Flashback: Freshman Year of College, 1989
"Laleh, I'll love you for as long as we both live."
"And I you, Emily. And I you."
Those jade green eyes. Matching twin gemstones with flecks of hazel. The eyes of a Persian cat. "Purr for me, my Persian cat," Emily would murmur, sucking on her earlobes and kissing heart-shaped patterns along her neck.
And purr she would. Deep throaty purrs of desire and longing. Laleh never came in English, only Farsi. And aside from the scattering of erotic and loving phrases uttered during those exquisite moments of bliss, Emily never did become fluent in her lover's language, in the language of Iran.
They had been drawn to one another instantly on the very first day of their first-year International Studies class, when, during a lull of silence following their prominent Yale professor's tirade against Islamic extremism, Emily boldly stood up and accused him of religious bias, proceeding to mesmerize the class with stories of her travels throughout Middle Eastern countries and her first-hand experiences with the nuances and practices of different local Muslim cultures.
Afterward, trembling, Laleh had approached Emily to thank her for speaking up. An instant bond was forged between the two girls, the Iranian who had lived a life of privilege and felt an all-too familiar lack of identity due to her own multicultural upbringing resulting from her father's diplomatic status, presently marginalized by the overwhelming on-campus support for the Reagan and Bush policies in the Middle East, and the American who had spent her childhood and adolescence representing a country that she couldn't, from the inside, fully understand or even entirely recognize.
It had all started out so innocently.
Doesn't it always, though? Start out innocently?
It took almost half a semester of thighs touching for a moment too long, hands brushing and then abruptly withdrawing, lingering sidelong glances colored by blushing faces turning away, and countless days that Emily spent staring into those brilliant emerald eyes, with any premise of "getting together to study" quickly falling away.
The first time ... thinking about the first time still gave Emily chills, even twenty years later. They were both in her dorm room: a single, thanks to her mother's insistence that it would help her to focus on her studies instead of "partying with hooligans and nobodies." If Emily's mother ever could have envisioned the privacy, the boldness, the initiative to act on her feelings for Laleh afforded to her by that single room ... Well. Those unspoken accusations would come later. After all the ugliness.
That night, they'd smoked some Moroccan hashish Laleh's brother had brought to her on a recent visit. It was far more potent than the locally-grown marijuana Emily had been smoking occasionally throughout the semester and, as the world swirled around her, she was forced to lay down on the bed next to her friend, her porcelain arm practically sparking against Laleh's olive skin. Emily made a lame joke about how it was a good thing they were in America, where drug use wasn't punishable by death.
What happened next would be seared into her brain forever.
Laleh turned to her, their faces only inches apart, and whispered, "In Iran, there are many things that are punishable by death."
"Like what?" Emily had asked nervously, a chill running up her spine.
"Like two girls laying together on a bed."
"Even innocently?" she'd wondered aloud.
"Even innocently," Laleh confirmed. It was then that she slid her body against Emily's, their legs intertwining as they slowly gyrated together, knees moving up to press against groins, neither daring to use their lips or their hands, just continuing to rub their bodies together in a breathy, warm, synchronized dance.
When Emily came against Laleh's knee, she saw green.
Before meeting Laleh, she had never considered the possibility that she could be anything but straight. Careful grooming for a life in the political spotlight didn't permit such considerations.
And yet her only consideration at that very moment was that she wanted Laleh in a way she'd never, ever wanted anyone else before.
Driven by such profound longing, such uninhibited desire, Emily found herself reaching underneath Laleh's flowing skirt, tracing her fingertips along those damp panties before moving them aside to touch Laleh's clit, drawing the same circles she'd drawn against her own so many times before, kissing the open mouth next to hers again and again and again until Laleh cried out and tensed against her, the convulsions shaking the bed so hard that it creaked with each new wave of pleasure ... until Emily herself began to throb anew with thoughts of tasting where her fingers were so relentlessly stroking ...
Emily didn't know until after the shudders had ceased that it had been Laleh's first orgasm.
It would most certainly not be her last.
In retrospect, it always amazed Emily that neither fully knew what they were doing, not really, and yet it was nothing like the awkward and even painful fumbling attempts at sex she'd experienced with boys in the past. It was gentle and it was tender and it was sweet.
Maybe it was the newness of it all that made it what it was, what it would become. Maybe it was the first time either of them had ever genuinely considered that a love like this could indeed exist beyond the realm of fiction and poetry. Or maybe it was just two girls who were desperate to forage a homeland out of a distant but shared past that offered so much land and yet so little home.
After all, by the time she'd enrolled at Yale at the age of eighteen, Emily had already traveled most of the world. And yet. And yet.
And yet when the last of their clothing had been discarded onto the paneled wood of the floor, Emily declared that she'd never set her eyes on a land nearly as beautiful as Laleh's body.
Exploring it was much like being in a foreign country for the first time. The country itself holds no expectations; the sand and gravel and sea demand nothing and invite anything. It was why she always quietly disappeared from Jerusalem to walk through the olive groves and farmland, usually only able to enjoy a few hours of true peace before she was "rescued" by a hysterical IDF detail who would scold her for endangering her life merely by wandering into Palestinian territory, especially when the Old City of Jerusalem had so many sites to offer.
No, Emily had never been impressed by landmarks or monuments before: not until she encountered Laleh's soft unkissed lips, those full brown breasts with their pointed dark nipples, that damp matted pubic hair hiding grooves and folds and an engorged, visibly pulsating treasure. And she could explore anything she wanted.
Well, almost anything. After all, every country has its borders - some visible and some not.
Laleh's border was inside of her, and it had been so well-constructed over the years that when Emily's natural talent for linguistics left Laleh sobbing out moans and arching her back to push harder against Emily's tongue, any attempt to enter her with a finger resulted in an immediate clamping of knees against head and a breathless insistence that this barrier could not be crossed, that only a man with a matching ring on his finger could ever be granted a visa to that slick, wet, innermost place.
Emily understood. That first night, that first dizzying foreign first night, Emily understood. Much in the same way she understood that this, like her previous travels to various countries with her Ambassador mother, could only serve as a temporary stop-over, could never be the site of her final destination.
That first night.
How many "first nights" did they have? How many "last nights"? Emily had stopped trying to count long ago. One night, they just gave in, they gave up, they finally understood that all of the sworn declarations that "this night will be the last night" would, like previous agreements, be broken within days.
They started writing notes to each other during class instead of paying attention to the professor.
I can still taste you on my tongue. I want to get underneath the table and taste you now. Love, L
You left your panties in my room last night. On purpose? Came so hard this a.m. only minutes after putting them to my nose. Real thing after class? Love, Em
You make me so wet. Hearts, L.
You make me wetter. I need you. - Em
I need you more. I wish I could have you now. Love you, L.
I can't stand it. I'm throbbing so hard. Let's leave early and go back to my room? Please? I love you, Em
You leave first. I'll meet you in 5 minutes. Can't wait. I love you too, L.
Without Laleh, Emily knew she would have breezed through her classes with straight-As. The addictive need to be with her constantly, though, left her with a C average. And, of course, by now, she was anything but "straight."
The night that everything changed would always be remembered by Emily as both the first and the last night. It was the night before both were scheduled to leave campus for winter break, a month-long separation that (at the time) seemed unbearable. Later, Emily promised herself that it would always and forever remain her first and last and night. That it would remain the only night in her life that truly mattered.
It was the night they swore their love to one another and exchanged rings. In Emily's case, the ring that had been passed down after generations of failed marriages and, for Laleh, the plain gold band she was supposed to wear around her neck as a reminder of maintaining her purity.
It was too large for Emily, meant to be given as part of a dowry to the man Laleh would one day be arranged to marry, so she slipped it onto both her ring and pinkie finger as they both promised to love one another until death. They kissed and touched and rocked their bodies together ... and then Laleh spread her legs and whispered, "Make me yours."
Emily was careful, remembering how painful it had been when she'd broken her own hymen with a tampon years before. She gently pressed one finger into Laleh, withdrawing slightly when she felt the physical resistance there, repeating the same light movement over and over until Emily's fingers were soaked with Laleh's ever-flowing droplets of arousal. Knowing she'd have to forcefully push to break it once and for all, she put her mouth on Laleh's clit and sucked hard, hoping to distract her from any pain she might feel when it broke.
The shuddering began within moments and Emily winced as she drove two fingers deep into her lover, the sudden sharp sting of it mixing with - or inducing? - a second wave of orgasmic pleasure. She tasted a tinge of blood as, for the first time, she felt Laleh's warm, coated, striated muscles tightening and releasing against her fingers. Emily couldn't stop herself from moaning at the incredible sensation, the intimate closeness. She understood, for the first time, why every time she came with Laleh's fingers inside of her, Laleh would shiver and quake with delight.
They made love all night. They came together as though they were one, their love-struck eyes remaining locked even as the intensity of each climax racked their bodies with fierce, violent tremors. They exchanged those vows of loving each other for as long as they both lived over and over again. They kissed until their lips felt raw; they touched and licked and sucked one another until the stimulation left them so sensitive they were nearly numb. Finally, at daylight, exhausted, they crawled up to the pillows and kissed with the desperate fervor of lovers anticipating their imminent separation before holding each other in a tight embrace, for "just a few minutes" until they had to depart: Laleh to the airport where she would meet her father before returning to Iran and Emily on a train only several hours away to DC where she'd spend a week, at most, with her mother before facing three additional weeks alone in that large quiet house where even the servants felt more like furnishings than like humans.
It was the first, the last, the only time they hadn't been careful.
Emily would spend the next twenty years wondering how her life might have turned out differently if they had.
When they awoke, it was to screams. Emily's mother. Laleh's father. Both standing in the doorway staring down at the nude intertwined figures of their only daughters. Shocked by the exchanged rings featured prominently on their fingers, horrified by the visible and unmistakable dried stain of blood on the bed from when Emily had penetrated Laleh, repelled by the overpowering feminine scent of sex lingering in the air, both parents stepped back into the hallway and slammed the door shut as they conversed in low voices, leaving Emily and Laleh only a moment to hastily find their clothing and exchange terrified glances, unable to speak.
When they opened the door, they were met only with the stoic face of Elizabeth Prentiss. "It has been decided," she remarked coolly, "that this - this incident - shall be forgotten and never spoken of again. Laleh, you are to go downstairs to your father's car immediately so that he may take you to the nearest plastic surgeon who can repair what my daughter did to you. You will then take a plane back to Iran, where a marriage will be arranged for you, before there is even the smallest chance that any gossip regarding your conduct in the States renders you unsuitable for a proper husband. You may continue your studies at the University of Tehran if your husband permits. You are never to see, speak to, or otherwise contact my daughter again. Is that understood?"
Laleh was in shock. They both were. Of course, they knew the consequences would be severe but ... but this?
Numbly, avoiding Emily's pleading eyes, Laleh nodded.
"And you'll give those rings back now, please. They're going to require some intensive cleaning before they're suitable for proper use again."
Emily's fingers brushed against Laleh's as they returned the rings they'd exchanged less than twenty-four hours earlier. There was a jolt, a spark as they touched that caused both girls to jump unexpectedly, their eyes meeting to confirm that the other had felt it, too.
"You may be dismissed, Laleh. Please have your father call me so I can formally apologize for any damage my daughter has done to you." Ambassador Prentiss snapped her fingers and Laleh stepped back, startled, as she unsteadily made her way to the stairwell.
Emily couldn't help herself. Laleh may never have considered disobeying an authority figure in her life, but Emily had spent eighteen years practically making an art out of it. "Wait!" she cried, sidestepping her mother's attempt to restrain her, running toward the stairwell.
She looked into those green Persian eyes one last time and repeated the vow she'd made. "I will love you as long as we both live," she declared boldly, her voice echoing down the empty corridor. Laleh turned her head so the Ambassador couldn't see her mouthing "and I, you" in response. When Emily leaned into Laleh to kiss her, she was met with lips as desperate, as loving, as heartbroken as her own.
The kiss couldn't have lasted for more than twenty seconds. A kiss that would last for only a moment, a kiss that would last for the rest of her life.
Emily couldn't bear to watch Laleh depart. She kept her dark teary eyes fixed on her dorm room door. It was only when her mother hissed, "and as for you ..." that Emily sprung into action. She slapped her, hard, across the face. The way she'd often been slapped as a child. And then she stormed back into her dorm room and snapped, "Send a car service for me when you've left the house for wherever it is you're spending Christmas this year. You just ruined the only love I've ever known and I'll be damned if I have to spend the next few days watching you gloat about it."
It was her mother, of course, who delivered the news two weeks later. Someone had provided evidence to the Iranian government that Laleh had engaged in a secret lesbian affair while enrolled at Yale. Many speculated that it was Laleh herself who had leaked the information, knowing the penalty in advance. Knowing that homosexual behavior was a capital offense. She was stoned to death in public as a warning to all Iranians about the risk of American corruption.
For the next year, Emily wore black. Lost nearly thirty pounds and became a skeletal version of her former self. Began to draw small shallow cuts on the back of her arms with razor blades. Finally realized that no matter how visible her grief, her mother would remain steadfast, would never acknowledge "that incident" or its aftermath, would never admit to the pain she'd caused her daughter or the innocent life she'd assisted in ending.
No, Elizabeth Prentiss would never feel guilty about the fact that she was able to save face within her tight-knit political circle by sacrificing Emily's daughter's heart or her lover's life.
And, as time passed, even though Laleh was no longer alive, Emily replaced the promise she had made so many years before, in a creaky dorm room bed on the sprawling green campus of Yale University, with a new one: she'd never permit herself to love anyone else like that for as long as she lived.
Present Day
... and yet the love she felt for Spencer mirrored the love she'd felt for Laleh. Only it was an even deeper love, a love that was bourne out of twenty years spent carefully and meticulously protecting her heart with a seemingly-impenetrable steel covering. A steel covering that, when she'd first met Laleh, didn't exist, couldn't begin to imagine would one day exist.
If losing Laleh had resulted in all of the nameless, faceless fucking and all of the casual dead-end relationships Emily had engaged in to ensure that she'd never have to experience pain like that again ... then what would happen when she inevitably lost Spencer, too?
Because no matter what promises they'd made, no matter how much love they felt, Emily still couldn't fully make herself believe that it would last.
After all, Emily knew something that Spencer didn't: there was still something in their relationship that was far too broken to fix.
It was her.