If you want to read this read the previous post first

Part of chapter 4
The Honeymoon

Sofia had taken 2 weeks leave to be with Frank on a holiday. They booked a chalet in Pulau Tioman where Frank had been the last time he came to Malaysia.

Sofia sat on the beach watching Frank do some snorkelling. She did not like to be in the sun this late in the morning knowing the sun would darken her skin too much . Earlier on she had also done some snorkelling, wearing a swimwear that covered her completely, a swimwear designed for Muslim ladies who wanted to swim while not exposing themselves in skimpy swimsuits.
" Farid, how I love you.," she thought. " I never knew how much I could love a person. It scares me , this love. I have made myself so vulnerable. It is as if a piece heart was in your hands and you have the power to hurt me because you have this piece of my
heart.What am I to do when you tire of me, as surely you might, Farid. You who has been so free before, you who did not want to be tied down..I am tying you down. How long before your heart becomes restless and your wandering soul wants to wander again?" Frank came out of the water , watching with the far away look in her eyes and he knew she was lost in her thoughts.

"Penny for your thoughts ,"he said as he sat down beside her, in the shade of a tree at the far end of the beach.

" I was thinking of you. What magic have you worked on me Farid, that I love you so much?"

"Sofia, don t love me too much ."

" Then tell me how not to and tell me why I should not love you too much."

Frank answered her question with a question, "Why do you love me so much Sofia?"

" I was a flower bud, half closed and then you came and I bloomed. You evoked in me emotions I never knew existed, depths of being I never thought possible.You brought out a part of me I never knew existed. I feel like I was dead and you brought me to life, and you did it with your love, your respect for me, and your gentle caring. I have never been treated by anybody, not by any man in my life the way you treat me. You make me feel cherished, you gave me a sense of who I am, you stopped me from undervalueing myself ." Sofia s tears were flowing freely now and her voiced cracked as she confessed to him the depth of her love for him..

Franks was solemn and he silently held her hand and wiped her tears with his other hand and kissed her salty cheek.
He thought," This beautful exotic creature has never felt the love and appreciation she deserves in all of her 35 years?
How cruel, how unfair that this noble gentle lady had been allowed to live 35 years of her life without knowing real love."

" Why can t I love you too much Farid?"

" Because Sofia, I do not want you to be hurt too much.What if something happened to me, you d be so devastated. I don t want that to happen."

" Then what do I do not to love you too much?"

" Learn to love God , Sofia. and learn to love you inner being, your own beautiful self so that you would not need me to realise who you are."
" How will I do that, Farid, I ve been trying to understand how to love God, I can feel sometimes a closeness but then I cannot relate to God as much as I would like to."

" You will learn Sofia. We will see my spiritual teacher and he ll teach us both. "

" I did not know you had one, and where is this teacher?"

" I met him when I was in Indonesia a few years ago, and he is Muslim. I had not converted back then but this teacher still took me as his student and taught me to reach within myself and taught me how to surrender my will to God's. ...why do you think I pursued my obsession with you and became Muslim? I did a lot of soul searching and something that you said made me understand that you were part of what God planned for me. When you said my depression was because I did not want to let go of a part of me in order to grow, I knew you were right, so I allowed myself to grow and to come back to you."

" So perhaps you don't love me as completely as I love you."

" Sofia, you re the only woman I have ever loved. I m not counting my mum of course because that is a different kind of love. I ve never been in love before unless you count when I was 5 years old and I saw this lovely woman come out of the river.I also have friends whom I love, men and women, and, I love other things, like I love my work and I love God..I love God more than I love anything else and there will be times when I would want solitude, times when I would want to be working and times when I would want to go out with my friends, time spent away from you but it does not mean I love you any less for all this."

Sofia nodded her head. She had the reassuarance she needed and she knew he was being truthful and honest with her as well as telling her of all the things that they could share while living their own lives independent of each other." What about my son?"

" Saiful? Of course I love him. How can I not love my stepson. We will spend time together .One of the things I regret not marrying early is not having a teenage son and now I ve got one! By the way, when do we have to go to fetch him and stay at your parent's? We ve been here a week already and I m feeling quite cut off since there is no coverage here for my mobile phone."

"We' re booked till tomorrow and we don' t fetch him, we ll meet him at my parent's house. His midterm break starts day after tomorrow and he ll go back by bus. I 'm working again in 6 days time so we' ll have to go back to my house next Saturday so that I can settle down again before starting work . Are you going to the press office soon?"

" I ll wait until you go back to work. I m going there to see if I can do some freelance work for them. I m not interested in a full time job and I can still sell articles to my old international magazine. I m thinking of concentrating on my book but I ll see what else I can do from here. Sofia are you afraid I ll take off ?"

" Farid, I know you do not like to stay in one place for every long, you get restless and you want to travel again. If you do want to travel, I ll understand , and I' ll wait for you , as long as you do come back to me."

" We ll see what happens Sofia. I cannot really tell you what is going to happen. My life is changing radically and has been since I became Muslim and then married you. I feel different , I do not know which part of me is going to remain , whether the need for change is going to come back. Right now I just want to be with you.Sofia, you worry too much about the future, why can t you live in the Now. Now you are here with a man you love very much and who loves you very much. Now we are enjoying the sea and the sun and each other. Now we 're at peace and we feel the joy of Being. Let us thank God for the blessings of Now, let us glorify God and feel the true joy that bubbles from within ourselves" When he said this he held both of Sofia's hands in his and looked at her with such a deep love and passion that she felt joyful energy coarsing through her body and expanding her heart with it's sheer joy.


next ....the betrayal......