The head eunuch entered my quarters, bowed, and excused himself for arriving unannounced.

“Princess Jasmin, your father requests your presence at dinner tonight.”

“Does he?”

“He requests that you make yourself the most beautiful you can and also requests that you borrow some jewelry from your mother. As there are guests, you will be veiled and maintain a decorous attitude.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“I have been commanded not to tell you, Princess.”

I summoned my personal attendant, Nour, and told her to draw a bath for me and to lay out what she thought were my most beautiful clothes.

When the bath was ready, Nour removed her clothes to enter the tub with me, as she usually washed me.

“Not now, Nour. Much as I would enjoy the games we usually play as you wash me, the request to join the Sultan for supper is so unusual that I would not be able to participate and do us justice. So when I get back, join me in my chambers, and we will lie in each other’s arms tonight to pleasure one another.”

“Yes, Princess,” she answered with a pout.

When I turned sixteen two years ago, Nour was appointed as my personal attendant. Nour was a slave girl brought from Egypt and had a sweet personality. Over time, we went from a mistress-servant relationship and eventually became lovers. We were the same age and had taught ourselves the arts of Sapphic love.

In this mausoleum called the Topkapi Palace, we lived in a gilded cage, pampered and well cared for. However, the absence of men and living with the Sultan’s wives, concubines, and children was an environment bereft of joy. The bickering and petty jealousies, as well as the continuous jockeying for preference in the eyes of the Sultan, were constant and wearing.

I was somewhat sheltered from the chaos this caused as my mother was the chief wife of the Sultan, and since the passing away of the Sultan’s mother was the ruler of the Harem. I also was not concerned with winning a place in the Sultan’s bed, as I was his daughter.

Nour had laid out clothing on my bed. She had chosen filmy, azure translucent harem pants over a pair of tiny silk undergarments of the same color and a matching breast covering which left my stomach bare. This attire would be covered by an embroidered surcoat of rich purple brocade.

She worked on my hair and makeup, pulling my long auburn locks back into a braid, then applied blue kohl to accent my eyes and eyebrows in the Egyptian fashion. My hair was wrapped in a muslin scarf for proprieties sake.

My mother entered my chambers and stood there, examining me minutely. “Jasmin, you look magnificent. Here I have brought you this to wear,” she said, placing a jeweled tiara over my head covering.

“You smell wonderful too. Is that sandalwood perfume?”

“Yes, mother.”

“Your father will be pleased.”

“Mother, what’s the occasion? Why am I being asked to attend?”

“You’ll see. As your father wants to announce the news, I have been told not to speak about it yet.”

I entered the main salon with trepidation, not knowing what to expect. My father was lounging on a large divan and beckoned me forward. “Jasmin, my beloved daughter, come. I want to introduce you to the man who will be your husband as of next week,” he said, pointing to an older and unprepossessing man seated next to him. “Come meet Hassan, Caliph of Damascus.”

My jaw dropped at the news so abruptly announced to me, and I quaked at the sight of the dotard. He must have been more than three times my age and, by far, one of the ugliest men I had ever seen. He eyed me from under thick eyebrows and smiled, revealing yellow teeth.

“Come sit next to your betrothed and get acquainted,” commanded my father.

Mother, who had come in with me, sat next to my father and gave me a sad frown. I realized I would not get sympathy from her as she always submitted to my father’s will.

As I sat next to Hassan, his stench was overpowering. He smelled like meat that had been left to rot in the sun. I sat on the divan as far away from him as possible; however, he kept inching toward me until he was close enough to run his grubby hands over my arm.

“So what do you think, Hassan? Is she not as I described to you? Do we have a deal?”

I realized the match was a business transaction, and I was being traded for something my father wanted.

“Well, Sultan, I think so. However, I would like to see her in private for a few minutes and get the opportunity to examine her further. As the Romans said, ‘Caveat Emptor’ let the buyer beware.”

“Well, since you are now betrothed, I see no impropriety in that. Take my daughter to the small salon next door and talk to her. Jasmin, follow your fiancée and talk to him.”

I glanced at my mother, who gave me an encouraging nod, and meekly stood up and followed him to the adjoining chamber.”

My father signaled the court musicians to start playing as Hassan and I strolled into the adjoining room.

As soon as he had waved me into the room, he entered and locked the door pocketing the key. He rubbed his hands and gloated as he looked at me from head to toe. “Come here, bride-to-be,” he commanded.

At those words, I retreated as far as I could from him. He strode forward to me as I cowered against the wall. Reaching me, he spun me around, stripped the surcoat of my shoulders, and flung it to the ground. I could feel his eyes devouring my body, now mostly revealed under the translucent clothing I was wearing.

“Stop!” I shrieked, “Or I will call out so loud that the guards will come to investigate.”

“Ah! You have spunk. I like that. Cry out as you will. No one will hear you through those thick doors or the sound of the music. It is inspection time for you. Are you a virgin?”

“How dare you ask such a question?”

“It is my right as your future husband to know. But, no matter. I will find out for myself.”

With that, he spun me around so that I was facing the wall, and I felt his hand reach into my underclothes, where he inserted his fingers into my virginal vagina and started probing.

“Well, that seems fine,” he said, withdrawing his fingers. “Now, let’s check the back entrance.”

This time he inserted a finger into my anus and probed it while I struggled in his grip.

“Well, that is delightfully tight,” he gloated while my whole body was suffused with shame and rage. “I will delight in ravishing your holes once we are wed. Now show me your breasts.”

Before I could react, he reached into my top, mauling my breasts and pinching my nipples. I was speechless from the pain he was inflicting on me.

“You beast!” I hollered when he released me, “You are filthy slime. I can’t see why my father would agree to this match.”

“Well, that is the price he has to pay me to keep his southern border secure. Now, if you ever thwart me again or displease me in any way, I will have you stripped naked and flogged in front of my troops, who will then proceed to amuse themselves with your charms. Now straighten your clothing, and let us rejoin the festivities.”

When he left the room, I straightened myself out and went to the hall. I made a point to sit away from him. Then, seeing my father frown at my behavior, I told him I was not feeling well and asked if I might be excused.

When my mother spoke up, he turned to Hassan to ask him if I could leave. She recommended that I be allowed to go as it was a lot for me to digest in such a brief time. He nodded, noting that Hassan was already toying with one of the dancing girls, and gave his permission.

“Nour, what am I going to do?” I asked after telling her all that had happened to me in the past couple of hours.

“There is only one solution, Jasmin.”

“What’s that?”

“You must escape. Your father will never go back on his word to Hassan.”

“How can I do that? I don’t know where to go or what to do.”

“You must flee southeast or north to go around Hassan’s territory. I suggest you make your way to Egypt by going east then south. Once there, you can lose yourself in the multitudes of Cairo.”

“I can’t go alone. I wouldn’t know how to act out of the Seraglio. Will you come with me?”

“I can’t, Jasmin. I am but an enslaved person. If I were caught, I would be put to death.”

“Go to my desk. There is a sealed envelope with your name on it. Bring it to me.”

I unsealed the envelope she handed me, pulled out the parchment, and handed it to her. As she scanned it, tears welled out of her eyes, and she almost swooned. “I had meant to give you this next month on your birthday. Nour, you are no longer a slave. I have never thought of you as such. You are my friend, lover, and the most precious person in my life.”

“Thank you, mistress...”

“Not mistress, just Jasmin or on high occasions, Princess Jasmin,” I giggled. “Now, how do WE escape?”

“Horses, I think. Yes, that’s it. The stable master has enjoyed my favors in the past, as well as the head of the guard eunuchs. Poor man, he can’t perform but enjoys the body of a pretty girl in his bed at night. I will go and see what I can arrange. You start packing and make sure it is a light load. Get out of those clothes, and I will bring some men’s clothes to disguise ourselves. Make sure you pack all your jewelry and money as we will need them. I’ll be back soon.”

Within half an hour, she was back with two sets of men’s riding clothes such as worn by the Sultan’s messengers. We donned the clothes, proceeded to stuff the four saddlebags with our belongings, and crept out of my quarters and down the stairs to the doors of the Harem. The guards at the gates were asleep or feigning sleep. One of them opened one eye and winked at me.

Two horses were hitched to the balustrade in the courtyard. We mounted rapidly and started trotting away and out of the palace’s main gate. We were not stopped as it was common for the Sultan’s messengers to begin their journeys in the cool of the night.

The streets of Istanbul were deserted, and we were rapidly out of the city. We hired a raft to carry our horses and us across the Bosporus. Once on the other side, we headed east along the shores of the Black Sea. So we galloped, enveloped by the silence of the night. The only sound was the occasional baying dog in the distance and the clopping of our horses’ hooves.

Every bone in my body ached, especially my seat and thighs. The sedentary life of the Harem had not prepared me for this. Slowly the sky lightened with the coming of the dawn. We started to hear birds chirping, and our pace slowed as our horses neared their point of exhaustion. Nour led us towards a deserted sandy beach with an abandoned shell of a house hidden by a sand dune.

I collapsed to the ground as I got off my horse. My legs and thighs ached, and I struggled to get to my feet. An aroma of horse and sweat emanated from every pore of my body as I staggered into the house. It was a shell of a former home, but I figured it would be a place to sleep through the day out of sight to anyone wandering by.

Nour led the horses to a copse of trees where they could rest through the day’s heat and munch at the grasses that grew in the shade of the trees. When she returned to the hut, she dragged me to my feet.

“No rest for the weary?” I asked.

“Not yet, Jasmin. First, we bathe, and then we rest.”

We stripped off our clothes, and she helped me stagger to the water. I waded in the warm water until I was submerged to my chin. Then, to my amazement, I saw Nour propel herself through the water until she was ten yards further than where I was standing. “Nour! You know how to swim. Where and when did you learn to do that?”

“Jasmin, I am a daughter of the Nile. As a child, we lived on the river, and my brothers, sisters, and I spent our days in and around the water.”

I realized with shame that I knew nothing about her or her family. I had never asked her about her life before being brought to the palace as an enslaved person. A sense of guilt assailed me as I realized that we had been together for two years, and I had shown no interest in her other as my handmaid and playmate.

“Come join me,” she cried out to me.

“I don’t know how to swim.”

“Time to learn then.”

She came over and had me lay flat in the water while her hands supported my stomach. “See, you can float either on your tummy or on your back,” she said as she spun me around, so I was floating with her help on my back. “It’s not hard to float.”

“But I’m not floating. You are holding me up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes ... No, Nour, hold me, I’m afraid,” I yelled as I felt her hands leave my back.

“Don’t yell. Keep the air in your lungs; it will help you float. Here let me help. Take a deep breath.”

As soon as I inhaled, she leaned over me and kissed me passionately on the lips. As her tongue slid into my mouth, I sucked it in and wrapped my arms around her neck while still on my back. As she withdrew, I found that I was floating unassisted.

She then taught me to make my arms and legs move to propel me as I floated. Finally, after a brief time, we swam back to shore and returned to the hut.

“Time to sleep, Jasmin. We need to rest. We have many days of travel ahead of us. We will travel by night and sleep during the day.”

“Nour, I’m so afraid. My father will send troops after us to capture us and bring us back. We have no means to resist, and our punishment for our flight will be terrible.”

“You can’t worry about what you don’t know. They will not notice we are gone for many hours yet, and by the time they do, we will again be on our way. Besides, they don’t know which way we went,” she giggled. “we also do have the means to defend ourselves as befits two valiant warrior maids,” she said as she pulled out from her pack two wicked-looking kitchen knives. “Now eat this piece of dried meat, and then we will go to sleep after I give your sore limbs a massage so you can use them tomorrow.”

What started as a massage quickly became something more. We did not have the oils and creams that we typically used in the palace, and Nour’s mouth and tongue soon substituted for her hands. She kissed me softly before tracing her way down to my breasts. My nipples were as hard as desert stones, and she scraped her teeth over the delicate morsels before pulling and sucking on them with her mouth. I felt my pussy clench as I yearned for her to touch me there. I felt my juices well up from my core as she brought her fingers to play with my slight pussy lips before penetrating me.

Spreading my thighs, she crawled between them, and I could feel her pussy against mine. She scissored her legs with mine, and we rubbed against each other. The feel of her warmth and wetness sliding on me soon had me bucking my ass upward against her till we both came simultaneously. After that orgasm, things went blank as I fell asleep with a feeling of extreme well-being and her between my legs.

When I woke, it was dusk outside, and I was alone in the hut. Getting up, I realized I was still a bit sore, but not to the extent I had been when we got there. So I went outside, and Nour was swimming. She called out to me to join her, and I received my second swimming lesson along with a profusion of kisses, caresses, and ass pinches.

After a hasty breakfast of bread, cheese, and olives, we filled our water containers from a cold stream that ran past the hut and mounted our horses to continue our flight towards safety. We rode for four days along the coast, avoiding any villages. From time to time, Nour would leave me and ride into a town to purchase food and other necessities. We would ride on during the night and rest during the day. We often slept in the open air as we did not always find an abandoned hut.

I could feel my body gaining strength, and my state of panic lessened. Nour entertained me with her life history. She had been born in Egypt, the third daughter to the mayor of a village not far from Cairo. Her home was happy, and her father instilled in her a love of knowledge, teaching her to read, write, and do simple arithmetic.

At eight, she had been kidnapped by some slavers and transported by ship to Istanbul. There she had been put on the auction block to be sold to the highest bidder. By chance, one of the bidders at the auction was one of the black eunuchs, as the eunuchs born in Egypt were referred to. He was there to see if he could spot any woman he thought would be suitable to add to the Harem as a possible concubine for the Sultan.

A man in the market had started to molest her when Nour cried out ‘laa’ in Arabic, meaning no. The man laughed and kept pestering her. Seeing this and the fact she had spoken in Arabic, the eunuch had intervened, purchased her, and brought her to the palace. She was put to work for the Black Eunuchs as a servant. She washed clothes and cleaned for them. They noticed the girl’s intelligence and kept up her education until it came time to find a permanent spot for her. She had been recommended to my mother, who decided she would be my handmaid and study with me.

Nour had inherited the looks of the Greek conquerors of Egypt. She was dark-haired, and her skin was tanned but not dark. She was a beautiful woman with black hair, green eyes, and an elfin face. We were both slim and not overly large-breasted. Both of us had long legs and tight asses. We could have passed for sisters, but my ancestry came from Britannica. My mother had the same peaches and cream complexion typical of that part of the world. Unfortunately, she never discussed her past, so I had no idea if I was right.

After the fourth day, Nour decided that it was time to move away from the coast of the Black Sea and head towards the south. She thought we were far enough east to bypass the territory of Hassan. Moving inland, we faced small hills that seemed to go on forever. We tried to follow the course of streams that descended from the mountains and to always have enough water for the horses, but the going was now slower and more arduous.

“Nour, how long is the trip going to take?”

“Probably another month,” she said. “Until we reach the coast by circling Hassan’s lands and then go on to Egypt by ship.”

“A month!” I wailed.

“Well, I could cut corners, and we could ride across Hassan’s land and reach the coast faster.”

“A month sounds much better when put in those terms.”

The days followed each other with sameness. Unfortunately, as we rode at night, we could not see much of the land we were going through.

Early dawn of the tenth day, Nour halted suddenly and stopped to listen. She suddenly grabbed my horse’s bridle, led us into a copse of trees, and had me get off to hide in the brush.

“Horsemen,” she whispered, keep quiet.”

I now heard the approaching sound of horses. They were walking steadily, and I heard a man’s voice say, “They can’t be far. I think they know we are here and are hiding.”

“My father’s men?” I whispered to Nour.

“No. I think I recognize that accent. I think those men are Druze.”