The Warlord's Son by Dan Fesperman Page A

in tandem. The word “commitment” never once came up, as it inevitably would have in America, yet Najeeb knew as well as Daliya that each further step took them closer to something that was beginning to look a lot like Destiny.
    They said a tremulous hello, then she removed her chador—a symbolic flourish that briefly took his breath away. At first their words were just as halting as on the park bench. Najeeb made tea, and conversation came easier. After a while, so did the little touches, and for all of Najeeb’s experience abroad he knew to move slowly, letting the newness thrill without overwhelming. Their slow, gradual progress only seemed to heighten the sense of seduction. Fingertips brushing forearms. The light pause of her hand upon his knee. Then their hands clasping, squeezing, one pulse answering another. A stroke of his palm across her cheek and a slow movement forward, the rustle of garments in the stillness, the smell of his hair. And, finally, a kiss, lips softer than Daliya had imagined.
    Events proceeded from there through three more such meetings until they reached the inevitable, both of them surprised at how easily and naturally they disrobed when the moment of truth arrived. Neither felt shamed or embarrassed afterward, and that, too, was a kind of victory, even if it took Daliya a full week to absorb the momentousness of what she had done. She had stepped past the point of no return.
    Now, three months later, here was Daliya once again, seated on the cushions in Najeeb’s living room. But instead of their usual oasis of solace and comfort, everything had changed, and for the moment there seemed to be nothing to do but huddle together and wait for the worst to pass. Without either saying a word, they also knew it was time to cross another frontier. This time, she would stay until morning, no matter how many lies and cover stories were necessary.
    Lately they had tended to rush their passions, partly because she could stay for only a few hours. But in the wake of a knife attack and a detainment by the ISI, what could possibly feel dangerous about making love, about sleeping together? So they moved slowly, much as they had the first time, with open eyes and lingering touches. Najeeb skimmed his fingertips down her long, slender legs—a glide across velvet, the phrase lodging pleasurably in his mind as the bubble of anticipation expanded. Later, still trying to keep his mind off the evening’s earlier events, he looked into her eyes, which stared back as steadily as ever.
    “Another blow against the extremists,” she said, smiling. “Doing our part for a more secular tomorrow.”
    Najeeb smiled.
    “You think that’s what this is? A political act?”
    “I think it has been all along,” she said, taking the idea to heart. “At some level, anyway. We’re spitting in the face of everything we grew up with. Do you know what my mother did when I started growing breasts?”
    He wasn’t sure he wanted to. He was still on uncertain footing in this new territory. New in Peshawar, anyway. But he shook his head and waited for the answer.
    “She used to make me stoop. After a lifetime of lectures about bad posture, she wanted me to stoop, so my breasts wouldn’t show. Then she started dressing me in the baggiest clothes she could find. And she bound me up. Wrapped me around the top until it hurt. I tried to help her, of course, until I realized how stupid it all was. So, sure, part of this has to be political.”
    Najeeb wasn’t sure whether to feel insulted or exalted. He wanted to believe that it was his rare appeal that had lured her across the threshold of taboo. Yet why not be part of something bigger, as long as it was this deeply pleasing. He felt the sweat drying on his back in a prickly band of salt. Daliya’s eyes shone like those of a small nocturnal animal, flushed from its burrow into moonlight, and a wave of tenderness overcame him, this time cleansed of desire. He pulled her closer,