. “It’s not wasted, Rania.”
“If you say so.”
I growl. That’s her fall-back phrase when she disagrees but won’t say anything else. “Rania. Seriously. Disagree with me sometimes. Don’t just accept whatever I say. I want you to tell me your opinion and stick with it. If you don’t like what I’m saying, tell me. If you think I’m wrong, tell me.”
“You are my husband. It is my duty to support you.”