1001 Dutch Night - Story 01

"Every hotel in this chain has a library. Therein lies the story, and the mystery."

I clearly looked confused. Having driven the 3 kilometers to the sea, we were walking on a pebbly beach, crumbling cliffs to our right and a soft breeze off the sea in our faces. "That book you found, that you had been reading from earlier ... the reason I was so silent is that years ago – years ago before we met - I found it in a library in the Amanjena in Marrakesh – or was meant to find it in the library – and an, um, adventure ensued. I am a little appalled at the memory: it was a mystifying mix of coercion and utter sluttishness."

"You have my attention". And she did. There was silence for a moment, the crunch of wet pebbles underfoot, and then she continued.

"Hendrik had organized this birthday 'revel' (as he called it) in Marrakesh." Hendrik was a European technology entrepreneur, a well-known philanthropist and bon vivant, whose ex-girlfriend had been a close friend of hers. "It was one of those weekend fly-in/fly-out sort of things. I had just broken up with the plastic surgeon, and some friends and I had decided to arrive early."

The wind played with her blonde hair: most of it was swept back into a softly billowing mane but a tendril or two strayed over her prominent cheekbones. To our left was the blue sea where the tops of wavelets were turning reddy-gold in the setting sun. The high point of the island across was casting shadows, deepening part of the waters into a profound blue. Her face was a classic Nordic frame setting off her lovely jade green eyes. She with moved with an athletic economy of motion that spoke to her continued training. At 41 she was as toned and fit as she had been 15 or 20 years earlier. Her marathon times were testament to that, though her body had acquired a pleasingly soft rounding at hips and breast rather than the severe frame of the hard-core runner . She tensed and relaxed her legs – lean, long, fit: skier's legs. Middlingly tall, she had grown into one of those lasting Northern beauties. "Superb" I would always say. Soft, natural, much more alluring and with a naturalness a vast gulf away from the Barbie or the Stepford wife. She walked, C Cup breasts swaying firm and unencumbered, the thin fabric of her cotton dress not hiding the wind-stiffened nipples.

We walked into the lee of some rocks. The wind dropped. Mystery and a setting sun and swaying breasts proved a potent mix. I wanted the story, but I wanted her more. I paused and kissed her, gently twining some of her hair in one hand. The beach was deserted, a building sat at the far end, lights glowing but indistinct. My other hand strayed to caress her lower back through the thin fabric of the dress, The hand strayed lower, sweeping over her bum, flicking over the strap of her g-string. I pulled away, looked down at the flat rock next to us. Her dress was white. We kissed again and I unknotted the belt and then reached back to undo the buttons. The bare skin of her back felt warmly silky. I pulled the unbuttoned frock forward. It held for a second at her shoulders then, as she dropped her arms, it slid down with a delicious slowness and puddled at her feet. I lay it on the rock as she tugged off my shirt. She stood, firm and high breasts surmounted, perfect C globes surmounted by pert and pink nipples. A taut belly and defined musculature pointed down to a flimsy blue g-string. I sat her on the flat rock and, kneeling, slipped my fingers into the g-string and began to inch it down her legs, Her waxed pussy was tightly defined. I could sense her growing excitement as I kneeled between her legs and parted them wider, exposing her more fully, more shamelessly. I traced each pussy lip with my tongue, up and down, before beginning to flick at the centre of pleasure between.

Truth be told the book had also inflamed me. The novel in question – the true genesis of this story - was a piece of 1930s kitsch published in Oriental Tales under the name Otis Adelbert Kline. I had burst into the room an hour earlier, a bucket of extremely decent and extremely chilled Saint Veran in one hand and the gloriously, garishly, luridly decorated book in the other. "Look at this saucy story" I had proclaimed, at least mostly in humor.

The story was about as frisky a version of "Thousand and One Nights' as Depression-era America could have produced. The story raced along in...

The Ottoman Dragoman of the title is given the words "I found myself in a walled enclosure, nearly filled with prospective buyers. They faced a great, flat-nosed, red-bearded fellow standing on an auction block, behind which was a small door from which half-naked or naked slaves would emerge...For some time I stood there idly looking on, while he auctioned off girls and women, tall and short, willing and unwilling. There were, revealed for our gaze, ... supple brown-skinned nautch girls from Hind with raven hair at their heads and a thick thatch of dark between their legs, Nubian maids whose bodies were like polished ebony and Abyssinians of the color of coffee. Then came the high-breasted Circassians, and Armenians of amply swelling bosoms ... they were paraded in their bare loveliness but none interested me... I turned to go, when suddenly I heard a chorus of "Oh's!" and Ah's!" from the entire assembly... Looking back toward the auction block, I was smitten with admiration for the witching vision of feminine loveliness that stood thereon next to her auctioneer... this wondrous blonde creature was as a gazelle beside an overgrown wart-hog, her lithe limbs and firm hindquarters elegant in their perfection, the long legs accentuated by the faint blonde covering of her middle part... Her mouth was like the red seal of Suleiman, and her smile revealed teeth that were matched pearls. The rondure of her firm breasts, strutting from her white bosom, were as that of twin pomegranates. And her slender waist swayed with the grace of a branchlet of basil, above her rounded hips. ..." The Dragoman fancies her, but the Pasha's men (including a massive, smiling Nubian) bid actively for her and, despite her refusal, whisk her away into the harim. The Dragoman resolves to save her and covertly enters the palace.

"The Lady Selma I saw, unveiled like the others, seated near a window with one slave-girl brushing her lustrous [blonde] tresses and another staining her dainty toenails red. Another slave girl said "I will sing for you in memory of Marrakesh, that pearl among cities..."

"...Fitnah" has several meanings, among which are: "Beautiful girl", "Seduction" and "aphrodisiac perfume". She was certainly a combination of all three. Fitnah led me to the hidden alcove from where we could spy. I spied Selma. She was reclining on her diwan in a pose that revealed every seductive curve of her perfectly modeled body... The Pasha came into view. "Come"... "I hear and obey your excellency" she said, deathly pale. The Pasha took a bottle off from the taboret and poured himself a stiff drink. Seizing her wrist he pulled her to him "Sit beside me, little blonde rosebud. Be not afraid." She jerked away. "What! You resist me!" And he rose, grabbing her. She struggled to be free, her breasts heaving in alarm."

The wine and the almost pantomime nature of the book had induced a spirit of hilarity in me, but she was silent. "Let's go for a walk."

"We are just getting to the good bits!"

"Let's go for a walk."

And so we were on the beach. The wind sighed. The light was westering. The damp pebbles crunched underneath my knees as I tongued her pussy and the wavelets of the channel lapped at the shore. I rose and dropped undid my belt. I unburdened myself of shorts and pointed my cock at her. Impatiently she guided it in. Her hand strayed to her clitoris and urgently began stimulating herself even as I assumed a slower, steady rhythm. The sight of my cock sliding slickly in and out of her waxed pussy never failed to mesmerize me. I Hiked one of her knees up to gain a fraction deeper penetration – it made the pose far more wanton. I saw small, distant forms on the bluff; she followed my gaze and then looked down to her fast-moving hand and my cock. I waited until she came before pulling out to erupt on her belly in three spurts.

I gently collected the sperm onto my hand and wiped it on the sand. I pulled my shorts up and, leaving her naked and spread on the rock, went to the sea to rinse my hand off. She had not moved when I returned. I admired the perfection of her body and then handed her the dress. She seemed focused on something in the distance.

I kissed her, almost to wake her out of this reserved and far away state. "Continue", I said.

She spoke softly, as she slipped the frock over her head. "Hendrik had booked most, but not all, of the hotel - about 70 guests were coming."

We both knew the hotel she was describing from separate trips - before we'd met. It is a walled compound, well over ten acres, set a few kilometers outside Marrakesh amidst date palms and olive trees. The peaks of the Grand Atlas soared as a backdrop. It is a luxuriously and expensively casual place, its cross-cultural name almost mockingly refers to paradise. Walking through the gate in the massive red earthen walls one is greeted by marble fountains, soaring Andalucian columns and a view beyond the enormous, shimmering slab of the water 'bassin'. Rooms and villas are in enfilade on the sides, and the gardens are set with swimming pools and pavilions scattered amongst the date palms.The overall message of the entire property is one of wealthy, relaxing hedonism.

She edged closer to me as she walked, her sandals (removed and now trailing from three fingers) glancing against the linen fabric of my trousers.

–-

She continued her tale, a Scheherazade barefoot on the beach.

"He hadn't booked the whole hotel. A couple of the 'maisons' were booked by people not in the party. You are supposedly never really "checked in" – there is this fiction of greeting and ushering you in as though you are a houseguest – so when I arrived a pleasant staff member was awaiting me. But the manager was welcoming – almost genuflecting before - a coffee-skinned, mustachioed man in a white linen suit. He had two sidekicks – one of them a bodyguard (if size and bearing were any indication) who had jet black skin. We were five meters and he locked eyes with me in a hungrily unnerving way.

I glanced away to avoid his eye, turning back to find the tall black bodyguard standing before me. 'M. Sullei wishes you to have dinner with him this evening. Would 20h (said the French way) be acceptable to Madame?'

'That's very kind,' I said, 'but I am used to being asked directly and at any rate I have a commitment. Please thank your, um, sponsor, but no thank you.' (I was being both rude and yet still too polite for the situation – I was young.)

The bodyguard returned to his master. And this arrogant, white linen, man, his pale suit setting off a cornflower blue shirt and coffee cream skin, smiled. His face was severe when still, but I was surprised to discover that he had a lovely smile. His green eyes came alive, in fact his whole face softened and – it had to be admitted – there was a sort of desert eagle handsomeness about him. He looked at me assessingly for what felt like an age, though perhaps it was only a minute.

And then he came over. His eyes were beaming a captivating ferociousness. His smile was now a dazzling contrast of white teeth and darker skin. He was direct. 'My apologies, Madam' and he smiled. 'My methods were wrong and, frankly, lazy. But you are lovely.'

I shook my head at him and so he offered me, in a smooth and ingratiating way, a bet. Dinner with him if he won and - name my price within reason if I did. I demurred. He smiled, and bowed, and eyed my tits, and smiled some more as he backed away.

That afternoon I went to the library and I found that book. I ought to have suspected it had been placed just so. The pages were turned down at the auction, and at the scene where they witness "every curve of her seductive body" and the Pasha demands to slake his lust and at later scenes where she learns to behave as a slave should behave with her sexually voracious master.'

That book made the notion of being enslaved and dominated somehow exciting and mysterious. I found myself flushing. Stupid of course, but I remember flicking through it and stopping at all the 'good bits' that were so helpfully marked and that I interrupted you at. The descriptions of gauzy dresses were, after being hit on so blatantly by a rich and mysterious man, inspiring: that evening I dressed in a belted, white cotton frock with no bra.

Though almost everyone was arriving the next day, two Danish friends and another couple from the University were there. I had taken the earlier, cheaper, flight and they only arrived early evening. We took a taxi into the old town, walked by the Djemaa el-Fna and entered the souk through an archway leading to the Chemin Laksour. It was about 5pm when we penetrated into that thronged and confusing place. Looking back I noticed a tall, dark head emerging from the crowd. I did a double-take: the bodyguard from the hotel? We wandered and then headed for an early dinner in Gueliz. As we bundled into the taxi to make our way I noticed a Mercedes pull out. It followed us to the restaurant. As it drove by I spied a massive and dark form in the driver's seat. I wondered if I was being followed but then pushed such a fanciful thought from my mind. Frankly I was intrigued by a Swedish man I knew was coming to the party and my mind was elsewhere.

The restaurant was Parisian in style – dark reds, velvets, velours: all very Costes. We drank a huge amount and the Danes slipped hash biscuits into the bread basket as an (effective) practical joke. We were in high spirits but had settled down by the time we called a cab to take us back. I was pleasantly buzzed, happy, confident - but no more. The party broke up when we returned to the hotel."

As Iistened to her I paused to remember the hotel. The rooms are reached by a set of colonnades flanking the tree-lined basin. At night these are lit with lanterns and the sense of magic comes from the flickering light and shadow and reflections of the waters of the basin. It creates a sense of tremulousness.

She continued. "And on the way to the colonnade the bodyguard emerged from the shadows. I veered to one side to pass but he blocked me and motioned towards the bar. He smiled and beckoned with his arm. 'S'il vous plait, Madame.'"

Her voice speeded up. "The bar, velours and greens and marbles, was set around a moorish fireplace (flanked by some black and phallic columns) at one end and a long bar on one side. White linen suit man was now in a tan nehru coat and pale blue linen trousers. It sounds horrible now but it was actually rather chic in that garish context. He was seated in the corner banquette with an open bottle of Bollinger RD chilling in the bucket before him.

He stood and waited even as I stood and stopped moving. the bar was empty save for a bored - and evidently well-tipped - bartender and three people I did not know celebrating a last night. This man waited, and looked. I suppose it was the smile that tempted me.

'You have some cheek. Can't you ask people yourself?'

He laughed. He smiled. 'Forgive my impertinence.' He charmed. His name was Sullei - or Suleiman - I suppose. Rich, polished. Someone's son in the Gulf who parlayed connections into deals - pension money to hedge funds, who knows - and deals became a sort of franchise he said. Money was clearly no issue. When you are in Marrakesh and the candlight and firelight reflects on the marble in the warm night air, and champagne is offered, and it all seems manageable (if not entirely innocent) then you do not really pay too much attention.

And he wanted to play a guessing game. We would each pose questions and see who could guess background better. 'If one of us gets answers all the questions then he or she will have to irrevocably comply with one request. Mine will be that you dine with me'

I mean why not? And we played. And it became clear that his people had looked me up. And I guessed six of his ten questions and he guessed all mine. Where I had stabled a horse. Crazy. I had no idea people could do that so easily - this was before google was ubiquitous - or that they would even want to.

'I have won a bet'. His eyes were locked onto my tits and what I presumed were the shadows of my nipples.

'To be clear' I said "I do not want to sleep with you.'

"He looked at me with an almost devilish confidence, as if to say perhaps not now, but soon... I explained I had a party the next night. He noted that he would be there for a while, so two or three nights hence was fine. Fine. Where shall we have dinner? In the hotel, of course. Meet in the bar and then dine, why not.

"I finished the champagne, thanked my host and ostentatiously stood to leave. Who did I then bump into but Hesketh, my old friend from Cambridge whom I had last seen at the EU conclave about a year earlier. I always wondered what he did in government. It seemed mysterious and related to intelligence agencies and whatnot.

"What a surprise"... cheeks kissed and a friendly hello. "I see you have a new pal. New boy pal?"

"I laughed. Was Hesketh invited to the party, I asked. 'Got myself invited' he said rather mysteriously. 'So that's not the boy pal?' said Hesketh, insistently. Why I asked. Do I love my country? Do Iove the EU? It turns out that Sullei was a first class rogue. It turns out that my suspicions about Hesketh were also confirmed. It was the first time Hesketh admitted he was in intelligence, a spy not to put it softly. It turns out he was particularly bad at playing the spy. In John le Carre it is always done in a clever and convincing way. Not him. I mean I love the EU, but do I feel patriotic?

"At any event Sullei was a rogue in a bad dealing-arms-rogue sort of way. Not at all nice and somebody they wanted to keep tabs on and quite likely bring down. Would I mind having dinner and reporting on him; above all could I find some way to find out who he was meeting. Even just some physical descriptions. No need for bugs or wires or anything, just observation. Above all who was he meeting?

"And so I was now an amateur spy poised to dine with this rogue of a man. At 8pm two nights hence.

"I'll tell you about the party another time. But basically two afternoons after first seeing Hesketh I was looking at photos of Sullei and his rogue friends, and being shown pictures of two people they were especially keen to know about. Hesketh never said it, but clearly he hoped I would fuck Sullei for information, particularly if I could find something out about those two.

"That night I went to the restaurant, where Sullei was waiting, a warm smile on his face. And he motioned not to enter but to accompany him ... 'to a pavilion'. Distracting chatter and then I entered the door of a villa into a vaulted room with a high ceiling. Archways opened onto a large garden and a pool and a pavilion beyond. The villa's hall was lit by candles. The pool was surrounded by candles. Candles lit the pavilion. Candles bathed the flowers that decorated the tables. Champagne, a Meursault, an Echezaux. A hovering waiter (and was that a hovering bodyguard beyond?).

"The water in the pool was disturbed by a warm breeze playing over it, making the candle reflections into crazy shapes. And taking my arm he led me to the pavilion beyond the pool and held a chair out for me. He had chosen dinner, and chosen deliciously. It was arrogant of him to have removed choice, but there was enough of it not to be offended.

"We both ate sparingly, me as a result of nerves, him possibly out of habit or a desire not to ruin the seduction he had so evidently planned. I had planned not to be seduced, but I felt a slight and involuntary weakening at the sheer amount of charm and flattery and exotic good looks being directed at me. I gently teased out why he was there ('to meet some dull people') he said. 'I hope they come tonight so they can see this beautiful setting you had created' (he smiled at the compliment and said 'perhaps, but I hope not').