Tiger of Bahrain

Laura McNallen was headed off to make the deal of a lifetime. She had inherited a family company that was one of thousands of beltway bandit concerns peddling tech of one degree of usefulness or another to US defense and clandestine branches. Being part of the constant graft as business, lobbiest as weapons crowd cost Laura any illusions about how her nation worked, and convinced her that nothing of long term worth could be built in that sector. When she began exploring the civilian applications of the same technologies, whole new worlds of profit began to open up and her company stock prices began to skyrocket at the same time her clash with her father came to crissis. The result, she was now CEO/CFO with control of the company, and he was chairman of a board that understood its dividends came from her choices, not her father's.

Daddy's little girl had come out of Brown University with a MBA to go with her Remote Image Sensing BSc and Geographic Informations Systems MSc. Losers fought for the right to sell information systems to fight wars; the wars we wanted to fight required little, and the ones we dared not fight required more than anyone was willing to spend for. The real money was for those who dared to use the same systems to look for wealth that tomorrow's technology would reveal to those who got their first. Untapped billions in minerals, and oil awaited those who learned how to use the technology of the space and arms race to look down upon the earth with technology that could, for the right software and analyst, whisper where lay treasures that would make the dwarf kings of legend weep tears of gold, and change the balance of world economic power. Laura had the science she needed the funding. CCCC China Communications Construction Company had been the group that far too many of her stockholders had turned out to be fronts for . Peoples Republic of China's state run construction and communications giant could not be allowed to control the technology that would make its owners the masters of the worlds economy for the next millennium. She had completed a deal with the Saudi's to give her enough funding to buy back enough stock to get personal control of the board; the Saudi's had too much invested in the status quo to risk new discoveries threatening their market stranglehold. Before she went on to Beijing to pry the secret fingers China had got on tomorrows wealth, she promised herself a little vacation in Bahrain. Saudi's lived in a culture where almost everything was forbidden, so of course they needed Las Vegas far more than the US did. What they got was Bahrain; what happened in Bahrain Allah didn't know about; it was better than Vegas. No rules of morality or consequences of behavior existed for the elite of the world when they came to Bahrain.

Laura had been the tough business woman, the cold scientist, the ball busting executive with almost inhuman brilliance and without a shred of human weakness for so long that her soul was almost dead from the strain. She was young, beautiful, and female, three strikes against her in the business world ruled by old white men to whom her gender, age, and beauty made her a commodity to be traded, not a person to be listened to, and god forbid, superior to be obeyed. No hint of vice or even of humanity could be seen, or she would be dismissed and her vision of the company would never be. Instead of inheriting the world, her company would continue to scramble for table scraps selling million dollar toys to blow up mud huts in countries no one could find on an unlabeled map.

Here in Bahrain, she could let her hair down and have a little fun. As Laura sipped her gin and tonic in the Four Seasons Bahrain Bay, she stared at the gaggle of young stewardesses who had descended on the bar like so many forest nymphs to a grove of Satyrs. The dark Arab and Asian business men, the idle rich, each with fortunes greater than some countries budgets collected around the blond, brunette and redheaded flight attendants like guests at a buffet and the eternal dance of seduction began. Laura sighed. The men were darkly seductive, hungry powerful men with powerful appetites. They desired, hungered, and indulged themselves in every form of pleasure their smallest whim could conceive, and with their pale prizes felt no shame in indulging appetites they could never admit to possessing with their wives. For themselves the girls looked like they intended to lead their suitors on a merry chase, then surrender themselves with the wild shamelessness of the maenads, for nothing they did here would ever be whispered to parents, or future husbands. They were the prizes to be taken, and they hungered to be taken again and again with a shamelessness Laura envied to the point of hatred. Feminism was as much a trap as chauvanism; for to be accepted as a business woman she had to pretend not to be a woman at all.

Turning from the laughing girls Laura found herself staring into the eyes of a tiger. Frozen, she grew aware of the salt and pepper hair, the golden face, dark furrowed brow and hard line of mouth beneath, but the tiger eyes held her fast like a captive deer. His voice, heavy with Mandarin stresses pronounced his English with perfect diction yet his mother tongue dripped from every syllable.

"It is unworthy to envy them. You are a guest here, that means you could buy the plane they crew with a wave of your credit card. Your signature on a single paper commands more money than all of them together will see in their entire lives. It is unworthy to envy them. They come here to be treated as the most prized hetairai, courtesans, by the richest and most powerful men in the world. It is not about the money. They are being treated as objects of pleasure, as animals to be hunted, but such animals, like prize Arabians to be broken to the saddle. They know they will be loved with such passion, with such fury and absolute debauchery that every last whimper and sigh will be wrung from their body, until there is nothing left of them but a mindless quivering slave. They will feel no shame, because a hetairai, courtesan or whore cannot be shamed for it is hot her choice, she is the vessel of her master's lust of her master's will. There is no shame possible for a slave, for such a creature can never be blamed for they do not choose. They will never offer such delights to their husbands, the fathers of their future children, nor would such men ever dare show their wives that side of themselves. This is a shared dream, a shared dance that will burn bright in their memory until they die, but will be deniable before dawn even comes."

Laura was caught up in the visions his words brought out, and lashed by the power of those darkly burning tiger eyes, so the answer slipped forth like blood from an unbound wound. "For them" She whispered "but not me"

Raising a hand, he snapped his fingers. Two smiling aids, very well dressed young executives who probably had staffs of dozens on their own danced attendance on this tiger in business casual as naturally as courtiers to any king. He muttered something to the men, who nodded, and took out cell phones and began walking away, issuing stern commands with the natural assumption than anyone hearing their voice would neither need to be told who they were, nor dare do anything but obey.

The Tiger smiled softly as he turned back to Laura. He sipped his drink and his eyes crinkled at the corner and sunlight infused his words with a heat that caressed Laura's skin like when she dared to sun herself naked on her private patio. "It could be that if you finished your drink and returned to your room, a KLM Stewardess uniform tailored to your exact size will be laid out upon the bed. It is well known the Dutch stewardesses are particularly shameless, and indulge in the wildest and most uninhibited public displays. This hotel is widely criticized throughout the Gulf states for tolerating excesses in its public spaces that would be forbidden even in Amsterdam's Red Light district. Perhaps you might choose to don such an outfit, and such a persona. No one knows you here, you can be whomever you chose. You can decide what you will be. Do you wear your own name, and your own life, or do you choose to be,...Speelbal, for the evening."

Laura sipped her drink and looked at the Tiger as he stood, and straighted his suit. He was an older man, still vital, but carrying comfortable extra weight. He moved with an odd smoothness, like every gesture had been carefully crafted and rehearsed until it flowed with an efficiency that showed only and exactly what its master intended, and never anything more. A desire to see his control break, to see desire and need flame in those tiger eyes rose in her as hot as ambition had ever burned in her, or hotter, and she raised her chin and met his eyes as she replied.

"If I am to be Speelbal for you, who will you be for me? If I am to give up my name for the night, what shall I call you?" Laura's challenge was met with low, hungry laughter that sent shivers from the hairs on the back of her neck down her spine, to ignite a fire in her sex.

"You will call me Suǒyǒu zhě" He said, "And you will find Speelbal fits you as well as the uniform that even now awaits you in your room".

Laura arrived back to her room to find a KLM Stewardess uniform waiting for her, and a white stocking, garter and lace half cup bra set from her own luggage laid out as well. A tad presumptuous, but Laura felt that fire in her long neglected loins burning as bright as the red in her hair. She decided to think about things while she indulged in a shower. As she felt the water caressing her, she returned again to Suǒyǒu zhě's eyes, his burning tiger eyes. His eyes made her aware of her body in ways she had never been. As much as she hated when old white men tried to dismiss her by treating her as a mere object, it was different when Suǒyǒu zhě did it. To be objectified by him was to be his prized possession, a priceless work of art whose sight alone was a prize worth spending fortunes and breaking laws, a bottle of brandy that could fetch more than a Ferrari at auction, but be shared to celebrate a triumph because such delights derive half their pleasure from your lessers knowing you own what they can only dream about. She took the shower head and allowed it to wash over her breasts, their sensitivitity aroused to the point almost of pain, then down her belly into the secret of her sex where only the firm grip on the wall railing prevented a dangerous fall as she came at the first touch of the water to her sex. She cried out "Suǒyǒu zhě!" as she came, and felt his eyes burning into her, even in the privacy of her shower. She would don the uniform and return to the bar.

There was a simple steel collar lying on top of the little hat for KLM stewardesses. From it dangled a square of gold with a large inset tiger eye stone. Above the stone was engraved Speelbal, the name she was to use tonight. On the tiger eye was etched a Mandarin ideogram, which her phone translated unhelpfully as Wánwù. She clicked the collar in place around her neck and admired the way the tiger eye shone against her white skin, and when she caught the flash of steel at her throat, her nipples sent a shock of lightning to her loins and her knees almost gave way. She looked like a slave girl from some terrible swords and sorcery movie. Dressing slowly in her lingerie and then flight attendant uniform, she applied her cosmetics with a care equal to that of her most important business meetings. This was an offering. She was an offering. Each action from showering, shaving her legs, armpits, and sex, save for a little tuft of red fire at the top had been done with the simple thought of how she would appear to Suǒyǒu zhě. She was to be his tonight, his fantasy. She was to escape herself for one night and become his fantasy so she could live in ways she would never be free to even admit wanting to in her own.

Her entrance into the bar a second time was different to the first to the same degree the arrival of the President is different than the arrival of a waiter. Her heels clicked as she swayed into the room. No more the false squared stride that masked her sex, now each foot was placed in front of the other in a natural stride, her hips rolling, her breasts bouncing naturally as their erect nipples in the lace half cup defined themselves clearly and shamelessly against the whisper thin cotton of her flight attendant's blouse. The half jacket served to frame and display her breasts rather than modestly cover them, and the open neck showed the steel collar and cats eye to draw every eye to the generous pale cleavage on display. Her blue skirt was the colour of Bahrain bay and set off her eyes, just as the tiger eye gem set off her scarlet tresses. Every eye turned to watch her cross the room, and the smoky gaze she let caress each of them matched the sultry smile on her face to a wicked degree. She drank their admiration, and let the blush rise in her cheeks, let them look, let them pant with desire for her.

She passed the nook where four black leather sofas surrounded a low Moroccan table set with an ornate tea Chinese tea service. She saw Suǒyǒu zhě basking like a lazy tiger surrounded by his lean hungry juniors, preening and laughing as if unconcerned, while all the while as focused on him to a degree that made his mastery as clear as it was unstated. Settling to the bar with a delicate shift of her legs that accidentally flashed enough thigh to reveal the white lace garters beneath the azure of her KLM skirt. A deep breath and cat like stretch showcased her full and lush breasts to full effect with the bright sunlight of Bahrain's noon turning the thin Egyptian cotton and gauze thin white lace beneath it into almost perfect transparency. One French executive, and a Saudi playboy began their seperate approaches, but were too late as one of Suǒyǒu zhě's young aides appeared and spoke softly>

"My employer wishes to express his compliments. You are by far the most gracious and lovely woman it has been his pleasure to see, here or elsewhere. If it please you, he would like to offer you his hospitality for this evening. No want or wish will be unfulfilled, all of Bahrain shall be yours to enjoy"

The man's voice rang with sincerity, and his eyes burned with the NEED for her to accept, mixed with the fear that comes when the otherwise powerful ask for what they cannot command yet require. Laura drank in the compliments, the need, the fear as well and felt the lust rising in her again. With a graceful nod she offered her hand, and the young executive lead her over like a virgin sacrifice to a pagan god. She felt those tiger eyes capture her own, and suddenly her nipples ached with fullness, no longer simply erect, the deep breaths she found herself taking tugged at the turgid nipples making them almost painfully sensitive. His eyes wandered slowly down her neck, to the collar, and his hand gathered the tiger eye medallion and pulled her towards him with an arrogance and possessiveness that went through her body like the first shot of tequilla she had in college.

His voice held a guttural quality at odds with the melodic cadences of his native Mandarin, a low hungry rumble more suited to the jungle predator his eyes promised than the pampered businessman his London tailored suits and ample belly suggested as he let her name roll off his tongue like you woudl roll the first taste of the most expensive whiskey around your mouth, with slow deliberate enjoyment.

"Speelbal, which is Dutch for "plaything", the same meaning as the ideogram on the tiger eye, Wanwu. To wear this is to suggest you are the Tiger's plaything, is that who I see before me?" His fingers at my throat, he could feel the blush my redheaded nature made so apparent his fingers could tell the tale through the blaze in my skin even if his eyes could not see it. His fingers casually stroked my neck, feeling the hammer of my pulse as I strove with all the years of business training to fake a calm I could not muster.

"It is who I am tonight, for you sir" I said, not understanding why I added the honourific to a man who might well be in another time and place, a peer, a competitor, or another of the victims who stood between her and what she needed to bring her visions to light. Sir felt like the miminum she could offer him. She expected his hands to wander down her front, where all his aides were staring openly,, yet his hand caressed her cheek, and turned her eyes up to meet his own. Cornflower blue eyes met the blazing dark gold of the tiger and he asked her.

"Who am I?"

Remembering how she cried out his name as she came in the shower, she cried out his name in the same helpless, unthinking need "Suǒyǒu zhě!"

All the aides laughed, but he gathered her in for a kiss of such gentleness that her whole body froze with a stillness so complete her own heartbeat came as a surprise, so total was her concentration on the first touch of his lips. She felt a rush, and only the hands of his aides kept her from falling to the ground as his first kiss sent her blood roaring through her like the thundering surf, and she nearly fainted. They settled her in his lap, chuckling at how totally she had responded to his first touch.

"I think the paleness of your neck sets off the steel of the collar nicely, good Chinese steel, born of the industries that drive this world. The fire of the tiger eye brings out the fire in you hair, and makes that bright blush of yours so perfect against that snow white skin of your chest" HIs voice was so smug, so superior, so right. I was shocked when one of his aides shouted something in Mandarin, then restated it in English.

"Who can tell, her blouse hides it all, who can see anything?" The muttering around the room made it clear, they wanted to see more.

Suǒyǒu zhě barked a command, his voice suddenly as steel as the collar he spoke about as he demanded "SHOW THEM"

Here it was. Was I Laura McNallen, CFO/CEO of McNallen Technologies, or was I Speelbal? Suǒyǒu zhě's little Dutch stewardess plaything. The choice was mine. I was trapped as Laura with my family, friends, subordinates, and even former teachers. I had no choice but to be her all the time or risk my position. Yet here, today, I could be Speelbal, I could be the Tiger's plaything if I chose. I chose.

I unbuttoned my blouse to the bottom, and let Suǒyǒu zhě pull it apart to show my whole chest, clad only in the lace half cup bra. Everyone murmered at how wonderful it looked, and camera phones snapped picture after picture of my fetching blush, and how the collar set it off. Suǒyǒu zhě began to casually play with my nipples through my bra, making me squirm on his lap as each rasping finger caused white fire to tear across my brain and shatter my thoughts and resistance. I saw the Hotel Manager come over, a short grossly obese man with a smile wider than his belt and less sincere than a shark's. His voice threatened to bring me out of the bliss my casual display and fondling was creating, and draw me back to reason, and shame.

"Effendi, you must know that such public displays are quite forbidden in Bahrain. We understand that such girls can have trouble restraining their urges, but we ask guest to at least bring them inside their rooms first" The manager's eyes roamed all over my exposed chest, and face. He smirked in such a way that made it clear he knew exactly who I was, for he had been fawning all over me when I booked my suites as a most cherished, most valued client. Now he openly treated me like a whore who couldn't be expected not to hump party guest legs without a leash and smack from their owner.

I came with a cry as Suǒyǒu zhě pinched my nipple harshly. His voice rumbled back to the fat little Arab. "I think an indulgence can be had, as the Saudi's established, with a proper donative>" He sounded almost bored, as if the matter were really beneath his notice. He continued "Xiang, give our close personal friend here the envelope I gave you earlier, and assure him when we leave, I will see he gets a tip at least as enjoyable"