–        “Hypatia: Father… Oh father… I long for an adventure… Not to reach a point… But to go from one line to another… There is more to this world than Alexandria, and the sky is greater than the earth… Here is not enough for understanding the secret of the sky… I want to reflect on the secret of existence beyond this city’s sky… Father…!

–        Theon: May my prayers be a blessing for you on your journey Hypatia… Wherever your destination, daughter! Protect your right for reflection; for thinking wrong is better than never thinking…”

 

He seemed to tell the truth. Girls’ first labor really was to cook Pilau rice. Reza, however, appeared to have memorized all the stages of Khosrow’s labors, and spontaneously placed a small rice cooker for two on the table Khosrow was skewering the kebabs on.

He was as skillful as a professional cook with a sculptor’s care and obsession. He carefully arranged the chopped meat, and put the pulpy red and brown pieces on the cutting board together before skewering them; selecting the right piece for the puzzle.

There was gentle music, perhaps from the ceiling, but I didn’t know the singer; but I recognized “An angry silence laid, where love had been; and in your eyes a look, I’ve never seen” on a loop. It was my story.

Like cooking shows, everything was ready on the table. Two cups of rice. Saffron. Butter. Salt. Pepper.

– They have everything… This is not how you make pilau… All I have to do is pour everything in there, a cup of water, and done…

He guffawed.

“Eh? Simmer down… He laughs like the cat’s ball of yarn’s has started to talk.”

It took time to be myself with Khosrow. My actual self. Was he the cat and I the yarn? Or was I the clawless cat on ice? Certainly, there was a cat in it. Perhaps that’s why that cat, that blue Persian cat…! Oh God…! I…! Khosrow…! Occult or astrology…! Negar…! Maryam…!

– Pour away. Let’s see the damage you inflict upon my and Reza’s taste buds tonight…

He paused for one or two seconds to say the next sentence. I thousand thoughts sprang into my mind, like someone who was just woken up with a bucket of ice water.

“What if he rapes me with his helper… He alone I could handle, but not his helper… What if he drugs me…Honeye was talking about trafficking of human body parts or some crap… No way… He’s a colleague… Just look at those adoring eyes… Incidentally, the people who look exceedingly attractive and caring are the ones who you should fear… Why did I oblige like an imbecile when he invited us to have dinner… What does he do to me… My caaaar…” Exactly after my next sentence, my thoughts took on another color:

– All the art of cooking is about how much butter, salt, water, saffron, and spice to put in… The rice cooker has no taste…

“What if he tries to kiss me? Kissing after having kebabs? Yuck… disgusting. Will Reza stay? Does he even realize his lips are to die for? What if he wants more? Like Honeye says, maybe I should play square so he doesn’t think I’m a skank? I don’t even know what it means? What if they gossip about me? I don’t know anything about this man. He doesn’t look stupid. Does he?” I was so engulfed by my own thoughts that he thought I was contemplating how to solve the mystery of the first labor in the race to win Khosrow the Great. I told him what I was thinking later, and he laughed. He laughed so much he started a coughing fit.

– Well then… Don’t you have a stroke on me. Maybe you’ll pass the first labor…

– The first labor! The second labor… I hate it when you’re being ambiguous. What is the first and the second labor? Is it this damn knob I have to turn? All that pageantry, and this is the rice cooker? What is this diesel-powered relic? Does it have anything to do with your stupid labor?

– Ohhhhh… You know, you might be bipolar or something kid…

– Bipolar?

– One moment, calm and docile… The next, wild and biting… One moment, energetic and enthusiastic… The next, a fizzling fart…

I laughed. He was right. Perhaps he had seen none crazier than me that he fell in crazy love with me. Perhaps it is true when they say the insane get attached to the insane.

– A fizzled fart and fuck you… Come to think of it, I have like ten, twelve poles… Turn this damned thing on…

– Now, don’t die on me from stress… It’s just one labor… It’ll be fine… And we weren’t meant to be together…

– Selfish asshole…

– A proper kateh is only made with an Iranian rice cooker… Which foreigner knows how to make Iranian pilau, let alone their rice cookers? Do they even know what crunchy rice is?

Since the very beginning, everything about our relationship was weird. He wasn’t the person from our last get-togethers and dinners. He had a particular routine with everyone. The routine that all girls and boys knew. Khosrow, on the other hand… Like he said, “with me, though?”

– Neither those polite yous, nor these pipe downs… There is no middle ground, at all!

I raised my foot up to his neck, and held it in front of his face;

– I want to kick you in the face. Should I?

“Why did I do this?” He held my foot. I was trapped like an open caliper; and he brought his face closer to mine. I liked his cologne. It was cold and piercing. A mixture of orange, lemon leaves, patchouli, and sandalwood, and had I breathed in deeper, I could recognize other flavors too. In these circumstances, the cologne was critical to my surrender. I cannot fathom how Khosrow broke my resilience with his special perfume. I could not resist. With him, I would rise and fall like my pulse. He said mischievously,

– Why with your foot?

What was it with his eyes? They seemed to have depth. He would take me to a place I had never seen; but if this feeling of mine with Khosrow was love, what was that fiery exhilaration…

It was like a scene in a play. It seemed that everything was dark, and his lips were under the spotlight. I gulped, expecting a kiss. “Where is Reza? I should go easy on the lips and the licking or he might think I’m a…”; But he merely gently pressed my ankle with his fingertips, then let me go and went to the rice cooker. I slowly lowered my foot. “I wish I really had kicked him in the face.”

– Do you know Karate?

– No, I do body flex.

“Why didn’t he kiss me? Is he touting himself? Shit! Seek and you shall find… And now he will say, “The seducer will be the giver… Jerk.”

– What is that?

– Some kind of exercise.

– Seriously? I thought it was a computational method of seduction…

He plunged his index finger into the water to measure its depth. He beamed with satisfaction, then suckled on his finger.

– To seduce you?

– Who else? You’ve put in too little salt…

– I’m talking to you now. One on one! What makes you so confident?

He finished fiddling around with the rice cooker.

– Why shouldn’t it?

– Because it’s repulsive… I despise it…

– But all the girls like it…

– I’m not all girls…

– How confident… Which pole was this?

He filled my beer glass. Unlike the other boys who were enamored by me, he was concerned with hosting and cooking.

– Not bad… Now that you have labors, I’ll have poles…

He chuckled.

– The devil’s taint!

He glanced at his watch and said:

– Twenty minutes to the kebabs… Would you like some vodka?

– No…

– You don’t look uptight…

– I’m not, which is why I won’t mix it up. Serve in shot glass.

He giggled again. Loudly. He seemed to find me entertaining.

– I wish I had a sister to teach me one silly joke to make the owl laugh instead of stare.

“Did I just crack a joke about his sister or himself?” He took two shot glasses from the cabinet under his desk and put them on the table. It was peculiar. It was different to how one would normally put them on the table. Some kind of barman trick. A special skill. A delicate act that was neither flashy nor ordinary.

– There’s a lump just above your gut, huh? You are getting your feet wet, though. The glimmer in your eyes is just as striking as in the first session…

He filled two cups by one and a half centimeters. With a sigh that feeble mind thought to be real, he said:

– No one likes me.

I raised my glass and squinted. “What is he talking about?”

– Cheers.

– Why?

– Because they are all in love with me…

– Douchebag… So edgy…

We raised our glasses together.

– Huuurrrl… Was that poison? It tasted like expectorant…

He giggled again, softly and gracefully. With Tom’s wickedness when opened his fangs before Jerry’s house:

– You mean you like the taste of vodka more than expectorant?

–  so what?

– Good one… Good one…

I was becoming myself. My lost confidence was coming back to me. He reached for a cigarette inside his pocket:

– Cigarette?

I shook my head, suggesting no. He laughed:

– Marijuana? Weed? Hashish? Grass?

I said earnestly:

– Just opium… Edible or smoked will be fine…

There was lump of cigarette smoke in his throat. He look at me in bewilderment. It seemed to fit me just right. Now it was me playing with him like a ball of yarn. He saw me snicker, and laughed.

– The devil’s taint‎!

He puffed into his cigarette repeatedly. He looked at me inquisitively. I liked it and hated it. It gave me the creeps. In my heart, I wanted to know what he was thinking. “Enigmatic jerk.” Every time he inhaled the smoke, he would huff in his longs twice. The second huff would take three to four times as long as the first. After half as much time as the second huff, he would puff out. A vain gray smoke would come out. Occasionally, he would exhale the smoke through his mouth and inhale it back in through his nose. We were staring at each other as if we were on a duel. We were both examining each other.

To be continued

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