Chapter 1: The Bey

What I remember most clearly from my first visit to the Bey is not the huge garden with its statues, fountains and flower beds, not the magnificent facade of the palace with its marble columns and its gold-covered turrets, not the grand staircase with its cordon of guards on each side, grim-faced motionless men in leather, their hands on their shiny swords, it is not the audience hall with its stained glass windows, its elaborately laid parquet floor, its precious carpets, its crystal flower vases, its gilded candelabra, its sumptuous upholstered chairs and benches, not the Bey’s exquisitely carved silver-studded ebony throne, and not the imposing figure of the Bey himself — all this I remember, but from my later visits, not many of them, always in the company of my father, first as a child, unnoticed by the Bey, later, when by breasts had started to form, eyed by him, with cursory interest, but never explicitly acknowledged, never spoken to. No, what I remember from this first visit is the girl.

My father’s meetings with the Bey always were private audiences, there were very few people present, one or two of the Bey’s advisors, a servant at a discreet distance, a few guards who kept to the background, after having searched my father for hidden weapons — at my first visit it certainly had been the same, but, as I’ve said, I do not remember it. I only remember her. Naked, of course. I think now that she must have been a recent present to the Bey.

Naked, slim, fair-skinned, small-breasted. All her hair was shorn, on her body and her head, even her eyebrows and her eyelashes. Both her arms were cut off at her shoulders. Her lips and her labia were sewn shut. She did not look deformed, though, the amputations and the sewing had been done carefully, with attention to her delicate beauty. She reclined, almost comfortably it seemed, utterly immobile, with one leg sideways to allow the viewer’s gaze to travel between her thighs, on a small rug-covered recamier. What I remember most about her are her eyes. Huge, dark, wide open, unblinking, they looked at me, her huge dark eyes looked into mine, and I looked back at her, my whole body as immobile as she was, for the whole time that my father and I stayed with the Bey, or so it seems to me in my memory.

Even then I understood that the Bey had made her a token not so much of his power, but of his spiritual sublimity, his elevation above the profanities of common human needs — he could afford, without missing something, without thinking twice, on a whim, to take away such a beautiful girl’s hands, mouth and vagina, to take away all her uses, to have his acceptance of her uselessness displayed. Only later did I understand that her suffering was her use for him. But even then, on this first visit, as our eyes locked, young as I was, I felt a strange stirring between my legs. I saw her only one more time, a few weeks later. I noticed the differences. She was still beautiful, but she had lost weight — restricted to liquid food, she was more skinny now than slim — but what had changed most were her eyes.

They were still huge but they were not dark anymore, they were bright, shining, sparkling, reflecting the dancing flames on the candelabra, and they were not looking into mine anymore. They were not looking anywhere at all, they had been replaced by exquisitely cut crystals. I do not remember if I kept looking at her, or if I turned my gaze away — maybe this audience only lasted a few minutes, as some of the later ones did — but I remember that when we left, before anyone could stop me, I walked over to her and ever so lightly touched her, with the tips of my fingers, on her thigh. And I remember that in this night, when I touched myself, I had my first orgasm.