To our relief, it was a little less crowded in the streets. We knew that the gigantic Park-i Shahr was close by. It was sixty-four acres large, just a wee bit smaller than New York’s Central Park. We meandered through the streets until we found the park.
There was an elderly bearded man running a roasted-corn cart in front of one of the park’s rose gardens, so we bought some hot corn and headed for a wood-and-metal bench to eat and decompress. A rectangular pool with several fountains was behind the bench. The soothing sound of falling water, the sweet scent of roses, and steaming charred corn quickly revitalized us. We watched two teenagers playing badminton on the brick sidewalk, a group of middle-aged people sitting on a blanket in the grass and reciting poetry to one another out loud, a gaggle of blue-jeaned teen girls giggling and roller-skating, a cleric reading a book, and a couple kissing behind a tree. Men walked hand-in-hand with one another and women strolled arm-in-arm, all conversing animatedly. It wasn’t like the States, this gentle physical affection between men and men, women and women.
“I told you!” I nudged Lucky. “It’s different here. Those are all straight men and women holding hands and with their arms around one another’s shoulders. We can hold hands here and no one will suspect a thing.”
“I have friends in Israel and Turkey that tell me it’s the same there. I like it.” Lucky cautiously rested her hand on my knee.
I brought my new puzzle ring out to fiddle with it. I wanted to see if I could remember how to put it together. My friends and I had spent many hours daydreaming in high school classes while playing with our rings, and I was confident I’d remember how it worked. I was wrong. Lucky cracked and ate pistachio nuts, watching my futile efforts to reassemble my ring. Finally, she took out her phone and found a YouTube video that showed the solution. We watched the video together while sitting on a park bench in Tehran, then walked back to Hotel-i Golestan holding hands, like all the other straight men we’d seen in the street and the park. We’d gone from a queer unmarried couple, to a queer married couple, to a straight married couple, to straight male best friends within days. Our gender and sexual orienta tion jet lag was as overwhelming as our physical jet lag, but right now I was just happy to be holding Lucky’s little hand.
Once back at Hotel-i Golestan, we decided to take a little nap as we were still feeling the effects of the long flight from California to Iran. Tuckered out, we crawled under the gold quilted covers, set our alarm for one hour and quickly fell asleep, waking up just after sundown. We had a bottle of doogh in the mini-fridge, along with some apples and bread, but we needed a hot dinner. We were still tired, so I offered to go out and bring back something to eat. I remembered that there was a tiny falafel store a block away, and I figured that some steaming falafel patties and bread would be perfect. I threw on my clothing, a quilted jacket, and a striped wool scarf leaving Lucky smoking her pipe and reading the news on her phone in a maroon faux-suede overstuffed armchair by the window.
Out on the crowded streets, I quickly bought a greasy bag of falafel along with another bag of sweets. I was humming “Strangers in the Night” as I walked up the carpeted hotel stairs and down the dimly lit hallway to our room. Slipping my key into the door, I opened it to an ominously silent dark room that smelled like stale unfiltered cigarettes. The window was opened a crack, with the sheers blowing eerily in the breeze. The little wooden desk chair was overturned on the floor by the bed, and the rumpled satin coverlet trailed off the bed onto the rug. My heart stopped. Where was Lucky? Baffled by the unfamiliar tobacco odor, Lucky’s absence, and the room’s disorder, I reached over to turn on the light switch, only to have someone tackle me from behind in a choke hold. The intruder wore black leather gloves and a soiled mustard-colored polyester sports coat, and smelled of cheap citrus cologne and cheaper tobacco. I dropped the bags of food as he tightened his grip on my throat with his forearm, shoved me forward onto our bed, then cuffed my wrists behind my back. Adrenalin rushed through me. Was this the Persian secret police? Had they already gotten Lucky while I’d been picking up the falafel and were now coming back for me, the homosexual son of the Great Satan? I struggled, but my assailant was firm, slipping a mask over my eyes so that I couldn’t see and an oily rag into my mouth so my calls for help would be muffled. I could hear the traffic outside, and wondered frantically how I could get over to the window to get a passerby’s attention. We’d only been in Tehran for one day! The secret police couldn’t be onto us this quickly.
I tried to kick the stranger, but my bad knee locked up and I was useless. He hauled me up, sitting me in a high-backed metal chair and tying my ankles to the chair legs and my waist to the chair back, then he slapped me across my face. Back and forth, until I could feel my cheeks sting and was dizzy. Silently, he started punching my arms and chest with his fists until I was breathless. All I could think about was getting away so that I could help Lucky. His weight settled on my lap with a waft of cloying cologne and arid tobacco. I could feel his hard cock through his trousers pressing against my thigh as he settled down, nudging me with it as if to remind me that he was in control and that he liked it all too much. I then felt the prick of a knifepoint along my jugular and quickly stopped squirming. He unfastened my overalls, exposing my knit top. What if this person was a criminal, not the secret police? What if Lucky was already dead and bloody in the shower? I was shaking with fear as I felt the sharp knife tip run slowly from my tender neck down my chest and rip my shirt. I sobbed through the gag as he grasped my shirt and violently tore it open with one abrupt motion, then pulled my binder up exposing my breasts to the cool stuffy air in the hotel bedroom.
As he pressed the knife blade against my nipple, I flinched in anticipation. Then he leaned in and whispered into my ear, “Well, well, well, you aren’t a kucheek-i pesar now, are you? You’re just a kucheek-i dokhtar! Bah-bah, my kucheek-i gul.”
I gasped with relief, as my cunt flooded and my cock hardened. It was Lucky all along! Lucky beating me up and frightening me. We’d talked about doing this while we were in San Francisco, but that had been months ago and I’d forgotten the vague plans. Apparently, Lucky had not forgotten and I was reaping the rewards.
Lucky scrolled down my chest with her knife, lifting my shorts with the knife tip and nestling the blade between my labia. I groaned as she traced my sensitive labia with the sharp knife tip, spreading my legs further. She brought the knife up again, nipping at my tits with the pointed end of the cold blade until I flinched.
She stood up, removed the filthy rag that she’d stuffed in my mouth, kicked my thighs apart even more, then yanked my overalls and shorts down to my knees, “What a handsome pesar you are! Look at that little wet cock sticking out.” She flicked my clit with her blade, making me shake, and rubbed the cold metal blade up and down my cunt until my hips twitched toward her, the animal scent of my arousal mixing with her cheap cologne and the tobacco smoke. I groaned. I didn’t know what was coming, but I wanted whatever Lucky gave me. I wanted everything.
I felt a soft tapping on my sensitive inner thigh, a gentle nudge. Just a little reminder of what I liked. Lucky was still for a second, letting the atmosphere build. Her desire to hurt me and my desire to have her take me filled the hotel room, driving out all the stale smells that came before it. We both took a breath, then she came down with her cane on my inner left thigh. I groaned with relief. Over and over she struck me until I forgot that I liked this.
Why did I want this? This was all about giving up. Stopping was not a choice for me, for either of us. All I wanted to do was hand myself over to Lucky like a layer cake in a pink box tied up with twine. This was all about giving up and giving myself over. I hated this. Then suddenly I relaxed completely and I was Lucky’s.
I’d given up, and started sobbing. Lucky continued hitting me, nailing me into the present. I thrashed about in the chair trying to get away, knowing that I couldn’t get away and loving that I couldn’t get away, while Lucky beat my thighs. First the left thi
gh, then switching sides to the right thigh, taking time to run the cane gently between my legs along my burning soaking cunt before attacking the sensitive hollow between my labia and my leg. She reached down, fucked me for a second with three fingers curved inside of me, and I shook wanting to come but I couldn’t. She took her fingers out, then drew her cane over my breasts, pinching my sensitive nipples until they crinkled up into tender nibs begging, just begging.
“Please, please. Do it,” I begged, not knowing what I wanted except that I wanted more. More Lucky, more touch, more pain, more fucking.
Lucky beat my breasts. I hated getting my breasts beaten, the bitter pain as the cane struck my soft flesh. Again, I wondered why I did this, as my cunt muscles swelled all hard and erect waiting for Lucky’s hand. I was still crying, my snot running into a slimy puddle under my nose and over my lips. My cunt inviting Lucky’s hand. If my cunt could write, it would have written an invitation in purple on linen paper with a fountain pen in the most ornate calligraphy possible, Please fuck Behrouz now. My nipples were hard like agate and I was so turned on that I started coming with each stroke of Lucky’s cane, come spurting out of me like the Manneken Pis statue in Brussels, a boy pissing into space.
Lucky stopped caning me and caressed my aching breasts, tweaking each tip until I moaned, my hips tilting upward. I felt a soft piece of cloth under my snotty nose. It smelled of sandalwood, like Lucky. It was one of Lucky’s bandanas.
“Blow,” Lucky said softly, then wiped my nose tenderly.
There was a moment of silence, then I heard a click as Lucky lit another cigarette with her lighter. I could smell the raw tobacco as the smoke drifted across my face. Lucky took a drag, blew the smoke into my face, and I coughed, trying to turn my head to avoid it. She grabbed me by my jaw, forcing me to face her and continued to blow smoke into my face. I thought I was going to start crying again, and then she stopped. It was quiet. Too quiet. I heard Lucky rustling around behind the chair as she unfastened the cuffs on my wrists, brought my arms around, laid my hands together in my lap, then refastened the cuffs. She shifted on my lap, undid my blindfold, then flicked soft gray cigarette ash onto my arm, rubbing the still warm ash into my skin.
“Tell me you want it. Now,” Lucky demanded, her eyes glowing green as she held her red-hot cigarette a half inch over my pale forearm, singeing the blond hairs. “Tell me what you need.”
“Please, please, please. Yes. Do it. Do it now!” I begged.
Lucky brought her cigarette down on my tender inner forearm, leaving it there for what felt like minutes as the cigarette tip burned into my flesh. I gasped and growled as my skin burned, the pain spreading out, opening me up even more. She withdrew her cigarette, settling it down again a quarter of an inch from the first burnt circle of flesh, then a third time, forming a perfect triangle of circular burns. It was so beautiful. My breath came out in short puffs. My burnt flesh throbbed painfully but my cunt throbbed even more so, desperate for release. Lucky leaned down and kissed me sweetly, my arms relaxed in my lap.
Raising up with a growl, Lucky untied me and threw me onto the nearby bed, facedown.
“Please, please, please…” I pleaded with Lucky as I pushed my cunt against the bed, clenching the coverlet above my head.
I heard the snap of a nitrile glove being pulled on, the soft squirt of lube, and Lucky parted my bruised and sore thighs with her hand. Three fingers, four fingers as her hand folded and my cunt drew her inside. I shuddered in expectation as Lucky started fucking me, hunched over with her beloved hand inside of me, fucking me open and willing. And I sang, moaning, unintelligible words pouring from me while Lucky growled, our desire rising together and her grunts urging me further. Her fist harder and deeper while I met it, my cunt contracting and clenching Lucky’s hand and wrist. My sore breasts and nipples rubbing the sheets as we fucked, with the pain traveling into my greedy cunt urging me higher. A wave of come started in my chest, undulating through my belly and shooting from me, and I held Lucky fast with my cunt as my come squirted out, drenching her chest and upper arms. Lucky, yelling in triumph as she came too, us coming together and coming together, a million times together.
Lucky collapsed on top of me, holding my arms. Both of us drifting, awash in come and tenderness for each other.
“Baby,” I murmured before I felt myself fading into sleep.
We woke up at 3:30 a.m., the way older folks sometimes do. We woke up, retrieved the bag of cold falafel and the bag of sweets, and ate them ravenously while sitting up in bed, scattering greasy fried chickpea crumbs onto the sheets in our eagerness. I woke up, in Iran. With Lucky.
GLOSSARY OF FARSI TERMS IN CHAPTER SEVEN
Agha: male honorific, often used casually.
Bah-bah: an exclamation of pleasure.
Barbari: thicker flat bread.
Bastan-i: ice cream.
Chador: type of veil that leaves the face uncovered.
Chelow kebab: lamb kebab.
Doogh: carbonated yogurt beverage.
Farang-i: white foreigner.
Ghashang: beautiful.
Jube: concrete ditch or open watercourse that runs alongside the street in Persian cities.
Khaiboon: street.
Khanom: female honorific, often used casually.
Khoresh: savory stew served over rice.
Kofte kebab: minced lamb kebab.
Kuche: lane.
Kucheek-i dokhtar: little girl.
Kucheek-i pesar: little boy.
Kuku sabzi: frittata-type egg dish made with herbs.
Lavash: thin unleavened flat bread.
Limoo: dried limes.
Manteau: women’s long-sleeved fitted coat.
Sangak: flat bread that is baked on pebbles.
Tadig: butter and saffron infused crust from the bottom of the rice pot.
Tehran-i: of Tehran. The i denotes belonging to.
Zoor-khaneh: traditional Persian men’s gymnasium and meeting place which incorporates martial arts, calisthenics, strength training and music.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AVERY CASSELL is a writer, cartoonist, poet, and artist living with their Maine Coon cat, Lulu, in foggy San Francisco. They are a member of the Bay Area’s queer kink and literary communities. Their erotica has appeared in Best Lesbian Erotica 2015, Anything that Moves, Whipped: 20 Erotic Stories of Female Dominance, Sonic Erotica, Sex Still Spoken Here and More Five Minute Erotica. This is Avery Cassell’s first novel. Avery is currently working on their memoir about growing up in Iran, their life as a hippie, a punk dyke, a sober mother, and a transgender genderqueer granddad. They are mulling over a sequel to Behrouz Gets Lucky. “It’s-a-long-story” really is their middle name.
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