Sara Farizan

We were six. We didn’t wear head scarves then. We were little girls, not “whores of Babylon,” to be met by the scrutinizing eye of any asshole with a beard. Nasrin has the longest, darkest hair but it never gets tangled or neglected under her roosari like mine does. I always think there’s no point in making my hair look decent if I have to cover it in school, but Nasrin is always taming her locks—blow drying, using mousse, a flat iron sometimes. No matter what she does to her hair, she will always be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

I think about telling Ali about Nasrin because it’s getting so difficult not to talk about how I feel. I want to shout how much I love her to anyone who will listen, but sometimes I feel stupid even saying “I love you” to Nasrin. I know she loves me, but once in a while I can’t believe she could feel that way about me. I think that she just might not want to hurt my feelings.

“You’d be living with me. I would keep the boys away,” I say with a grin. She leans in closer to me. Her perfume smells like jasmine and vanilla. She’s so cruel. I could die from it. Her mouth is close to my ear, and I think she knows how deliciously evil she’s being.

I lean in and kiss Nasrin on her lips. She returns the kiss with urgency, and I definitely know that no man or woman can ever make me feel the way she does. If that makes me gay, so be it.

Sometimes when Nasrin and I kiss, Ayatollah Khomeini’s and Ayatollah Khamenei’s faces pop into my head. When I was little, I used to think they were the same person, because their names sound the same, they wear the same outfit—a cleric’s robe and a turban—and both with long gray beards. Khomeini, now deceased, became the Supreme Leader after the revolution. I hadn’t even been born then, but apparently Iran was a lot different. There was a king and girls could wear miniskirts, which is all Nasrin cares to know about that era because it sounds glamorous. In school, they teach us that Khomeini brought justice and the will of God to the people and how much better the country is flourishing than under the Shah. I’m not sure how much I believe that.

Nasrin was so calm about everything. Does she even care about what happens to me? And to us? I was just something to keep her busy until the Superman of suitors came forward. He is so handsome, and tall. I’m short and only just learned how to make my one eyebrow into two. He is a prince, and I am a frog. A hairy frog that is due for an eyebrow wax and breast reduction, with a sexual orientation that will get this frog imprisoned sooner or later.

Baba takes another long sip of his soda and looks at me.

“It is just girls?”

If he only knew that it’s the girls he should worry about.

The men stay in front. This way if the bus gets crowded, the men and women don’t brush against one another inappropriately. It’s a blessing, really. The last thing I need is an old man’s pencil penis brushing against my bum on his way to the mosque.

Covering my head has always made me feel foolish, but I respect a woman’s decision to cover up so long as it’s the woman’s decision. It shouldn’t be a decision for a man or a government to make.

and Jamshid has more rights as a man than I do as a woman. He can wear short sleeves; he can have two wives or more if he can provide for them. I can’t even get one