Cleopatra's Perfume

Fighting my own needs, I must do what I could to help her, if only to repay a favor to my husband’s loyal friend. A woman’s body was a distraction in the Arab world, I knew, something chewed upon, then what was left over was tossed away like scraps to the dogs. I had no doubt the man who had seduced Lady Palmer’s daughter was such a deviant.

Casting his eyes downward as if to hide his thoughts, the guide nodded at my final offer. The price was set. He led me down a street filled with multistoried houses with Greek names, as if that gave the brothels a touch of class. Inquisitive girlish faces peered at us from grimy windows, yelling to men straggling from house to house, intent on tasting as much female flesh as their bodies could endure.

At the end of the street, the guide pointed to an ornate door painted to resemble a golden orifice, though I could see chipped paint belying the possibility of any precious metal underneath. Bar Supplice, he assured me, though no sign proclaimed what kind of torment went on inside. I paid the guide, adding a generous tip. Without counting the large notes, he bolted down a side alleyway, jumping over the body of a beggar woman who had collapsed onto the dirt, her open hand asking for alms even in death. I turned my head away, the fetid smell of her rotting corpse announcing the presence of evil everywhere. I could do nothing for the unfortunate woman lying in the dirt, but I could save the girl.

Snatching up my robe to keep from stumbling, I pulled open the door. Though the hour was not yet sunset, darkness greeted me with the secret handshake known to all who entered this den of debauchery. I walked with confidence down the cool cavelike corridor as if I wore a cloak of invisibility, my feet treading over the worn path to decadence as had so many before me, my anxiety increasing with each step. Or was it my anticipation to experience something wildly erotic with its overripe sweetness and pungent aftertaste?

I wasn’t disappointed. On a small round stage surrounded by empty tables and chairs and lit by a sole spotlight, I saw a partially nude girl stretched out on a soft sand-hued rug. The white-skinned nymph wore nothing but a loose robe of coral-red silk spread out around her like a scarlet angel’s wings. A tall Nubian lapped at her pussy, licking with zest, his long tongue darting in and out of her, his giant presence dwarfing her slenderness. She threw her head back and thrashed about on the rug, groaning. A dark-haired man in an indigo blue galabiya and orange-hued imma sat cross-legged next to her, smoking a chibouk, a long Turkish pipe bound by blue silk and gold threads and studded with what appeared to be rubies.

I resisted the temptation to breathe in the sickening-sweet smell of what I recognized as hashish. I needed all my senses to save the girl. I faced one problem: I never expected the man I assumed to be Ramzi would have such an effect on me. Dark eyes, black brows with a sardonic twist that added an erotic aura to his nearly perfect features, a strong jawline, broad shoulders, he was so handsome I swore if he looked at me it would be the obliteration of whatever common sense I still possessed. He maintained a certain grandeur, nobility. Vulnerable as I was, I ached to acquiesce all control to this archseducer of women. I couldn’t take my eyes off his sensual mouth sucking on the amber mouthpiece, drawing in the fragrant smoke from a bowl of baked clay, then blowing rings around the girl’s bare breasts. How I envied her.

Lady Palmer’s runaway daughter.

I stared and stared and stared, my eyes not blinking but my hand moving upward to touch my breasts then slide down my midriff and rub my soft mound. When I saw the Nubian change position and nudge his hard cock toward her willing mouth, teasing her, arousing her, I gasped. Loudly.

The man in the long blue galabiya yelled out in Arabic, words I didn’t understand. The girl lolled her head back and forth, licking her lips, but letting nothing stop her pleasure. She reached back to grab his cock, but he pulled it away, making her angry. Before I could take a breath, the Nubian strode toward me and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Let go of me!” I yelled in English.

“A British woman,” I heard the man I knew must be Ramzi call out. “Let me see her.”

Before I could stop him, the Nubian stripped off my abaya and threw me onto the floor, ripping my blouse and exposing my sheer brassiere underneath, my hard nipples pointing through the soft material.

“You touch me again,” I said, “and I’ll rip off your balls.”

“A most beautiful and spirited woman, I see,” Ramzi said, putting down his pipe and rising from his seated position. I pulled back to escape his spell as he approached me, but to no avail. I struggled to breathe when his robe fell open, revealing his muscular body. He was nude underneath. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. “Who are you?” he asked.

Before I could answer, the girl spat at me. “She’s a friend of my mother’s.”

“Get your clothes on, Flavia,” I demanded, noting the Egyptian did nothing to hide his nudity, as if he exploited his nakedness to produce a sexual energy between us. “Lady Palmer is frantic with worry.”

“She should be used to it by now,” the girl said.

“Get your clothes on,” I repeated, louder. “We’re getting out of here.”

“The girl stays.” Ramzi looked at me with a devious expression raising his brows up higher. “Unless you’d rather take her place.”

I choked with an emotion I couldn’t hold back, my eyes feasting on the size of his cock, the breadth of his bare chest barely covered by the robe. I trembled, knowing I could give him but one answer.

I stood under the spotlight in the Bar Supplice and unbuttoned my white slacks and let them fall. Next, I slid my torn white blouse off my shoulders before kicking off my dust-ringed brown boots. Ramzi took this opportunity to insist his bodyguard remove Lady Palmer’s daughter, dress her and send her back to her mother. Ignoring her onerous protests, the tall Nubian picked up the girl in his strong arms and appeared to walk with ease through a black wall sparkling with thousands of stars, then drew what I assumed was a curtain closed behind him.

I could hear the girl raising her voice in protest behind the curtain, but Ramzi paid her no attention as he caressed my shoulder blades with his long fingers, his touch so hot I jumped, as if a naked burning bulb made contact with my skin. He laughed, then touched me again. Teasing, I pulled away from him and, with great finesse, I plucked my cotton socks stained with brown around the toes off my feet, then stood before him, my eyes matching his stare.

“Is this what you want?” I asked, licking my lips and running my hands through my white-blond hair, then chewing on wayward strands with my teeth.

“I wish to see you nude.”

“And then?” I teased, smoothing my hands over my hips as if I were wearing red velvet, though I stood before him in my undergarments.

“I will decide if your body pleases me.”

“I’m more interested in seeing what you have to offer me.”

He tossed his head back and laughed, his white teeth catching the light, his tongue moist and inviting. “I assure you, my English lady, you won’t be disappointed.” Leaning toward me, he said, “Mahmoud will prepare you for my inspection.”

“What if I decide to skip the foreplay?” I slid the strap of my bra off one shoulder, then the other, squeezing my breasts together. I had no intention of masking my desire. My obsession with recapturing the sexual part of my being seethed with need as I performed an animalistic dance, swaying my shoulders, grinding my hips, then rubbing my hands all over my body before unhooking the sheerest of bras, no lace, no pearls, only a taut veil of nude silk hugging my breasts, my nipples pointing through like hard stones.

“I am master here,” he recounted with an evenness of words that belied the anger—or was it passion?—surging within him. “And you will obey.”

I shivered, visibly shaken by his words, though I reasoned he had no idea why. A different scene played out in my head. A scene I’d first experienced years ago when—

—leather restraints bound my wrists, tying me to the bedposts, my breasts pressed against monogrammed white silk sheets upon which a lusty king had exploded his semen into his favorite concubine, my naked buttocks quivering in anticipation of the unyielding cane striking my needy flesh. A scene played out many times in Lord Marlowe’s cottage hideaway in the English countryside near Coventry.

But this was a hole in Port Said, hot air stifling, garish spangles masking the vices living here and making everything sparkle with a ghostly brightness. And I didn’t care. I didn’t care. At that moment my need to forge again the strange but loving relationship I’d lost was so strong in me it was as if I’d injected morphine into my thigh, as girls did in Berlin during the wild days of the Weimar Republic, and the blood flowed to my labia with such intensity I was powerless to stop it.

I held my chin up, defiant. “Obey you? I don’t believe you’ve ever fucked an Englishwoman or you wouldn’t sputter such nonsense.”

“And you have never known the pleasure of an Arab cock, my English lady, though should you please me, what I can offer you goes beyond mortal pleasure.”

He was baiting me and I knew it. My curiosity had been piqued and I played along, though I had no idea then my rash act would be my undoing.

Before he could reach out and pinch my hard nubs, I seized control of the moment and pulled down my trunk-style satin knickers, inserting my finger into my pussy. While he watched, I rub my engorged clit in time to a humming rhythm vibrating within me. A familiar tune, as if I were hanging suspended and couldn’t touch the earth. Nor did I wish to do so. Back and forth in rapid movements, my eyes never leaving his, I stroked myself, then with two fingers, faster and faster until I was breathing hard, panting, gasping—

“You leave me no choice, my beautiful English rose,” he said, exhaling, “but to do as you wish and fuck you.”

Sensual, savage, Ramzi was a man who enslaved my soul with his eyes. Dark brooding eyes, seductive, and knowing.

I was the star of his erotic cabaret.

Wearing nothing but red high-heeled pumps and a choker of tiny diamonds, I didn’t protest when his bodyguard, the tall nude Nubian, tied me to a wooden chair on an empty stage, my legs spread, each ankle fastened to a smooth chair leg, my wrists held down by worn leather straps on the padded armrests, my mouth gagged with black velvet. I squirmed with delight, so stimulated was I by the compression of my wrists and ankles boosting my arousal to a feverish pitch. I arched my back when the Nubian took my bare breasts in his massive hands with such care it was as if his palms were bronze cups containing them as his fingers twisted and pinched my taut nipples. Lifting my head up, the spotlight overhead stung my eyes with a piercing sharpness, jolting me as I struggled to moan, but instead I sank my teeth into black velvet.

“Is she ready, Mahmoud?” came the voice out of the darkness with the French accent. A sensual arabesque of smoke followed, emphasizing his rounded vowels.

Mahmoud said nothing, but his ebony eyes reacted, narrowing to a sliver, though he wasn’t able to hide his thoughts. The smile on his sensuous full lips told me he enjoyed playing with my breasts, each movement alerting me this was a man filled with duty, especially when that duty gave him pleasure. Brushing the points of my breasts with his tongue, the Nubian next inserted two fingers into me, searching for the slick evidence of my excitement. I didn’t disappoint him. Moistness oozed from between my pussy lips. I made what attempt I could to lift up my hips to give him easier access, my body taut and expectant and shimmering with sweat as brightly as the diamonds circling my neck and pressing against my wildly beating pulse. Smiling in a pleasant manner, he circled my clitoris in a steady rhythm, but not fast enough to bring me to the edge. I sank my teeth again into the black velvet filling my mouth, knowing I wouldn’t find release. That wasn’t his job.

Leaving me wanting, he withdrew his fingers. “She is ready.”

“Bon. Untie her, Mahmoud, and bring her to me.”

I fell into the Nubian’s arms after he set me free, my soft nude whiteness blending with his black skin under the spotlight, making me wonder what amorous pleasures awaited me. I feared not this man of color, nor did I fear the smooth voice with the French accent coming out of the darkness, the swirl of smoke adding to his allure. A sense of the forbidden pricked at my mind, fueling my obvious need for his cock and making me take a deep breath as I pondered various fervid possibilities. Sexual organs swelling at the expectation of erotic activity, nude bodies swaying, secretions as lubricant, the white heat culminating in a frenzy, every muscle rippling and quivering, ecstatic cries, hips thrusting in a cadenced delirium…

I was not disappointed when I heard the voice ask: “Have you ever been pleasured by two men at once, my English lady?”

“No,” I whispered, closing my eyes to shield the lie behind those words, instead allowing him to imagine I was already experiencing an inner ecstasy from the mere thought of it.

“Bon, relax and allow Mahmoud and I to take you to paradise.”

Alas, dear reader, I feel certain your temperature is rising, your pulse beating faster, though you may shun such an admission out of modesty, but I pray you don’t stop reading for I have yet to reveal to you the secret of the perfume. Yet I realize I’ve brought you too far into the story without telling you what happened next when I found myself nude and willing to be stimulated by these two men when I entered the Bar Supplice. So eager am I to relive that night of temptation beyond what I’d ever experienced, I can’t deny my body a delicious quiver of anticipation before continuing with my story. But first, you must understand the effect Ramzi had on me. Half-Egyptian, half-French, he moved in a circle of people who prided themselves on possessing the typical high-class European attitude of shunning public notice. Stealthlike, as if he created his style to tease my poor feminine soul—his hand brushing against my breasts when I passed by him, or his eyes from under long veiled black lashes following me when I left the room. I found him charming in a way that appealed to my naughty side, one which Lord Marlowe knew only too well and had nurtured with a fine hand.