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This story is about an adult subject. If you are under 18
and happen to read this, talk to an adult afterwards. And ask lots of questions. Part 5 Early dawn in Lavassan "This is Zari Khanom, my good old friend" March 1, 2002 The Iranian It felt good to take the road inside and up the Alborz Mountains -- it was the only direction to take if you wanted to rise above the smog. Ten minutes and five turns into the ride the air became cooler, cleaner. All thoughts of Jafar slipped form my mind as did the last trace of the techno beat from the basement disco at Roya's. We were driving in the cool morning air of the mountains that I had grown up watching and it felt like they were welcoming me with open arms, cradling me in their rocky embrace. Neither the majestic Rockies nor the beautiful Sierras nor the always snowcapped Alps ever made me feel this way. The way the Alborz Mountains stand up in naked splendor from the asphalt of the city, suddenly, to such heights, gives them a breath taking and primeval presence. Tehran spreads every which way, regimes come and go but the mountains remain the same reminding us of the happy resilience of nature. It took a while to leave the party. We danced for a couple of hours and were sweaty and exhausted. Jamshid agreed to take me to Lavassan. A more than tipsy Leila dragged a reluctant Jafar home. The others all drifted their separate ways. But I called Goli intent on keeping the night going. I always seemed to have an excess of energy even when I was little -- always staying up longer than all the other cousins on family trips. Goli told me that she would be delighted to see us -- she always stayed up late anyway. Jamshid was her cousin. They had grown up together. It was early dawn when we reached Goli's place in Lavassan. A sleek chalet built into the side of a cliff with the same purple hued stones as the mountains. We rang the doorbell and Goli opened the door. She had no make up but her smile was just as radiant in the early morning light, as it had been the other night. That smile was a God given accouterment. As if someone up in the heavens decided, "Let's give her a big smile that warms all those around her and makes them melt!" Jamshid picked her up and kissed her. I apologized for descending upon her at such an ungodly hour. She smiled and said, "In Tehran we keep odd hours. And a guest, my naneh always told me, is a gift from God." And then to Jamshid, "Especially one who has alaf (grass)!" As we walked in I caught, in the corner of my eye, a glimpse of a Nissan Patrol that turned from the side street and drove away. I said nothing thinking that we all the chemicals in my brain it could have been just my imagination or a neighbor. We walked into a living room with large French doors that opened onto a terrace. There was a beautiful view of the mountains all around. The stars were still visible in the pale young light of the early morning. They looked so near that it felt like you could reach out and touch them. A lady in a kaftan dress in her forties or fifties or more, you could never tell with Iranian women, came out of one of the rooms and smiled. "This is Zari Khanom, my good old friend." We exchanged kisses and hellos. She carried herself with the confidence of a woman who had been adored more than once. Before she had gained all this weight. She had dark hair and was wearing all kinds of silver jewelry, which gave her a Bohemian air. It was funny how ever since the late sixties, Iranians used authentic Iranian jewelry and clothing to achieve a Western notion of ethnic chic. I could smell the taryaak in the air and wondered whether Goli was more than just a tourist when it came to taryaak (opium). I really wanted to smoke it again and stare out of the huge window at the changing light of the approaching day. "It smells like taryaak," I said. "Meekaahyee mangahlo bezaaram?" (Do you want me to prepare the brazier?) asked Zari Khanom. "Baleh -- man heechvaght be dood nah nemeegam." (Sure, I never say no to smoking.) I felt Jamshid's smiling eye on me and liked it. I was happy to be in the company of Goli and her friend -- away from the desperate eyes and hands of Jafar. I was also happy to smoke more of that dream-making smoke-of-choice of my ancestors. "Where is your husband, Mr. Banani?" I heard myself asking. "Oh he goes to Qom every Thursday on business and spends the evening at his uncles." That brought back visions of a doggy-style humping Banani, which I had hoped the cocktail of drugs would have erased. Zari Khanoom set up the manghal and the tea and sweets on a namad (thick rug) in the middle of the living room facing the view. She was certainly good and efficient at this. She took the first hit and then, proceeded to administer the pipe to all of us. Goli put on some classical Persian instrumental music. Jamshid described the party we had just attended and made us laugh. I was beginning to really like him it felt like I had known him forever. Soon Goli had her head on Zari Khanom's lap -- abandoning her hair to the lady's caresses in a way that betrayed habit. I was sitting cross-legged facing the window happy at the way the sun insisted on coming up. Jamshid sat behind me and started massaging my neck. "Ahhhhhhh," I let him know how great that felt. The ecstasy had made me tense. The taryaak made me relax and the capable hands of Jamshid made a shudder go down my neck and to the tips of my nipples. They hardened and slightly stuck out of my dress. I wondered if he could see them. He must have felt the shudder for he started moving his hands down to the small of my back. I leaned back a little. Goli looked at me and said, "You must be uncomfortable in that dress." She asked me to follow her so she could give me something more comfortable to wear. In her room was a huge walk-in closet that smelt of baby powder. She gave me a University of Michigan T-shirt and some Kurdish pants that were baggy and tight at the ankles. Often men wore these when they sat around the opium brazier. But this one was white and a little see-through and certainly made for Goli's long legs. "Did you have these made for you?" "Yes I did. Are they not cool and comfy? I will take you to the guy who makes them." "I would love to take some back with me." "You are really nice, you know Sarvenaz. Like for real and genuine." " Like, funny I thought the same thing about you," I said to her mimicking her American teenager use of English. "Oh I don't know if anyone can stay themselves in this place." This was the second pair of sad eyes I had seen in the past twenty-four hours. "I can imagine," I said thinking of Banani with crooked glass and slippery grip, again. As I was putting on my T-shirt she said, "I like your breasts," like she was talking about my shoes. I said, "Thank you I like yours too." We laughed. I felt like I was sixteen and in boarding school again. Then she showed me an album of her childhood pictures. There she was a young Brownie in Michigan, on horse back at her aunt's baagh (orchard), dressed up like a doll for her fifth birthday, in the arms of her father who had the same big smile, with some girlfriends in Paris, with cousins in Shiraz. She explained to me the pictures one by one, excitedly, as if she was looking at them for the first time herself. "This is my Dad. I absolutely adored him. When he died I would not come out of my room for three days... These are my cousins. I had a big crush on this guy. She was my best friend... This is the trip to Paris that my aunt gave me as an eighteen birthday present." I looked at her pictures with genuine interest as she shared with me these snatched moments of her life. Childhood pictures by showing a happy or not early life reveal much about a person's general disposition. Goli seemed to have been a happy little girl. When we came back to the living room there was no sign of Zari or Jamshid. "Where did they go?" I asked. "Zari has a voracious appetite for younger men! She is, shall we say, relentless!" I was totally shocked. I was amazed, not to say a bit disappointed, at how quickly Jamshid and this lady had disappeared. Goli sensed this. "Let's go take a peek," She said in a little, excited, spy-girl whisper. I nodded in agreement, excited to go on this little expedition with Goli. We checked all the bedrooms and they were nowhere to be found.  Goli said, "Okay let's check the billiard room downstairs."I followed her down the stairs quietly and we saw Zari and Jamshid there. Her huge body was spread against the green felt of the pool table. Jamshid was holding her legs over the edge of the table and penetrating her. She was moaning, "aakh khoobeh, aakh koobeh... aareh... aareh." ("Oh it feels good... yes...") He had his eyes closed and was concentrating, as though if he didn't he would lose his hold, rhythm and pace. Zari's rather large breasts were spread to the sides, Jell-O-like and shook with Jamshid's thrusts. She had a look of intense gratitude as she moaned, "daaram meeyaam. Jamshid joon, bokonÖ" (I'm going to come... fuck me dear Jamshid...) Jamshid, as though encouraged by the light at the end of the tunnel, started thrusting with more passion. As she screamed that she was coming, he grabbed her breasts, squeezed them between the palm of his hands and sank his face in them. He kept going for a good deep while playing, squeezing her breasts. Goli turned to me and whispered through her long slender fingers, "The opium makes the young ones last a long time." I could not stop looking. It was incredibly erotic, even though funny, to watch this scene on the pool table. Zari perhaps exhausted and unable to take the scraping of the table on her back locked her legs around his waist and squeezed. Then she wet her fingers with her tongue and played with his nipples. He moaned, pushed a few more deep thrusts and took out his penis, and came on the huge creamy round surface that was Zari's stomach and buried himself in the soft flesh of her bosom letting out a big, "aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." I looked at Goli and we had to hold back our laughter. We ran up the stairs gently so as to avoid being heard. "She is a great snooker player," said Goli through her laughter as she reached the top of the stairs. "I can see that," I said. "Jamshid has such hairy bums!" "But a commendable sense of rhythm." We laughed together and I was no longer upset about Jamshid's sudden disappearance. "Come, I will make you the best nimroo (fried eggs) and we will have a long talk. Or do you prefer to see if Jamshid can finish the massage that got so rudely interrupted?" "I don't think that he has much energy left, not to speak of desire." I said giggling more than I thought I could. "A nimroo sounds so good right now," I added. "Those guys know each other from before, no?" "If you mean has Zari fucked Jamshid before the answer is yes once in Shomal (Caspian) and once here last summer. It is purely for sexual pleasure -- nothing wrong with that right?" "Hey not at all. No problem. I tend to fall in love with the good ones too often" "I bet he was thinking of you when he had his eyes closed." "Oh how flattering. He seemed really into her." "Literally!" said Goli laughing uncontrollably. "Okay stop. Please cook me the eggs. I can't laugh any more -- I will die." "We have to go get the eggs," Goli said as she gave me a little basket. We took the slate steps down into the garden. In the right hand corner there was a big area fenced off with thin wire where the chickens were kept. Goli picked a few eggs blew the feathers off of them and passed them to me to place in the basket. She told me one of them was a twin yoked one and smiled. The opium kept me awake. In the semicircle of the kitchen Goli sliced the tomatoes, sautéed them in butter, and cracked open the eggs with one hand. They made a delicious sizzling sound as they landed on the skillet. We sat on the balcony with tea and nimroo and bread and talked. She told me how she was seduced and lured by Banani when she was just nineteen. It was obvious that she was not happy. All the feelings she expressed for her husband were in the past tense as if she was talking about a different person, someone who is dead. She told me of her dreams to study photography and live in the south of France. I told her that someday I would like to take her there, to the Riviera. I told her how I would like to show her all the places I know on the ancient road, in the scraggy cliff sides of the Mediterranean sea that the Romans, having fallen in love with the place, had built. She brought out her portfolio of pictures and showed them to me. Mostly of village children with huge staring eyes and smiles that resembled hers'. Then some of a nude Zari Khanoom, with all her rolls of fat in unabashed display! At first it looked vulgar. But then when you got over the initial shock, of looking at this fat older lady naked, the pictures seemed to possess a beauty all their own. What shone through was the ladies happiness with her body -- her self. "Good for Zari Khanoom. What a brave woman. A role model indeed!" "She is so happy and unselfconscious that it shines through does it not?" "Yes it does," I nodded, not entirely convinced, as I flipped picture after picture of Zari Khanoom in various poses and in differing degrees of nudity. They both ascended the stairs. Zari looking refreshed and Jamshid embarrassed. "I came back for my back rub but you were gone," I could not believe I said that. He looked and smiled and said, "I thought you got one at Roya's party from Jafar already." "That too got interrupted." Oh the gall of me to say that! Zari Khanoom, bless her soul, ate voraciously without a word. After we ate, it must have been eight o'clock in the morning, I felt very sleepy. Goli showed me to a guest room, closed the curtains that were thankfully heavy and left. I shut my eyes and smiled at the thought of Jamshid and Zari on the billiard table as I drifted to sleep. To be continued...
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