Chapter 36: Dessert

As Henry reached the door to his stateroom he heard a woman's voice call, "Admiral Hargreaves."

Turning he saw a figure in an abaya, escorted by one of the royal eunuchs, following him along the corridor. He stopped and waited, unsure of who was hidden in the all encompassing Kobekistani outdoor dress for a respectable female.

Sensing his uncertainty, she laughed, and Henry correctly identified the low throaty chuckle as that of the older wife, Princess Ayda.

"Princess," he said formally, "How may I help you."

She did not reply, but swept into his private suite with her escorting eunuch.

"You can start by helping me out of this awful thing. I hate them," she said, leaning forward at the waist to allow him to pull the tent-like garment off her.

Henry thought he had committed a horrendous faux pas and pulled her harem gown off at the same time. It took him a moment to realise that she had come to his suite naked under the abaya. His heart sank as he took in the implications of that.

'There is no way I can sleep with her without the Emir finding out, and I really don't want to contemplate about what he might do to me, ' he thought.

Seeing his consternation, she hastened to reassure him

"Do you seriously think I would be here, nude and inviting you to take me to bed, without my husband's full knowledge and permission? Believe me, I asked him first; I have no wish to be on the receiving end of a whip moving fast in the hands of an expert."

Tamsin was less than pleased to see that one of the Princesses was following her and Charles along the corridor to their suite. There the abaya revealed that the younger and more beautiful of the Emir's two wives, Alima, had joined them.

Shrugging off her gown the Princess asked Charles, "Do you think I'm beautiful? There are two possible answers, so be careful to pick the right one. You may say 'Yes', or you may say 'Yes, please'."

Tamsin glared at her, and Charles decided to make the best of this situation by sending her to her own room.

"I will not go to my room like a naughty schoolgirl," Tamsin shouted, but broke off when she saw her husband reach for a whip.

As she went through the door, the very tip of the whip snapped against her left buttock, biting like a hornet and hurrying her along. In her own room she spent a very unhappy few hours imagining the Princess and her husband in all sorts of exotic poses, and plotting how she might get her revenge on him.

In his bedroom, Charles was demonstrating that he was a very resourceful Second Officer indeed.

In the Emir's bedroom, Janice was not behaving at all well.

"You might have asked me if I wanted to sleep with you," she whined, "A girl likes to be wooed you know."

The Emir stared at her, almost as astonished as the eunuch at this outburst from a mere woman.

"Why would I ask you?" he demanded, "Your Master has lent you to me and that is all there is to it. It is your job to satisfy me by doing whatever I want."

"Rubbish," she replied, recklessly deciding that she was doomed anyway, and sufficiently relaxed by the alcohol on an empty stomach not to care, "I am not a possession; I am a human being."

"Oh, that I grant you, the human bit," replied the Emir, "and in England you would not be a possession, but here in Kobekistan you are just exactly that. Do you realise it is not possible here to murder a woman? Only men can be murdered; killing a woman is regarded as property damage. You see the laws of this land as laid down over the ages by countless Emirs do not, and never have, take any account of religion. Therefore the law has no concept of soul, as distinct from body, and even the Emir is indistinguishable from the lowliest rat in the desert, save only that a man can be the owner of things while he lives, which a rat cannot."

"What about conscience?" she asked.

"Shakespeare defined conscience best, I think, when he said, 'Conscience is but a word that cowards use, invented first to keep the strong in awe'. He showed the worth of this saying by putting it in the mouth of a King."

Janice knew some Shakespeare from her school days and took a deep breath, "The King concerned was a half-mad hunchback on the eve of his defeat."

The Emir stared at her for a moment and then roared with delighted laughter.

"I'll give you this," he spluttered, "you've got spirit."

When he had calmed a little he said, "Be that as it may, it is now time for you to disrobe and minister to my bodily needs and desires. You may suck me until I reach my first climax, and then lick me back to erection. Then you may take me in to your vagina for a while, until I am close to a second climax. You may induce that second climax in your anus. Finally you may clean my penis with your tongue."