Behind the Green Veil

Caught between worlds, outcast Persian woman must choose

--------------- Orkideh ----------------

I graduated on a Saturday during the second week of June, almost nine months since I said goodbye to Jackson. I was both very proud and very disgusted with myself for how well I lived the lie after I returned to my life with Brian. My emotional state upon my return left me feeling ill deep in my gut, which actually helped me sell the story that some intestinal bug had kept me from flying and delayed my return home.

Brian's dedicated attention to me while I "healed" actually helped me reorient my emotions to focus on him and our future. On my third day after being home I made passionate love to him, tears flowing down my face the entire time. He thought my flow of tears was due to the fact that I missed him and loved him so. He was half right.

One month after graduating, Brian and I were married. It was actually a beautiful day on which I was genuinely happy. It was not a conventional wedding, however. Our original plan was to hold a western wedding ceremony in the US and also fly to Tehran and have a Persian wedding there. Of course, the best laid plans always get shot to hell. My student visa was about to expire. Both Brian and I had secured new jobs at the University of Chicago but the U.S. was instructing me that my application for a green card would take months to complete and I would need to go back to Tehran while they processed the request.

It was totally political and outside of the norm. There are thousands of international students earning degrees in the U.S. who get jobs here after their graduation, and never are made to return home while their green card applications are processed. The reason it was happening to me was because the war rhetoric was quickly heating up, and I wondered if they suspected that I had information detailing the secret agreement between the U.S., Israeli, and Iranian governments.

Faced with my deportation and the danger that it posed to me if I were to return home to Iran, Brian and I decided to alter our plans and have a rushed courthouse wedding to secure my residency, keeping our plan to later fly to Tehran to have a Persian wedding that my parents and extended family could attend.

Since it was only going to be a courthouse wedding we did not go out of our way to invite anyone or make any special plans. But our friends from graduate school surprised us. They all flew into Chicago and planned an impromptu mini reception to celebrate our union. The girls also took me shopping for a nice dress and then took me for a spa treatment and to get my hair and makeup done professionally. My middle sister also flew down from Montreal.

The guys took Brian out to rent a tuxedo and to the barber shop so they could all get hair cuts. As Brian later confided in me, they also made a stop at a strip club for a 20 minute bachelor party that consisted of one round of shots and one lap dance. Throughout the day we took tons of pictures which our friends ended up putting together for us in a wedding album. It turned out to be a really special day and I cried genuine tears of joy.

Brian and I thought there would actually be time to make our plan for a second wedding in Iran a reality but the universe had other ideas. On the day of our courthouse wedding in Chicago, Israel and the U.S. began a bombing campaign of Iranian nuclear enrichment sites, starting a war and bringing my life into further turmoil.

The outbreak of war felt like a particular failure for me and my friends who had been sent the secret "controlled war" memo. Part of the reason for my guilt was that we had essentially been paralyzed by fear. Our first strategy had been to send the file to Wikileaks and to

The Guardian

, the UK paper that had co-published many of the leaked U.S. diplomatic cables back in 2011, along with the

New

York Times

and the German paper,

Der Spiegel

.

We decided that our friend in Ontario would send her copy of the file and the rest of us would keep ours hidden for safekeeping. However, the intensified persecution of Wikileaks had destroyed their ability to get out any new information, and

The Guardian

said that they would not publish the memo because they couldn't authenticate it by having a separate source verify its contents. There were no other U.S., Israeli, or Iranian government officials who knew or were willing to acknowledge that such an agreement had been made. What did happen, however, is that our friend in Ontario soon disappeared. It left the rest of us scared to death and feeling that war was just inevitable.

Iran retaliated after the initial bombing wave by blowing up a few American ships in the Persian Gulf and bombing American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan from which America was launching its aerial bombardments. Casualties were moderate on both sides but many more Iranian citizens were dying and being dismissed as collateral damage. But when American service members started dying the atmosphere for Iranians living in the U.S. became very tense and dangerous. Mosques started being burned and vandalized on a regular basis while gunmen started entering Islamic places of worship and going on shooting sprees.

Brian and I were living in Chicago where I felt relatively safe. When I found myself in areas outside of a major city, it was a different feel altogether. Even though I didn't wear a hijab in the U.S., "towel head" and "rag head" were phrases I started hearing regularly in reference to me, often ending by telling me to "go home." Brian and I vowed that we would take no more road trips until things calmed down, only traveling to major cities by flight, never by car.

My parents had to flee Tehran because the conditions there had gotten so bad. Leaving in the night, they ran north to the Caspian Sea and from there caught a boat to the small country of Azerbaijan. From the coast of Azerbaijan they coordinated with a larger group of refugees who paid a truck driver to smuggle them west across the country to the border of Armenia. At the Armenian border they were only allowed to cross if they gave up all their money. Before the war, the money my parents had would have been more than enough to bribe the border guards. However, the Iranian currency had depreciated so much since the sanctions started and then became virtually worthless once the war started.

Penniless, they somehow made it through Armenia and into Turkey. From there, my brother had friends in the Turkish consulate's office in Malaysia who arranged to fly my parents out of Turkey so that they weren't living in one of the tent cities that lined the Turkish border with Iran, where all the other refugees were sent.

For the rest of our family the ordeal had been nearly 180 days of pure hell. We knew that our parents were going to try and leave but we didn't hear from them the entire time they were on the run. We did not know if they were alive or dead or captured or in a refugee camp somewhere. My father wouldn't tell us what they had to do to survive, and he forbade my mother from talking about it to the rest of the family. It was all so stressful for me that I started seeing a therapist, afraid my anxiety would tear my life to shreds if I didn't get it under control.

Even though my parents were safe with my brother in Malaysia, for which we were grateful, they had to leave Tehran with nothing. They had to leave the home where they had raised our family and all that was in it. All of their belongings, all of our childhood memories -- gone. We knew dozens of families who shared the same fate. We knew hundreds of people who fared far worse.

Perhaps as an escape from all the turmoil of war, and certainly because we were genuinely in love, Brian and I made love all the time over the next two years of our marriage. As the war dragged on and the mainstream media outlets lost interest, I stayed glued to my computer hungry for any news from home. Often Brian would peel me away just after I read some bad news, making love to me as a way to distract my thoughts.

Brian also wanted to start a family right away hoping that a child would bring a new source of joy into our lives. I loved children and missed my nieces and nephews terribly, but I was much more ambivalent about having a child of our own. Many mornings taking my birth control pills Brian would ask me if I really wanted to do that. I would just smile and tell him that I was still enjoying "practicing" making a baby with him, not ready to do so for real.

Occasionally my thoughts drifted to Jackson during our lovemaking. I always berated myself when it happened because I really loved Brian and I was happy to be married to him. As much as I tried not to think about my affair, however, there were a few things that I just really missed. I missed the euphoric feeling of falling in love with Jackson because of the intense connection we shared. I missed his unique perspective on the world and the philosophical conversations we had, so drastically different from the ones I have with Brian. And, I missed the thing that I tried to suppress most of all: the raw, feral passion with which he owned my body and made it his. I missed the insatiable hunger in his eyes when he went down on me. I missed the maniacal way that he slammed himself deep inside me. Perhaps most of all, I missed how we both were able to indulge our deepest, most secret desires for all the smells and tastes of each other's bodies.

Increasingly, my mind was also drawn back to the naughty, kinkier things he did to me -- how hard I came as he devoured my pussy while his soapy index finger invaded my rear under the pretext of cleaning me, and how wickedly divine it felt when he attempted to kiss me back there. Despite the instinctual shame I felt in realizing we had an audience listening to us while he fucked me in the airport restroom, I could not help but reflect on how liberating it was to not have to hide my sexuality for threat of persecution. I wanted desperately to feel those sensations and emotions again.

After the second year of our marriage, the frequency with which Brian and I made love slowed down and I began masturbating in the shower to thoughts of Jackson tasting my body all over and not resisting him when he began licking my taboo spot. I fantasized about having his finger back in my tinier hole then imagined him ravishing me and fucking my brains out. In this secret fantasy life, those kinky acts came to symbolize the ideal of good foreplay and a closer intimacy. Nothing got me hornier, nothing made me wetter, nothing made me feel guiltier.

When I realized that I had lost the battle to fight off these fantasies, I tried to channel them in a positive direction. I often came out of the shower after masturbating to my secret desires and pounced on Brian, sucking him until he was hard then laying him down on his back and riding him until I had fucked myself senseless. After an explosive orgasm I would roll over and let him finish however he wanted. Invariably, he fucked me hard and fast in either missionary or doggy style until he pulled out and came all over my breasts.

A part of me felt guilty every time for using him to satisfy a fantasy I had about being with someone else. Ironically, I must admit though that channeling all my pent up sexual desires in that way strengthened my marriage. Brian was always pleasantly surprised and went to campus smiling those days when it happened in the morning and he went to bed with a smile on his face when it happened in the evenings. He would always treat me like a princess for the next few days afterward, sending me sweet and flirtatious text messages during the day and randomly buying me little appreciation gifts. He was such a good man, and my guilt was abated a bit knowing that I was making him happy.

I discovered something about myself in this new form of our sex life, however. In my previous sex life I had been a mostly passive lover, letting the guy dictate our lovemaking. An electric charge came over me when I was assertive with Brian, putting him on his back and taking my pleasure and dishing out his. As much as I love it when my man loses control and fucks me senseless, I discovered that I also love to give just as good as I receive.

This was solidified in my mind one night when I was riding Brian and didn't roll over and let him drill me after my first orgasm. I was so feverishly worked up that I kept grinding on top of him until he lost control. It was beautiful and thrilling for me to have him thrashing and contorting uncontrollably underneath me, completely overtaken by the orgasm that I gave him.

Two sides of me had gradually developed: one side that loves to be ravished by my man and another side that loves to do the ravishing. The problem with my new-found assertiveness was that I felt more and more entitled to my secret fantasy life where I was having more soulful, edgier and kinkier sex with Jackson. And that just left me feeling more and more guilty.

As guilty as I may have felt, I couldn't stop my mind from continuously drifting back to that time with Jackson and wishing that I could capture those feelings again. My rational mind knew that the intensity of the interaction I had with Jackson was at least partially dictated by the fact that all the passion, respect and admiration we felt for each other had to be expressed in a concentrated 36-hour window. I knew that in spending a life with someone you just don't maintain that level of intensity. At least that's what I told myself. Armed with that knowledge I wasn't tempted to break up my marriage and go looking for Jackson. I resolved that it was okay to have a secret fantasy life, I just needed to feed her hunger enough to keep me from doing something stupid that could wreck my relationship and hurt Brian.

By the third year of our marriage, I began reading erotica in the bath tub in the evenings and using that time to feed that hunger. I searched for romantic stories that had any hint of my secret desires. Stories of forbidden love that eventually boiled over into an intense fire also were favorites. By far, I received the most pleasure from stories where couples break through their mental taboos and include some foreplay that involves a little butt play preceding the actual sex. Invariably those stories made me cum the hardest. I felt like a teenage girl again, using the shower hose to spray against my clit until I came, thrashing about in the bath water.

My only problem with the stories that had a little anal foreplay was that they often progressed to full anal sex. I skipped those sections because they just didn't appeal to me. A finger or a tongue felt nice back there but I couldn't imagine Brian or especially Jackson putting his whole cock in my tiny orifice. That would surely hurt. I also couldn't imagine ever being clean enough given how much deeper a penis would be in me. I just couldn't imagine getting his cock all the way in me without making a dirty mess.

One day having lunch with a gay male friend my curiosity got the best of me as to how they dealt with those issues and I asked him about the cleanliness and the pain. He gave me a sly look that made me turn beat-red. I protested, insisting that my curiosity was nothing more than random. He just grunted. He knew I was lying.

"Orkideh, I've known you for years. The woman I used to know would have been squeamish at such thoughts," he insisted, his eyes piercing mine, trying to discern my true feelings. I continued my protests but he was not convinced.

"The look in your eyes says it all, girlfriend! If I didn't know any better I would swear that you are having your own personal 'behind the green door' moment, Orkideh" he said to me. I didn't get the reference.

"'Behind the Green Door' is this famous adult film from the 1970s about a woman who comes out of her shell and totally loses herself in debauchery," he laughed. I punched him in his arm feigning anger but my blushing gave me away. He teased me for a little while but finally gave me the details. He explained to me the different and extensive preparation that clean anal sex requires. He also explained how one needed plenty of lube combined with slow gradual stretching to lead up to the size of a fully hard penis in order to avoid any pain or discomfort. He then confided in me how some people get off on the pain but I stopped him before he could go any further. I just needed to satisfy my curiosity as to whether it was possible to do it cleanly and pain-free.

I still wasn't quite convinced that I wanted to try it, though. I know men have a prostate so it can feel good to them, good enough to ignore those other issues, but I couldn't understand how a girl could get any pleasure out of it. Those doubts began to change when I started reading more stories with anal foreplay authored by women. As women explained the psychological thrill they got from being so naughty, the physical pleasure they got from being so full, and the emotional pleasure they received from the greater intensity of anal sex, the mental blocks I had against it started to crack.

I started masturbating to all manner of anal stories and I had a visceral flashback to my time on the plane watching movies with Jackson, and seeing the titles of the adult films interspersed with all the other movies he had on his computer, all with anal themes. I suddenly felt like I understood him better, understood the passion he was trying to achieve with me when he started cleaning my dirty little hole in the shower and then when he tried to stick his tongue in there while he was eating my pussy. I also remembered the last time we had sex in the airport and how desperately I wanted his fingers in me back there but was too afraid to voice the desire.

I yearned to be back in that hotel with him again, to give into those desires and to achieve that intensity so I could at least have experienced it one time in my life. After a while, that became the only fantasy that could get me off. I lay in the bathtub every night dreaming that I never made him stop, that after licking me back there Jackson had pinned me to the bed face down with my but raised in the air then slid his cock into my forbidden hole by "accident." Only I never stop him. In the fantasy his breath is hot and ragged in my ear sending tingles down my spine as he fucks me hard and deep, groaning at how tight my hole feels. He demands I tell him how much I love it, too, how I wanted it, and he gets off on making me ask for it. Nothing made me cum harder and nothing made me feel guiltier, because in my entire upbringing only filthy whores did the kind of things I was dreaming about.

On one occasion, when the desires flared up in me to the point where I was desperate for release, I got out of the tub and practically ran naked through our house looking for Brian. I found him in our study and fucked him senseless while he sat in his chair, a bit out of guilt but also because I needed to be filled as my fingers just did not satisfy me that day.

Soon I began to invite Brian into more of my showers, urging him to wash my back hoping that he would go lower on his own. He never did and I knew it was partly my fault. When we first got together he had learned of the taboo nature of anything sexually related to anuses in my culture and my own revulsion at anal play. To be fair, how could he then realize how much I wanted him to play with me back there?

He always started out demanding to wash my breasts and he would get rock hard after playing with my nipples, letting them run between his soapy fingers and taking the time to tweak and twist each one. He loved the look of my breasts when they were all soapy and I knew it made him think of cumming on my chest which he craved more than anything. Usually on days when we shared a shower like this he would fuck me afterwards until I came and then pull out to cum all over my chest. Then he would rub his cum into my skin while he kissed me, leaving my breasts shiny and sticky.