“John,” she said. “After my grandfather.”
“Muhammad,” he repeated. “After the Prophet.” He looked down at her. “Now will you marry me?”
She met his gaze. “Will you get a divorce first?”
“I cannot have an unbeliever as my only wife,” he said. “Will you take the faith?”
“Yes,” she said.
He picked up the child and held it close to him. The baby began to cry. He looked down at Jordana with a proud father’s smile. “Our son will be a prince,” he said.
***
The old Prince looked up as Baydr came into his room. He gestured with his hand and the young boy who had been sitting at his feet rose and left the room. “How are you, my son?” the old man asked.
“I bring you news of an heir to the throne, your highness,” he said. “I have a son. With your permission I shall name him Muhammad.”
“The old man looked at him shrewdly. “The child of an infidel concubine cannot pretend to a throne of the Prophet.”
“I will marry this woman,” Baydr said.
“Will she accept the faith?”
“She already has,” Baydr replied. “And already she knows the Holy Koran better than I.”
“You have my permission then to marry this woman.”
“I request a further boon of your highness.”
“What is that?”
“It is not seemly that the heir to the throne is issue from a second wife in the house. I ask your permission to divorce first.”
“There must be grounds,” the Prince said. “It is forbidden by the Koran to divorce because of vanity or whim.”
“There are grounds,” Baydr replied. “My first wife has been barren since the birth of her last child.”
“I had heard such talk. Is it true?”
“Yes, your highness.”
The Prince sighed. “Permission is then granted. But the settlement must be just and conform to the Holy Writings.”
“It will be more than just.”
“When you have married this woman, I would like you to bring her and your son to see me.”
“It shall be as you wish, your highness.”
“All is the will of Allah,” the old man said. “When your son reaches the age of ten years he will be named my heir.” He leaned and Baydr kissed his hand and nose. “Go then in peace, my son.”
***
At their marriage, Jordana pleased and surprised him and his parents by speaking to them in Arabic. Unknown to him, she had hired tutors and taken a crash course so that she now spoke the language well but with a delightful, soft American accent that made it sound almost musical. Baydr remembered how fascinated his mother and sisters had been by her hair, how they touched it, almost caressingly, remarking upon its softness and its spun-gold color. He remembered too how proud his father had been when he held his first grandson in his arms. “My little prince,” Samir said softly.
After the marriage ceremony, they made the pilgrimage to Mecca, not by camel across the desert as his father and mother had done, but by Lear Jet, which made the trip in hours instead of days. Together, they stood in the calm quiet of the square, dressed as were the other pilgrims in white flowing robes, and when the call to prayer came, they prostrated themselves on the ground before the Kaaba, the Holy House of Allah.
Afterward in the plane on their way to visit the Prince, he turned to her, speaking in Arabic. “Now you are truly Muslim.”
“I have been from the moment we first met,” she said. “I just didn’t know it.”
He had taken her hand. “I love you, my wife.”
In the Arab tradition she raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. “And I love you, my master.”
“If your son is to be my heir,” the old Prince had said, “you will make your home near mine, so that I may see him grow and prosper.”
Baydr had seen the startled look in Jordana’s eyes above the traditional veil she wore for public meetings. He shook his head so that she would not speak.
“You will live in a house,” the Prince continued, “within the palace walls so that you may be guarded from evil.”
“But my work, your highness,” Baydr protested. “It keeps me away most of the time.”
The Prince smiled. “In that case you will arrange to come home more often. It is not good for a man to be separated from his family for too long.”
That night in their own chambers, Jordana spoke to him. “He can’t mean it,” she said. “There is nothing for me to do here. I’ll go crazy.”
“It won’t be for long. We have to humor him for a little while, then I will tell him I need you to help me in my work and he will understand.”
“I won’t do it!” she exclaimed. “I’m not an Arab woman who can be ordered about like a slave!”
His voice grew cold. It was a side of Baydr she had never seen before. “You are a Muslim wife,” he said, “and you will do as you are told!”
Perhaps it was then that things began to change between them. Baydr was true to his word. But it was six months before he could convince the Prince that they would have to make their home elsewhere. By that time the damage had been done. For both of them.
An invisible barrier had grown between them and their love and no matter how they tried, they could not break it down.
CHAPTER 13
Jordana could not sleep. Her eyes wide, she stared into the darkness, listening to his soft deep breathing on the far side of the king-size bed. Nothing had changed. Not even Jabir’s stuff of dreams could bring them together now.
Before they were married, their sex had been warm and filled with lovely tender moments, despite the fact that there were certain acts of love he would not permit. He would kiss her breasts and belly but he would not engage in oral sex with her. Many times she had tried to lead him to it and although he delighted when she took him in her mouth, he would never allow her to assume the superior position so that she could control their movements. Without putting it in words, he had let her know that the things she wanted him to do were beneath his dignity as a man. A man should never be subservient to a woman in any way.
Still none of this had mattered. He had been a good lover. But she noticed a change soon after they were married. Sex became almost perfunctory. He entered her without preparation and was quickly finished. At first, she blamed it on the pressure of his work. The Prince was making greater and greater demands upon him. His business was expanding into all the countries of the Western world and his organization was increasingly complex. Gradually Baydr gathered a staff of young men who, like himself, were of Middle Eastern extraction and versed in the ways of the West. These staff members were stationed in the countries with which they were most familiar, and it was their job to keep a day-to-day watch on his investments. But Baydr himself traveled from one to the other to make the final decisions and coordinate the various endeavors into a profitable whole.
To meet the pressures on his time, the Lear Jet had given way to a Mystère Twenty, then to a Super Caravelle and finally to a Boeing 707 InterContinental. Now he could cover long distances without having to make a stop, but even so, his travel kept them more and more apart. There was always some other place he had to be, some other emergency that only he could resolve. Their summers in France fell by the wayside, and more often than not the giant yacht they had bought for their mutual enjoyment lay idle in the harbor.
Soon after the birth of Samir, their second son, their lovemaking seemed to disappear altogether. And one night, when in her despair she reached for him, he took her hand and placed it on the cover between them. His voice was cold. “It is unseemly for a wife to make advances.”
Stung by the rejection, she started to cry, then became angry. She turned on the light, sat up in bed and reached for a cigarette. Carefully she lit it and took a deep puff, trying to compose herself. “What is it, Baydr? Don’t I do anything for you anymore?”
He didn’t answer.
“Is
there someone else?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her steadily. “No.”
“Then what is it?”
He was silent for a moment, then got out of the bed. “I am tired,” he said. “I wish to sleep.”
She looked up into his face. “And I want to fuck,” she said bluntly. “Is there anything wrong with that?”
“It is enough that you are acting like a whore,” he said. “You do not have to speak like one.”
“You should know,” she said bitingly. “You spend enough time with them.”
His face darkened with anger. “What I do is none of your concern.”
“I am your wife, and you have not been with me in months. What do you mean that it is not my concern?”
“It is a wife’s duty to bow to her husband’s will.”
“Marrying you did not make me a second-class citizen,” she snapped. “I have rights and feelings too.”
“You have forgotten what is written,” he said. “You are my wife, my possession, and you are only entitled to those rights and feelings which I allow you.”
She stared at him. “Then I ask you for a divorce. I won’t live like this.”
“I reject your request,” he said. “You will live as I order you to.”
“This isn’t the Middle Ages,” she said. “Neither are we in the Middle East, where you can lock me in a harem. Tomorrow I will leave for home and file for divorce.”
His eyes were ice cold. “If you do,” he said quietly, “you will never see your children again. You know I have power.”
The hurt and shock leaped into her voice. “You couldn’t do a thing like that!”
“I can and I will,” he said flatly.
The tears flooded her eyes and she could not speak.
He stared down at her for a moment, and when he spoke it was without any sympathy. “There will be no divorce. There is too much at stake. I will not have my son’s accession to the throne despoiled by scandal. Not after I made so great a sacrifice to obtain it for him.”
She looked at him incredulously. “What sacrifices have you made?”
“I swallowed my pride and asked permission to marry an infidel despite all the counsel I received against such an act. But I wanted the throne for my son. It had been promised.”
“But I took the faith, didn’t I?” she cried.
“With your lips but not with your heart. If you accepted it truly you would know your position and not question my acts.”
She covered her face with her hands in despair. “Oh, God!” she cried.
“What God do you call on?” he asked in a cruel voice. “Yours or mine?”
She lowered her hands and looked at him. “There is no God but Allah.”
“Say the rest of it.”
She was silent for a moment, then her eyes fell. “And Muhammad is His prophet,” she whispered.
He took a deep breath and started for the door. “Remember that.”
“Baydr.” Her voice held him. “What do you want me to do?”
He looked at her steadily. “I grant you freedom to do whatever you wish as long as we remain married, but there are two restrictions. The first is discretion. You will do nothing to bring disgrace upon our house. To the world our marriage must appear as it always has been.”
“And the second?”
“You will avoid Jews. That I will not tolerate.”
She was silent for a moment, then she nodded. “It will be as you wish.”
He went into the other room, leaving the door open behind him. A moment later he was back, a yellow metal box in his fingers. He shut the door behind him and walked to the edge of the bed and looked down at her. He opened the box and placed it on the night table beside the bed. She saw the ampules in their yellow netting. “You know I don’t like amyl nitrite.”
“I don’t care what you like or what you do not,” he said harshly. “You act and speak like a whore—you will be treated as one.”
He unbuttoned his pajama top and took it off, then pulled the cord on the pants. They fell to the floor and he stepped free of them. “Take off your nightdress,” he commanded.
She did not move.
Quickly he reached down and, grasping the front of it, tore it from her. Her breasts leaped free and he cupped one in his hand. “Is this what you want?” he asked.
She did not answer.
He increased the pressure. The pain made her gasp involuntarily. She looked into his eyes for a moment, then her gaze fell to his hand. He was holding his rapidly hardening phallus toward her. “Is that what you want?”
“Baydr!” she cried.
He thrust himself into her mouth. She choked and coughed. His voice was derisive. “That is not what you want, infidel whore?” He held her face away from him and looked into her eyes. “Perhaps you will like this better.”
Quickly he pushed her flat on the bed and thrust three fingers deep into her. It was swift and unexpected and the tearing brought a moan of pain to her lips. Rapidly he began to move his fingers in and out while with his free hand he took an ampule from the box.
She felt the explosion in her brain as he broke the capsule under her nose. Her heart felt as if it would burst in her chest and in spite of herself she began to feel the throes of orgasm begin to rack her body.
Abruptly he withdrew his fingers and turned her belly down on the bed. “On your hands and knees like the infidel bitch that you are!” he commanded.
She could not move.
His open palm slashed across her buttocks. She screamed. Again and again his hand cracked across her flesh. She began to writhe and moan. It was crazy. I am crazy, she thought. I can’t like this. But she was beginning to enjoy the heat spreading through her loins.
“Like a dog, woman!” he commanded.
“Yes, yes,” she moaned, pushing herself back on her knees, holding her buttocks high in the air. Her breasts hung toward the bed as she leaned on her elbows. She felt him positioning himself behind her and turned to look at him.
“Don’t look at me, infidel bitch!” he shouted, roughly pulling her hair so that her face turned away from him.
The trembling she felt inside rapidly spread throughout her body, even her knees were shaking. Once she had seen a mare trembling, waiting to be mounted by a stallion. She knew now exactly how the animal had felt. Then she remembered the stallion with its giant red shaft springing from him and ripping into the mare and how the mare had gone to her knees with the fierceness of the onslaught.
He pulled her head back by her hair so that her neck was stretched taut and exploded another capsule under her nose. Again the orgasm began.
She heard him break another capsule but this time it was not for her but for him. Then she felt the hardness of him tear into her and the fierce slamming thrust of his body against her buttocks.
She screamed once with the pain and the violence of her orgasm as he began to thrust into her. Then, like the mare, she went down under the impact.
Afterward she lay very still on her side of the bed, the pain and trembling slowly leaving her body. He, too, was silent. He made no gesture. There was no communication between them.
After a moment, he spoke. “Now, woman, do you understand your position?”
She felt the tears come to her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered in a low voice.
***
And that was how it had been ever since. It was no longer an act of love, not even an act of cruelty. Purely and simply, it was an assertion of his power over her.
It was later that summer that she took her first lover. After that it was easy. But with very few of them did she achieve satisfaction. Still there was something she did get. Whether it was true or not, whether they felt it or not, whether she paid them or not, they all made love to her.
And that was something Baydr never did.
CHAPTER 14
The buzzing of the electric razor woke her. Jordana rolled over in the bed. Through the open door leading to the bathro
om she could see him standing in front of the mirror, a towel wrapped around his flat waist. The look of concentration on his face was familiar. Shaving seemed to absorb him completely.
She sat up in the bed and reached for a cigarette. It had been a strange weekend. Strange, because there had been moments when they had seemed to be approaching the closeness they once had. But each time it happened, one or the other would draw away or do something to destroy the feeling.
Twice that weekend they had made love. The first time she had ruined it by her request for pain. “Hurt me,” she had said and, as she said it, felt him turn off.
The second time had been the night before, after they had smoked Jabir’s cigarette. This time she was ready. The hashish had relaxed her and she felt slow and easy. She wanted only to make love beautifully and simply. She wanted him to be as he had been when they first met.
But it wasn’t like that at all. He had taken her roughly, thrusting himself into her. Three times, he went in and out of her; the fourth time he emptied himself. Taken by surprise at his quickness, she had stared up into his face. It was impassive, as if nothing were happening to him. She could see neither joy nor pleasure.
A moment later he left her and was on his side of the bed, asleep. She had lain for a long time without sleeping and had thought about that first time when he had taken her without love and made her feel as if she were nothing but a receptacle for his own use and convenience. He had made it clear then that it was the way it would be and it had been like that—until this weekend.
After the first failure, she had hoped that there would be another, better time together. But it was not to be. Whatever he had sought from her at the beginning of that weekend was over. And she wondered if she would ever get another chance.
He came out of the bathroom, wet from the shower, and looked down at her. “We’re leaving for Los Angeles this morning,” he said in a casual voice. “What are your plans after that?”
He was acting as if they were strangers. “So nice to see you,” she said. “Look forward to seeing you again.”
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