A Persian Woman Unveils a Hidden Passion after a Chance Encounter
———– Orkideh ————
“Fucking hell!” I exclaimed as I slapped at my I-phone with dread. Four a.m. was just a cruel and inhuman time to have to wake up. I was tired and also frustrated wondering why all the good dreams always seem to wait until the last few minutes of deep sleep before they come into our consciousness. I was dreaming of my fiancé waiting for me back in Boston and dreading the twenty three hours of flying I had ahead of me before I could get to him.
The dream I was having was graphic in its detail and in my mind I could almost smell the sex we were having in the dream. I woke up feeling the wetness in my panties and could not help the feelings of embarrassment and shame that came over me. Even though I was a grown woman, being in a home with all my family around put me back in the mindset of being a teen in my parent’s house where any notion of my sexuality was strictly forbidden.
The rest of the house was still asleep and would be for some time. We had all just gone to bed at 1:30 or so. We so seldom have an opportunity to get together as a family. It had been five years since the last time we had all been together so no one wanted to go to sleep on our last night. As the wine flowed, we stayed up talking and laughing until the wee hours. I spent most of my time playing with my nieces and nephews. At 3, 5, 6, and 8, these were their formative years that I most regretted missing out on. It had been so long since I had seen each of them last that they were just getting comfortable with me again and here it was time to go.
As I laid out my clothes for my return trip I wondered what I would wear. My long, conservative dresses were old and looked as much — I never buy new ones because I only have to wear them when I come home. I wished that I could just wear the jeans, blouse and a sweater that I would usually wear when flying these days. Even though my family was asleep and would never know, the cab driver might refuse to take me to the airport, where I could also run into additional trouble dressed too casually Western.
More importantly, I had the distinct feeling of being followed since I had come to Malaysia two weeks ago. My entire family was gathering here where my brother now lives, celebrating my father’s 75th birthday. It was easier and safer to gather here in Kuala Lumpur rather than try to go back to Tehran where my parents still lived. The Iranian government was angry with me and I had no idea how far they might go to insure my silence. It was not unheard of for Iranian government agents to come after dissidents even when they are outside of Iran, especially when they are in another Muslim country.
I decided that to be safe, I would be a so-called good Muslim woman and wear the ultra-conservative burqa that would cover me head-to-toe with only my eyes showing. I would take it off once I was safely past security in the airport. As a consolation, I picked out my green underwear and green bracelets that I would wear underneath my other clothes underneath the burqua — my small symbols of protest.
What most Westerners refer to as the “Arab Spring” actually started in Iran with a Persian winter waged by the Green movement. Before the uprising in Tunisia and the overthrow of the 23-year dictatorship of Ben Ali — sparked by the self-sacrifice of Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself ablaze in December of 2010 — the Green movement in Iran started an uprising demanding that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad step down from office after the fraudulent elections of 2009. While the governments in Egypt, Libya and Yemen had fallen in similar uprisings inspired by Tunisia, the Green Movement in Iran had been brutally crushed, as did the protesters in Bahrain and Syria.
I had only recently moved out of Iran to the UK when the Green Movement really began to take off. I went to the UK to study for my Master’s degree but I had taken part of some of the early organization against Ahmadinejad’s government while I was still an undergraduate student in Tehran. But living abroad had actually allowed me to help my friends in struggle back in Tehran when the protests broke out. They were able to send me information and pictures that I was then able to post online, on my blog, on facebook, and twitter accounts, without fear that one of Ahmadinejad’s thugs would break into my home and throw me in prison.
My actions, however, (both online and in my academic scholarship) had caused increased attention to come to other members of my family and with my parents still living in Tehran, we all feared for their safety. They supported me fully, though, and I tried my best to keep my online activities anonymous. My parents were devout Muslim’s who shared many conservative views but they did not believe in the oppression of women. It helped that they had three strong-minded daughters and one son. It also helped that my mother was a brilliant tactician at negotiating gender politics in the home and my father loved her deeply. Many of his conservative tendencies melted under her manipulations.
Apparently my discretion in my online activities had not fully worked as I got a mysterious call right before I left Boston telling me to watch out and that the Iranian government was searching for me to ask me questions. The call had left me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and I never found out who it was. To make matters worse, I felt like I was being followed my whole time in Malaysia since I stepped off the plane. I couldn’t make it back to Boston and into the arms of my fiancé fast enough.
No sooner than I was dressed my phone rang, startling me. I answered it quickly so as not to wake anyone else in the house. It was the taxi driver, waiting for me outside. I grabbed my luggage and headed toward the door. Before leaving I stopped and tip-toed into my nephew’s room where all the young children were sleeping soundly sprawled out all over the floor. I gently kissed each one of them, trying to remember all the little details of their faces to keep with me until I saw them again.
As I stepped out of their room I was startled half to death to see my mom standing there in her robe. She had set her own alarm to see me off, even though I had insisted she not do so. She seemed a little surprised to see me in my full burqua but then a knowing look said she understood. We just hugged each other for a long time without saying a word. I am her youngest daughter — she had so much parenting experience already under her belt before I came along. I always felt so exposed around her, like she could look right through me and see everything I was thinking. This time was no different. She knew I was sad to leave but happy to be going home to the arms of my fiancé.
As soon as I sat down in the back of the taxi I felt a set of headlights come on behind us. When the driver took off for the airport, the set of lights continued to follow us. It was still dark outside and we were pretty much the only cars on the road so they were easy to spot. My heart started racing a bit and I didn’t know if I was being silly or rightfully paranoid. I kept checking behind us nervously.
“Someone following you?” the driver asked casually.
“I don’t know,” I replied, a slight hesitation in my voice. “But if it’s all the same to you, the sooner we get to the airport, the better.”
The driver studied me intently in his rear view mirror for a minute. Since I was wearing a burqua, he could only see my eyes. His eyes narrowed as they met mine, and after a few seconds they softened with understanding. He nodded and stepped on the accelerator. The car behind us kept pace with our increased speed. I slumped down in my seat trying to keep my mind calm. I had all sorts of panicked scenarios running through my head — about being shot, or about them attaching a sticky bomb to our car like the Israelis had done to an Iranian nuclear scientist recently. I laid down fully in the back seat and just prayed.
When we got close to the airport the driver asked me what airline I was flying. I told him and we headed to the international terminal. There were other cars on the road now, a number of people who had early flights so I felt a little less nervous. Even still, I asked that the taxi driver let me out near a police van where a group of armed airport security men stood chatting.
As we stopped there was a car that had stopped behind us. I could not tell if it was the same car that had been following us as I had only been able to see its headlights before. The windows were darkly tinted and I couldn’t see inside, which made me even more anxious. I hesitated for a second but decided that with the armed security just outside, I could risk it. The driver helped me load my luggage onto a cart. The car that had been stopped behind us seemed to sit for a second watching me, assessing the situation, and then drove off. I let myself breathe, not realizing I had been holding onto my air this whole time. I tipped my driver generously and ran inside, eager to go through security. I couldn’t get through fast enough.
I slipped into a restroom and took off my burqua. I had worn black pants underneath that were much more comfortable and warm for 23 hours of flying. I had also worn a light shirt in case I got warm and brought a sweater in case I got cold. I wrapped my hijab around my face and looked at myself in the mirror. The burqua was great for anonymity in public but not good for going through airport security. I let my shoulders relax a bit — felt the tension ease in them, and then went back outside. I was safe… at least for a while.
————– Jackson ————–
A depressed feeling came over me as I boarded the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 737 headed to Tokyo. I was ultimately headed back to Houston, where I live and teach at Rice. I had a grueling 26 hours of travel ahead of me, however. I was leaving Kuala Lumpur and after I landed in Tokyo I had a four hour layover until my next flight to JFK airport, and then from there I would head to Houston. Tokyo to JFK would be the longest leg of the flight — a full 14 hours. It was going to be pure hell on my lower back and on my tailbone, and I was not looking forward to the torture.
That, however, was not why I was feeling low. I just wasn’t looking forward to going home. There was something ugly happening in America, something very hateful that was getting worse and worse. For the past two weeks being abroad I had not felt any of that, and I was grateful.
I had a wonderful time and met some great people, yet I didn’t think I was saddened just because I was leaving. I had been gone for a little over two weeks and I would normally be excited to once again sleep in my own bed after being gone that long. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what exactly was troubling me.
I found my seat and settled in, Sudoku and ipod in hand. It was god-awful early in the morning and I anticipated I would be sleep before too long. Even though this was one of the shorter legs of my trip, it was still a 6 hour flight to Tokyo. There would be plenty of time to pull out my laptop and watch movies later. I had a window seat, and soon a middle-aged Japanese couple settled in next to me. They seemed nice enough — they smiled and we bowed at each other, but a language barrier kept us from communicating any further from that. Didn’t much matter, after the flight crew served us breakfast, I was knocked out.
I woke up drooling and disoriented. I looked at my watch and was stunned to figure out that I had been asleep for almost four hours! It was shocking because I never sleep on planes. It’s not because I am too uncomfortable, but more because I just don’t ever sleep in a public place due to a phobia of mine. You may think that odd, but you will understand once you hear my reasoning. It all started during the first month of my first year in college. An article in the school news paper gave the details of a warning issued by the campus police to all students who studied late at night in the library. They had received numerous reports that some sick bastard was hanging out late at night in the stacks and would prey on students who had fallen asleep while studying by jacking off on them and into their hair. It was a while before they caught the guy but after reading that story, I never fell asleep in public again.
Which is why I was so shocked to find that I had slept for 4 hours on this flight. I must have been really exhausted from all we had done on this trip. When I first saw the announcement for the conference in Singapore, I knew I had to go. Though my travels had been wide, I had never been to that part of the world. Though the conference was only three days, my friends and I made plans to stay for two weeks: one week in Singapore then take the train up to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia for the final week.
Being in Singapore felt like being in an alternate Manhattan without the rats and the piss, plopped down in the middle of a tropical rainforest — just beautiful. In the US, we mostly know Singapore for the rumors we hear about people being caned for spitting their gum out on the sidewalk. I never actually saw or heard about anyone getting the cane, but apparently just the fear of it was enough to keep the city spotless with gorgeous lush greenery everywhere.
Culturally, however, the place was not as conservative as one might suspect. If they were strict about cleanliness, they were permissive about sex and gambling. Prostitution was legal and they had a huge casino that seemed like it was a mile high in the sky. Alcohol was extremely expensive, taxed heavily to pay for their amazing infrastructure with subways that go all over the city and an extensive network of underground malls, food courts, and shopping. And you had perfect cell phone reception wherever you were underground. Whoever heard of full bars of reception while buried deep in the middle of the basement of some conference center? The gambling was also taxed, but only for local residents. It costs them the equivalent of $50 just to get in to the casino. Foreigners could walk in for free. I guess that’s one way to cut down bad gambling habits.
The people their trace their heritage to a number of countries throughout south-east Asia: China, Laos, Vietnam, India, Cambodia, Malaysia, and various other parts of Indonesia. I don’t have any particular fetish for Asian women, but the mix made for a very beautiful population. The women were chic: not Euro chic and not New York City chic, but stylish all their own. And the food! Imagine different food options from all those different regions of the globe, all in ready supply seemingly on almost every corner. We ate well!
An economic and trade hub for the western pacific, I did not know that Singapore was one of the few places on earth that is both a country and a city until planning to make the trip. Cost of living was high there like in Manhattan, too! I was on an expense account, but as a university professor I sure didn’t have an unlimited per diem, so I had to keep my spending in check. That changed quite a bit once we took the train up into Malaysia.
Being in Malaysia was my first time being in a predominantly Islamic country. The first thing I noticed was that almost all the women wore hijabs, and then I was surprised to discover how chic and stylish all the different styles of hijab were. They were all manner of stylish silks in vibrant colors and cool designs. It became immediately apparent to me that they stood in for different hair styles, a way for women to express themselves in a culture when it was tradition for women to keep their heads covered in public. And most everyone was incredibly friendly, interested in talking to me to learn about what brought a person like me to their part of the world.
This was true of everyone, male and female, except the small percentage of women who wore the full body burqa with only their eyes showing. They did not speak to me at all, nor nod or give any kind of acknowledgement. And I did not get the feeling that it was because they were snooty or didn’t want to, but instead it seemed like they were literally forbidden. You rarely saw these women out alone, they usually had a man who I assumed was their husband accompanying them, and they always walked three or four steps behind him. You could just feel an oppressed energy coming off of them. It was very sad.
Then I wondered, how does anyone tell them apart with everything all covered up like that? One day I sat for a while eating lunch and just people-watched, trying to figure it out. Then it hit me: it was their shoes and their purses! These women in the full burqas had the loudest shoes and most stylish purses out of all the women in Malaysia. With such a limited canvas for self expression, they got it in with those two accessories.
I soon also figured out that there was no pork in any restaurant in the entire country, and alcohol was scarce. I surprised myself by going the whole week without drinking. I don’t drink very much in my personal life but I generally let myself cut loose when I’m on vacation. However, the people I met there were so cool that I genuinely didn’t really miss it. By the end of the week, though, I was seriously contemplating asking around to see if there was a black market for pork products!
It was really the breakfasts where I missed it most. There were beautiful breakfast/brunch spreads in the hotel and not one single piece of bacon, sausage or ham to be found. Just criminal! For the life of me I can’t figure out why a group of people would ever deny themselves the joy of some really good thick-sliced bacon. Oh well, to each their own. They take their Koran seriously. To be fair, Christians are technically not supposed to be eating pork, either, or shrimp or lobster… at least according to Leviticus. That chapter of the bible seems always conveniently forgotten. Can’t say that I’m mad about that, though. There is no joy in this life quite like a smoked pork rib.
Where Singapore was expensive and squeaky clean, Kuala Lumpur was much poorer and umm… grittier. New Yorkers would feel right at home. But by far the best attraction was the people. You had much of the same people who were in Singapore with the addition of many more people from the Middle East. The people were so nice, so generous, so personable. I loved the experience of every new person I met. And the women were also beautiful, their skin a few shades darker than the people in Singapore. With the conservative Islamic culture, I knew there was slim chance of meeting anyone and hooking up but I had one experience with an Indian woman that was, in many ways, more satisfying.
This woman was a chef in our hotel. One day my friend JB and I complimented her on one of the dishes she had made: “beef rendang,” the most tender, melt-in-your-mouth beef slow-cooked in a blend of rich spices and coconut milk. She asked us if we would like to learn how to make it. We were totally surprised but not quite sure how she was going to teach us. Nevertheless, we said yes. She explained that the next day was her day off and if we wanted, she would take us shopping for the ingredients and then we were invited over to her family’s house where she would teach us how to prepare it. We were blown away with such an offer of generosity. It wasn’t a flirtatious come-on in any way, just good-natured generosity.
We tried to politely refuse, telling her that surely she had better ways to spend her day off. She wouldn’t hear of it, though, and insisted that it would be her pleasure. So the next day we went and had an absolutely wonderful time getting to know her and then getting to know her family. And we laughed and laughed and laughed. We bought enough spices to take back to the states with us (yes, we smuggled them past customs!) and then she even showed us where to go shopping for some cool clothes. It was a great day, clearly the highlight of the trip.
Back on the plane, remembering these beautiful experiences, I continued to ponder why I was feeling so down. I still couldn’t put my finger on it. I looked out the window and saw that the sea below us was about to become land. That’s when the captain came on and told us to prepare for landing. This part of the trip went blessedly quick. I doubted I would be so lucky for the next phase.
Three hours later I was finally boarding the Boeing 777 for the long flight to New York. Just the thought of how torturous this was going to be was turning my low mood into a grumpy one. I fortunately had an aisle seat, because I knew that I would be getting up to stretch often. Seat 19C, I was the first person to make it to my row. I figured I would wait to take out my laptop until the other people in my row arrived and got settled in. I did not have to wait long before an elderly gentleman gave me the universal nod that says “I’m in your row.” I stood up and let him in. He unpacked a couple of novels and then put his carry-on in the overhead bin, which seemed to take him forever. There was a line of people that had built up behind him. He finally moved in to take his seat by the window and I moved to resume my seat so the other people could pass me by.
“I’m sorry to ask you to get up again but I’m in the middle there,” the voice said with a slightly off British accent. I had just plopped back down. I looked up to see a Middle Eastern woman wearing a hijab indicating that she needed to get into my row. “No worries” I said and stood to let her in. She moved past me into our row, giving me my first whiff of her amazing scent. For her, it was an I-Pad and a bunch of books, journals, and magazines that she removed from her bag. There was an anthropology journal, and journal of the Middle Eastern Studies Association, a few heavy books like Foucault, Franz Fanon, and John Paul Sartre, and a French edition of Elle. I knew right away she was an academic. Lastly she pulled out a copy of Cosmo, and I could not help but start to chuckle.
She looked up at me with a surprised and defensive look on her face and asked, “Are you laughing at me? I know I’m taking a long time but I’m about finished.”
“You take whatever time you need but that’s not why I’m laughing,” I responded.
“What then?”
“All that heavy intellectual reading, and Cosmo? Really?!” I could barely contain how tickled I was by it.
“I know, it’s a weakness,” she said, softening her defensive posture, “but don’t embarrass me. Don’t you ever have times where you want to shut your brain off and occupy yourself with something mindless?” she asked as she took her seat.
“I guess I do,” I said, moving in to sit next to her. Playing Grand Theft Auto came to mind, but I didn’t let her in on that much detail. “I’m not judging, but it is funny.”
“Uh huh,” she snickered, “You say that now, but I’m sure you will be asking me to borrow it before these 14 hours are up.” She could give tease as well as she could take it. I liked that.
From looking at her, I could tell why she had the fashion magazine. Every article of clothing she wore all the way down to her shoes was a designer brand designed to look stylishly casual. She wore black thin-strip corduroy pants, a green shirt, a silk knit scarf, and a black light sweater. The sweater looked plain at first but one could tell by looking at the stitching that it was soft on the skin and pricey. Complimenting her outfit she wore a hijab of beautiful dark green silk with black streaks patterned throughout. So her reading Elle made sense. The Cosmo must have been just pure mindless indulgence.
I stood back up to grab my laptop and headphones out of my bag in the overhead bin then sat back down. “We’ll just see what kind of mindless entertainment you bring up on that thing and then we’ll talk,” she further teased back at me.
“Nothing but high-brow content here,” I lied. “A documentary on Darwin, another on post-structuralist philosophy, one on the fallacy of post-modernity, and finally one on great women thinkers throughout history.” She looked at me sideways with one eyebrow raised, trying to assess if I was telling the truth. I tried to hold in my smile but I could feel the corners of my mouth betraying me, moving up ever-so-slightly higher on my cheeks.
“If that were true I wouldn’t know whether to be impressed or sorry for you,” she said, reassessing me with her eyes. She knew it wasn’t true but the content of my assertion told her that I was likely an academic.
We were now taxiing to the runway. Members of the flight crew started going over safety instructions, disrupting our conversation. I tucked my laptop away in the seat pocket and prepared for takeoff while she did the same with her books and magazines. I have always loved the rush of liftoff when flying. It wasn’t quite the same on big jets because the acceleration isn’t as fast, but it was still fun. She looked tense, a look that stayed on her face throughout the takeoff. Once we were in the air I decided to change the subject.
“Are you heading home or are you visiting?” I asked. A pained look came over her face.
“Funny you should ask…” she said softly, “A few years ago I would have answered that I was visiting. Now I’m not so sure.”
“You make that sound like a sad thing,” I observed.
“It is sad for me… not because I’m really unsure but because increasingly I am fairly sure. I just don’t like…” she paused to reconsider her words. “I’m not sure about how I feel about the answer.”
“O-kay… I won’t pry if it’s a touchy subject.”
“I’m from Iran,” she explained and left it at that as if that said it all.
“I see. I think I get it.”
“Do you?” she challenged me.
“Well, I know my government labels you as part of the so-called ‘axis of evil,’ and I also know that the US and Israel are foolishly trying to start a war with you guys right now, pushing for sanctions that will hurt the basic citizen more than the government. All part of the global war on terror. That can’t be easy for you,” I concluded.
She just looked at me cautiously, so I decided to continue.
“There is also all this turmoil right now in the Middle East with the Arab Spring but I also know that there was the Green movement in Iran that preceded these uprisings, though Ahmadinejad crushed them pretty thoroughly.”
She looked at me with either increased skepticism or renewed respect, I couldn’t quite tell. Maybe it was both. “How do you know so much about what’s happening in Iran?” she asked finally.
“I keep up on my international news,” I said coolly.
“Yeah, but most Americans do not,” she observed. “What makes you different?”
I raised my hand slightly and looked down at my dark skin covering it. “I know what it’s like when they try to make you out to be the boogie man,” I finally told her. “Lately, Arabs have been catching it pretty bad.”
She didn’t say anything for about a minute, reassessing me. It felt like five minutes, and I realized how quickly I had become concerned with what she thought of me. Then something in her demeanor changed and she finally let the tension out of her shoulders. “That’s only the tip of the iceberg of my story,” she began. “My name is Orkideh, by the way.” She offered her hand and for the first time I saw her engagement ring.
“Jackson,” I replied as I took her hand and shook it, contemplating life’s small cruelties. “Jackson William,” I repeated, giving her my full name.
“Is Jackson your first or last name?”
“My first. William is my last name.”
“Isn’t Jackson usually a family name?” she asked. “Your mom got that little backwards,” she teased.
“You know, you’re the first one to ever make that observation” I replied in a mocking voice. She laughed and gave me a slight elbow to my arm.
“It’s nice to meet you, Jackson” she said, her laugh fading into a beautiful smile.
“It’s nice to meet you as well,” I replied, trying to pronounce her name to make sure I had it right.
“It means ‘orchid’ in Farsi,” she continued. “You can call me Orchid if that’s easier for you.”
“Not a chance,” I said. “I will not dumb down your name, Orkideh.”
“Very good,” she said, complimenting me on my pronunciation. “Farsi is the most widely spoken Persian language, and so first let me share with you that we’re not all Arabs. Most Iranians are Persian. We have Arabs and Turks in the minority in Iran, but most of us are Persian.”
“Secondly, your observations are half right — but it’s not so much the threat of war that really worries us. Though the US, Israel and the EU claim that we are isolated and want to cripple our economy with sanctions, Iran actually has strong economic and historic ties with China, Russia, Korea and Japan, none of whom will strictly adhere to sanctions. More recently Ahmadinejad has built strong ties with Venezuela, Brazil, and a many other countries in the southern hemisphere.
“The real danger for the Iranian people is in how this treatment by Western powers emboldens Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah to take a much harder line stifling any dissent and crushing dissidents. Islamic fundamentalism is typically seen as the answer to Western aggression and the attempts to emasculate Middle Eastern leaders. It’s these kinds of policies that make our lives hell.”
“So it’s not always being regarded with suspicion as terrorists that causes you the most problems?” I asked.
“I don’t want to make it sound like that’s not also a pain, especially when I travel and the treatment I’ve received in the US over the past three years that I have been living there. But over the past 30 years since the Iranian revolution, Western threats have had a much more profound affect on our daily lives,” she explained, “and that’s very much related to the spread of Islamic fundamentalism.”
“Like how?” I inquired.
She thought for a moment then reached to remove her hijab from around her hair. For the first time I got to take in her full beauty. Her thick black hair was run through with dark golden highlights. Her high cheek bones gave a regal beauty to her face. She wasn’t flawless — who among us is? Now in my 30s, my physique wasn’t what it used to be in my 20s. I work out occasionally but I prefer to keep in shape by staying active — playing tennis, shooting some hoops, riding my bike, or better yet building something. I like to play carpenter on the weekends.
My problem was I didn’t have the time to do it often enough. I eat healthy most of the time, stay well groomed, but I’m not the kind of man to maintain a six-pack. Physical perfection is not what I look for in a woman, either. I value intellect and a strong, passionate personal connection, the strength of the chemistry between us. With Orkideh, I was becoming increasing drawn into her personality. The fact that she was soft on my eyes only made me regret more that she had an engagement ring on her finger.
“From the youngest age, I remember learning that the most important skill was lying. We lied because we had to. At school you were supposed to cover your hair with these tiny scarves,” she said, holding up her hijab. “When I was younger we could only wear black ones but nowadays white or bright colors are permitted. Our teachers would ask us if we were always wearing our scarves, and we quickly learned to lie and say we were.
“The questions did not stop at our attire. We were also constantly asked about what kind of music we were listening to and what kind of movies we were watching to make sure that we were not being exposed to anything that was forbidden. Even though we learned to deny it, when at home we could easily have access to video tapes – considered illegal then – containing musical videos and banned movies, all kinds of stuff.
“Most foreigners find this funny or rather unbelievable, the issue of restrictions in my country. I am not talking about the basic rights of human beings to live their personal lives — about which too much has been said already — but rather how all this has created a culture in which we learn to speak a dual language, and the psychological toll that takes on us. That dual culture requires little kids learn to lie at school about our moms wearing or not wearing a hijab in front of men, to lie in high school about our favorite writers, favorite book or favorite song, to lie in the uni about what we do when we are not studying, and to lie at home to our parents about our friends, relationships and what we do when we go out.”
“Yeah, but most kids learn to do that when they’re growing up,” I replied.
“Sure they do, but not with their lives depending on it, or the lives of their family members. What happened in Persia in the last century was an abrupt change of values after the revolution in 1979. Religion was the key point of this power shift, however this is only the surface of a much more complicated story. After the revolution, all expression and communication became couched in religious terms. Our personal lives became subject to scrutiny to insure that we were living in concert with the religious themes of the revolution. This did not mean that we all became ultra religious. The pressure of the investigations into our personal lives and the consequent discrimination we face when we fail that scrutiny ends up in the formation of a language in which things have dual meanings. We learned to use religious prose with multiple meanings to convey what we are trying to communicate.
“In this dual language, we live two lives and speak two tones. We are religious at school, we take part in the prayers held in the school yard, we celebrate the anniversary of the revolution. But once we go home we change our clothes, dress up, attend parties, drink and dance. In a fraction of a second we forget about school or work, like our minds just switch to another channel,” she explained.
“There is a similar phenomenon in Black culture in the US,” I interjected. “Du Bois called it ‘double consciousness’ and more recently we call it ‘code switching.’ Basically there is an alternative universe that we live within, in terms of how we communicate and express ourselves, depending on the context and who else is around.”
“Yeah, I think all oppressed people must learn this skill, and it has certainly become well-developed in Persians in the past 30 years. We can’t be proud of this ability though, which is based on pretending to be what others want you to be. This ‘Other You’ is your key to survival, it’s our way to get accepted by the rulers as a citizen. Don’t you think it’s unhealthy to have to live like that?” she asked.
I thought about it for a minute. “On the one hand, you’re right. On the other hand, a lot of creativity comes out of living in that kind of liminal space. When I think about our music, our styles, imitated all over the world… all that creativity has come from our experiences.”
“I never thought about it like that,” she reflected.
“I bet there is a lot of creativity in you, as well,” I wagered. She thought about it for a moment.
“I write poetry,” she admitted finally, “But it doesn’t mean that I’m grateful to live like this!” she was quick to assert. “The worst is not about the dual language thing, but the violence we face when our dissent becomes known. It’s the threat of that violence that does the most damage to us mentally.”
“You’re right, Orkideh,” I admitted, looking deep into her dark brown eyes, “and the threat of violence we face is not what it used to be. Yet still, many of us still get randomly shot by the police, and we have to be the most incarcerated group of people on the planet. We live with that threat constantly.”
“I’ve known 5 people killed in the last two years,” she said softly, not in a way to try and prove who lived under the biggest threat, but just as a statement of fact. A silence hung in the air.
“Were they all part of the Green Movement?” I asked finally.
“Some were, if only tangentially. One was a writer, an older man, who had been writing political dissent pieces for many years. But the regime is cracking down on people much more harshly than they have done in the past, and that scares so many of us.”
“What kind of poetry do you write?” I asked, connecting the dots between the sense of fear that I picked up from her in recounting this story.
“The themes in most of my poetry have been pretty subtle, hopefully not enough to get me in any trouble. Plus, I’ve written them on a blog using only my first name. But I have a second blog where I write commentaries on political events. That blog has focused on the Green Movement and the rest of the Arab Spring and I write under a pseudonym, but I fear that I might have recently been discovered.”
“I’m guessing you’re an academic in addition to the poetry, so what do you work on?”
She gave me an affirming nod. “Very perceptive of you, Jackson. Are you an academic as well?” she asked. Then before I could answer, “No, let me guess! Political Science?”
“Almost,” I chucked. “I’m a historian.”
“Anthro,” she said. “And you’re right, it’s my academic work that will get me into trouble, and it’s why I can’t go back home to Tehran.” She paused for a second. “The threat to me isn’t even the worst part. I have family that still lives there.”
“Do they support you, even with the risk?”
“For the most part, everyone except my brother, whom we were all visiting in Malaysia. He lives in Kuala Lumpur with his wife and two kids. We all gathered there for my father’s birthday. My parents are the ones who still live in Tehran. They are the ones facing the greatest risk, yet they are most supportive of my work.”
“Is he your only sibling?” I asked.
“I have two older sisters, the one closest to my age in London and an older one in Montreal.”
I teased her about being the baby. She gave me a playful elbow in my side then asked me about my family. I had to admit that I, too, was the youngest. Then we shared stories about how all of our siblings give us shit about being spoiled. It was about that time that the service cart came around. We had been talking for over an hour. Our conversation continued over the meal and after we had both had some wine, we began to do a lot more laughing.
It was about that time that the older guy sitting by the window instructed us that he needed to get out and go to the restroom. Orkideh said she needed to go as well, so we all decided to get up and stretch. We stayed standing for a while to let the circulation run thoroughly through our legs, chatting by the serving station. After about 20 minutes we could see that our laughter was starting to bother some people near-by trying to sleep, so we decided to return to our seats.
“So let’s see what movies you really have on that thing,” she asked once we sat down, gesturing toward my laptop. “I want to watch a movie, and the ones that the airline has available never really interest me.”
“S-u-r-e-…” I said a bit hesitantly. I had some good movies on there that she definitely might like, but I couldn’t exactly remember the names of the ones I had downloaded. I also had some other, uhh… “private” movies of an adult theme on there. I was afraid that if I opened up the window with all my video files on it that she would see a little more than I was ready to share. Things were really going great between us and I didn’t want to risk putting her off. Then I remembered that she was engaged. I had purposefully not asked her about it the whole time, and we were three hours into the flight by that point. She had also not mentioned it at all but I did not know if that was because she didn’t want to or simply that it hadn’t come up.
It’s always a tense moment, when a man first shares his taste in porn with the woman he’s dating… if he ever dares to at all. Not all of my girlfriends had been so open-minded about it, but three of my five last girlfriends were. We would watch it together sometimes, figuring out new things we wanted to try. One of my ex-girlfriends worked in a lab during the week and in a women’s-themed adult bookstore on the weekends. Her job was to take home new porn movies they received and evaluate whether they were “woman friendly.” Why did I ever break up with her?!?
Nevertheless, there’s the vulnerability that comes with admitting to someone your own specific kink that gets you off more intensely than anything else. Everybody has one, like a favorite flavor of ice cream. Sure, we can all enjoy some vanilla ice cream on a piece of pie but once you get out of the basic flavors of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry (missionary, oral and a few different positions)), then you get into those specialty flavors that are like heaven for some people but turns others off completely.
I had one girlfriend in fact that I likely would have married had our respective ‘specialty flavors’ not been so drastically different. I was able to go without fulfilling my deepest sexual desires for two years while we were together but I knew enough about myself to know that eventually I would need it so bad that I would be tempted to cheat, and I’m a man who actually believes in monogamous relationships. I don’t want to cheat on the women I love. If I begin to feel unfulfilled in a relationship, and if there is no resolution with that person to fulfill those needs (and I’m talking needs way beyond just sex), then that’s a sign that its time for the relationship to end.
All of this was going through my head as I opened up my laptop and turned it on. We both lowered our seat trays and I set the laptop down right between us so we would both share a good view. Orkideh was right on my shoulder, waiting eagerly. I was really enjoying her closeness and her scent filled my nostrils, really increasing the desire I had to be close to her. Her perfume was subtle, more musky than flowery, but it wasn’t just her perfume that smelled so good. She had only put a little on. Instead, it was the chemical mixture between her perfume, scented lotion, and her own natural body oils. She had chosen the perfect scents to compliment her natural pheromones and her resulting smell was absolutely intoxicating. I could not help but wonder if she would taste just as good. I shook my head to clear it and thought again of her engagement ring. ‘Fuck it,’ I said to myself. Trying to avoid having her look would be even more awkward. I decided I just needed to man up.
I opened my “downloads” folder so we could look over the movies I had. I had downloaded a mix of movies and TV shows to tie me over for the trip. Boardwalk Empire Season 2, Contagion, Columbiana, the entire second season of Game of Thrones, Incendies, Beautiful Lies, The Last Mountain, the six episodes of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, and finally Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. I explained each one, skipping over the few porn titles interspersed between those as if they weren’t even there. She gave me shit about Columbiana and Spartacus — “typical guy stuff!” — and she had seen Beautiful Lies in its original French, but she got excited about Incendies: a heart-wrenching story about what happens to one woman over years of war in the Middle East. “I heard it will break my heart but that it’s such a great film,” she explained. I had heard the same.
“This ‘Tucker and Dale vs. Evil,’ what the bloody hell is that?” she laughed. It was a film I had found totally by accident but the online forums said it was hilarious — an instant cult classic. I decided to take a chance on it. She gave me a skeptical look that said she doubted my judgment. Other than that she didn’t say a word about the adult titles. I was near sweating in my seat as I enjoy some pretty raunchy stuff. We decided we would watch Incendies and then see what we were in the mood for afterward. We were going to share my headphones, so I gave one ear piece to her and put the other in my ear. Just before the movie got started I heard her mumble “Dirty boy” under her breath. I turned to see a slight grin on her face.
Throughout the movie she stayed glued to my shoulder. We were almost cuddling. Feeling her warmth pressed into my side while smelling her body’s natural scents was sweet torture. I wanted to turn my head and bury my nose in her hair or wrap my arm around her. The arm rest between our seats was driving me crazy just for being there, as I really wanted to pull her into me. But resting there between us was her hand with the engagement ring on it, reminding me of her unavailability.
We were only 4 hours into the flight, with 10 more to go. If I read the situation wrong and made a move that got rebuked, the rest of the flight would suddenly become extremely uncomfortable and awkward. So I tried to stay cool even though she was driving me crazy. What helped was that the movie was incredibly tragic. By the time the movie was over there were almost tears in her eyes. Our playful mood had definitely grown somber. We talked for the next 45 minutes about the movie and about the different injustices women face in her part of the world.
Eventually we got up to take another walk and use the restroom. We snagged some more wine from the serving station on our way back to our seats. After we had both downed our small bottles, our playful mood had finally returned.
“OK, I’m feeling adventurous,” she finally said, “and I want to watch something funny. This Trucker and Earl –”
“You mean Tucker and Dale?” I corrected.
“Yes, this Tucker and Dale better be funny.” So we pulled the laptop out and started another movie. Luckily it was, and we had a hard time controlling our laughter and not disturbing the other people around us. Why are things so much funnier when you are trying not to laugh? The guy next to us was sleeping, and so were the people on the other side of the isle from us. We were trying hard to be considerate but not doing a very good job of it. It didn’t help that the movie was actually laugh-out-loud hilarious.
At one point we woke up the older guy sitting next to us, and he gave us a dirty look. We giggled together like little kids. Trying not to wake him again, Orkideh started burying her face in my shoulder to muffle the sound every time she laughed really hard. Every time she did I brought my face down toward her head to take a deep whiff of her hair and the natural body musk that emanates from one’s scalp. She smelled so good that my mouth was actually watering and I was desperate to taste her.
To make matters worse, she had taken hold of my arm and it felt like her tender breast was pressed snugly into my side. She was driving me crazy but it all seemed so innocent. I really didn’t think she was trying to tease me. I struggled not to get an erection. I decided to play it cool. With her engagement ring right in my face, she would have to give me an unambiguously clear signal before I risked making any move.
———— Orkideh ————
By the time the movie was over the flight attendants were coming by with another meal and beverage service. We were just past eight hours into the flight with around another six to go. They had practically flown by with how much Jackson and I were enjoying each other’s company. The wine had helped keep things loose, and we both asked for more. I knew that there was an attraction between us and our banter was just on the verge of being flirtatious. He was devilishly handsome but in a very unconventional way. What really attracted me to him was his intellect and his wit. But he had seen my ring and knew I was engaged. So for me, it was good safe fun I was having with Jackson.
During the meal, I quizzed him more on his history. I wanted to know what he studied as an academic. He told me about the twisted winding road that brought him to a career as a college professor. Ironically, Jackson started college with plans to become an engineer and he had hated all the history classes he had before. I laughed at the strange irony in the fact that he had become a historian.
As it turned out, the political reasons that brought him to the study of history had also led me to the study of anthropology from a planned career in medicine.
“You went to medical school before this?” he asked, shocked. A mischievous look in his eye told me that he was tempted to ask me if we could play doctor. Some boy thoughts are universal.
“In Iran they start you in medical school after you graduate from high school,” I explained, “so I completed four years of medical school before I decided that I had intellectual interests beyond the medical curriculum.”
“But you never did a residency program?” he asked.
“No I did not,” I replied. “I was quite certain by that point that I did not want to practice medicine. Plus, I had all this poetry dying to come out of me. I knew I needed something different.”
Jackson thought for a second, contemplating what I had just told him about my intellectual journey.
“So, poetry is my artistic expression, I’m betting you have one too?” I inquired.
“Music,” he said simply. “Music, and I also like to build things, but primarily music.”
“You write music, Jackson?”
“I’ve written some but I have more love for playing.”
“What instrument?”
“I was first trained on piano but I developed a true passion for the bass, and now that’s all I play.”
“What makes you passionate about it?” I quizzed him. “Why that instrument?”
“It’s the low frequencies,” he explained. “It’s about how the low frequencies speak to your body. You hear low frequencies with your body more so than with your ears, and so they evoke a different kind of bodily response. They tap into something raw and primal, something deep… at least for me.”
It was my turn to contemplate. I gave him a look with a sly grin. I saw his gaze shift down from my eyes to my lips for the briefest of moments, looking at them lustfully. His tongue peeked out to briefly wet his own lips, which were nice and full and seemingly crying out for me to kiss them. “I never thought about it like that,” I said finally, “but now I really want to hear you play to test your theory.” I tried to keep my tone light to distract from the sexual tension building up between us.
“As I also wish I could read some of your poetry. I don’t suppose you have any…”
“Unfortunately I don’t,” I answered before he could finish asking. “But if you google me you can find my poetry blog. Most of my poems are written in Farsi but there are a few in English.”
“You know,” I continued, “Persian dancing has a lot of hip movement in it, but it is the percussion in our music that speaks to our bodies, not the bass.”
“Percussion and bass are first cousins” he told me.
“Really? Did they evolve as cousins or are you just saying that?” I asked, skeptically. The anthropologist in me was clearly piqued, though.
“The drum was first instrument that humans invented. The men drummed while the women danced. The beats and the rhythms spoke to their bodies. The dances were all about the metaphysics of fertility: the fertility of the people, the fertility of the earth, or the fertility of the gods. Over time, people started to make drums with different tones to communicate differently, a way of adding melody on top of or under the rhythm, depending on if the drum was small or large. Larger drums have deeper tones that resonate at lower frequencies. The bass evolved as a way to further add tone and melodic structure under the beat and the rhythm.”
“And I thought I was the anthropologist,” I said, playfully challenging him.
“I told you, I’m really into music” he said as a way of explaining the nerd-like amount of knowledge he apparently carried around in his head about all things musical.
I asked him about his favorite artists and so we talked music for a while. I am really into music too, and our interests had some overlap but not much, as so much of Western music was banned in Iran as I was growing up. There was an extensive black market for all kinds of Western media, but most of it that got through was the most popular pop stuff. He explained that he hadn’t been into much pop since he was in high school, so a lot of the music he had was new to me.
The fact that we had different musical knowledge, though, was a good thing, as before long we both pulled out our Ipods and started playing music for each other, introducing the other to what songs really moved us. It was a surprisingly intimate way to continue to get to know each other. Some of my music was in Farsi, and I explained what some of the artists were saying, but it was actually more interesting when I asked him to guess what the songs were about from the melody, the rhythm, and the tone of the singer’s voice. Impressively, he guessed right most of the time.
After little more than an hour of this, we discovered three things about each other: that we both loved to dance, we were really turned on by music with a strong political message, and that we were both hopeless romantics. These commonalities were solidified as we started singing Bob Marley and Al Green together.
“You can’t carry a tune to save your life,” he teased me as my pitch oscillated back and forth to hit every other note but the correct one. I knew I couldn’t sing but I was feeling free enough not to care.
“You’re one to talk!” I shot back, elbowing him in the ribs again. “I would expect better of a musician.”
“That’s why I play an instrument,” he laughed.
We went on like that for about another hour until we got up to stretch again and use the lavatory. After we both came out of the restroom, we went to stand over in the opening by one the cabin doors, where we would not be in anyone’s way. We took a second to look out the window. We were passing over the eastern coast of Canada which was covered in snow, making our way south down to New York. I had learned a while ago that if the flight destination was far enough away on the other side of the globe that airlines would take a flight path over the North Pole because the distance is shorter that way due to the fact that the earth is wider at the equator.
———— Jackson ————–
Since I was considerably taller than her, I stood behind her so we could both look out at the same time. In order to look down, I had to move in close. I put my nose close to her hair to take more of her scent inside my lungs. It was like her smell cast a spell on me and I just couldn’t get enough. I drew closer, bringing our full bodies in contact with one another, and I put my left hand on her left shoulder as I peered over her right. I was taking a big chance. It was a position I could only get away with for a few seconds. I reminded myself that I didn’t want to make a move on her if she really didn’t want it, and make the rest of the trip awkward for the both of us. On the other hand, her intoxicating scent was driving me crazy with desire. She felt so good up against me, so right. It took all my willpower to resist completely wrapping my arms around her to hold her tighter up against me.
If I didn’t stay up against her for too long I could back away and we could both pretend that the contact was innocent. My next move depended on her reaction, and she knew it. If she snuggled her body into mine, those would be signs to let me know the intimacy was welcome. If she turned her head toward me in the slightest we would be kissing… deeply. For a few seconds she did nothing, seemingly thinking about what she would do. I could see the wheels turning in her head and I felt her breathing quicken a little bit. To the slightest degree I felt her lean back into my chest then she caught herself, as if thinking better about it. After what seemed like an eternity — which truly only lasted like one minute — she raised her hand to place it over my own hand on her shoulder. She rubbed it for a few seconds and then squeezed it before gently moving it off of her. I backed up. She turned to me and smiled, but her smile had a tinge of sadness behind it. I bravely smiled back as my insides melted.
“Let’s go back to our seats,” she said softly. Before we went back she walked up to one of the flight attendants standing in the serving station and asked if we could have two more of those small bottles of wine. Perhaps she sensed that I would need it.
Once we returned to our seats, she made a concerted effort to remain warm and friendly with me as if nothing had happened. I was thankful for that. The new bottle of wine went down faster than the previous three. Soon we were laughing again.
For the next hour we talked about every aspect of each other’s lives that we possibly could. It was like we were trying to put the absolute most into the time we had together, knowing it would end when the flight was over. The one topic we avoided was current relationships. When we talked about relationships it was always in the abstract, never mentioning the current state of our love lives. It was on purpose for sure, not wanting to ruin the little bubble we had created for ourselves. Until the end of our flight there was no outside world, just us getting to know each other and becoming closer and closer. To talk about outside love interests would be to shatter the pure joy that comes in meeting someone new and falling in love — which is clearly what we were doing — and replace it with the sadness of our actual reality.
Is there value in meeting someone new and falling in love with them, even if you know it can’t go anywhere? Is the euphoria worth the sadness? I don’t know. For the moment, we had both decided that it was. So we went on, learning more about each other’s lives and becoming closer.
It was at about that time that the flight crew came through the cabin to distribute the immigration/customs cards. I could feel Orkideh’s mood tense up as she pulled out a pen from her purse. She was silent as she took out her passport and student visa and started filling in all the information. She handed the pen to me so I could fill mine out. When I was done I asked her about her mood shift. She took a big sigh before she opened up.
“I’ve been doing this for about 3 years now, coming back and forth to the US, and I get nervous because I never know how I am going to be treated going through security,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Can’t they just look up your student visa and see that you are legit?”
“Yes, they can. But each individual immigration agent has an incredible amount of flexibility in how they treat you. They are given an enormous amount of discretion as to what counts as ‘suspicious.'”
I got it. It was the way police had been treating Black men for years.
She continued, “the border agents always ask me to explain what I study as a kind of test, to see how comfortably I can talk about being an academic. They ask many random questions, but that is the main one. If I stammer in any way, they would take it as a sign that I might not really here for school. Obviously, after talking to me for the past 12 hours, you know I have no trouble talking about my work.
“So for some agents,” she went on, “I am clearly a student and therefore not a suspicious person who needs to be investigated or interrogated further. However, there are a few border agents for whom just being an Irani makes me suspicious, no matter how well I can talk about what I do.”
“What happens to you when they decide you are a person of interest?” I asked her softly.
“They may decide to give me a hard time in a number of different ways. They may take my fingerprints, search through my luggage, or make me sit for an extended interrogation of where I’ve been traveling and who I saw or who I talked to while I was there. It can go on for a long time, and a few times it went on so long that I missed a connecting flight. The most frustrating thing is that while it is happening the worst thing I can possibly do is to get angry or agitated, as that would only make me more suspicious. So I just have to take it.”
“How often does this happen to you?” I asked.
She went on to share with me different stories of her treatment crossing the border into the US and I shared with her my stories about my treatment by the police. We bonded over our respective war stories of hyper surveillance, racial profiling and harassment. We felt the slight dimming of the engine noise and the slight drop in altitude that let us know we were getting close. Then the captain came over the intercom and announced that we had started our initial descent into JFK. Our fourteen hour date was coming to an end. She was transferring to catch a flight to Boston and I was flying to Houston. We both had about a 2 hour layover. She suggested we try to share a cup of coffee if we got through customs quick enough. She didn’t want it to end either. I stowed my computer for landing.
The pilots brought the plane down without incident, and the passengers in the cabin erupted into applause. I had been on many international flights yet each time I am always taken off guard when it happens, as the custom just doesn’t exist on American domestic flights. It always brings a smile to my face, however, the fact that people in the rest of the world don’t take landing safely for granted the way Americans do.
We grabbed our luggage and slowly filed out of the plane. All of my luggage was carry-on but she checked a large bag so I waited with her to claim her luggage before heading through the customs/immigration lines. Not surprisingly, even her luggage was chic. When we got to the security clearance area, there was one set of lines for US citizens and another set of lines for foreign nationals. Before we split up we stood there a moment contemplating whether we should say goodbye, just in case she got held up by the immigration agents. I told her that I would wait for her on the other side so we could grab that coffee — we wouldn’t even entertain the possibility that she would not make it. She smiled, and we split up to go through our separate lines.
I kept an eye on her the whole time as I moved through my line. I could see her getting nervous as she moved through, but trying to stay positive by sending me smiles every time our eyes met. Her line was shorter but moved slower. Consequently, I went through a little before she did.
The border agent asked me a few quick questions about my trip then nicely welcomed me back home before sending me on my way. I took my luggage and went over to stand near where Orkideh was just coming up to submit her documents. I saw her smile and try to appear friendly. The woman inspecting her passport and visa did not look so friendly. I saw them exchange words for almost five minutes. At one point, Orkideh shot me a look of despair to let me know that it was not going smoothly.
The agent instructed Orkideh to look into an iris scanner, and then they took her finger prints. The agent typed some things into her computer for a few minutes and then picked up the phone. Orkideh looked over at me again. There was sadness and a hint of anger on her face. She looked at her watch. I pulled out my phone to see the time. Almost an 45 minutes had passed since we de-planed, waited for her luggage and then worked our way through the lines. There was still customs to go through after immigration. That would hopefully be quick, but it looked like time was running out on us sitting together for one last cup of coffee.
What happened next really scared me. Two TSA guards came out and asked Orkideh to go with them. One grabbed her documents while the other grabbed her luggage. The one with the documents walked in front of her, leading her away. She looked over at me one last time. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed silently. She pointed to her watch and then gestured with her hands that I should go. She blew me a kiss. “Bye Jackson,” she mouthed. I stood there looking shocked. They walked her over to a locked door. The agent in front scanned his badge over the card reader and a little red light turned green accompanied by a loud click. He pulled the door open and the three of them disappeared inside. The door read “Authorized Personnel Only.” She was gone.
I found a bench in the large corridor and took a seat. I looked at my phone to see the time. I had one hour before my connecting flight took off, and a half hour until boarding. I sat and waited for 30 minutes and the door never opened; no one went in and no one went out. I walked down the hallway to find a flight board to check the status of my plane. It was on time. I walked back toward where they had taken Orkideh and retook my seat. Ten more minutes went by as I thought to myself about the last 14 hours. Had she been lying to me about who she was? Was she really some kind of security threat? No, I trusted my impression of her.
I went back to the flight board to look and see if there were any more flights to Houston leaving that night. I didn’t see any. There were five minutes left until boarding, and I had a long walk to another terminal ahead of me. I walked back toward the security area to look for Orkideh one more time. Even if we couldn’t sit for coffee, I really wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to see her face one more time. I really wanted to give her a hug and smell her one more time. I checked the time once more. If I waited any longer, I would miss my flight for sure. I had no choice but to leave if I wanted to make it home.