Love's Sacrifice Read online

  There is no one to call me Azizam, my dear, anymore.

  With the new needle installed, I go through the selection of records beside the machine. Old Persian music. How thoughtful my husband is. I take a record out of its sleeve, dust it with the tip of my sleeve, and place it on the turntable. With a smile of anticipation—this is always the best bit—I turn the crank on the side of the machine until I feel resistance. With the main spring wound, I release the brake lever, and the turntable starts spinning. I lower the soundbox onto the smooth outer rim, gently push it, and watch it slide into the playing groove.

  Crackling Persian music fills the tent.

  My grandfather smiles as I sink down on some cushions. The air around me shimmers with memories. My mother is still alive. It is Norouz and all the children in the neighborhood are jumping over the fire for good luck. Old Behrouz, the sweet seller, brings sweets in a cloth bag. From his wrinkled mouth flow stories of heroic warriors from times gone by. There are all kinds of delicacies to eat and money to be had from the elders. But the memories are old and faded around the edges. They don’t remain.

  I stand, remove my long, thick robes and toss them on the carpet. They land, heavy, weighted with sweat and fine golden sand. I remove the expensive bits of underwear that I came to the desert with, and finding the long transparent blue veil I bought in the covered market, wrap it around my body and tie it over my breasts like a sarong.

  There is only a small hand mirror with a carved silver back. I pull it down my body to see what I look like. My flesh looks pale, my nipples are twin peaks, and my belly button is a dark, round shape. I hear a rustle outside and moving to the middle pole drape myself around it.

  The tent flap opens.

  Three

  A cold gust of wind redolent with the smell of spit-roasted mutton scatters goose bumps on my naked flesh and makes the open flames dance. Blake stands stooped at the entrance. His gaze, smoky with alcohol, ignites, and his breath comes out in a hiss. He had not expected such a gift.

  Whatever tension had lurked in his eyes while we were out there is no longer. Now they shine like gems in the yellow light cast by the lamps and candles. He doesn’t say anything. Simply comes to within a foot of me, and stares: a hot, slow gaze. He seems different. He seems almost astonished… Maybe I am different too. His eyes meet mine, enchanting me with their magic, filling me with desert lust.

  He reaches out a hand towards the veil, but I swirl away, nimble and light as an air sprite, and stretching my hands high over my head, I dance. The pulsating drums move my bare feet as I snake my body around the wailing music. I drag my hands up my thighs, my hips, up to my waist, and higher still, until they reach my breasts. Impulsively I pinch my nipples.

  His eyes flare. Heat flushes in my belly. My nipples feel raw and my sex is swollen so thick I feel the lips rub sinuously against each other: maddening me. I look at him sensuously, with half-closed, come-hither eyes.

  He responds to my silent call. He moves fast and is suddenly so close by, his deep voice vibrates inside my head. ‘Who owns this glorious creature?’

  ‘The one who dares…’ I suggest, my voice trailing away wickedly. Like the honey you leave as a trap for the unwary.

  ‘I dare,’ he whispers.

  I pull the veil over my face so only my eyes are visible and, turning from the neck, look up at him. ‘Are you sure?’ I ask saucily.

  An intrigued eyebrow lifts. ‘You should come with a warning, a bit like the cigarette manufacturers are forced to have on their packaging: Beware, scintillating to the point of incendiary.’

  For some seconds I look at him. Outside miles of nothing, here, let there be swollen heat. I spread my legs and plunge my fingers into my wet folds. The action is primitive, perhaps even obscene, but here we are different animals. I thrust my fingers in and out, my breath becoming more ragged.

  He takes off his thick robes and flings them to the floor, his eyes never leaving me. I see the smooth golden skin where his collar falls open. How beautiful is my lover. He pulls at the white shirt-dress. It joins the robe. Naked to the hips he comes forward, sexual energy rising off his glistening muscles like a heat haze. I gaze at his body. So familiar and so dear, and still the air zaps with my desire for it.

  He catches my hand in his and brings it to his mouth. A smile curves my lips. I lean forward, my bare breasts brushing his torso as I sway with the music. It is like rubbing a magic lamp. It awakens a genie of dark excitement deep within his body. I see the fever-thirst come into his eyes. I stop smiling.

  He spreads his fingers on my hips. They are like flames on my skin. I turn and let my shoulders rub against his chest, and my buttocks brush the hard flesh between his legs. His reaction is intoxicating—he reels me in suddenly so the base of my side is pressed into the rod of hot flesh. My limbs tremble in anticipation. He moves his body against me: long thighs, muscles, sinew, tendon and bones, all melds with me.

  In response, I move my buttocks away from his body and slide my hand between us. I palm his hardness and curl my hand possessively around the hard shaft. It responds by twitching and growing harder still.

  ‘Impressive,’ I whisper.

  He chuckles, a dark, possessive sound. ‘The better to fuck you with.’

  His hands roam my body, from my belly up to my breasts and down between my legs.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I gasp, gently stroking the bulge, wanting the brutal force of his thrusts and the agonized sound of my name on his lips as he floods me with hot cum. He bends his head and his mouth scorches mine, hot and hungry, the taste of salt and tequila, a sparkling shock. My eyelids flutter closed. We are ravenous creatures in the desert. He lifts his head, breath coming fast and shallow.

  ‘If you don’t get inside me soon I’m going to melt.’

  As if on cue the music changes. The air fills with drums.

  He wraps his thick and sinewy arms around me and, sweeping me off my feet, swirls me around so fast I am a dizzy blue mist landing on the orange silk bed. My weight crushes the flower petals. In dying they gasp out their sweetest scents. They mix with the oily scent of the candles.

  He kneels down. His scent is different: he is as fragrant as the hot sand. He catches my eyes, smiles faintly and, parting my trembling thighs, sinks his fingers into me. My flesh flowers around the heat of his fingers. Grasping his hand, I hold his fingers deep inside me. I close my eyes and savor the delicious sensation of my muscles jerking and quivering around him, as they anticipate release.

  My hands fall away as his fingers curl inside me and begin to stroke slowly. He knows exactly where to rub to make me explode.

  ‘God! I’m so crazy about you,’ he rasps, as his mouth descends on a nipple. Hot and rough. It burns me. He sucks the other deep in his mouth. Pleasure shoots straight into my sex, making more blood rush to it, swelling it further, until it…hurts. I whimper.

  He stops and looks at me with heavy-lidded eyes.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ I whisper hoarsely. ‘Take me as if I am a captive you bought in a market.’

  His smile drips with dominance and lust. ‘What kind of a captive would you be?’

  ‘What if I am an enchanted slave who is spellbound to her owner by dark magical cravings she can’t resist?’

  ‘A bewitched slave who can’t say no. My, my… Must be my lucky day.’

  I moan as his fingers pierce me hard and fast.

  ‘I love watching you helpless and writhing at the end of my hand.’

  I arch helplessly.

  ‘And I own every inch of this purchase.’

  ‘Every inch,’ I croak. I grab his silken hair and pull his mouth down.

  ‘So you want to be taken as a market slave, hmm?’ His voice is dangerously soft.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, still only frustratingly impaled on his fingers.

  Hands of steel flip me over so suddenly I yelp with surprise. With my head buried in the cushions I hear the sounds of his clothes falling away. My hips are grabbed and jerked u
pwards and held up tilted at an angle. When his cock slams into me I am still hazily aware of the men outside, so I scream into the pillow.

  ‘This is what you wanted?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And this?’ He plunges in so punishingly hard I break out in a sweat.

  ‘Yes,’ I growl, like an animal possessed.

  He goes at it, wild. Our mating is crazed and brutal. I bite the pillow to keep from crying out too loud. He grasps my hair and pulls away the pillow.

  ‘Fuck you,’ I snarl.

  And he slams again into me. He pulls my ass cheeks apart and pushes deeper in. His dick feels hot, burning hot. I am already so sore and battered, my body is beginning to quiver, but just as I think I can bear it no more, I become aware that he is almost cresting. I know him so well I can feel it come into his body. I push my flesh against his groin and squeeze my muscles tightly together, and he groans and calls my name as he spurts and jerks into me.

  For a few seconds neither of us moves. Holding me close against his body, he lays me back down on the bed, and rests on top of me, his shaft still buried deep inside me. I love the feeling of his weight on me, while he is half supported by his elbows. His lips settle on the pulse at the side of my neck. His tongue darts out to lick it. Then he puts his mouth on it and sucks it. A whimper escapes. He leaves the pulse and trails upward along the side of my neck to my ear. He nibbles the lobe.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ I moan. My voice sounds almost anguished.

  He pulls out of me and, rising to his hands and knees, turns me over. He straddles my thighs, holding my hands high over my head, and looks at my exposed body. His eyes rove over my body jealously. Then he lowers his head in a kiss so soft and sweet that it brings tears to my eyes.

  ‘Blake?’

  ‘Don’t speak. I think I need to have my way with you,’ he purrs.

  My breath catches at the raw heat in his eyes, even though I am not sure I can take another pounding quite so soon. ‘I thought you just did,’ I say softly.

  He smiles wolfishly. ‘See what happens when you pretend to be a little slave girl?’

  ‘Did I say I couldn’t take another round?’

  ‘That’s true.’

  He slides off me. ‘Lift your legs up, knees straight.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Humor me.’

  He grabs my thighs and opens my legs into a V. And then he takes his wolfish grin between my legs and devours me greedily. Literally consumes me. It just goes on and on and on until the climax comes with such shattering impact that it feels as if the back of my head has been blown off. When it is over I am sobbing with the intensity of the experience.

  He gathers me in his arms until my heart rate slows, my breathing returns to normal and the crazy heartbeat stops.

  ‘I think I could grow used to being a captive slave,’ I say, encircling his neck and pulling his mouth down to mine. It feels so good to have his naked body over mine. I kiss him. He tastes of me.

  ‘You really are the sexiest sheik that ever walked a desert.’ My voice sounds soft and fluttery.

  A corner of his mouth lifts. ‘And you, my love, are the most beautiful slave that ever graced any tent.’

  ‘What if I buy you in at the market tomorrow?’

  ‘Honestly, can’t wait,’ he says, and his voice is so rich and deep my breath catches in my throat. For the rest of my life, no matter how long I live, I know I’ll never forget this moment. The feel of his skin on mine, the handsome curve of his lips, the lock of hair falling forward and the look in his eyes. God, I love this man so much I would fight for him. Never again will I run away.

  ‘Do you think the men outside heard us?’ I murmur contentedly.

  ‘If they didn’t hear us before they will now,’ he says, and, throwing a long, muscular arm gleaming with a sheen of sweat out, reaches for the jar of spreadable chocolate.

  I giggle…but not for long.

  Four

  Sometime during the night I awaken and, extricating myself from Blake’s embrace, silently leave the tent. Outside in the white moonlight men smelling of camel are on night watch. They are boiling tea, or cutting their fingernails with the sharpened jawbones of animals, or making camel hair rope while they look out for hyenas. Hyenas, they claim, will even eat the dates from their supplies.

  Out of kindness and respect they never look directly at me, but I am very curious about them. Through the interpreter, I am always eavesdropping on their conversations. They speak of the desert as if it is a woman—wild, unforgiving, mysterious, magnificent… In their blood. They beseech the clouds above to rain on their woman. ‘Why not burst a moment here?’ they entreat poetically.

  Wrapped in thick blankets I sit apart from them in the icy cold and watch the moon, the whitest, roundest melon. It is still dark and utterly silent when the camel drivers begin to stir and greet each other good morning. It is a surprisingly long process. Again and again they ask each other, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I am. What about you?’

  ‘I’m fine. You sure you’re all right, though?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m good. Really, are you?’

  ‘Me, I’m fine. You are OK too?’

  It seems they never tire of repeating the process at every dawn. No one looks at me as I slip between the camels huddled together, their backs white with snow and pieces of mud and ice stuck to the strips of cloth tied to their footpads.

  Lizards are drinking the condensation off the frosted sand, when I lift our tent flap. It is lovely and warm, but too dark to see. I pause to allow my eyes to adjust, but I still manage to trip on the carpet’s edge. A small sound escapes me and Blake whips his head around to look at me. It never ceases to surprise me how quickly alert and watchful his eyes can become. A stranger’s eyes.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Watching the moon.’

  ‘Without me?’

  ‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ I say, coming closer. I light a lamp.

  He sits up and the light oils his back so it gleams bronze. I sit next to him and run a cold finger down the bronze back. He shivers.

  ‘Next time I’ll wake you,’ I say, and grasping his hair, tug it with me as I fall backward into the rumpled silk sheets. He lets me pull him down until he is only inches from my face, and then he stills and turns to look at me. His eyes are unreadable—wet leaves in summer. I stare into the wet leaves. Part the leaves, Lana—behind them is the man.

  ‘Lie back, husband of mine,’ I say softly, sitting up.

  He obeys and I hold my hands over the heat of the lamp. Then I pour heavily musk-scented oil into the palm of my hand and rub the two together. Warming the oil, oiling the skin. Very gently, I take his hand in my upturned one.

  He whispers in wonder, ‘It never fails to amaze me how such a tiny hand can make me feel so vulnerable and exposed. How odd that a giant like me should be undone by such a simple thing!’

  I stare at him in surprise, and then I lie him on his front, straddle his buttocks and laying both palms on the small of his back take the first long sweeping stroke.

  Afterwards, we eat bowls of gruel and drink goat’s milk covered with a film of ice. He talks and I listen, bowl suspended between lip and floor. He is not soft. He cannot be soft. He wants me to know that. He has thrived on sharp arrows whizzing past his head, slicing his ears.

  ‘I don’t care,’ I interrupt suddenly.

  We are still whispering when the sky brightens. It is time to be gone. Outside the men burden the animals once more. And as they do, every time, the poor things snarl, groan, and protest.

  Blake helps me onto the camel’s back, and I am borne up. Perched high atop the animal, its disdainful, hairy head swaying from side to side, its large eyes rolling, we resume our journey. The sensation is like being a tick on a gold beast. Hanging fast. Unwelcome.

  A little while into the desert, and the cameleers start singing to their animals, their lusty, deep voices carrying far into the dune
s. Each line the length of a man’s breath, and each breath the length of a camel’s stride. The songs turn that ocean of heat, sand and blinding light into a dream, hypnotizing both man and camel so they become one graceful creature.

  Hour after hour we head east, rocking in the unbearable, scorching heat, mouth tightly shut against the sand in the wind, not stopping even to eat, only to pray. When the camel drivers, burnt and glorious, stop to pray, I want to lie down on the sand, but Blake, his face wrapped in a blue and white cloth against the burning wind, so only his eyes remain as cerulean as the sky, will not let me.

  ‘You will only collect more heat from the ground.’ He holds out a water skin. ‘Drink, drink. In this heat one must drink—little but often—to be well.’

  There is a sediment of black dust, but the water is cool. And in the desert water never tastes bad. Everyone drinks noisily, exhales noisily. I sip the discolored water, eat millet, dates and goat’s cheese and wish for a gust of wind, but when it comes, it is a fiery blast that sears my lungs.

  Queasy, dizzy, my vision ill with the glare and the bending waves of heat, we persist. What a strange place the desert! The emptiness of it. Indescribable. Animal droppings dried to ash in hours. Where there is grass it is scorched white. And yet I find it incredibly beautiful, and the experience unforgettable. Finally, the camels’ bells stop, and Blake reaches up and takes me into his arms.

  On foot, I watch the sun become red and the air orange. The temperature drops quickly. Darkness falls even faster. The men set up camp and water their animals. Fires are lit. Men crouch over their flames, blowing. The fires become beautiful orange flowers.