Chapter 25: Pauline

The Emir had been sleeping with his girl-friend in Oxford regularly for over a year and had more or less decided to propose, when he was suddenly and unexpectedly inherited the throne of Kobekistan. Naturally he wanted her to join him in Kobekistan, thinking that to be his wife and a Royal Princess would be much more attractive to her than being the wife of an Oxford mathematician. Life would certainly be more luxurious than she could ever have dreamed. He arranged for her to be brought to the Golden Palace from her home in Oxford in a carefully planned steadily increasing degree of luxury. She made her own way to the railway station, then had a reserved first class seat on the train to London. Her bags were carried for her by a member of the embassy staff at Paddington and she was put on the Heathrow Express, again in First Class. At the airport she was met by another of the embassy staff who escorted her to the VIP lounge where she became "Your Highness". A private jumbo jet on a flight designated as purple air lane then brought her to Kobekistan. This meant that it was treated as a Royal Flight and left when she was ready, and not to some predetermined schedule. The aircrew were told that she was very important to the Emir and she was treated as royalty. A closed limousine whisked her from the aeroplane direct to an enormous Golden Palace and there she was escorted by two very fat, very dark skinned men into a room with only three chairs in a large open space.

All this only served to confuse her. The first class train seats seemed a waste of money to her. The VIP treatment at Heathrow was embarrassing because she thought it was a mistake, and the jumbo jet all to herself frightened her. Now she was sitting in an ornately decorated room in a strange country and wondering what on earth was happening. Before she had time to work up a real panic the door at the far end of the room opened and her boyfriend came in. In her relief she completely failed to notice that the two attendants knelt and pressed their foreheads to the ground as her David walked over to where she was sitting. He gave a quick order in some foreign language and sat down beside her.

Turning to face her, he said, "Everything was done properly on your journey, I trust?"

She didn't know quite how to answer him.

Eventually she managed to stammer, "Yes, I think so, but there was nobody else on the aeroplane; I had it to myself and at Heathrow I was called 'Highness' and ... and what is going on? Where are we?"

The young man smiled, and said, "Nothing's going on. I inherited the 'plane along with the rest of my grandfather's things and it costs nearly as much to leave it sitting on the ground as when it is flying. This was my grandfather's palace."

"The rest of your inheritance?" she exploded, "You got a private jumbo jet with the rest of your inheritance? What else did you inherit? A few oil wells? The whole country, perhaps?"

"Yes, my grandfather was the Emir and I succeeded to the throne. This was his palace. The Emerald Palace next door was already mine; now the whole country is mine," he admitted.

The Emir felt slightly aggrieved; he was offering this chit of a girl from the back streets of Oxford the position of head wife in a royal harem and she appeared not to understand, indeed she only seemed angry. Just then Princess Zubeydeh came into the room and joined them. Pauline stared as the mother of her boyfriend knelt before her son and pressed her forehead to the ground. Coffee arrived, carried by another of the fat black men who seemed to be everywhere.

"Please, Mrs. Ransome, all this has to be some kind of practical joke, doesn't it? Why did you kneel before your son? I don't know how he worked it, but it has to be a trick. What is going on?" asked the bewildered girl, "He says he inherited the whole country?"

"Nothing is, as you put it, going on," Amelia replied, "He did inherit the throne, and here that means he owns the whole country. As to the obeisance, it is only polite while I am in Kobekistan to follow the customs of the country, and everyone kneels before the Emir, may he live for ever. Here I am called Princess Zubeydeh, rather than Mrs. Ransome, and my son is normally addressed as Master and referred to as the Emir. You are staying here in the Golden Palace in the harem during your visit. The Emir, my son, hopes you will like it here and agree to remain here as his wife. This is all as new to him as it is to you, or almost as new."

"His wife?" Pauline almost shouted.

"Well you have been sleeping together in Oxford for at least a year, and you came here at his suggestion, so I expect you know already whether you love him and want to marry him. Then if you like the country, and could cope with being a wife of the ruler of this land, I think he would be pleased."

"We hadn't talked of marriage, but I had thought perhaps ... Why can't he ask me himself?" Pauline demanded.

"My dear child, it is difficult for you to understand because you have no experience of this country. The Emir is all powerful here and perversely that sets limits on what he can do, or say. If he were to say, 'Off with his head, ' the person thus condemned would be executed in a matter of minutes in the public square. The Emir cannot ask favours of anyone, all he can do is command," said Princess Zubeydeh, "and my son, His Magnificence, the Emir Mahmoud Abdullah, may he live for ever, does not wish to command you to stay and marry him..."

"Well thank you David for your generosity not commanding me to be your wife!" Pauline interjected, looking straight at him.

The Emir did not move a muscle.

"As I said," Princess Zubeydeh continued, "So, I was the only possible go-between. All of his other advisors are men, and Arab men at that; they would expect to negotiate with your father, and certainly would not expect, or even countenance a refusal. When I married the late Prince, the Emir's father, it did not occur to him to tell me of our engagement and impending marriage, because he had agreed it with my father and he assumed I would be told of it by him."

The Emir stood up and his mother rose also. He stared at Pauline who had remained seated and one of the fat black attendants came over towards them. Waving the man away, the Emir, left the room without speaking.

After he had left Princess Zubeydeh sat down again and said, "He thinks he loves you, and he wants to resume where you left off in Oxford a fortnight ago. Specifically, he would like you to sleep with him tonight. You do want to marry him, don't you? You wouldn't have come here otherwise?"

"Well, I am not sure about marrying; I must admit I was looking forward to..." Pauline started, but broke off when she remembered she was talking to her boyfriend's mother. She had never dreamed of doing anything but hide their actually having sex together from her own mother.

"Come through to my suite, my dear. All this must be new and strange to you," the older woman said, consolingly.

In the inner area of the harem, Pauline marvelled at the beautiful gardens with trees, fountains and birds flitting among the branches, all under a high glass domed roof.

"The only thing I've seen that's anything like this is the Eden Project in Cornwall," she remarked.

"Yes, I know what you mean, but that was all modern and the plants were exotic. This has been here for two hundred years or more and the plants and birds are all local. I like to think this might be what the biblical Hanging Gardens in Babylon were really like."

As they walked in to the inner room there were a number of nearly naked women sitting about chatting, eating or just dozing. When they were spotted, some of the more daring of them came over and began to finger Pauline's dress. The Emir's mother snapped something at them in Arabic and all of them moved away except one, who was still looking at a perfectly ordinary English summer dress as though it were a totally alien garment. After a moment, Princess Zubeydeh said something quite harshly in Arabic and Pauline was amazed to see one of the fat attendants grab the girl by one arm and lash her across the buttocks with a short whip. The girl cried out in pain, but another word from Zubeydeh was sufficient to make him desist.

"What on earth was that?" asked Pauline, totally shocked at the brutality of the attendant.

"Nothing. She has to learn to behave, and to do as she is told; that's all."

"What did you tell her to do?"

"Leave you alone and move away because we are going to sit here," was the reply as Princess Zubeydeh suited her actions to the words.

"And for refusing to move away she was whipped?" asked Pauline, suddenly aware of the deep differences between England and Kobekistan.

Princess Zubeydeh shrugged, "She expected it. She knew she was trying it on, and now she knows the extent of my authority in the harem."

"Have ... has anyone ever ... whipped you?" asked Pauline hesitantly, at once fascinated and horrified.

"Of course. It happened years ago, when I first arrived here and refused to be shaved. I was whipped to make me aware that it was not my decision to make," came the reply.

"They wanted to shaved your hair off?" asked the younger woman, putting a hand up to her head and looking thoroughly puzzled.

"Look at the women in here, between their legs!" said Zubeydeh nodding towards the group of women still openly staring at the two westerners.

"Oh. That does look so odd. I'd read about it, of course, but to do it. What does it feel like to be naked down there?" inquired a fascinated Pauline.

"It feels good, and clean, and right when I am here," Princess Zubeydeh replied, and then reverting to her English personality added, "I don't know what my husband will say when he finds out."

"You've been shaved?"

"Yes, of course. Unless you really impose yourself on them, the bath attendants will shave you whenever you are bathed. You should try letting them do it tonight, you might find you like it," offered the older woman, guessing that the young girl was at the stage of her life when she wanted to try everything.

"Do the men do it? Are they the bath attendants, I mean?" was Pauline's next nervous question.

Princess Zubeydeh laughed aloud as she said, "There are no men in here, these creatures are all eunuchs; but no, the bath girls attend you, though the odd eunuch may be around. None of the slaves count for anything, you don't even notice them. You will be surrounded her by servants for everything, to dress you, undress you, bathe you, brush your hair, apply your make-up, everything; they almost try to feed you. It will surprise you how soon you will get used to that; inside a couple of days, if you drop something you will find yourself looking round for a servant to pick it up."

"You said eunuchs, does that mean they have been ... that they don't have... ?" asked Pauline.

"Yes, none of them have any testicles. Some have working penises and some of the women use those. They are also used to train younger women and daughters in the harem. Their families usually arrange for the eunuchs to be castrated when they are quite young. It is an excellent career move for the sons of the poorer families and they are extremely well paid by Kobekistani standards," came the reply which shocked Pauline into silence.

Princess Zubeydeh stood up and together they wandered through the huge harem glass-roofed garden with its luxuriant trees and small pools. Here and there larger pools were obviously used as baths, some for swimming and others for ablutions. There were little knots of women here and there who all turned to stare at two women dressed in western attire. Naturally they knew all about the mother of the Emir, but the focus of attention was the young woman with bobbed mousy hair and a pale complexion who had to be the Emir's wife-to-be from England. It never occurred to any of them that Pauline might refuse to marry him.

"Who are all these women? Do they live here?" Pauline asked when they came across another two women sitting doing nothing by one of the pools.

"They are member's of the Emir's harem. Some have been bought for him, others were given by their fathers or owners who want to impress the Emir."

"Bought? Given? Owners? I don't understand."

"All women here belong to someone, in a much more real sense than you belong to your father. In England until you are sixteen your parents really do own you; they decide where you live and what you wear and what you eat and where you go and when you do things. Here that control continues for ever. In England we say that a father 'gives' his daughter in marriage; here it is literally true. Poor families sell their daughters at an auction. Owners sell slaves. Rich men give women as presents. It really isn't much different from England in Victoria's time," explained Zubeydeh.

"How do they pass the time all day?" Pauline asked, "Do they work?"

"They don't really do anything much all day," Amelia explained, "Of course, they can eat sweetmeats all day if they want, but those lovely rolls you will have a chance to try at lunch soon become boring. Mostly they just sit. Sometimes two will pair off for a session on a bed somewhere, but the eunuchs discourage it. Their only work is in the Emir's bed."

"Pair off for a session on a bed?" Pauline asked, "You mean with each other? Lesbians?"

"They aren't really lesbians, just bored," Amelia said sadly, "Don't forget most of them will be lucky to spend more than one or two nights a year with the Emir."

"With David?" Pauline sounded shocked.

"Pauline, this is his harem now. He can sleep with whom he likes, whenever he likes. He will have someone in his bed every night. Tonight it will be you, last night it was Maryam, the girl in the blue pantaloons over there, tomorrow night it could be anybody."

"Why do these women let this happen? Why are they willing to give up a normal life, outside, for this life of utter boredom. Don't they even go shopping?"

Zubeydeh shook her head at the naïveté of the girl,

"There is no such thing as a 'normal life' in that sense, here in Kobekistan," Amelia explained, "This harem or another one is all they have and for most of them it is all they can imagine. They have never had any contact of any kind with what you think of as civilisation, there are no cinemas, in the harem there are no TV or even radio sets. If you took one of them, Maryam say, and put her down in Harrods smartly dressed she would most likely die of fright."

"All the woman in the country are virtually prisoners under house arrest?" persisted the younger woman.

"Not all," said Zubeydeh, "There are much worse fates available. Some are in brothels, and some work as draught animals on farms, pulling ploughs and so forth."

"But are they all nearly naked all the time? All the women in the country?"

"Not all. Field hands, the kitchen people here, the bath girls, all the lower slaves wear some form of abaya like the one you wore from the airport, though often they are more like smocks indoors. In the harems there are only small variations on nakedness, but mostly near nudity is the rule. My husband's harem women wore only skirts made of inch wide strips of chiffon hanging about twelve inches from a waistband; my brother-in-law's tastes, I am told, ran to totally sheer smocks. This is the dress my father-in-law favoured and the Emir is thinking of changing to silk shortie dressing-gowns. It is all done to emphasise the sexual availability of the women."

"But don't the women object to being purely sex objects?"

"Nobody asks them about that, and if they were to complain they would just be whipped, not that the idea would even occur to most of them. They have known nothing else," the older woman commented wryly.

This conversation served to confirm Zubeydeh's initial doubts as to whether Pauline could adapt to the life-style of an Emir's wife. Nevertheless she resolved to give the girl every chance.

"So will you sleep with him tonight, please?" she asked.

This world was so strange that Pauline was not struck by the oddity of a boyfriend's mother asking her to sleep with the son. She was worried more by the dangers of being whipped than by the propriety of Zubeydeh pimping for the Emir.

"If David, the Emir, gets upset with me, what will he do?" Pauline desperately wanted to know.

"What will he do, or what could he do?" countered the older woman.

"Both. I want to know the risks I am running just by being here."

"He could do anything at all including having you executed in public, and it would be legal here, and it would not cause any real trouble in the West," said Zubeydeh trying to be honest, "If you are asking me what I think he would do, I think he would just send you home. If he were very angry he might send you tourist class instead of private jet. A woman alone in tourist class on Air Kobekistani does not enjoy the journey. Don't quote me though. Emirs are notoriously unpredictable."

She forbore to add that in the latter case he would probably have her whipped or humiliated in some way first.

"Do I have to decide now, or can I think about it for a bit, please?" Pauline asked in a distinctly worried tone of voice.

"Take your time, they won't start to prepare you until this evening. Even then you can say 'no' at the last minute, unlike these," Princess Zubeydeh nodded towards the concubines again.

Then seeing the look of consternation on Pauline's face she added, "I don't think you'll mind the preparation before you go to bed too much. Think of it as a beauty treatment by some of the best experts in the world and just be glad you don't have to pay for it."

Pauline thought for a few moments, then turned to Zubeydeh again and asked, "What if I did marry him; what would happen?"

Princess Zubeydeh took a deep breath and tried to give a fair impression of the life of an Emir's wife.

"You would be expected to bear his first child as soon as possible, and preferably a boy. If all goes to plan, that child becomes Crown Prince and you become queen bee in this little hive. I would have to move out of the best suite and it would become your private kingdom. Even the Chief Eunuch would have to be polite to you."

"But ... but I would get to sleep with him all the time if I was his wife, wouldn't I?" asked the troubled girl close to tears, "He would send all these women away, or at least not sleep with them?"

"I will be honest with you," said Amelia, "It is only fair to say that I slept with the Emir's father only once after our son was born, and that was in almost four years until his death."

"Oh," said Pauline in a small empty voice.

"Please don't reject him out of hand. Sleep with the Emir tonight and discuss it with him; maybe an English upbringing will have made a difference and your relationship will still be the same."

She could not bring herself to say that in a fortnight the Emir had slept with, or at least had sex with a dozen or more different members of his harem. Privately she knew that her own reaction to him as Emir was very different from her reaction to him as her son David. Zubeydeh was very frightened of where all this was leading; frightened and yet curious and excited. She had all but forgotten the very different world of harem life in her humdrum existence in England. She found herself as interested in who was chosen and who was not as if she had been in competition herself for the Emir's bedroom favours.

Lunch included some lamb chops which were served with extremely toothsome Brussels sprouts.

"How is it that enjoyed that lunch so much?" asked Pauline, "I normally hate sprouts but here they were lovely, and some of the other vegetables I couldn't identify. Why can't people cook like that in England?"

Another chance to emphasise what was happening to the younger woman was seized by Zubeydeh.

"I fancy that you might get as good in Buckingham Palace," she said, "The Emir likes sprouts, so somebody was sent to learn from a top chef in England just exactly how to prepare them."

"Well yes, at Buckingham Palace, but..." started Pauline and then broke off.

After a moment she added quietly, "Oh, I see. It really hadn't sunk in that way you know. He is the King, isn't he? And people will do things for him the way people do for our Queen?"

"Yes," said Zubeydeh, "my son has become the King here. Tonight you sleep between silk sheets bearing the royal crest of the Emir of Kobekistan. You could be Queen here for the asking. It is a terrible responsibility; not sleeping with the Emir, any little tart could do that. The responsibility is raising the next Emir and training him until he is old enough to go to school. Usually boys stay in the harem with their mothers until they are eleven or twelve. Tutors teach them their lessons, but the mothers teach them to be men and to be Emirs."

The dessert course arrived while Pauline was contemplating this, and consisted of a selection of the promised pastry rolls apparently filled with Shredded Wheat and liberally soaked in honey.

"These are lovely, but I dread to think what they will do to my figure," Pauline remarked as she ate her third.

"That is the idea of giving you so many. The Chief Eunuch evidently thinks you are too thin. After coffee we can stroll out in the gardens and you can see what they did to Davina's figure. She looked a bit like you when she first came here I understand."

As they strolled through the gardens again Pauline was set to wondering at the heavy sexual overtones of the harem. True the wall decorations were all pictures of sexual positions, as though someone had been given the Kama Sutra and been told to illustrate it in mosaics on the walls. True, she was surrounded by nearly naked women. Nonetheless she thought it very odd that she had talked so openly with her boyfriend's mother about sleeping with her son. Even the marriage talk seemed highly sexually charged. None the less, she decided, she would keep her secret to herself.

Just then a tall thin blonde, or at least bottle blonde girl rushed up to them Although she was dressed similarly to the other harem women, she was much thinner than most of them. Grabbing Pauline by both hands she began to plead with her at a hundred miles an hour.

"Pleaseyou'vegottohelpme," she began, then calming herself a little she continued, "I'm an American citizen and I was kidnapped. I demand that you take me to the US Embassy..."

Princess Zubeydeh interrupted her cruelly, "Shut up Fatima. Pauline is English, she is not a diplomat and you can't go to America."

Ignoring this, the girl continued to shout at Pauline, "My name is not Fatima; it's Laura Goldblum. Don't believe what they are... "