In the pitch blackness of our bedroom, tiny diodes of green light are the only illumination. They stare at me from the nightstand, their count as relentless as the sour huffing against my cheek, the wet smacking between my thighs. 6:05. 6:06. 6:07. Hurry up and finish, husband!

I want to urge him out loud, but the words are trapped in a choking panic somewhere in my chest. My mother-in-law is sleeping in the guest bedroom, a very thin wall away. I would die of embarrassment if sex noises woke her up! That’s why I just lay here, flat on my back and mutely enduring.

“Uhhhhhhnnnn,” Saman finally wheezes into the side of my face, and his slamming quickens and stops. After a while the bed creaks softly. His sweaty weight disappears.

I blow shallow breaths into the darkness, letting my panic ebb with the apartment’s funereal silence. There’s a click and light floods from the bathroom. My husband is revealed to be nut-brown and mustached, his confident bulk matted in hair. He’s the only man I’ve ever seen naked. I try to spot the thing that gives me more pain than pleasure, but I can’t. His kir is shadowed beneath the overhang of his belly.

I wait for the shower’s splash and gurgle before rising. My first stop is the dresser, where a box of kleenex awaits. I hike up my sleepshirt and wipe between my legs with a tissue. Then I open my underwear drawer and –

“Daughter-in-law!” The summons is a thunderclap in the calm, almost making me jump out of my skin. “I’m ready for my breakfast now! Daughter-in-law!”

I hate hate hate how she always calls me aroos — daughter-in-law. Just once, just one single measly time, I want her to call me by name. Nooshin. Could you make my breakfast now, Nooshin? Or maybe Let me help you with that, Nooshin. Or even Your lavash is delicious, Nooshin!

Dream on, girl.

Meanwhile my hand doesn’t find what it’s groping for in the dresser. I click on the light and pull the drawer open all the way, searching for the plastic case. Maybe it slipped behind that unopened package of bras I never grew into? But after I move everything out of the way, nothing is left. My confusion sharpens into suspicion.

I detour into the steamy bathroom, where Saman is silhouetted in the shower. “What did you do with my pills?” I hiss at the shower curtain in English, signaling that I want an American conversation instead of an Iranian one.

He’s washing his armpits. One hairy line of knuckles rises above the flowered plastic, then the other. “What?”

“My birth control pills. Where are they?”

“Don’t you keep them in your underwear drawer?”

“Yeah, but they’re gone.” My hands are fluttering nervously. I make a conscious effort to still them. “Seriously. They’re gone. Did you do anything with them?”

Saman peeks out from behind the curtain. He’s grinning like an idiot. “I threw them away!”

“What?” I gasp in a strangled whisper.

He disappears behind the curtain again.

“Saman! You can’t just, just…” I’m laughing in disbelief, almost giddy with shock.

Over the rushing water he laughs with me. “I know! It is exciting!”

My laughter turns into a coughing fit. The bathroom begins to tilt and spin around me. At first I’m looking at Saman’s familiar silhouette behind the flowered plastic. Then a framed picture of the snow-capped Alborz Mountains ringing Tehran, hanging above the towel rack. Then the toilet, with the water-filled aftabeh for my mother-in-law and a roll of toilet paper for me.

I sag to the bathroom floor, huddling on the moist tile, and close my eyes. The sounds of running water fade, and Saman’s laughter. All I can hear are the voices of my aunts, echoing from the summer of my high school graduation. You’re no princess, and you can’t expect to find a prince… An agonizing truth, but numbed by the despair lapping in. Take the first man who comes along, because there might not be another… Their Farsi is forever chiding. Use your youth while you’ve got it…