by Paul Blades
BECOMING GHANIYAH
By
PAUL BLADES
Copyright©2011 Paul Blades
Dark Visions Publications
[email protected]
All characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious
All rights reserved
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the publisher.
CHAPTER ONE
Leslie Harrington watched from the balcony of her third story bedroom as the early morning sun broke over the far distant horizon. The whitewashed buildings of the small, Tunisian town glowed light pink and orange as they caught the first rays of the emerging orb that would later punish them with its stifling, merciless heat. At 6 a.m., the air was still redolent with the cold of the neighboring desert night. Leslie took a deep breath, reveling in her good fortune.
The 22 year old, shapely, Bryn Mawr graduate had jumped at the opportunity to become the private secretary of Mr. Hassen Ben Moussa. She had been out of school for about six months and heard about the job from a professor at her college. She had been hired based on her resume, her recommendations and a telephone interview. She had to send a picture too. She had made sure she sent a good one and had paid a friend who was a professional photographer to take some really good shots, ones that showed her serious, competent side, but also a little cheesecake. It never hurt, you know?
Mr. Moussa was the wealthy owner of an international trading company based in the small town of Dar Al Jamah located a few miles from the Mediterranean coast and about 85 miles southeast of Tunis. Leslie had studied both French and business back at Bryn Mawr and the job was a golden opportunity to gain experience in both while, at the same time, satisfying her desire to see more of the world than presented by the rolling Pennsylvania countryside. Mr. Moussa needed a secretary who could decipher both English and French as he dealt with American and European companies, trading the numerous commodities that flowed from the Middle East and Africa to the developed world and then back again as finished products.
She had only been at her job for a little over two weeks. So far, she had seen little of the town itself, having been driven here directly from the airport in Tunis by Mr. Moussa’s chauffer. It was tantalizing to have seen from the back seat windows of the long, stretch Mercedes the desert countryside, the looming Atlas Mountains far off in the distance and the exotically bedecked natives. She had even seen some camels driven by white robed men along the sparsely travelled roadway.
Dressed in her sheer, flowing, blue tinted, lace trimmed nightgown, Leslie relished the slight breeze that wafted its way over the rooftops below, lifting loose strands of her shoulder length chestnut colored hair. It was early March and the harbingers of the desert spring were in the air. She knew that she should not be showing herself at the window dressed as she was. Mr. Moussa’s aide, Faraq, had given her a stern lecture about the differences between local sensibilities about women’s bodies and that of the West. She was not in the more cosmopolitan capital of this Muslim country where some deviation from strict dress codes was tolerated. Leslie had seen some burkha clad women when they had driven through the town’s narrow streets on the evening of her arrival. The young girl had shivered as she thought of the constrictions the young women had to live under.
Now, looking over the panorama from the balcony off of her luxurious bedroom, Leslie peered cautiously about to make sure that no one could see her. Seeing no one, she stretched her long, thin, graceful arms up over her head and let the early morning sun flow over her. Her motion stretched the bodice of her filmy nightgown tautly, pressing it hard against her firm, heavy, young breasts. The nightgown was long and rose to the tops of her ankles as she spread her feet widely. An observer would have been just able to make out the dark red, almost purplish areola that adorned her sweet orbs, the light brown, trimmed bush that covered her sex and the soft, pinkish flesh of her graceful, smooth thighs.
Today was an off day for Leslie. Mr. Moussa was away in Paris for business. He had taken Faraq with him. Leslie did not like the tall, thin, surreptitious looking man. His face, unlike Mr. Moussa’s, carried more than a hint of cruelty and disdain. Leslie had the distinct impression he did not approve that his employer and master had hired an infidel from the West to do his work when a good local Muslim girl would have suited him just fine. But translating documents into English from French or vice versa required a delicate sensibility to the nuances of language and idiom and Leslie was sure that she was the right choice to do the work. She was confident in her abilities.
She was also sure that Mr. Moussa was happy with her services. He was a pleasant, older man, in his sixties, she believed. He had strong, noble features and wore expertly trimmed, sliver hair with a finely sculpted Van Dyke beard and mustache. His interactions with her were always suitably formal and decorous. Leslie had been worried for a while, when she was pondering whether to accept the job in the faraway land, that her employer was just seeking a pretty young thing to serve as his mistress, not that she would have necessarily rejected that out of hand. She just hadn’t seen how good looking Mr. Moussa was. She had had a few flings and knew that love and sex didn’t necessarily need to go together. But Mr. Moussa turned out to be nothing like that.
The only unpleasantness, other than the sour attitude of Faraq, was Mrs. Moussa. Her first name was Halima, but she was instructed specifically never to call her that. Mrs. Moussa was a beautiful woman in her early forties. She had long, full black hair that she kept in a bun, was svelte and dressed always to the nines. Leslie knew a little bit about fashion and she recognized Mrs. Moussa’s outfits as being the latest from Paris and New York. She wondered why the woman spent so much effort in looking pretty when, every time that she went out, she covered herself in a deep blue ayala.
Well, Mrs. Moussa was imperious and none to happy about her husband’s selection of a secretary. Her interactions with Leslie had been hypercorrect, bordering on rudeness. Leslie ate dinner every night with the family and Mrs. Moussa never spoke to her. When Mr. Moussa tried to engage her in conversation, Mrs. Moussa always interrupted with this or that. Worse, she only spoke Arabic to Mr. Moussa at the table, although she was very conversant in French and English, making it impossible for Leslie to know what they were talking about.
The other occupants of the house, aside from servants, were the Moussa’s son and daughter. Hajib was a little over twenty three years old, a little older than Leslie. He spent much of his time in Paris partying with his friends, but Mr. Moussa had called him home because of a few escapades he had been involved in. So he was basically home cooling his heels until his father gave him permission to return. The daughter, Jana, was twenty five. She had been married at one time, but her husband had been killed in a terrorist bomb blast at a nightclub in Tunis a year ago and she had come back home in her widowhood. So neither of the Moussa children were particularly happy to be living under the Moussa roof. It made for a somewhat tense atmosphere at dinner time.
Jana was proper but curt in her limited dealings with Leslie. Hajib was something else. It was clear to Leslie that the boy lusted after her. He took every opportunity to talk to her, offer her tea, chocolates, a walk in the garden. He was polite, but his politeness did not disguise his leers as he stared at her breasts. When Leslie walked up the stairs to go to her room on the third floor, Hajib often stood at the bottom step, his eyes glued to her legs. Leslie was sure that he couldn’t s
ee more than a glimpse of thigh, she wore knee length skirts, but it was disconcerting nonetheless.
As she peered over the roof tops, Leslie heard the sound of a wailing call to prayer. There was a mosque a few blocks away from the large, elegant Moussa residence and Leslie had begun to get used to hearing the undulating tones three times a day played over the mosque’s loudspeakers. She decided that it was time to step back from her balcony, for modesty’s sake, and get dressed.
She stripped herself of the fine, translucent garment and went to her dresser to decide what to wear. Today, she had resolved she would go into the town. She had been warned against it by Faraq and Mr. Moussa, but she was dying to discover more about the mysterious urban center. After all, she didn’t take this job so that she could sit in an air conditioned house all day.
She removed a pair of pink, lacy panties from the drawer and put them on. She bought them in Paris on her stopover on the way to Tunisia. They were bikini cut and made of silk. They felt luxurious next to her skin. She had decided that she would wear as daring underwear as she could, seeing that she had to dress hyper modestly on the outside. The panties had come with a small, matching bra. It barely covered her nipples and lifted her breasts seductively.
“That will give Hajib something to stare at,” she thought. After she put it on, she stepped over to the full length mirror that covered the door to her closet and admired herself. She had been always a little chunky in high school and in the first years of college. She had thinned out admirably after she turned 19. It was a combination of diet, exercise and having naturally shed the baby fat that had adorned her hips. Since she had arrived in Tunisia, she had been unable to exercise except for the push and sit ups she did in her room every night. She was worried that she would begin to put back on the pounds that she had lost. A good long walk around the city was just what she needed.
As she admired her curvaceous form in the mirror, she could not help speculate what Hajib would do if he saw her like this. He would probably attack her, she thought. Now, if Mr. Moussa ever gave her any hint that he wanted to see her in her undies, that was something else. He featured greatly in her nightly fantasies as she stroked herself to her daily orgasm. He was everything that she admired in a man. He was strong, aloof, dignified. He seemed to ooze charm. Not the false charm of his randy son, but a sophisticated, make your pussy wet charm. Mrs. Moussa was right to be nervous at her presence.
She pushed her breasts together and up, accentuating her already pleasing cleavage. She could just make out her dark areolas behind the lacy screen of her bra. “Would you like a taste, Mr. Moussa?” she said to the mirror. “Go right ahead.” She laughed.
In her closet was her longest skirt. She had bought it in contemplation of walking the Arabic streets. It was light cotton, blue. It had no adornments other than the sparkly, gold belt she liked to wear with it. She also selected a modest, white blouse. It had half sleeves with a little lacey fringe on the ends. She looked in the mirror to make sure that her bra did not show through. If you looked closely, you could see just a faint tinge of pink. That was okay. She had seen Mrs. Moussa wearing things much worse.
The last adornment was a pair of sensible shoes. During the day, while she worked for Mr. Moussa, she usually wore high heels. Today she would wear her flats, a pair of shiny, black slip ons. She would have rather worn her Nikes but didn’t think them appropriate. Only an American would wear sneakers with such conservative but elegant attire, she thought. And she didn’t want anyone to think she was American. She liked to think of herself as French, sophisticated, continental.
Once dressed, she grabbed the kerchief she had bought at the airport in Tunis, bright red with blue and white fluer de lis imprinted on it. She knew she would be arrested for certain if she walked about without a hair covering. That was the last thing that she wanted to have happen. It would be so embarrassing.
Leslie ran down the stairs to breakfast. She wanted to get her walking done before noon to avoid the extreme heat of the later hours. She figured she would walk one hour out and then another back. That would bring her back around 9 o’clock. Nobody would even know she had gone.
After wolfing down the thick, tart coffee and an apple croissant given her by the ancient head cook, Leslie headed for the back door. She wanted to slip out without anyone noticing. When she opened the rear door, she saw that no one was there. She closed it quietly behind her, strolled quickly out to the street and she was on her way.
It felt wonderfully liberating to be out of the house. She was finally going to have an adventure.
Her kerchief tied tightly around her neck, her head covered modestly, Leslie strolled the narrow streets. They were mostly deserted. The buildings were almost uniformly of whitewashed stone, at most two stories high. The streets were cobblestone. Here and there a shop owner was opening up. She passed a couple of cafés with seated men clad in white shirts and slacks drinking coffee. They gave her intense looks as she passed. It was nothing she couldn’t handle. She knew that even her demure skirt and blouse couldn’t hide her luxuriant curves. She didn’t blame them for staring.
When she came to the street with the mosque on it, she hurried past. She dreaded being confronted by some mullah outraged by her Western garb.
The town was hilly and the walking was a little tiring. She could feel herself sweating steadily despite the early morning hour. She crossed what she assumed was the city center. A few more people had hit the streets. Most of the women, and there were only a few, were robed head to toe. She saw one girl dressed like she was, but she hurried off and was picked up by a taxi.
On her way back, Leslie was tired. She thought to herself that she had been a little overambitious in deciding to walk for two hours in this heat. She was thirsty and was looking forward to getting back to the Moussa compound. Out of the blue, a shiny, black Mercedes came to a screeching halt right in front of her. Two men jumped out. They were dressed in beige colored caftans and had maroon colored, round hats on their heads covering their wild, black hair. They both carried long, heavy sticks and had badges pinned to their breasts. They immediately started screaming at her in Arabic, waving their ominous sticks around.
A pit opened up in Leslie’s belly. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. She was only about five or six blocks away from the Moussa house. If only she had walked a little quicker.
Her skirt had a little pocket on the side and Leslie’s hand reached for it. She suddenly realized that although she had meant to bring her passport, she had forgotten it. An icy feeling went through her.
The men continued to shout at her. She tried to speak to them in French to tell them that she was sorry and would go right home. One of the men swung his stick hard at her legs, catching her on the back of her shins. She screeched in pain and fell to her knees on the hard, white sidewalk. Tears came to her eyes. The other man grabbed her by the back of her hair and started to drag her to the car. People had come onto the street and were watching. Leslie called out in French for help, but no one took any steps to interfere.
She struggled, resisting the force that was impelling her to the car. She knew that once she was inside she was lost. The man who had struck her struck her again, this time across her back. She moaned in pain. Realizing that further resistance was useless, she allowed herself to be dragged to the back door and thrown in. It slammed closed behind her. The men got in the front and the car sped away.
Leslie sobbed heavily as the car caromed through the narrow streets. She had never been so scared in her life. The doors had no interior handles. They were taking her in the opposite direction from the Moussa mansion. She realized that she didn’t even know the phone number there.
Her ride took about twenty minutes. At one point she tried to speak to the men in the front seat, but the passenger turned and gave her a vicious poke with his stick right in the ribs. Leslie gasped and fell back onto the rear seat. She was quiet after that.
The car pulled through a gate into a lar
ge courtyard. They came to a halt in front of an ominous looking, white stone building. The men hopped from the front seat and the door on the driver’s side opened. Leslie was too scared to get out. The driver reached in and took hold of her hair again and dragged her from the car. She fell to the ground outside. It was covered with sharp, white, crushed stones. Leslie screamed in pain. The man just kept dragging her until they reached a large, steel door. Leslie was doing everything to get back on her feet, but the man was moving too fast. He banged on the door with his stick and it opened. He dragged her in.
Once inside, the man paused so that Leslie could regain her feet. He held on to the hair at the back of her head and, when she was steady, started dragging her again down the hall. Leslie was screeching in pain and terror. They went down a long hallway and then down some narrow, cement stairs. They waited while a heavy wooden door was unlocked from the other side and then she was pulled past it. She went through another door, down another set of stairs and then was brought into a large, well lit room. There were desks set around it with caftan attired men, cookie cutter versions of the men who had seized her, sitting at or standing next to them. She was brought over to a long high desk with a high, caged window. A man was sitting behind it writing on something. It took a moment for him to look up.
The man who was holding Leslie spat some words in Arabic at him. He leaned over the desk to take a look at Leslie’s attire. Her powder blue skirt was dirty and torn from being dragged through the parking lot. She had lost one of her shoes. Her ribs, back and legs ached where she had been struck. She was bent over and had to look up to see the man. She realized that she was at some kind of booking station and that the moment to speak up had arrived. Once she was actually booked, she would be mired in the local criminal system and who knew what could happen after that. She hoped desperately to be able to talk her way out of this mess.
