Welcome to my shop. Please come in. Browse around, feast your eyes on the beauty, the work of human hands. Feel the quality of the warp and weft. The depth of the pile. Luxuriate in the quality that a Sultan would expect from his carpets. Where do they a come from? From all over the Middle East sir but the best of the best come from my natal city. A city of towering minarets, shadowy lanes and exotic souks. I, alas cannot return, my health you know, but my son! He visits and brings back word from friends, relatives and contacts. Plus he brings back these most excellent carpets.
You have? You have just returned from there? I envy you.
No, no, you must not say that. I do not look like the sultan. He is more handsome, more regal. Me? I am just a poor carpet salesman.
Ah, here is my son, he is far more knowledgeable about the stock, especially that which has newly arrived.
Ah, my son, you are a fine salesman. Our customer spent much money and took some fine carpets, he will be back I am sure. You do me proud.
He had a private interview with the Sultan? And had pictures? Now that is exceptional. He showed you? You have never seen the Sultan? Ah, a fine man. Regal and beneficent. He rules with wisdom and kindness and our business flourishes as a result.
The customer sent you a picture of the Sultan. I am sure that is not a wise thing to have. I look like him? Like a brother? Never. I am just a poor salesman.
That is his likeness? No, it cannot be. That is a picture you took of me. It cannot be, this is trickery. Digital nonsense. I will not tolerate it.
What do you mean, the customer says the sultan and I are brothers? Nonsense, where does he get this from? It is dangerous talk. I will not hear any more of it.
Don't say that. You cannot leave. I will be bereft without you. You are my life, my son, my last contact with my home.
I am not lying. Not covering up. No. Please. Wait. I am sorry. I will tell you all. Please shut the shop and ask your mother to bring us coffee and join us. It is obvious I need to tell you a story that I have not ever told and you, my beloved son deserve to hear it. In fact it is essential to your survival and I must confess that I have hesitated too long.
Please sit. Both of you. Are you comfortable? My story will take some time. Ah my wife you make the best coffee on the world. No, not flattery. Just the truth.
Yes I am hesitating. It is a hard story I must tell and I have kept it hidden for so many years that my tongue sticks on the telling of it.
The story starts when my father was young, wild and high spirited. He lived in the souk where his father sold carpets of high quality. His father's clients included the present sultan's father and much of the nobility of the land. Our family was rich and influential and were appointed carpet suppliers to the Sultan's court. A lucrative appointment it was.
My story starts with my father running, hiding, fighting, with his friends through the souk. High spirited he was and full of life. One day he was pursued by a posse of his friends, over walls, under tables around walking people, diving, rolling, jumping and running again. His friends wanting to throw him in the canal for his eighteenth birthday were rapidly closing in on him and so he was careless and, diving around a corner, he rolled further than he meant. You should have heard his story of that day! He was such a rascal, bless his soul. However back to the meat of the story. The dive roll took him right under the feet of a group of women and young girls. He ended up lying almost on the feet of the leading lady and her daughter. Realising his high spirits may have offended someone of quality, he jumped to his feet and executed a most perfect bow. Even his friends admitted that, under the circumstances it was a perfect bow.
Without looking up, he greeted the ladies solemnly and said, "It is my pleasure to have cleared a tiny bit of dust and dirt that might have soiled my lady's feet.
He was rewarded with laughter and he looked up into the eyes of the woman.
"You are kind and thoughtful, I commend you on your fast footwork and self-sacrificing attitude to your Sultana.
He bowed more deeply, "Apologies my lady. I did not mean to startle you."
The woman laughed, "You are a rascal and a handsome one too. Be more careful or I will have to have you thrashed."
"Yes, my lady." he said and backed away quickly but as he did so he looked up into her eyes and saw things there that an eighteen year old had only dreamt of seeing in a woman's eyes. And things that should not be there in the eyes of a queen. A woman inaccessible beyond his wildest dreams. He bowed again and raced away with the sound of her laughter ringing in his ears. He told me just before he died that she haunted his dreams almost every night thereafter and he sought her out in parades and visits to the palace, but he never saw her again. He suffered from what they call in the west a "teenage crush". She was a distant and impossible dream.
The years passed, soon he was a married man, helping to run his father's shop and, as such had no business dreaming about an inaccessible woman, but she haunted his dreams, she was the fantasy that he dreamt of when loving his wife.
The Sultan was becoming a source of gossip. He had only sired one child in his entire adult life and that a girl who could not follow him onto the throne. The women of the harem remained barren and the Sultana had produced but one child. The Sultan was ageing and the gossip said that he was no longer capable, that there would be no more of his line. He blamed the Sultana for everything and the word was that she was to be exiled or executed. The court was terrified as the Sultan's fury rose. My father feared for the distant goddess and prayed daily for her safety. It affected his life, his mind spinning out of control, his concentration only on the embattled woman he had fallen so deeply in love with so many years before. He feared for her life to the detriment of his own. Then his father died and he inherited the shop which continued to thrive under his skilful guidance.
Late one day with the sun setting, catching the glints off the golden minarets of the palace on the hill and sending them streaming into the souk, my father sat at the door of the shop waiting for the last of the customers to leave when a man in fine silken robes arrived. My father greeted him formally as he had not seen this man before and invited him in.
The customer hummed and hahed. Touched carpets, smelt warp and weft and slowly but surely moved to the back of the shop. My father followed him warily, not certain if he were some sort of cut purse or brigand. The man reached the back of the shop and before my father could stop him, pulled a kelim off the wall. He pulled a long thin stick out of his cloak and in one lightning strike he scraped the stick down the length of the wall leaving a glowing line on the wall. The man raised the stick once more, and touched it to the line he had inscribed and dragged it downwards, leaving an angled glowing line. He repeated the motion in the opposite direction. On the wall there was now, in glowing lines the outline of a door. The man tapped at the middle of the outline twice, thump, thump and suddenly there was a wooden door, a black iron latch holding it closed. He waved my father forward and, as if controlled from outside, my father walked forward, turned the latch and pushed the door open. The light on other side was as dim as the back of the shop had been so his eyes did not need to adapt.
The door slammed shut behind him and he was left looking down a long corridor. Fear froze him in place, he was unable to move, scarcely able to draw a breath. Then he heard footsteps. Someone in slippered feet was approaching, he turned to retreat back through the door, but the door was gone and he was faced by a solid wall.
"Come. Do not waste time trying to flee. We only have a short time."
He turned and found himself face to face with one of the Sultana's eunuchs.
"Come! Hurry!" the eunuch said and started to walk away, down the corridor, and, as if sleep walking my father followed the eunuch. Soon they stood at a richly ornate door and the eunuch knocked on it loudly. The door swung open and he was ushered into a richly appointed room with fine carpets on the floors and walls. Low flickering lights, soft music played and the smell of incense was everywhere made the room almost magical.
Soft hands undressed him, stroked him and caressed him. A beautiful woman guided him into a bath of scented water where he was washed by two women, one of whom ran her hand down his chest and onto his groin. He felt himself start to go hard under her hand ashamed he tried to pull away but the woman giggled and kept up stroking him.
"My lady will be well pleased tonight." said the woman.
They took him out of the water and dried him, their gentle stroking engorging his penis even more so that when they were finished he was fully erect. Then they led him to a curtained room and ushered him inside.
"My lady! He is ready and waiting!" a waft of giggles followed this announcement.
