Chapter _ 2 Episode _ 3 "A love story between Raed and Nili. Stop here. I don't need to delve any deeper now."

On the following night, Raed did not come.

He had grown used to returning every other day, slipping into the house like a quiet breeze no one noticed. But his absence that night settled on Nelly’s chest with a strange heaviness. She felt something she had never known before—a small hollow in her heart, the very place his presence used to fill without her realizing.

After finishing her father’s care, she withdrew to her room, wrapped in a silence so thick that only his name could pierce it.

She sat at the edge of her bed, staring into nothingness, thinking of him more than she ever should, more than she ever used to. It was as though Raed’s absence had awakened something new inside her… something like longing, like yearning—perhaps even like love for the first time in her life.

---

The next night, the doorbell rang.

She hurried toward it with light steps and a heartbeat that refused to hide. When she opened the door, Raed stood there—but something in his eyes had changed, as if he were seeing Nelly for the very first time.

She wore a softly elegant dress that draped gracefully around her waist, a refined perfume resting on her neck—perfume that matched a femininity she had never shown before. Her long hair, falling loosely over her shoulders, looked like the final stroke in a painting she had unknowingly perfected.

Raed said quietly, with a mix of surprise and admiration,

“Good evening, Nelly.”

She replied with a new smile—gentle, warm, unsettling in its beauty:

“Good evening, Raed.”

They walked together into Kamal’s room. Kamal lay on his bed, his movement limited to his eyes, and every time they landed on Raed, they carried the glimmer of a long, silent plea—a plea from a man whose soul clung to life through the young doctor’s smile.

Raed approached him with a warmth brighter than usual.

“Good evening, Mr. Kamal… I hope you’re better today.”

He pulled the syringe from his bag and moved closer, Nelly assisting him with every step. Her closeness to Raed unsettled her; she hid it well, except for the slight tremor in her fingers.

When Raed finished, Nelly walked ahead of him toward the living room.

But this time, Raed stopped halfway… turned to her… and gently reached for her hand, holding it with a softness that felt like a first confession.

With a new tone—a tone of a man seeing a complete woman for the first time—he whispered:

“You look… incredibly beautiful tonight, Nelly. Truly stunning.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond.

He stepped closer… and closer… until there was only one breath between them.

Then he kissed her.

A kiss unlike any other—

hot… deep… carrying all the feelings both of them had buried for years, every longing neither dared to confess.

Nelly responded with a hungry fire, as if she had been waiting for this moment all her life—a moment that awakened her long-dormant womanhood.

She pressed into him, and they clung to each other—two bodies, two souls collapsing into one, as if finally finding a place to belong.

The kiss stretched into minutes—minutes in which the world outside disappeared and the world between them came alive.

Inside, Kamal lay on his bed.

He didn’t hear the door close… nor did Nelly come back right away.

He heard whispers… then a kiss… then breaths—heated, unsteady.

His expression shifted; tension crept into his face. He wasn’t suspicious… but he knew something unfamiliar was happening.

Meanwhile, outside, Raed and Nelly drowned in their stolen minutes.

Raed’s hand traveled her body with the hunger of a man discovering fire under his skin.

And Nelly trembled with desire, everything inside her collapsing before it.

He began to slip her dress off her shoulder…

They were inches from the point of no return…

But suddenly, Nelly stepped away.

She took one step back, breathing hard, her eyes distant—as though she had woken from a deep dream or surfaced from a momentary trance.

Raed looked at her, puzzled… then understood.

He said nothing.

He took a slow breath and walked out in silence.

Nelly closed the door behind him and leaned her back against it, her heart pounding so fiercely she couldn’t make sense of it.

As for Raed—

He walked down the street, wiping a red kiss from his lips…

unaware of the other kisses stamped across his chest, visible through the opening of his shirt—

signatures from a woman who no longer knew how to step back.

---

...... 

The next night passed with a slowness that felt like burning, and the longing inside them rose like a fire feeding on itself.

Raed began to look at Kamal’s injection appointment not as a medical duty, but as a moment the heart awaited before the hands did.

And Nelly counted the long hours, waiting for the night when Raed would ring their doorbell again.

Two nights later, Raed stood at the door, unusually unsettled.

He pressed the bell, his nervousness so palpable that he forgot his medical bag—the one containing Kamal’s syringes…

But he did not forget to wear a new shirt, to spray himself with Gala, or to comb his glossy hair with the precision of a man heading to a date of the heart, not of medicine.

Nelly opened the door…

but she was not the Nelly he knew.

She was a fully-formed woman—dressed in something that drew the eye, revealing more than she had ever allowed to be seen, as though she were waiting to relive what had happened between them… or perhaps she had been replaying it endlessly for the past two days.

Raed stepped inside and she closed the door behind him.

She noticed his tension when she asked about the missing bag.

Before he could explain, she answered with a confident smile:

“We have some syringes here.”

They entered Kamal’s room, and Raed began the injection, but his haste was blatant tonight—even Kamal sensed an unease he could not understand.

They stepped out into the living room…

and time froze at their very first step.

They moved toward each other in a silence known only to lovers, and the kisses erupted again—hot, ravenous, as if imprisoned for years and finally freed.

Nelly was wilder this time… the hunger of a woman overpowering the quiet composure she once carried.

And Raed—he was a man discovering his own body for the first time, shedding the weight of all his years.

It was not only Kamal’s illness and his inability to move that made them feel safe…

It was a desire strong enough to shatter every boundary.

Within minutes, their clothes had vanished, as if their bodies rejected the restraints that had chained their emotions for so long.

Nelly had never been with a man before.

And Raed… had never been with a woman.

Under the weight of passion, they lost their virginity in a moment neither fully grasped…

for the depths of love are not measured by reason, but by the free fall into it.

Inside the room…

Kamal heard the sounds rising—whispers, kisses, the unmistakable rhythm of pleasure.

A helplessness harsher than illness carved itself onto his face.

He tried to rise… tried to lift his hand… tried anything.

But his body betrayed him.

He fell from the bed.

He began crawling on his knees, teeth clenched in pain and determination.

His movement halted, then resumed, and the lines on his face deepened as though engraving his agony.

He crawled until he reached the threshold of the room…

He lifted his head slightly…

And saw them.

Lost in their pleasure, bodies intertwined, a desire breaking the sanctity of the home and the weight of the years.

He stared at them for seconds, then crawled back inside—broken, not by illness… but by the truth he witnessed.

In that moment, Nelly glanced over Raed’s shoulder and saw Kamal retreating into his room…

But she did not stop.

She continued, as if nothing had happened, until the wave of passion had run its course.

She dressed, Raed dressed, and he left.

She closed the door behind him…

but she did not enter Kamal’s room that night.

She went to her own, removed her clothes, lay on her bed, the strange warmth still running beneath her skin.

As for Kamal…

He lay on the floor of his room, movement slowly returning to his hands.

He tried to climb back into bed and failed, so he sat with his head resting against its edge, gasping for breath—breaths that burned with more than pain.

---

The next night, Nelly stepped out of her room, a joy radiating from her—

a joy she had never known.

She entered Kamal’s room wearing a revealing nightgown that did not resemble the modest woman she once was.

She found him sleeping on the floor.

She said lightly,

“Looks like you saw everything yesterday… I forgot to lift you back onto the bed, that’s all.”

She approached him and, with difficulty, lifted him back onto the mattress.

Kamal opened his eyes for a moment… looked at her… then closed them again quickly.

Nelly walked out, whispering to herself:

“What did we do last night?… I can’t believe it. I felt drunk…”

But she was drunk on love, not alcohol.

She murmured to herself as she headed toward the bathroom, her expression shifting back to sorrow:

“Raed loves me… He’ll marry me… There’s nothing to worry about, Nelly.”