Jamila Hafeez

Jamila is the mother of the Main Character's best friend, Omar. She also has five other children that are never shown, only one has been mentioned by name, a girl named Samira whom is said to be 23. Since Omar is the only one still living at home, he is probably the youngest.

MC spent much time there as a child and teen and often stayed over. He sees Jamila as a second mother and often calls her "Mom". The feeling is reciprocated as Jamila often refer to MC as her "son", despite no biological relation. When not calling him "son", she often calls him "habibi", an Arabic word that means "sweetie" or "my love" and can be used both between family members and between romantic partners.

Jamila is a muslim and wears a hijab when outside home. (She often wears it at home as well as she is so used to it that she forgets that it is there.)

She is close friends with Allison since before MC was born and has, according to her own statement, actually changed diapers on MC when he was an infant, even further reinforcing their mom/son relation. (Given that MC is the same age as her youngest, she was obviously already quite accustomed to infant care at that point.)

Last year, Jamila's husband since 32 years, Hakim, left her for his secretary. They have not divorced, they are just separated. In any case, Jamila does not want him back and has changed the locks (according to MC, her husband "mostly drank, yelled and gambled" anyhow). Her only regret seems to be that he doesn't like any contact with their children either. Despite this, she still wears her wedding ring.

While Jamila's and MC's relationship starts off as the old "mom"/"son" dynamic, it slowly becomes more and more sexual until they finally consummate it with a whole night of penetrative sex. Once they have started to be openly sexual, Jamila seems to delight in trying to make Allison jealous in order to push her into a sexual relation with MC as well.

As it happens, Jamila is quite accident-prone, she first burns both her hands badly (she grabbed a smoking frying pan in a panic) and later manages to break both her hands and both her feet at the same time (she fell off a ladder). Both times, she is rendered temporarily incapable of caring for herself (as her hands are bandaged/plastered and useless) and even becomes completely bedridden after the second injury. Luckily for her, the MC is happy to invert the caregiving roles and care for her. This includes some rather intimate services that kind of starts the slope towards more sexual relations. Among these is the revelation that Jamila has a hormone imbalance that makes her lactate despite not nursing a baby. MC has to help her milk out the excess, first by hand but he soon turns to using his mouth instead. Nursing then becomes a staple of their sexual relationship.