AUTUMN BARDOT
Copyright © 2020 by Autumn Bardot.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Published in the United States by Cleis Press, an imprint of Start Midnight, LLC, 221 River Street, 9th Floor, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
Printed in the United States.
Cover design: Allyson Fields
Cover photograph: Depositphotos
Text design: Frank Wiedemann
First Edition.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-62778-299-9
E-Book ISBN: 978-1-62778-512-9
CHAPTER 1
I was born during a sandstorm. Momma said no one heard her screams as she squatted on the mat in the mud-brick house and pushed me from her womb. Fierce winds burst open the door, and before Momma could swaddle me, a fine layer of sand had already clung to my sticky newborn skin.
“You didn’t breathe.” Momma always touched her throat during this part of my birth story. “So I breathed my life fire into you. Once. Twice. The third time your tiny mouth opened, and you inhaled so furiously I thought the sand in the air would choke you.” Here, Momma always gasped for effect. “But you were a determined babe, and you wailed to the heavens. In seconds your face changed from purple to the golden color of resin from the myrrh tree.”
“What happened next?”
“The next day a Wise Woman walked out of the desert to tell me that my daughter, Bilqīs, was destined for Greatness.” Momma kissed my forehead at this point of the story.
“Was she afraid of you?” I did not ask this particular question until I was a child not yet half as tall as Momma.
“Probably.” My beautiful, dark-haired, ebony-skinned Momma had pressed me to her abundant bosom and stroked my hair. “She must have recognized the spirit of my smokeless fire. Knew I could snap her neck in an instant. Or hurl her back to whatever desert hovel she came from.” Then Momma would always lift me high and spin me over her head.
My birth story was our special ritual. I never tired of listening to it. Momma never seemed tired of retelling it.
As a child, I squealed whenever Momma spun me above her head, half afraid of the speed at which my body whirled, half thrilling in the sensation. When I was older, I begged Momma to twirl faster.
Spiraling, whirling, my surroundings blurred, what could be more exhilarating than the world slipping into the capricious realm of the divine? Or at least, that’s what it felt like.
Momma spun me over her head until the day I finally became a woman.
“No more spinning, Bilqīs,” she said when I showed her the blood smeared between my thighs. My first blood came later than was usual for the village girls, but not for a half jinni like me.
“You’re a woman now.” Momma reached into a basket of rags. “And as a part jinn woman you have no equal.”
“Why? I didn’t inherit your traits.” Not the ones I wanted. Those that mattered most.
“Being jinn is more than speed and strength.” Momma wound a strip of thick fabric around my waist and through my legs, folded it back and forth. “We possess other advantageous qualities.”
“Like what?” I asked with a bit too much sass as Momma tightened the fabric girdling my pelvis.
Momma’s dark eyes flashed fire, then melted as though holding back a delicious secret. “Another jinn trait is our intense sensitivity to the sensual world. It’s an advantage, unless you allow it to control you, in which case it becomes a terrible weakness.”
I rolled my eyes. Momma tended to talk in riddles.
Momma stood back. “Did you see how I did that?”
I looked down at the wrapped wool. “Yes, Momma.”
“Change and rinse the wrapping when the blood soaks through. Tell me when the bleeding stops.” She turned and walked out the door.
I dropped the hem of my long linen dress and followed her outside, sitting beside her as she wove a new basket. I was desperate to know about these other jinn traits, but I knew better than to question Momma further. She would tell me more when she was ready.
Frowning, I set my own incomplete, misshapen basket on my lap. I had held my first palm frond not long after I started walking, attempted imitating Momma’s weaving a few months later. I hadn’t improved much since. I found basket weaving tedious and never understood why Momma got so much enjoyment from it.
Momma’s jinn qualities meant she made many baskets and more beautiful baskets than human women. Traders came from all over the kingdom of Saba to buy Momma’s intricately designed baskets. No one, however, knew the speed of her weaving.
Momma kept her jinn ancestry a secret. Too dangerous, she said. Some kings enslaved jinni by clamping irons around their limbs and necks. Others wanted them killed, and put a price on their heads.
Momma’s skill and speed gave us a better life than most. We lacked for nothing and always had food. If grain was overpriced and the widyan dry, Momma simply flew to the Red Sea, where she snatched a fish from the water. Or she might leap up and grab a cluster of fruit from the tallest date tree. Or run down a hare. Or steal honey from a hive without disturbing the bees. Of course, Momma made certain no one witnessed these superhuman feats.
Momma spoiled me, lavishing me with expensive linens and perfumes after a profitable sale. After a dignitary from Ma’rib bought every one of Momma’s baskets, she bought me a gold bracelet. A goddess wears gold, she had said, slipping the shiny circle around my wrist. I wasn’t a goddess but I loved staring at the gold gleaming bright against my tawny brown skin.
Father’s skin. Momma was an earth-dark beauty.
Father’s identity was a mystery. Or a secret. Probably both. Momma told a different story about my father every time I asked. One day he was the king of Ophir, the next a chief minister, or an Assyrian rug trader, or a handsome merchant traveling through town, or even a high priest of Almaqah.
“Stop asking about your father,” Momma snapped. “He doesn’t put food in your belly, clothes on your back, or gold on your wrist. All you need to know is that he was a clever human.”
“Was?”
Momma squeezed my chin between her strong fingers and glared. “Don’t ask again, Bilqīs.”
I never did. In my heart I just knew Father was once king of Ophir and Momma his queen. I was a sassy, curious young woman, hungry for answers. Like the answer to my next question.
“Momma, why do you go into the cassia bushes with men and tell me not to follow?”
Momma wiggled my nose between her knuckles. “Bilqīs, you’re incorrigible.” She lifted the basket in her lap. “Weaving baskets makes my soul sing. Men make my body sing. You will understand one day.” It was Momma’s first attempt at explaining sex.
Singing? My face puckered as though I’d bitten into a sour grape. The few times I had snuck after them when they disappeared around a terraced hill or thicketed gully, I heard mostly grunts and moans. Except at the end. Momma would throw back her head and praise the sky with a long cry that was almost song-like.
I didn’t always watch, but when I did crouch unnoticed nearby, I found Momma astride the man, her body bouncing up and down so fast she was a blur. The man appeared in agony, groaning as his head rolled from side to side. This never went on too long because Momma would stop bouncing and let the man grab hold of her breasts and suckle like a babe. Then Momma would start bouncing again. Eventually, Momma would arch her back, look up, and praise the sky
with her long, loud cry.
She often praised the sky more than once. Especially when Momma’s legs were draped over the rutting man’s shoulders, or when she sat on his face. I did not crawl away until the man proclaimed himself “drained dry” and Momma, sweaty and panting, rolled off him. I had yet to decide if this was a fun activity or not.
It was these secret woman things I thought about when Momma laid the palm fronds side by side on the ground a few days later. “The bleeding stopped?”
Her question roused me from my memories. “A few days ago.”
“Good, it’s time you learned how to make your body sing.” Momma wove the fronds into her signature complex design.
“I’m not ready.”
“Nonsense. You’re a woman of marriageable age now.” Momma looked up, her fingers moving in a blur as the basket took shape. “You’re part jinn. This is who we are, part of our needs. You must experience the joys of sex. My mother introduced me to its pleasures at the same age.” Her hands stopped moving. “We are spirits of fire. Here.” Momma touched her head. “Here.” She tapped her heart. “And here.” She pressed her hand between her legs.
It was no use reminding Momma that I was only half jinn. Since I did not have her strength and speed, perhaps I did not possess this three-pronged fire spirit. After all, we were different in many ways. Momma’s skin was almost as dark as obsidian; mine cinnamon hued. Her eyes were dark; mine golden. Her lips brown, mine the color of red agate. Her night-black hair coiled into a thousand spiral curls. Mine was a dark-brown frizzy confusion that needed oil to be tamed. “What do I have to do?”
Momma picked up the basket. “Don’t think. Let your body absorb each and every sensation.” She tugged on my thick plait. “You worry too much. It must be a human trait. Your father’s perhaps. Don’t think. Feel. Let the sensations wash over you.”
That didn’t sound too difficult. “Like floating on my back when the wadi flows?” Twice a year when the monsoon filled the wadi, I waded into the water and floated. The swirling water and warming sun stirred my senses, carried me into a divine realm of serenity.
“Different. Better. Much better,” said Momma. “The feeling defies explanation.”
Six months passed without any more mention of my initiation into womanhood. Momma had forgotten, which was fine by me.
Another month passed. I forgot all about it.
Until a young man, his arms swinging in time to his purposeful stride, walked up the steep, narrow path to our home.
Like other men in our village, his curly hair was close cropped, his beard trimmed, and his short tunic open to the waist. And yet I suspected he was a foreigner because he tucked neither a long blade nor knife into his corded belt. He was broad shouldered, with lean muscular legs, and his skin was the color of the dark-brown stripes of a sand cat.
Feeling like prey, I felt my pulse quicken and my limbs tense. Perhaps it was his predatory stalk through our uncultivated highlands, but somehow I just knew that he was the one who had come to initiate me into womanhood.
CHAPTER 2
Momma set down the half-finished basket and rose to meet the stranger. “Stand up, daughter.”
I stood on shaking legs and hid behind Momma.
“Ekene, at your service.” He flashed a wide, handsome grin of perfect white teeth.
Momma nudged me. “It’s time for your body to sing,” she whispered.
I stumbled forward, my feet heavy as rocks, my eyes darting from the ground to the beautiful man before me. “Momma…” My voice croaked like a frightened child’s.
Momma wrapped her comforting arms around my waist. “Like floating on a river.” Her breath tickled my ear. “Don’t tell him your name.” She gave me a quick squeeze before walking past him and taking the narrow path to the canyon beyond our house.
I watched Momma’s retreating figure until she disappeared around the bend.
“It’s okay to be nervous,” Ekene said when I stole a shy look at him.
“How long will it take?” I rasped, my voice dry as the desert.
The quick wince of disappointment passed so quickly over Ekene’s face, I might have imagined it.
“Pleasure is not measured in time.” Ekene held out his large hand. “Let’s sit together.”
I took his dark hand in mine. Warm. Dry. Confident. Solid as a walnut shell.
We walked through the doorway and into the mud-brick house where we sat on the rug. “Tell me about yourself, Young Woman With No Name.”
“I have a name—”
Ekene’s hand sprung out like a snake, his fingers sealing my lips. “Don’t tell me. Your momma did not want me to know either of your names. It’s a condition of the job.”
I was a job? A nameless job? I bristled and wrinkled my nose.
Ekene pressed his lips together in dismay. “Will you permit me to give you a name for today?” Ekene spoke with the deference of one addressing a queen. “I think it will be best for us both.”
“Um…” I stared at Ekene’s biceps. They were so large I thought his armband might pop off. Surely, they were twice as big as any of the men in the village. “Okay,” I said, my fingers impatient to run over his muscular curves. “Give me a beautiful name.”
“Mmmm…” Ekene scratched his beard. “I will call you Destiny.” His brown eyes dilated with warmth. “Because your momma said you have a great destiny.”
His peaceful manner eased my nervousness.
“That’s more portentous than beautiful,” I said.
Ekene’s brows lifted. “Gorgeous and clever.” He tucked fisted hands under his chin in thought. “A great destiny is beauty,” he said after a few moments.
My cheeks flamed, his studied gaze making me shy. I lowered my eyes, intent on the circles I drew on the carpet.
Ekene scooted close. Not close enough that our bodies touched, but close enough that I smelled his maleness and the mint on his breath.
“Do you have any questions?” He slid off the leather cord securing my braid and threaded his fingers through my tresses.
His intimate touch and ardent gaze set my body aflame. I burned from toe tip to head top. For the first time, I understood the heat of my smokeless fire heritage.
Questions? I had a thousand, yet I asked only one. “Is this your profession?”
“A small part of it.” With my hair now unbound, Ekene’s fingers massaged my scalp, sending pleasurable shivers down my neck. “I have a confession to make. I’ve never had the privilege of servicing a woman of your exquisiteness before.”
“I doubt that,” I said, despite leaning into his relaxing ministrations.
His fingers kneaded the base of my head. “I speak the truth. When I first laid eyes on you, my loins stirred and my heart quickened. The closer I got, the more charmed I became. There is a radiant destiny in your golden eyes, shining brighter than any star. I feel it in your presence…the glow of your inner strength. You have an exotic beauty, the smile of the sphinx, and a magical radiance that dazzles like a gem. There is nothing more captivating and dangerous than the perfect union of inner and outward beauty.”
I swayed farther into his caresses. “Dangerous?” Momma told me I was beautiful all the time, but that didn’t count.
With a featherlight touch that tickled my lips, Ekene traced the line of my jaw. “Men will swoon at your feet and do your bidding just to be in your presence. Jealous women will despise you for the power you have over men.” His lips whisked across my cheek.
I trembled with anticipation, the strange quivering in my body making me eager for more. I turned my cheek and my lips met his. Their soft warmth sent a thousand butterflies aflutter in my belly.
Ekene stroked my cheek, his lips and fingertips as light as a breeze. He parted his lips. I did the same, inhaling his breath. Ekene caressed my face, and then his finger brushed my earlobe before trailing down my neck. His mouth pressed harder, grew more insistent, until his tongue pushed inside.
I gasped
. The quick flick sparked new quivers through my body. His tongue grazed back and forth, emboldening me to participate in the dance.
I licked, tasted, and then savored the feel of this slippery orifice. Our mouths smashed together, thrusting and probing, the flirting dance gliding into a delicious battle.
Smooth, hard, wet, heat, wanting; I was lost to sensations drenching my body like a rainstorm floods the dry earth. I didn’t want him to stop. And then . . .
His hand brushed across my sheathed breasts. New tremblings raced up my thighs.
I inhaled, but it was his breath I gulped. His mouth held me captive. I thrust forth my bosom as his fingers swept back and forth, my nipples ripening like fruit with his touch.
Ekene slipped my dress over my shoulders, and it gathered in folds at my belted waist. Released from the linen, my breasts yearned for the warmth of his skilled fingertips.
Panting, I broke the kiss to watch.
His gaze fixed on my breasts, he cupped each one and lifted. “They are exquisite. Perfect. Meant to be worshipped.” He lowered his head and blew across them.
My nipples stiffened, pointed toward him. I heard each of my breaths. Felt each of his. Cool. Hot. The whole world was my breasts. They waited for his next exhalation.
“Do you like that?” Ekene asked. “Want more?”
“Yes, yes,” I breathed. I wanted more. Lots more. But of what, I had no idea.
Ekene did.
His thumbs skimmed across my pointed nipples.
I moaned, an apex of pleasure gathering at the tips. “More,” I whispered, and I planted my mouth on his.
Ekene was an obliging lover. An excellent teacher. His thumbs brushed back and forth until he sensed I needed yet more. He withdrew his tongue, trailed it down my neck and over my clavicle to the narrow valley between my breasts.
His wet trail made my skin tingle with yearning. I pushed away the edge of his tunic and ran my fingers over his chest of short dark curls. I pinched his small brown buds, which stiffened with my touch.
“That’s how you want it then?” he murmured between my breasts. He returned the squeeze.
Confessions of a Sheba Queen Page 1
