Saudah looked down at the city lights.

It was a beautiful view from their flat. They lived on the 15th floor but to her, it seemed as if they were thousands of miles away from the city. She barely heard the raucous horns of the cars or the buzz of the streets just a few blocks down. The people below were nothing more than tiny, coloured dots as they went about their lives.

Coloured confetti of movement far below them.

But with everybody so far away from her, she felt lonely in their rather large flat.

They had been married for almost 5 weeks. They had gone on the most exquisite honeymoon and had come back to a beautifully furnished flat with everything inside it that she could possibly need. It wasn't as if its luxuries were new to her. She had grown up in opulence all her life but at least in her home, she had company. She was used to hugs from her parents and the sounds of a tantruming four-year-old that could be heard echoing throughout their house. She knew the scathing remarks of her brother whenever he happened to drop by while she was home and the loud conversations across the hallways of their domestic workers as they went about their work.

But she didn't know what silence was.

Riyaadh's rotation-based schedule left her alone 3 nights a week. By the time he walked in in the mornings, she was already putting on her make-up and zipping up her boots. But even when he was there, she barely felt his presence.

He ghosted in and out of the rooms with no more than a polite smile before he lost himself to his wondering mind once more. It was different than when they were on honeymoon. He was present with her. He was there.

He might not have touched her or spoke all that much but he actually listened.

Being back in this place did something to him. There were corners he had avoided and she would find his eye drawn to certain spots in the room before he snapped out of it and came back to her. She knew he had shared the flat with his first wife but she hadn't realised that they had brought his entire marriage back with him as soon as they entered the door.

"Hey."

Saudah jerked, steadying herself on the rails as she heard his voice right beside her.

"Hey." She turned to smile at him before she turned back to look at the lights below them. "You're home early." It was almost midnight, but she wasn't expecting him until 7 the next morning.

"Swapped shifts with Thando." Riyaadh replied, already reaching into his pocket for his pack.

"Oh." Saudah didn't know what to say. Over the past few days, conversation had been somewhat stilted between them. She truly didn't understand what had come over them. She hadn't even realised her face had dropped as soon as silence descended upon them once more.

Riyaadh had noticed it though.

He didn't like the way the corners of her mouth turned down or the way her eyebrows creased as she tried to figure out just what to say. "How was work?"

He was baffled at the surprised look on her face as soon as he asked her about the day.

"It was good." She replied cautiously, wondering if he was truly listening to her.

"Ya? What happened?"

She looked at him as if to ask if he was truly interested.

It caught him off guard. Had he truly never asked her about her day before?

"Filing, mostly." Saudah replied, hesitance still evident in her voice. She looked down, biting her lip as she drummed her fingers across the polished silver metal.

"Did it all get done?"

What was wrong with them?

"Ya."

"Oh, okay." He took a long drag of his cigarette, holding the smoke in for as long as possible in the biting wind before he let it all out, watching the delicate tendrils drift upwards into the open sky. He had always like it out there. It was so easy to disappear from everyone up there where no one bothered to look. They were too high up for anyone to truly see him and too far away for anyone to actually care. To the world below, it was nothing but the dark grey stripe atop a ridiculously overpriced block of flats. They didn't care further than to use it as a landmark to get to the highway.

He liked that. He liked knowing that no one ever knew he was there at all as he watched people get on with their lives below.

"Riyaadh?" She was looking at him now, no longer interested in looking down.

"Ya?"

He shifted his gaze to her, ashamed that he had done it once more. He had forgotten that she was even there at all.

She wanted to ask him what she was supposed to do. She wanted to know where he went to when he looked down at everything. She wanted to know him. She wanted to love him- the real him. Not the shadow that barely left an imprint on the wall before it disappeared once more.

She really wanted to ask him why he was always so sad.

But, she couldn't.

"I hadn't bothered filing things since our engagement. It sort of piled up and piled up until I couldn't find anything anymore." She said, knowing it was nothing more than a cheap attempt to keep him interested. "I found a spider underneath one of the stacks."

"Was it a big one?" He took another drag, simply enjoying the way her voice lilted as she spoke.

"Yeah. It was one of those rain spiders."

"So what did you do?" he looked at her curiously.

"It disappeared under another stack and I just..." she looked almost embarrassed as she looked back down at the rails. "I sort of banged the entire stack down, ran out and came home." She mumbled the last bit.

"So, it's still there?" his lips tilted up into a wry smile as he watched her change colours from her mocha brown into a dark red instead.

"I'm praying it's dead." She covered her face with her hands, irked at her dramatic behaviour.

"Do you want me to come with you tomorrow to check?"

Her eyes lit up at his question. "You'd really drive all the way to Melville to see if a spider is dead?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm off tomorrow, anyway."

He waited for her to reply, but after almost a minute of silence, he had to turn back to her to see what was wrong.

She stood on her tiptoes, brushing three quick half-kisses to the side of his cheek. She closed her eyes, mortified that she had kissed Riyaadh the way she had usually kissed her niece. "Sorry, it's how I kiss Sameera."

He chuckled, shaking his head at her. "It's okay."

"Anyway, it's cold. I'm going inside." Even the tips of her ears were red as she turned around, trying as hard as possible to rid herself of the embarrassment.

"Alright."

She stopped at the doorway, looking back at him once more. "Are you coming inside?"

He looked down at the stump in his hand, "Let me just finish this."

And like that, their easy conversation had come to an abrupt halt. She knew he wasn't going to go back inside. Not anytime soon...

One cigarette would become two and two would become a pack and before either of them knew it, he would be on that balcony for almost two, as he always was.

Her deep breaths could be heard by the time he entered the dark room. The bleak light of the half moon illuminated parts of her, cocooning her in an eerie glow. He knew he had disappointed her once more. He couldn't stop himself...

Every time he stepped into their flat, memories of Farhana would plague his mind. He could still see her laying on the couch, her long hair brushing the floor as she read a book or listened to whatever music. He always liked watching her as she sang softly along to a song, her eyes closed and her fingers painting lazy circles across her stomach. It was the only time he would ever see her truly relaxed and at ease. He would remember her walking barefoot through the lounge as she came to call him to bed, dropping her gown first, followed by her right strap of her nighty, then the left...

Then he remembered the bad things.

He remembered the fights and the screams. The way she would press against him as the smell of his own burnt flesh met his nostrils. The she would curl around him as she slept, keeping her hand over his arms as if to soothe the burns she had caused. He could remember the sound of skin against skin as she hit him or threw a plate at him whenever he had done something wrong.

Then he would close his eyes and wash it all from his mind until there was nothing but pitch black before him. Not the sound of her voice or the curve of her thigh or the feel of her against him.

Nothing.

And only once he could see the welcoming hues of pitch darkness, could he move again.

He climbed in besides Saudah, watching the way her chest rose and fell and the way her cheek twitched as she dreamt. She was beautiful, his wife.

She was truly, truly beautiful.

She opened her eyes as she felt his warmth beside her. She hadn't bothered to look at the clock behind him, knowing full well that it was past 3 or 4 in the morning but she was surprised to find his gaze etched to her body.

Maybe it was that she was tired of feeling as if she was alone in their huge bed even though he was right beside her.

She shifted just a little closer to him, curling herself into his body before she closed her eyes once more. He still smelled of smoke and his body was cold but she liked the feel of him against her. She felt his hand against her lower back, barely grazing her bared skin. She shivered as she felt his finger trace her spine. Softly at first. Just a simple motion of his fingertip against her spine before he pressed just a little harder as if looking for something on her back.

His fingertips were cold as he exposed more and more of her back beneath their covers but she didn't mind.

It was the first time had had actually touched her.

In 5 weeks, it was the first time he had touched her, and it done in the most beautiful, intimate way possible. She felt his lips brush over her head as the final vestiges of sleep pulled her back into her dreams and she closed her eyes to the feel of his entire body surrounding her.

Riyaadh loved the way she felt.

Her back was smooth and warm, and she shuddered ever so slightly whenever his finger so much as brushed over her spine. There were no raised bumps littering her spine or stitches where she had been sewn together or singed patches where a flame was taken to her skin.

She was just smooth and soft.

She was different to him.

And different to Farhana.

"Riyaadh, please help me." His wife looked like one of the dolls his little sister would play with. He couldn't possibly understand how someone like her could have ever fallen for someone like him. He was younger and much too shy compared to her. But she loved him none the less.

She turned around, lifting her hair over her shoulder to expose the zip in her dress as she waited for him to unzip her. He worked gently and delicately, enjoying the way every inch of her was slowly exposed to him as he lowered the zip further and further.

There was no slip or bra to impede his view of her.

He had unzipped it till the bottom, till just beneath the dip in her back. Farhana kept her hands over her chest, allowing her dress to stay up as she felt his fingers brush lightly over her spine. She closed her eyes, allowing him to rove over every bump that dotted her spine as if it were tattooed onto her. He pulled open her dress, looking for the first time at all the marks that had marred her skin.

"What is this, Farhana?" he asked, his voice breaking at the idea of it. He couldn't imagine anyone ever hurting her the way she had been hurt.

She shook her head, unable to truly tell him. "It's in the past," she said instead, trying to rid herself of the raw screams that would still echo through her mind.

She felt his arms around her stomach as he surrounded her in his warmth, simply holding her to him as if it would chase all the memories away.

"This feels nice." She smiled, leaning against.

"What?" Riyaadh asked against her ear.

"This. A hug." She leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder. "I never thought a hug could feel this way."

His arms loosened around her in shock. He couldn't fathom how anyone could grow up not knowing what a hug was. "Has no one ever hugged you before?"

She shook her head, unable to understand why he seemed so distressed about it. "It was normal for me." She turned her head to look at him, waiting for him to say something.

Anything.

He tightened his arms around her once more, holding her as closely to him as he could. "I'll hug you every day, okay." He whispered into her ear.

She beamed at the thought of it. She stretched her neck, brushing her lips gently over his cheek as she had seen so often in the movies she had watched on her neighbour's tv. She liked the way his stubble felt against her lips. She loved the rough, prickly feel to it and she loved how his cheeks took on a pinkish hue as she kissed him once more.

She turned around, stepping out of his hold as she looked up at him.

She wanted to feel what love felt like. She had seen glimpses of it as her neighbour fast forwarded the scenes. She wanted to know what it felt like. To have someone kiss her the way those women were kissed and have someone touch her the way those women were touched. No one had showed her true affection before Riyaadh and she wanted to know what that affection could feel like when it was culminated into its highest form.

She moved her hand, allowing her beautiful, white gown to drop beneath her breasts before she pushed it down her hips, looking at him as they heard her dress fall to the floor...