Jina Bacarr - Cleopatra's Perfume

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.”