After surveying the various departments and ministries that answered to the Regents Committee and ultimately the supreme ruler, Sheikh Zaal had noticed a financial allocation for three new schools that had supposedly been built on the far reaches of Kirwaan, frontier territory almost, far from Kirwaan’s capital city and not even very close to some of the smaller towns that dotted the Kirwaani desert, clustered around the large and small oases that graced the land and brought the dead sand to life.
At first Zaal had thought there had been some sort of error in the Regents Committee’s approval of the schools, that perhaps something had been lost in translation when one of the older members of the Committee had mumbled out the Regents’ decision and the timid young scribe had written what he heard without question. But after seeing another document that commissioned the delivery of five hundred leather-bound copies of the Quran to these phantom schools, Zaal had decided to pay the region a visit.
And what he saw scared him, shook him to the soles of his camel-leather boots as he emerged from the helicopter, its roaring engine and screaming blades unable to drown out the pounding in his head when the Imam of the new schools proudly took him into the enclosed quadrangle of the red sandstone building with the ominously black-painted dome and single gold minaret.
“What are they teaching in these schools, Cousin Yusuf?” Zaal had asked his cousin that evening, shortly after returning from that visit, once he had processed what he had seen: the scores of young men aged sixteen through nineteen, grouped by height, lined up in rows that would have made Hitler proud, each of them in red tunics and black turbans, each of them holding a leather-bound Quran against their breast, a shiny silver scimitar by their side.
“Is this a joke?” Zaal had asked the head Imam of the school, realizing from the way the man’s weathered face wrinkled up in confusion that by Allah no, this was no joke at all.
“It is to eventually become a military school, Cousin Zaal,” Yusuf had replied, blinking as he broke eye contact with the much taller Sheikh Zaal. “When I took over as Minister of Education, the Regents Committee noted that we have no military school at all and asked me to allocate the funds. All great countries and empires have military schools that integrate—”
“Integrate what, Yusuf? The Quran and the sword? God and war? Religion and madness? Ya Allah, these are young men of impressionable age, and you are putting a sword in one hand and a collection of religious dogma that they cannot possibly understand in the other hand!” Zaal did his best to stay calm, placing both hands behind his back and clenching his fists as his thoughts raced ahead to what would happen to Kirwaan if news of this madness spread past its borders. “Does your father Sheikh Ishfaq know of this?”
“Of course,” Yusuf replied. “The Regents Committee drafted the commission and the Sheikh signed it.”
“Signed it along with twenty other documents that day, perhaps.”
Yusuf smiled, his thin face showing some color even through the deep brown. He licked his lips and smiled again, teeth flashing a dull yellow from the tobacco of his hand-rolled cigarettes and constantly sipped dark tea. “Zaal, the Quran is taught to Kirwaan’s students in every school in the land. As for the swords . . . they are only symbolic.”
“The Quran is taught in all schools, yes. But it is taught alongside mathematics and science and literature and history, not as the be all and end all of knowledge. Which brings me to that question I asked you, Yusuf: What are you teaching those children in those schools?”
“I am not involved in the day to day operations,” Yusuf replied, losing that smile and narrowing his eyes. “The Regents oversee the school, and they assure me that the students are getting a rounded education. They assure me that mathematics and science and literature and history—all the subjects you mention—are all contained within the Quran, if you read the verses the way they were meant to be read.”
“And those teenage boys are going to read those cryptic verses and make sense of them? Or will they simply soak up whatever those black-turbaned Imams are teaching them? Ya Allah, Yusuf! Tell me what I have seen is a joke! Tell me I have just witnessed a desert mirage and not the undoing of fifty years of progress that my father began and in fact your father has continued with great success! Progress that teaches the children of our kingdom that religion has its place and tradition has its wisdom, but all that must be integrated with the undeniable tools given to us by science and mathematics, technology and free trade, the sharing of ideas and the peaceful merging of cultures!” Zaal had felt his voice rise as he spoke, his own eyes narrowing for only a moment before he regained his composure, reminding himself that he would soon be king and a king does not lose his temper like an angry child.
“Every great empire has its military schools, and this will raise our profile in the Arabian peninsula, my dear—” Yusuf began saying before Zaal cut him off with a quick wave of the hand.
“This will raise nothing but eyebrows and suspicions—both in our neighbors as well as the intelligence agencies of the West,” Zaal had said, walking down the long corridor between the eastern and southern wings of the Royal Palace of Kirwaan, a corridor as wide as the river Tigris, the pink sandstone walls lined with frowning portraits of old kings and young queens. “It will raise our profile as a potential recruiting center for Islamic extremist groups.” Zaal stopped pacing and turned to his cousin, the Sheikh’s green eyes ablaze with intensity. “And in the end it will be Kirwaan itself that will be razed . . . razed to the ground by firebombs and cruise missiles steered by drone pilots sitting thousands of miles away in an air-conditioned room.”
“So we should desist from teaching our children our own history and traditions and strengthening our own military out of fear? Fear of angering our Western overlords and their local Arab watchdogs?” Yusuf said, coughing as he inhaled deep from a hand-rolled cigarette pre-lit and handed to him by a silent attendant in white robes.
“Not fear of angering them, but fear of angering me,” Zaal said point blank, taking a step towards his shorter, slightly hunched cousin and standing to full height, his broad shoulders casting a shadow that seemed to envelop the wiry prince Yusuf. “We will desist teaching our children this nonsense out of fear of me. Me. Sheikh Zaal Al-Kirwaan, heir-apparent, and soon to be supreme ruler of everyone and everything within our borders. Now shut down those schools, burn those red tunics and black turbans, and get those students back to their homes in our towns and cities. Then bring those Imams before me so I can speak with them, and once I am convinced that neither they nor you . . .” Zaal paused and waited until he was certain he saw Yusuf swallow hard at the thinly veiled threat. “Yes, once I am convinced that neither they nor you possess any serious beliefs that will threaten the safety of our kingdom, then you and I will forget about this misguided initiative of those dinosaurs who sit on the Regents Committee. Am I clear, Cousin Yusuf? I noted that only one of the three schools is operational, and so this little project is not that far along. Kill the project, and we will not speak of it again. You have one month, and if the Regents give you any trouble, you will come to me.”
Yusuf had nodded and taken his leave, doing as the Sheikh-to-be had asked. Within a month the school was shut down and those three Imams had been interviewed in private by Zaal and then dismissed when the Sheikh realized how terrified and aghast these men were at being brought before the Sheikh-to-be and questioned about matters that perhaps had not even occurred to them. Indeed, the schools seemed to be just as Yusuf had said: a system that preached military-level discipline and taught the doctrine of the Quran, but was certainly not overtly condoning violence of any form. At least that was what the four head Regents, the leaders of the bearded ones, assured Zaal when he confronted them:
“It is to give our youth a sense of national Kirwaani pride,” the first bearded one had said. The man had a name, but Zaal had always called him Longbeard and now could not remember his real name.
“Historically it has been hardship an
d war that forges a sense of nationalism in a nation,” the henna-dyed second Regent called Redbeard had said.
“And now after forty years of rolling in the revenues of oil, the newer generations of Kirwaanis have grown up in wealth and luxury, with no memories of the time before we discovered the black gold, when we were at the mercy of our neighbors, constantly fearing that one of them would simply storm our borders,” said the third Regent, the man the princes called Baldbeard because he had chosen to do the no-mustache-but-full-beard style of Tipu-sultan, the feared general who pillaged and plundered Asia in the 1700s.
“Which could happen again if oil prices continue to drop as those blasphemous electric cars get more popular in the West,” rasped the fourth Regent, the man known as Goatbeard, thanks to his trend-bucking style of no beard and just a goatee.
“So you set up three schools where the main text is the orthodox Quran, where the children wear uniforms of red and black, and where they brandish shiny scimitars while chanting slogans of Islamic solidarity and Kirwaani patriotism?” Zaal had asked the Regents at that meeting. “You did not stop to wonder what the world would think of that image?”
“Our job as Regents is to do what is best for Kirwaan regardless of what the world thinks,” Baldbeard had said with a strangely warm smile. “It is the job of the Sheikh to manage perceptions. You know about how to manipulate perception, do you not, Sheikh Zaal? And so we look forward to your ascendancy, when we will have the pleasure of working closer together. But for now we will heed your request and make sure these schools are shut down. Thank you for seeing us, Sheikh Zaal. Allah hu Akbar.”
The whole conversation with the Regents had felt a bit off. They said the right things, but something had made Zaal uneasy, something about the way the four head Regents had looked at him, something in their tones, their mannerisms, their gestures. They were respectful, as they should be to a Sheikh-in-waiting. But beneath the smooth veneer Zaal could sense something simmering in those four bearded regents. Like there was something personal.
Of course, Zaal barely knew the Regents on a personal level. He did however, know their wives. Could it be . . . no. Ya Allah, no. Those secrets would never be revealed. Not a chance! They would stay hidden forever.
So Zaal forced his mind to stay focused on the most rational explanation, that the Regents were simply old and conservative and perhaps testing their boundaries a bit as Sheikh Ishfaq got old and careless. Still, something they had said bothered Zaal, something about there being some demand for strict Islamic schools. Demand?
“Yeah, these are always in demand,” came the loud American voice of the gun-shop attendant from behind Zaal, and the Sheikh jolted as if awoken out of a trance.
He blinked and looked around, making brief eye contact with Mister Nosering, who had just pulled a twelve-gauge Smith & Wesson out of the display case for a customer. The Sheikh nodded at the man before smiling and turning towards the door, almost embarrassed when he realized he had been standing and staring into space for God knows how long.
The word “demand” was echoing in his head as he dismissed those thoughts of Kirwaan and those goddamn Regents.
Demand, he thought again as now the word carried him to another place, a more pleasant land, that enchanted realm he visited when he was alone with one of his women, those lonely women in their empty marriages, their bodies craving attention, their demands so devilishly filthy that their own husbands of twenty years would not believe them capable of such thoughts, let alone deeds!
“Take me, Zaal,” whispered the wife of Goatbeard.
“Tame me, Zaal,” muttered the wife of Longbeard.
“Teach me, Zaal,” groaned the wife of Redbeard.
“Taste me, Zaal,” moaned the wife of Baldbeard.
Take me. Tame me. Teach me. Taste me.
Touch me.
Oh, Sheikh, please touch me . . .
And now the Sheikh felt that fire come to life, the fire which had been denied an outlet over the past few weeks of drama and upheaval, the fire that had been forced to quietly simmer beneath the surface, fueling the other sorts of fantasies that every boy has, that every man has, those fantasies that dance alongside the male fantasies of violence and power, those fantasies where tongues dance against one another, fingers dance on flesh, man dances with woman. A woman! How long had it been! No wonder he was going mad, walking to a gun store instead of channeling that energy to a safer, more pleasurable outlet!
“By Allah,” the Sheikh muttered as he prepared to step out of the gun store. “The next woman I see. The next goddamn woman who crosses my path will be crossed over my bed tonight, telling me what I need to hear. Saying those words I will make her say. Touch me, Sheikh. Please Sheikh, touch me. Yes, the next bloody woman. Send her to me, Allah. Send your banished son a woman in his hour of need! Inshallah, here she appears!”
And as he playfully muttered the words under his breath, the Sheikh closed his eyes and clapped his hands and then flicked his eyelids back open and stared as an old model Toyota SUV rolled into the lot, the dark blue car pulling right up to the gun store, the driver obscured by shadow, only the silhouette of long, thick hair visible, the strands open and flowing in the breeze, the brown hair highlighted by the sun shining in from behind.
The woman in the shadow, with the sun at her back seemed to be in no hurry to emerge from the vehicle and into the Sheikh’s life. He stood and watched as he felt a grin break on his face, deciding right then and there that although he had said all that as a joke, by Allah he was going to follow through!
So he waited for this woman to step out of her dark blue, Japanese-made chariot which seemed to be Allah’s delivery vehicle of choice today. He waited a long moment, and then a brief moment, and then another long moment. But still the woman did not emerge, sitting silent in the shadow of the American sun, like she was teasing the Sheikh, tempting the Sheikh, telling the Sheikh that she was not the sort of woman who would simply go to him, that he would need to step forth and go to her.
And so the Sheikh stepped forth towards the sun and the shadow, the mysterious woman with the round-faced silhouette and open hair. He stepped forth and went to her.
4
Francine frowned and shifted her bottom on the battered front seat as she watched the tall, dark-skinned man with the movie-star good looks and chiseled physique walk out of the gun store and head right for her car. She quickly glanced to her left and right, but there were no other cars parked close enough to justify why he was walking directly towards her blue Toyota, his tall frame looking majestic as he took slow, lazy strides towards her, thigh muscles bulging in those fitted linen pants as he took each step, thick arms slowly swinging as he walked, forearms like dark tree-trunks extending past the rolled up sleeves of his black woven cotton shirt that hung so goddamn well on his broad shoulders, the soft cloth teasing out the outline of tremendous chest muscles, like the guy could bench-press a horse if he wanted.
“What the hell?” she muttered, feeling a sudden need to straighten her bulky red Gap t-shirt that felt shapeless and ugly on her right now, fighting the urge to check herself once more in the mirror as that man got close enough for her to see his face clearly.
And God was he handsome, she thought as she felt herself shift her bottoms back and forth again as a chill ran up through the center of her back, the metal clasp of her bra feeling cold as her skin suddenly pricked up into a million goosebumps, like each delicate follicle was standing up to take a look at what was making Fran’s body send out the high-alert signal!
The man looked foreign, exotic, like he had walked right out of those dark green forests in the distance, walked out of a cloud perhaps, a cloud which had a castle in it, a palace nestled in tresses of white mist, with a drawbridge of candy-canes lowered over a moat of crystal water, gondolas floating by with their candy-cane poles being pushed by tittering elves with green eyes, green eyes, green eyes . . . and those green eyes were right there now, right outside her window, o
utside little Frannie’s window, the window of her private fortress, her solitary tower, that prison of her own making, surrounded by her own cloud, a dark cloud, heavy with rain, heavy with tears, those cold, lifeless tears that was her body crying, crying, crying . . . crying to be . . . to be touched?
And Fran almost swooned and fainted against the headrest of her seat when she realized that out of nowhere it had come, something that hardly ever came around these days, certainly not like this. Arousal? Arousal, pure and simple, unrefined and raw. And the moment Fran acknowledged it, the moment she admitted through a rare chink in her psychic armor that God, out of nowhere she was aroused . . . that was it and the arousal took over, surging through her, making her hot in the cool air-conditioning, cold in the summer sun, wet in her thick cotton panties, wet through that old denim skirt, wet against her thighs, wet on the seat . . . and ohgod had she just peed herself or had she just gotten her period and what the hell was happening and was that fear rising up now, panic growing thick, her body sending messages she couldn’t interpret, couldn’t understand, couldn’t fucking handle right now!? What was wrong with her! This had never happened before! What kind of a woman was she? How fucked up was this?
The man was at her car door now, his green eyes sparkling like those shining trees in the distance, and as he smiled and reached out to knock on the window, Fran just started the car and slammed it into reverse and gunned it so hard she smashed right smack into the red Subaru wagon that was slowly driving past.
5
When she caught her breath and opened her eyes and snapped off her seatbelt and turned to look, Fran saw that tall stranger talking to the driver of the Subaru, a woman with very long hair and what appeared to be a very short temper.
“It is my fault, Madam,” the man was saying, his voice calm and clear, deep and resonant, his smooth foreign accent cutting through the chaos in Fran’s mind, calming her down so much that she felt like she had slipped into a dream or perhaps that soothing numbness that comes before you freeze to death or drown in the ocean.
Untouched for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 6) Page 3
