Forbidden

“Remember, Jayden, you’ll get your womanly jewelry tonight,” Leila said.

“There are times, Jayden, when a woman’s emotions run higher and fuller than the waves on the Gulf of Akabah, threatening to drag her to the bottom and drown her.”

“Remember, Jayden, you’ll get your womanly jewelry tonight,” Leila said.

“There are times, Jayden, when a woman’s emotions run higher and fuller than the waves on the Gulf of Akabah, threatening to drag her to the bottom and drown her.”

I continued dancing, trying the various steps and movements my mother had taught me over the years. The ancient dance filled me with a pleasure I’d never known before. Time seemed to stand still, and I knew that the universe was watching this moment. My moment.

When the drumbeats grew louder and faster, the other women all rose to their feet to join me in the final moments of the music. I watched their hips and my own become loose and flowing, moving into rapid, frenzied shimmying.

I could have sworn my body started to glow as if light were shooting from my fingertips and each strand of hair. The throbbing shimmy spread through my hips and thighs. I trembled with the power of it as though something mysterious and unearthly was happening to me.

“Stay strong, Rebekah, and you’ll do well.” As she rubbed my mother’s neck and shoulders to ease the tension, Nalla signaled for the rest of us to begin dancing.

The older girls began to roll their stomachs in undulating waves. Copying them, I realized that the rolling movement mimicked the labor contraction, the muscles squeezing to push the baby down.

I felt my own body responding to the strong, powerful undulation. My chest rolled backward then forward as my hips pushed in and out.

Closing my eyes, I pressed my legs together to form small, tight hip circles. Four to the right, and then four to the left. With each change of direction I increased the speed of the circles until my body began to warm up and loosen all the fear and grief I’d been holding in all day.
Then I brought my arms higher and clasped my hands flat together overhead. In this position, I began a series of hip thrusts, holding the rest of myself as still as possible. My mother had once shown me how to balance on my back foot while putting my front foot forward.
I practiced hip drops, bringing my hands down and holding them at my hip bone so I could experience the movement more fully. When I ended my dance with a series of final slow circles, there was a film of sweat on my forehead. Finally, I was tired—not from stress and grief, but from physical exhaustion.

“Is it selfish to want to be as beautiful as you are, Leila?”
She laughed. “Jayden, you’re more beautiful than you realize. Sometimes I’m envious of you.”
It was all I could do not to fall over in shock.

My mind reeled with desire I’d never felt before, accompanied by the despair that I was betrothed to someone else. I shouldn’t be daydreaming about any other boy this way, but I only wanted him to touch me again, even as a shadow of guilt crossed my conscience.