Nazanin

Formatting note: this piece contains use of italic and bold text. (Please do not include this page in the final publication.)

-; Nazanin ;-

Siblings embark on a summertime odyssey in the wake of their little brother's death.

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Summer Lovin 2022

I'll level with you. This story is too long. Google says it's a few hundred words longer than The English Patient. And since I've had to work double time to get it drafted, edited, and reviewed fast enough to submit to this year's SL22 contest, it's coming to you a little rough 'n' ready. But I won't apologize. I am endeared to this particular tale, warts and all. I really think you might like it, if you can stomach it.

Content Warning(s)

All sexually active characters in this story are 18 or older. Certain infantilizing terms of endearment common to the incest genre are used as appropriately as possible, but may still be triggering for some. Sensitive readers are invited to proceed with caution.

Suicide is not a fun or sexy topic, and readers who struggle with ideation or who are close to those who do may find its inclusion here understandably off-putting. I've tried to remain sensitive to this, and to make sure that suicide in Nazanin is not heavily focused upon or played for cheap melodramatic yukks. This story begins after the death in question has already occurred, and focuses almost entirely on the surviving family and friends.

I'm not here to fetishize skin color, but I do include BIPOCs in my erotica. I describe black and brown and tan bodies as black and brown and tan, and I hope these words don't rub anybody the wrong way. I am white, however, so if I've goofed in any way then by all means call me out. I take risks and criticism in equal proportion.

Finally, this story contains depictions of shamanistic rituals that are thoroughly fictional, and intended neither to represent nor demean any nonfictional group's real world practices or beliefs. Readers of any and all backgrounds are invited to (try to) enjoy my rambling incest road trip novel for the wacky, morbidly pretentious project that it is.

Thanks

Big sloppy thanks to all you readers, and to a special few Literotica writers, AwkwardMD, Carnevil9, Lovecraft68, and MissAllison, who have lately been spoiling me with thoughtful feedback on my writing. If this story is any improvement on my previous work, then they did right by you and me both.

- B.

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Chapter 1

My older sister Naz came home from college for the summer driving our uncle's camper from when we were kids. She bumped into the mailbox. The dogs one house over went bananas.

She climbed backwards out of the cabin and onto the hot driveway. She'd been driving with the windows down on the highway, so the peaceful suburban susurrus was ringingly quiet.

She checked herself in the driver's side mirror. Road trip hair wrangled back into a ponytail, frizz poking out at odd angles, greasy whorls stuck to sheeny skin. She grimaced, then blew herself a chapped kiss.

Naz bent into a celebratory homecoming stretch and was still yawning when Dad scooped her up into a bear hug and smooched her salty forehead.

He squeezed a funny noise out of her. Then he bounced her up and down, keys and things jangling, until her spine crackled in his grip.

"I hit the mailbox," she grunted.

Dad set her down. He appraised the damage. He grinned despite himself.

"You've done worse, Naspberry."

He went and tried to stand it upright. Naz grabbed her things out of the cabin. Then she and Dad then came inside.

Mom met them at the door. As they stepped into the air-conditioned dim we called home, our family's elegant Persian matriarch enveloped Naz.

"She's home," Mom sang into her daughter's wavy black hair. "My Nazaniiiin."

"Something smells delicious," Naz sniffed. Mom released her, shut the door, and locked it. "What's cooking?"

"Brains," Dad mugged. It was curried lamb. "I should get back in there! The get rubbery if you overcook them." He strolled away mwahahaing.

"Is that your Uncle's van?" Mom asked as she peered one last time out the front door window.

"Camper," Naz corrected. She kicked off her flip-flops and slid them into the shoe pile by the door. "He said I could borrow it as long as I promised to stay next time I visit."

"And exactly ... what is the plan?" Mom looked curious but wary.

"No plan," Naz smirked, and shrugged her bag off her shoulder.

"No plan?" Mom took the bag.

Naz smiled her thanks as Mom unburdened her of her pillow, keys, and empty water bottle too. "I just figured we could use a vacation."

"Ah," Mom blinked. "Well then. I guess we'll figure something out?"

"Yeah. Is that ... cool?" Naz asked.

"Yes!" Mom chirped a little too enthusiastically.

"Right," Naz subjected herself to another hug and a smooch, but pressed the issue, "and you're okay?"

Mom let her go, pretending she hadn't heard, and started up the stairs with Naz's things. She stumbled a little and dropped the water bottle. It bounced, flipped, clonked down to the foyer floor.

Naz picked it up and handed it back to Mom. As Mom took it, they exchanged a peculiar look.

Mom smiled and finally answered, "It's certainly a surprise!" Then she excuse me'd as she bustled past me up the stairs.

"Oh, well look who it is!" Naz sneered.

My sister acted like she hadn't seen me standing here the whole time. She put her fists on her hips and clicked her tongue at me.

Looking at her in the summertime glow of the entryway, I suffered a momentary lapse in decorum. My sister looked different.

"Well?" Naz arched one black, steady eyebrow.

"What?" Uh-oh. Weird. I steeled against an abstract urge to steady something.

Naz dropped her arms in hurt surrender. "Don't I at least get a hug or something?"

"Oh, uh, sure," I chuckled, and held my arms open to her.

Naz scoffed, and then came squeeing up the stairs at me.

On flat ground she was a full head shorter than me, so on a stair below, Naz could only throw her arms around my midsection. I loosed a chuckle and gently hugged her head. Her hair smelled.

"Dingus," Naz smiled into the belly of my shirt.

"Naz," I muttered back, patting her curls. "Your hair stinks."

"I know."

We broke. She trudged up the steps. I watched her climb. Her weary, seat-creased butt poked out the bottoms of her denim shorts.

"Help me bring her stuff in, will ya?" Dad said, returning from the kitchen, and he led me outside into the sunshine.

We'd borrowed this camper before, years and years ago. The interior was sweltering. Had Naz not been driving with the A/C on? The smell was pure, incubated nostalgia.

"Gol', he does take good care of this thing," Dad whistled as he ran a finger along the dustless hood above the stove. "That dork."

"How do you even insure something like this?" I asked, trying to sound adult.

"Huhn," Dad snortled. "For more trouble than it's worth. C'mon, let's grab your sister's stuff and head back in."

We hauled in three heavy suit-cases, two full laundry hampers, and a broad, elaborate dreamcatcher complete with feathers, beads, and hempy odor. Then Dad made me lug it all upstairs to Naz's room.

I plopped down on the stool at her vanity and caught my breath. I hadn't really been in Naz's room while she was away at school. A couple times, maybe. It had felt off to be in here without her around.

Just then I heard the plumbing lurch inside the walls, and the shower she'd been taking dripped to a stop. Naz exited the bathroom wrapped in a towel and clutching the woppsed up outfit she'd come home in.

"Oh, thanks," she beamed, happy all of her stuff had been brought up. She lobbed her stinky road trip clothes into one of the hampers.

"No biggie," I lied. I was visibly winded.

Naz came over next to me and patted me on the head. Then she stooped over and picked at something on her face in the vanity mirror.

"You're home," I told her.

She rose up again, felt at the fit of her towel, then went over to her bed and grabbed her phone out of her bag.

"I'm home," she smirked, texting.

I just kind of looked at her, wet and clean and towel-wrapped, still not understanding what was different.

She was distracted by her phone.

"Sooo, Bro," she said, without looking up. "Can ... I get naked now?"

Then she glanced up.

"Oh, yep," I fretted as I hopped up to my feet, my nerves responding strangely to her question. "I'm leaving."

She watched with a blank expression as I exited, and then shut the bedroom door behind me. I stood there in the hall reeling, feeling my crotch in disbelief, wondering what on earth was wrong. I heard the towel drop to the floor. I twitched.

Chapter 2

Back in my room, I sat on my bed and more properly adjusted myself inside my shorts. I fretted in the direction of the wall to my left. Naz and I shared this wall.

When we were kids, she used to talk to me through the vent near the floor. Sometimes she would even invite me to sneak into her room for a secret sleepover. We would snuggle together in her bed. No funny business, just stories and laughs and very good sleep.

Our little brother and her had been close, too. Closer than he had been with me. About as close, I suppose and she and I. Still hard to understand that it was just us two now.

We tell people he died of a heart condition. In truth, Dad found him in the backyard. It had been a closed-casket funeral. Rigor mortis, we told people.

All the windows facing the backyard now wore blinds and curtains that were left drawn at all times. Mom hadn't stepped foot in the yard in months. In fact, she hadn't left the house, except to attend the funeral. Dad told us she saw a grief counselor twice a week via webcam. She never spoke about it, so we knew not to bring it up.

"Hey," Naz said, knocking on my open door. She was barefoot and braless in soccer shorts and an old pajama t-shirt, and had her glasses on, looking ready for bed. I liked when she wore her glasses. It reminded me of the old Naz. "Can I come in?"

I sat up on my elbows.

"Sooo," she sallied in, plopping into a seat at my desk and gazing nostalgically about the room. "Where do you want to go?"

"Oh jeez," I winced. "I don't know. This is your thing, Sis."

"Come on. Don't be like that," she frowned at herself in my desk mirror. She was just kind of spinning herself around in my chair. "Aren't you excited?"

"I mean," I rolled my eyes, "yeah?"

"So then pick a place! I already got the RV and drove it here." As she slowly turned, she brought one foot up to the seat and tucked it under her other leg. Her shorts on that thigh rode up to the edges of her panties. Her calf-muscles flattened out against her hamstring.

"But I have class," I tried.

"Can't you just Zoom in on your laptop?" she countered.

"It's an art class," I said.

"Even better! With Kidman? She's great! Just promise to do your homework on the road. She'll be down!"

"That's-" I shook my head. "I doubt she would just let me, like..."

"Tell her it's for Jules."

I flinched. It was the first time anyone had said his name in my room since, well.

Naz bent me an unapologetic look as if to say, oh, I'm sorry, did that hurt?

"Naz, I can't just..."

"She would not tell you no if we played the dead brother card."

"I'm not. We can't. You can't just."

Naz groaned, stopped turning by grabbing my desk, and flipped my laptop open. "Here, I'll write the email. What's your password?"

She tapped a couple keys to get the screen to wake up.

"H-hey, let me do it," I sputtered, maybe a little too eagerly.

Naz cocked her jaw and an eyebrow. She unplugged the laptop and leaned over to hand it to me. I leaned over to grab it.

"Gosh," she grinned. "I forgot you were so protective of your porn."

"Whatever," I muttered, hurriedly typing in my password.

"So, do you want to write the email?"

"The what?" I asked distractedly. To my somewhat awkward relief, I had remembered to close any ungentlemanly tabs I might otherwise have left open.

"The email?" Naz repeated smugly, now certain of the presumption she'd made.

She bounced up off my desk chair and clambered onto the bed. She crawled past me so that she could sit against the headboard. She had no problem planting her barely-covered ass directly onto one of my pillows.

"Here," she said, and patted the other pillow beside her. "Come sit where I can see."

I grumbled my discontent as I scooched back, moved this pillow to my lap, underneath my computer, and sat thigh to thigh with her.

"Okay, so let's start with something somber but polite like, Good afternoon Miss Kidman," Naz began.

Ten minutes later, I took a wary breath, ignored my thudding heart, and clicked send. The deed was done. We had played the dead brother card.

Chapter 3

That night, during dinner, I got a ding on my phone. Miss Kidman had emailed back. She offered her condolences. She was cool with the road trip.

"That's awfully nice of her," Mom wowed uncomfortably.

"Mawm," Naz said around a mouthful of lamb.

Mom looked at her.

"You don't have to come if you don't want to."

"What do you mean?" Mom affected 'hurt.' "Of course I want to come."

"No you don't."

"Nazan-" Mom stopped short of rebutting when Naz put her hand on hers.

"It's okay, truly. Okay? Please stay home with Dad."

Mom suddenly looked a little odd. She sort of shook her head no, but shrugged at the same time. It was like she was malfunctioning.

"Bita, my queen," Dad said, putting his big warm hand on Mom's other hand. "We can have a little stay-cation, you and me, how about it? Let's let these ding-dongs go do whatever for a couple weeks. Heck, without them here to bother us, we can finally lay around naked and watch TV all day!"

Mom chuckled, loosening the knot in her throat, and turned her tan hands pale-side up.

After dinner, Mom came upstairs to my room. She rapped her fingertips on the door, waited precisely one moment, then cracked the door and asked if she could enter.

"Sure," I answered.

She came in and sat beside me on the edge of my bed. I hurriedly, but discreetly, minimized the tabs I was browsing. Under these was a window open to the art project I was supposedly working on.

"Hi darling," Mom said.

"Hi Mom."

"What are we toiling away on this evening?"

"Um," I angled the laptop so that she could see my hideous effort. "A work in progress."

"Oh," she said, wincing at it. "It looks ... intense."

"Yeah," I sighed. I swiveled the screen back to me. "Hopefully I can make that a good thing."

"It is already good," she shook her head. "I didn't mean to say it wasn't." She paused to give me a concerned smile. "Do you mind if I sit with you for a bit?"

"Shit," I muttered reflexively, "I mean of course."

I right-clicked my minimized tabs and closed them as Mom scooched up beside me on the bed, perhaps pretending not to notice, and sitting in the same spot her daughter had occupied in earlier, but now with the decency of moving my pillow up behind her back.

"You'll let me know if I'm being a bother?"

"You're fine," I assured her.

And for a while I worked on my intense project as she watched.

I missed my little brother. I hid it most places, but it always showed up in my art. Not always overtly, but always.

"It's dark," Mom whispered at one point. The sun had gone down. We'd let the room blacken without realizing it.

"Myeahm," I murmured.

I zoomed out of the tiny corner of the piece I'd been chipping away at so I could assess the overall progress I'd made. Was this progress? I couldn't tell.

"Can I ask yet what it's supposed to be?"

"You can try," I sighed miserably. "But let me know if you find an answer before I do."

"Ah," she scratched an itch on her cheek. "You sound like you don't quite like this one."

"I really don't," I admitted, "do you?"

Mom sat forward and frowned sadly at me. "I could never hate anything you make."

"Be honest."

"I am being honest," Mom insisted, and she gave me a vigorous hug. "I'm your first and biggest fan, and don't you forget it!"

"Oh get a room, you two!" Naz scoffed from the doorway. She pushed up her glasses, flicked on my overhead light, and stood there judging us with foamy white lips and a toothbrush in her mouth. She was down to just panties now, and that same old braless t-shirt.

"I'm in my room," I retorted, a little lamely.

"And I'm allowed to hug my son wherever I want," Mom laughed a little too haughtily. "And am I not allowed to sit back and admire the process of my brilliant artiste?"

"Oh yeah? More like a brilliant fartiste," Naz snorted, and went back to the bathroom. We were a family of lame retorts.

Then she stuck her head back in the door.

"But I mean it now, no funny business!" She jabbed her toothbrush at us menacingly.

"She's ridiculous," I chuckled a little uncomfortably after she'd disappeared again.

Mom sighed and got up.

"Yes she is. But I fear she's going to save us all someday."

I ... did not know what to make of this remark.

Mom blew me a kiss, then disappeared into the hall and noiselessly shut my door.

Once I was sure no one else was about to barge in, I got under the covers and pulled my shorts down to my knees. I compartmentalized a series of pangs of self-disgust as I proceeded to jerk off to the afterimage of my sister's crotch in her underwear. That soft little cupped shape inside the fabric between her thighs.

Curiously, the instant I came, what was looping through my mind was not some lewd insinuation of forbidden fruit, but Naz's head in my arms as she hugged me on the stairs. The odor of her hair. The way she called me "dingus" with such fondness.

"You gotta watch out for depression," said a voice in the dark.

"Yeah," I nodded. Jules could hit you out of nowhere with these remarks sometimes.

"It hides," he clarified, wagging a finger at me.

"Hey," I sensed something lurking in him. "Do you want to talk?"

"Ah, sorry, can't," he shrugged defeatedly, suddenly right next to my bed. I could barely see him but he didn't look good.

"Oh, right," I sighed.

And then he walked away like he had someplace to be.

Chapter 4

"Do you ever dream about him?" Naz asked as we browsed the grocery aisles looking for road trip snacks.

"No," I told her, not really wanting to talk about this in public.

"Like, 'no' you don't, or 'no' you don't remember?" She grabbed multiple bags of peach gummies and piled them into the cart.

I knit my brow, "What's the difference?"

We proceeded to the crackers.

"Don't you feel like you'd remember if you dreamt about him?"

"You'd think," I said as I reached for some cheesy goldfish crackers.

"Hey," Naz smacked my hand away from the regular ones and grabbed the extra cheesy ones. "I just need you to tell me that you have a soul, and that you miss my brother."

"Hey," I said, pausing the cart. "That's not cool."

But Naz was suddenly looking down at her phone again. She mouthed words as she typed.

"Shan again?" I asked.

I frowned at her non-response, and then frowned even harder an instant later. A trio of guys who'd less than covertly been following us happened to reappear, once again, at the end of our aisle. They smiled ghoulishly at my unwitting sister as they pretended to shop for trail mix on a random row of shelves across from us.