I shivered. I wrenched my eyes from his and snatched the necklace from his hands. I was humiliated and hurt, but I was still at his mercy. "I'll wear your damned necklace."
"Good." He smiled ironically and released me. "Our dinner awaits."
***
Gaston proved himself as masterful in culinary as he was in equestrian arts. Our dinner was elegantly laid out with fine china and gleaming sliver upon blinding-white linen. Once the sheik sat down opposite me, he returned to the role of the dispassionate and courteous host that he had adopted when he first came in, but throughout the meal, I was aware acutely of his constant surveillance. I flicked my own furtive glances frequently to his face, and always his fierce eyes were watching me with a steadiness that wracked my nerves. I was reminded of an exhibition I had seen in Vienna, where a lion tamer ended the performance by dining in the lions' cage, surrounded by her savage, snarling beasts of prey.
I had been so intrigued by the animals that I had remained after the performance to speak with the tamer, a girl little older than myself. She had shown me the young lion cubs and had even allowed me to hold one in my arms as we spoke. After accepting my proffered cigarettes, she had taken me to see these special lions that were boxed for the night. I had wondered before if they were drugged, but as I wandered up and down the narrow cages, I knew they were not. The ferocious beasts were still very restless from the show.
"Are you ever afraid?" I had asked, laying my cheek against the purring cub in my arms. "Not of the ordinary performance, but of that last act, when you dine all alone with them?"
The girl had blown a little cloud of smoke and shrugged her shoulders before answering dryly, "One does not taste very much."
And so it was with me. Gaston had prepared a roasted rack of lamb with tomato-and-raisin-stuffed eggplant, potato and chickpea salad, and a medley of fresh Mediterranean fruits. It was accompanied by the requisite crusty baguette and goat cheese. It was a sumptuous feast but might have been sawdust for all I tasted.
During our meal, the sheik spoke of the desert and of the sport it offered. It seemed to me that he had made a study of my interests, because it was a topic that would not appeal to most women. Yet it pleased me. He also spoke well; what he said was always interesting and showed a deep understanding of any subject he broached. At any other time and any other place, I would have been fascinated and absorbed by the man, but here and now, this civilized conversation conducted in his soft and cultured voice only added a bizarre incongruity to my situation.
The role of willing guest that he enforced upon me was almost more than I could play, yet I somehow managed to maintain the sham throughout dinner. Conscious of the watching manservant, I made myself reply to his easy conversation and even initiated a bit of my own—albeit with the servant rather than the master.
"Gaston," I asked the valet, "can you tell me the fate of the first man who was injured today? Is he dead?"
"Oh no, madam." He smiled. "He has a concussion, but he will be all right. They have hard heads, these Arabs."
"And the second, the youth? What of him?
"Yusef?" Gaston grinned even wider. "Le petit sheik has a broken collarbone. It is nothing. A few days' holiday to be petted in his harem, et voila!"
"His harem?" I echoed in surprise.
"Mais oui, madam. He has two wives."
"Two?" I made an exclamation of contempt.
He shrugged deprecatingly. "Que voulez-vous? It is the custom of this country."
The sheik flashed me a warning look that told me that questioning the customs of his people was dangerous ground. I hastily changed the subject. "Where did you learn to ride, Gaston?"
"In a racing stable at Auteuil, madam, when I was a boy. Then I was five years in the French cavalry. After that I came to Monseigneur." He inclined his head in deference to the sheik.
"And you have been with him—how long?"
"Fifteen years, madam."
"Fifteen years," I repeated in wonderment. "Fifteen years here, in the desert?"
"Here and elsewhere, madam."
The sheik's gaze lanced his servant, as if he had said too much. The little man colored, murmured an excuse, and departed the tent, leaving me alone in the company of his master, who seemed little disposed to converse. Soon we would be alone together for the entire night. Although the dinner had seemed interminable, I now wished that it would never end.
Gaston returned with coffee, and with him came a huge Persian hound, almost upsetting the Frenchman in his frantic endeavor to precede him through the doorway. He flung his long grey body across the sheik's feet with a whine of pleasure and then turned his head to growl at me. But when I extended my hand, the growl died quickly away. I had no fear of dogs, and after a moment the brute lumbered to my side and thrust his big head onto my lap. I scratched behind his ears.
The sheik laughed in genuine amusement. "You are honored. Kopec makes few friends." The unexpected gentleness had come back into his voice, and the earlier lines about his mouth relaxed in a smile. Would I ever understand him? Did I even care to make the effort?
I made no answer to him but continued scratching and smoothing the hound's rough coat.
For some minutes the sheik sat silent as well, his coffee long since finished.
When Gaston returned to clear away the table, I looked desperately about for any distraction, any excuse to delay retiring for the night to his bedchamber. I had already lingered over my coffee until there was no further possible pretext for remaining at the table. Now my heart was turning slowly to lead. While last night he had given me a choice, rather than enforcing his will, I knew tonight would be different. Our dinner was but a brief reprieve from the inevitable. He had made that perfectly clear.
My patience is exhausted.
He made no comment when I rose and ventured to the little bookcase where I chose a book at random. I didn't know what I was looking at, nor did I care. I only prayed that I might be left alone and that the sudden silent fit that had come over him might continue. When I rose, he went to the big divan, followed by the hound. He lit a cigarette, his gaze assessing me. I knew he only waited for Gaston to be gone. My pulse jumped in my throat. Time was running out.
The valet had finished clearing away the dinner but paused to speak to his master. I heard the words "le petit sheik," but the rest was in Arabic and unintelligible. The sheik looked to me and then back to Gaston with an annoyed frown, but then he nodded, and the servant left the tent. A moment later, another voice made me look up. The young Arab who had ridden the colt was standing beside the divan.
To my surprise, the sheik introduced him to me. "My lieutenant, Yusef, a son of the desert with the soul of a flaneur. His body is here with me, but his heart is on the trottoirs of Algiers." The tall lad laughed and salaamed profoundly, then straightened himself when a curt word from the sheik recalled him to his errand. I studied the lieutenant as he stood before his chief. Yusef was tall and slender with a strikingly handsome face only saved from effeminacy by a firm chin. His air of languid indolence was slipping fast as he talked. He looked nervous, as if in awe of his chief. This deference was not lost on me. It was clear this sheik kept all of his people well in hand.
The news that Yusef brought was apparently not welcome. The sheik's heavy scowl was growing blacker every moment until at last he leaped up with a sound of impatience. Without even glancing at me, he donned his black cloak, and they went out together. The hound followed.
For a moment I was alone again, free of the watchful eyes, free of his hated proximity. I pushed the damp hair off my forehead with a heavy sigh of relief. I had my wished-for reprieve.
I should have been elated at his unexpected absence, yet in my perversity, I was strangely unstrung with anticipation of his return.
Growing restless, I looked about the empty room. It had changed since this morning in the indefinable way a strange room does after a few hours' association. If I could leave it now and never see it again, no si
ngle detail of it would ever be forgotten. Its characteristics had been stamped upon me as familiarly as if the hours passed in it had been years. I moved about the tent, listlessly examining objects that I already knew by heart and flirting over the pages of some French magazines.
Soon the utter silence oppressed me.
Where was Gaston? Even the servant's company would be preferable to my own. I guessed he must have gone with his master or perhaps he was long retired. I went to the flap of the tent and gazed out into the night. The camp, large and spread out, was covered mostly in a blanket of blackness, broken by the occasional glimmer of a sparking fire. I had dreamt for years of this experience, of a month spent in the desert, and now here I was.
I had longed for adventure. It is what I had sought, so why could I not turn this tragedy to my advantage? I had food and shelter that was far superior to any I could have provided for myself. And I was surrounded by hundreds of armed men. Whether I viewed them as my captors or my protectors was only a matter of perception—a matter of choice.
I knew I was safe. I had seen the depths of deference, the authority of the sheik's command. Any man outside of himself who dared to touch me would suffer death. Of that I was certain. The only thing stopping me from enjoying my adventure in this vast oasis and my freedom in the sheik's camp was my own desperate desire to cling to a state of chastity I truly cared nothing about. It was only my pride that stood in the way of my pleasure, and my refusal to allow him to take it from me.
I chewed my lip as I gazed up at the stars glimmering in the heaven like countless brilliant diamonds shimmering against a backdrop of black velvet. I wondered if in the great scheme of things, my pride was a bit overrated.
This entire evening I had bucked with resentment against the pretense that I was a guest here, but had I met this same sheik in Biskrah, in more conventional circumstances, if I had only been properly introduced, would I not have willingly, even gratefully, accepted an invitation to his camp? Only a week ago I would have jumped at the chance. What now prevented me from embracing that role? From enjoying that status—for as long as I had planned? I smiled to myself. Yes, it was all just a matter of perception, except for the bartering of my body— the sheik's expectation in return for his hospitality.
My smiled dimmed.
I could enjoy my month of holiday as planned, as long as I would serve his needs—and all that implied—in his bed.
Of that, he had already given me a taste, and it was not what I had expected. I had believed him a brutal savage, a ravishing barbarian, yet he had handled me as gently as a lover. Innately I knew the man was a mixture of both. He had shown himself prone to caprice and had hinted that which side of himself he presented to me was largely my choice. Just as with the colt that afternoon. When the horse had finally yielded, he had shown nothing but tenderness and mercy, yet had the struggle continued, the animal would have perished before the sheik ever gave up.
I had tempted him in the same way just this afternoon, defiantly daring him, taunting him to kill me. He had only laughed. For the moment my protestations and rebellious antics amused him, but should he begin to grow weary of it…of me… I shuddered.
So, it was all back to the matter of my inevitable submission, for it was inevitable. I'd already accepted that fact, and in truth, had only continued fighting to delay the actualization of it. Perhaps even the loss of my virginity was also a matter of perception, or misperception, as it were.
I had never understood why the act of losing one's virginity was referred to as being taken, an expression that seemed ridiculous to me. When considering the mechanics of it, the act involved a great deal more giving from the male perspective and receiving on the woman's part.
In truth, my decision was not whether to give him anything, but merely to receive what he desired to give me. I could enjoy it or not, but I would be no weaker for it. I fingered the necklace, the cool jade pressed against my breast. I had not wanted to receive this either. It had pleased him far more to give it to me than it had for me to accept it.
Indeed, in the great scheme of things, I suddenly saw power rather than weakness in being the object of a man's desire. It was an age-old truth that a man's lust for a woman only weakened him. I thought of Adam and Eve, Samson and Delilah.
Although it was not in my nature to manipulate—I was too honest and forthright for that—I was also not fool enough to pass over the opportunity to play the cards I was dealt to my best advantage. I could either let him have me in the deferent and submissive manner of a lowly servant or meet him on equal footing, allowing myself also to take from him.
I laughed aloud on this absurdly liberating thought.
Yes, I decided. I would take him as my lover—for as long as it suited me to do so.
Instead of retiring and allowing him to take me by surprise, I thought I would wait for his return. To fill the time, I settled onto the black divan with a novel in my lap. I had pulled it from his bookcase, wondering as before, what kind of novel would appeal to a savage sheik. The answer was de Maupassant's Bel-Ami, subtitled The History of a Scoundrel. Somehow this did not surprise me—a wolf knowing the beast, after all.
De Maupassant's story was set against the backdrop of the French colonization of North Africa, which immediately piqued my interest. It was a scandalous tale of George Duroy, christened ''Bel-Ami'' by his many female admirers. The hero was described as ruthless, handsome, and unprincipled, which caused my mind continually to conjure the sheik's face.
I read until the bleariness of my eyes matched the weariness of my body and then must have drifted off to sleep. I awoke to the same Kashmiri love song that I had heard in the hotel gardens at Biskrah—sung in the same low, vibrating baritone that had enthralled me.
"Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar. Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?" The sheik stood in the doorway looking out into the night, his handsome profile limned in shadow and moonlight. He continued his song, "Whom do you lead on rapture’s roadway far, before you agonize them in farewell? Oh, pale dispensers of my joy and pains, holding the doors of Heaven and Hell. How the hot blood rushes wildly though the veins beneath your touch until you waved farewell…" His voice faded away and off into the night
I wondered what it was that had taken him away with such great reluctance and even more, what weighed so heavily on him. He turned and found me watching him, and his expression instantly softened. He came to me with his noiseless tread, drawing my hands together and to his breast. "Pale hands, pink tipped," he sang, raising my fingers to his lips.
I tore them away. "You do know English!" I accused.
"Just because I parrot an English song?" he replied in French and then laughed. "It means nothing. I heard a Spanish boy singing in Carmen once who did not know a word of French. He learned it just as I learn your English song."
The lie was unconvincing. There was too much heart in it to be merely parroting the words. "It was you who sang outside the hotel in Biskra that night?" It was more statement than question. "And was it you who stole into my bedroom like a thief and put blank cartridges in my revolver?"
"One is mad sometimes when the moon is high." His arm stole around me, drawing me close. He raised my chin to look into my eyes. "Do you think I would have allowed anybody else to go to your room when I meant you for myself?" His warm lips brushed first over my knuckles and then my mouth. "Come with me," he whispered, his eyes passionate and devouring.
Was I dreaming this gentleness? This soft persuasion? Perhaps I was just giddy from the strain? Whatever the reason, I let myself forget the relationship that bound me to him. I'd never before allowed myself the indulgence of miss-ish romantic fancies, but this was the desert I had dreamt of all my life, and this man was central to that magical illusion.
Yes, I would simply let myself believe it was all a dream. I would let him be my dream lover—my Bel-Arab, my own desert sheik.
***
We moved in silence through the curtains. It
was if he knew my mood and that any further words might break the spell that bound us. The tented bedchamber was dimly illuminated by a single lantern, yet we stood close enough that I could clearly discern his face. I studied his every move and expression as intensely as he had earlier watched me.
Once the curtain dropped behind us, his large warm hands came to my shoulders. I still wore my gown of green silk and nothing beneath. The heated look in his gaze told me that he remembered that as well. He slowly peeled away the thin layer of fabric from my shoulders, and the entire thing slid down my body in a whisper of silk, to pool at my feet. I made no move to cover myself but rather tilted my head to meet his gaze.
He smiled a look of intense satisfaction. I parted and wet my lips, and his pupils flared bigger. Blacker. Although I was an arrant novice at this game of seduction, his reaction to my efforts filled me with a sudden and strange sense of empowerment—as if the menacing tiger had become my prey.
He did not ask me this time if I wanted him. He did not insist as before that I confess my desire. Perhaps he knew that also would break the spell. I would not have given voice to the words anyway. Instead, I let my body speak. Leaning into him, my naked breasts against his linen-clad chest, I removed his headdress and slid my fingers into his silky hair. His breathing came harder, faster, as we stood there, immobile, with the length of our bodies pressed against one another. I could feel him growing more aroused by the second, yet he held back, watching me, as if daring me to make my next move in our new game of seductive chess.
My gaze was at the level of his chin. I slanted it upward an inch or two to study a mouth curved in bemusement. I darted higher to his eyes. There was a hint of challenge in them, nuanced with disbelief that I would take this any further, but he was mistaken if he thought I would back down.
No, on the contrary, I was more emboldened. I felt much like I had the first time I donned that daring green gown, venturing out in shyness and trepidation, but once I knew how well the garment suited me, I wore it unabashed and proud. So it was with my new mantle of seductress, I would wear it brazenly or not at all.
The Sheik Retold Page 9
