The Last Harem

by George P. Saunders

  He waved back at me and tried to wink. It looked like he had some kind of palsy with the attempt. I howled in laughter. Prince Jefri's eyebrows rose, and then he smiled broadly. I suppose he knew just how silly he must have appeared, trying to wink with the hipness of an American.

  It was this night that another strange thing happened to me, and one which I feel is only fair to recount. It was, believe it or not, part of my life in Brunei that disturbed George most of all.

  It was on this night, on my 27th birthday, that I had my first romantic experience with . . . . a woman.

  I am not a lesbian, nor am I bi-sexual. I was getting very drunk at my own party; Prince Jefri actually remained this evening until the party's eventual end at 3 a.m. When the cake arrived, a huge three layered thing, with my name embossed across the top, Tina, my roommate, turned to me and whispered:

  "Happy Birthday, sweetheart. Stay with me tonight!"

  She kissed me – the third time so far. And this time, the kiss was long, passionate, and insistent. I was startled, but I was also drunk – and I had not been touched by another human being in nearly two months.

  Tina continued to kiss me, and I let her. Don't ask me why; to this day, the whole experience seems more like a dream. But I opened my eyes at one point, and looked at Prince Jefri. He seemed fascinated with my involvement with Tina; he stared pointedly at us. I pretended not to notice, as Tina tried to put her tongue into my mouth.

  That, too, I allowed. But I kept this intimacy brief; I pulled gently back and looked at her, so young, and yet, so much more experienced than myself . . . in areas I had never dared contemplate. She touched my hair, and rubbed the corners of my mouth, where lipstick had smeared, and then kissed my nose.

  "You're beautiful," she said. "And you wonder why the Prince would have fallen in love with you."

  She giggled, and was suddenly gone, reaching for a shot of Jaegermeister from one of the little Tai maids. I stared after her, shocked. It was at this moment that the whole room broke into a chorus of "Happy Birthday."

  I turned to face my audience, and noticed that Prince Jefri was standing. And singing.

  His wives and sons were not present. He was looking directly at me. Alone on the staircase, not daring (or willing) to enter into the party room. For the duration of the song, we just stared at one another. As the applause commenced once the song was finished, I again gave the Prince my Oklahoma girl curtsy.

  He, in turn, bowed.

  And with the kind of dignity one could imagine so easily of one so royal, the prince turned and walked up his lonely stairs, into the palace, to rejoin his family.

  I watched him until he was out of sight, and smiled to myself.

  The Prince and I had a special communication. A bond. To this day, I am not sure what that bond was all about, but it was more profound, more different, than any other bond he had shared with girls before me. Not to say I was so different or even better. But we understood one another. I looked forward to our next meeting. If there was to be a next meeting, that is.

  I found myself hoping that the Prince and I could be . . . friends.

  "Ms. Dorian," Mr. Jan said, suddenly appearing beside me. "The Prince requests the pleasure of your company this evening. Can I tell him that he will not be disappointed?"

  There it was. Wanna fuck? was the subtle query from young Robin.

  I could have declined the offer, of course, then be sent packing the next day. Or … I could have lay there and thought of Queen and country, and became rich.

  It took me five seconds to reply to Mr. Jan.

  "I'd be delighted," I said confidently.

  Mr. Jan made a little bow and then turned on his heel and walked away.

  Showtime, I thought. Welcome to the majors.

  * * *

  It was all very straightforward, and I gotta say, Robin was a gentleman about the whole sexual encounter.

  He undressed me slowly, taking in my body, then had me undress him in turn, which I did. I was surprised I was not more nervous at the time. He offered me a condom, but I declined, mainly because I hate condoms, and also I knew that Robin was probably the safest man sexually to be with, as all the whores in this place were screened more thoroughly than a chimp on the fourth level of the CDC biohazard division. And I was on the pill, in any event, so there was close to zero chance of pregnancy.

  He preferred a missionary position, and I have to say the experience was not terrible. It's not like I came or anything, but I genuinely liked this guy, and he'd been nothing but kind to me up to and including then.

  I gave some appropriately well-placed moans here and there, to contribute to the whole "you're cock is so massive, my prince, I can't help but wallow in ecstasy" effect. I liked to give the impression that his dick could knock over table-lamps, so massive was his girth.

  I delivered.

  Afterwards, we drank champagne, and I got shit-faced; Robin seemed not to care. As I dressed, Robin pulled out a stack of cash. He bound some of it and handed it to me.

  "One hundred thousand dollars," he said with a smile. "You do not mind a little gift for taking so much of your time?"

  I was flummoxed … happily so. I kissed him gently on the lips.

  "Honey, it was a pleasure, anyway, but you just sweetened the whole deal with this." I flipped through the cash and winked at him.

  I was then led by Mr. Jan back to my quarters.

  Outside my bungalow, Claire and Mindy, looked at me as if I'd just slept with Satan, and was still gargling on his gyzz.

  "What?" I said, not liking Claire's stare.

  "Nothing. Whore," she said neutrally, then turned and walked away.

  I didn't give a damn what Claire thought. I entered my room and counted my money. Sure enough, one hundred thousand dollars.

  Yahoo.

  I quietly congratulated my pussy.

  "Well done, old friend. Well done."

  It was not Claire, oddly enough, who would prove an enemy, but my suite-mate Dawn.

  * * *

  The next night, Mr. Jan approached me again.

  "Happy Birthday, Ms. Dorian," Mr. Jan said quietly, and bowed. He then handed me a small leather wallet and a carrying case that resembled a small purse.

  I opened the wallet first. It contained another 100,000 dollars.

  I opened the purse-carrier, and stared, breathless: Inside were four sets of Bulgari jewelry: a necklace, a wrist band, a ring, and an ankle bracelet. Estimated worth: Around $200,000 American dollars.

  "Thank you," I wept.

  The other girls hugged me.

  Except Claire, who glared at me. And Dawn, whose eyes seemed to me to have turned black, not unlike those of a Tiger Shark in a feeding frenzy.

  "Congratulations for obviously being a very good fuck," she said venomously.

  "Piss off, Dawn," I said, mildly annoyed. The bitch got on my nerves, but not enough to ruin my night with the money and gifts that seemed to keep coming my way.

  I was in heaven. Yet all I could think about for the rest of the evening was: I've made over $600,000 in three months, including my birthday gifts, and all I did was fuck a prince. How bad was that?

  As George recalls...

  My birthday is on November 30th.

  Every year, My Aunt Jo sends me cash.

  One dollar.

  I opened the card and smiled.

  I felt rich. It's nice to see green in a card.

  I did not know yet about Aphrodite's insignificant little trinkets she received on her birthday.

  Every time I called the phone number that Aphrodite gave me, a bizarre sounding message came on, no doubt in Malay, which automatically disconnected me. Consequently, I never once successfully connected with Aphrodite whenever I dialed her from the United States. It was frustrating, and suspicious.

  December 4, 1995 (coincidentally, Aphrodite's birthday) marked the three day countdown to the first day of principal photography of my third movie of the year, Vendetta. If I th
ought Making Waves was difficult, Vendetta was twice as hard to shoot and complete on a timely basis. It was a low-budget action picture, but it was filled with pyro gags (bullets and squibs - things that explode which look like you've been shot in movies) and other technical bugaboos which, on my budget, were very ambitious. There was a huge margin for failure – the special effects part of the movie might just bankrupt me halfway before I finished shooting it. I was a nervous wreck. I dealt with the nerves by drinking. A lot. Too much, as I've already mentioned.

  Again, I was directing and acting in the picture, as well as trying to run the show from a production standpoint. Thank God for my producer, Ross Hammer, an old friend and experienced trench man who assisted me through the pre-production phase of Plotting, as well as the shoot. Though he wished expressly to be referred to in this book as a "pain in the ass, loudmouth, temperamental prick," I say honestly that I could not have completed Plotting without his assistance. He was the detail man, while I saw things more in the big picture sense. Together, we made a formidable team.

  We had twelve days to get the film in the can. The pressure was on because we were shooting late in the year, the holidays were approaching, and cast and crew were making plans to leave for home and hearth. Further, the American Film Market was just around the corner, and if we wanted a trailer cut and posters finished, we had to at least get our script shot before the beginning of the new year.

  So, for a while, I was distracted by my movie. Aphrodite, coincidentally, remained mysteriously silent during the last part of November and all of December. I later learned, of course, this was the period of her initial meeting with Prince Jefri. Her stress levels day to day in anticipation of further contact with the Prince were well into the red. I didn't realize this at the time, but I knew something was disturbing her; I could hear it in her voice, and it pissed me off to no end that she kept her phone calls to me short and non-specific. With good reason, I came to understand, but at the time, I felt left out and isolated.

  Since Aphrodite's departure, my drinking had increased, and thus my judgment was severely lacking; I knew that once shooting took place, I would have to cold-turkey quit the boozing to have all my marbles available.

  But before December 7th rolled around, the first day scheduled for shooting Vendetta, the universe had a surprising vendetta of its own for me. On December 4th, the same date Aphrodite received $70,000 simply for turning 27, I was arrested by the Highway Patrol. The charge: Driving Under the Influence. It was a dumb thing to do. I had spent the evening with Ross, ironing out a shooting schedule for Vendetta. We spent three hours drinking wine. I was four blocks from home. I realized that the wine was kicking in; I was weaving slightly. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  The police siren and lights blared around me. I stopped. The young highway patrolmen exited his vehicle and approached.

  "Hi, officer," I said, trying my damnedest to sound sober. Failing.

  "Evening, sir," he said. "I noticed you weaving in and out of your lane back there. Not bad, but noticeable."

  "Oh, well –" I sputtered helplessly.

  "Have you been drinking this evening?"

  I shrugged. "Me? Drink?"

  "Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle, sir?"

  I knew I was sunk. I failed the tests, was summarily handcuffed, and then taken to the Van Nuys Saticoy jail. Wherein I stewed for around six hours. My rescuer was Aphrodite's friend, Doria Roan, also the current star of a Playboy television series called Night Calls. She bailed me out silently, and led me to her car.

  "So. Tied one on tonight, huh?" she said at last.

  I turned to her, miserable. "You know, if it was Aphrodite instead of you picking me up, she would have torn me a new asshole."

  Doria smiled. "That's because she's in love with you. I'm just a good friend with bail money."

  She drove me home and dropped me off at the front door, with a piece of paper; on it was the phone number of the attorney who assisted her with a DUI six months earlier. I would need him, she assured me. Of that, I, too, was certain.

  Still, I couldn't call Aphrodite. I was despondent, miserable, depressed, you name it. And now – a jailbird.

  I crawled into my bed at around 4:30 a.m. I briefly contemplated suicide, but realized that the hangover the following morning would probably kill me anyway, so why expend the effort now?

  At that moment, my phone rang.

  I rolled over in agony, and lifted the receiver.

  "Dead and in Hell," I said.

  "Hi, honey bunny," Aphrodite chirped from 15,000 miles away.

  My eyes brightened, and my liver started functioning again. At least for the moment.

  "Hey, sweetheart," I said. "How are you?"

  "Missing you," Aphrodite said, and I could tell she meant it.

  "Happy birthday," I said. I couldn't tell if her birthday had actually passed, or was still approaching, so disparate was the time difference.

  "Thank you, baby," Aphrodite said.

  "When are you coming home?" I asked.

  "Soon," she said at once. "There are reasons why I have to get out of here fast."

  I froze at this statement. Reasons for leaving in a hurry.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "Let's not talk about it now," she said, and there was a tone of worry in her voice.

  "Okay," I said. "Okay. Just – when do you think you'll be leaving?"

  "Soon," was all she said again. I didn't push it. Sultanate security being what it was, I figured Aphrodite had reason for her reticence. I took the hint.

  "What time is it over there?" I asked.

  "It's late morning," Aphrodite said. "Is everything okay with you?"

  "Couldn't be better," I said. "We start shooting in three days."

  "I'm so proud of you, honey," she said. "You work so hard."

  And drink so much and get arrested so well, I thought.

  "You sure you're okay?" Aphrodite continued.

  "Fine. I was in jail tonight. I met a large, menacing giant of a man who smiled at me and said 'you have a real pretty mouth.' Aside from that, the day has been pretty uneventful."

  Aphrodite laughed. "You big teaser. That's very funny. You should put that in a script."

  "Yes, I should," I agreed. Truth is stranger than fiction.

  "Well, I have to go now," she said. "I'll call you in a few days."

  "Come home," I begged.

  "Soon," she said again. Her litany. "I love you."

  I just nodded, saying nothing. And then, the phone went dead.

  I stared at the receiver for a long time, just shaking my head. I felt, in that moment, that I had lost Aphrodite. It was an inexplicable feeling, strange, paranoid, yet visceral – she was no longer mine, then and there. She belonged to another world. A world I could not imagine. A world that had locked me out.

  I closed my eyes and dreamed of jail.

  A Little Wine Here and There is Good for the Heart

  As Aphrodite remembers...

  I went back to my room on the night of my birthday at 3:30 a.m. I was drunker than I had ever been in my life. Patty, my other roommate (the one who didn't like me) reluctantly assisted Tina, the roommate whom I liked (and who enjoyed kissing me on many occasions) back to House Number Four.

  Patty left us at the front door, and went straight to bed. Tina, who was, by some miracle, more sober than myself, gently led me up the stairs to our suites.

  I fell face-first on the bed. I was singing a song from "Oklahoma," the musical.

  Tina took my shoes off, then unzipped my dress, and peeled off my stockings.

  "When's your birthday?" I slurred to Tina.

  "In September," she said. "I'll be 21."

  "I miss my boyfriend," I said softly, closing my eyes. "I miss sleeping on his chest."

  My eyes were closed, but Tina's voice was soft, comforting, endlessly patient. "I know. I miss my boyfriend, too."

  My eyes opened, though only to slit-position. "You ha
ve – a boyfriend?"

  "Of course," she said. "We've been together since we were sixteen."

  I thought about the ramifications of Tina being over in Brunei for so long, and a young boyfriend who might, conceivably, lack the sophistication (or patience) of someone like, say, my George, (a mature 35-year old).

  "How is he dealing with you being here?" I asked.

  "Okay," Tina said. "He knows that when I come home, we'll be set for life."

  Well, that made sense.

  "What about sex?" I asked.

  "What about it?" she said.

  "Well, I mean, what does he do about not – having you?"

  "I suppose ... he gets by," she said matter-of-factly. "I haven't told him about being with Robin. That wouldn't go down well, I don't think."

  "No, I don't think it would," I agreed.

  "I've only been with Robin four or five times," Tina said. "And even then, he wanted to do it in ways I wasn't crazy about. Know what I mean?"

  I didn't. With me, Robin was painfully conservative.

  And I didn't want to know the details at the moment from Tina. My head was swimming and I was fighting off an urge to throw up.

  "It's not that he's weird about sex, it's just that – I'm not really into that style."

  Oh. That cleared up a whole lot for me. I kept my mouth shut and decided to let Tina keep talking.

  But Tina had finished with the conversation. She leaned over and began to fondle my breasts.

  "What – what are you doing?" I asked.

  "Does it feel bad?" she said.

  I considered the question, temporarily immobilized by about four tons of alcohol in my body. "No," I admitted. I kept thinking of George. When I closed my eyes . . . it was George touching me.

  Tina began kissing me. Softly. With great tenderness. I felt momentarily uneasy, but I was also very drunk and feeling ill-disposed to protest. Besides, the touch of another human being was comforting. I allowed Tina to explore. Soon, I found myself kissing Tina back.

  That night still seems like some strange, distant dream. I had never been with a woman, nor am I attracted to women presently. My relationship with Tina was an isolated incident, though Tina and I slept with one another several times during my stay in Brunei. We became very close friends, and more. Tina was bi-sexual, and thus more comfortable with herself, and with me.