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Chapter Text

It is dark by the time Yassamin arrives at the baths, but it is no matter: Jaffar has had the rooms lit with oil lamps and wax candles, sparing no expense. The lion-shaped censers, normally empty, now bellow out the most intoxicating of perfumes: sandalwood, ambergris, musk, roses, oudh. The curls of smoke float out through the stars cut into the dome, swirling white in the soft moonlight.

She steps out of the hot room, nervously clutching her towel around herself. But it is not because Jaffar awaits her in the pool, naked, smirking: her awkwardness is due to the handmaidens arranging the usual rugs and cushions, pots and bottles of oils and ointments beside the pool. The girls say nothing, merely stare at her and Jaffar in astonishment, scandalised. She has never seen them work so fast, she observes wryly. When Jaffar gestures for them to leave, they scamper out like mice, some of them unable to suffocate their titters.

She waits until the girls are out of the room, then drops her towel and descends into the pool. She sinks into the water, forgets about the servants and lets herself float, groaning in relaxation. The water is warm, suffused with roses and rosemary, dissolving the aches in her muscles as sweetly as the incense dissolves into the air. She can feel Jaffar's eyes upon her and basks in his gaze, deciding to tease him a little, giving him glimpses of her breasts, her thighs bobbing out of the water, gleaming.

She dives and re-emerges well out of his reach, watching him the way he watches her. And what a feast he is for her eyes: languid, he leans back against the far corner of the pool, arms outstretched upon the tiles, his wet hair curling upon his cheeks, his eyes glittering with desire. The candlelight, the water paint flickering stripes of gold upon his shoulders, water dripping golden from his arm, golden from his wrist as he curls his index finger at her, beckoning to her.

She quirks her eyebrow and shakes her head, turns and dives once more, arching her back so that her buttocks lift out of the water, so that he can't not notice the glistening curve of her cunny. Thus, she dips and dives and swims like a sylph for long moments, observing his reactions whenever she emerges: the widening of his smile, the quickening of his breath. She lets him wait, wait until she finally swims into his arms and oh, the look in his eyes: the slow hunger in them, the way the firelight flickers through his irises as if they were made of water themselves. She cups the back of his head and greets him with a deep, open-mouthed kiss, curling her tongue in his mouth, tasting wine and honey.

He sighs into her mouth in contentment, marvelling at her desire, running his hands up and down her back, buttocks, thighs; taking her in with his touch the way he had taken her with his gaze. Finally, he pulls back and his eyes are wide from gladness, from mirth.

"Good evening, my little strumpet."

She pokes him in the ribs until he yelps and splashes, keeps going until he pins her arms to her sides, until they are both panting from laughter, from arousal.

"Good evening, my beast," she chuckles against his lips.

He tuts. "Your servant, surely."

"Is that so?" She measures him playfully with her eyes.

"Mmm-hmm. I promised to tend to you myself tonight."

"I'm sure you will be perfectly beastly about that as well," she grins.

He cups her buttocks. "But a gentle beast. Surely you had your fill of ravishments last night?"

He speaks the truth. She is still sore in her cunny and the stripes he had left upon her buttocks had made sitting down a challenge, especially as she had decided to forego medicines today. She had wanted to be sore, had wanted to feel his marks upon her, to feel the presence of his love upon her body, binding her with its ribbons of scarlet. And she would not have wanted to spend this day of all days drugged: she wants to feel everything, remember everything, to celebrate with him. Even if it means a dull, heavy ache in her hips, even if it means that tears spring into her eyes easily, like they do now, even when she is not sad--

"I'm sorry, Jaffar. I'm happy, I truly am--"

He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Shh. I know," he smiles gently. "What have I told you about apologising?"

She laughs nervously and casts down her eyes. "Thank you." But no, that doesn't sound right; she has to truly mean it, has to open her heart to gratitude instead of sorry. Thus, she lifts her gaze, meets his eyes with hers and whispers "Thank you, Jaffar." And it's as if her chest glows again, her heart juddering as she cups his face, stroking the laughter lines around his eyes. Thank you for loving me, she thinks, and she is sure he can hear her very thoughts as he gathers her against his chest.

He holds her, carries her thus for long moments, buoyed by the water, weightless. Softly, he kneads at her lower back with his fingertips, the way he knows she likes him to. Slowly, his massage melts into caresses and he seeks her mouth with his, drinking in her breath with long, long kisses until she quickens against him, until she presses against him with a sweet moan.

He skims the cleft of her buttocks with his fingertips. "Now. Would my old wife care for a cleansing?"

She laughs, undulates against him and purrs. "You are simply desperate for my buttocks tonight, aren't you?"

He squeezes her rump and hisses through his teeth. "I'm always desperate for them, and not ashamed to admit it. Oh, yes; I intend to have these tonight," he chuckles.

She can feel his prick stirring against her stomach, just as her own cunny leaps in arousal at the thought of sodomy. It is a pleasure they can enjoy but rarely, not least because of the amount of preparation it requires. But oh, how much they have learned of its art this past year! Their first such joining had been intensely pleasurable but rushed, and since then, they had discovered aids better than mere oil, Jaffar approaching the task of finding the perfect lubricant with all his engineering skill. He had sampled and mixed the most precious of oils, of waters, of all kinds of liquids, gelatinous matters and extracts until he had arrived at not one, but a selection of ointments. Ones for slow and sweet penetrations, ones for cruel, hard animal ruttings, ones for stretching her to the very limits of her body's tolerance.

And now, from the corner of her eye, she sees not just one jar but his entire array of oils, of unguents all lined up on the carpet beside the pool, and she shivers.

He presses at her anus with his fingertips once, twice, whispering in her ear. "Get on the rug."

By the time she has stepped out of the pool, her skin is covered in goosebumps. Her limbs heavy with rushing blood, she crouches down, her hands and knees thudding onto the floor, the very gravity of his gaze weighing her down to a crawl. He stares at her, his eyes slitted, and at a dip of his lashes she feels her spine dip, too, lifting her buttocks and cunny up for him to marvel. She presses her cheek against the rug, smiles at him and waits.

Lazily, he swims up to the steps and ascends them to join her. Over her shoulder, she can only see the lower half of his body: his legs, long and lean, rivulets of water following his veins down to his ankles, droplets of water glinting in the firelight before they disappear into the carpet. His short-cropped pubic hair casts black shadows upon his groin, framing his genitals as they swing heavily, grotesquely full between the sinewed thinness of his thighs. A satyr's prick between a boy's thighs, she thinks, the combination of the two rendering him sodomy incarnate. Heavy droplets dangle from the tip of his cock, too, as it bobs, lifts, hardens: saliva swirls into her mouth at the sight. Oh, but she wants him to fill her mouth, too; she wants to feel his sperm splashing onto her tongue tonight. She is close to lifting herself onto her knees and taking him in her mouth this very moment, that's how much she wants to taste him; nevertheless, she tells herself to wait and bites her lip instead.

He crouches beside her on the rug, his hand gentle upon the small of her back. "How many rinses do you usually take?"

"Three." But thanks to the opium last night, her guts have been slow, swollen. "Tonight, however, I am sure I would request four, just to be sure."

"All right," he says as he takes the syringe out of its box. And from his leer, she wonders if he doesn't think she'd suggested four rinses to indulge a perversion, or from a desire to indulge his perversions. Perhaps, beyond the medical necessity, this is indeed a perversion she did not know she possessed; it seems to be a new one for Jaffar, too.

But it is care rather than perversion with which he now performs the operation: he oils the tip of the syringe, asks her to guide it inside herself each time and releases the rose water much more slowly than any of the servant girls would. She remembers the day--one well before she had even realised she loved him--he had declared himself her personal physician, nurse and maid. As he had put his remaining fortune and his house at her disposal, so he had offered her the best of his medicines, of his healing spells, tending to her every ailment as if he were the Simurgh herself. As his care had grown, so had her love, until she could trust her body completely into his hands. Yet, she could never have imagined being cared for like this, let alone by her own husband. As if he were the lowliest of slaves, he now cleanses the dirtiest, filthiest part of her body without shame, without flinching. The act is not without its eroticism, but it astonishes her that for him, it truly does seem to be an act of compassion and care rather than one of domination or possession.

No, the look on his face is gentle, so loving that despite her shame, she allows him this. For this--and it astonishes her so much that she feels faint--even this is an act of worship, of ultimate love. That it should be possible to love someone so much that even the filth of their body cannot get in the way of the care they need, the love they need to be given--it makes her shake all over. Again, she is the babe and he the mother, thinking nothing of tending to her like this.

They say that the truly pious should so give themselves unto God, forget themselves so utterly it's as if they were but a corpse in the washer's hands, and despite the morbidity of such an image, she truly understands its meaning now. Even if Jaffar is not God himself, surely he is the All-Merciful's agent with his washing, his purifying of her body and her soul, and she shudders once more at the utter completeness of her surrender to him, to love itself.

Jaffar rubs her stomach with his other hand, thinking her shudders to be stomach cramps, but she clasps his hand with hers and whispers another quiet, heartfelt "Thank you."

Slowly, the warm rose water and whatever herbs he has mixed into it relax her insides and bring relief to her aching hips, her womb. Every time she has finished using the chamberpot he washes her, takes her into his arms and rubs her back, her stomach. Gently, he soothes her until she is ready for another rinse, repeating the cycle until the water runs clear.

By the time Jaffar declares her completely clean she is exhausted, swooning into his arms but she is happy, so happy, filled with perfect calm. She mumbles her thanks upon his mouth, between sips of the warm, honeyed wine he offers to her lips.

"Better?" he asks as he wraps a thick, warm towel around her, hugging her from behind.

"I love you," she groans groggily.

He laughs, laughs, his eyes glowing with delight. "You sound positively delirious. Clearly, we must make a tradition of this," he chuckles against her ear.

She cradles her wine cup in both hands and empties it with relish. "I should like that."

"Now, off to the hot room with you. I'll have a rinse myself and will join you in a few moments."

"Mmm." She tries to get up, but staggers and falls back into Jaffar's arms, exclaiming loudly.

Jaffar bursts into laughter once more. "Definitely delirious. Come."

He helps her to her feet and guides her back into the hot room. She yelps as he lifts her up and carries her for the last few steps, lowering her to lie down on the marble bench, over more soft towels. "Now, stay there," he says, wagging his finger at her as if she were a stubborn pet.

"Yes, master," she mumbles, yawns and falls into a satisfied doze.

It's later, much later, when both of them have enjoyed the pleasures of the steam, the pool, the oils and the wine once more that they resume their lovemaking. And it is part of why she loves him, even their imprisonment so: that unlike kings and queens, they are not in a rush, that their desire can rise and fall naturally like the tide, that they can dedicate entire days like these to enjoying each other's bodies, each other's company.

By the time she slides down his oiled body to his now-shaven groin and takes him into her mouth, he has stirred and softened many times against her stomach, her hips, her hands. It is only now that she cannot wait any longer and devours his taste, moans in utter satisfaction as his prick slowly fills out in her mouth. She will never cease to marvel at the miracle of virility: such soft and fragile flesh and loose skin growing and changing shape to become such hardness, smoothness stretching her lips, his pulse flickering against her tongue.

Jaffar sighs and his limbs unfurl around her, falling shivering upon the cushions, his thighs parting as softly as petals as she takes her fill of him. And like the bee, she has come for the nectar: she knows he wants to take her tonight, she knows she wants to be taken by him and is certain he must be worried about whether he can perform later if he lets himself spill into her mouth now. But she needs this, needs it to the exclusion of all else: needs to consume him, needs to offer him the same worship he has offered her. And as if praying to Priapus, she clasps her oiled hands around his prick and laces her fingers, her thumbs rubbing softly just below the head, at a spot so sweet it makes him sob out loud.

"My love, I--" but his sentence is cut short as she licks up a fat, wet bead from the tip and then swallows him, making his back arch off the cushions. "You're so sweet," he mumbles, his eyelashes fluttering upon his cheeks, "So sweet, my sweet girl, my sweetest, oh--" until he is babbling, sinking into a state where his words become but broken syllables, brooks of noises, animal, primal. His eyes never open but for a fraction, narrow flashes of blue so light they almost disappear into the whites of his eyes until his lashes fall again, fall like his head falls back upon the cushions, until his fingers spasm in her hair.

And on and on, she pleasures him with her mouth, with her hands; she sucks away at the oil until she tastes nothing but flesh, until her mouth swims with the taste of his arousal. Yet, she craves more and knows how to obtain it: she dips her fingers into a bowl of sweet oil and returns them to his service, touching them to his anus this time.

"No," he gasps, even as his hips lift, even as his arse clenches around her fingertip, hungry for it, as if trying to draw her inside his body. "You'll undo me."

She dips her other hand into the oil and brings it to his cock, stroking it lightly, oh, so lightly, rivulets of sweetness streaking down its shaft, his sack, down his perineum until they pool where her fingers rub against his entrance. "Shall I tell you what I want, husband?" she whispers, pressing her lips to his frenulum once more.

"Yes?" he pants, his knuckles white as he clutches the cushions.

She dips the tip of one finger, but one finger inside of him. "I want you to come undone. I want you to come in my mouth, Jaffar."

"Oh, God--!" his feet slip upon the rug; he cannot look into her eyes.

"I haven't finished. Shall I tell you what else I want?"

"Please."

She lets him wait, wait, tugging at his muscles with her finger, overtaken by awe as she feels his pulse inside of his body, so much stronger here than upon his cock; oh, it's as if she is touching his very life. She quivers, quivers, sucks his cock once more and within her mind, she whispers a short prayer, a spell: she visualises golden threads wrapping around the root of Jaffar's cock, the root of his sack, entwining around them, lifting them; now, he cries out like a dying man.

When she lifts up for air, his genitals are indeed lifted, twitching against his stomach; Jaffar stares down at himself in disbelief.

"You are mad. Absolutely mad, oh--"

"It was about time I tried that," she laughs.

It's the first time she has used a spell on him in bed: a fitting payback for the way he'd bound her on their wedding night. He has used straps, rings around his prick before, has used aphrodisiacs but never magic--perhaps still too proud, too vain to resort to the most powerful aid of all.

Perhaps he would have thought it a concession to age, but just as he has freed her of her shame, so she longs to free him of his: for he, too, secretly enjoys games in which the choice to be ashamed is removed from him. It is rare, for he prefers to be the liberator and she the one liberated, his sources of shame so few in comparison to hers. But on occasions like these, his eyes glow with a secret delight at her taking charge, leaving him no alternative but to submit to her ministrations. And knowing him, she is sure his delight in her doing this would be enough to keep him hard all night, even if she released the spell this very moment.

He still cannot believe his eyes, huffing out a breathless laugh as he looks at his cock and back at her again.

"It's very good. Very well execu--God, don't stop--"

"I still haven't told you all I want, Jaffar."

He cards her hair with his fingers, rocking softly into her hands, drunk from desire. "Tell me," he whispers, curling himself double for a moment only to steal a kiss. "What is it that you want, my sweet?"

Her wrist loose, languid, she gifts his cock with a teasing roll of her palm. "I want this in my cunny, Jaffar."

"It's yours," he gasps.

Yet she can still sense a note of uncertainty to his voice. Thus, she turns her strokes bolder and slips another finger inside of him, twisting them into the folds of his flesh. The softness, the vulnerability of his insides is always such a shock to her fingertips--and there it is again, his pulse, flickering against her touch. Oh, but even in her wickedness she is filled with awe, her chest aching at him allowing her this, his so trusting his body into her hands. Reverent even in her teasing, she continues to make love to him; she adds oil and keeps on massaging him until he claws at the rug, until he is so undone by pleasure he drips in strings onto her knuckles.

"Later, of course, I suppose you'll want my buttocks, won't you, husband?" she says playfully as if he weren't falling to pieces underneath her ministrations at all; chuckling, she closes her mouth around his cock, sucking the sweet, thick slickness from the head, never taking her eyes off him.

He stares up at her, his eyes wild; frantically, he clasps her hand with his, moving it in time around his cock. "Please."

She hums around his cock, pleased, tosses her head to the side as she comes up for breath, Jaffar shuddering as her hair brushes across his open thighs. "How hard would you take me, husband?" she urges, now, curling her fingers inside him, seeking out the spots that make his eyes roll back in his head. "If I were to say 'falcon,' how hard would you take me then, my beloved sweet?"

And it is at that that he roars, takes her hair in his fists and forces her mouth onto his cock. It's exactly what she has been waiting for, a flash of the beast, and her cunny clenches in delight as he rams into her throat again and again, takes his pleasure of her until it hurts.

Yet it is now he who loses control, his thighs quivering around her head; he moans between his thrusts, between her gags, breathless; a madman, he rocks himself in desperation upon her fingers.

"I would take you, fuck you like Ahmad and his entire court were watching," he snaps and she howls around his cock, howls, takes her hand off his cock and slips it to her cunny, rubbing her clitoris in time with his thrusts. The idea of it, of being bent down on all fours in front of hundreds of hypocrites, the beast and the harlot they all so despise rutting like animals before them--she feels the ripples of orgasm rising in her hips, in Jaffar's.

"I would show them how to fuck a woman, show them how to love a woman, because they don't know," he groans, sobs with tears in his eyes. "We would show them what love is, because they don't know love, they don't; only you and I know love, only you and I, God--"

His hands clench in her hair, his voice turning into a wail as she twists three fingers inside of him; his cock stops her throat and she is choked, kicked into a violent orgasm. She convulses around his cock, feels its head slip deep into her throat and her vision goes black. All she can feel are the shockwaves of ecstasy crashing through her, rippling through her and into Jaffar through her hand, his entire body curling and spasming around her as he spills and spills into her mouth, shouting God's name into the heavens.

Her vision swims from black to white to the gold of the room as she pulls back, sucks, sucks; drinking every single drop of his release into herself. Merciless, cruel, finding herself as beastly as her beast before her, she curls her fingers inside him once more and milks him, milks him until he sobs, trickling his last onto her tongue. He tastes so delicious, salty, alkaline, the thick slick texture of his semen clinging to the insides of her mouth long after she has swallowed it all down, consumed it, made him a part of herself. It's his very life force she has now swallowed into herself, and she glows.

It is only when he whispers a soft prayer for mercy and touches her wrist that she withdraws her mouth and pulls her fingers out, watching as oil trickles out of his reddened anus; it gapes and then purses shut into a tight, red, gleaming rosette of flesh. And perhaps his demonic, perverse sodomite's nature has now suffused her through his seed, but she has to lean down and do something else she has never done before: she presses her mouth to his arse, spreads out her tongue and licks him.

Jaffar mewls, helpless, his anus clenching against her tongue; the metallic, musty taste of it, the sweetness of the oil now joining and mixing with the taste of sperm still lingering in her mouth. She presses her thighs together and shudders: it is an initiation, of her going beyond the fear of filth just as Jaffar himself had done in his tending of her, until only love and pleasure remain. What he has given her through his loving care she now wants to return in full, in the currency of pleasure: thus this illicit kiss is, for her, but another thank you.

She licks him until he shudders once more, reaches down to pull her close, to lie down on top of him. "Enough, my sweet; enough," he says, laughing, licking a stripe of sperm from her cheek. "Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine my little princess doing that," he smiles, his eyes alight with awe.

"And this?" she grins and strokes his genitals with her mind, giving the psychic knots a little tug.

He winces, then shakes his head. "You are impossible."

"Yes, and you have made me that way, husband," she whispers against his lips.

For it had been Jaffar the sorcerer who had first invoked the impossible within her, quickened the most secret of powers within her, awakened the sorceress sleeping within her. It is he who had taught her this magic, of binding and sheltering, and the joy and pride with which he now kisses her makes her ache from joy in turn. She nuzzles his face and closes her eyes, concentrating on the golden threads, listening to Jaffar's breathing as she slowly, slowly loosens their grip. Gently, she allows his circulation to return to normal, allows his prick to soften, massaging him tenderly with her hand. She lets the threads remain around him, however; she leaves them loosely bound around the root of his cock, his sack.

When she opens her eyes and breathes again, Jaffar quirks his eyebrow at her. "Your confidence in my virility is touching, my dear."

"Shall I remove them?"

He struggles a little, obviously worried he might sound weak whatever his answer. Asking for her to bind him would mean admitting to impotence, still too much of a dent in his pride; asking her to release him would mean increasing the risk of failure. And his nature cannot take either. Like all men, he is unreasonably concerned with performance, his hardness, his size; worries about these things even on the days when she would be perfectly content with simply being held. And tonight of all nights, especially after what he'd promised her, he must feel even more pressure than usual--not from her, but his own pride.

He searches her eyes; he opens his mouth, but no words come out. Finally, he caresses her cheek, his voice quiet, pleading. "I leave myself in your hands, my lady. Leave the bindings loose, for now; but use them if you deem them necessary."

She clasps his hand with hers. "No wonder they called you the wisest man in all of Persia."

"I still am!" he frowns, mock-indignant, then pushes his thigh between her legs. "That's my sex taken care of, but what about this little grassy hillock here? It's grown wild from a lack of tending, and we can't have that," he tuts, then smacks her rump. "Lie down."

"I suppose that makes you my personal gardener as well," she quips as she lies down upon the cushions.

She thinks to mock him more, but yelps instead as he pours oil all over her, splashing her stomach, even her face until she kicks and shrieks and he has to wrestle her down onto the cushions. They lie there for long moments, panting, kissing, both slippery from oil. She wraps her arms and legs around him and hugs him tight, luxuriating in the firm hardness of his bones and his muscles, pulling him down to sink into her softness. His half-hard prick rubs between her legs, but she wants to be smooth, slippery down there, too; to be bare against his bareness, warm against his warmth, yearns for the sweet joy of their pubic mounds sliding against each other when he is deep inside her.

"Get to work, then, gardener," she says, her hands slipping as she pushes him down her body.

He smirks and picks up the case of barber's instruments. He examines them for a while, and it is clear from his curiosity that the women's tools are dissimilar to what he has seen male pubic barbers use. He lifts a small, polished sea shell up to the light and examines it. "What does one use this one for?"

"That's for shaving the deepest folds. Be careful; it's extremely sharp."

"And this?"

She winces at the scraper-like instrument. "That's only needed if you should use sugar or wax to remove the hair."

He winces back in sympathy. "A barber tried it on me once. I never used his services again."

"Then you'll know to be careful?" She needn't even ask, but she is still nervous as Jaffar kneels between her legs with a razor in his hand. His grin does not do much to dispel her unease, wicked as it is, straight out of the stories of blood-drinking tyrants.

"Perhaps," he grins, with a dangerous glint in his eyes, and her heart beats faster. But then it beats faster for an altogether more pleasant reason: he begins a slow massage of her vulva with the oil. The sweet scent of coconuts fills her nostrils as the exquisite, varying pressure of his palm and his fingers make her melt into the cushions.

"Oh," she moans, closing her eyes, sighing from deep within her chest.

Jaffar does not respond, only chuckles warmly, taking his time to coat her entirely with the oil, making her glisten and gleam. He dips his fingers between her folds, then pulls on them a little to spread them, smears them with his fingers, then smooths them down once more. Tenderly, he takes care to anoint, to perfume every part of her cunny, an act of worship; reminiscent of the rites of the magicians beyond the Sindh, the heathens who worship the vulva as the source of all creation. And as he finally spreads her buttocks and oils the cleft of them, too, pressing the most reverent of kisses upon the hood of her clitoris, she worships him back with all her heart.

Without words, he begins to shave her, scraping the hair off with short, precise movements. As he had cleaned her from the inside, he now cleans her from the outside, claiming every part of her body as is his right, his right as the one she loves more than her very self. It is the most complete of undressings, an act of loving voyeurism, desire: he now the agent who strips her of her hair, removes the coverings from the most intimate parts of her body.

It is an act of utmost possession, eliminating everyone except himself from the process: no barber-lady, not even Yassamin's own hand now comes in the way of his desire to uncover her, to have her slowly revealed to his gaze, to everything he wants to do to her. So that he can better lave her with his tongue, so that he can better stroke her with his fingers, so he can slide his cock deep inside of her with ease. He smiles at her, his nostrils fluttering, his tongue flicking out to moisten his lips and she shudders, clenches a little, feels herself wetting once more.

Every once in a while he pauses to wipe the blade clean, to wipe hair and oil off her skin, patting her dry with a towel. His caresses make blood rush to her sex again, bringing sweet fullness, heaviness to her labia under his hands. But the swelling goes on and on, to the point where she is not sure if it is possible for a woman to be any more aroused than this; oh, her hands clench into fists and she wants to crawl out of her own skin. Her own arousal terrifies her, now: she is not sure if her cunny has ever been this flushed with blood, wondering if this is what men feel every time, sure that her clitoris and her folds are far more swollen than usual. His caresses, his denuding of her have rendered her flesh so sensitive that by the time he takes the shell to her sex to remove the last few hairs, she flinches.

"Am I hurting you?"

"No. Did you put something in the wine?"

"I may have." He pretends to look innocent.

"Oh, God." She throws her head back on the cushions and groans. "What was it?"

"A little something to expand the blood vessels; something often used by men to enhance pleasure. Quite harmless, I assure you."

"You gave me a male aphrodisiac?" she blurts, astounded. Yet, she is so aroused, so amused, still in such a haze she cannot even be angry at him and bursts into hopeless laughter. "It feels as if I am growing a prick of my own already."

Predictably, he leers. "Now, that would be quite the sight."

"Jaffar, no more! You are an irrepressible rake."

"I've spent so many years removed from the debaucheries of the court, my love; it's only right that I should now embrace my true nature." He leans over her and kisses her. "And never did I imagine that I would find the embodiment of so many of my favourite sins in but one person," he smirks. "The thought of you as a boy..." he hisses through his teeth in his heat, sliding on top of her, rutting between her legs.

She groans back at him, capturing his mouth, thinking about it, her cunny swelling in response: thinks of herself growing a prick, of Jaffar riding her the way she has ridden him. Of Jaffar bent double underneath her, his own prick as hard as rock, spilling its release over his belly as she buries herself inside his guts. And the reverse, of Jaffar anointing her prick with fragrant oils, stroking it with his long fingers as he takes her from behind--oh, the visions he has now awakened in her mind! At least he had promised to take her like a boy tonight; she cannot bear this arousal any longer, lest she fall apart.

Thus, she moans again, pushing him down by the shoulders. "Finish it."

He purrs, stroking his cock, now hard once more. Again, he leans between her legs, spreading her outer labia, shaving off the last hairs with quick precision. He guides her to lift her legs and smooths out the very cleft of her buttocks with the shell, until not a single hair remains. When he inspects the top of her cunny, pushing up her mound with his fingers, pulling back the hood of her clitoris, she whimpers out loud.

"Please."

"Here, there's one more left at the top. Oh, I'm sorry--"

She doesn't feel as if she has been cut, that's how thin the shell was, but he casts it aside and kisses her mound nevertheless, sharp pleasure lashing through her from but a soft touch of his lips. Once he lifts his face, a small stripe of blood lies across his lower lip. "Is that better?"

She shudders and thinks of ghouls, blood-drinking tyrants once more, but he has forbidden such talk tonight. The urge to give of her life to him, have him drink it from her twists inside her until it becomes a pain, and there is only one thing she can do, now: to drown that pain in love, in passion, just like she had promised him. So she clasps his back with her feet, locks him in place with her thighs, sinks her fingers into his hair and looks into his eyes.

"More."

She does not say "please," that is the extent of her need, her craving; but she does not have to urge Jaffar on. Moaning himself, he buries his mouth in her cunny and laps at her hungrily, sucks at her clitoris, sucks it until pleasure sends her hips jerking violently against his mouth. She wonders if he thinks of it as sucking a little cock, and the thought makes her moan out loud: he looks up at her, chuckles into her, his eyes twinkling in delight. In her mind's eye, she can see her prick sinking into his mouth, of him worshipping her like a pageboy worships his master, the way Jaffar must have pleasured older men when he was a youth. A young Jaffar kneeling at her feet, pleading: "Master, may I please suck your prick?" pleading with his eyes wide, oh, God. She is so close to release, now, so close--

And it is then that he sinks two fingers into her cunny, reminding her of her true sex. It takes her a moment, two to adjust to being so stretched, filled, the sensation pulling her briefly back from the brink. She is swollen on the inside, too, his fingers seeming even larger than usual, their friction making her cry out from the bottom of her belly as he turns them inside her. Mercilessly, he tilts his wrist, his fingertips downwards to seek those parts of her that are only exposed during this time of the month: as he finds that sweetest of spots behind her womb, one that normally lies out of reach behind it, it's as if his fingertips strike sparks inside of her and she screams.

It's unbearable, unbearable; she writhes, pants, thrashing upon the floor. "Don't stop, don't stop--"

He draws in heavy breaths through his nostrils, never taking his mouth off her clitoris: he gives it long, deep sucks in time with the strokes of his fingers, dragging his fingertips inside her until she shouts so loudly the very vibrations of the sound send her cascading into release. He keeps curling his fingers, curling them, forcing every tremor, every wave of pleasure to crash through her body the way she had forced pleasure to crash through his. It's torture, the muscular spasms of her insides endless: she sobs until her throat is sore, until she is but wet, swollen flesh pulsing around his fingers, underneath his mouth.

She has never experienced a release this long, yet all of this is has come only from his fingers and his mouth: dimly, she wonders if being penetrated by his cock would slay her, now. In the back of her mind, a voice tells her it should be a terrifying thought, but as he dips his fingers within her for one last shock of pleasure, she finds she does not care. She wants to be absorbed into Jaffar, fall inside of him and through him, sit in his heart and nourish him there forever.

"I love you," she mumbles, panting; "love you, love you," she whispers, her eyes closed, her thighs squeezing around his head once, twice, before they fall open, fall onto the rug beside her limp hands.

He shakes his head. "That was easy!" And even his purr, his laughter frightens her: by now, he has learned how sensitive she is during this part of her cycle, and knows how to use it to his advantage. Intense pleasure comes to her as easily as intense grief, sorrow: thus, pleasure is one of the means through which he now medicates her, distracts her from the pains of her body and her soul.

But he also treats pleasure as a challenge, an art, the way he treats his clockwork machines and the science of magic: the greater the feats, the greater his satisfaction and his pride. And as his manhood is the most easily wounded part of his pride, it is logical that it should be in the art of love that he feels the need to compensate the most, to prove himself a worthy lover.

And tonight is no different. Smacking his lips, he tilts his head, considering her. "Shall we make bets on how many times I can grant you release tonight?"

Her only answer is a groan. "How long until you kill me, you mean?"

"You do make such a pretty sacrifice, my child. Spread out the way you are..." he murmurs, giving her cunny a long, thorough lick, making an exaggerated moan of pleasure as he does. "Yes, I find you quite pleasing an offering indeed. Would you like some more?"

She beckons to him instead, pulling him into her arms. She lies still as he kisses her, embraces her, allowing her breathing to return to normal. After a while, he pauses, unsure of what she wants, but she answers him by sliding her hands down to his buttocks, cupping them, spreading them, kneading them the way she often does when he is inside of her. Unhurried, she undulates underneath him in soft mimicry of being taken. No words come out of her mouth; she is too tired for words, only communicating with him through her touches, through her eyes.

He, too, quiets, grows serious, only clasps her cheeks and looks deep into her eyes. He seeks permission and she grants it to him: she lifts her hips, leans back and pleads for him with her eyes. She strokes his temples, spreads her legs as wide as she can, rubs her cunny against him, tears welling in her eyes at how much she wants him inside of herself.

As he enters her and stays still, those tears escape from her eyes and a slow, sweet smile spreads upon her face. For he is bliss itself, bliss filling her, covering her. She presses her face against his shoulder and sighs, hugging him so tight his breathing stops, as if trying to swallow him into herself, keep him safe inside herself forever. Yet all tears and all yearning are evaporated from her in the sweet fire of friction: each slow movement of his hips strikes golden vines of pleasure shooting, curling, unfurling through her.

But the swelling from the drug, her heightened sensitivity pour the poison of pain into the pleasure, mixing them both until she does not know what she is feeling: the same strokes that hit her womb with flashes of pain also send powerful tremors of delight through her hips, her spine until the hairs on her arms stand on end. She cries out and folds in half underneath him, sobbing as he thrusts harder, her entire body stiffening, tossed between the two extremes of sweet pain and horrible pleasure. And as much as she loves the pleasure, the moment he speeds up his thrusts she knows she cannot bear the pain any longer.

"Dove. Please, Jaffar. Dove."

With a groan of frustration he stills, and for a moment she feels so guilty, so angry at herself for betraying him like this, of robbing him of his pleasure like this. If she had ever voiced pain to Ahmad, he would have scolded her or stormed off, leaving her to curl up in her bed in tears, feeling as if she had failed him as a wife. But it is worry Jaffar groans in and she does not know what to think: she is still not accustomed to it, feeling helpless, not knowing what to do. "I'm sorry, Jaffar."

"No, no. I am sorry." He pulls back, nearly slipping out of her. "Do you want me to stop completely?"

She shakes her head. "No." She wonders if she should take him with her mouth again, but she wants release, wants him inside of her, clenches her hands in frustration at her body resisting penetration like this. There has to be another way, and maybe it is but the angle of her womb. As much as she loves seeing his face as he makes love to her, she has always derived the most pleasure from being taken from behind, and has always found it enjoyable even during this time of the month. "Maybe it would help if I turned around."

"Of course. Again, I am sorry."

He pulls out, soothing her with a kiss before he helps her turn onto her stomach. She manoeuvres herself into a pleasing position, taking a few large cushions and supporting her chest with them. He lets her make herself comfortable, waits patiently as she spreads herself out and rubs herself to alleviate the pain, the way she does whenever pain has come in the way of their lovemaking. Her genitals are so swollen they feel strange against her hands, but her clitoris, oh--never has it been so sensitive, and she groans and whimpers as she begins to ride her hands, slipping upon them, the pain soon melting from her hips as if it had never been there at all.

"Better?" he asks her, kissing her shoulder, and she can hear the amusement in his voice.

She nods, looks at him over her shoulder and he is beautiful: he curls over her protectively, smiling at her softly, stroking his cock with anticipation. He parts her buttocks, murmuring in delight as he gazes at the play of her hands upon her cunny; presently, he steals a lick, two, a suck upon her sweetened fingers. "Shall we try again?"

"Please," she smiles back at him.

He takes her more slowly this time, much more slowly: he draws her hair back from her ear and kisses it, whispers sweet words of tenderness into it as he moves into her, out of her, back into her once more. And she was right--the pain only returns briefly as her body adjusts to the penetration, but now he can push past the womb and behind it, into the very spot that turns her veins into gold, her flesh into honey. She is a sea of pleasure underneath him, around him, all of her slow and saturated with sweetness. Even if he has only just entered her, he knows she is close, knows what she needs, now: he lies on top of her with his full weight and grinds into her, penetrating her so deep his balls nestle against her cunny. With wicked glee, he rolls his hips and chuckles into her ear the filth he knows will undo her.

"So, is this how you like it, hmm?" he croons. "Is it? Is this how your tight little royal cunny likes to be fucked? Is this the only way it can take a big cock? A cock like mine?"

Her only answer is a scream, a scream around a mouthful of pillow as her honey-flesh turns liquid around his heat, as she rocks hopelessly into her hands, trickling over her fingers, penetrated so completely, so fully. Jaffar growls on top of her, relishing her flesh fluttering around him, his lips wet upon her ear as he fucks her through her orgasm, as he rides the last waves of it with his hips.

"Such a sweet little cunny for my cock," he groans in delight, not letting her pause for breath, moving faster inside of her thanks to her new wetness, slickness.

And what a sweet cock yours is for my cunny, she thinks, delirious, but no words come out, no: only howls. His cock, his cock, there's nothing except the perfection of his cock; oh, but she wants him to never stop, never stop stirring her like this, tasting from her sweetness like this. He has become even harder from her orgasm and it terrifies her, terrifies her how easily she can take him, now: he pounds into her wildly, pinning her down onto the cushions, his fingers digging into her shoulders like claws.

"Once more," he hisses in her ear, "once more, and I'll let you have all of this in your arse." He presses in as deep as he can, presses into her until she is but a wail, two kicking feet, two slipping hands and a wail.

"Let go, my sweet," he pants, "let go."

And let go she does, crushed into the floor, the cushions by the force of his thrusts, surrendering herself unto him completely. She stills her fingers, letting each one of his thrusts be the trigger to every wave of orgasm now rippling through her, his prick and his hips controlling the pressure with which she grinds into her hands, the pressure with which the head of his cock presses into the spot that blinds her with ecstasy. She loses all sense of self, barely conscious, as if she were one of Jaffar's automatons, blissfully obeying the gestures of its master. For his manipulations are all she can feel, precise as clockwork, the pleasure he gives her hollowing her of everything except his presence, everything except his love. She is emptied, cleansed, then poured full to the overflowing, healed: the perfection overtakes her, the whiteness overcomes her and she passes into nothingness, her consciousness fading from her as he slows down inside of her.

"Not yet, my sweet," he whispers gently, "not yet;" so far now from the teasing beast with his lascivious taunts, so far now from the erotic torturer. He slips out of her and gathers her into his arms once more, holding her, kissing her to keep her conscious, pulling her just above the surface with his breath, with his soft words upon her ear. "My sweetest beloved," he whispers, "my sweetest;" holding her afloat, holding her until she is still.

She does not know how long she has dozed on top of him, for there are no hourglasses, clocks here: only his steady heartbeat under her ear. Only the sweat drying upon his chest, into which she now traces letters with her fingers.

"What are you writing?" he murmurs.

"Love letters," she whispers into his mouth, clasping his prick in her hand.

She closes her eyes and feels the tendrils around his prick and his sack, tightens them a little. She brushes her forehead against his for the fraction of a second, telling him how much she wants him still. She does not fully enter his mind, but whispers against it with the sensations of her body, inviting him to feel them as she feels them. She lets him taste the languid heaviness in her limbs, the sweet, wet, satisfied ache in her cunny, the pleasant soreness in her arse, the last part of her he has not claimed yet. She lets him feel how well he has removed all pain from her, how he has replaced her sorrow with happiness, how she is ready for that deepest of joinings.

And he sups upon her sensations, sighing softly into her mouth. He lets her feel the ache in his heart, the ache in his genitals, how aroused he still is for her, how much he still yearns for her. He tells her of how she has filled his entire body with warmth, with light, her love seeping into every muscle, pooling inside his belly. Of what a relief it is for him to see her smile, of how it makes his own heart leap in joy, of how he wants nothing but to remain inside her forever. As she tightens the threads around his sack he gasps and jerks back, showing her how full he feels there, how much he yearns to have his release in her, how he yearns to fill her with spray after spray of sperm. How he wants to see her drip with his seed--with a choked noise, he jerks back, the arousal in him too great: he takes her hands off his cock and stares into her eyes, feverish.

"And now, my lady, time for my reward."

"Oh, but it is my reward, too," she smiles and kisses him.

She makes a show of herself as she crawls upon the rug on all fours, rocking her hips in a tease. She spreads her legs and arches her back, lifting her arse high, laughs in dizzying joy as his eyes narrow, as he gets to his feet.

And it is to his feet that she now crawls, kneels before him and takes his cock into her mouth, cupping his balls in her hand. With her spit, she slickens him, tasting her own sweetness; with her fingers, she urges the threads to tighten, tighten.

He combs her hair from her face as she prepares him, makes him thicker, wider, harder than ever before; this because it's what he deserves, and because it's what she herself needs. And oh, the noise he makes when she slips her middle finger inside of him, the noise she makes in turn as her finger is sucked in by his soft, wet heat. She looks up at him, adoring him with her eyes, her mouth, her slow, tender hand: with her mind, she picks up a golden tendril of thought and slides it up her palm, up her finger, slides it all the way inside of his arse, makes it curl within him with sweet delight. He throws back his head and gasps, rocks upon his feet, shivering all over; a small, soft spurt of salt splashes upon her tongue as her prize.

He is ready; oh, he is ready. She withdraws her mouth, she withdraws her hand but leaves the threads in place, squeezing sweetly around his cock and underneath his sack; she leaves that last tendril pressing softly deep inside of him. With her mind, she tugs, inside and out--and his cock bobs, drips.

And the beast in him cannot bear it, cannot bear being caged, taunted any longer. With a howl, he wrestles her down onto all fours, hooks two fingers inside her arse and lifts her hips up by them. He lifts and he lifts until she screams, and he but takes her hair in his other hand and presses her cheek to the floor, taking her with his fingers, growling in her ear.

"Oh, you little harlot; I'm going to make you pay. What if I should take you like this? No oil, only spit, only that wet little cunny of yours to slick up my cock? How would your little arse like that?" He curls his fingers inside her. "Hmm?"

The thought terrifies her, arouses her and she knows she could take it; oh, she could take it. Still, something in her resists and she thrashes in his grip, writhing, clawing at the carpet. "Please! Have mercy."

He pulls his fingers out and smacks her arse, both buttocks, drags his claws along the marks he had left last night. "I have been merciful all night, my love." He gives her buttocks one last smack. "Now, stay still."

He picks up a blue bottle and a green jar: ones she knows to contain thin, watery fluid and thick, oily cream, respectively. He makes a show of anointing himself with the thick cream, groaning in delight as he greases his prick with it. He lifts his slick hand, twirls his fingers with intent and moves to kneel behind her. She stays still, stiff despite herself and reminds herself to breathe. But to her surprise, at the last moment he shifts upon his knees, picks something up, then sets something down again; she has to turn her head to see what he is doing.

Grinning like a demon, he holds out the blue bottle in one hand, the enema syringe in another. "How much do you think you could take, my lady?"

"Oh, God."

"The entire syringeful, then. Enough to turn you into a little fountain."

"No!"

He pauses, glaring at her sternly. He is too far gone for false protests, now; too aroused, his eyes flashing with impatience.

And in that moment, she hates herself for saying no, hates herself for her interruption, her indecision, even if an undeniable heat swirls in her hips at the thought of what he is offering her. She was right; right about the perversion he harboured.

And what about herself? What secret perversions does she harbour that he is now lifting up to the light? Is it herself she has said no to, not him?

And he knows, knows she needs to be reminded, drags a heavy breath in through his nostrils and says but three words.

"Choose a bird."

"Jaffar--"

"Look at me."

For long moments, she plays with the nap of the carpet with her nails, feeling crushed underneath the weight of his gaze. She does not know what to think, does not know herself, all of her a sudden chaos.

He strokes the small of her back, soothing her, petting her, his voice gentle but firm.

"You know I will not judge you, whichever bird you may choose. It's only a matter of how I'll prepare you; I shall make love to you nevertheless. And I shall be gentle. Trust that. But you have to tell me, my love. Tell me what it is that you truly want."

And it is the patience in his voice that makes her heart break, the patience of a teacher, the patience of the gentlest of lovers: he is explaining the matter to her as if to a child when her mind is at its most confounded, when she is as helpless as a child. Has he ever hurt her too much? Has he ever betrayed her trust? Has she anything to lose here except for her shame? The useless, needless shame of her upbringing, something he had told her to discard years ago? Is it not freedom that he offers her, with each one of his extreme acts of love-play? The freedom from taboos, from her anxieties? It is herself she is fighting, not him; and it is her own shame whose door she now has to step through, to reach the pleasure that awaits her on the other side.

And in the form of one word, he has given her the key.

"Falcon," she whispers.

She lowers her head, no longer able to meet his eyes, flushing with embarrassment still. She grits her teeth together until they creak, trembles with chills as Jaffar begins to slowly fill her with the warm fluid, scented with honey and roses. And oh, it is pleasurable, the illicit delight of an enema only for the purposes of sex, not of cleansing. She does not want to admit it to herself, does not, but something in her breaks, snaps: she lets out a long wail, long, weeps hopelessly against the carpet as she is filled with sweetness, with pleasure, with delight.

There is discomfort, too, yet she does not cry "dove," even if she can tell Jaffar is listening for it, even if she knows she could stop him any moment, now. But she doesn't want to, and it devastates her that she should love this, him so much--so much that she bursts into tears. Is there any sin, any virtue left in her that he does not know of and relish before she even recognises it in herself? Is there a single secret within her, anything at all within her that he does not know of and love? Is there any part of her soul that isn't completely, utterly his, as if it was he she had emerged from in the first place? These and other thoughts gallop through her mind as she weeps out the rest of her shame, weeps out her fear, weeps out everything until she is empty, an empty vessel now washed clean for his love to fill.

"Shh, my beautiful," he murmurs, rubbing her stomach, kissing her back. "You've done so well. I am going to remove the syringe, now. And then I am going to make love to you," he says, warm; he brushes his lips against her shoulder as he withdraws. "But now, let go for me, Yassamin. Let go for me one last time. Let me see you."

Her stomach flips, cramps and she cries out, but it is from the physical sensation rather than shame, now. With firm hands, he massages her stomach until the fluid begins to trickle out of her. It shocks her how good it feels: the warm, perfumed liquid dripping down her cunny, bursting out of her, spurting out of her and running down her thighs, dripping in crystal-clear, clean rivulets onto the carpet.

But Jaffar's shock of delight is even greater: she can hear him gasp in astonishment, disbelief, a low animal groan of adoration rising from the bottom of his lungs as he spreads her buttocks and stares, stares.

And then his thumbs are inside her arse, spreading her, and he is lapping up the last spurts with his tongue, lapping at her with great, shameless hunger. He growls into her arse, his hands slipping and shaking; he sobs in delight that she should allow him this sight, this sound, this taste, this sensation.

"I love you," he growls once more, licks, laps. "I love you so much; oh, my sweet, you are so beautiful, oh--I must be inside of you, please--"

"Please," she moans back, her arse clenching in loss as he withdraws his thumbs. "Hurry."

He shuffles on the carpet and presses his cock to her arse, slips several times before he finds the right angle. "Breathe, my sweet," he says, but she is already doing so: burying her face in her crossed arms, she breathes deep, in and out, in and out, reminding herself of how to accept his cock. Even after the enemas, even after the stretch of his thumbs she is still so tight, brief pain still flashing through her as he starts to push inside. But this, oh, this is the sweetest of sensations, so sweet, sweeter than any other form of lovemaking. She brings her mind to the threads once more and feels the fullness of his cock through them, the cruel thickness she herself had engineered, relishes the brutal size of him now forcing her wide open. Every muscle in her body is cramped, stiff; yet she invites him in, keening as she pushes herself back onto his cock.

"Jaffar," she moans, slurring; "Jaffar," she rocks back onto his cock, delirious. "Please. Take me. Please. Please. Take me, just take me; oh, please--"

He leans over her, wraps himself around her, sticky with oil and sweat, clutching her against his body. His hands claw at her breasts, his hips jerking uncontrollably as he buries himself in her, sobbing himself. "So beautiful," he groans, "so perfect, perfect; you were right, we are perfect--"

And they are, they are; she forces herself back onto his cock, taking him harder than he is taking her, wailing as she swallows him with her flesh. Pleasure blossoms inside of her as he fills her, stretches her until her entire body radiates with it, a pleasure so great it expands even outside her skin, haloing her with its light. Her cunny is even more swollen than before, the wet slaps of his sack against it echoing through the room, punctuating her cries. "Please, Jaffar. Please come inside of me, please; I need you, please, fill me, take me, please--"

It is then that he slips his hand to her cunny and strokes, strokes, his fingers unerring upon her clitoris, and takes her so hard the carpet burns her knees. And a vast brightness opens inside of her, expands in her from the white heat of his cock hitting the back of her womb, that same spot he had blinded her with before but far more intense, now, when taken through her arse. She sends her pleasure to him through the threads: she shoots her ecstasy through them into his body, curling and pressing inside him, lashing inside him, surging into him.

And with a last, broken cry he comes undone inside her, flooding her, his sperm dripping out of her down the paths the oil had made. As she flows into him, he now flows back into her: with the waves of her release, his very self is drawn inside of her, sunbursting through her, radiating from her a corona. She shivers with fever, her consciousness soaring from her, completely loosened from her, and it is now that he lets her. He takes her inside of himself, envelops her within himself until she curls in his embrace like a burning leaf.

And it is long, long before they swim back to the shore of consciousness, she lying spooned in his arms, he still buried deep within her. She wants to keep him inside her body forever, but has mercy on him: gently, slowly she loosens the threads from around his genitals, withdraws her tendrils from his body until he softens and slips free.

"Thank you," he mumbles against her shoulder.

She turns around in his arms and curls up, he curling up around her. He presses his forehead against hers, pets her hair, lets his lashes fall to his cheeks. He lets her feel his peace, his contentment, his fire now softened to a warm glow; in return, she lets him feel hers. She laces her fingers with his, kisses him softly on the lips and lets her purity, her calm wash over him, mixing in with his until they are both still, tranquil as the darkest depths of the sea.

He squeezes her hand with his. "Happy anniversary, my love."

"Happy anniversary, beloved," she whispers against his cheek and her heart glows against his, both of them radiant with light.

***

Every three days, they retreat to study and practice the arts of magic together, and today is no exception. What is exceptional, however, is that this morning a rare shower of rain prevents them from studying upon the rooftop. Thus, they retreat to the study, and for this, Yassamin is grateful: judging by the pains in her hips, her flow is to start any moment now, and she does not find the idea of climbing several flights of stairs particularly inviting.

And then there are the other aches, from sources far more pleasant. She winces as she sits upon her cushion and he cannot help but smirk as he offers her a glass of poppy tea.

"Satisfied, my love?"

"Perhaps," she teases. She looks at him lasciviously from head to toe, her inner muscles clenching sweetly in memory of last night, around the memory of his prick filling her so utterly. But the involuntary clenching sets off more pains in her hips: thus, she grits her teeth and empties her glass, swallowing the bitter tea all at once.

He squats in front of her, taking the glass from her, worry in his eyes. "I did not hurt you too much?"

She kisses his cheek. "You did not hurt me at all; on the contrary. I would still be in bed with the pains had it not been for last night." She grins and rocks a little upon her cushion. "Especially the sodomy. I had forgotten how wonderful that felt. I should like you to do it again, soon."

He clasps her wrist and narrows his eyes, smirking, tutting. "Careful, my lady, or I will never be able to concentrate on the rite."

"Which rite did you have in mind?"

"That is what I wanted to talk to you about." He takes a cushion and sits opposite her, so close their knees touch. He takes her hands, sighing softly. He hesitates for a long while before he speaks, rubbing her thumbs with his, not looking up at her. "These fears of yours."

There. The conversation she had been dreading, but it had been inevitable. She casts down her eyes, staring at Jaffar's hands in turn. "Beloved. I know one should not be afraid of God's will, of the cycles of birth and death," she whispers. "But--laugh if you like, Jaffar, mock me if you like--I still wish there was a way to balance the scales of the years between us."

When she stammers and then goes quiet, he finally looks up, lifting her chin tenderly. "I will never laugh at you or call you a fool. It is the wise and the kind-hearted who have always felt that fear most acutely; only they have been the ones who have dared defy God."

She nods, bitterly. "Or then it is Iblis himself whispering in my ear, tempting me. I would not face God's wrath for the price of a few more years together with you upon this earth."

Yet, Jaffar pauses, serious; his eyes are now wide, staring at something only he can see. "I might."

"No, Jaffar!" Yassamin exclaims, terrified. "I would not wish that wrath upon you either. No matter how much of a heathen you are."

"And are you not a heathen, forgetting the Qur'an says husband and wife are to join each other in Paradise?"

"Not if one of us is thrown into Hell for disobeying the Almighty!" she cries, suddenly more pious, now that they are finally talking about the matter. If anything, being confronted with the facts confirms to her what the real answer must be: God and Nature must not be defied.

"Not all of God's ways and magics are known to all men," Jaffar murmurs, searching her eyes with his. "You and I both know this. What about all the prophets who lived well over a hundred; what about Solomon? If I were to tell you that there was a rite to extend a person's life, one God had chosen to reveal to but a few chosen sages, would you condemn me for attempting it?"

"No," she whispers quietly, looking down at her hands once more. She had been hoping, secretly hoping and is again terrified, conflicted as a spark of that hope is again kindled in her heart. "Have you found it, then?"

His voice is tinged with skepticism. "I have found... practices. Ones which involve this balancing you speak of; ones specifically meant for lovers, even. However, I have never seen them work with my own eyes. And I am still not sure if it would be worth the risk. And above all, I would not harm you by them."

"But I want to give you my years," she blurts out, squeezing his hands until both their fingers turn white. "I'm sure I have more left than you do, and I doubt losing a few would hurt. You have heard this all before, Jaffar; you know how I feel about the matter."

It is then that his eyes flash and he takes her by the shoulders. "No. Call me a beast, a tyrant; but do not make of me a ghoul. I would not feast upon my wife's life!"

"Please, Jaffar; I beg of you. If there is a means, a method and you know of it, I want you to share it with me."

He only stares at her, stares. "What is my name?"

"You know your name."

"What does my name mean?"

"But you know that, too--" she stutters, frowning. "Why do you ask?"

He digs his nails into her arms. "Answer me. What does my name mean?"

"A wellspring. A brook."

"And what were you named after?"

"The jasmine."

"And what am I to you, wife?"

She struggles with an answer, not sure of what he is looking for. My everything, she wants to say, but because he had called her 'wife' as if it were a magical prompt, a call and response, she can but reply "My husband."

"All correct," he says, loosening his grip on her arms, cupping her face in his hands.

It is then that he whispers "Hear me, beloved," and she sways with vertigo, her entire body hanging upon Jaffar's hands as he rushes into her mind: like water, clear water swirling from a holy spring in the desert, pooling at her feet.

I am the wellspring that waters the jasmine, he whispers inside of her.

And his words awaken her like a garden awakens to the rains of springtime: all of her bursting open, rising up in joy. From her, thirsty roots strike down to drink him in; from her, branches and leaves reach up and unfurl towards the sunlight of his love, yearning for more, more.

I am your husband and I have been put upon this earth to shelter you, to nourish you, to keep you from harm. Never forget this. With overwhelming force, his waters rush through her, all-consuming, all-permeating, climbing up her spine and her branches as love, curling through her as the sweet sap of desire, crystallising into the sugar of knowledge within her leaves; she cries out in ecstasy.

Then take my blossoms and let them heal you, she whispers around him, bursting around him in the blossoming of a thousand white flowers, embracing him with her fragrance.

As he washes her, nourishes her, warms her with his sunlight, so does she distill the essence of her love into the sweetest, most healing of all perfumes. In droplets of rich, red oil does she rain down upon him, the jasmine giving itself to the wellspring in turn: in a shower of a thousand small petals, she throws herself to be swept away by the stream that is Jaffar, carried downstream until they both reach the ocean of silence.

"There," he whispers, reverently, brushing her lips with his, slowly withdrawing from her mind. "My life force, entwined with yours. A wellspring within you, a jasmine within me, one of us always there for the other to draw nourishment from. Is this not what we have always done?"

She blinks, her eyes still adjusting to the morning light as she emerges from the darkness. "Do you mean...?"

He nods and laughs, his hand gentle upon her veil. "Do you remember the day with the minstrels? When you were lost in your trance underneath the trees, I also fell into a trance, albeit briefly. And within it, our shaykh paid me a visit--you should have seen his smile as he saw you lying there in your ecstasies, as if he had already known such a thing would happen! Yet I was perplexed, begging him for some answer at least. Why had he told us we knew all the answers already? Why had you claimed we were perfect? I, allegedly the wisest man in all of Persia, felt like a foolish child, for this beggar and my wife knew more than I did! And it was then that he showed me a vision of a book, a book I already held in my library. It was one I had not touched in years, yet I recognised it immediately."

"Which one was it?"

Jaffar picks up a slim volume of bone-white leather, with talismanic sigils inscribed upon it in red lac.

"The Book of the Unknown Bird of the Heart," she reads, the words rushing hot and cold through her as if she had read the name a lifetime ago, even if she knows she has never seen the book before.

She reaches out for the book, yet cannot close her hand around it, as if afraid it would burn her. It is Jaffar who has to thrust it into her hands and unlace its front flap.

"Very few copies exist. I bought it as a young man when travelling through India. I was a wild and reckless youth, as you know, and I found its subject matter quite titillating. I am sure you can see why."

She flicks through the book, through illustrations alchemical, mathematical--and sexual. The frank nature of the illustrations does not shock her in the least, for she has seen love manuals. But what she does find surprising is that all these images now appear together, all of their elements united to form a harmonious, beautiful whole. The combination of magic and the erotic is not a new concept to her--after all, alchemy is but a matter of marrying the elements and even more precious is the alchemy of a sexual joining, as they have witnessed--but it is usually something that is only spoken of in whispers, only passed through oral teachings from one mystic to another. All Jaffar has taught her of sacred joinings has been through example, through lovemaking, through the body and not through books.

The book is written in code, not unlike Geber's: in a language deliberately complex and self-contradictory, to discourage the uninitiated. She pauses on an illustration of an embracing couple, the woman sitting in the man's lap, with various elemental sigils drawn upon their naked bodies. "What does this part mean?"

"It describes what we have just been doing, and what we have done many times. The male and the female in holy union, their life energies balancing each other. It's only that the method described here is a little different. In fact, it is a reversal of what we have done." He laughs a little. "If the writer were to see us, he would probably think we were invoking the opposite of balance, health and long life!"

She traces the couple's limbs and mumbles, unable to make head or tail of it. "The sigils on the woman's body are those of fire. But Aristotle and Galen would classify the female as cold and passive, receptive..."

"And to the magicians who wrote this, she would be fire, very active as you can see, and the energy which takes and thus awakens the male." He traces the text with his finger. "It is the male's cool milk which must be heated up by the fire of the female, so that the bird of his heart may fly towards the ecstasy of God."

"But that makes no sense! Of the two of us, you have always been the active one." And it is always he who truly awakens her, fills her, not the other way around. And she has always been his bird, flying towards ecstasy because his love has opened her wings. And she certainly feels calm and balanced afterwards, the same being true of him. And now--now, this book, this outrageous book tells them they have been wrong all this time, that what they have felt has somehow been a delusion? Why, it makes her furious. "Why should our way of doing it be wrong?"

"Is it wrong?" He clasps her hand and grins. "How do we know if it isn't working already? Besides, look at the last chapter."

Aggravated, now, she mutters and turns to the last few pages. Upon them, she recognises the familiar image of Hermaphroditus: the alchemical male-female, the androgyne, the symbol of the hieros gamos. Jaffar moves to sit beside her and reads the description underneath the figure:

"'All of God's secrets and graces are to be found in yourselves and your living bodies. When man becomes woman and woman becomes man, when your souls are ground together as if into a paste until there is no division, no duality, there you shall find that which you seek.' The shaykh's very words. Now, what does that tell you, my sorceress? Remember, Aristotle also told us women were dull and unintelligent creatures. Surely you would wish to prove him wrong on the matter?"

She stares inwards for a while, listening to the rain, clasping Jaffar's hand upon the book. "So, that's why he said we were perfect; that's why I felt we were perfect, yet I did not know--"

Jaffar the mother, Yassamin the one they called man-souled, both of them hot and cold, both of them giving, both of them claiming and surrendering, both of them completing the other. The mix of the male and female in both of them until dualities lose their meaning, and maybe this is why their joinings had worked, oh--perhaps this means, perhaps--it stuns her into silence, even emptiness, until she does not know what she feels. She could weep, she could burst into laughter.

Instead, she only feels the quiet of the ocean they had just reached, the quiet of the white emptiness that had expanded within her upon her day of realisation. But it is only now that she can she connect it, the experiences they have shared, with the very magic she had been looking for in the first place. They had already been practicing the greatest of rejuvenations, drinking from the chalice of immortality while still alive, and had never realised it.

Still, she feels fragile, hesitant as she squeezes Jaffar's fingertips. "How would we know if it was working?"

"Only time will tell, surely?" He unclasps her veil and presses his face into her hair, inhaling her perfume. "My heart did not have a bird until a falcon made her home there. I would be dead without you; that much, I know."

"And I without you, my wellspring," she whispers, pulling his arms, his robes about herself like a sheltering nest.

He rocks her in his arms for a long while, then slides his hands to her hips, to her belly. "Do you still ache, my love?"

She nods. "I could use the stronger tincture. No, don't leave just yet." She turns around and sits in his lap, not unlike the woman in the illustration.

Predictably, the act makes Jaffar grin like a maniac. "Well, now. Is that a hint?"

She smiles and wriggles a little, even rubs her groin against his, but shakes her head in the end. "Maybe later tonight. I wouldn't object to us trying it the heathen way."

"The book even says the rejuvenating effect is at its strongest during a woman's menses, you know. When the blood and the sperm are not used to form a child, but to nourish the lovers instead. Why on earth have we not tried it yet?"

"Because I have been in too much pain, and because you know it is a sin."

"Ah, but pain and sin are characteristic of wine and sodomy also, and I seem to recall you enjoying both last night," he grins, pinching her rump. When she yelps, he lowers her down onto the cushions and kisses her, holds her tight against himself. "Now, will I have laid your fears to rest?"

She nods. "I think you may have begun to do so."

"Good." He kisses her nose. "Now, I think I shall continue to do this to remove any fears that might remain," and he stretches to lie on top of her, "Until you should request the tincture again."

She stretches in delight underneath him. "You know, I might not be needing it for quite some time." She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him into a kiss.

***

While Jaffar is away, inspecting his traps once more, Yassamin rests and treats herself well, the way he always tells her to. She is grateful for these absences of his, for no matter how much she loves him, no matter how much he loves her, solitude still helps soothe her mind. She needs the balance of company and of silence, and as her body is still heavy with an excess of blood, an excess of humours, she had sighed in relief when she had seen him ride off into the forest. She might have yelled at him, had he not allowed her a few hours alone each day: she remembers being furious with him even on the day he had told her why avoiding certain things was not cowardice but, in fact, healthy for the soul.

"Melancholy comes in patterns, and the vile humours enter one's mind through certain doors, wounds specific to an individual's constitution. Our souls bear these wounds either from birth or because of what we have suffered during our lifetimes. And thus, each wound becomes a doorway into further suffering. These doors may be opened by seemingly innocent, everyday things such as certain people, certain news, certain topics; this is why even the wisest of people find themselves constantly besieged by the forces of melancholy, for they have not recognised these doors. The truly wise have learned where their doors lie and bolt them shut on those days when they are too exhausted or otherwise not sound of mind: they keep those doors open only when they must."

"It was my father who taught me this, and it may have been the wisest advice he ever gave me. He had even built himself a garden of peace and tranquility into which he would retreat on his blackest days. On those days, he would swear off politics and would not admit any visitors--he would not see even his wives, myself, or any of my brothers. So once I became Grand Vizier and the worries of all Persia began to weigh heavily upon my shoulders, I would do the same. I would dismiss everyone from my sight and sit in the garden, meditate only upon the flowers and the birds and the fountains until I was well once more. This, my love, is how I know why you retreat to your tower. But you still bury your nose in distressing books, and pay far too much heed to the servants' gossip--"

And at this piece of condescending advice, she had thrown a cushion at his head--which he had, then, ducked with practiced ease. "I knew you would do that," he had but smirked, infuriating her further. "Because you have not yet recognised that the books and the chatter, too, are doors to which melancholy has a key."

"Stop talking to me as if to a child," she had said and hugged her arms.

"I will, once you stop behaving like one," he had snapped. But as soon as the words had left his lips, he had put his arms around her, held her tight despite her half-hearted, brattish protests. "I am sorry. I am only trying to help alleviate your pain; you must know that. Again, I know I may sound like I am preaching, but I would recommend directing your mind towards pleasanter things. Tell yourself to smile, to speak softly. Even if it may seem false and artificial at first."

"How?" she'd whispered, tears in her eyes. She'd had enough of pretending, of the false smiles and the false gaiety she had always had to display at Ahmad's court. Besides, if she could always concentrate on the things that brought her joy--like she usually could, on her normal days--she would never be melancholy in the first place. "Would you have me lie and smile when I was weeping inside?"

He had shaken his head. "No. I would not have you lie, but acknowledge you do have power over... not necessarily what you feel, but how you react to what God sends your way. That knowledge will, in the end, make it easier to keep the reins slipping from your hands. It may feel ridiculous at first--I felt so, too, when I had to bite my tongue and learn to speak smoothly to ministers I loathed, to kings unfit to rule their kingdoms. It was much easier to simply dispose of the fools, and often, I did--but one quickly runs out of people that way, and then one has no government," he grins as Yassamin rolls her eyes. "Therefore, I had to smile at some of the fools, like Ahmad, if only to keep the empire running."

"But we are no longer at court. What would be the use in such a practice, if it is not true to one's heart; if it doesn't match what one is feeling?"

"Have you never seen entertainers, singers with tears in their eyes? They, too, pretend at first, but if the song or the verses are powerful enough, soon they, too, will be swept away with their moods and will genuinely be feeling those emotions, night after night after night."

"But they are different. I don't have an audience; I am not trying to achieve great feats of emotion for anyone's benefit."

"Perhaps you should think of yourself and the world itself as your audience, and the benefit as yours. That you are playing to make yourself feel better, to bring beauty and kindness into the world. Your frowning does not increase anyone's happiness, but your smiling might. You are the entertainer of your own audience, the singer of your own song, and it is in your power to choose between the masks of Comedy or Tragedy. After all, what are emotional states except reflections--each reflection showing merely how rusty or distorted the mirrors of our own souls are, how unreliable they are when it comes to accurate representations of objects? Remember how it is said we must scour and polish our souls to better reflect God, His Beauty and His Mercy?"

"It is I," he continues, "who have had the most distorted, tarnished mirror of all, trusting no one and giving in to the paranoia of the tyrant, forgetting my garden and letting all the demons of madness sweep in. I have had fits of rage over the smallest of things on certain days; perhaps a little cleric trying to dishonour me by calling me a heretic. I had to but write a letter and on the morrow, his head would roll at my feet. And when questioned about it, years later, I mightn't even have remembered the cleric's existence, or even cared about what clerics thought of me! On a bad day, a haughty cleric might have felt like a dragon breathing fumes down my neck, one I would have needed to slay to protect myself--on another, one would have seemed as harmless as a buzzing fly. Thus, our minds deceive us, magnifying the worst of things until they all swell out of proportion."

"I am glad you admit to not being perfect, husband," she had grinned wryly. "I still have another cushion left and will not hesitate to use it."

But he had been right, infuriatingly right, as always.

And this is why Yassamin now plays the hermit, yet one plunging herself into pleasures to distract herself: she drives away the servants, only keeping company with the cats, only reading poetry that soothes her heart.

Yet even these activities she finds too passive, and she reasons that she needs to do something physical to keep her mind busy.

Usually the maids tend to her body at this hour, preparing her for Jaffar's return. But now, she undoes her braids herself and brushes her hair out over a censer, just like her mother had taught her to. As a little girl, she would have coughed and squinted at the perfumed smoke stinging her eyes, as some of her hair had fallen upon the hot metal--thus, the smell of burning hair always reminds her of her childhood, and in a strangely pleasant way, too. It is slightly odd that it should be so, but it never fails: if she closes her eyes, she can feel her mother's hands kneading at her scalp, hear her voice telling her that one day, she would marry a prince and that with her perfumed curls, she would be able to bind his heart.

And today, even the memory of her ill-chosen prince feels distant, for the perfume is different. In Basra and Baghdad, she had used cypress and frankincense, but Jaffar's preference had always been for a mix of jasmine, roses and musk: this is the scent of her true prince, the one perfume that always gladdens her heart.

She lets the smoke weave its tendrils into her hair, closes her eyes and inhales deep; inhales the scent of Jaffar, of love, of home. And as she lifts her head and sits back upon the cushions, she is dizzy, but not from a lack of air: it is because she is happy. Relief washes over her and she breathes it in as she had breathed in the incense, drawing in deep breaths of it, basking in its warmth. She lies down on her back, Pairi meaowing softly and butting her hand, curling her tail the languid, sensuous way cats do, with the same languid sensuousness that's always present in Jaffar's every movement.

Jaffar. Jaffar. She runs her hand over her breasts, squeezing them a little, biting her lip at the sweet shiver shooting from her nipples to her cunny. She should ask him to do this to her tonight; should ask him to pinch her breasts, squeeze them the way he had done in the forest. Perhaps he would even take the whip to them once more; oh, she would like that--

Until she pauses in horror, a sudden panic descending upon her from nowhere: for now, time itself stops.

Outside the window, the birds have stopped singing, the fountain has gone quiet: the room is silent, silent, still.

There is a knock on her bedside table: upon it, the golden sphere snaps open. It clicks and whirrs into life, laments:

My heart-bird sings for your sky,
a sky to soar in and die;

Terror washes over her; cold, horrifying, screaming terror. It freezes her limbs upon the cushions, becomes a crushing weight upon her chest until she stops breathing, until her heart stops beating. There is a pain in her side: a wide, open pain, a gash, widening, widening, tusks tearing at her, her blood spilling upon the ground, spreading, spreading and she, he cries out for his beloved; he does not want to die, not yet, he does not want to die, not yet, he loves her so--

"Jaffar!"

She doubles over in pain, gags, retches, howls. No. No. This cannot be, this cannot, and even if the vision has left her, she knows it was no hallucination.

This should not be happening, not now. He cannot die, he cannot! Not when they have only been lovers for such a short while, but a blink of an eye after so many wasted years. A few more years, it was the least they deserved--Where is your mercy now, God? she blasphemes in her mind as she drags herself onto all fours, heaving, every limb in her body flashing with agony, her side bleeding even if there is no wound to be seen.

And she cannot accept this, cannot. Roaring in defiant rage, she drags herself to the door, pulls on her boots and her cloak, screams orders to the servants to saddle her horse, to hurry, hurry.

Veilless, half-dressed, she rides off in search of Jaffar.

She knows where to find him in the woods, knows the pattern of the trees and the bushes as they had swum out of his vision, the curve of the hill that was the last thing he saw, whispering her name. It was the very glade they had made love in but two nights ago, and it shouldn't be too far away, it shouldn't--she spurs her horse into a gallop, cries out Jaffar's name. She tells him she is coming, she is coming, tears streaming down her temples; begs for him not to leave her, not to leave her now.

By the time she reaches the clearing, her saddle is stained with blood, her spurs are stained with blood, and a boar lies upon the grass--he, too, stained with blood. Jaffar's hunting knife sticks out of the animal's throat, but it is too late for Jaffar himself. The boar thrashes, kicking and shrieking while Jaffar lies still, his eyes staring open wide. All blood is gone from his face, his limbs: it now soaks his coat, his cloak from the deep wound gaping in his side. And she was too late, he was too late; the boar must have truly taken him by surprise. Otherwise, he could have used magic to defend himself, but must have lost too much blood, must have been in too much pain to cast a spell--she covers her mouth to suffocate her sob, her nose and her tears wetting her hand.

The boar kicks, shrieks still, the gold and sapphire knife bobbing inside its throat. With a cry of rage, she dispatches the foul beast, the murderer: she pulls the knife out and slits its throat in one swift cut, cursing its soul, sending it to the lowest of hells it had come from.

But for all her violence and her curses, her husband still lies dead before her. She begs for Jaffar to return to her, pleads for him as she cuts his coat open with the knife. When she sees the full extent of the damage, she has to pull away and vomit, retch hopelessly upon the ground, coughing, weeping. In vain, she presses the edge of his cloak over the wound, but there is no bleeding to be staunched: there is little blood left in his body, now. And his insides, what the boar had done to them, oh, merciful God--she heaves with nausea once more, shaking beside him.

"Don't leave me," she murmurs, still, hoping against hope. "Don't leave me, Jaffar." Delirious with grief, she climbs on top of him, straddles his hips, lies down upon him, clutches his coat and weeps helplessly, like a lost child for its mother. She buries her face into his neck, into the scent of musk, jasmine and roses.

But his arms never lift to embrace her, he never turns around to lie on top of her, to soothe her with his weight: he is dead, dead, dead.