In chapter 1-4 we met Sheikh Fouad bin Faisal bin Hoessein al Azzizi the 44 year old ruler of the Emirate West Tripolitania. More than 10 years ago he used his family fortune as an Arabian noble to conquer West Tripolitania with his band of foreign fighters. Was the country before suffering from tribal and religious conflicts that costed the lives of many of its young men nowadays under the wise rule of Sheikh Fouad the country is a stable area of peace and prosperity.
Foreign journalists describe the country as a traditional 1001 nights meet Silicon Valley Emirate between the sea and the desert. The Sheikh has reinstated many old traditions from Arab or even the Roman times. Now it is quite normal again to have more than one wife as due to the wars there are not so many men left. The Sheikh even has a harem but not one with slaves but with girls who represent the alliance of their tribe or town with him and willingly choose to be there as being at the court is regarded as a high honour. Although people are free to conduct their life as they see fit in private in public people have to live by certain rules like wearing the traditional dress.
Although traditions are strongly promoted so is education and science and development as the Sheikh wants to have his country ready for an era without oil. Universities flourish and both boys and girls can choose a career. More and more the country is earning income from IT and inventions. Many expats choose to live in the Emirate. Amongst them is a 36 year old English women who teaches human rights at the American university in the capital. She is a workaholic who never married or had a family and travelled the world for her work in refugee-camps. She and the Sheikh once clashed because she was of the opinion she had to be exempted from having the cover herself as she is a foreigner and a non-believer and that it was against her human rights. But although he thought she was too full of herself and did not know her place when he meets her a few weeks later at a formal do at an embassy he feels strongly attracted to her by her copper curls and luscious creamy big breasts spilling over her ball-gown.
The legal system in the country is quite severe with a death penalty for (planned) murder. But the family of the victims can forgive the criminal. But the Sheikh and his judges can also offer the perpetrator the choice of instead of the sword or the gallows a live as a slave trying to redeem his or her wrongs by a life of servitude.
When we meet the Sheikh he just discovered a bombplot against his children and those of other dignitaries. The bomb is handed to the assassin by the Western woman who teaches at the local university and is known for her fierce equal rights attitude. Instead of giving her the required death sentence he offers her an alternative as a slave in his harem as there she can instead of killing his children give him others. In his hate and need of revenge he thinks it quite fitting to force her to to bodily surrender to him and swell up with his seed. She chooses life and he tells her her name will be Rosebud from now on (as her nipples are pink due to her very white skin unlike the local darker colours).
He claims her body upon her entering his harem and after that first night in his bed she is send to be trained in the arts of the harem.
She realises that her only chance of ever convincing him of her innocence is completely to submit to his rules so he will hopefully stop hating her and maybe come to realise she is not at all a person who would go and kill children and set her free again.
The soaring heath of hatred and need for revenge in him cooled when he sees her pain and her tears on being taken by force. And it pleases him to be reported that she makes an effort in trying to master the arts of haremlife and his culture in general what he considers quite a punishment as for the feminist it will feel so degrading to have to learn how to please an Arab master with her body. Moreover further investigations seems to suggest she indeed did not know what the bombs was intended for and she cannot go anywhere and create havoc locked in his harem. So he focusses again on ruling his country and forgets about her now he had her.
She notices that normally the man is good to his women and is a fair ruler whose work she really respects. So probably his actions towards her were extreme emotions caused by what happened she muses. Rage because she was part of a threat against his kids.
So by the time their paths cross again a month later in the baths he is back at his normal gentle but domineering self while they have her changed into a sultry and beautiful woman and he realises he just wants her in his arms and in his bed. They make love in the early hours or the morning and he shows her how she pleasured him by letting her decide on the faith of a people-smuggler and grating her plea for protection for that criminal's victims.
He starts to summon her to his bed more and more often. And although she cannot refuse him when he commands her as she is indeed his slave, she instead starts to long for his company as his touch is always arousing and weirdly enough his strength makes her feel safe.
He is fascinated by this woman who thinks like a man but feels like a woman in his bed. Like when she asks him one night in his bedroom if she can wield his ceremonial Damascan steel scimitar to see how it feels in her hand, explaining she had some fencing lessons in university, he ends up giving her a lesson how to use it. Getting themselves so worn out by that that they just fall asleep in each other's arms and nothing more happens. While on other nights he just cannot get enough of her and in the morning she will be so stiff and sore the haremmatron Azziza has to rub ointment in her entrance and on her nipples and give her a massage and has to tell their master his favorite cannot come to his bed again the next night but needs time to recuperate.
With the passing of the months both come to their separate conclusion they not only crave to be pleasured by the other, enjoy each other's company in general, but moreover have fallen in love with each other. She does not dare to say something like that to her lord and master. She is his slave and she is there in his harem as punishment. It would be not proper unless he would ask her.
He has to arrange the burial of his deceased queen and has to leave his palace and his country to do so, but realises that for him it is important to know if the woman he has fallen in love with is really guilty. If guilty she might be a threat still to his kids and himself but if she is really innocent as he more or less believes now the proof of that would clear the road for him to tell how he feels about her. So he sends away a new team of hunters.
When he comes home after a month she is eager to tell him she is carrying his child while he is trying to come to terms with the fact that he has hurt and imprisoned someone who was indeed completely innocent. He despises himself and thinks he wanted to know if she was not guilty so he could tell her he loved her, but that he now has forfeited that right. He thinks that the honourable thing to do is to release her and set her free and put her on a flight to her homecountry and her parents. So that is what he does without asking her if that is what she wants.
*****
The flight-attendant, Chrysta, looked at the local newspaper she was giving to her passengers. On the cover was a big picture of the local ruler Sheikh Fouad who according to the article had resumed his normal duties again after the time of mourning for his late queen has passed. Well she would not mind warming that guy's bed. He was probably 20 years older than her but he looked devilish handsome in a kind of pirate way with the long curly hair and the moustache and goatee. And to add to that the exotic robes. According to her roommate, who was studying anthropology, some girls go to work for 3 months as a callgirl in the Gulf earning so much money they could but a house of their own. Maybe one of those Sheikhs like this Fouad could be a good sugar-daddy for her as well.
The eyes of the flight-attendant focussed on the woman in her first class section. She had refused to get out of the local black coat and scarf and when Chrysta got a look of her feet clad in beaded slippers and a leg in some sheer trouser she wondered if the woman was maybe not properly enough dressed to get out of that coat. She looked very forlorn. Chrysta had seen her brought to the plane by two burly local types that looked like security goons. According to the woman she was preggies - asked her if she had to do something different with the seatbelt. LOL the average American had more belly. Chrysta looked at the hennaed hands and feet of the woman. And then at her rather expensive looking earrings, bracelet and rings. Would this be one of those women who came here to be a plaything? Was she send home on a one way ticket because the rich man wanted a hot pussy but not morning sickness? All of a sudden a local sugar-daddy did not sound so appealing anymore.
*****
The woman he had called Rosebud looked at the paper and the picture of the man she loved and whose child was growing deep inside her. She had so longed for him to come home and be called to his bed again so they could make love and be happy because of the baby. Instead he had informed her he had wronged her as much as you could wrong a woman and that she was released to go home and be free again. She felt confused and numb.
The security guy had given her a box telling her it was from the Sheikh. She opened it. Inside she found a wad of banknotes, some paperwork and a couple of beautiful necklaces made of gold and seashells. The seashells they had both collected on the beach while kissing each other. Just a month ago. She felt tears fall from her eyes and roll down her cheeks.
