Tareq walks through Islamic Cairo like someone listening to ghosts argue softly behind thin walls—he doesn’t chase stories, he waits for them to lean too far out windows. By day, he guides small groups through labyrinthine medersas and shuttered khans, translating inscriptions nobody else remembers how to read aloud, spinning tales about lovers buried side-by-side whose names were chiseled off forever due to political shame. His clients think him merely poetic—but those closest know Tareq sees echoes bleed color onto cobblestones.At night, alone except for memory, he slips through alleyways only moon-fed cats understand, descending narrow staircases slick with dew until reaching his true sanctuary: a submerged riverside jetty strung with hand-folded papyrus lanterns dyed crimson-orange-blue, flickering gently upon the Nile's dark tongue. Here, sometimes accompanied by her—the woman whose laugh once startled pigeons across Sultan Hassan Courtyard—he speaks freely, pouring libations not meant for gods but lost beginnings. There was magic long before museums decided how it looked.His romance thrives in restoration—not conquest. When she cut her palm brushing shattered tile mosaic near Bab Zuweila weeks ago, he didn't flinch. He knelt instantly, cleaned blood away using rosewater soaked pad, bound wound with cloth embroidered with ayat al-kursi stitched invisibly at edges—all before telling her why such care mattered. Not because pain scared him, but because beauty interrupted deserved completion. She cried quietly later, saying no one had ever treated her hurt like sacred architecture needing reinforcement instead of erasure.Sexuality blooms slowly here—in shared heat pressed together during winter fog rolling inland off water, in mouths finding rhythm equal parts curiosity and ritual, tongues tracing scripture-like patterns mapped below earlobes. Consent isn't asked verbally—it's composed through sustained eye contact lasting three full heartbeats longer than comfort allows, followed by fingertip grazing forearm pulse point—if reciprocated, permission glimmers upward in eyelid flutter. Once given, lovemaking unfolds like manuscript being restored: careful layers peeled open, attention paid equally to damage and resilience.