Prisoner in his Harem Ch. 05

In chapter 1-4 we met Sheikh Fouad bin Faisal bin Hoessein al Azzizi the 44 year old ruler of the Emirate West Tripolitania. More than 10 years ago he used his family fortune as an Arabian noble to conquer West Tripolitania with his band of foreign fighters. Was the country before suffering from tribal and religious conflicts that costed the lives of many of its young men nowadays under the wise rule of Sheikh Fouad the country is a stable area of peace and prosperity.

Foreign journalists describe the country as a traditional 1001 nights meet Silicon Valley Emirate between the sea and the desert. The Sheikh has reinstated many old traditions from Arab or even the Roman times. Now it is quite normal again to have more than one wife as due to the wars there are not so many men left. The Sheikh even has a harem but not one with slaves but with girls who represent the alliance of their tribe or town with him and willingly choose to be there as being at the court is regarded as a high honour. Although people are free to conduct their life as they see fit in private in public people have to live by certain rules like wearing the traditional dress.

Although traditions are strongly promoted so is education and science and development as the Sheikh wants to have his country ready for an era without oil. Universities flourish and both boys and girls can choose a career. More and more the country is earning income from IT and inventions. Many expats choose to live in the Emirate. Amongst them is a 36 year old English women who teaches human rights at the American university in the capital. She is a workaholic who never married or had a family and travelled the world for her work in refugee-camps. She and the Sheikh once clashed because she was of the opinion she had to be exempted from having the cover herself as she is a foreigner and a non-believer and that it was against her human rights. But although he thought she was too full of herself and did not know her place when he meets her a few weeks later at a formal do at an embassy he feels strongly attracted to her by her copper curls and luscious creamy big breasts spilling over her ball-gown.

The legal system in the country is quite severe with a death penalty for (planned) murder. But the family of the victims can forgive the criminal. But the Sheikh and his judges can also offer the perpetrator the choice of instead of the sword or the gallows a live as a slave trying to redeem his or her wrongs by a life of servitude.

When we meet the Sheikh he just discovered a bombplot against his children and those of other dignitaries. The bomb is handed to the assassin by the Western woman who teaches at the local university and is known for her fierce equal rights attitude. Instead of giving her the required death sentence he offers her an alternative as a slave in his harem as there she can instead of killing his children give him others. In his hate and need of revenge he thinks it quite fitting to force her to to bodily surrender to him and swell up with his seed. She chooses life and he tells her her name will be Rosebud from now on (as her nipples are pink due to her very white skin unlike the local darker colours).

He claims her body upon her entering his harem and after that first night in his bed she is send to be trained in the arts of the harem.

She realises that her only chance of ever convincing him of her innocence is completely to submit to his rules so he will hopefully stop hating her and maybe come to realise she is not at all a person who would go and kill children and set her free again.

The soaring heath of hatred and need for revenge in him cooled when he sees her pain and her tears on being taken by force. And it pleases him to be reported that she makes an effort in trying to master the arts of haremlife and his culture in general what he considers quite a punishment as for the feminist it will feel so degrading to have to learn how to please an Arab master with her body. Moreover further investigations seems to suggest she indeed did not know what the bombs was intended for and she cannot go anywhere and create havoc locked in his harem. So he focusses again on ruling his country and forgets about her now he had her.

She notices that normally the man is good to his women and is a fair ruler whose work she really respects. So probably his actions towards her were extreme emotions caused by what happened she muses. Rage because she was part of a threat against his kids.

So by the time their paths cross again a month later in the baths he is back at his normal gentle but domineering self while they have her changed into a sultry and beautiful woman and he realises he just wants her in his arms and in his bed. They make love in the early hours or the morning and he shows her how she pleasured him by letting her decide on the faith of a people-smuggler and grating her plea for protection for that criminal's victims.

He starts to summon her to his bed more and more often. And although she cannot refuse him when he commands her as she is indeed his slave, she instead starts to long for his company as his touch is always arousing and weirdly enough his strength makes her feel safe.

He is fascinated by this woman who thinks like a man but feels like a woman in his bed. Like when she asks him one night in his bedroom if she can wield his ceremonial Damascan steel scimitar to see how it feels in her hand, explaining she had some fencing lessons in university, he ends up giving her a lesson how to use it. Getting themselves so worn out by that that they just fall asleep in each other's arms and nothing more happens. While on other nights he just cannot get enough of her and in the morning she will be so stiff and sore the haremmatron Azziza has to rub ointment in her entrance and on her nipples and give her a massage and has to tell their master his favorite cannot come to his bed again the next night but needs time to recuperate.

With the passing of the months both come to their separate conclusion they not only crave to be pleasured by the other, enjoy each other's company in general, but moreover have fallen in love with each other. She does not dare to say something like that to her lord and master. She is his slave and she is there in his harem as punishment. It would be not proper unless he would ask her.

He has to arrange the burial of his deceased queen and has to leave his palace and his country to do so, but realises that for him it is important to know if the woman he has fallen in love with is really guilty. If guilty she might be a threat still to his kids and himself but if she is really innocent as he more or less believes now the proof of that would clear the road for him to tell how he feels about her. So he sends away a new team of hunters.

When he comes home after a month she is eager to tell him she is carrying his child while he is trying to come to terms with the fact that he has hurt and imprisoned someone who was indeed completely innocent. He despises himself and thinks he wanted to know if she was not guilty so he could tell her he loved her, but that he now has forfeited that right. He thinks that the honourable thing to do is to release her and set her free and put her on a flight to her homecountry and her parents. So that is what he does without asking her if that is what she wants.

*****

The flight-attendant, Chrysta, looked at the local newspaper she was giving to her passengers. On the cover was a big picture of the local ruler Sheikh Fouad who according to the article had resumed his normal duties again after the time of mourning for his late queen has passed. Well she would not mind warming that guy's bed. He was probably 20 years older than her but he looked devilish handsome in a kind of pirate way with the long curly hair and the moustache and goatee. And to add to that the exotic robes. According to her roommate, who was studying anthropology, some girls go to work for 3 months as a callgirl in the Gulf earning so much money they could but a house of their own. Maybe one of those Sheikhs like this Fouad could be a good sugar-daddy for her as well.

The eyes of the flight-attendant focussed on the woman in her first class section. She had refused to get out of the local black coat and scarf and when Chrysta got a look of her feet clad in beaded slippers and a leg in some sheer trouser she wondered if the woman was maybe not properly enough dressed to get out of that coat. She looked very forlorn. Chrysta had seen her brought to the plane by two burly local types that looked like security goons. According to the woman she was preggies - asked her if she had to do something different with the seatbelt. LOL the average American had more belly. Chrysta looked at the hennaed hands and feet of the woman. And then at her rather expensive looking earrings, bracelet and rings. Would this be one of those women who came here to be a plaything? Was she send home on a one way ticket because the rich man wanted a hot pussy but not morning sickness? All of a sudden a local sugar-daddy did not sound so appealing anymore.

*****

The woman he had called Rosebud looked at the paper and the picture of the man she loved and whose child was growing deep inside her. She had so longed for him to come home and be called to his bed again so they could make love and be happy because of the baby. Instead he had informed her he had wronged her as much as you could wrong a woman and that she was released to go home and be free again. She felt confused and numb.

The security guy had given her a box telling her it was from the Sheikh. She opened it. Inside she found a wad of banknotes, some paperwork and a couple of beautiful necklaces made of gold and seashells. The seashells they had both collected on the beach while kissing each other. Just a month ago. She felt tears fall from her eyes and roll down her cheeks.

The letters were an appointment with a famous gynaecologist in London in 4 days that was already paid for. And the paperwork for a Swiss bank account and the local contactperson of the bank in London. She gaped at the amount. More than enough money to raise a child with. And buy a house. And never need a job again.

On the bottom was her passport with a neat exit stamp.

*****

The London airport was so busy. After being locked in a big and quiet palace for over 6 months she felt overwhelmed. She realised it was almost Christmas purely because of all the Christmassongs played and the ornaments the shops were decked out with. 'Going home for Christmas'... She felt a lump in her throat. "Mum, dad, I am coming home" she thought.

The guy from Bordercontrol gazed at her passport. "Miss Lisbeth Somerset?" he asked her. "You look quite different from this picture. Please follow my female colleague so she can check you."

The woman had her untie her long head scarf and let her walk through some Xray machine. Then waved her on. "Welcome back home miss Somerset." She was so professional not to show her surprise by discovering pierced nipples and a belly button. You never know with those demure ladies all covered up. They could be little minxes at home.

*****

She exited the train in Little Puddington shivering in her thin cloths. Snow was falling. The little station was deserted. She started to walk home. Her feet were getting icy and blueish, snow covering her shoulders, shivers running along her spine. She felt so tired. Tears started to fall again.

The village was also decked out in its best Christmas tradition but when she neared the old Norman church she saw the rectory was not decorated at all. A light burned in the kitchen but the rest of the house was dark. The house was mourning. There seemed to be some activity in the church but no music was heard outside.

She rang the doorbell of her parent's house. The house she still had a room in so she had a place to stay in between her foreign assignments. Steps came to the door. Her mum opened it and turned pale and then shouted "Lisbeth! Lizzy! Oh my god is it you? You are alive. Come in. You look frozen."

She reached out her hands for comfort when her sister stormed in the hallway. "What is going on mum? Who is this? Lisbeth? You are back!"

They all walked towards the warm kitchen in a haze.

"Oh," said her sister: "What good fortune you arrive exactly now. My husband the MP (member of parliament) is doing a rally in the church on your behalf. Trying to get the press to urge for investigations in your disappearance and to get you freed.. Dad is there too. Come quickly!" and she grabbed Lisbeth's arm and urged her out via the backdoor towards the old church. Her feet still felt like icicles.

Inside the church there was a lot going on. Camerateams and Stephen St John MP, her brother-in-law, giving a speech. Her sister dragged her into the crowd and shouted "People Stephen's work paid off. Lisbeth is home. The bastards let her out of jail."

Everybody wheeled around to look at her. The world started to spin and darkness took over.

*****

A few minutes later she was sitting on a church pew and someone handed her some water. People crowded all around her. Somewhere in the back was her dad. Microphones were aimed at her. "Lisbeth what happened? Where were you? Why they released you now?"

She hauled herself back to her feet and tried to look as regal as the time Sheikh Fouad had called her to his throne to deliver a verdict. "Thank you all for your concern. I am very happy to see my family again. Sheikh Fouad went through a lot of trouble to have my innocence proven and when that was clear I was released and they paid for my trip home." (Well at least that was a version of the truth) "I am frozen and very tired. I am sure Stephen and my sister will be delighted to answer your questions but I really need to go to bed. Thank you for coming."

She tried to walk out to go back to the house but saw herself blocked by Violet Holt a ferocious parliamentary journalist in her sixties who probably only had showed up because a MP had organised the event.

"Dear, where you raped in jail?" she said with a voice dipped in honey.

"Sorry miss Holt but I am not answering any more questions."

"Well dear I am a grandmother of 10 so I have quite an eye for seeing someone in the family way. And it is quite clear that you are going to have a baby even if others would not have noticed yet. So tell me in what prison where you kept? A prison where they hennaed your hands and feet and put earrings in your ear worth a month's salary? Where you a prisoner or where you just on your back under some Arab lord while people here tried to get you released from a 'jail'?"

She felt blood drain from her face again but managed to keep at least her outside appearance look calm. "Well madam you must be such a lucky lady with so many grandchildren. Good night." And stormed off to the house.

Her sister was shouting the moment the door closed behind the two of them. "Is it true what that Holt woman says? Are you pregnant of some Arab bastard? Where were you? Oh my husband did so much to get you home. And this... This will ruin his career in Westminster! It is not only those earrings look at those rings and bracelets. Oh mum this selfish cow has been in someone's bed while we were worried sick! Oh my husband his career... How can you be so ungrateful."

Like always her selfcentered sister claimed the headlight. She and her bloody MP husband!

The melted snow was now water that had soaked her to her skin. Suddenly she longed for warm desertwind. After six months of being obeying Rosebud Lisbeth felt herself explode with anger.

"That husband of yours did what? I saw my own file and he was nowhere mentioned. Whatever he did it had nothing to do with my release. And you want to know what prison I was kept? Does that matter? The fact is a building is a prison when you cannot leave."

"You want to know how I got pregnant?" (She saw her mum bring her hand to her mouth in shock). "I was given a choice: to die or to live like a slave."

She yanked the long coat free from her body revealing gauzed clothing not hiding pierced nipples the jewels in them shining in the kitchen light. The henna dancing up over her arms and around her belly button. Necklaces hanging in the valley between her breasts. Her belly curved with pregnancy.

"This is what they do to you," she hissed. "You have to spread your legs on command and only live to pleasure the lord and master of the harem. And you know what my dear 'married to a MP-sister': I LIKED it." and she stormed off towards the bathroom and her bed leaving her mother and sister speechless to be found standing like pillars by her father.

*****

She was sitting in the bathtub when her mother walked in. She sat herself on the toiletcover and said "Lizzy did you love that man? Tell me what happened?" She looked at her daughter who had always been the practical tomboy and who now looked like a princess from 1001 nights oozing sexual attraction. Her daughter put her face in her hands and cried and cried and told her mum the whole story.

When the two women emerged from the bathroom with Lisbeth in a pyjama her dad told her that her sister had left saying she would never want to talk to her again. And that the whole frontyard was covered by newsvans. Her mum insisted she should get to bed and with a hot water bottle and a lot of hot chocolate milk and said she would tell dad the story so no need to stay up.

*****

The next days were hell. She was hounded by journalists. "Yes she was very happy having a baby. She was treated well in West Tripolitania. She was grateful that the Sheikh there had done all the investigations that led to her release."

She did not know that far away that same Sheikh was looking at the news-reports. Seeing his Rosebud stand there besieged by that scum looking pale in her long black wool coat that looked like a soldier's one her hair covered with a fluffy pink cap the accompanying scarf around her neck, the cold making her cheeks go pink. He wished he was there to chase them away and put his arm around her shoulders. To place his hands on her belly and their child. He picked up the phone and ordered some discreet bodyguards to protect her without her knowing that.

She went to the doctor with her mum and was told she was healthy and so was the baby. They looked at the ultrasound and saw the little heart beating. "You are having a son," said the doctor. She felt blessed. She had always wanted children but never found a dad and now while she was already 36 she was given this gift. "Can you please tell his father?" she asked the doctor as she was more or less sure with all her bills paid by the Sheikh the doctor would have a way to contact him. "And tell him that due to your calculations it is a certainty he was conceived the night we made love when he found me in the baths."

*****

Life goes on and when journalists are not fed any news and the world turns and turns in time they will loose interest. So when Christmas was approaching they had all left Little Puddington. Her sister however had waggled her tongue so the villagers knew all that the reverend's daughter, the one who had always worked in far places, was to become an unwed mum fallen pregnant by some Arab lord. So wherever she went in the village eyes followed her around.

Nevertheless it was good to be home. To see her parents - her sister kept refusing to talk to her. To cuddle miss Katzy the neighbour callico cat. To chat with the old hens in the library. So she even ventured to the local Christmas carol evening. First she had sit in one of the back-rows in church but had preferred even less eyes on her so had climbed up towards the organ where Old John was playing while everyone was waiting for the festival to start.