The Last Living Slut

by Roxana Shirazi

  In July, my mother managed to leave Iran with my brother and sister. My stepdad couldn’t make it; he would remain stuck there throughout the war, sitting on the roof watching bombs hit Tehran night after night.

  My mother arrived at the Carsons’ doorstep heavy with gifts and my darling brother and sister, bundled up against the chill she was worried they’d get. My mummy was here! Nothing bad would ever happen again.

  We moved to student residences on a campus in Manchester that were cheap but clean. My mother, an academic, was forced to clean rich people’s homes for money.

  Around this time I also got into pop music. I started back-combing my hair and dressing up in short skirts, lace gloves, and tiny tops. Then I’d rush off to care for my cute little siblings. I loved playing mummy to my baby brother and sister, two naughty kittens running around bewildered in this new world in which they had landed.

  My brother was now five, and had clearly not shaken the life he was born into. He was stuck in war mode: all of his drawings featured airplanes dropping bombs on the people below. I watched as he made explosion sounds and pretended he was in the middle of battle with the Iraqis. It was all innocent fun to him, but I was worried by how much he’d been affected by the war.

  My mum rushed around day and night trying to keep us fed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mother do anything for herself. One day after breakfast, she brought out a box full of photos. From underneath the pile she removed a twin-set of pearls, given to her as a wedding present. She quietly told us she’d be back soon. When she came back, there was no necklace, just bags full of food.

  Chapter 19

  I was Thirteen and Slipped My White Panties Down, Spread My Legs Open, and Watched AXL Rose In This Band Guns N’Roses.

  I was eleven years old when I had my first orgasm. It was to a porno magazine I’d stolen from a convenience store. I didn’t know the facts of life then. Two years later, I had my first gushing-out ejaculation, to Axl Rose.

  Most of what I did was in secret. At school, I was a nerd who loved reading and writing poetry. At home, I was the big sister looking after my siblings. But alone, in my room, I was Axl Rose’s teenage slut. Guns N’ Roses screeched from my Walkman under my blanket. Dressed in fishnet stockings, lacy gloves, and black stilettos like the girls in music videos, I strutted around the room.

  One summer afternoon, I was watching TV at my aunt’s house. I didn’t even know what the word orgasm meant, yet this boy on the screen with the bandana and long hair falling over his shoulders made me fall in love with what my body could do.

  Watching him sway his snake hips onstage, howling a loud American rock song—a bad, nasty, trashy boy with strawberry-blond, lank hair; upturned, flared nostrils; and arms with tattoos like a prisoner—suddenly I felt that familiar, crude clench in my belly. The panic-filled urgency conquered me, a gigantic, detonating love-hunger making my vulva throb like a frenzied animal. I had to find a long, hard object, so I grabbed the closest thing: my cousin’s bicycle pump. It was my savior, a delicious secret tool. I wanted to be a nasty girl. There was no one around, which made me hornier. I was being naughty.

  I slipped my white cotton panties down, spread my legs open, and watched Axl in this band called Guns N’ Roses. He was sweating on stage, snarling, and I spread my legs wider for him. Taking the bicycle pump, I slid it between my legs, my vulva dripping wet. I rubbed the bicycle pump all along my wetness until something gushed out of me. It sprayed all over the floor, giving the carpet a clammy smell. I lay on my back, knees trembling. Relief and peace glowed inside me. My body felt warm and grown up. I looked at Axl and smiled. Who was this beautiful boy and what was this exploding feeling that had gushed out of me?

  Chapter 20

  By the time my stepfather arrived in England a few years later, we were living in Bristol in a ground-floor flat. My stepdad needed work; he was a proud and accomplished man, a trained architect with his own successful construction company in his homeland, but here he knew no one.

  I took my stepfather to all the restaurants I knew, asking if he could get a job as a dishwasher. He stood sheepishly behind me as I pleaded in English. Inside I cringed in embarrassment for him, but I put on a casual act, as if it were all just a laugh and oh-so-normal. I knew he must have felt a cavernous nothingness being in this situation, but working as a dishwasher was better than not having a job at all. Slowly, he learned to speak English and found better jobs, but I think he harboured some resentment toward me because my fluency in English had somehow given me a higher rank in the family than him.

  The five of us slept in one room, lent to us for free by a kindly lady who’d befriended us. There was a kitchen and a bathroom where umbrellas of dry rot mushroomed on the walls and under the side of the bathtub. I’d lived in England for five years and still it didn’t feel like home. English culture was not warm and family-oriented like Persian culture. People were cold and stilted, and didn’t hug and kiss and laugh as much as Iranians did. They shared no banquet of colorful foods, as Iranian people did every day and night, gathering around, dancing and gossiping. My family was cut off from the sense of community and quality of life they’d once known. My brother and sister, tiny and unaware of poverty, thought it was all a big adventure and that any day now we’d pack up and head back to Iran—back home.

  Though she spent her days cleaning for the rich, my mother’s spirit stayed strong. But my stepfather, defeated, slowly began to fade away. He was a nothing in this land far away from his family and the business he’d built—lost in a country where he was a nobody, where his friends, achievements, status, and identity were incinerated as if they had never existed. He became silent, sometimes sitting on a chair in our room for hours and staring into space.

  At my new school, I became known as the silent Iranian girl. My shyness and dorkiness, along with my early development, which ballooned my mortified chest into two giant blubbers, made my social life even more wretched. Shy to the point of freaky I munched on lunch alone in the playground and wrote poetry about the aches of love, the boys I longed for, and the kisses I craved.

  One Saturday afternoon, I decided to write my first book. It was about the street kids of São Paulo, Brazil. I wrote by hand—page after page—about a brother and sister surviving life on the streets. By Monday night, they had escaped their city and ended up on a train bound for Peru. I didn’t ever think of the logistics of this; I just loved their journey to find family and a real home. By Thursday night, my hands were sore, but the characters had found their parents. By the time I was through, I’d written thirteen chapters; I called it The Secret Garden. It went into the pile where I collected my writings.

  Chapter 21

  Once He’d Knocked Me to The Ground, I’d End Up Wailing There like a Baby.

  As I became a teenager, the smacks in the face my stepfather gave me turned more creative. He had a deep reservoir of rage—and would aim it at my back, stomach, and legs, dumping his seething resentment of his worthless status onto me.

  We were now living on the top floor of a public apartment building and had been given an old piano by a neighbor. I practiced constantly, letting the plinky-plonk of the notes wiggle and tremble under my fingers. My uncles and aunts visited often, and they’d all sit around the piano to take in my recital. Behind our fancy, sugary banter, none of them knew I was getting punched and kicked. A couple of other relatives knew, but no one ever said a thing. I told my teachers at school, but, again, nothing happened. I guess they didn’t want to interfere.

  I was a difficult teenager, and stubborn with him, refusing to change the channel when my favorite programs were on. My brother and sister looked on as he raised his fists to wallop me on the head and threatened to kick me in the stomach. I tried with all my strength to fight back, but it was hopeless. My waist-length hair would tangle like angel-hair spaghetti in my face, blinding me as I tried to bite his arm and scratch his face. But he was stronger than me, and my arms were just jelly. Once he’d k
nocked me to the ground, I’d surrender and end up wailing there like a baby.

  In a frenzy one night, he grabbed my new kitten and dangled it from our balcony. The kitten hissed and spit, wriggling in his grip. I was afraid he would crush her. My mother screamed at him. I begged him to stop; the kitten was so innocent and lovely. But he wanted to piss me off because he knew how much I hated animal cruelty. In the end, though, he put the kitten back safely on the ground.

  That night, I ran away from home. As my family watched TV, I ran out—out into the streets, toward the home of my mother’s friend, who never asked any questions.

  “Comin’ round for a cuppa, are you?” she asked when I burst in. Her family’s molded smiles set in stone ignored my tear-stained face and bruises. No one asked questions. They just chose to disregard what my stepfather was doing to me. It was a taboo subject, and we all had to shut the fuck up about it.

  Chapter 22

  I soon returned home, but I was getting tired of home life. The beatings came less frequently, but the fact that no one ever tried to help made me angry.

  “You’ve always been a difficult child,” my mother said, trying to be diplomatic. “You’re not the easiest person to live with sometimes, and of course that makes people angry.”

  Coming from my own mother, those words stung like a punch to the gut. I had nowhere to go; I had reached a dead end. At school, I lost interest in everything. My love of books and poetry branded me a nerd; being a rebel and talking back to the teachers was much more cool.

  Desperate to fit in with the other kids, I stopped playing the piano, put away my books, and started wearing tiny skirts with see-through tops. I plastered my walls with pictures of Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, and Greta Garbo, and I started taking acting and dancing lessons.

  At sixteen, I entered my first talent competition, which was held at a nearby church. For days before the event, I practiced my dance moves and sang lyrics over an instrumental backing track. On the evening of the competition, I wore a white, lacy see-through top with a leather mini-skirt and fishnet tights. Then I covered my head and body in a traditional Islamic hejab so the audience would assume I was going to perform a sweet Iranian folk song. Just before going onstage, I removed the hejab to reveal my slutty outfit and did my number. The audience sat frozen, unsure how to react. When the song and dance routine ended, the stunned vicar managed to choke out, “Thank you for that.” I left the stage, happy that I’d managed to sing and dance so well without losing my breath.

  After that, I practiced nonstop in my room. “She sounds like an animal when she sings,” my stepfather joked to my cousins. I didn’t give a fuck about him throwing shitty remarks my way. Nothing could hurt me now—I was made of iron.

  One Saturday afternoon, when no one else was around, I dared to defy him. When he told me to stop singing, I ignored him. Wallop! Down I went. Reeling in anger, I screamed and flailed and struck him back. Big mistake. He punched me until I hit the ground, then he began kicking my body. I lay still, weeping, until he stopped, breathless and pale. He left and went downstairs to put on the kettle. The pain meant nothing; my pride hurt more. I couldn’t stand the humiliation. I was the loser in the fight, angry that he’d won only because he had more strength. Downstairs, I heard my uncle and aunt arrive.

  “Having a catnap, are we?” my uncle said, peering into my room.

  With everyone I knew turning a blind eye to what went on in our home, I took my life into my own hands. At school that year, I decided I needed to make some money to help me escape my home. My stepfather and I didn’t speak anymore, and my mother was always tired from working all day at a children’s home. The only thing I had was the raging sexual energy inside me that made my pussy throb like a wild animal.

  Whenever I was alone in my room I had to ferociously release this feeling all on my own. I loved it. Out it gushed like a hot fountain. I’d rub faster and faster, stifling my moans so no one would hear. Lying in the middle of a puddle on the linoleum floor, limp with euphoria, I thought not of boys, but of being free.

  In search of that freedom, I started making secret weekend trips to London to dance in a sleazy strip joint in Soho. The place was a tiny orifice in the wall of a tight alley. Its rusty peach walls and burnt coral curtains drew me into its razzmatazz.

  “Changing room is there, luv,” the woman who managed the club told me on my first day. She didn’t even ask for my ID. I was seventeen. “The DJ will announce when you’re on, so get ready.”

  In the dressing room, I mumbled hello to the other dancers. They all looked about ten years older than me. Feather boas and bangles were flung on chipped mirrors lit by anemic fluorescent tubes. Everywhere glitter glue oozed and dribbled on honey limbs and jelly titties. Talk of bad boyfriends, ill kids, and rent swirled into a whirlpool of words. I was nervous as hell but thrilled to be showing off my body to a bunch of men waiting for me on the other side of the flimsy curtain. I put on my school uniform, did up my hair in pigtails, and stole a peek at the magazine photo of Axl Rose I’d brought, which never failed to give me a wetness in my pussy.

  Then I heard my name. I strolled out and calmly slid off my shirt and tie to expose my breasts to the warmth coming from the crowd of cheering, sweaty men. It hit me all at once. I finally felt good about myself—turned on, fueled by the sexiness of my own swelling tits, my curves, and that picture of Axl.

  At that point, my existence splintered into two different ditches. At home I lived in a curdled mess comprised of a rabid stepfather and an overworked mother. Our flat, sweaty with my mother’s homemade food, was a place of ever-brewing anger and bitterness, sugared over by her attempt to exude love from her steaming rice and stews.

  Outside my room, my father argued with my mother in the relentless orange light. “She’s a worthless, unemployed waste of space,” I heard my stepfather tell my mother one night. “Why is she still living at home? Tell her to get out.”

  “Sshhhh!” my mother whispered. “She’s not worthless. She just needs time to get things done. You have no right to say things like that.”

  My mummy was my hero for standing up to a bully. But inside I felt he was right. I was nothing—until I put on my Walkman and dissolved into the Doors or Guns N’ Roses. Until I was limp and euphoric on the floor once again.

  No one knew about my secret life—of the dancing, the nakedness, the jubilation I felt in front of the crowds of men. I didn’t dare think what would happen if my family ever found out. To my family, to the kids at school, and even to myself, I was a total dork who read every book in the library and volunteered with animal rights groups. I was a shy virgin with no friends. To my stepfather, I was a useless waste of space. But when I was dancing, relishing the love I felt in front of the crowd, I felt wanted.

  I didn’t want to lose my virginity until I was fully in love and issued the promise of a forever relationship. I wanted my first to be my last, and never to let my eyes stray in another direction. I wanted a man who’d love me back and always be there for me.

  So I waited. And waited. I had this craving for a male body to entwine with mine, but I was too frightened even to let a man kiss me. The thought of a penis going in my vagina disgusted me. And so I held out for the one, and believed that it would happen one day.

  In the meantime, I got myself off with girls—younger girls in particular. I didn’t fancy the ones in caked makeup and garish shoes. I liked them simple and unvarnished. One who caught my eye was a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl who lived in the neighborhood. Chubby and chirpy, she reminded me of a chipmunk with her happy-go-lucky demeanor and sharp, shiny teeth. Her name was Leila and she looked up to me. So I invited her over to our house and took her into my room, where we sat up all night watching a program called Carnal Knowledge on TV.

  “Have you ever done it with a boy?” Leila giggled as we sat on my bed in the flickering dark. In the early hours of the morning, my room hummed with the glow of the radiator and the television’s silver lights.


  “No, but I wonder what it feels like,” I said matter-of-factly. “Let’s practice and see how a boy would do it,” I continued, laying her down on my bed and climbing on top.

  I spread her legs and took off her panties. She was still giggling. Then I took off my panties and rubbed my pussy along hers.

  “That feels good.” She laughed that chipmunk laugh.

  I was close to coming. I rubbed our pussies harder and harder together until I orgasmed, letting out a moan that I was sure would wake my parents. I left a nice gush of cum on her.

  “Don’t stop now,” Leila pleaded in a low groan.

  But I was done. Climbing off her, I wondered what sex with a boy my own age would be like.

  Chapter 23

  I had never done It with a Boy — Just a Fifteen-Year-Old Schoolgirl.

  At the age of twenty-one, I rolled off the edge of the rusting tin lid that was my home and fell into London life full-time. There I discovered a hidden world of Middle Eastern and Pakistani men’s social clubs—sweaty, hard-boiled candy drops of privacy stitched into niches of East London—where a multitude of Arab men poured a flurry of cash notes over the dancing girls like flying feathers as they performed the dances of One Thousand and One Nights, either belly dancing or Bollywood-style.

  Work began at midnight in a neighborhood full of dimly lit curry houses and Indian textile shops, all gold-threaded and shuttered for the night. My Pakistani flatmate, Nasreen, and I would arrive at the club lugging bags fat with costumes. We often worked at a grimy-carpeted cesspit of a place called Sholeh, where we performed barefoot because after dancing all night, high heels killed our feet. The manager, Surinder, a short tubby Indian guy with his shirt half untucked, welcomed us with syrupy greetings and ushered us to the toilets or his cluttered office to change. There we would find a couple other girls already squeezing into heavily embroidered chiffons and mouthwatering silks, gold bangles, arabesque tunics, and thick eyeliner. I jangled in my weighty metal hip belt loaded with coins and a heavily jeweled bra dripping with tassels. I put on a head scarf fringed with gold coins to tantalize and give a promise of what was underneath.