Ahmed sat back, hand rubbing his jaw, and when he looked up, Zulfi had wings.

The were just large enough that the tips extended either side of his broad shoulders, and more fuzzy than feathered, and couldn't possibly be physically used for flight. The edges of the wings lifted the back of the young man's shirt toward his shoulders so that the tails lay bare his chest.

"Did you think I was human?" Zulfi asked. His dark eyes gazed at Ahmed.

Ahmed nodded. "You look human...usually."

Zulfi sloughed off his shirt, there appeared to be a pair of stains on the pale fabric.  "You used to do this with older men?"

"Sometimes. I love my wives!"

"Of course you do. But, they aren't the only type of person you might love." Ahmed was about to protest when Zulfi amended, "or at least find attractive."

Ahmed nodded. Multiple wives may be recognized by his faith, and by extension recognized by the state, but multiple partners of different genders was another matter.

"You're not the most prepared to be safe."

"Usually--"

"Usually isn't enough for some of us. You could quite possibly have killed me."

"I do not have any diseases," Ahmed said firmly.

"You mean you don't have any diseases that endanger you or others with the same level of immunity. Most humans do."

Zulfi must be one of the Halfangels who knew or feared he was susceptible to diseases human were not effected by.  Ahmed had assumed him to be human, wanted to have sex with him, considered kissing him, and this simple and usual desire could conceivably kill him.

Why should they live closeted lives in fear of getting sick? Because they knew sickness without treatment meant death, and the state did not guarantee their access to treatment. The young man's point was well made. 

"Do you know that your immune system is so different?" Ahmed asked.

"Yes. Those of us who find doctors are tested at birth, and every year or so. I'm a Quatangel. My mother died of Bubonic Plague...just a few years ago."

"I see," said Ahmed.

"I need to wash."

Ahmed gestured towards the adjacent washroom.

As Zulfi turned away, Ahmed clearly saw his wings: mostly bone and skin covered by a coat of orange-brown hairs. Beneath the stem of each wing, were folds of reddened flesh marked by spots of blood. It seemed as if his body was too human to allow his wings to sprout without some tearing.

Ahmed imagined a scene in which he stood before a doctor with one of his children and a doctor pointed to x-ray images of a small torso with disfigured rib cage and something like an extra set of arms folded either side the spine. In this vision, the doctor suggested they may as well cut the wings off, they weren't any use, and they'd only cause problems with other children. Even if they wanted to keep the wings, the doctor recommended excising the extra folds of flesh; it would give folded wings less protection but make hygiene easier to manage.

  Zulfi returned from the washroom and Ahmed stood to meet him.

"Check the hall for me?" Zulfi asked.

Ahmed went to the door. He looked first to the peephole and saw no one. He turned into the room. Zulfi waited, shirt tied about his waist and wings still out, but folded such that only the arches were visible.

"Does it hurt?" Ahmed asked, "when they...come out?"

"It can, but it would probably hurt less if I didn't wait until it was involuntary." Zulfi smiled. His wings spread and fluttered back and forth. "They feel fine once they're out."

Ahmed nodded, then turned back to open the door. In the hall, he saw no one near. "It looks clear," he said. 

Ahmed closed the door, after Zulfi had left. It was hard not to think of the young man, even as Ahmed took a shower. But, eventually, he got to bed and fell asleep.

In the morning, the unfamiliar buzz of the wake-up call cause Ahmed to sit suddenly in bed. He took his notebook from the beside table and brought up his schedule. He was to breakfast with his wives, and later meet Orchid for an early lunch. There would be time to edit his opening speech and prepare for the debate. After the debate, there would be some time change for the more formal reception.

Ahmed dressed and went past Majnun's room to Victoria's. She was always usually first to rise in the mornings, and Majnun last. Ahmed knocked quietly at the door.

"Who is it?" Victoria called.

"It's me."

She opened the door. Ahmed saw that her hair was wrapped in a towel, and she was holding her robe closed at the chest. She dropped her hand as he came in.

"Sorry, did I disturb your shower?"

"I wouldn't have heard you if you had; I'd just finished."

"I can leave if you want, I only came over to talk for a while."

She nodded, walked toward a mirror where she let down her damp hair. "I don't mind if you stay," she said. She started picking at her hair with a comb. She looked to him from the mirror, nervous he thought.

Ahmed thought that men were more intimate in certain ways with mistresses than wives. He only shared a bed with his wives when it was theirs, and he never went into their bathrooms or showered with them. He had been raised to think it proper he give them each their own space, to think it fair. And liberal as Victoria's family was compared to his, she looked nervous. And then he thought, perhaps it was not so much nervousness as suspicion. He had not lately been visiting her room.

Ahmed walked across the carpeted room to stand behind Victoria. He looked over her shoulder into the mirror. She gazed up at him from there, her hand freezing beside her ear. Ahmed lifted Victoria's hair from her neck and kissed her skin.

Victoria's body leaned towards his. Her eyes, in the mirror, lowered. The comb dropped to the carpeted floor. 

Ahmed felt Victoria's fingers grasp his right hand. She pulled drew his arm around her and led his fingers to the tie of her robe.

"I want you, Ahmed," she said.

Her tea brown eyes rose again to look at him from the mirror. That gaze was more intimate than any touch, more penetrating. Ahmed felt she had found the portal to his soul.

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Secret: Sometimes I get intimidated by other writers and think my own work isn't good. But my opinion that this is indulgent filth is unaffected.