Chapter 19: Shopping

Eventually he decided to purchase another, or perhaps some more women for his harem. It was quite something to think that he had a harem of his own. Nobody in THMA would believe that! Consulting his Chief Eunuch, he discovered that women could be bought quite cheaply at one or other of the frequent auctions, so he arranged to attend one. Naturally, in a country where a man's status depended on maximising the number of slaves in a household, a gentleman did not bid himself. He merely looked the available women over and indicated, by some secret set of signals, which ones he wanted at what price, and one of his eunuchs would do the exhausting work of raising a hand to do the bidding.

The auction house premises were crowded with potential buyers when he and the Chief Eunuch arrived. As a rich client, he was taken aside and offered coffee, or more daringly, alcohol. After a reasonable delay and some gossip, one of the staff indicated that he could be escorted to inspect the merchandise. His Chief Eunuch materialised from nowhere beside him. The first room to which they were led contained some very sorry and bedraggled specimens of humanity indeed, all kept in cages.

'Rather like a cattle market in England, ' Derek thought.

He wandered round rather aimlessly before asking, "Is there nothing better than these?"

The Chief Eunuch said something under his breath to the auctioneer and they were led to a side area, off the main block of cages. These contained rather better specimens and Derek became quite interested.

"How closely can I inspect these women?" he asked.

"Master, you may handle them as you wish. If you place a pre-auction bid on one you are allowed to try the woman out before the auction if you wish."

Wandering round, several of them caught his eye. One was a blonde white woman, who stood tall and imperious, but did not respond to Arabic or English. Derek decided to bid on her, but not to try her, or even to handle her.

A rather plumper very dark negress also caught his eye. Despite being very downcast, she tried to smile at him, and he felt sorry for her. She was brought out of the cage, and made no move to object when he weighed her breast in one hand and stroked her back and arse. Again he decided to bid for her.

The third one to attract his attention was a young looking Arab girl who was the daughter, it was claimed, of a merchant down on his luck, and was being sold to raise capital for the business. The Chief Eunuch explained that this was quite normal procedure in such cases. Derek decided to exercise his right to try her out, more out of curiosity about the process than desire for immediate gratification. The auctioneer's staff refused to allow it, despite his pre-sale offer of seven hundred and fifty Kobesti, which he worked out as nearly four thousand pounds sterling, on the grounds that she was a virgin.

He was surprised to see Shafiqa, the hostess from the airline, in the room of expensive, high quality women intended for harem use.

"Why are you here?" he asked, using English to maintain some level of privacy in their conversation.

"Master, the whole world knows that Air Kobekistani stewardesses all retire at the age of thirty. New ones are always being found and the passengers mostly want the youngest. I worked there for fourteen good years and now I hope I shall be bought for the private use of some rich man," she sighed deeply, "but I fear it will be the brothel for me, because there are so many young ones."