Part 6: Accounting Advice

The UK Foreign Office managed to slip an ‘Accountancy Advisor’ into a particular bit of an agreement which had been accepted inadvertently as it was buried in a multi-page agreement which had not been properly analysed by one of Abd-al-Hadi Ibn Wajih’s assistants. When the advisor’s arrival was announced there was there was initial consternation.

However it was agreed in Kobekistan that any advice he offered could be ignored and the policy could be, “Show him our ways and insist that nothing can be changed. If necessary say that this is the wish of His Magnificence Mahmoud Abdullah, may he live for ever. All we need to do is keep them apart so that His Magnificence, may he live for ever, never expresses a wish to the intruder one way or another.”

Chapter 46: Vacancy

Derek Pullman was a fairly junior member of staff of THMA, one of the largest firms of accountant and management consultancies in England, even of Europe. He had just lost his live-in girl friend to a predatory senior partner and was contemplating a change of career.

The vacancy which most caught his eye was an internal THMA one to work on a Foreign Office assignment in one of the Gulf Emirates. He had studied accountancy and languages at University because he had shrewdly assessed the toll the Diplomatic Service had taken on his parents, and especially the strain it put on their marriage. Nine to five, five days a week in an office would suit him nicely. A house with a garden, an expensive car, a suitable wife, and two point four children sounded like heaven, but now the chance of achieving that dream with Helen had been shattered by Bob’s treatment of him and he just wanted to get away from England for a while.

He telephoned the Human Resources department and explained his interest, and that he thought his knowledge of languages, especially Arabic, would be useful. He guessed from their enthusiastic response that this was not a popular posting, and that his Arabic made him a prime candidate. They arranged an interview the next day, in London, with James Henriques, the Partner in THMA who was in charge of the project.

The next afternoon it quickly became apparent that he had already got the posting, if he wanted it.

“Have you been out there? To Kobekistan? What is it like? Any tips?” asked Derek, excited by the prospect.

James’s measured reply was, “Yes, I went out there. It is hot, but everywhere is air-conditioned. Life feels odd; it is ... sedate is the word, I think. Everything is very orderly, but at the same time it is not regimented. If you do get this posting the one man to be very wary of is Hajji Darwish Dosmukhamedov, who is sort of Economics Minister. He is very old and has officially retired. His number two, one Abd-al-Hadi Ibn Wajih is very firmly under his predecessor’s thumb although the old Hajji must be well into his seventies, but his mind is as sharp as they come. He will bumble into a meeting like a senile old sheep, but don’t be fooled.”

“Anyone else I should watch out for?”

“The Emir, of course; His Magnificence, the Emir Mahmoud Abdullah, may he live for ever, to give him his full honorific, but it’s unlikely that you will ever see him, much less speak to him. Now go and find out all you can about Kobekistan and come back here when you know whether you want to go there.”

It was in a travel guide for businessmen that the only description of Kobekistan was to be found, and that was very florid indeed. Evidently this had been written by someone who thoroughly approved of the regime in the country. Derek was particularly impressed by the attitude to women. He had long been of the opinion that women were created by God for the reasons given in Genesis, to be a helper to man. In his opinion, though he would never dare to voice it, that did not include women being made managers in businesses, nor ‘wearing the trousers’ at home. He also thought that the nudity of Eve before the fall was woman’s natural state and she should remain that way whenever the climate made it possible.

By dint of some really deep digging he assembled a file of recent Kobekistani history which might be pertinent to his visit and which told him that the Emir, His Magnificence Ibrahim, who had reigned for forty-six years, and his heir Crown Prince Gamel had been travelling together, which was unusual, in one of the Emir’s private airliners on the way back from a trip to Monte Carlo in 2003, some twenty-odd years earlier. The chauffeur delegated to collect them at the Kobek International Airport was a little over-enthusiastic and raced along the runway after the aeroplane. Air Traffic Control spotted it and panicked. The military also panicked and ordered the pilot to take off again, fearing an assassination attempt. The pilot did his best, but was short of room and as the aeroplane tried to take off, it hit the lights at the end of the runway and cart-wheeled into an expensive shambles of broken and burning metal.

Some days later the new Emir, His Magnificence Mahmoud Abdullah (known in England as David Ransome) arrived in Kobekistan from Oxford University where he had been studying advanced mathematics. Now, because of the odd succession laws in force the Emir was succeeded by his grandson. The order of precedence among the living grandsons was determined solely by the age of the grandson, and not by the seniority of his father’s birth. The boy was the son of the late Prince Abdullah and his English first wife. Soon after her husband had died playing polo, the mother had left Kobekistan taking her son with her back to England, where he had lived from the age of four until his accession at twenty-three.

Armed with this information he went back late that afternoon to see James Henriques and asked formally for a posting to Kobekistan. It was explained that the UK Foreign Office would be overseeing the work, but that it was unlikely that a better candidate would appear so James agreed to arrange an interview as soon as possible.

“It will be the usual sort of thing, we propose to assign you to this project; the client, in this case the British embassy in Kobek city, interviews you and accepts. It’s a formality, but an essential one,” James reassured him.

Derek assumed that his interview would be at the quaintly named Foreign and Colonial Office in Great Charles Street in London, but James’s secretary casually handed him a first class return ticket from London on the following Monday’s flight to Kobekistan, returning the day after. He would spend, he saw, some fourteen hours flying in less than a day and a half, with the minor matter of a crucial client interview in the middle.

Chapter 47: Interview

On the Air Kobekistani flight out, Derek was impressed by the service, which was far better than anything he had ever had before. He seemed to have a stewardess to himself, and only had to look round for her to rush to see what he wanted. Her uniform was similar to that of any air hostess, but the skirt was shorter than most, showing her bare legs to great advantage. The blouse bearing her name, Shafiqa, embroidered on it seemed to be a size too large for her and she was obviously wearing no brassière. Every time she bent over to put a coffee, or a drink or his food on the small table in front of him the neck of the blouse gaped, giving him a perfect view of her plump breasts, often letting him see where the olive skin changed to the dark areolæ surrounding prominent nipples.

It was an odd aircraft, in that some of the First Class seats were surrounded by curtains, offering, he supposed, privacy for VIP passengers. He spent most of the journey preparing a short presentation explaining why he was the perfect man for this task. When he accidentally touched the stewardess’s leg on one occasion, she turned so that his had slid on to the undercurve of one arse cheek, and then smiled at him. He snatched his hand back as though it had been bitten, but she gently replaced it on her arse for a few moments before moving away with another dazzling smile. If he had not been so preoccupied with preparing for his interview, he might have tried to chat her up.

When they landed he was met at the bottom of the steps from the aircraft by an air-conditioned Embassy car and whisked away.

Within an hour of landing he was being interviewed by the British Ambassador, Sir Ian McDonald, KCMG, in person. Derek was ready with his prepared presentation, but from the first few exchanges it was clear that he had already been approved for the post.

The only moments which might have been regarded as a test came in the first minute when the Ambassador switched to Arabic to ask, ~Where did you learn to speak the language?~

~My parents were in the Diplomatic Service, and made sure I learned a number of languages, sir, ~ he replied.

~When you first come into contact with the locals, do not let them know that you understand their language. They will assume that you don’t understand it, and you may glean some useful information before they find out, ~ advised the older man.

Switching to English, he continued, “Who were your parents? Pullman, I knew a Pullman in Riyadh in ‘15.”

“My father, sir.”

“Kept himself to himself. We all thought he was a spook.”

“No, sir. He was just rather ... reserved.”

The Ambassador laughed, “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” he quoted, hinting that Derek himself was being cagey.

“You might say that. I couldn’t possibly comment,” replied Derek, in another quotation beloved of the Civil Service which he knew would be taken as an admission that his father was indeed one of the diplomats who reported also to the Intelligence Services. This was a calculated risk. Many Foreign Office staff admired such people, but a few resented them.

“You’ll go far, young man. I can see that.”

They chatted about the work Derek was to do, which concerned the local accounting practices Derek was to convert to English standards and then get the costings agreed by the Kobekistanis to allow the joint project to go ahead. The actual project concerned some civil engineering projects. That evening he dined in the Embassy mess with some of the staff who also hoped to be working on the project. It transpired that he would be the only consultant working there, and as such was treated with considerable respect.

Chapter 48: Back To The Embassy

It was all a mad rush, after the interview on the Tuesday in Kobekistan and then straight back to London, but Derek was packed and ready to take the flight back out there on the Thursday to start the work. Evidently he had been marked as a frequent flier in some computer somewhere, since the first thing the stewardess did after take-off was draw the curtains round his seat and ask if there was anything he needed.

That was when he learned that it had been too much to hope that he would see the same stewardess, Shafiqa again so soon, and the girl on duty confirmed that she was already back in Kobek city and off duty.

“When did you meet her, master?” asked the woman.

“Oh, she was on the flights out Monday and back Tuesday,” he said.

The stewardess nodded, “We were told you had been to Kobekistan once this week already. That’s as often you could possibly fly, twice in a week, the Master must be a very important man.”

“Are you always on this route?” asked Derek, storing up the information in the hope that he could work out when he might see Shafiqa again.

“It is complicated, Master. It takes seven weeks to complete the rota and we have eight crews working. But you need never worry, Master; one of the staff will always please you in any way you wish.”

And so it proved when she pleasured him with her mouth.

Returning on the Thursday was convenient as he then had the Friday to settle in before starting work on the Saturday, the first working day of the Kobekistan week, or so he thought. In fact he had better acclimatisation time than that, because most of the Kobekistani civil service worked only three days a week, taking both the Muslim and the Christian week-ends off.

This meant that he had three days to wait before he could talk to the Kobekistani end of the project. He asked Sir Ian if he could read up on the project, and a very small pile of papers was passed to him.

“I don’t think we have really managed to communicate with London on this one,” the Ambassador said, “They don’t seem to understand, but you, with your background and command of both languages will find it easy, no doubt.”

Taking the papers back to his own small flat in the embassy complex, Derek looked at them with increasing disgust and realised that he would have to start again. The Ambassador had been handling the matter and had essentially started to put together a case for London changing to Kobekistani standards of accounting. Then he recalled Sir Ian saying that he hadn’t really managed to communicate with London. From his teens he remembered his father complaining bitterly that an ambassador had ‘gone native’. When Derek had inquired what he meant, he said the man had forgotten that he was His Britannic Majesty’s Government in a part of Great Britain which just happened to be hosted in a foreign country, and had started to think that he was responsible for urging the local country’s ideas on London.

Deciding that there was no profit to be made from studying the useless papers on the Railway Project, Derek wandered down to the mess, where Beryl, the pretty girl he had met on Monday night, was having coffee, alone.

Derek took a coffee himself and walked over to her, asking, “I wonder if you can help me?”

She gave him a look that made him feel as though he could not possibly have a problem she could not solve, and replied, “Perhaps.”

“I was wondering what there is to see and do in Kobek. What do people do in their spare time?”

The answer was a distinct put down; as she rose from the table, leaving a half-drunk coffee behind, she said, “I wouldn’t know where the commercial people amuse themselves. We on the diplomatic side make our own amusements.”

‘Well,’ thought Derek as he admired her retreating wiggle, ‘That puts me in my place. I take her to mean that there’s no chance of her showing me round, and still less chance of a shag tonight.’

Chapter 49: The Golden Palace

Derek had been in Kobekistan about six weeks, and was beginning to feel fairly confident about the work he had been asked to do. Basically it consisted of translating everything that was being done into proper English rather than the somewhat fractured English of the Kobekistani staff. The accounting procedures, he was pleased to see, turned out to be very similar to those in England. He was also surprised to see that the legendary Middle Eastern baksheesh did not seem to be a custom in the city of Kobek.

Derek was in the Golden Palace for a meeting with Hajji Darwish Dosmukhamedov, the de facto minister of finance and trade, though he was nominally only a retired advisor to the Emir. The two had developed an excellent working relationship which showed signs of warming to something approximating friendship; at least coffee had become the first order of every meeting, and business was always postponed until the proper enquiries had been made as to their mutual health and well-being.

They were just finishing their third, or was it fourth, tiny cups of the local very strong sweet coffee when a middle aged Kobekistani wearing a Western suit came into the room and Hajji Darwish Dosmukhamedov did his best to make full obeisance. Derek, not having any idea who this man was, followed suit, on the basis that it was better safe than sorry, and this man must be important to cause an old man of at least eighty to kneel.

~Foak, ~ said the newcomer and the two men rose to their feet, or rather Derek rose to his feet, then helped Hajji Darwish Dosmukhamedov to struggle to upright.

“You are unusual,” said the newcomer, “Few westerners understand Arabic.”

“Master,” said Hajji Darwish Dosmukhamedov, “May I present Derek Pullman, of the His Britannic Majesty’s Government.”

It was when he said this that the penny dropped for Derek. There was only one man whom the Hajji would address as Master.

Derek bowed, and said, ~May Your Majesties live for ever.~

“Somewhat less than perfect Arabic, or at least, less than perfect protocol,” the Emir remarked in English, “Never mind but I am not a Majesty, I am a Magnificence; and, unlike His Majesty King George VII, I am not plural, even in formal documents.”

There was a short silence as Derek wondered whether he should answer, and if so, what on earth to say, then the Emir said to the Hajji, ~I meant to ask you about the Tirfil business, but it can wait, ~ and he swept out of the room.

“That was His Magnificence Mahmoud Abdullah, may he live for ever, our Emir for the last twenty-five years,” said the old man, “As you can see, he still rushes about, and concerns himself with everything. The matter of Tirfil is totally unimportant compared to our Project.”

Just then the telephone rang and the Hajji answered it.

He listened for some moments and then said, ~As the Master wishes, ~ and replaced the receiver.

“Well, I have to deal with Tirfil first, so our business will have to wait. I suppose we’ll have to start again tomorrow afternoon,” the old man said grumpily, “And he wants to have dinner with you, tonight. If you arrive at eight someone will show you where,” he said to Derek.

When he got back to the Embassy, he asked the Ambassador what he should do.

“Do? You do what you are told, boy,” snapped the Ambassador, “If the Emir wants you for dinner, he gets you for dinner.”

Derek had visions of a large casserole full of choice cuts of Englishman.

Sir Ian continued, “Black tie. Don’t be late. The delay of a day on the work is unimportant compared with such an invitation. Don’t forget, you are there in a private capacity. Do not commit the Government to anything. Try to use the correct knife and fork. Never touch food with your left hand. Pass the port to the left. I assume you are house trained?”

“I hope so, sir,” said Derek as it began to dawn on him that he had better mind his p’s and q’s at this dinner; he had never dined with royalty before.

Chapter 50: Dinner

The moment the Embassy car dropped Derek at the main entrance to the Golden Palace, no side doors for this visit, he was escorted by an obsequious guard through the Throne Room and to a door behind the dais. From there a eunuch escorted him along a corridor into a large, well-appointed dining room whose walls were decorated with beautiful fine mosaics depicting a variety of scenes of sexual excess.

The Emir rose from the table and said, “Good. I’m glad you could come. There is something I want to talk to you about.”

“Yes, Your Magnificence?” said Derek, “How may I help you?”

“Oh, later will do for the business talk. I’m quite hungry. Let’s eat first.”

Derek had little choice but to agree; the last thing he wanted was to appear rude. The conversation mostly ranged over Derek’s background, and his life as an undergraduate. It seemed that the Emir was comparing it with life as a student twenty-five years earlier.

As they chatted, Derek began to relax, and finally dared to ask something he had been wondering about, “I understand that you were surprised to succeed to the throne, sir?”

“Yes,” said the Emir, “It was a complete surprise; not just the sudden death of my uncle and grandfather, but that I was ever realistically in line to inherit.”

“Surely you must have know that?”

It was out before Derek could bite his tongue.

The Emir was quite unperturbed, and continued, “I thought that the line of succession would be similar to the English one but in the male only lines of course. The heir would be the eldest son, then his sons, then their sons, then on to the next eldest son, his sons and so forth. Like that I have worked out that I was sixth in line, since my uncle Gamel was still alive and he had two official sons and a grandson, and then there was the one official son of my late uncle Ali, then me. However, it doesn’t work that way. When the Emir dies his eldest surviving son inherits. If he has no surviving sons, his grandsons are all treated as equals and the eldest of them inherits. So when my uncle Gamel died before my grandfather, I went from sixth, not to fifth but to heir apparent, then my grandfather died a day or so later. At least that was the official version. I have often wondered how accurate that was.”

The total visibility of the waitresses’ bodies was partly explained when the Emir reached out and stroked one breast of the woman who had just served him with his third repeat portion of roast duck.

Looking up and seeing Derek watching, the Emir said, “Feel free to help yourself to the women. It is what they are for, but it is considered bad form to move from the table and copulate during meals.”

Hearing this, Derek almost choked on his food, but a few minutes later he stroked a conveniently placed buttock. The waitress immediately froze in place until he released her, whereupon she continued serving as though nothing had happened. After that he cupped a breast of one of the others and found that, as he had thought, she was really rather fat by Western standards.

It was during the eighth, or perhaps the ninth, different course that the accident happened; Derek couldn’t remember the exact details of each course afterwards, there were so many of them. What happened was that one of the serving girls, a fairly ordinary looking olive skinned, plump woman, whom Derek judged to be about his own age, bumped into another serving girl as she backed away, and spilled some wine on the Emir’s shoulder.

She gave a horrified gasp and everyone around the Emir froze for a timeless moment. Derek thought he could understand their being upset; it is very embarrassing to spill anything on a diner when serving at table, doubly so if the person spilled upon is the ruler of the country, and in his own palace, and multiplied immensely by it happening in front of a guest. Derek’s accountancy oriented mind calculated that somebody was in for a serious ticking off. Just how little he understood the ways if the country whose Emir he now served indirectly was brought home to him by what ensued.

The unfortunate woman was dragged off to one side by two of the eunuchs who always stood round, but never did anything, while a third one dabbed ineffectually at the stain. The Emir stood up and stripped off his kameez and, to Derek’s surprise, by the time he had handed it to the eunuch, a clean one was passed to him. Within a very few weeks, Derek would come to understand and marvel at the time and effort spent by the staff of the Golden Palace in anticipating the Emir’s every wish. The amount of coffee made but not served to the Emir amounted to hundreds of gallons a year, just so that a freshly made cup was always available should he ask.

Whish ... THWACK!

The sound from Derek’s left was unmistakable, even for someone who had never witnessed a whipping before. The woman who had been so unfortunately clumsy was bent over a sort of low pommel horse he had not noticed before. Apparently she was not fastened to it in any way, but she did not make any attempt to escape the blows as a eunuch laid the stroke across her back with considerable ferocity.

Whish ... THWACK!

A dark red line, soon turning black appeared across her two arse cheeks, but a gasping intake of breath was the only sign of the pain she must be feeling.

Derek’s attention was drawn to the fact that every one of the eunuchs had one of these short whips in his belt, a fact he had not really taken in before, thinking them a ceremonial part of their dress, like the huge scimitars the palace guards carried. Those, he had been assured, would be dropped at the slightest sign of trouble and modern light-weight automatic weapons would be used to avert any danger to the Emir.

Whish ... THWACK!

His attention was dragged away from the sight of the servant being chastised when the Emir repeated what he had just said.

“I do beg your pardon, sir. What did you ask?” he said, embarrassed.

“I asked if you had not seen anyone punished before?”

“Not like that, sir. Not like that; a spanking is usually my limit.”

“Oh well, each to his own traditions. I too went to an English school with long traditions. But this incident serves to demonstrate exactly why you have been asked to dinner,” the Emir continued.

‘To watch a whipping?’ thought Derek, perplexed, but aloud he said, “In what way, sir?”

“The clean kameez which appeared in seconds when I needed one. I don’t know where it came from, or how many there might be dotted about the Palace. If I ask for coffee at any time of the day or night, anywhere, it is always there, freshly made, in less than thirty seconds. I have actually timed them on that one.”

Whish ... THWACK!

The Emir took another mouthful of duck and chewed ruminatively for a moment. Derek ate mechanically, fascinated by the punishment he was witnessing, and acutely aware of the raging erection it had occasioned.

Whish ... THWACK!

“Yes,” the Emir continued, “I would like you to stay on here, after whatever you are doing for Hajji Darwish Dosmukhamedov is finished, naturally, and go through the Golden Palace organisation looking for economies that might be made.”

Whish ... THWACK!

“It is not, you understand, that we are hard up, or anything like that,” he went on, ignoring the whipping completely, “I don’t like waste, however. While the coffee is a tiny but obvious example, and makes me feel every inch a powerful ruler of my country, there must be really significant sums of money being spent to no purpose whatever. I know that maintaining the three separate palaces when two of them are not occupied is a waste, but the Ruby Palace is to be the Crown Prince’s home when he returns from Harvard, and I have definite plans for the Emerald Palace.”

Derek moved uneasily in his chair, trying to ease the pressure of his trousers on his prick.

“Oh, sorry,” said the Emir, and waved to one of the women serving Derek, “You should have indicated your need.”

Immediately she dropped to her knees and crawled under the table, where she deftly opened Derek’s dress trousers and started to suck his prick.

Whish ... THWACK!

The Emir carried on as though it were the most natural thing in the world to be sitting at dinner with a woman under the table sucking one’s prick while another woman was receiving a severe whipping.

“What I had in mind was a serious look at some of our expenditures. For example, I learned that we have fourteen cars for my use here in Kobekistan, all Rolls-Royces, and each one is changed every year. They are specially made with fittings exactly as I like them, and I expect each one costs what I would have considered a fortune when I was a student. The one I used today had less than a thousand miles on the clock and is six months old. That is the sort of thing I mean.”

Whish ... THWACK!

Derek could not help thinking that this sort of elementary bean-counting study was a far cry from the complex project finances with which he was currently engaged, but the Emir soon put his mind at rest.

“Of course, you aren’t expected to do all the data collection or analysis yourself. The eunuchs would only lie to you anyway; they do that on principle, I sometimes think. What I need is someone to direct the project.”

Whish ... THWACK!

Derek stole a glance at the punishment bench, where the woman seemed to have become unconscious as blood trickled from some of the cuts inflicted by the whip. The sight caused him to come to crisis point in the mouth which was still expertly licking and sucking his prick. The Emir seemed not to notice the punishment at all.

“Of course, you would have to leave your present employment and become part of my staff. However, I think we can find enough inducements to make that acceptable to you.”

Whish ... THWACK!

The meal continued, to the accompaniment of the sounds of the whip rising and falling. Course after course arrived, all minuscule portions of perfectly prepared food. Wine accompanied the meal, but not in excessive quantities.

Whish ... THWACK!

Derek thought that this really was the way to live. Then it really hit home to him for the first time what was happening. He was having dinner alone, if you ignored the servants as everyone did, with the ruler of this country. It was the local equivalent of a private dinner at Buckingham Palace, and he had just been offered a job on the Emir’s private staff. He stopped with his fork in mid-air, and a eunuch rushed forward, thinking something was wrong.

Whish ... THWACK!

“Enough,” said the Emir, and the woman was half dragged and half carried from the room.

Several courses later, when he had eaten many tiny exquisite dishes, some which he did not recognise, Derek asked, “May I ask a very ... delicate question, Your Magnificence?”