The Indian Prince Ch. 03

"Oh, there you are, Rawal. I was looking for you. I hope I'm not being too forward, but it occurred to me that you might want to fly the Fairchild Magnus, not just check it out. I think you've flown all of our new . . ."

I walked into the room and started speaking like I'd seen nothing of what was happening in there. I was flying on instinct here. I tried to keep my eyes level with the prince's as he slowly turned toward me. Every fiber of me wanted to look for where the barrel of the gun was pointed, but I knew I couldn't even acknowledge that there was a gun in the room. The prince's eyes were smoldering with anger as he turned, but that was replaced, almost instantly, with the look of a young boy in a video arcade.

Bingo. I'd guessed right on what would divert his attention.

"When?"

"We could start today . . . right now, if you wish. There will be preflight instruction and then you'll have to go up with a pilot . . . I could do all of that. Two days tops and we could have you flying the Magnus. You'd be among the first twenty pilots that have done so—certainly the first one who wasn't an American."

"We go now then." It was as if the slate had been wiped clean. The prince had forgotten all about his wife, cowering behind a sofa across the room now, and didn't even seem to be aware that he was holding a hand gun. He briskly departed the room and was barking orders for a car to be brought around as he strode away into and down the corridor.

I only then felt my adrenaline giving way, and I reached out for the back of a straight chair to keep myself from falling. I had other support, though. The Kshatriyas, Mir Yusaf Adil, was behind me, and he put an arm around me to keep me from collapsing. Two women and a man filtered around us and raced across the room to the Rawalina's side.

The Rawalina was gathering her strength again, and the anger returned to her face. "That woman. He has that . . . harlot . . . here, in the palace."

Are you talking to me? I wanted to toss at her. Not a glimmer of appreciation that the life I most likely saved was hers. If she were my wife maybe I'd want to shoot her too.

I could clearly understand her Hindi now; she was speaking in distinct, measured, angry tones.

"We will speak of this later, Rawalina," Adil spoke out—in English. "If you raise your voice, he may refocus and be back. You didn't tell me you would come today. You almost got yourself killed. I suggest you return immediately to your quarters in the palace. I will call the Badshahrina to meet you there. We must talk of this, the three of us. But go now—while you still can—directly out to the courtyard. I see you have a car there. I would suggest that you have your driver take you around to your apartments by the service road so that you don't cross paths with him again."

The Rawalina tossed her head in a defiance that she certainly hadn't been projecting when I first entered the room. But, brushing the clinging hands of her servants away, she turned, waited for her man to open a French door leading out to the motor court, and majestically sailed out of the building and into a limousine, the rear door popping open for her as she reached the vehicle.

Adil and I were alone then, although there was so much bustling about in the corridor, the reel of life in the palace now revolving double time following the moments when all held their breath anticipating the firing of the handgun. Adil still had a supporting arm around me. I didn't need the support anymore, but I wouldn't reject the opportunity to be close to him.

"You spoke to her in English," I said, rather nonsensically, I later thought when I replayed the scene to myself.

"I wanted you to hear and to understand. The little bitch nearly got herself killed. And it isn't like she didn't barely escape such a fate before. I wanted you to know how cataclysmic the event was that your fast thinking saved us all from."

"Does she have a separate palace?"

"No, she lives here—in a remote wing of the main palace."

"And she needs a car to get there from here?"

"It's a big palace. She isn't fond of walking." I looked at his face and saw the amusement he was having at my expense now that disaster had been averted. But then he showed me that it hadn't been a mocking smile. "I must thank you," he said. "I'm impressed."

"I have to say I'm just surprised. I knew I had to try something, and military toys were the first thing that came into my mind."

"You were briefed well then. Indeed, you chose the only thing that can break through his stubbornness at times like this—military planes."

"But did you see his eyes? Don't you people know just from seeing him that—?"

"Shhh. It's not something to talk about here—not anywhere in Balrampur. You are just seeing how serious and difficult the situation is—why your government brought you in. And I must say, they certainly knew what they were doing when they sent for you."

"I don't know about that. My . . . session with him was a complete bust. He was completely indifferent to me."

"Oh, you think so?"

"You had to be there to see how it went."

"You don't think I was there . . . somewhere nearby?" I turned my head to him again to find he still was smiling. It was still a smile of amusement, but there also was something else in that smile. "He got hard, didn't he?" Adil said in a low, hoarse voice.

"He was hard before I arrived . . . he had already started—with that actress mistress of his."

"Ah, Aruna. Such a complication there. But who was he with when he ejaculated?"

"You seem to know."

"Yes, I do. And you did superbly."

He was still holding me in an embrace, and ever so briefly I thought that he was going to kiss me. But he didn't. He released me instead and continued talking in that calm, in-command tone he'd used since he entered the room.

"But we must save this discussion for later. You have promised the Rawal a plane ride, and he isn't likely to think of anything else until he gets his plane ride. We must be out in the motor court waiting for him when he wants to leave. You may have noticed; the gun was still in his hand when he left here."

I looked into his face again. The corners of his mouth were still turned up in the mirth position, but I knew he wasn't joking all that much.

"I don't know how you can do this day in and day out," I said.

"It has its rewards. And the challenges are worth not living like most of those in Balrampur do. I must say that thus far you've only seen the surface of life here. There is little choice to be made on living inside the palace grounds if you can. And I can assure you the inner workings of the palace are much more complex than this even. You will need all of your wits about you. I am pleased to see that you seem to have them in abundance—not to mention other alluring aspects of you that you have in abundance."

I rather liked the smile he gave me when he said that.

* * * *

"That's enough. We can go up now."

"I'm afraid not, Prince Bhadur Khan. In the palace your world is law, but here it's that man sitting in the flight building who tells us what we can do and when we can do it. You're an expert pilot; you know that you need to be thoroughly checked out on the Magnus before you fly this baby. One mistake and you're dead. What good would that do Balrampur?"

"I want to go up today."

"Then exchange seats with me, and I'll take you up. It will add checkout time and make it all that sooner that you can solo on the Magnus."

He was really being pretty reasonable about this considering what I knew he was capable of. I'd almost thought I had to hit the panic button to bring Roger Allard in on the problem, but when I called on the prince's professionalism he had responded.

"Tell you what, though," I said. "Here, let me show you how the manual settings of the aerial cameras work. I'll fly around Balrampur while we're up, and you can fire off some photos you've taken yourself that you can show around the palace by tomorrow evening. It will take a day for them to process the film at the consulate."

He was good at that, too—at taking aerial shots. We flew around the country and up and down the line of the Siwalik Range that separates Balrampur and other parts of India from Nepal. The prince was professional in everything he did in the air and was completely focused. It was almost as if he were two men—with not much more than one brain to share between them.

It also was a turn on for him. As we flew, I could see his flight suit tenting and his eyes slitting in pleasure. But the sexual arousal the prince obviously got from playing flyboy didn't completely obliterate everything else in his mind. I was to find that he hadn't forgotten about his wife at all. When we came down and were taxiing the plane, I heard him mutter, "I will kill her."

I said nothing.

"Flying was better today, but someday—soon—killing her will be better." I believed he meant it.

Exiting the plane, he turned to me and said in a gruff voice, "In the back of my limousine."

"I'm not supposed to go back to the palace, Prince. It's getting dark and I'm supposed to be in the consulate compound tonight . . . unless, of course, you wish for me to come back to the palace." I'd almost done it again. I hadn't been thinking fast enough and had stomped on my own crank. The storm clouds forming in his eyes telegraphed my mistake. We seemed such equals while we were in the air that I forgot that I was never to even hint a "no" to him elsewhere.

"OK, OK," I said before he could explode. "In the back of your limousine. As you wish, of course."

He was unzipping his flight suit as he entered the car behind me. Mir Yusaf Adil had been in the limo, and he exited by the door on the other side as I entered. The Rawal plopped in the center of the backseat and pushed me down on the floor of the limo between his knees. The limo remained stationary.

"The balls," he said.

His were the size of large walnuts, and I learned that he could moan in sex as, at his direction, I took them in turn in my mouth and sucked on them. He wouldn't let me touch his cock, which, as I surmised, had gotten hard while we were flying; he worked that himself. All he wanted me to do was suck his balls.

When he had come, he told me I could get out of the limo. Adil reentered when I exited, and they left me there to walk back to the flight building across the hot tarmac on my own.

* * * *

It had been an exhausting day, and I'd showered in my small studio apartment in the consulate compound, toweled off and stretched out on the bed with just the towel around me.

I was reading over the pilot's manual for the Magnus, making sure I was thoroughly briefed up on every aspect of that because I assumed that I wasn't going to be able to hold the prince off another day on getting into the pilot's seat. I heard the click of a key in the door lock. I barely had time to sit up on the edge of the bed when the door opened and Mir Yusaf Adil entered.

"What? How?"

"I told you that I worked closely with the consulate and, especially, with Roger Allard. You have had quite a day. I have followed most of it. I haven't had the opportunity to appropriately thank you for your services and your fast-thinking actions today. And it is easier for me to come to you here than in the palace."

He sat down on my bed beside me and took the manual out of my hand, closed it, and placed it on the nightstand.

"It's my job," I said. "You don't really have to—"

"Your body must be one big painful cramp."

I had to stifle a gasp as he touched my arm with his long, sensuous fingers and moved them up to my bicep and back down to my elbow, causing chills to run up my spine. If this was foreplay, he was very good at it.

"I entered the palace services as a masseur," he said. I hardly heard him, though, as there was a buzzing of arousal in my ears. "I bet my file with your Mr. Allard doesn't mention that."

"You must have been very good at it." My voice was low and husky. I was sorry I had spoken. I didn't want him to think I was this easy if he wanted me—and I couldn't bear the thought that he might not want me.

"I was. I am." I felt the loss of him taking his hand away from my arm but almost flinched when I felt his fingers touch me low on my belly. I looked down to see that he was unknotting the towel at my waist and slowly opening the towel and moving it aside. Of course I already was hard for him. I was embarrassed even though that wasn't rational—he'd already seen me naked.

He pulled his silk sherwani over his head. He was wearing a white cotton dhoti, knotted at his waist, underneath that. I almost laughed, as it reminded me of a diaper.

But I was too far gone in lust to laugh. His body was beautiful. Lithe, dark, and strongly muscled. And both sinuous and sensuous.

"Have you really come here just to give me a massage?" I was being brazen. I didn't want that to be the only reason he was here—and in that, I was rewarded.

"I'll do that, of course, but what I've really come here for is to fuck you. And at this point it is safer for me to do that outside the palace. If you wish to continue with me, I can make arrangements, of course, but that will take time, and I find I do not want to wait. You do want me to fuck you, don't you? I didn't misread your responses to me, I hope."

I gave him the only answer I was capable of giving him. I raised a leg, turned my torso toward him, and lowered my leg to behind his back so that he now sat between my thighs. I was in position for him to enter me if he wished. I was more than ready for that. His foreplay was pleasant, but I wanted him to make love to me. For a moment, I thought we would go straight to it, as he leaned over to me and took my lips with his in a kiss. When he sat back up, I saw his hand at the knot of his dhoti, and when he'd untied that and pushed the material away, I saw that no more foreplay was needed by him either.

But then he laughed and stood up from the bed. "Lay on your back," he said.

I groaned, and reached for his cock. But he brushed my hand away with another low laugh. "All in good time," he whispered. "It will happen, but it will be more enjoyable by the anticipation of it. You Americans are much too impulsive. Treasures are greater that are savored."

I laid full length on the bed on my back, as he had commanded. He had a bottle of lotion with him, and he expertly worked my muscles with the lotion, following that up with his tongue. I was moaning and sighing as his mouth came down over my cock. He had me turn over, and repeated his sensuous massage with his hands, followed by his tongue. When he mounted my hips with his pelvis I had been grinding my cock into the bed and had raised my buttocks instinctively. My channel was so open for him that he just slipped in and mined my channel deep in long, slow strokes. When he was close to climaxing, he reached under my belly and pulled me up on my knees. He laced my balls between the fingers of a hand at the root and when he ejaculated, he distended and squeezed my balls, and with a small cry I came too.

We lay stretched out along each other, everything touching that we could get to touch. It was the first real loving I'd had all day.

"That's one of the secrets with the prince," he murmured. I had to make him repeat it to make sure I'd understood him.

"What I did with your balls. The prince is a balls man."

"So I gathered. That was the only moaning I got from him today—other than the sheer joy he obviously felt in being in the sky. He moaned when I sucked his balls. He told me to suck his balls."

"What I did to you. If he gets too rough or you just want to bring it to a close, do that to his balls. Lace them through your fingers and extend them with a tug. He'll come immediately. And when he comes, he's finished—and, more important, satisfied. It doesn't mean that you didn't do well or he didn't find you arousing enough. When the Rawal comes, the Rawal is finished with sex. If the one servicing him displeases him, he won't just walk away. The person will know for sure that he has failed."

"I'll keep that in mind. So, this whole visit was to show me that technique?" I said it in jest, of course, but this whole palace intrigue situation had me off my pins. I wanted to know that I had pleased him. That he would fuck me again.

"No, this visit was because I couldn't keep my hands off you any longer, and it would have been awkward for the Rawal to find me fucking you in the corridor of his palace."

Nothing was said then for some time, as he had regained the strength of his cock, and we both wanted what he had to give me. Afterward, we both were spent, and I was pleased to find that he didn't want to just rise, dress, and leave; he wanted to hold me and to kiss my lips and my nipples.

"I need you to move into the palace."

"I'm not sure . . . I don't think Allard will—"

"Allard will give me whatever I need to keep the situation under control. That scene today . . . with the princess. It will become more serious."

"Surely it couldn't get any more serious than a bullet being fired."

"She's on the warpath because the Rawal is openly being seen with his mistress. The Rawalina doesn't want him. She just doesn't want not having him being flaunted in public."

"How will it get worse, then?"

"Aruna is pregnant. The prince has already said he wants to divorce the Rawalina and marry Aruna."

"But his mother, the Badshahrina. Isn't she Vimala's aunt? Didn't she arrange the marriage?"

"Precisely. You can see the complexity, can't you? I will want to introduce you to the Badshahrina soon. She is your country's best ally here in Balrampur. I believe she will need your help."

"I can't wait." But of course I could. I didn't want to get any more involved in palace intrigue than I could possibly help doing.

"Oh, and one more thing. Don't trust the Badshah's adviser, Ambedkar Sungar, in any matter. He is a nasty piece of work. Try not to antagonize him either"

"So I've already gathered," I responded.

"There are rumors he is working with Al-Qaeda, the Muslim terrorists."

I didn't respond to that. That seemed to be a theme that many wanted to get across to me.

"You are good for the Rawal, I think. Very good. And for the situation overall. So, you must move into the palace."

"Then you don't want . . . this? You said it would be difficult in the palace."

"I very much want this. I will find ways."

Then his hands started roaming my body again and I was lost to him once more, this time his mouth working my cock while his finger tips made love to my prostate.

After he had left, I heard the monitor in the overhead camera click on, and I looked up to see Roger Allard's stern-looking face filling the screen. Of course he'd seen the whole thing—or, at least, he would have ready access to a tape of what I and the Balrampur official had been doing in my room. He may not have seen it live, but it would all be on videotape. I certainly hoped Adil wasn't lying about having permission to have come here . . . and having done what he did.

"Roger. I didn't know he would . . . I didn't invite him."

"It's not that. That's fine. Good work. I need you to come over to the consulate—my office—immediately. We've got a situation on our hands."

As the monitor clicked off and I padded in for another quick shower before dressing in record time, I couldn't help but think that "a situation" was pretty much the norm for this tiny semiautonomous enclave.