I think of that night in my house, lying in the dim gray dark with his hands on me and the incredible ecstasy he showed me, the gift of pleasure he gave me, all without taking anything for himself.
I want him. I need him. I want to kiss him until I am breathless, until I melt into him. Now, I have felt desire, and I have known what my body can feel under the tutelage of his hand and his lips, and I want it. I am not afraid. I want to know his love, his touch. I want…
I want to be bare to him. My skin layered over his, moving against his, my body whispering above his. I want this, this thing, this act.
For once in my life, I want to have sex. To make love. I need it with Hunter. It would bind us, bring our odd journey to completion.
Hunter pulls away when Derek clears his throat behind us.
“Sorry to break it up, you two, but we gotta talk.” I catch most of this from Derek.
Hunter struggles to sit up, takes my hand. He has an expression on his face which I take to mean he knows what is coming, although I do not.
Suran appears from nowhere, sidling up next to me. He reeks of cigarettes. He whispers a translation into my ear.
Derek pulls a chair up next me on the other side of Suran, facing it away so he straddles it. “She can’t stay here indefinitely, Hunt. You know that.”
Hunter nods. Fear hits me. He will send me away now. “Yeah. Sarge told you that?”
“No. Comes straight from the Colonel. Our little…escapade didn’t go unnoticed, you know. People are pissed. She’s a local, but she’s not connected to anything here. She’s just…here. Now that you’re awake, they want her gone, or something done.”
Hunter pinches the thin sheet between his fingers, rolls it. “I’m not letting her go, D. I’m not.”
“I know, bro. I talked to her while you were asleep. She told me her story, and man, she’s been through hell. And she loves you. You love her. It’s plain as day.” Derek glances at me, knowing I’m understanding and that Suran is translating. “There’s really only one solution.”
Hunter nods. “Yeah. I know. Go get the chaplain and some witnesses. Your team. Dusty and the boys.”
Derek nods. “You got it.” He rises, glances at me again, and then at Hunter. “You sure about this?”
Hunter just nods, staring at the blanket. “Sure as shit, D. Give us a minute.” The last part was aimed at Suran, who bobs his head and vanishes.
Hunter takes my hand in his, rubs a knuckle with his thumb. “Do you know what’s happening?”
I shrug. “I think yes. I cannot stay. I am not American, not worker, not translator. So I go.”
Hunter frowns, brow wrinkling. “No, Rania. I mean, yes. You can’t stay since you’re not...well, they want you go back to…to go back. But there’s a way you can stay.”
I glance up at him. Hope hits me like pain. I do not want to hope, but it is hard not to. “What way is this? You will not send me away?”
He pulls me down to perch on the edge of the bed, wraps his arm around my waist. “No, Rania. No. You can stay if you marry me. Come back to the States with me.”
Shock rocks me. “Marry?” I am not sure I heard him right. I switch to Arabic. “Be your wife?”
He nods. “I…don’t have a ring,” he says in English. “But…I’ll give you one, as soon as I can. It’s not just a way for you to stay, though. It’s what—I want you to be mine.”
I shake my head, disbelieving. “You…you want me, always? I have nothing. No one. If you take me to America and then do not love me, where will I go? Back to whoring?”
Hunter touches my cheek, kisses my chin. “I will always love you. You saved me, Rania.”
I shake my head. “No, you have saved me.”
“We saved each other, then,” he says.
I smile my agreement.
“So you’ll marry me?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, shedding a tear. “Yes. I will.”
Derek returns with the other soldiers I recognize from Hunter’s rescue, and another man, older, with the soft, gentle face of a religious person, not a killer’s eyes, but peaceful ones. He is a priest, or an imam. Something. A holy man, but I do not know the English word. I think, make myself remember. Chaplain, Hunter said. That is the word. The chaplain holds a thick black book, a religious book. Not the Q’uran, but the Christian book. The Bible.
Hunter struggles to his feet, stands facing me, takes my hands in his, with the chaplain in front of us. We are in the hospital in the American base. Camp Fallujah, I think it is called. They referred to it as something else, three letters. M-E-K, or something like that. My knowledge of the English letters is next to nothing, and it does not matter. Hunter’s eyes are soft on mine, blue as the ocean in the photographs I have seen in the magazines and stores, blue as the sky on a hot day. He is smiling, calm and confident and reassuring me.
Fears pulse through me. Marriage is for always. To marry is to belong to that man. I have never belonged to anyone. I have never wanted to belong to anyone. I am my own. I survive. And now this American whom I have known for only a few weeks has swept me away from the only life I know, and I am marrying him. It seems mad, foolish, rash. But…it is right. It is what I want. I want to belong to him. He will not hit me, as I know many husbands do their wives. He will not make me take the hijab, I do not think. He will not make me continue to be a whore. He will not let me continue to be a whore, I think is more true. He wants me all for himself. I do not know why, but he does.
I swallow hard, my throat thick and tight and dry.
The chaplain speaks, and Suran translates.
“We are gathered to witness the marriage of this man, Hunter Lee, to this woman, Rania…” He pauses and glances at me, then Hunter, and I realize he wants my last name.
I hesitate. I have not thought of my family name in a very long time. In the end, it does not matter.
“Only Rania,” I say.
“To this woman, Rania,” the chaplain continues, “in the bonds of holy matrimony…”
He says many other things, regarding the sanctity of marriage and the bride of Christ—which I do not understand, since Hunter is Hunter, not Christ—and then he asks Hunter to repeat after him, and there is an embarrassing moment in which the chaplain is made to understand there are no rings, but I do not care for such things. I have never owned jewelry, and have never expected to. And then the chaplain asks me to repeat after him.