Temporary Bride

“Can I ask you a question?” said Vahid. “How are you going to manage for one month in Iran without having sex? I mean won’t you try to have sex with someone while you are here?”

It reminded me of a story that Haj Ali, my Farsi tutor had told me.

Most of my lessons with Haj Ali had taken the form of lengthy story telling sessions. After a few drills of using ezafe construction he’d lean back into his armchair, pour himself more tea and launch into a story, pausing only to reach into the tiny glass dishes of pistachios and chocolate discs that his niece would set between us.

Haj Ali had emigrated to London from a small industrial city in Central Iran in the late 1970’s. Other than the odd tourist, viewed from a distance, he’d never had any contact with foreign women before.

“London!” his friends exclaimed. “The women are very open there. And they all want to sleep with Iranian men. They love us there!’

Haj Ali listened riveted as they continued their stories of how he would arrive in London and the women would be lining up outside his door, all dying for a chance to jump his Persian bones.

“You might even get laid on the plane!” they told him.

Haj Ali, who had been raised in the strictest of households, attended all boy school and hadn’t so much as touched a girl before, couldn’t believe his good fortune.

On the plane to London he sat next to an English girl who was reading a magazine and - much to his surprise - paid him no notice. He rustled and repeatedly brushed his arm against hers to get her attention, assuming that as soon as she looked up and saw the Persian stallion beside her, she would be unable to contain herself.

Nothing.

He landed at Heathrow, took the underground train to the city and checked into a hotel near the Iranian Embassy.

He put down his suitcase, sat down on the bed and waited. “They’ll be here any minute now”, he thought. Minutes passed and still, no one came.

“Maybe they don’t know I’m here,” he thought standing up. He walked over to the window trying to look nonchalant and offered the woman of South Kensington his full profile. “Now they’ll know which room I’m in and they will come.” More time passed, and no one came.

Haj Ali put on his jacket and walked through nearby Hyde Park. Couples were playing Frisbee and old ladies were walking their dogs. To his continued surprise, no woman that he passed showed the least interest in him. After an hour he gave up and walked back to his room.

“Those bastards,” he said, realising his naivety. “Those bastards lied to me.”

So Vahid’s question was probably not so strange. For someone who had never had sex, and had the idea that Western women had sex at every opportunity and with whomever they could - it was possibly almost normal to assume that I would be expecting to get some action while I was in his country.