Seraglio

(Synopsis: Russet Thompson is an architect and designer sent to spend several days touring the Harem of an eastern Pasha to get ideas for a new attraction at Ultima Resorts. Sir Adrian Calendar, the Prince’s personal secretary, shows her around, and offers her a ‘deal.’ Having seduced her into mutual oral sex, Adrian talks Russet into going to the souks (markets) clad in the traditional khimir (burqa) and veils, beneath which she is naked except for chains and nipple and pussy clamps. After touring the souks in a state of growing arousal, they take lunch in a private room at a café and Adrian explains that he wants her to meet a ‘girl dealer.’

Chapter Four

Go to the house of a procurer voluntarily? Visions of being sold into white slavery flashed chaotically through my mind. The man must be crazy.

“What kind of fool do you think I am?” I demanded, and then winced. That was far too close to the straight line of the old joke, the punch line being, ‘We’ve already determined that, now were haggling over the price.’ There was way too much truth in that for my comfort. Fortunately, Adrian didn’t seem know the joke, or at least was smart enough not to take the bait.

“I don’t think you’re a fool at all, darling. An innocent maybe, but definitely not a fool. What you are is a very sexy, very sensual woman who’s been too shy to explore her nature.”

“Shy!” I was as offended as if he’d accused me of some perversion. Probably more so, under the circumstances. “Hey, I’m the one who designed a dildo chandelier eight feet across for our Dungeon!”

“Did you really? How marvelous. I must be sure to see it the next time His Highness visits the Resort. Did you break it in?”

“No, of course not!”

“You disappoint me. Do you have a dildo of your own? A vibrator?”

“Yes,” I said defiantly. I did, too, though it had been a gag gift from some co-workers in the fabrication shop—a gag they thought was much funnier than I did.

“I’m not trying to offend you, sweet Russet, just learn more about you. Let’s try this from a different tack. What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done?”

“Why?” I demanded suspiciously.

He smiled. “Remember what I said about sex being ultimately cerebral? Let’s play Scheherazade for a moment and tell stories. Did you know quite a few of the original tales of the Thousand and One Nights were naughty?”

“Ali Baba and the forty thieves?”

“Not the ones from the children’s anthologies, though they cleaned some of those up, too. There are quite a few more, sixteen volumes worth, in fact. So tell me story, a true story,” he coaxed, putting a hand on my knee. “What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve every done?”

“You ought to know that already,” I said, blushing. “I did it with you earlier today.”

“No, really?” Adrian began hitching the hem of my robe up my shin. “You poor deprived darling. And what else.”

“Well, what we’re doing now.’

“Umm, yes but going out in public without your knickers isn’t all that scandalous.” Adrian worked his hand up under my robe to above my knee.

“Stop,” I hissed, trying to push his roaming fingers away, or at least prevent them from moving higher. “What if somebody comes in?’

“They won’t,” he assured me. “Not without announcing themselves. That’s the point of a private room.”

“So you can molest your lunch guests?”

“”No, so that a lady can eat without a veil,” Adrian said, working his hand high enough to catch the dangling ring of one of the pussy clamps with his fingertip. “Molesting you is just a side benefit.”

He tugged on the ring and I gasped and squirmed, pushing ineffectually at his hand.

“Besides,” he added, “your lap is below the table. Even if the waiter came in, he wouldn’t suspect anything if you sit still.”

“Sit still? How am I supposed to do that if you—Oh, Adrian, no!” His long fingers slid between the clips and found my clitoris.

“Well, you could try to distract me,” he suggested. “Tell me a story. Other than give amazing head to a semi-stranger and get rimmed in return, what’s the kinkiest thing you’ve done?”

“Honestly, I don’t have anything to tell you. I’ve had lovers, we’ve had sex, but nothing more.” I felt oddly ashamed to have to admit it and wondered if I should have invented something.

“Working where you do?”

“I don’t date people I work with, or for.”

“Very wise, but your lovers? I know you’ve never done anal, but what about dominance games? Have you ever been spanked? Tied up? Held down? Never been with a woman or more than one man? Never had sex in an aero-plane, or a public place?”

I shook my head ‘no,’ and ‘no,’ and ‘no’ again. “I’m afraid I’m hopelessly vanilla.”

“Not vanilla, darling, crème caramel, at least.” He slid a long finger into me. “Though my opinion of American men has never been lower.”

“I don’t think it’s them, I think it’s me,” I said, lifting from the seat a little.

“Then you definitely owe it to yourself to take full advantage of the situation. Have an adventure.”

“Being sold into prostitution is not an adventure!” I grabbed his wrist through the silk robe and clamped my thighs together, trying to hold him still, but he was too strong. All I succeeded in doing was to intensify the sensation.

“Russet, Russet, I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. Darius would demand my head on a platter and His Highness would be happy to comply. And I

don’t want to. I haven’t had you yet—this is all foreplay—so you may be very certain I won’t let anyone else have you!” Adrian insinuated a second finger into my pussy along side the first.

“Then why do you want me to do this?”

“For pleasure,” he said, his busy thumb never pausing.

“If I did—If I did, what would happen?” Adrian had an arm around my shoulder and my thighs opened to him of their own accord. I knew I shouldn’t encourage him, but the fantasy (and his skillful touch) was too seductive.

“I’ll tell him that I’ve taken you as a concubine and I want you appraised to make sure I’ve got my money’s worth,” he said with a dreamy smile. A third finger joined the two that were steadily widening my vagina. I could hear the wet sounds of it and that excited me even more.

“Appraised?” I asked faintly, my hips starting to buck.

“Examined and evaluated,” Adrian said, kissing along my jaw.

“Naked?”

“How else?” Adrian nuzzled the hood back and delicately frenched my ear, his tongue very pointed, wet and warm.

“Would he…touch me?”

“He has to, to examine you. Your mouth, your arse, your breasts, your quim..” He stroked into me harder, faster, deeper, as he spoke.

“And where—where will you be?”

“Watching,” Adrian said, and kissed me. “Is that the waiter I hear?”

I climaxed immediately, my drenched opening clenching around his fingers and long shudders shaking my body.

There was no waiter, of course. The heavy curtain hung undisturbed and I knew I’d be angry with him for his shameless manipulation, but later—maybe much later. Then I felt devastated, totally limp, and didn’t even care that I sprawled gracelessly on the bench, legs spread wide and robes above my knees.

Adrian still held my pubis hard between his thumb and fingers, releasing me only when all the aftershocks and shivers ceased. After I was quiet he gave me a firmer pinch that made me moan, then withdrew his fingers slowly, and dropped my robe back down around my ankles, smoothing it over my knees.

“So you’ll do it?”

I caught his hand to my lips and kissed it. He slipped his finger into my mouth so that I tasted myself on his skin and my breath caught again, but I said, with real regret, “No, I can’t.”

I thought he’d be angry—feared he’d be angry—or maybe even hoped he’d be angry, but he wasn’t. His arched brows drew together in a frown, but he settled back, one shoulder against the wall, and groped in the pocket of his kurta suit. He pulled out a battered silver case of cigarettes and lit one.

“All right, why not?” he asked, holding the case out.

“I don’t smoke,” I said. “And I just can’t.”

“It excites you enough to get you off.”

“Yes, but excitement and reality are two different things. I’m excited but I’m afraid.” I saw the light in his eyes and the way his mouth moved, and hushed him before he could speak. “This isn’t like… the other.”

“I think it’s exactly like the other, if you mean letting me rim you,” he said, blowing out a long plume of smoke.

“No, because you can’t just push me into it.”

“I can, you know—if that’s what you want. I can order Ahmed and Talib to

hustle you through the streets, if that’s what you need.”

“Oh, God! No.” Though he was right, dammit—the image did excite me.

“Well, that’s just as well,” he said. “It would cause a considerable scandal.”

“Adrian, darling—” I blushed, for though he’d been calling me ‘darling’ almost from the beginning, I’d not used any endearments in return. I was a little shocked to realize how natural it felt. “You might be able to talk me into it if I was drunk, but in cold blood—I just can’t.”

“Drinks are a little hard to organize on the spur of the moment, darling. This is a Muslim country, but—” He got to his feet and stuck his head through the drape, calling something in Arabic. In a few moments I heard something from the corridor. “Hold your veil to your face.”

I couldn’t find my veil but covered myself with a fold of my hood, as the waiter deposited a hookah on the table. Money changed hands and he bowed himself out, letting the drape fall behind him. The coals in the water pipe were already burning. Adrian opened the top and handed me the long tube and amber mouth piece.

“I told you, Adrian, I don’t smoke…”

“This isn’t tobacco, darling,” he said, opening a little twist of parchment and holding what looked a small dark stone between his fingers.

“What is it? Opium?”

“Of course not! It’s khif, my dear—hashish. Didn’t you ever smoke marijuana when you were at University?”

“Yes, but I didn’t like it much,” I admitted cautiously. “And that was a long time ago.”

“It probably wasn’t any good. This is the real McCoy, as you say.” He dropped the resin into the burn cup and closed the top of the hookah.

“I don’t think so,” I said, trying to hand the pipe back to him.

“Just a puff or two,” he suggested. “The poet Rumi wrote, ‘Allah has put into the form of hashish a power to deliver the taster from self-consciousness,’ and it’s quite true. A puff or two won’t turn you into a dope-fiend, you know, just relax you a little.”

A tiny wisp of smoke escaped the pipe and it certainly didn’t smell like the skunkweed my roommate had. It smelled mysterious, almost perfumed.

“Are you going to smoke, too?” I asked.

“No, I’m going to stay perfectly sober so I can take care of you and keep you safe,” he said, very seriously. He lifted the mouthpiece to my lips and they opened almost automatically. He must have me hypnotized, I thought. That can’t be good. Under his tutelage, I took a couple puffs and felt nothing but the urge to clear my throat.

“I don’t think it’s working,” I said.

“Perhaps not, but let’s walk about a bit more and see how you feel.”

He helped me adjust my veils and drapes and we took our leave of the café. The heat outside was really oppressive by then, so we walked very slowly. Adrian led me to the Street of potters and showed me the stall run by the grandson of the artist who’d made the tiles for the Palace hammam. The potter brought out tray after tray of lovely tiles, intricate designs in thick, glossy glazes, which I touched with reverent fingers.

After that, we walked a bit farther. We seemed to be on the edges of the souk when Adrian asked me how I felt.

“A bit floaty,” I admitted. “I guess it’s working after all, though I don’t feel very high.”

“I don’t want you stoned, darling, just relaxed. Relaxed enough to

visit my friend?”

“I don’t know about that!”

“Not even for the plans?”

“Is that for both sets, or just the old palace?” I asked.

Adrian looked down at me from the corner of his eye, lips curling in that sardonic half-smile I was beginning to love. “Hmmm, you’d have to be very, very good to get both sets.”

“I can do that.”

“Can you obey as though you really are a slave, not speak unless you’re told to, and submit to a full appraisal?”

I drew a rather shaky breath. “Of course.”

“I’ll wager you can’t,” he said, laughing.

“Put your money where your mouth is,” I said, offended.

“I’d rather put my mouth where my money is, but you’re on! Shake?”

We shook hands solemnly, much to the amused consternation of the attendants. “So, where are we going?”

“Right here—that’s his house at the end of the street.”

I followed Adrian, mumbling about sneaky bastards under my breath. My steps began to lag a little as we approached the door and, sensing that, Adrian gripped me by the back of the neck, steering me firmly forward.

“Don’t fret,” he said. “Pretend you’re a slave girl. You have no choice, so don’t worry about it.”

An elderly lady answered the door and ushered us in. She wore voluminous bloomers of green velvet, heavily embroidered with stylized flowers in gold, under a medium length tunic of diaphanous linen. Over the tunic belted a wide sash of striped silk fringed in gold. A short vest, covered with needlework and appliqué topped off her outfit. She wore no veil and her long, loose hair was improbably black, given that her face was deeply creased. Even so, her eyes were large and dark, alive in their nest of wrinkles, and her penciled brows were high arched and met over the bridge of her nose in the true antique ideal of beauty.

“This is Abal, whose name means ‘wild rose’,” Adrian said, bowing to the old lady. “She was a real odalisque, a harem slave, of the old Pasha’s. The odalisques ranked below concubines and wives, but were also chosen for their beauty. She’s rather famous and acts as Hadad’s chief assistant. ”

I bobbed a little bow myself, and left my slippers where she indicated, once again following in bare feet. She showed us down a cool dim hallway and stood aside from a large, arched door.

I found myself on the threshold of a big, echoing room with intricately patterned tile on the walls and what looked like about a half acre of Turkish carpet on the marble floor. A ‘leewan,’ the typical raised platform strewn with pillows took up most of the far end. Benches stood below the wall niches around the room, and the center of the floor was dotted with a number of enormous ottomans; low, round benches upholstered in velvet and brocade, tufted with what looked like jewels.

Before this trip, it had never occurred to me how many items of furniture came from the East; ottoman stools from the Ottoman Empire, divans and even sofas, both the concept and the name from Arabic. The Arab world was using carpets on the floor while Europe was still living with filthy rushes. So many of the things I associate with luxury and comfort; damask from Damascus, silk, cotton, cashmere, and brocade, all came originally from the Orient.

Those dreamy, hash-fueled reflections blew away like smoke that inspired them when our host entered.

Of average height, Hadad was a fleshy man, dark-skinned and bearded. He wore a snowy white thob, the nightgown-like long kurta, under an open robe of heavy raw silk. He wore a small fez-like hat even indoors and many rings adorned his plump fingers.

“My good friend, Sir Adrian,” Hadad cried in a deep, booming voice. He salaamed, his sweeping gestures loosing a powerful scent of patchouli from his garments. “You honor my humble establishment.”

“It is you who honor us, Hadad Efendi,” Adrian said, returning his salaam and then shaking hands, western-style. “Your renown as a connoisseur of female charms is well-known. I wouldn’t dream of consulting anyone else.”

“You are too kind. And this is the demoiselle?”

“Hadad, may I present Russet? Russet, Hadad iben Fouad al-Muta.”

I didn’t know the proper form, so I made a little bow, and it seemed to be acceptable. Hadad snapped his fingers and Abal tottered up and unfastened my hood, standing nearly on tiptoe to do so. She bushed it back and removed the headcloth and face veil as well, and even fluffed my slightly damp and sweaty hair out before she stepped back.

I shook my hair back, enjoying the flow of cool air, and at the same time feeling remarkable exposed. I blushed and cast my eyes down as Hadad walked all the way around me as though I was a piece of statuary.

“Charming,” Hadad murmured. “You permit? Open your mouth, my child.”

I looked to Adrian but he only nodded, smiling slightly. Helplessly, I complied and Hadad took my chin in his hand with the calm air of a man examining a horse for soundness. He peered in my ears and at my eyes, even lifting my hair from the back of neck.

“Clear eyes, sweet breath, and good teeth,” he pronounced. He released my chin and gave me an approving pat on the cheek. “She’s Inglezi?”

“American.”

“American!” Hadad seemed surprised. “She is biddable?”

“Not very,” Adrian admitted. “She argues rather a lot, but she’s learning.”

Before I realized what he was doing, Adrian took hold of the back of my khimir and whipped it over my head, stripping me naked in one motion, though I caught at the sleeves as they pulled over my wrists. Worse than naked, really, with the chains that ran from the collar to my wrists and ankles and the jeweled clamps on my nipples and the lips of my bare pussy.

“I see you have begun her training,” Hadad said, “but we must make a proper appraisal.”

He reached out and jerked the clips from my nipples by the dangling rings. I gasped, mostly startled, since it didn’t hurt all that much—until the blood began to rush back into the pinched flesh. I hissed at the pins-and-needles sensation.

When Hadad reached for the pussy clamps, I tried to back away but Adrian caught me by the upper arms and held me immobile. Hadad pulled the rings from my pussy lips more slowly; first out, so they drew my labia apart. He watched my face rather than my private parts until the clips slipped free and I jumped a little.

I wasn’t really struggling but Adrian tugged my arms back father, elbows towards each other, making me arch my back and thrust my breasts out. Convenient for Hadad, who massaged the dents from my nipples, tweaking them erect, and weighed my breasts in his hands, bouncing them a little as though testing ripe fruits.

I shivered as Hadad ran a hand down my ribs to my flank and flinched as he touched my genitals. Adrian bent me still farther backwards and nudged my bare feet apart with his foot, separating my legs. I struggled for balance, feeling the strain quiver in my thighs as Hadad parted my pussy lips, pinched my clit and slid a thick finger into my vagina.

“Her nether lips are plump, her pearl large and well-placed, and though she has been well-used, she is fresh and dewy,” Haddad commented. “Bend her.”

Adrian let my arms go and I straightened gratefully, but he immediately caught my wrist chains and hooked the cuffs to my collar. With my hands secured under my chin, he bent me forward and once again forced my feet apart. I struggled a little, protesting, and Adrian twisted up a fistful of my hair, forcing my head even lower until my ass was spread open, higher than my head.

Hadad stroked the inner curves of my bottom and I realized he was examining the suction bruises and love bites Adrian left earlier. I bit my lips and closed my eyes.

“She is good, that way?” Hadad asked.

“Untried, as yet,” Adrian said, “but promising.”

Hadad touched my anus and I squeaked.

“Steady, old girl,” Adrian murmured. “Be good or Daddy will spank.”

And I tried to obey until I felt Hadad prying my butt cheeks father apart. He wetted his fingers in my vaginal secretions and took me in the now familiar grip, but this time it was a stranger’s fingers in my pussy and his thick, stubby thumb that invaded my anus. I’d never had anything so large back there and I gave a muffled shriek as his thumb pushed through the initial resistance.