The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

had been a graduation present from one of my uncles; the effect was to make the champagne taste metallic, but in a not unpleasant—and indeed rather exotic—fashion.
    “I got banged up at tae kwon do practice today,” Erica said. “We were sparring, and I was up against this woman who’s really quick. She nailed me right under the armpit. Here,” she touched herself, “I can feel it when I breathe. It’s a pretty good bruise.” She looked at me. I fingered my knee, following the scar left by my surgery. Then Erica said, “Do you want to see it?” I watched her, trying to determine whether she was joking; she did not seem to be. So I nodded, at that moment unable to trust my voice. I had thought she would merely raise her T-shirt; instead she pulled it off entirely and lifted one arm. I stared at her. I had seen her in a bikini before—indeed, I had seen her topless—but as she sat on my futon in her bra I felt I had never seen her so naked. Her body had lost its tan and appeared almost blue in the glow of the television, and she was even more fit than I had remembered. She seemed otherworldly; she could have sprung from the pages of a graphic novel. I commanded myself to focus on her bruise; it was dark and angry at the top of her rib cage, bisected by the strap of her bra.
    Without thinking, I extended my hand. Then I hesitated. She returned my gaze watchfully, but her expression did not change, so I touched her, placing my fingers on her bruise. She rested her hand on the back of her head as I traced the line of her ribs. I felt her skin break out in goose bumps, and I pulled her to me, embracing her gently and giving first her forehead, and then her lips, a kiss. She did not respond; she did not resist; she merely acceded as I undressed her. At times I would feel her hold on to me, or I would hear from her the faintest of gasps. Mainly she was silent and unmoving, but such was my desire that I overlooked the growing wound this inflicted on my pride and continued. I found it difficult to enter her; it was as though she was not aroused. She said nothing while I was inside her, but I could see her discomfort, and so I forced myself to stop.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “No, I am sorry,” I said. “You do not like it?” “I don’t know,” she said, and for the first time in my presence, her eyes filled with tears. “I just can’t get wet. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I held her in my arms, and as we lay there, she told me I was the first man she had been with since Chris—indeed, other than Chris. Her sexuality, she said, had been mostly dormant since his death. She had only once achieved orgasm, and that, too, by fantasizing of him. I did not know what to say. I wanted to console her, to accompany her into her mind and allow her to be less alone. So I asked her to tell me about him, how they had come to kiss, how they had come to make love. “You really want to know?” she asked. I replied that I did, and so she told me.
    I knew bits and pieces of their story from before; that night I received it whole. Something of it seemed familiar to me; later I would realize what seemed familiar was the emotion with which she spoke, an emotion similar to that which she evoked in me. I attempted to separate myself from the situation, to listen to her as though I were not both aching for her and hurt that—seemingly despite herself—her body had rejected me. I succeeded in this to an extent that surprises me still, when I think of it today. Their story remains vivid in my mind, but I will not recount it now. Suffice it to say that theirs had been an unusual love, with such a degree of commingling of identities that when Chris died, Erica felt she had lost herself; even now, she said, she did not know if she could be found.
    But as she spoke of him, her voice seemed to strengthen, and I felt her naked body soften and relax beside me. A liveliness entered her eyes; they ceased to be turned inward.