Cleopatra�s Perfume

by Jina Bacarr

  He grinned. “So I’m finding out.”

  Ramzi came between us, his posture indignant, hands on his hips, demanding my attention. “I made love to you as if you were a goddess, but I didn’t know then you were an ice goddess.” He snapped his fingers and the Moorish guards advanced toward us. “I won’t allow you to walk out on me.”

  “She can and she is,” Chuck said, his answer succinct.

  The American advanced toward me, ready to pick me up in his arms, when Ramzi threw a punch at him and hit him on the jaw. Chuck recovered quickly, his arm snapping with the sudden fluidity of a jungle cat on the attack as he grabbed the Egyptian by his belt and his crotch and shoved him down headfirst onto the bare parquet floor and held him there. Ramzi struggled, but he was too surprised to react in an effective manner. He choked, sputtering curses in Arabic, but Chuck was on top of him, his knee in his back, holding him down and squeezing all the breath out of him with his arm around his throat.

  Shocked, unable to speak, I covered myself with my galabiya, my mind scrambling. Who was this man? I had to stop him before he killed Ramzi. Yes, dear reader, in spite of my lover’s infidelity, I couldn’t allow him to die.

  “Let him go!” I yelled, pulling on the American’s sleeve, anything to stop him before he broke the Egyptian’s neck. “Please, he’s not worth it.”

  Chuck grunted, then with reluctance he let go of Ramzi. “The bastard’s lucky. Next time—”

  “It will be your neck.” Ramzi squeezed his hands together in a stranglehold.

  “Don’t count on it, pal. Where I come from, we know how to deal with slime like you.”

  Ramzi’s dark eyebrows crossed, his face ripe with sweat. He looked at the American with a flicker of his angry, black eyes. “I hope you enjoy your evening with the English rose. Her fragrance will enchant you, but beware, she bites like a cobra and is just as deadly.”

  Before I could utter a retort, the American said, “I’ll take my chances.”

  Ramzi attempted a smile. “Then I wish you more luck on your quest than what the great pharaohs enjoyed. Their ode to paradise lies in ruins, their temples in decay. I, on the other hand, am like the winds wearing down the Pyramids to desert sand. I shall endure.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” Chuck said.

  Listening to their banter, I had remained silent during this existential battle brewing between the two men for my body. And my soul. But no longer.

  “Have I nothing to say in this?” I argued. “Or am I to be treated like a slave sold to the highest bidder to satisfy a man’s desire?”

  “Be careful, my English lady,” Ramzi warned, “Cleopatra’s perfume can protect from a violent death, but not from men’s lust.”

  “What the hell is he talking about?” Chuck wanted to know.

  I smiled. “It’s a game we play. Isn’t it, Ramzi?”

  He touched his fingers to his mouth, then to his forehead, bowing as he said, “As you wish.”

  “I’ve played enough games,” Chuck said. “We’re getting out of here.”

  He took the robe from me and wrapped it around me, covering my nude body, but Ramzi wasn’t finished.

  “When it comes to the art of pleasure, monsieur,” he said, “the English rose soon tires of el-ihh012Bl and requires other stimulation only a man such as myself can give her.”

  It was the American’s turn to smile. “I’ll let the lady decide which cock she prefers.”

  And with that, we left the Cleopatra Club. Covering my face with the hood of my robe, I smiled, impressed with his understanding of Arabic slang for the male organ. The stranger was no tourist with home-bred angularity looking for excitement in the dirty backstreets of Cairo. That intrigued me to know more about him.

  Drifting in the new scent of arousal making me tingle, my need for him was vibrant, passionate, committed. I focused on this stranger calling himself Chuck Dawn and dismissed Ramzi from my mind. I would pay for that. Pay dearly. I had no idea what erotic storm raged inside the Egyptian, what nefarious deed he would commit to keep me for himself, to possess me as he would a fine artifact, exposing me to his private audience of one, confining me, making me his forever. What happened that night made me realize Ramzi was tightening a rope around my neck. I had to loosen it or die.

  12

  Berlin

  April 14, 1941

  I have tobacco stains on my gloves when I return to my room in the Hotel Adlon. Maxi didn’t keep our appointment. Why? Where is she? I waited more than an hour in the bar, conscious of the rude stares and whispered questions circulating around me. A woman alone is suspect to inquiries even in these perilous times, though the management has relaxed the rules. I didn’t need an introduction to secure my room here as I would have before the war. Still, that doesn’t make this assignment any easier, my mind combing through all the reasons why she didn’t show up.

  She changed her mind, she never intended on coming in the first place, she was arrested, she’s dead.

  What’s all this babbling about Maxi? you ask, your nose wrinkling, your heart racing, your palms wet when you rub them together in frustration. Yes, I understand. You’re perturbed, even angry. I realize when you turned the page you anticipated a scene with sexual overtones, a new man in my life, strong, fearless, who fills me with music, his eyes burning with an expression of such ardent hunger they caught your attention as they did mine.

  And here I’ve disappointed you with my impatient whining. No, don’t put down the diary. Stay with me, please. I need you, dear reader. I implore you to listen, understand, though I know you tingle with desire, your hand pushing between your thighs, daring to reach underneath the thin fabric keeping you from your pleasure, so mesmerized were you from my nude scene in the club, the smell of sex and perfume and the rhythm of my dance, the corona of muscles surrounding the puckered hole of my anus contracting as you’ve dreamed of experiencing. Are you wearing silky pajamas? Or a heavy tweed skirt with coarse fibers pricking your tender skin? I know you’re in a state of arousal and I don’t deny that has been my intention to share with you this most extraordinary journey with all its sexual excitement, but I fear it will come to a crashing end since all has not gone according to plan.

  I’m being watched by the German secret police.

  Why, I dare not whisper any conjecture, only this: Where he came from, I don’t know, but he was there, in the bar, observing me. An SS officer. Tall, Aryan blond hair cut military crisp, his crossed brows dark and sleek, forming twin arcs on his high forehead. That bothered me. I don’t know why. Out of desperation, I accepted a cigarette from this political policeman who seemed to act more out of curiosity than duty when he approached me.

  He engaged me in idle conversation, telling me he was a sometime personal bodyguard to Hitler and how he enjoyed accompanying the Führer on his rallies proclaiming the wonders of Germany’s efficiency. He expounded on a recent tour of the industrial towns in the Ruhr and the massive factories there. Gleaming in the ice-clear light and surrounded by thick fields of yellow sunflowers twisting in the wind like wheels of petals. Like Germany’s industry turning, he said with pride. Never stopping, never ceasing production.

  I nodded, not agreeing or disagreeing. Playing my part of an American neutral with what I hoped was indifference to his informal interrogation. I knew he was baiting me when he asked me if I’d been to Paris since the Nazis had conquered the city. I said no, and he assured me I would find its beauty unchanged, like a beautiful woman embracing a new lover.

  His eyes moved down to my legs and an amused grin lit up his face. He noticed my silk stockings and said I must be the envy of every woman I met at the hotel, considering German women were allowed one pair of stockings every two months. (He never mentioned how German soldiers could bring back silk stockings from Paris. Typical. Spewing only the information they wanted you to know.) I countered by saying they could still wear silk dresses from what I’d seen in Berlin shops. He leaned closer and whispered to me that
a virile nation doesn’t wear silk and, if he had his way, women with such degenerate taste would be sent to labor camps. I backed away, expecting him to demand to see my passport and ply me with questions I would have to answer unless I wished to be detained. Instead, he commented on the woody spiciness of my perfume, insinuating I wore it as an act of seduction. I challenged him, suggesting that since I was a woman alone in a hotel filled with German officers and foreign diplomats, I understood his curiosity about me, but I assured him I had no underlying motive but to enjoy an afternoon aperitif while I waited for a friend.

  Tell the truth about why you’re in Berlin if you’re questioned, Sir_____ of the Foreign Office had warned me. The German Abwehr will find out if you’re lying and you’ll never get out of Berlin alive.

  Desperate not to show my nerves fraying as easily as the embroidered thread trimming the fingers of my borrowed gloves, I puffed on my cigarette. One smoke turned into two, then three. I waited, but Maxi never kept our appointment. I panicked. What was I supposed to do next? Trick the SS officer with sensual pillow talk? Allow him to get close enough to sniff the perfume I dabbed between my legs? I’m not a trained spy. I wanted nothing to do with Hitler’s elite guard.

  I insisted I could dally no longer since I also waited for a telephone call from my Swedish fiancé. (I must quickly add I had been given the telephone number of a Swedish businessman friendly to the British government who would corroborate my story if necessary.) The SS officer made a comment about the fortunate turn of events that delayed the call so I might spend a few minutes with him, then he sniffed me again as if he drew pleasure inhaling the perfume’s essence. I made my exit, but I felt his eyes boring into my back. Why had he singled me out? Was I under surveillance? Would I be arrested as soon as I left the bar?

  If so, I had to believe Maxi had already been picked up by the Gestapo. Or was it a trap? Maxi exacting revenge upon me for what happened to her photographs of Ramzi in Cairo? Fear not, dear reader, I shan’t finish my diary without explaining what happened to the photos, but a more compelling need nags at my mind. Why this elaborate plot to disengage my defenses? Was I to be thrown into a labor camp, tortured? I couldn’t dismiss anything if I was going to stay alive.

  I removed my gloves when I returned to my room and sat down at the plain wooden desk. I tried to wipe off the brown tobacco smudges with cold water, but they stayed. As if they marked me as someone who must be watched. That didn’t surprise me. Since I’ve been here I have that feeling everywhere I go, from the nosy desk clerk who notes with clarity the hour I come down for breakfast or tea, or the knock on my door at midnight from the manager informing me about a crack of light appearing between my hotel curtains during the blackout. The intimation was that my movements were being observed under the careful eye of the political police.

  Every moment longer I stay in Berlin I’m in danger.

  I start to write again in my diary. One word stands out.

  Jeopardy. It follows me everywhere. When I see the devil’s tongue wagging at me, his black boots shiny with the sweat of unfortunate victims. Or is it blood? Shivering when I pace up and down the front of the hotel, looking, watching, seeing two Nazi soldiers beating up a thin, elderly man wearing a drab overcoat hanging loose on his body as if it were a clothes hanger, his ears stuffed with cotton wool, a yellow Star of David determining his fate. Looking over my shoulder every time I leave my room, breathing in the putrid smells of a city diseased with bloated egos, I yearn for the comfort of fresh bread baking. Instead, I smell the fumes from the constant flow of trucks racing up and down the boulevard. I hold up a white cotton handkerchief to my nose and sniff the spicy scent I smeared on its thin fibers for courage. Cleopatra’s perfume. I know it worked once, dear reader. I shall explain when the moment presents itself. I promise.

  I pray it will work again.

  Two days pass. Then three, four. I repeat my routine each day, still no word from Maxi. I’m torn between the boredom of waiting in the bar and the monotony of the architecture as I walk block by block, walled in by stoic buildings edged with extravagant moldings emphasizing the Teutonic conception of war and fertility. Gray houses all the same, their plainness meshing into a blur, a sensation of loneliness emphasized by the bareness of everything around me, my anxiety heightened by the reality my fate hangs as threadbare as the gloves I wear, stained with the sins of my past.

  Everything I do, walking through the lobby, going to the crowded cinema to watch old films, grabbing an overpriced meal at a restaurant darkened for the blackout, sitting down at the bar, waiting, is a choreography of emotion, from apprehension to frustration, then back to my room to write in my diary. I’ve made these entries, dear reader, because I fear they may be my last. I had believed Maxi and I could resolve our differences, but it seems I was mistaken. How could I ever hope to understand the German mind, whether they be party sycophants or political opponents of the Nazi regime?

  And so I shall continue with my story.

  Cairo

  August 23, 1939

  The heat from our bodies was so intense the shiny metallic flakes seemed to melt off my skin, drizzling down my breasts, my thighs, like rivulets of gold mixed with sweat as he thrust into me, his fingers pressed tight up against my pubic mound to bring me more pleasure. The sensation was electrifying, heightening my response in what was already an erotic paradise.

  The air was still, stagnant, pregnant with a wantonness of ancient acts of lust performed within these thin walls, but nothing could disguise the aura of passion that lingered on the soiled sheets like the smell of perfume. Cleopatra’s perfume dripping from my pores, escaping through my sweat, leaving an unmistakable spicy trail. Its potent aroma heightened my already aroused state, made more so by the cocaine I had sniffed earlier. My sex drive was unstoppable when I was under its spell, though with heavy drug use, that feeling declined. But not when I used it along with the perfume. I became less inhibited, the buildup to the sex act intensifying. I didn’t care about anything but the moment.

  This moment.

  I could smell Chuck’s musky scent and feel the weight of him on top of me, the push of his cock pressing into me. I moved under him, allowing him easier access into me. The pleasure began to build, making me tense with apprehension. Could I reach orgasm? Could I? I had blamed my sexless nights on boredom, redundancy, monotony. In reality, it was none of these things, though I find shame in admitting this to you, dear reader, but since I again took up the habit of sniffing the white powder here in Cairo, I had begun to notice on occasion a certain insensitivity to sex. But not now. Not with the American. His touch had ignited something in me lost, his finger finding the hard seed of my pleasure and sparking it to life again with his deft, knowing touch, driving deep inside me. My pubic muscles began to contract, sucking his fingers deeper into me, my need for release so close to the surface I lay panting, then moaning with frustration when I realized he’d withdrawn his finger. I cringed with regret, then a pleasant feathering drew my attention. What was that he was rubbing up and down my pussy lips? Velvet soft, wet, oily. Then the sensation ceased. Before I could let go with a disappointed sigh, he slid his cock into me, riding me slow and then hard while the ancient cedar frame bed rocked and squeaked under my nude, gold-streaked body slick with perspiration.

  Anticipating my hunger, knowing I was but a moment away from release, he altered his rhythm, slowing down, teasing me, his action making me writhe like a wild animal, the atmosphere around us heavy with tension. Clenching my teeth, I groaned when he traced the curve of my hips with his hands with light movements, taunting me, making me cry out for him until he couldn’t hold back any longer and surrendered to his own need, grinding his hips against me then coming deep inside me, his jaws locked in determination to satisfy his hunger as well as mine with unbridled passion. I shivered as a ripple of pleasure gripped me and I reveled in the sensation of an intense orgasm defeating the demon inside me, believing it could be sublimated, tamed.


  The addiction of cocaine.

  Panting, breathing hard, he pulled out of me, the breadth of his cock making me lick my lips in anticipation of making him hard again and sparking more pleasure in my belly. I blinked when I realized he was wearing a condom, the rubber sheath slick with my juices. I had no memory of him slipping it on. I couldn’t help but smile. Most likely he’d heard the stories of rampant disease in the city’s whorehouses. I leaned back and closed my eyes, not resisting when he pressed his finger between my legs, then pushed it into me and rubbed my hard bud again until it burned with such intensity I cried out.

  Smiling, he smeared my juices over my lips, assuaging my thirst for a taste of passion and filling my mouth with the flavor and excitement of passion. How many hours had we lain together grinding, pumping? I didn’t know. The haze of the cocaine high had subsided in me, its fierceness having sent me into a wild frenzy, but I fought against allowing it to control me and so I enjoyed a sexual feast I’d not known since those first days in Cairo with Ramzi and Mahmoud. Yet the American was but one man and he was unstoppable. Sucking, licking, touching.

  I didn’t question then whether it was the aftereffect of the drug elucidating his prowess in my eyes. In my heightened sense of awareness, I wasn’t warped by emotion nor distorted by an earthly passion. In this dreamlike state, I imagined I lay upon a flat seabed in the desert under the blistering noonday sun, the waves of pleasure spreading over me like a water mirage spreads its illusion. Deceptive. Transforming, though I knew I lay upon stained sheets in a dirty brothel bed on Jermyn Street (the American couldn’t wait to satisfy his desire and if the truth be known, I didn’t wish to parade through the lobby of Shepheard’s Hotel like a nude golden idol), that simple explanation didn’t destroy the exhilaration racing through me. My saucy frolic brought to mind the time in the desert when I saw a young gazelle scurrying away from my motorcar, her white rump bouncing up and down, her graceful neck turning to have a look at me as she wiggled her small black tail. She wasn’t frightened, but rather tame, and curious.