The Persian Girl

by Felix Baron

  I knew that her joy was upon her. For the first time in the half hour or so she’d been riding me, I moved. My hips drew back. I lanced into her, slapping belly on belly, and at the exact moment I felt her scalding flood bathe my shaft, I let my jism squirt.

  Abigail slithered down me, toppling back into the lower berth, tumbling Grace aside. I allowed myself to stagger backwards across the narrow aisle until the edge of the opposite berth caught me behind my knees.

  My breath rasping, I told Abigail, ‘You are a remarkably fine fuck, young lady.’

  She panted for a while before squeezing out, ‘Likewise, Reverend.’

  Grace complained, ‘I’m horny!’

  Abigail said, ‘Hope, attend to her. Get head-to-tail, you two, while the Reverend and I gather ourselves. We’ll join you anon, I promise, right, Reverend?’

  And we did.

  Six

  AT BRESLAU I left the wanton trio with the best part of a pork pie, a third of a bottle of plum brandy, all the coconut-centred chocolates and a hundred and fifty gold guineas. My reckoning was fifty for the sport, fifty for depriving them of other business and fifty for them ignoring the knife I’d left on the table. They’d had ample opportunity to put it to my throat or into my back but they’d abided by our agreement. They were swindlers and whores, but they were honourable ones.

  I took away some treasured memories – a droplet of sweat falling from the tip of Abigail’s nipple into Hope’s waiting mouth – three giggling girls, squirming like eels to find a position in which each could tongue another’s ring – Hope licking a smear of my jism off Grace’s heaving belly.

  By luck, I fell in with a band of gypsies. I speak Rom and have a certain cast to my features. They took me for one of their own, likely a fugitive, and made a space for me in one of their caravans for the next hundred miles of my journey. When our paths divided, I purchased a donkey and cart from them at an exorbitant price and so made my way to the magnificent new railway station at Prague. Before entering that great city, I packed my western garb in my trunk, rubbed walnut juice into my skin and donned the robes and burnoose of a Berber.

  Five filler bought me the right to tie my trunk to the fishnet that was stretched over the roof of the second of a train’s two creaking carriages, and to cling to it from Prague to Pest, changing trains at Vienna. From there, by various means, I reached The Bosphorus. I decided to work my passage across the Black Sea as far as Trabzon on a tramp steamer. I was carrying enough funds to have bought the rusty scow ten times over but the closer I got to my destination the less conspicuous I wanted to be.

  Barges regularly ply the rivers south of Trabzon, many of them laden with contraband. Being large, of an unsavoury appearance, and feigning to be mute, I was soon hired as a deckhand.

  On the fourth morning it drizzled till midday. In the afternoon, steam rose from both land and water. There was a fecund smell from the mud banks, like a fat woman’s unwashed armpits. The air felt like warm whore’s milk on my skin. I made my bed on deck, sacks of onions under me, a canvas for my coverlet.

  When I woke, I threw off the canvas. It had become a stifling shroud. The sky was a sheet of white-hot metal, just too high to reach up and touch. I took a deep breath. The hairs in my nostrils shrivelled. There was no colour, just glaring shades of white, and I had to squint so as not to be dazzled by the sun’s brilliance.

  It felt like the East.

  It felt like home.

  That night, Venus was bright near the moon’s crescent. It seemed auspicious. I stripped and packed my robes into my trunk. The water was an oily chiaroscuro. It accepted my luggage and then me without a single plash. I swam, pushing my floating trunk ahead of me and into an opening in a forest of reeds.

  In Mus, at an inn, I encountered Nesip Pelin, a camel merchant who was heading to Talvan and needed a guard. From Talvan I took the ferry across Lake Van to what I thought was my final destination.

  For my first night, I lodged with a wizened one-toothed widow who offered me my choice of bed mate – her, her daughter or either of her sons. I opted to spread my solitary bed on her roof, where there were fewer fleas.

  I woke with the Muezzin, prayed, performed my ablutions and made my way to Ben Midras’ Palace. There I waited with the crowd that sought audience until a guard accepted my bribe and presented me to the Pasha.

  In Turkish, speaking softly, I told him, ‘We’ll spell it. Shall I begin?’

  His eyes lit up at this secret sign that I wasn’t what I purported to be. He peered closer and broke into a grin. ‘It’s you!’ he exclaimed. He glanced left and right before whispering, ‘Thank you for coming, my friend.’ A crook of his finger brought a servant scurrying. I was led to a private chamber.

  An hour later my hands and feet had been bathed by a veiled houri and the Pasha and I were chatting over mint-tea and honeyed pastries.

  ‘Tell me about shooting that wolf,’ I asked.

  ‘Is that what they told you? That wasn’t my message. I wrote that I’d shot a man who was wearing that pelt, not that I’d slain the actual beast.’

  I sat back and sucked my sticky fingers. ‘That makes better sense. I know there are wolves in Turkey, but Siberian ones?’

  He frowned. ‘Unfortunately, it seems that there are Siberian wolves here. Our native wolves have been found savaged, throats ripped out. Lambs and kids have disappeared.’

  ‘You haven’t asked me here to hunt wild animals.’

  ‘Of course not. I need your help on a much more sinister, but related matter. There’s talk in the bazaars about a new sect – a wolf-cult. Such blasphemies come and go. I pay them little heed, apart from beheading their leaders if they look to become troublesome.’ He leaned forward. ‘This cult bothers me. If some of my people are foolish enough to take wolves as totems, so be it, but why take Russian wolves, unless the sect has its roots in the East?’

  I nodded and selected a pastry that was thickly crusted with toasted almonds. ‘It’s a Russian plot, you think.’

  ‘Am I wrong to be alarmed?’

  ‘Not in the least. Religion and politics make a vile brew. If the Czar is subverting your people through this sect, you have every right to be concerned, as will Her Majesty’s Foreign Office be when I inform them.’ I paused. ‘Chingis Khan claimed to be descended from Siberian wolves, you know. That might be significant. What else have you discovered about this sect, Benim?’

  ‘Typical animalism,’ he said. ‘Its devotees are promised invulnerability and the power to transform themselves.’

  ‘Loup garou,’ I mused. ‘Lycanthropy. That’s clever – the incorporation of old established superstitions into a new cult. The Christian church has long used the same technique, with considerable effect. Do you have any of these wolf-worshippers in your hands, Benim?’

  ‘Not yet, but perhaps soon. That’s where the matter becomes delicate.’ He sipped his tea as he composed his thoughts. ‘I have guests from Persia – an old friend, Datis Zahed, and his brother’s widow, Mahbanov, and his aptly named daughter, Asal, or “Honey” in English. Mahbanov serves as Asal’s duenna, but not very well it seems. With the widow’s connivance, Asal has become friendlier than is seemly with one of my gardeners, a lad named Bora. Bora, my spies tell me, has connections with the wolf-cult. An eavesdropper in my employ overheard Bora promise Asal that she would be initiated into the pack – the wolf-pack presumably – very soon. She seemed eager to join. I’m torn, Richard. I should report this to Datis, but if I do he’ll whisk his daughter away. If I don’t, she might lead me to the cult.’

  ‘You have no choice,’ I told him. ‘It’s unfortunate, but this threat is more important than protecting the honour of a girl who likely has none. How may I help?’

  Benim rubbed his chin. ‘If you will, bide with me awhile. My spies will keep watch on both the girl and her lover. Soon, I suspect within the week as the moon is waxing, he will steal her away. I ask that you lead a band of my men and follow the couple. Once you locate t
he wolf-pack, fall upon it, taking as many prisoners as you can. I will put them to the question and we’ll tear up this weed before it roots too deeply.’

  I shook my head. ‘Benim, you ask me to track two youngsters to the cult’s lair, with a band of bravos beside me? It’d never work. Best inform me as soon as they steal away and I’ll track them single-handed.’

  ‘But there could be a score of fanatics waiting,’ he protested.

  I smiled. ‘I’ll go alone, but not unarmed. Let your men follow at a distance.’

  Benim sighed. ‘It shall be as you say. Thank you, Richard.’ He glanced at the crumbs in the dish beside me. ‘More?’

  ‘Thank you, no.’

  ‘I am a poor host,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a long and arduous journey. There is another matter I’d value your advice on, but it will wait till tomorrow. A bath and a bed await you, Richard. I trust you are not so fatigued that you won’t be able to enjoy them both, fully.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Fully?’

  He grinned. ‘Nothing strenuous, Richard, I promise. The entertainment I’ve arranged for you will be relaxing and help you sleep.’

  ‘You are too generous, Benim.’

  He clapped. A shapely woman, voluminously clad and doe-eyed above her veil, led me to my bath and, to my surprise, left me to perform my ablutions alone.

  The water was so hot that I had to descend into it with caution. It smelled of roses and was slippery between my fingers. There was a basket floating in the middle of the pool that was about the same size as my entire tub back in England. It was piled with soaps in a dozen colours; loofahs, sea sponges, brushes and scrapers, plus a dozen flagons of variously tinted liquids. By trial and error, I found shampoo, which was a blessing after my travels. I soaped and scrubbed and scoured. Tingling with cleanliness, I climbed out to be greeted by a quartet of towel-bearing sylphs. They were delicate little things, barely tall enough to reach my shoulders and softly slender. Their eyelids were gilded and their long black tresses were oiled and perfumed. Each wore nothing but a gauzy yashmak, so fine that I could clearly discern which one’s lips were pursed, which one’s parted just enough to afford glimpses of tiny perfect teeth, which one displayed the pink tip of her tongue and which one’s were blatantly lascivious.

  I was dabbed and patted dry, with no squeals or giggles, not even a word. Delicate fingers took mine. I was led into a candle-lit chamber that was dominated by a raised dais, not strewn with cushions as I might have expected, but thickly padded and covered in textured cotton. Signs and tugs directed me to recline, on my back, arms and legs spread wide. One fetched hot towels and aromatic unguents. My face was lotioned, covered, kneaded through cotton, then bared for the ministrations of a cut-throat razor. The girl’s strokes were so sure and delicate that it felt as if she were caressing my skin with a goose-feather rather than with a sharp blade.

  When she was done, my steaming towels were renewed, but this time only covering my eyes. I was so warm and comfortable that despite the presence of four delightful nymphs, I had almost drifted off to sleep before I became aware that my smallest fingers and toes were being subtly manipulated. The tugs started gently but became stronger, until the joints ‘cracked’ and the ministering fingers moved on to the adjoining toes and fingers.

  Their coordination impressed me. Without a pause, the massage moved from finger to finger, toe to toe, until both of my great toes and both of my thumbs ‘popped’ simultaneously.

  Strong little fingers dug into my palms and the soles of my feet. It seemed as if each and every one of the bones in those appendages was isolated and manipulated before the probing fingers moved on. My wrists and ankles were deeply massaged, then my forearms and calves. When the girls started on my knees and elbows, I became aware that my digits were being revisited. This time, the girls were using their lips. Again, the sweet treatment progressed from smallest to largest. Each finger and toe was licked and then sucked upon, as if it were a miniature cock being fellated.

  The slow progression was incredibly tantalising but I was happy to surrender to the teasing. It was simultaneously stimulating and relaxing to have ten fingertips fondling each of the creases between my thighs and my torso and caressing my armpits while four soft wet mouths and sinuous tongues played behind my raised knees and on the insides of my elbows.

  My erection became almost painful. Gentle lips nuzzled both sides of my neck. There were tongues slithering the lengths of my groins. Fingers brushed my nipples and danced down the arches of my ribs. The two girls who attended to me above my waist were straddling my arms. I lifted my hands to stroke the softness of their bellies. As if in response, all four humped higher upon me. Four mounds bore down. A girlish cunny spread its hot wet lips on each of my insteps. Two more impaled themselves on my fingers. All four lithe lovelies writhed, stimulating themselves as well as me.

  A tongue tickled at each corner of my mouth. I turned my head to the left, to suck the sweetness from one eager mouth, then to the right, to sample and compare the other nymph’s oral nectar.

  The back of a hand lifted my scrotum. The perineum, called Hui Yin in Taoism, is a Chakra, a centre of spiritual power. It is as sensitive as a lip. The caress I was subjected to was so subtle that for a while I wasn’t sure of its source. Then I realised. The girls were giving me ‘butterfly’ kisses – fluttering their eyelashes on my skin. The sensation was almost unbearably exquisite. I reached a stage when it seemed my climax would be inevitable even though my shaft had not yet been touched unless I delayed it by an effort of will, when all four withdrew.

  I shook my head, throwing off the cloth that covered my eyes, and started to sit up to protest, but I was not being left unsatisfied. Their ministrations paused for no longer than it took for them to rearrange their positions, and mine.

  Gentle hands pressed my shoulders back. Three of the girls, with a, ‘Please to allow,’ lifted my legs, doubling them up and back towards my waist, while the fourth worked a wedge-shaped leather cushion under the base of my spine. When I was tilted to their satisfaction, they returned to their delightful play. Crowding together, their lovely faces descended upon my private parts. A girl rested her cheek on my abdomen. Her lips engulfed the helmet of my cock and, to my surprise, because everything they’d done until then had been restrained and gentle, gobbled on me, slobbering and slurping in a most obscene manner. Another’s mouth opened and took as much of my left testicle in as it could, to tickle my short hairs with its tongue.

  The third girl trilled on my perineum, her tongue alternately poking with amazing strength and lapping at my taut skin. The last of the houris somehow worked her face into the cramped space below the other three. Her gentle palms eased the cheeks of my bottom apart. She snuggled in, her lips kissing the ring of my anus as if it were a tiny mouth, then pressing closer. I relaxed that tight sphincter to allow the girl easier access. Wet, hot, stiff and strong, her tongue wormed into me.

  All four worked with a will, gobbling, sucking, nibbling, licking and stabbing, all making little squeals and cooing with pleasure, as if they had fasted for a week and my private parts were a delicious banquet. I have that ability that I could have revelled in the delights from dusk till dawn but they were so eager in their carnality, those nymphs, that I hadn’t the heart to make them wait.

  I let my essence flow. The girl I’d blessed with it turned her face and extended her coated tongue. My seed was passed from girl to girl, mouth to mouth, until it disappeared. The wedge beneath me was removed. All four climbed upon me, draping me with their slight bodies. Warm beneath four exquisite, satin-skinned blankets, I slept.

  Seven

  BENIM AND I sprawled on low divans, three broad marble steps up from the floor of what he designated his ‘Chamber of Justice’. He was attended by three of his palest, prettiest and youngest concubines, as befitted both his taste and his rank. My sole attendant was a lush-bodied odalisque, a Hindu, I guessed. She was of mature years and dark as a cocoa bean. I was content.
After three nights of sport with my quartet of girlish sylphs, breasts that were made for suckling and voluptuous fertile hips made a pleasant change. Selin’s eyelids were so heavy it was a wonder she could hold them open. Her fleshy lips were sullen – the sort of lips that are made to be bruised by brutal kisses and ravaged by the thrusts of a good hard cock, preferably mine.

  She knelt on cushions beside me, tending to the brazier that heated thick black Turkish coffee. On a side table was a tray of honey-baked green figs, each slathered in slightly sour clotted goat’s cream. With each titbit I sampled, Selin took my hand and licked the sweetness from my fingers while looking up at me with smouldering eyes.

  I let my hand drop. My fingertips brushed a turgid nipple that was set in a halo the size of a saucer. Selin shivered and sucked air through a suddenly slack mouth. She seemed to be what an ancient Hindu text I’d read called, ‘Nari dhire dhire khaulana simasimana’, or ‘a simmering woman’.

  The only furnishings on the chamber’s lower level were a single short wooden pillar, surmounted by a camel’s saddle, and a rack bearing canes, straps, whips and the like. To our right, a dozen or so of Benin’s chattering concubines draped themselves on the satin pillows and silken rugs that softened the steps. Behind and above them, an ornate pierced wooden screen shielded his wives from male eyes while allowing the ladies to watch the proceedings. To our left, more sedate than the concubines, stood or sat two score of odalisques, servants and slaves.

  The first miscreant to be called was a boy of about six years.

  Selin beckoned me to bend to her. ‘He’s the Pasha’s seventeenth son,’ she whispered. ‘By Eda, one of his concubines, a favourite of his for some reason. She’s skinny as a corn-stalk and lively as a dead frog.’

  Benin’s Major Domo announced, ‘Ayhan, of this House, is accused thus: That he did wilfully spit a mouthful of couscous on to the person of his nursemaid, Mrs Caruthers.’