Love in Color: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold(10)

Now, however, looking at Shahryār across the kitchen island and seeing how he saw me, eyes blistering through me, I realised that there was no way I could be protected from this, and, worse still, I didn’t want to be. He shook his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up in the process. ‘Let’s talk about it, Scher.’

I twitched a shoulder and blinked innocence at him. ‘Talk about what?’

Shahryār shrugged. ‘Talk about how my toothbrush is in your bathroom. About how I keep the yoghurt that you like to eat for breakfast in my fridge.’

‘That kind of seems like a boring topic of conversation . . .’

‘Okay, here’s the thing: I like this. I like us. I think you like this and you like us too. I think this could be a lot easier if you stopped sabotaging and manipulating yourself out of it. I know you told me that you hooked up with someone else thinking I’d get mad and end this, but I won’t be the one to do that. It has to be you. I’m not a political pawn that you can mould and shape; I am a man who is in love with you. You can’t do what you do out there in here,’ he gestured to the space between us. ‘In here it’s us. In here it’s sacred. You and me. Don’t insult us by doing that. If you want to call it quits, then do it, but I won’t let you make me do it. If you want to walk out right now, do it, but you’re not going to make me push you out. I thought this was a love story, but if it isn’t, tell me I’m wrong. If I’m right, though, I can promise you that it will never end with me leaving you. I will want you forever.’

I stared at him across the table with my eyes glistening. I hadn’t known my tear ducts still worked until then. What a way to find out.

‘The two other women don’t exist, do they?’

‘You tried to find them, didn’t you?’

‘Asshole. That was very clever.’

He smiled. I cleared my throat. ‘This is my kitchen. I can’t walk out.’

Shahryār nodded, and drew back his chair. ‘So tell me to leave.’

I pushed my own chair back and moved around to his side of the table, placed myself on his lap and kissed him deeply, tasting the herbs and the spices and him. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in flush. I rested my forehead against his. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not good at this.’

He pushed my hair from my face. ‘I’m not either. Let’s learn together.’

I nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s do that. I hated kissing him. And I didn’t let him feel my boob. Not even once. I just thought doing it would make me un-fall in love with you.’

Shahryār brought my lips to his once more, softly, sweeping his thumb against my jaw. ‘How did it go?’

‘My first failed mission.’

‘I am supportive of all your endeavours and I am proud of you for being incredibly successful in everything you do, but I’m glad to hear that. I hope every time you try to un-fall in love with me you fail. And I know you’ll probably try it a lot.’

I started unbuttoning his shirt. ‘Hmm. You’re probably right.’

‘Can we agree not to kiss anyone else apart from each other now?’ He tugged at the belt of my wrap-style sweater dress.

I laughed into his mouth. ‘Sure. Sex is okay, though, right?’

‘Of course.’



I didn’t like doing things I wasn’t good at, but it turned out I loved learning how to love with him.

I’d told him everything about myself; not on purpose, it just happened. It was a natural reaction to the ease I felt around him and it was irresistible, being that free. It felt so good that I didn’t trust it and I treated it like a vice, when actually, maybe it was good for me? Maybe it was a good thing I deserved to have? It just felt too good, too fairytale, too storybook, too too, because I wasn’t used to it. My constitution had to adjust to it.



The transition from not knowing him to knowing him was a seamless transfiguration. Pieces of me fell into place; I was growing into what I should be. We were growing. It wasn’t as if our love built me, it’s that it galvanised me, making me stronger because he saw me fully, the best parts and the worst parts. I kept count of the nights we slept in the same bed. He was the first man that I’d ever allowed to sleep over and sleep over and sleep over, and it seemed to me, at first, such a remarkable, unexplainable phenomenon that I had to retain a tally. I thought that, at some point, I would get bored. Deep down I believed that, at some point, he would get bored. 1,001 nights. Each one felt unique, even in the growing comfort and familiarity; it was a widening tapestry and a deepening of our story. We were building our world. Some nights we would talk with words, others just with our bodies, developing our language, discovering new ways to say I love you; I see you, I hear you, me and you. A lot of nights, we would just collapse into bed silently and curl up into each other, and often those were the nights I understood most how staggering the thing between us was. I fell asleep so deeply next to him, safe and content. I never thought I could have a peaceful sleep with someone else by my side. 1,001 nights. About two years and seven months of what I reckoned would be a two-week fling. 1,001 nights in your arms and each one felt like a great eternity. I felt like there was an infinity within our affinity, that our connection was so deep and so fathomless that there was no way we could be bound by something as mundane as dawn. We were our own suns.