Temporary Bride

‘Ask her how the police would behave in her country,’ he said sharply to Vahid motioning to me. ‘My cousin is free in her country,’ he replied firmly, looking directly into the officer’s face. After a few moments the officer smirked and handed my passport back to Vahid. “Bashe,” he said. “Let it be.” They shook hands and the policemen drove away. 

Vahid turned to me and smiled. “You are really my lucky coin,” he said. “That was the first time I could avoid going to the police station.”

We continued our walk and a new silence fell over us. Our awkward, shyness had gone and powerful, unspoken solidarity had risen up in its place. Its energy lapped at our feet as we walked and we exhaled and shook our heads in wonder. ‘How porru we are!’ Vahid laughed. Porru was a Persian word that literally meant ‘full of face’. In English it meant cheeky. brave or audacious.

I remembered Vahid’s question and I looked at him. 

His t-shirt that he had been wearing for two days smelled of his body. His dark hair was matted at the top of his neck and his dark stubble, coarse and prickly. His long slender body was tanned from playing football and he had a prowl-like gait when he walked. Even his long fingernails - so long that they wanted immediate cutting - were intensely masculine and pleasing to me.

When he spoke his voice scratched with the violence of Persian consonants and pitched gently when he asked a question. I was learning to love the sound of him, for like his innocence and his unwavering sense of pride, to love him was to love the contrasts of all of these things.

But this was not about love.  His impenetrable scowl and dark flashing eyes had extended their boundaries and woven their loyalty tightly around me. No more.  That I found myself liking his protection, was half in the knowledge that it had been meted out so cautiously. But to love him was senseless and illogical. 

We entered the labyrinth of the old city. It was now well after nine o’clock and the streets were silent, so silent that I could hear Vahid’s breathing and the rustling of his clothes while we walked.  As we came to a narrow passageway, Vahid took my hand and pulled me into its dark cover.  He stopped and listened for any trace of noise and hearing none, he took my hands, pulled me towards him and again, he kissed me. 

Hungry and curious, anxious for the tastes and rewards of intimacy, it was the kissing of two people who needed each other. His stubble lightly scratched my face and his hands twisted softly through my hair and in this grateful certainty of privacy I felt my acceptance and eagerness come alive. I touched the damp, warmth of his body through the thin cotton of his shirt, and my hands consumed the curved lines of his ribcage.  The sounds that should frighten us back into silence lost their importance in the velocity of attraction, unsuspecting, finding itself in this dark, alleyway in Yazd,

Finally he pulled himself away from me and looked into my eyes. “Jenny, I want to see your body.” I felt myself fill with sorrow and resistance. “No,” I said. “I can’t.” He took my face in his hands and tenderly kissed my eyes, my lips, my cheeks and my neck. “I don’t want to miss you,” he said. “You are perfect for me. I want you to be mine.”  

“Think about what you are asking me.” I said but his face was full of anguish and his hands reached around my waist as he tried to unfasten my jeans. “No, Vahid.” I said pushing his hands away. He pressed his body up against me and his eyes pleaded for release.

I felt conflicted and torn and drawn to him. In any other situation I would have enjoyed him with zeal and tenderness. It had nothing to do with morality police or culture or religion. He was in a critical stage of maturity and I felt tugged back by yarns of restraint from my own past. I had never slept with a virgin but non-virgins had slept with me and I couldn’t take such a memory from him or leave such a powerful imprint behind. His first sex deserved a framework of understanding and love.