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Chapter Text

"I've had enough of sleepless nights,
of my unspoken grief, of my tired wisdom.
Come, my treasure, my breath of life
come and dress my wounds and be my cure.
Enough of words.
Come to me without a sound."
--Rumi

***

She lies spooned in Jaffar's arms, shaking from fresh nightmares, too frightened even for tears.

"Why must they come back?"

There must be something wrong with her, she tells him. She feels so ungrateful, incomprehending, as if a part of her had never quite accepted the love he had given her, as if a part of her had refused to let go of the melancholy that had nearly killed her. Who would ever want to be melancholic, she asks? What is it in her--what flaw, what crack is there in her defenses that entices it back; where has she failed?

"Melancholy is a terrible beast," he murmurs against her neck. "But know this, my lady: if I have to slay him anew each night to free you of him, I will." He hugs her tight against himself.

She groans into her pillow. "But that's exactly what's so wrong. You shouldn't have to."

Quietly, he turns her around and lies down on top of her, the way she needs him to. He presses each of her limbs into the bed, spreads his weight upon them, over her entire body. His weight is upon her like water, and gladly, she sinks into him, like a white stone dropped into the blue-black depths of the sea. His love swallows her, carries her, dark, amniotic; the husband become the mother, protecting her until her breathing evens, until she is still.

There, they doze until dawn, his mind gently, wordlessly whispering around her of love, of safety.

She stirs and they move apart a little, he lifting until she can breathe with ease again. "Thank you," she mumbles into his shoulder.

He caresses her hair, contemplating her, his voice quiet with tender concern. "Here, I would offer to take those nightmares from you; wrest each one from your heart if I didn't already know you would refuse."

She closes her eyes and presses her forehead against his. "I know it may just be my time of the month, but sometimes I feel as if there are demons inside me, Jaffar. Ones that paint the most terrible visions of the future and even if I know I should live in the present, even if I know one cannot waste one's life worrying, I--" She is so tired, so tired she can't even weep. "Know that I am tempted, Jaffar. To let you remove the fears, or rather those demons, whatever it is in me that collects those nightmares, hoards those anxieties like some keeper of a treasury of horrors."

For sometimes, sometimes she feels she would rather be dumb and drugged than suffer the pains over and over again. On most days, his love helps; on most days, she feels calm, happy. It's only on the days before her monthly flow that the old madness threatens to take hold of her, that she questions herself, him, life itself. She knows it's only her cycle; she knows it will pass, knows the melancholy will be released from her the day Nature takes pity on her and performs her own bloodletting on her. She knows all these things, yet they have no effect on the terrors, the fears: despite her magical training, despite his love, she cannot escape the melancholy humours gathering in her body day by day until she is made of little more than pain and tears.

And when the humours overwhelm her, she escapes even her husband. She spends her days in her tower or in their study, afraid and ashamed of hurting him with her pain. She is sick of the same faces, of the servants, of her confinement. Her days are only brightened by the rare visits of traders, of the town's Jewish merchant wives. Yet once they leave, she sits there in the circle of her newly-bought trinkets, perfumes and garments and weeps at the shallowness, at the futility of having tried to alleviate her pain with such frivolities.

He, of course, is heartbroken, forlorn at her withdrawal on those days, the days he barely sees her but for dinner, let alone the days she prefers the peace and quiet of her tower's bed to the one they share. No matter how well he may mask it, she knows he feels betrayed, that he feels inadequate. He feels his age, and like all men, must have wondered whether he was truly able to satisfy her in the bedroom, especially on those nights when his virility had deserted him and they'd had to resort to other methods of lovemaking.

Yet, he couldn't be further away from the truth.

After one of her tower days, she had tearfully held him and told him not to worry. "I only need time to rest, beloved. Know that it is not because I do not love you."

"I know." He'd hugged her tight, tight against himself and murmured "I miss you. I miss us saying our prayers together. You know it is good for a husband and wife to pray together."

"I've seen you recite prayers to graven idols," she had quipped, smiled.

"And I have seen you in tears at a heathen liturgy, my child," he had smiled back at her. "Prayers are prayers; all are healthy for one's soul," he had said. "It is the intent behind them that counts, and I would share those moments with the one who is, after all, the other half of my soul."

"Then you must also know the spiritual truth: one must leave in order to one day return," she had told him. "Your falcon only flies from her king's hand to make the joy of their reunion all the sweeter."

"Your king weeps in his heart," he had whispered into her hair, quiet. "But know that he will always wait for you, until the end of his days."

Some months, she stays with him throughout her pain, like now, when the separation is too much for her to bear. And he is good to her: he loves her, tends to her, carefully doses her with wine, hashish, opium. She requests opium even the week before her bleeding, now, and he consents, for he knows it to be a powerful antidote against melancholy. "I will gladly make the tincture for you, but only in small doses. It's habit-forming," he had said and had insisted on administering it himself.

And again, she is not sure if he suspects she might be tempted to overindulge, just like her withdrawal into the tower must have brought back his memories of that blackest of days: the day she had tried to end her life. She no longer wants to die, no, but the nightmares are worse, she tells him: thus, he guards her from them, and gladly, she lets him.

And so, each month, with tender hands he prepares her medicine, sweetens it for her, spoon-feeds it to her. Each month, he holds her in his arms until the pain in her mind finally fades, the agony in her body stills and she falls asleep in the magic circle of his arms.

Yet every time the haze of tenderness, of intoxicants fades, every time her cycle moves towards its completion, the fears return and she wishes they didn't. He is patient with her, yet she knows she gives him pain, for he so loves her that she sees every agony of hers reflected upon his face.

Her beloved's face, aged but still so beautiful in the morning light: his hair much receded, streaked with silver. His eyes, lined but so full of power, as blue as the morning sky, so full of love, so alive. She wonders how many lines her own pain must have carved upon his face, the selfishness of self-pity rearing its head once more. How much she must have aged him, how much closer to death she must have pushed him, a man already fifty-one, a man who is sure to die before her--

And now the tears, finally, arrive. And again, she feels so ungrateful--had he not just embraced her, healed her for a brief moment? His arms so long, his very body so much greater around her frailty, so much more powerful than hers, so sheltering, so safe, so giving? Why is she failing him like this, failing his love like this, especially since their days together are numbered?

"I don't want to lose you." She clutches his nightshirt with her hands, whispering against his chest. "I want to die with you," she blurts out and it doesn't come out right; she fears how ridiculous she must sound. She thinks of the promise she had given to Ahmad in Jaffar's dungeon, of how she had sworn to die together with him: such a foolish, impassioned promise made by a young girl who did not yet know what love was. The contrast between that naive girl and the grown woman she is now makes her wet his shirt with her tears because now she knows, truly knows what it means to love someone more than life itself. She has been cast out by her family; she is a prisoner here with Jaffar--Jaffar is all she has, now. It is Jaffar's strength that holds her together: her ill body, her ill mind. Without him, she would collapse, shatter into a thousand pieces. What point is there, then, to the idea of going on living without Jaffar?

"Shh." He kisses her tears. "If it comes to that, I will make sure to find a spell to make us live forever."

"Don't jest."

"What makes you think I am jesting?" And from his frown, she wonders if he has, indeed, sought that spell--she is astonished that this only occurs to her now. He spends long hours in his study while she is off riding, reading; yet she had imagined most of his time was spent tinkering with his clockwork toys, that most of what he wrote in his thick notebooks was concerned with philosophy or the movements of the stars. The thought, however mad, must have occurred to him: the ultimate, most outrageous blasphemy, of rewriting and extending his page in God's book, rebelling against the All-Powerful. She shivers underneath him, underneath the look in his eyes, underneath the man she knows would defy God himself to keep her. And she is not sure if she wants him to; feels suddenly selfish for stirring such thoughts in him.

"I'm sorry." She fumbles with the embroidery on his shirt.

"Do not think I am free of the fear of death, my lady. When you found me, I wanted to die. It is a thousand times more painful to realise you do, indeed, want to go on living when you have found something, someone to live for."

Exactly what she herself had thought the day she had thought she had lost him, the day she had wept herself to sleep upon the grass only to be woken up by his kiss.

"I know. It's only that--it's only that I cannot bear the thought of being alone in this world without you, Jaffar. What life is there for me, here, without you?"

He rests beside her, nuzzling her cheek. "Is it children you want? Because I could try to heal you."

She shakes her head. It's not as if she had not thought of it--to have something of him, of herself to go on living after they are gone. But she had not lied to him when she had told him she had no maternal instincts to speak of. When the midwife had told her her melancholy and the excessive pains before and during her monthly flow were due to barrenness, she had sighed with relief.

Ahmad had been disappointed with her, had scorned her for it, perhaps thinking himself a fool for having taken himself a queen unable to bear heirs. As if she could have known! Yet, secretly, she had been glad, for by then, her love for Ahmad had started to die. And now she is even gladder, for children would have bound her to Ahmad, bound her to her golden cage in Baghdad. Without her barrenness, she would not have been able to take flight. Without it, she would not be resting here today, in the arms of the most loving husband she could have ever dreamt of.

For it is Jaffar, here, who is the carer, the nurturer. When she had first met Jaffar, his man-woman nature had terrified her--the way he had moved and spoken like a woman, yet lived within the body of a tall, imposing, possessing man ruthlessly wielding his power; a man well-versed in all the arts of witchcraft. And yet, now, ever since their marriage, she has never ceased to marvel how he carries the qualities of both the mother and the father within himself. Thus, she strokes his hand and wonders if it's not he who wants the children, perhaps hoping for the Barmakid line to not be extinguished, himself the last to carry the name of his butchered family.

But it is not to be, and it breaks her heart.

"No, Jaffar. I do not wish to be a mother; God did not intend me to be one. And think of it: we live in a cage." A cage wrought by Ahmad, the fool who fears they or their children might still usurp him. "Our children would be forever prisoners, however innocent, forever paying for our crimes. Would you condemn them to lifelong imprisonment? Would you risk them being driven into madness?" She shakes her head. "It would be most cruel, beloved. Cruel, to us, to the children who would lose their father when they were but babes--" and again, the tears come and she curls up in his arms, sighing against his chest.

"How do you know it should be I who expires first? For who knows what the Almighty has planned for us?" he says, his voice wavering as he holds her in his arms, his own tears gliding down the strands of her hair. "I told you about my first wife. My cousin, my playmate, my friend, whom I loved dearly. We wed when we were fifteen, were happy, glad. And how I lost her. At seventeen. To dysentery, fever. Think of it--your first, sweet love slowly wasting away, oh--" his breath hitches and he clasps her face in his palms, quivering with grief. "Know that I, too, have nightmares. Only it is your face I see wasting away in our marriage bed, death slowly drawing you away from me breath by breath until you are but a skeleton, a ghost. Until you no longer recognise my face, until you no longer know my name, the man who loves you with all his heart." His words become an invocation, a prayer, falling from his lips rapidly through his tears: "My beloved, the missing half of my self, the one I thought I would never find. I don't want to lose you either, I don't, I--"

He shudders with sobs, and now it is she who gathers him into her arms. "Oh, Jaffar--" she had not known of this nightmare and it shakes her to the bone to hear of it, to have Jaffar weeping against her bosom so. She hugs him to herself tight, so tight, sinking her fingers, nay, claws into his hair, clutching him to herself with fierce possessiveness, as if to stave off Death himself.

She rocks him in her arms, as he rocks her in his. They weep and they weep, holding each other, both consumed with pain. But the only balm for pain, for life's wounds, for death is love, as it always has been, and they both know this. Thus, their sobs turn into soft sighs; thus, they kiss each other's tears away until none remain; thus, they make love. Love, in the face of death; love because it is all they have; love, because it ties them to the present. Their touches entwine; their scents, their words, their breaths entwine; their bodies entwine until the past's horrors and the future's fears melt away and nothing but love remains.

Yet it is a chaste love, not that of penetration, not that of their usual joinings; they are both too fatigued from sorrow and sleep, still. Thus, they lie there with their nightshirts pulled off, naked underneath the sheets, clasped around each other, at peace.

Jaffar mumbles against her lips, his eyes alight with tenderness, even with a little lasciviousness. "I promise to give you more tonight, my lady, if it is in my power to do so. If only to help your pain."

And she knows what he means by this. It's nearly a year from the day they had consummated their marriage; they have had time enough to explore each other to know what she needs at this time of the month. It is only physical pain that can evaporate the soul's pain and send it to the heavens like the sweet perfume of prayer, he had once told her during one of their lessons. And she, too, needs to be overwhelmed, if only for her body being at its most sensitive during these days, to compensate for the pain in her mind. Oh, the time they had discovered how deep he could penetrate her during this time of the month, touching parts so sensitive he could not reach on other days, how exquisite, how body-wracking and plentiful her orgasms--she shivers in arousal just thinking of the simple pleasure of having Jaffar inside her.

He sees this in her eyes, kisses her a little more lewdly, now. "Come with me into the woods tonight, my sweet," he purrs, kisses her once more.

She smiles and stretches in his arms, basking in the warm glow of his desire. "Why?"

"Remember what happened a year ago this day, beloved. I shall say no more; only that we are to leave three hours before sundown," he smirks.

She clasps his hand. "All right. Oh, may I have the study to myself today? I think it would help soothe my mind to meditate a little."

"But of course." He kisses her hand.

And that morning they wash together, say their prayers together, bow to God together, call to God together. The familiar prayers are a relief, a joy. The ritual of asking for God to help her find the right path in particular--oh, never has she recited the words so keenly, with such a burning desire to rid herself of her fears, Jaffar's. And during that prayer, it is as if a key is turned within her, a lock opened within her: for at that moment, an unknown hope is kindled in her heart. It has no shape or form, yet, but it is there: hope, a sudden warmth in her chest, the same peace she feels when Jaffar takes her with his weight.

As they recite "Peace and blessings of God be unto you" to each other, the love in Jaffar's eyes floods her heart with light. It is with the same light in her eyes that she recites the words back to him and thanks God in her heart for the gift that is Jaffar.

***

Puffing with exertion, she lets the books fall onto the low desk, herself falling onto the cushions beside it to catch her breath. It may be futile, but she cannot suppress that urge which has always dominated her: the desire for knowledge. To get to the root of a given problem, to keep searching, comparing and contrasting sources in order to gain understanding.

So there she sits, surrounded by volumes medical, magical and spiritual, looking for answers to the question so many have asked before her: whether Life itself could be bottled, consumed for longevity or even immortality.

She knows of elixirs, some more successful than others, remembers Geber spending days locked up in his study, always in search of the Philosopher's Stone. In Jaffar's books, she now reads of tyrants and ghouls who had feasted upon the blood, the bodies, the souls of innocents in futile attempts to extend their lives, all to no avail. One by one, all of them had succumbed to war, disease, old age. Scientists, kings, heroes, desperate lovers had always sought to imbibe life into their bodies in one form or another, yet all had failed.

Yet none of these accounts ever even mention the act of giving of one's life to others. It occurs to her that perhaps this is because all the authors of these books, these legends have been male: they give little thought to the concept of giving life, transferring the spark of life, their blood into other human beings, nurturing life like a mother would a child in her belly. They but rob, take, murder like the soldier, or the religious man who pleads and argues with Fate like a greedy child begging for sweets from its mother.

They have never been trained to think of themselves as life-givers, she realises. They have not been told, from childhood, that their lives should be dedicated to the bearing of children, to the tending of their husbands, their families. It is a sermon she had often heard as a girl, particularly when she had picked up a book instead of a doll. Yet the boys had been taught to chase others, conquer others and only when they had become old enough to pick up a sword to take lives from others, had their education been considered complete and they had been declared men.

And until now, she has never truly recognised the mother-qualities in herself--the yearning to give, to nurture, to give of her own flesh and blood and soul so that another might live. To do this for a man who is more of a mother, nurturer, life-giver than she is, the very exception to the men in these books--she grins darkly at the irony of her fantasy.

For she is still young and fair at twenty-six, and surely has more years left than Jaffar does: what harm would it do to give him some of hers, so that they might share more life together? With the fervour of a madwoman, she entertains visions in her mind of finding a spell, a ritual to balance the scales of their years: giving him a dozen of hers would do it, yes, a dozen, to make them the same age. Perhaps even more, as men tend to die before women: fifteen? That would set both of them in their late thirties--a respectable age, mature, but not yet infirm. She would not mind, she thinks, having always found herself older in the soul than most people of her own generation.

The thought of them growing white-haired together, the lines upon their faces deepening together, them sharing the aches and pains of age together--yes, the thought soothes her mind. Anything but this: to stand here full of life and vitality and watch as the sand in your husband's hourglass falls more and more rapidly with each passing hour; to fear losing him when you have only just married him, to stand here with your hands full of life you would rather gift him with.

Yet, she knows this is a madness, an impossibility, a fantasy. Even if it were possible, Jaffar would never consent to it--he would never want her to sacrifice anything of hers for his sake. Had he not himself studied these things only to give up on them, having found them too dangerous, impossible? And even if they did discover a way to adjust their lifespans somehow, surely God and Nature would somehow punish them in the end, for it is against their appointed ways? They would strike both her and Jaffar down for such insolence, if only to restore the natural order of things. It is too dangerous; it is not meant to be.

So she closes her books, washes a grain of opium down with her tea and lies down to meditate.

***

It's afternoon when the cats find her. Both knead at her, butt at her hands, feet, head, purring loudly, demanding attention with soft trills and chirps. She leans back into the cats, pets their fur in return for their caresses. Cats, ubiquitous, always somehow there: where there is life, there are cats, she thinks sleepily and embraces them as if they were life itself, so much do they gladden her heart. Pairi curls in her lap, tucks her paws underneath her thick, long white fur and purrs, as if to soothe the aches in her womb and the nausea from the drug. Pairi knows, oh, she always knows when her mistress is in pain, and for this, her mistress is grateful.

Saqi, however, ceases kneading at her legs and leaps off the divan instead, trotting towards the door with his thin black tail held high like a standard. And from that, she knows Jaffar must be close. Indeed, soon he appears, leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed, tilting his head lazily, contemplating the scene with a smile. In that moment, she loves him so much that she aches, so much that her fingers curl in Pairi's fur, so much that sleep and the remains of the drug are washed from her by the force of her emotion.

Saqi rubs against Jaffar's legs and meaows loudly, pointedly: Jaffar chuckles and lifts the tip of his boot for Saqi to butt his head against. "Daddy's favourite."

"And you are his," she laughs.

"Mm-hmm," he smiles lazily, squats down and holds out his riding whip so Saqi can swat at it with his paws. "Daddy's little cupbearer," he purrs, with a voice so honeyed it makes lust curl between her thighs.

And yet, at the same time, sadness rushes cold through her heart as she watches Jaffar playing with the cat so lovingly, crooning to him so sweetly. This is how I will remember him when he's gone, she thinks, cursing her mind for throwing such thoughts at her, but she cannot help herself. And just as quickly as sorrow had flashed through her, it is replaced by desire: Jaffar casts his gaze upon her once more, straightens, as sinuous and as sensual as a cat himself.

She stretches out her arms. "My two long-legged boys. Come here."

He walks towards her with a deliberate slowness, an exaggerated looseness to his hips, twirling his whip between his fingers. "Am I to take it there are caresses on offer?"

"Plenty," and she pulls him into a kiss, Pairi jumping off her lap with a grumbling noise as Jaffar stretches out on the cushions beside her. "What has the prince of my cats been up to?"

"Making arrangements for our little hunting trip. You'll see when we get there."

She plays with the tails of his turban, presses herself against him, inhaling the scent of the forest, the scent of fresh, clean sweat upon him. "Isn't it a little late to go out hunting?"

He purses his mouth, tuts a little; he runs his gloved hand down her neck, her chest until a shiver runs all the way down to her cunny. "I've spread out the net; all I am waiting for, now, is the prey. What do you think, my love? What sort of bird shall I catch tonight?"

She curls her leg around his hip and rubs against him shamelessly. "It may well be a bird of prey, my love."

He nods, slowly, his eyes narrowing with desire, his fingers curling a little in her hair. "I was hoping for that. You do remember what day it is, now, don't you, my child?"

And she does: his scents, the creak of the leather, the warmth of the spring evening flood her mind with memories. Of Jaffar, covered in blood, growling as he had taken her mouth; the way she had burned underneath him, so wet and ready for him. Of the way he had pressed his erection to her mound and ground against her, of the way he had teased her, yet denied her.

Thus, she nods, her voice as demanding, as honeyed as the cats' purrs before her. "The day you never ravished me."

"Tonight, I intend to rectify that mistake." His eyes flash and he kisses her hungrily, then pulls back with sudden impatience and leaps to his feet. "Come. I've had your horse saddled; we're ready to leave." He smirks, swishes his whip a little. "Wear the green cloak."

***

The day has been warm, the air cooling a little as they reach the shadowed edges of the forest. Jaffar pauses here and there to inspect his traps, to no avail. So far, he hasn't caught even the tiniest of rabbits, grumbling a little as he climbs back into his saddle. "It has to be in the stars. Mercury must be out of alignment."

"Or your snares must be out of alignment, old husband," she laughs.

And through the winding forest paths, she gently mocks him in this manner with mirth in her eyes. And as he glares at her with a smirk, she knows he recognises her mockery for what it is. For he permits her this, enjoys this gentle teasing because it stirs the beast in him. Thus, every quirk of her eyebrow, every sly quip of hers is an invitation to unleash that beast: by every wicked little laugh of hers, he can calculate the extent of wickedness she craves from him on a given night. It is the most potent of aphrodisiacs, this pretend-war that they play: he is never harder than when she insults him, fights him; she never wetter than when he allows her the pleasure of finally being overwhelmed, conquered by him.

This game suits both their natures, compensates for the flaws in their characters, mends them anew with every such joining: again and again, he yearns to have her punish him for the monster he used to be; again and again, she yearns to have her resistance, her foolishness, her anxieties stripped from her. And never does she need to be conquered more than on these days--her mind so pained, her tongue so forked, the lust in her so all-devouring, so uncontrollable only Jaffar the beast can match it, harness it with his sharp, precise cruelty, sate it with his animal lust.

So she rides on, with the premenstrual heat incandescent in her hips, feels herself growing slick as Jaffar flashes his eyes at yet another quip of hers. His nostrils flare, as if he can smell her, smell the sweet wetness now staining her shalwars, mixing with her perfumes of sandalwood and jasmine. His lips pull back from the sharp hunger of his teeth and she shivers in anticipation once more: oh, tonight is not for gentle lovers, no; tonight shall be made of clashing teeth and dirty words, of clawing hands, of pricks and cunnies rubbed raw.

Once they reach the edge of a familiar clearing, the site of many a pleasant picnic, the air suddenly grows very cold, as if a lone patch of winter were still tarrying here, still unthawed in the heart of the woods. Yet the sun, if now close to setting, shines brightly and the birds chirp wildly, as they would do on any spring day. The scent of frost fills her nostrils, but as she urges her horse forwards into the clearing, the scent disappears and it's warm once more.

Jaffar reins in his horse and parts the branches of a bush with his whip, inspecting the last of his traps. When he finds nothing, he sighs and she can't help herself: she has to guide her horse next to his, has to click her tongue at him pityingly.

"What a fine catch you've made tonight, husband: such fat, succulent beasts made of empty air," she grins.

Slowly, slowly he lifts up to look at her, to measure her with his gaze. He raises his whip and taps her cheek with it. "You know, my dear, a lesser man would have struck his wife by now."

She raises a mocking eyebrow. "And a lesser man's wife would have slapped her husband for it."

With a hiss, he raises his arm and she closes her eyes, jerks back as he strikes--a snap, and the whip never hits her face, only tugs at her hair once, twice--and when she opens her eyes, Jaffar is twirling her veil upon his whip triumphantly, the thin silk now dangling from it in tatters. They're outdoors and he's torn off her veil, stripped her of her modesty, in a place where anyone could see her, her hair uncovered like a street whore's--

He but laughs at her shock. "Now, my dear, I suggest we dismount without further delay." He grins. "We don't want to frighten the horses, now do we?"

Her heart pounding, she does as she's told, tying up both their horses, her hands fumbling with the reins. She shivers at every little sound, now amplified tenfold by her shock, her arousal: every clink of the horses' bridles, every crunch of dead leaves underneath Jaffar's boots as he edges closer to her, the sound of his whip as he swishes it behind her back, chuckling softly. When she turns to face him, her nipples are so hard she knows they must be visible to him even through the thin fabric of her jacket.

And she is right: he chuckles once more, runs the tip of his whip playfully across her chest and tilts his head towards a little patch of grass on the edge of the clearing. "Over there."

It's as if her boots are made of lead and as if she's drunk; that's how much she staggers as she makes her way to the grass. "Over here?"

Jaffar doesn't answer, only grabs the collar of her cloak in his fist and pushes her up against the nearest tree. He kisses her, then, hard, bruising: he crushes her body against the tree with his, squeezing her breasts with his gloved hands. He knows, knows how sensitive, how sore her breasts are right now; he but laughs into her mouth as she screams in agony. He pulls back, only to let the whip dangle from his wrist so that he can truly attack her with his hands, now, squeezing her nipples through her jacket, twisting, twisting.

"Stop!" she shrieks into his mouth, panting, pushing at his arms. "Stop," she sobs.

But it is to no avail: now, he but pushes his thigh between her legs, ruts against her and claws at her breasts ever harder. "Oh, no, no, no, my dear," he tuts, his eyes glittering with delight. "That's not how we play this game, and you know it." Slowly, deliberately, he pulls off his gloves, slaps them together and tucks them into his belt. Like a cat, he butts his face into her neck and inhales her perfume; his moustache, his stubble a sharp scratch against the bare skin of her throat. "What kind of a bird have I captured tonight, my sweet?" he asks as he undoes the top buttons of her jacket, reaches into her undershirt and lifts out her breasts, displaying them, marvelling at them. Soft, now, he cups his hands over her breasts and looks into her eyes, waiting for her answer. "Which bird is it that shall sing for me tonight, my love?"

And it is his tenderness that breaks her heart: that he should ask, even now, even after all her teasing, after all her hints. That even now, he has to be sure, sure that the pain he gives her will be a balm and not a poison. He has barely started to make love to her, yet already she is weeping from her emotion, his lips blackening with her kohl as he softly kisses her tears from her cheeks. Even in his lust, he is patient; even with his erection hard against her stomach, he lets her collect herself, lets her catch her breath, gives her time to give him her answer.

So she clasps her hands over his, presses them against her chest and meets his eyes with hers. "Falcon."

He does not answer in words, only laughs softly, gently, his laughter turning into a dark chuckle as he squeezes her breasts harder than ever before, making her cry out into his face. "Louder," he insists, taking her nipples between his fingers and pulling on them roughly.

"No," she sobs, "N-no," her breath stuttering as he pinches and twists.

"I think you mean 'yes,'" he hisses, releasing her nipples only to dig his nails into them, pulling on them so hard she is lifted off the tree trunk, so that she screams.

"That's better," he croons in approval. "Remember, my sweet: the sentries swap shifts at this hour. Also remember that they are to report everything they see--and hear--to Ahmad," he laughs, nodding as her eyes widen in realisation. "Yes, my child. They are out there right now, listening."

She claws at his shoulders, pants into his face. "You are impossible. What if they should--"

"They won't interrupt us. I've cast a circle of protection around this glade. No one can set foot in here except us. They can but listen," he grins, "and we owe them a little entertainment, don't we?"

She shakes her head, disbelieving, laughing against his chest. "They would think butchery."

"Or two beasts in heat. And I promised you a ravishment, did I not? Think of it: the more perverse our sounds, the greater Ahmad's horror. Or jealousy, as the case might be. A most fitting revenge, don't you think?"

And she imagines it, the look on Ahmad's face, that blank, dull, incomprehending look he had always had on his face whenever she had told him of her books, her intellectual pursuits, her passions: she bursts into laughter. To think of Ahmad, sitting there upon his golden throne, listening to stories of the wicked Jaffar ravishing his precious princess, them fucking like two filthy animals in the woods with no shame! Oh, but now she cannot stop laughing, imagining Ahmad passing out from sheer bafflement; she shares this image with Jaffar until they are both howling, cackling against the tree, gasping for breath.

Still heaving from laughter, she brings her hand to his wrist and gently strokes the wrist-strap of his whip. "I wanted this, too; that night you found me upon the grass."

"That's the reason I brought it," he says and kisses her nose. He takes the whip in his hand and swishes it again, grinning at her. "Only five strokes, since it's your first time. I'll even let you choose where those strokes shall land."

And that's the worst thing of all--oh, he is saying that on purpose, just to make her mind flood with images of the whip landing on every part of her body, she realises. And now her breath catches not from laughter, but renewed desire. How could she decide? She had imagined him striking her across the cheek when he'd snapped off her veil, and now her cunny tightens at the thought. She knows the buttocks are the usual target of such punishments and perhaps the safest, but still, some devil in her brings her hands to her breasts. Yet, she is sure Jaffar has dreamt of marking her buttocks, too, so her hands now stray to the drawstring of her shalwars. There is nothing for it but to compromise. But when she tries to say the words, tries to vocalise her need to be whipped, to be hurt, shame makes her bite her lip, cast down her eyelashes. Her tongue feels sticky, heavy.

"Three... here?" she brings Jaffar's hand to her buttock. Without looking up, she takes his other hand and brings it to her chest. "Two here?" and she shivers with her own boldness, shivers between the tree trunk and the heat of Jaffar's body, shivers as he lifts her chin and looks into her eyes.

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure," he smiles, warm, and pulls her into a kiss.

"Then, take me," she murmurs into his mouth. "Like you should have done the day we first met."

Jaffar draws in a deep breath, squeezes her breast and buttock and smiles, smiles. "Oh, I'm going to lay waste to you, my lady." With a final deep breath, as if with great effort, he lets go and takes several steps back. "Spread your cloak out on the ground. Do it."

And she does, spreading it upon the grass the way she had done at the foot of her tower, Jaffar's eyes burning into her back.

"Don't turn around."

Again, the crunch of dead leaves underneath his boots; then, the soft whisper of grass and he is upon her, pressed against her back. His musk surrounds her, envelops her even before his arms do, his hands gliding to cup her mound through her silks. "I'm going to take this sweet little thing tonight," he whispers, tugs at the laces of her shalwars, slips his hand inside and glides it across the short fur of her sex. "And tomorrow, I am going to take you to the baths and shave this myself. Would you like that?"

"Y-yes," and she shivers at his touches, at his boldness. "But at the baths?" she blurts out. It is their house, but what would the servants think; a man and a woman bathing together? The forest, the bedroom are different, but in view of all the servants! "Oh, but the gossip--"

"Let them talk. We are sinners, are we not? Am I not a monster? And you an adulteress, a fallen woman? It's only proper that we should finally embrace our reputations. And who would dare reproach us without fearing losing their heads?" he croons, dipping his fingers into her slit, making her stagger in his embrace.

And he is right. To think of it, that in their prison, in their reputations they have more freedom than any high-born person would have at the court; that they are as free as the dervishes. At the realisation of this she moans, presses back against his body, his erection against her back, her buttocks now gliding bare against the silk covering his thighs.

"Yes, my sweet." He steps back, cupping her buttocks with his hands. "Tonight, I am going to mark these. And tomorrow--think of it, how sweetly they will sting as I rub oils into them--oh, you're squirming already," he chuckles as he kneels behind her, kissing each buttock, giving each a little bite, making her yelp and lift onto her toes. "And don't think I will stop there; oh, no. After I've shaved you, I shall rinse you myself; flush you with rosewater until you are so clean even your farts will smell of roses!" He laughs. He spreads her buttocks with his thumbs and blows on her anus, his voice soft and low with heat. "Then I'm going to fill you up with oils, scented with roses and honey; until they pour out of you over your bare little cunny. Until you are begging for me to sodomise you." He brushes her perineum with his lips, his moustache scratching the cleft of her buttocks. "Think of the acoustics; your cries echoing off the tiles, oh, my sweet--"

She is moaning loudly by now, wailing; so wet she's sticky between her thighs. She wants to be taken, now, and to hell with the whippings, to hell with all these slow teasings! Yet, fighting to control herself, she presses her nails into her palms and stays still. "Please, Jaffar," she whimpers. "Mercy."

He slips his hand between her legs and taps at her cunny and oh, his laughter when he discovers how wet she is, the noise he makes when he sucks her taste off his fingers! "I'm going to hurt you, now," he whispers, taking a few steps back. "Stay still."

Again, he swishes his whip, making her twitch and stagger in anticipation. When the first blow lands, it is surprisingly gentle; she glares at him over her shoulder, unable to disguise her disappointment. But just as she is about to open her mouth, he strikes her again, hard, so hard that she screams, needing to brace her hands against her knees as she shakes there in her shock. "Oh, God, Jaffar."

"Better?" He grins and swishes once more. Without waiting for an answer, he strikes her even harder, so hard the pain sends her to her hands and knees; there, she crouches, heaving in agony, arse and cunny up in the air. She moans into her cloak, clawing at it with her nails, dizzy from the pain, from the pleasure now flashing through her like lightning, finally transmuting into a sharp, pulsing ache over her buttocks. She had known pain for a balm, but even after a year of their games of pinching and slapping, she never realised she could enjoy it to this extent. Again, she groans, now in shame, hiding the flush of her face from him.

He taps at her buttocks with his whip. "That last one will leave a mark," he purrs, and she swears she can hear him licking his lips. "A pretty one, too. Would you like some more?"

"Please," she whimpers, still not looking up at him.

"Then, get up and turn around. Show me where you want them."

Shaking, she lifts herself off the ground, dishevelled, kicking off her boots and shalwars until she is clad in nothing but her jacket and undershirt. She starts to remove them, but it is then that Jaffar tuts, tapping at her hands with his whip. "Leave them on. Lift your breasts out with the jacket; yes, just like that."

And she wonders how he must've dreamt of this, of her being displayed like this, her breasts offered to him as if sweet delicacies upon a tray. She clasps her hands behind her back to protect them, stands still and breathes deep, deep.

"Breasts worth five thousand dinars, the slavers said," he sighs dreamily, caressing the curves of her breasts with the tip of his whip. "I paid a hundred thousand," he grins.

And yet, he had not molested her; yet, he had not laid a finger upon her. He had done so much for her, so much to win her love, so much to protect her from all harm, yet had denied himself until the bitter end. It is that bitterness of the past that makes his smiles, now, all the more dazzling: every time they make love, he is happiness, joy, contentment itself. He had yearned for her for so long that that yearning could never have been sated with just one joining, no, but each one seems to only increase his happiness, increase the immense love he already has for her in his heart.

It should be impossible, for often love grows colder with time. But this is the man who had claimed and lost an empire for her, the man who had saved her life time after time, and there are days when she thinks he is not real, that a love like his should not even exist. It is the kind of love that only exists in legends, in poems, he so close to the perfect lover the mystics describe God as, only clothed in flesh and blood. There are days when she cannot comprehend him, when his love so overwhelms her that she loses herself in it like the mystic loses himself in God--oh, but today is such a day, and tears now fill her eyes as she meets his smile with hers.

"Then, take them," she laughs through her tears, her heart so full of light it is a wonder her chest isn't glowing, she thinks through her haze of pain, through the remains of the opium. For is she not standing within a dream, a fairytale at this very moment, one a thousand times more real than her illusions of Ahmad? It is a twisted fairytale, to be sure; the lover of her dreams the cruel beast with his crueller whip, she the woman ruined, but nothing in this world could be as perfect. "Take what's yours, beloved."

His teeth flashing with the wickedest of smiles, Jaffar raises his whip. A slash, two, a perfect X crisscrossing her breasts and she collapses onto her knees, sobbing from the sweet pain.

She jerks, tosses upon the cloak as Jaffar steps closer, closer, swallowing her with his shadow. He is terrifying, framed by the setting sun's light, terrifying: his eyes staring wide, his smile jagged, his lips gleaming wet as the shadows of leaves flit across his face. It is as if he's become taller, heavier, crushing her with his very presence.

He nudges her onto her back with his boot. "Spread your legs."

Her legs refuse to obey at first, slipping on the cloak as she struggles for purchase. He's become the very nightmare she'd had of him upon his ship, her worst nightmare, every woman's: the rapist. Yet it is the exact opposite of rape, this, for it is a mutual, shared fantasy: she is never safer than when she is with her Jaffar. Still, her heart pounds so rapidly she fears she will faint; her limbs stiffen in fear that is indistinguishable from real fear, and what now breaks out of her mouth is a pained, horrified scream. "No!"

His voice is sharp, hot, wet with spit. "Yes, my sweet." He runs his hand over the front of his shalwars and leers. "Time to enjoy my little purchase."

"No!" she screams once more and she almost believes it herself, almost believes her resistance, perhaps some part of her still fearing him, fearing what he could reveal to her about her own desires. Thus, she clamps her thighs together and sees his nostrils flare, hears him draw in a heavy breath through them, sees him squeezing his hand around his erection.

"Scream all you like, girl. No one can help you now." Pointedly, he glances around himself, as if to remind her of the sentries; and perhaps it's but thanks to her imagination that she now hears rustling noises in the woods--oh, God, maybe it is just the wind; please, God, let it be just the wind.

"Please, by the All-Merciful, please!" She screams ever louder, her heart about to burst out of her chest, her cunny so wet she draws a wet stripe upon the cloak as she crawls back from him.

Time itself slows down as Jaffar closes the distance between them, huffing, his mouth so wet he's slavering. Swiftly, noisily he unbuckles his belt, a sight she will remember until her dying day, she thinks: the heavy metal, the carnelians clinking underneath the rings upon his long fingers, the thudding sound as he lets the belt fall upon the ground. The way he lifts out his prick, clasps his brown fingers around its cruel red length, the tip of it slick and shining from arousal. She stares and she stares, gasps as Jaffar purses his lips and spits on his cock: a long string of saliva dangling from his lips, slowly dribbling over the tip, pooling into the nest of his squeezing fist.

And then he is between her legs, kicking them apart, forcing himself inside of her. She screams, convulses as he slides his cock deep into her cunny, she shuddering in shame at how easily he enters her, how readily her body welcomes him with its sweet slickness. She screams once more, but he is merciless, ruthless, grunting, spittle still dangling from his chin and falling in drops onto her neck as he rams into her. She kicks and she claws at him, but he pins her wrists to the ground and moans on top of her, grinning widely, showing her exactly how much he is enjoying this. His eyes slitted, he snaps his hips into her, as if to show this is how hard you've made me, aren't you proud? and she can but sob underneath his assault.

"Jaffar, please, please stop!" she howls, her cries broken into ululations by the force of his thrusts, but she never wants him to stop, ever. He crushes her into the ground with his body, fucks her like a true monster would, the monster he has never truly allowed himself to be with a woman until she let him. He's her monster, hers, hers alone, brought to life by her insults, her hissing, her spitting, her need to be taken. And nothing else could feel as wonderful as this: her dream come true, his. Each and every one of his thrusts, the very weight of his body slamming into hers is ecstasy itself crashing through her; undiluted, raw, perfect. She keens underneath his movements and meets them with her own hips, even as she swears at him, calls him names, screams in his face.

But he does not let go, does not stop and as he takes her wounded breasts with his teeth, she cries out from the very depths of her body and judders, jerks into violent release around him. She shouts, screams in defiance as he fucks her and fucks her, beating her orgasm out of her with his hips, biting it out of her body with his teeth, sucking it from her mouth with his lips.

"Fight me," he growls, still ramming into her, releasing her wrists, grabbing her hair with his fists and snarling into her mouth. "Fight me!"

She grabs the tails of his turban and chokes him with them, Jaffar's eyes widening in surprise, his hips spasming from sheer shock. With a low, gurgling noise in his throat, he rips the turban off his head, off his neck and tosses it aside, trembling over her. "God! You little bitch!"

"What did you call me?" she hisses, sinking her nails into his hair, twisting until tears well up in his eyes, yet he keeps on taking her, slamming into her.

"A filthy dog and a harlot, that's what I'm calling you!" he snarls.

It is then that she does something she has never done before: she slaps him, slaps him with such force his hair flies from the force of the impact.

And the noise he makes, the noise--it is a high, raw sound, an animal's cry. He stares at her, disbelieving, gasping in ecstasy, his hips jerking as he falls. He curls on top of her, moaning, whimpering; he presses his forehead against hers, his mind dipping into hers. I have never loved you more in my life, he whispers into her. Please, my love. Do it again.

Her heart skipping a beat, she slaps him once more, and he howls: she feels the slap ringing through her own body, now; her cunny spasms around him as his tremors become hers, their entwined bodies but the one echo chamber resonating with exquisite pleasure-pain. And your falcon has never loved you more, my king, she whispers into him in turn, burying her face in his neck.

As his release spirals from his control, he snaps free from her mind and sobs on top of her, falling into her in short bursts, flooding her until she overflows with him. She meets him once again, calling him inside of her, folding her limbs around him, making her very flesh a home for his last thrusts, his last broken cries.

Thus, gone is the ravishing beast and only the sweet lover remains, lacing his fingers with hers, murmuring love into her mouth.

"My God," he laughs, astonished.

She raises her eyebrow and clenches around his softening cock, relishing his gasp. "I knew you were lusting after that slap, so it would have been cruel of me to deny you."

"You waited too long, my mistress. That was... oh." He laughs again, wrapping his cloak around them both. "I should like you to do that again sometime."

"If you promise to ravish me in turn." She cups his face with her hand, serious, now. "Jaffar, you frightened me."

He turns his face to kiss her palm. "And you enjoyed being frightened?"

"Yes." She nuzzles his face and smiles. "I enjoyed it very much."

And in that moment, she is so satisfied, so content that it is better than hashish, better than opium: there is no greater medicine for her pain than Jaffar. Quietly, she whispers this to him and quietly, he gathers her close until she drifts off to sleep in his arms.

***

Yassamin emerges from the library with a book under her arm, shielding her eyes from the scorching afternoon sun. She could swear she's just heard music from the garden, but she has never heard any at this house, apart from the occasional songs of the servants. Yet, it was as if a lute had been plucked just now, or maybe Jaffar's been building something that makes a similar sound. But where--

Darkness covers her eyes--or, rather, Jaffar's hands do as he surprises her from behind.

She yelps, dropping her book, turning around in his arms. "Jaffar! You gave me a fright!"

He kisses her cheek and grins. "Says the woman who but yesterday told me she liked being frightened. Come, I've been expecting you." He nods towards the garden.

"Just a moment." She picks up her book, but as it is a heavy volume, Jaffar offers to carry it for her instead.

"Geber, I see." He sighs. "He wrote over a hundred books for my family, you know. This was the only one I managed to salvage."

It's no wonder he had picked that particular one: it is an alchemical treatise that deals with the creation of life, the creation of animals, even humans in the laboratory. "Is that where you learned to bring your machines to life?"

Jaffar shakes his head. "If you mean the horse, it is not life as such--just mechanics and willpower; I've told you this. There's but a small matrix of crystals within each one that I can command at will; a heart, a rudimentary brain, if you will. It would take a stronger man than I to move an entire horse and make it fly," he chuckles and grins wryly. "They're heavy, for one thing. But give me a place to stand and a long enough lever--"

"--and I will move the entire world," she nods, returning his smile. "But Archimedes did not create life."

"Neither did Geber, unless I am mistaken," he says, tucking the book under one arm so that he can clasp her hand with his. He knows what she is thinking of, knows what she is looking for and sadness flits across his face. He squeezes her hand. "I'll gladly discuss these matters with you later. But for now, come; do not let the demons of death overshadow this day. Over here, by the trees."

And she was right: musicians have arrived, wanderers going by their looks, their brightly-coloured patchwork garb; they are tuning their instruments in the shade of the apricot trees. Within this shade, Jaffar has laid out a feast of fruit, cakes, wine; he kisses Yassamin's hand and then gestures for her to lie down upon the cushions and rugs. "Nothing but the best for my beloved."

It is not a king's feast, but splendid for a pair of prisoners, exiles: how he has managed to smuggle in so many rare spices and perfumes and the meats of strange animals she does not know, and does not question. Even the musicians are a surprise, but then, this band is clearly one of dervishes: they are so unkempt, so mad-looking they must not have been considered dangerous by Ahmad's guards.

Jaffar, however, bows to them courteously as if they were of the highest nobility. "Sing to us of love, but songs of fulfillment rather than separation: something to gladden my wife's heart."

She expects the usual songs of nightingales and roses, but these songs are new to her. The troupe's leader is a man of indeterminate age--almost of indeterminate sex as he is clean-shaven, kohled, dressed in clothes that could be a man's or a woman's. He sways before them, falling into a trance as he sings to them of God in the human heart, of how only the mad lover can find Him through his Beloved, of how only the white dot of the full moon reflected in a pool of blood can grant a soul joy eternal.

In fact, the lyrics sound extremely familiar to her ears: for they are not unlike the alchemical texts she has been reading, of the red and the white elixirs mixing, of rites conducted and blood drunk underneath the full moon's light. She wonders if Jaffar has done this on purpose, but he is as rapt as she is, listening to the musicians with genuine awe.

When they finish, Jaffar prostrates before them, addresses the leader as "Shaykh," murmurs his thanks as the man blesses him with a nod. Jaffar distributes handsome alms to the entire troupe, gesturing for them to take their fill of the food and drink on offer, then turns to the shaykh once more.

"Verily, we have been blessed to hear the words of angels tonight, from the lips of a true Friend of God," Jaffar says with utmost, sincere humility. "Your songs have allowed us a glimpse beyond the veils of Divine mystery, and now--forgive me my directness, for I feel as a child who has tasted of sweets, yearning for more! But it is not often that we receive guests, let alone divines, and are not allowed to leave this house even for Friday prayers. Therefore, I must ask of you this: is there any possibility of your allowing us the grace of a private audience before the day is over, so that our starving souls might receive from you even a few more morsels of further nourishment?"

The dervish but smiles knowingly, eyeing Jaffar up and down as if he has recognised something in him. "My friends, there are no questions you two do not already know the answers to. All of them 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 shall you find that which you are looking for. But I cannot say much more," he smiles gently and glances at Yassamin, then at Jaffar once more, "for the lady might find it improper to speak of such things in public. But know that in order to reach God, the true believer does not necessarily need the mosque, or, indeed, even the words of a dervish. Remember what's been written: 'He is closer to you than your jugular vein.' I need say no more. Peace be with you, brother and sister," he says, bows once more and takes his leave.

When the dervishes are gone, Yassamin and Jaffar lie underneath the flowering trees in silence. It would be futile to ask Jaffar what he thinks the dervish had meant: she knows enough of alchemy and mysticism to know that the hieros gamos, the union of male and female, of Lover and Beloved is one of the basic concepts of magic, of transformation both material and spiritual. And for herself and Jaffar, nothing could be more true: for have they not indeed transformed each other, found peace through their joinings, through those moments when their bodies and souls have mingled, speaking to each other as if they were but a single human being? And is spiritual coitus instead of generative coitus not the very means through which some sects claim pious couples can find God?

And she thinks of herself, the woman with a man's mind; of him, the man with a woman's soul. She thinks of how Jaffar has moved through her, of how she has moved through Jaffar, and she wonders.

She takes Jaffar's hand and squeezes it, contemplating him for a long while.

"Jaffar..." Her mouth gapes open for a while until she slurs, overtaken by sudden vertigo. "I think I know what he meant."

He clasps her hand with both of his. "Yes?"

"I think he meant we are both already perfect," she says, quietly, suddenly empty from the force of her realisation.

That emptiness expands in her, expands until her eyes roll back in her head, until her hand slips from Jaffar's; until she is quiet, still. And within her mind, within her hollow body, she falls into light. It is a state of nothingness, without a trace of bliss or agony, only peace spreading out in all directions like sand dunes of the purest white.

And Jaffar lets her slip into her trance, her dissolution, sits there as the guardian of her silence. The sunlight through the leaves is the last thing she is aware of, and then, everything is white.

It's only later, much later, that Jaffar brushes the petals of apricot blossoms from her face that she returns to consciousness. He is leaning over her, smiling. "Good evening, my little mystic."

She smiles, smiles, so full of joy, brushing a petal from his cheek with her thumb. "Good evening, my wicked wizard."

"How are your demons?"

"Quiet. Thank you for the music, my love."

"So I did manage to gladden your heart?"

"More than that." She kisses his hand. "You returned me to the present."

"I am glad." He laces his fingers with hers and kisses her. Her every nerve still singing with peace, joy, the love in his kiss but multiplies the sensations, threatening to turn her inside out, to plunge her into the whiteness once more. She needs to return to her body, to cling to it, and thus, she clings to him, her anchor: she responds to his kiss with a fervent passion, wrapping her legs around him, moaning into his mouth.

Smiling, he pulls back to nuzzle her face. "A mystic and a wanton. I am going to have to ask you to cool yourself down for a while longer, however. For I have another gift for you, if you would care to see it."

"What is it?"

"Here." He digs into his pocket and lifts out a metal sphere about the size of a pomegranate, beautifully decorated, only just fitting into her hand. It's heavy, so heavy it must be made of genuine gold. It is an astonishing piece of work--so small, yet so intricately wrought it must have taken months to fashion. The entire sphere is made of latticework, a web of golden vines curling all around its circumference, reminding her of the spherical censers her father would use to keep his hands warm during the winter. And engraved onto the very top of the sphere lies a silver medallion, depicting a pair of animals: a golden cheetah with eyes of lapis lazuli, curled protectively around a mother-of-pearl falcon.

"Where did you get this?"

He shakes his head and smiles. "I made it."

The sheer workmanship involved--he must have spent an entire year crafting it, perhaps a few hours each week. And yet he had managed to hide the work from her, somehow; how he succeeded at that, she has no idea. The amount of concentration every vine, every leaf, every detail must've required--it takes her breath away.

But what shakes her the most is that this is a work of pure love, love wrought into a shape physical, love become a work of art: his love for her, carved into every vine, engraved into every line upon the medallion. Her tears fall upon it, now, unstoppable; they slide down Jaffar the cheetah's tail and curl upon his chest, where her bird-self rests her head upon his heart.

"Jaffar. It's beautiful; I--" and now she cannot even speak for her tears. She clasps her hand over her mouth and stares at the sphere, barely able to see it for her tears.

He moves to hug her from behind; he tucks his chin over her shoulder and kisses her cheek, smiling warmly. "Shh. Go on. Open it."

Indeed, there is a small spring at the front and as she releases it, the sphere falls open to reveal another work of art within. Rising from the centre of the sphere, a mighty Simurgh of sapphire and gold spreads its wings around a small silver feline--either a housecat, or the cub of some larger beast. The cat is a small, fragile creature, small enough to seem like the bird's prey at first. But the look in the bird's eyes, the ruby set into her chest like a blazing heart, the way her wingtips curl around the cat all speak of protection, of healing, of love.

Yassamin turns to look at Jaffar and he nods, his voice soft, small, quiet. "That is your beast on the day you found him, my lady. And how you still appear within his heart of hearts."

She has never thought of herself as majestic, as sheltering, as a saviour: but here she is as Jaffar sees her, in the language of precious metals and jewels, as the very symbol of divine grace, mercy and healing. Like those mother-birds who peck at their own chests to feed their young with their heart's blood, fiercely defending them against all harm. It is Jaffar's very soul she is now holding in her hands, golden, shining, a permanent image of his love: it is now that she understands how the heathens can offer mere objects fervent devotion.

She is speechless, even tearless, now, for a moment, and she wonders if the whiteness will overwhelm her once more. She feels light-headed again, but Jaffar takes her hand and guides it to the bird's breast.

"Press the ruby, my love."

She does, and jumps a little as sudden music bursts out of the sphere. Thin, metallic notes drift into the air, in a simple melody not unlike those of the dervishes. The music rises and falls, weaving a steady, haunting rhythm; immediately, she recognises it for an old song of union: of the soul as a bird, soaring high into its home in the heavens, of how it sings until it can sing no more, until it becomes one with Love itself.

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

The Simurgh stretches out its wings, curls them and uncurls them in tune with the music, slower and slower until the clicks and whirrs of the clockwork mechanism grind to a halt.

He clasps her hand, and with a flourish, he snaps the sphere shut. "There," he smiles. "Nothing more or less than an image of my heart, my lady; and like my heart, it is yours to keep. Hang it upon a ribbon from your belt, keep it on your bedside table, on your writing desk, wherever you wish. So that if I am ever gone from your presence, you can remember your Jaffar by it, remember his love and remember he is with you, wherever you are."

And he is with you, wherever you are: the holy verses she loves the most now echo through her mind like a refrain. As a child, she had derived so much comfort from the phrase, having always yearned for protection, having been so easily frightened by stories of ghouls and demons, of shadows. And now, she does not doubt Providence for a moment, does not doubt God's mercy, for proof of it sits right here beside her in the shape of Jaffar himself. She whispers a silent prayer, another, prostrates in her mind, overwhelmed with humility and gratitude to God for sending Jaffar to so shelter her, to so love her.

"Jaffar, this is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. How could I ever repay--"

"It is I who am repaying you for your love, my dearest. But now that you mention it, there is one one favour I would ask of you tonight."

"Anything. Ask, and it's yours."

"Let us leave the demons in their dark silence, tonight. And devote this night to nothing but Love. That is all I ask of you." He presses her hand to his heartbeat, so calm, so strong, so alive underneath her hand. "For tonight, I would give myself unto you, body and soul, the way I gave myself unto you upon our wedding night."

She kisses his hand and takes it to her heart in turn. "Nothing but Love tonight."

And then there are no more words as Jaffar sinks his fingers into her hair and kisses her, kisses her and she lets herself sink into his weight; his sweet, honeyed weight.

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.

Chapter Text

She is alone, the other half of her soul taken from her; she is split in half, half dead herself. She turns her head to look at the knife, thinking to slay herself. For is there any joy left for her in the world, now?

It is then that a bird takes flight from the flowering tree above her. It leaves its branch swaying, the blossoms filling the air with sweet perfume, raining white petals upon Jaffar's face.

As she plucks the petals from his dead eyes, as she closes them, she still cannot make herself say goodbye. She cannot, she cannot and throws herself upon him once more, lies as heavy and as still as if she were a corpse herself, concentrating her consciousness to but a small point of light within the darkness of her body.

There is but her heart and from there, she reaches out to him, one last time. From her heart, she sends golden tendrils of light into his body, pierces his chest to embrace his cold and dead heart in turn, urges it to beat once more.

Like needle and thread, she takes up the golden light and with it, she sews up his wounds, sews up his guts, sews up his broken organs. As liquid light, she streams into his veins, quickens the few drops of blood still left in his body, calls for them to flow again. She feels herself weakening, for she has never attempted feats of magic on such a scale, ones she knows to have slain even the greatest of adepts. But she cannot stop, now, even if it should kill her.

"Never would I have given you my life without permission, my love, but forgive me, forgive me," she whispers. "Please take it, Jaffar; please take it, please, please--"

And she pushes through his body as golden roots, deep, deep into the ground, drawing from the ground his blood, soaking him up by osmosis. As a thousand golden tendrils, she sinks deep into the earth to darkness unknown, like Ishtar seeking Tammuz, like Isis seeking Osiris.

And like Isis, she spreads her wings and flies through the twilight of the netherworld, flies far and wide, cries out, calls out for her husband's soul. She cries to all the deities of old and the Almighty, all archangels, all djinn. It is not his time yet, she declares, you must return him to me, she commands.

On and on her soul flies and her roots dig deeper, deeper in search of water, her wellspring. She flies and she flies and there, there in the vast darkness she spies a distant star, twinkling gold, then blue, barely visible, flickering out: her roots touch a rivulet, the smallest of streams, but a trickle.

"Jaffar!" she cries out, from the bottom of her lungs, her hoarse falcon's throat, through her vines quivering from exhaustion. My Beloved, the other half of my heart, the wellspring to my jasmine. Are our souls not joined, our lives entwined? I shall not let you die, for you are bound to me by love, a love stronger than death. Arise, husband. I give you of my soul, of my flesh, my very life as a mother to her child, so that you might live. As you hold my heart, I hold yours; therefore I command it to beat again, to beat against mine once more. Arise. Arise.

With a final, desperate cry, she pulls his life force up from the ground, pulls up his blood, his waters, tears back his soul from the land of the dead. She surges through his body where it's still empty, where it's still wounded and heals, heals, ignites his heart and his liver and his brain with one last golden rush of heat, of life, of love.

And then she is empty, so empty, her tendrils falling slack, withdrawing, her soul snapping back into her body, for she has given all she can give.

And yet, Jaffar lies still. She judders on top of him like a woman hanged, falling through the trap door of darkness. At least she can die with him, and the darkness draws closer and closer, spreads around her like an ink stain. It draws her in, holds her close, warmer than she had expected, for she had never realised death could feel like an embrace. Perhaps it is an angel, come to take her to Paradise?

And at the thought of Paradise, of lying together upon its green grass with Jaffar, all sorrow flees her: with a soft cry, she lets go and lets the darkness take her.

Until the angel moans against her, with a voice as soft as a cat's. "Beloved?"

She opens her eyes but does not lift her head, does not dare. But underneath her ear, Jaffar's heart beats once more, strong, alive; underneath her breast, his chest expands, moves and he breathes once more. And the arms around her are real, of flesh, of blood--oh, she squeezes her eyes shut lest this is an illusion, the last dream of a dying woman--

"Beloved?" he calls out again, his hands soft upon her hair. He lifts her hair, lifts her face and she has to turn to him, now, her every muscle trembling from exhaustion. And it is true. It is Jaffar who now looks at her with awe; it is Jaffar and he is alive, alive.

"Welcome back, husband," she smiles through her tears, smiles.

It truly is him, and he looks so healthy, so much younger, the age he was when he had first courted her, perhaps younger--

--and as she caresses his face, she notices the veins on the backs of her hands stand out more, that the wrinkles on her fingers have become deeper. Yet, her hair now hanging to his chest is still dark and she can still feel herself bleeding between her legs: therefore, she cannot be an old woman yet. She must have given him five, seven, maybe ten years of her life; but oh, why should she care? It's what she had wanted, and she has her husband back, alive before her: her tears fall upon his face, washing the last of the petals off his cheeks.

"Welcome back, husband; welcome back, welcome back," she babbles, covering his face in kisses. She undoes his turban to caress his hair, now much blacker, thicker; he clutches her so tight she thinks he might break her ribs and she does not care.

"You are a fool," he groans, disbelieving, laughing, trembling underneath her from his joy, taking her mouth with the sweetest of kisses. "Such a fool," he whispers into her mouth, wrapping all his limbs around her, turning to lie down on top of her until she sobs endlessly, hopelessly from joy, from relief.

"It's you," she cries against his chest, heaving underneath him, "You're alive, alive; oh, Jaffar--I would have followed you. You know that; you know I would have slain myself to join you, oh, Jaffar--"

"Shh," he soothes her, rocks on top of her, presses her down with his weight. It is the strangest thing to experience: she hurts everywhere, her body and her mind heavy from fatigue. Yet the man who was dead but moments ago is now full of life, energy, vitality: so much so that she can feel him stir between her legs, feel the heat of passion in his kisses, caresses.

Jaffar is more alive than she has ever seen him, she thinks, and her heart skips in delight. She hugs him close to herself, wraps her limbs around him in turn and sighs against him in utter happiness.

"Let us return home, beloved."

"But you are exhausted. Let us rest here for a while."

And they have so much to talk about, for it is not every day that a man comes back from the dead. She has so many questions she needs to ask him, of what he had experienced, what he had felt and above all, she wonders what they should do now, where they should go from here.

But it is too soon. Instead, they spread their cloaks out upon the ground, far away from the carcass of the boar, at a meadow where they can enjoy the last of the sun's light. They sit there, sharing the bread and water he had brought with himself as supper.

They talk very little, only gaze at each other, touch each other: they feed each other, hold the bottle to each other's lips, sharing kisses between bites and sips. It is a feast sweeter than the end of Ramadan: together, they break the fast of Death itself and never has she felt as humbled, as grateful of the gift of life. With the remaining water, they wash together, pray together and she cannot stop offering additional prayers of gratitude.

Smiling, he but follows her example until both their tears dry, until they finally salute each other and must embrace each other once more.

Thus, they hold each other in the setting sun's light, kneeling upon the grass, her head resting against his heartbeat, his whisper soft in her hair.

"Thank you."

***

Agony.

She is not yet fully awake, yet all of her is agony: with each breath she takes, her entire body cramps with pain, pain that becomes louder and louder as she stirs into wakefulness. Slowly, her every muscle awakens into horror, her every nerve coiled and shivering, cowering from the pain spreading out from her womb into the furthestmost reaches of her body. She cannot move, she cannot breathe and her vision blazes with white.

Jaffar. Jaffar!

But he is still asleep beside her, breathing softly against her back. Moving seems impossible, but she must: blindly, she reaches behind herself and pats and clutches weakly at the sheets, at Jaffar's body until the pain becomes too much and her hand falls to her side, heavy as if made of stone, white stone, all of her body white and cold and cramped from pain, from blood loss--

"What is it?" he mumbles and feels for her forehead with his hand. Immediately, he slips inside of her mind, whispering within her, feeling for her--

--and his breath stops, so that he cannot even scream: the sudden, violent pain now renders him unable to move, speak. Horrified, he is trapped inside of her, frozen within her pain, a mute witness to her womb's contractions now coursing through his own body in turn.

It is a pain a man was not meant to experience, withstand. It is not unlike the stories Yassamin has heard of childbirth, but it is as if she were giving birth to demons each month, she thinks deliriously: thrashing, beclawed demons, ripping and tearing their way out of her body. Her stomach ripples, her rags soak with blood and Jaffar's arms are limp around her, his cold sweat mixing with hers, his breathing shallow against her neck.

He shivers, shivers, trapped within her pain: she realises he hasn't the strength to sever the connection himself any longer, just as he wasn't able to defend himself against the boar.

This is worse than the boar; at least he was swift, he thinks as he floats in her agony, never having experienced pain like this before, unprepared for it, not knowing his way out of it.

Therefore, she must help him step out. Help me, she thinks, draws the tiniest of red doors within the whiteness of her agony, a door for him to pass through. Help me, she thinks and weakly, Jaffar drags himself to the door, pushes himself through it; finally, he collapses out of her body with a gasp.

With great effort, she pushes that heaviest of doors shut, and it is then that the pain overwhelms her completely: blood rushes away from her limbs into her torso and her awareness shrinks, shrinks until she falls into sweet, blessed unconsciousness.

No. She does not want to wake up. She resists it, resists it as her awareness returns all too soon, as she is dragged back from darkness into the world of pain. She has soaked the sheets with her cold sweat, sweat that stinks of vile excrement, revolting. And there come the contractions again, excruciating, relentless in their determination to tear her apart, as if to punish her for not carrying a child in her belly.

But now, upon her tongue, she finds the thickness of honey and the bitterness of opium, the sweetness of hashish, and a gentle hand mops sweat from her face. As Jaffar sees her stir, he opens her mouth and feeds her another spoonful of medicine, two, helps her wash it down with a few sips of bitter poppy tea.

I love you, she thinks, but is unable to look up at him. Her eyelids are too heavy; she can but glimpse the blue of Jaffar's eyes, the concern upon his face before she sinks into her hell once more.

He gathers her into his arms, spooning her against himself, his great hand covering her belly. He presses his face into her shoulder, uncaring of the stench of sweat, of blood, of her state of pollution.

She does not know how long they lie there for, her contractions the only timekeepers here, slowing time down until days, years, centuries lose their meaning. There is only pain, eternal pain, eternal--

--until she is light, so light as the opium settles into her stomach, emptying her on the inside. She is hollow from pain, hollow. Hollow, as she floats in Jaffar's arms. Her bones, too, hollow, like bird bones. Birds that spread their wings and fly far and wide in search of their love--Jaffar--

She pulls him within her mind again and he sinks into her with a soft sigh, a sigh of relief and joy. Heavy as the tide, he slowly fills the hollow places inside of her; as warmth, he swirls and pools within her, banishing all pain and sorrow. And it is then that he expands outside of her, too, curling around her and she giggles in her intoxication. Because it is as if she is being gobbled up, yes, gobbled up, a white bird inside the stomach of a golden cat, and through her giggles it feels as if Jaffar is purring.

Upon seeing, experiencing her vision, he laughs, too, letting out a sweet churr against her back, hugging her tight against his rumbling chest. "Better?"

"Better," she slurs, pressing against him, clasping his hand upon her stomach.

He strokes her nightdress with his fingertips and it is clear from his voice that he is still shaken from what he saw, felt. "I am sorry. I knew women were to suffer pain in order to bring life into the world, but never could I imagine the true extent of it."

"The midwife told me most women only experience this amount of pain in child-bed. And it has never been this awful," she whispers, staring into the distance.

She knows they are both thinking of the same thing, even if he is no longer within her: whether the increase of pain was due to her sudden aging, whether it was more difficult for her body and her mind to fight it because of the way she had poured herself into him last night. Whether she will remain this way, whether she will worsen, how much medicine she will be needing in the future; whether her gift to him has made her more of a burden for him to bear. She clutches at his hand in shame, in confusion.

"What do we do now?" she whispers, bird-bone brittle.

He squeezes her hand. "First of all, we wash. Then eat. And then, I'll prepare you more medicine."

"You know what I mean," she snaps, anger pushing even through her haze of opium.

"I know," he sighs, exasperated. "What would you have us do?"

"I wish I knew." She lifts his hand to her lips. "Know that I do not regret what I did. If you were to die again, die a thousand times, I would still give you my life a thousand times over."

"And know that I am grateful. My offer to heal you still stands; it's the least I could do. And before you say no, know that I only mean the removal of the pains, not of whatever it is that protects you from conceiving. My love, if childbirth is worse than this, it is a pain I would not wish even upon my worst enemy, let alone the one I love more than life itself."

She shakes her head. "We cannot risk it."

Again, he sighs into her hair, frustrated. "I only want to help you, wife. You know this. There are nights when I cannot sleep, for I worry whether I have given you enough, whether I have cared for you enough, whether I have loved you enough." She can feel his lips trembling against her neck. "And now you've given me life," he whispers. "How could I ever repay it? And even if I could, would you not let me?"

It is then that she turns in his arms, so that she can finally see his face clearly. And again, she sees the Jaffar who had once courted her: the lines upon his face a little smoother, his cheekbones a little sharper, his mouth a little fuller. And his eyes, full of tears as they had been then, when he had offered her his love and she had refused it, had cast it aside like it had meant nothing. She had nearly seen him beheaded, had only begged for Ahmad to spare his life at the last moment. How close she had come to throwing away the love of her life, then; to slaying the one who was to be her saviour, the true guardian of her body and her soul. The one she had not hesitated to give her life to, now, knowing they were but two halves of the same being.

Thus, she takes his hands, kisses them with reverence, with worship.

"You are repaying me this very moment, beloved. Know this. Did you not just tend to me, take my pain from me, thinking nothing of uncleanliness? When most men would not even share their women's beds when they were thus afflicted? Two years ago, if someone had told me of a husband such as yourself, I would have thought him but a fairytale. To find in one person not only the husband but the mother, the father, the brother, the teacher, the friend--I would not have you think me ungrateful, Jaffar; it breaks my heart."

"Then will you allow me to repay you in full tonight? To give as you have given?"

Her heart trips, stumbles with a sudden fear. "What do you mean?"

"I desire your trust. Your trust that I would never harm you or myself when tending to you. You still doubt me, my love, and I cannot bear it." He holds out his hands. "When within these, I have the powers and the means to heal you. Trust that I can take your pain; trust that I will not get you with an unwanted child."

She presses her forehead to his, her throat tight with emotion. "I am tempted, Jaffar." She squeezes her eyes shut and groans, so tired of being ill, so tired of being melancholy. She has already pushed herself closer to death, lessened her years--would it not be a terrible waste to spend her remaining years always fearing pain, fearing madness, risking their worsening with age? But she had meant what she said about the risks, for they are not small. Few people survive surgery and this is what she is afraid of: even someone with Jaffar's medical knowledge and dexterity might slay his patient without meaning to. No matter how much she trusted him, something could still go wrong and this is why she has always said no, too afraid of what might happen.

But now, the pain that still looms behind the opium, the pain that still plagues her heart, the pain she can see in Jaffar's eyes--it is too much for her to bear in her fragile state and something in her breaks, shatters. She is so tired, so weary and she clutches Jaffar's hands to her heart, weeping openly, weeping so violently it prevents her from forming words. She gags on her tears, chokes on them and Jaffar pulls her close to his chest, stroking her back with his hands, waiting patiently until she can speak.

The words themselves are painful, spilling like waste from her mouth, what she now says an exorcism of all that she loathes in herself.

"This body is but a broken machine. You are the engineer. Please take me apart and put me back together again," she babbles, her words broken, rapid. "Take up the knife, then; take up the knife and cut out this pain once and for all."

He laughs a little, gently, tears glimmering in his eyes. "That I should dismantle my falcon, my beautiful huntress?" He brushes a strand of hair from her cheek; his voice is soft, tender, wavering with emotion. "I meant not the scalpel, but magic. Now, I cannot promise to heal you all at once, or ever accomplish it completely, but I would try and relieve you of at least some of the pain."

"How?"

"I--we would do what we have done before. Join as husband and wife do, but this time, according to the practices described in the book. We might not achieve immortality," he grins wryly, "but it cannot hurt to try a little healing." He laces his fingers with hers. "Would you allow me that? To make love to you tonight?"

The mixing of the red and the white, the elixirs of life. She shudders in disgust at the idea at first, having always considered her monthly flow a waste, a purging of ill humours. It is little more than an illness, and she knows why menstruating women are forbidden from entering houses of worship, being made of but foul moods, pain and gore. If anything, menstruation is a curse and its end always a blessing, a chance to be clean once more.

But has he not been in contact with worse, having rinsed her insides, having soaked himself with her pain-sweat? Time and time again, Jaffar has taken all that has been filthy or shameful or broken about her and has transformed it, reshaped it into something beautiful, his love the greatest of his magics.

And in that moment she feels ashamed, so ashamed of ever doubting him, ashamed of seeing parts of herself in a poor light where he has always seen past taboos, past shame, past the false rules of modesty decreed for men and women. He is the true dervish, the true lover of God going beyond all artificial rules, artificial dualities. He has never believed in divisions of the sacred and the profane, pain and pleasure, male and female.

And yet, he always tells her not to be ashamed; not to linger in shame but to embrace gratitude instead, to accept what the present offers her lest it escapes her forevermore. She is afraid, afraid of what will happen, but she also knows her fears hold her back from potential happiness, potential health; knows it is foolish to cling to her physical pain just as she had clung to her soul's pain before.

She had been tortured by her self-pity for years after her first marriage had failed, and had Jaffar not put an end to that pain, a pain that had threatened to kill her? Why should he not succeed in ending her physical pain, too, of ridding her of whatever it is in her hips that causes such pain, such melancholy, such an imbalance of humours? There are demons in her mind, demons in her insides and before her lies a man ready to slay them all with the sword of his skill, his magic, his love. And still, she would reject him, reject her chance to be healthy, to be happy, free from her pains and agonies?

"Jaffar, forgive me. I have been a fool."

"There is nothing to forgive. The true fool is the one who never feels doubts or fears. Did I not reject the very idea of you giving me of your life? And look at us now."

He laughs and his laughter infects her, too, warms her with its rich sweetness, with the safety radiating from him. She cannot help but wrap her arms around his neck, run her eyes up and down his body, raise her eyebrow flirtatiously. "I never did get to experience the embrace of the younger Jaffar. What was he like as a lover then, I wonder? What would his slave girls have said of him?"

"Foul words, probably, for I had lost my desire for them. They told me to hurry up and sell them to better masters while they were still young and beautiful, since I had not partaken of them for months!" He nuzzles her face, chuckling. "I seem to recall it was because of a certain princess I had spied in my crystal."

"Is that so?" She reaches under his nightshirt, cupping his prick in her hand, stroking it softly.

He smiles and kisses her lazily, his eyes slitted with pleasure. "Mm-hmm. You should have seen her bathing in her pool: her body as white as milk, her round breasts lifting out of the water, her aureoles as pink as rose petals... oh--" his cock grows half-hard in her hand, his pulse quickening against her palm. "I would make love to her tonight," he purrs, rocking into her hand, "if she but lets me."

She smiles and shakes her head. "She demands it. One should not let such virility go to waste," she whispers against his mouth, sliding her hand up and down his shaft, now so firm and full in her hand.

His weight shifts sweetly upon the bed, the entire length, heaviness of his body undulating into her caress as he groans in delight. "Do you know, the scholars of China and India believe that in order to retain his youth, a man should withhold his semen, lest a woman steal his life force through his emissions. Is it my vitality you are after, witch?" he chuckles, his eyes flashing sharp with lust. "Would you now take back the years you gave; extract them from me in the form of my seed?"

"Perhaps," she teases, slowing down the movements of her hand until he is still, taut with desire, trembling beside her. "Perhaps I would drink you indeed, husband."

He caresses her cheek with his knuckles, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. "Oh, then I am going to absolutely drench you tonight, my child. Oh--"

And then he can speak no more, for she has taken him into her mouth. It is the first time she has made love to him since his return from the dead: thus, it is fitting that she should take his release into her mouth the way she'd done the first time they'd made love, that she should drink him in again, tasting him to the fullest. He is alive, so alive as he rocks into her mouth, his eyes blazing with love as his desire peaks, finds its end in her. Quivering with joy, he floods her mouth, floods it with his sperm, his life and greedily, she consumes it all, the sorceress she is. She moans around his shaft, swirls her tongue to taste every little drop of his sperm, as if by consuming it she could absorb him into her every atom. And perhaps she succeeds indeed, for once more she glows, from a warm ecstasy not that of opium, but of his love illuminating her, radiating through her.

I love you, she thinks, brushing against his mind the way she couldn't when he had tended to her. With her mouth, with her heart she thanks him, thanks him, whispering I love you, I love you, I love you.

Jaffar whimpers, his fingers clenching in her hair as she massages him with her mouth; he sobs as he spills his last onto her tongue. And I love you, he skims across her forehead with his fingertips, so much. This much, beloved; come rest against my heart and know it, feel it.

And she knows it, she feels it as he gathers her into his arms, cocooning her in his love until their heartbeats grow quiet, until they both lie still.

It is only when his stomach rumbles that they are awoken from their reverie.

He glances down at his belly and apologises. "He has no manners, yet he speaks the truth. Time for a wash and breakfast, my lady. I insist."

"And no hunting trips today, my lord. I insist."

He kisses her hand. "We shall only hunt for knowledge tonight. Come."

***

She sits in front of her mirror and contemplates herself, this new woman she does not yet know. The afternoon shadows cast deeper lines upon her face, now: lines around her eyes, her mouth. She also finds a new crease upon her forehead, a single line where there had been but smoothness before. The signs that upon any other human being would be those of a life lived, of laughter and of sorrows, yet ones she has never experienced. It shakes her, devastates her, even if she had given him her years for the sake of life, of love: pieces of her are missing, now, years of her youth gone in a blink of an eye, and she had not realised what it would feel like to be suddenly older. Not to have grown into maturity, but to have been pushed into it with a sudden rush, the change fast and violent and not the slow ripening Nature had meant aging to be.

She had been so focused on the idea of Jaffar's well-being, of his life that she had not spared a thought to how she herself might feel when her life had been sucked out of her. She feels around in her heart, her soul and finds parts of it strangely empty. Places that should be filled with experience, with memories of years lived, both bitter and sweet, are but empty alcoves in the chambers of her mind.

She does not regret her actions, but it is still strange, as if her body and soul were now alien to each other. She wonders if Jaffar had felt the same in front of his mirror today when his manservants had shaved him.

Yet he had not lost anything, had not been deprived of anything, but instead, now has more life to live. Thus, despite her unease, Yassamin still feels a flash of gladness. What do the aches and pains in her hips, the wrinkles, the tiredness she feels matter when she has gained more years together with Jaffar? And she is at a fair age, still: the lines are not deep and she is sure her tiredness will pass after a while, after she has had time to regain her strength. What does anything matter as long as she still has Jaffar, as long as he still loves her?

Even then, the demons gather round to whisper in her ear. What if she'd had, by accident, aged herself too much? If her skin was deeply wrinkled, her hair gray, her breasts now sagging? Would Jaffar even have recognised his beloved princess in her? Would he, in turn, have become so young and reckless he would have fought his way out of imprisonment and pursued glory and conquest once more, leaving her behind?

But these are foul and senseless thoughts, foul and unfair to Jaffar: she must rid herself of them. Therefore, she spits and throws a handful of esfand on the censer, cursing such demons to the lowest of hells.

"Am I that much of a devil, wife?" Jaffar laughs as he enters the room. "Would you smoke me out of my own bedchamber?"

Devilish indeed, his eyes sparkle as he takes his seat on the cushions behind her. He's fresh from the baths, in a suit of black silk reminiscent of the robes he wore as vizier. Rakish, he hasn't even cared to wind on a turban, his newfound health clearly having allowed for his old vanity to resurface. His oiled hair curls in perfumed waves over his cheeks and his eyes are rimmed heavily with kohl, his wrists tinkling with silver bracelets as he reaches out to stroke her back. "What is it that you wish to exorcise, my love?"

She leans her head on his cheek, lost in their reflections in the mirror--the mature, tired woman, the man at the peak of his powers. "The fears," she finally whispers, quietly. "I am too old for them, now," she says, realising this only after the words have left her lips.

She closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against his shoulder, lets him embrace her, caress her arms and her breasts. She was not prepared for maturity, but if her body has reached it, so should her mind. And if her body had matured through magic, why should she not let Jaffar mature her mind, too, with his? The thought should terrify her, but just like this morning, she is overwhelmed by how tired she is of it all. She is tired of struggling, tired of fighting the demons in the way of her happiness, and if Jaffar can offer her happiness, so be it. She wants to let go.

She opens her eyes again and he is quiet, still, hugging her from behind, his chin pillowed upon her shoulder. "You're beautiful," she murmurs, lost in the brightness of his eyes, the blackness of his hair and his brows, the proud arches of his cheekbones. And she had nearly lost him, lost this beauty, lost this love, and a little sob flutters against the cage of her chest. She curls her arm around his head to sink her hand into his hair, to caress its strands, to contemplate him still. "I have let you down so often with my weakness, with my fears. When I should have no fear when you are beside me, husband. Therefore, I want you to take those fears from me tonight; take them once and for all."

"I would not make you into a gibbering idiot, beloved. Some fears must remain, for reason cannot function without them. You know what happens to children who do not yet know to fear fire or snakes. Whether it's your hips or your mind, I can only promise to take some of their pains, a piece at a time. Would you not agree that that would be the most sensible method?"

She nods. "It is within reason. But what about you, my love?" She turns to face him, marvelling at him, clasping his hands with hers. "I have had a new Jaffar beside me for an entire day, yet I have still not asked him how he is."

He laughs nervously, casting down his eyelashes. "I am only just learning him myself. It feels... familiar, of course, as I'm sure you can imagine. I've never felt better, more whole, more alive." He grows quiet, rubbing her hands with his thumbs, then finally glances up at her. "Yet with every spark of life, I feel guilt. I see the life I took from you and think 'this is wrong;' that this life does not belong to me. Do not misunderstand me, my love--it's not that I am not glad of your saving me, that I live and breathe again. I would not go back--"

He shudders a little, his jaw tightening, the veins upon his temples filling with tension. His eyes grow distant, his face pales and he swallows with great difficulty.

"What did you see?"

"Twilight, I... endless twilight. I found myself not in Hell nor in Paradise, for I am certain I would have recognised them. All I can remember is a profound, endless sorrow, like the fields of death the ancients spoke of. I could hear whispers but not make out words or faces, only feel them: souls and djinn wandering, waiting, lost."

His eyes stare into hers, wide, his hands squeezing hers painfully. "Loneliness. It was a place of deep, unrelenting loneliness, of bottomless grief. I was possessed by such a crushing sorrow I did not even think of repenting, of praying: all had been taken from me. God had so abandoned me He had not even cared to cast me into Hell." And then Jaffar can speak no more, trembling, tears flowing freely down his face.

Yassamin wipes his tears from his cheeks with her thumbs, shaking her head. "Hush. Perhaps God cared for you so much that He let you wait, stayed your soul's journey so that I might find you once more. I am certain He saw me looking for you. It was thanks to His will that I had the strength to go on searching for you, His will that I found you; it was He who allowed me to give of my life-force to you. It was He and not I who brought you back; I am sure of it."

Jaffar clasps her hands and kisses them feverishly, pressing his face into them, smearing her palms with kohl. "There are stories--" but his voice breaks and now, he crouches, sways in his pain.

She lets him catch his breath, caresses his face, holds him close until his breathing evens. When he can finally speak, his words come out of his mouth in short bursts, shot through with horror, despair.

"There are stories that tell of lovers, of best friends having lived side by side in Heaven before God gave them human forms upon this Earth. And that no matter what, they would always find each other, recognise each other the moment they met. And that when their time came, they would always join each other again in Paradise. And I always imagined you and I--" he hiccoughs, clasping her face in turn, his eyes so full of pain it is as if he could fall apart in her embrace, shatter into a thousand pieces. "Imagine my grief when I found myself dead and you were not there with me. I did not care for my own soul, but for yours: I ran and I ran, called out for you in the darkness, but the darkness was so complete it swallowed even the echo of my own voice."

And now she is weeping, too, her tears mixing with his as they weep together, cheek against cheek. "I searched for you," she sobs, "I flew far and wide and did not care if my own life was taken from me, if it only meant I could be by your side." She kisses his tears, kisses his face all over, clutches him to her chest. "I was there. I was there and I came for you, and I will never leave you, never, ever--"

His voice is quiet, so quiet, as quiet as a frightened child's. "I felt the touch of your wings."

She kisses him, then, a long kiss salty from tears, warm from weeping, them huffing into each other's mouths from the exertions of their sorrow. "And I tasted of your wellspring," she whispers onto his lips, lacing her fingers with his.

He smiles a broken smile; he sniffs a little. "I could not be more grateful. But beloved, your fears--imagine mine, now that I have seen what I have seen." A shiver runs through him again, making the corners of his mouth twitch, making his breath stop. "Do you think that when it is time for you and I to truly take our leave of this Earth, God will be merciful and reunite us?"

"After last night, I am sure of it."

"Then what are you still afraid of?" He frowns. "Whatever it was that you were casting out when I arrived."

She casts down her eyes, swallowing, her hands trembling upon his chest. "You once told me that bad experiences left stains on one's memory, stains that would tarnish all of one's future thoughts and actions. And you were right. Those stains keep lingering, obscuring the present by painting it with the shadows of the past. Know that they have no bearing upon what it is that I truly feel in my heart; they are but smears upon my soul's mirror, nothing more. It is a mirror tarnished, and as such, it needs to be scoured to better reflect the truth."

He is silent for a while, contemplating her, knowing what she is asking for. "And you would have me scour you?"

Her whisper is quiet, barely audible. "I would have you scour me."

He touches her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "What is it that you need from me tonight, my child?"

She hates it when he asks her, even if it is the most loving thing, the most caring thing a husband could do. All her life, she has been told to not voice her desires, has been told to put others' desires before her own, has been told to not be selfish--for so long, has her will been enslaved like this that she still struggles to tell him what she needs. She had been bold enough to ask Ahmad for certain things, but his horror and dismissal of her needs and desires had so scarred her that even now, asking for something, anything for herself is still painful. Even after a year of making love to Jaffar, the words still stick in her throat--or perhaps this is only when she needs the most intense of lovemakings, needs to have herself dissolved completely.

And even now, she can but whimper a little in her throat and press her thumb to his forehead: giving him the tiniest of flashes, peeks into the jumble of her desires, the chaos of everything she wants and needs from him right now.

Yet he but kisses her tenderly, plucks those wishes from her mind, lines them up neatly and then shuffles them, rearranging them into patterns that please him the most. He shows her how much, oh, how much he would enjoy a certain pattern in particular tonight, and chuckles into her mouth. "Shall that be your beast's prey tonight, my beloved sweet? Hmm?" And now, he traces that pattern, its shape through touch and scent; like a hound following a spoor, he trails and gathers her desire and she can feel saliva swirling about his tongue, his prick stirring in anticipation. For his image shows her herself, naked, beautiful, cherished and no, my little falcon, never abandoned. He shows her himself, too, naked and beautiful: wielding instruments of pleasure with a masterful touch, indulging perversions she has never dared ask for before; she cries out with an awe that is painful at his accepting them so, relishing them so, even adding a few of his own.

"Yes," she gasps onto his lips, opening her eyes, releasing herself from his mind; now, she is shivering, her nipples hard against the front of her tunic. "Yes," she gasps again, her heart pounding like a drum, her fingers twitching in the silk of his robes.

He laughs, kissing her forehead. "I love you," he murmurs, still reeling drunk from desire; from her, their vision. "But before we start--" he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small pouch: from it, he now plucks a piece of brown, hard candy. "Your medicine. I improved the recipe. It should cut the pain but not the pleasure," he says, then laughs a little. "I had the kitchen bake a tray full of these, distributed some to them as rewards and told them they could take the rest of the evening off. Presumably, they're reeling in ecstasies as we speak."

"Most people get soft in their old age," she smiles, taking the candy from him. "For a younger man, you are remarkably unselfish."

"Oh, is that what you think, my love?"

He snatches the candy from her and slips it into his own mouth, chuckling mischievously. Before she can protest, he takes her in his arms and kisses her, sliding the wet candy from his mouth to hers. She shivers, moans into his mouth, climbs into his lap and passes it back, causing him to moan in turn. You are unbelievable, she thinks, smacking his buttocks as if disciplining an unruly child.

Sweetly, softly, the bittersweet mixture of opium, hashish and honey melts upon their tongues as they pass the candy back and forth between them. And sweetly, softly she grows wet upon him, just as he grows hard between her legs, until she has soaked through both their clothes.

He sinks his hands into her hair, dissolving the last of the candy with a hard rut of his tongue, thrusting into her mouth until she nearly loses herself there and then, yelping into his mouth.

"Jaffar!"

He pulls back, his eyes glittering with desire, mirth. "My immortality," he sighs in delight. "Now, let me be yours."

***

It is upon the floor that they start their play that night: she, nude, standing at the centre of the room and he still fully clothed, his arms crossed over his chest. It is raining again, the breeze fluttering the curtains and sending warm, moist air billowing through the room. Thunder flashes, rumbles and she wonders if Jaffar has brought it; if he has cast a weather-spell as he'd been dimming the room for their play: whether he'd chosen to cast out a few bolts of lightning just as he'd lit the lanterns that now cast a soft glow about the room. It would be typical of Jaffar to have put this on for a show, for him to relish his newfound strength with such excessive displays. Again, lightning flashes, illuminating his eyes like stained glass--and from his crooked grin, she knows, knows for her suspicions to have been true.

He strokes his chin, measuring her, smirking still. "Lift up your arms."

She does, and her hair slides from her breasts, exposing them, lifting them out for him to marvel. He leers at her shamelessly, not even looking at her face as he stalks around her, licking her with his gaze.

He traces her spine with his fingertip, up and down, making her toes curl against the carpet. "Lift your arms higher, my love, high above your head; that's it. Until your wrists touch."

He murmurs something indistinct against her ear, a little spark skittering up her arms and she finds her hands falling slack at the wrists. Oh, she should have known: for now, she is dangling, suspended from the ceiling by her wrists, held up by invisible chains. She rolls her eyes and groans; he but laughs and laughs, smacking her buttocks, sending her swinging. She yelps a little, dancing upon the rug by her toes until he catches her with a chuckle, nuzzling her face with his.

"Comfortable?"

"Jaffar, you are the greatest show-off I have ever met."

His eyes are crossed as they stare into hers from so close, their noses touching. "I shall take that as a compliment." He takes a step back, stroking her waist with his hands. "Are you ready, my love?"

When she is quiet, not sure of how to respond, he takes her into his arms with a deep sigh. "I would not hurt you too much," he murmurs.

But it is then that a sudden wave of fear runs through her: would he not give her what she needs, now, especially tonight? When she needs to be taken beyond herself, changed, transformed? She has asked for him to heal her, to help her be reborn; and like the Simurgh, she needs to be reborn from fire. Would he deny her that, deny her the flames of rebirth?

"Jaffar," she stutters, "please, don't hold back. I would not be able to bear it if you paused to ask me if you were hurting me too much."

She needs the beast tonight, needs him so much, needs him to be crueller than he has ever been before. And he knows, or at least he should know, should; did he not just see into her mind--

He pulls back as if to ask her if she were sure, but as she has just forbidden it, his lips but twitch and the words die before they reach his tongue.

"Please," she asks him again, sudden tears in her throat. "Please, Jaffar. You asked for my trust; now, I am asking for yours. Trust that I will cry 'dove' if needs be; trust that I know myself."

"I am sorry." He cups her cheeks and looks deep into her eyes. "I only ask that you allow me to say these words, for I would feel like a true monster otherwise. It is what I need; to make sure that what we do is done in the name of love. For it needs to be said out loud, like any powerful spell, like any vow: whatever it is that I shall do tonight, it is not done to punish you, my love. It is to reward you. Even the cruellest of blows shall be a kiss, a thank you; because I know that is how you best take them into your heart. Are we not in agreement about this; that I only give you pain in love-play because that is how you have asked for me to love you?"

"We are," she smiles through her tears.

He kisses the tears from her cheeks. "Then rest assured that I shall give you everything that is in my power to give."

He steps back, his expression more stern, now. He lifts his hand, holding it a few inches from her face. "Is this what you asked for?"

"It is what I asked for."

"Then, my lady, I only await your command."

She stares into his eyes, shuddering. She stands upon the precipice of a dream becoming reality, a dream that has frightened her with its intensity, a dream she has only now been able to trust into his hands. She breathes, breathes like he has taught her to: matching her breaths with his, inhaling each time he exhales, exhaling each time he inhales, continuing thus for long minutes. Until his breath is her breath, until her breath is his, until their very lungs are full of each other.

He waits, waits with his hand raised, unwavering; breathing quietly as the rain splashes upon the flagstones outside.

She inhales him once more, inhales him to the very bottom of her lungs, her hips; finally, she exhales with a shiver of ecstasy.

"Falcon."

Pain flashes through her like the lightning outside, for he has slapped her, slapped her face for the first time in his life: she cries out, reels, staggers in her bonds. Her head lolls to her chest, yet she can steal a glimpse of his face, catch the horror in his eyes, a horror he cannot mask.

He is pale, his jaw tight as if he were biting his tongue, yet he lifts his hand once more. Because she has asked for him to do so.

"Another?" he asks her, just as they have agreed to do, observing her reactions with a keen eye.

"Another," she groans and he hits the other cheek, this time: she sobs, her vision dancing with lights. "Another," she slurs and even after the third blow, she cries "another!" even as his blows send her swaying, her hair falling onto her face in strands.

It is then that he takes pity on her--or himself, she thinks dizzily--and transfers his strokes elsewhere. His hands firm, he slaps his way across her breasts, her thighs, her belly in a pattern they both know and love. Only he has never slapped her this hard before: soon, her entire body glows red, hot as coals against the breeze. She is drunk, drunk and they have only just started; drunk, she cries "Another!" and once more, his hands clap over her thighs, calves.

Finally, finally he stops her by grabbing her hair with one hand and tapping at her cunny with the other, tapping, tapping. "Have you had enough?" he smirks against her lips, gladness in his voice as her wetness reassures him of her enjoyment. "Or would you like some more?"

Without waiting for an answer, he curls his fingers into her cunny, making her gasp and twist between his hands. He pushes at the wad of silk she has stopped her bleeding with, pressing it deeper inside of her, chuckling as the wetness he now finds is not blood, only arousal.

His fingers, oh God, his fingers, curling, pressing--she wails into his mouth, grinds herself onto his hand, pressing her breasts feverishly against his chest. "More."

He tightens his hand in her hair and she thrashes against it, only for him to tighten his grip more, more until the pain in her scalp is like a rain of needles. Needles raining down her back and her buttocks, all the way into her cunny, where his fingers thrust into her so hard she is lifted onto her toes by his hand alone. He fucks her, fucks her noisily with it, fucks her against himself so that he can rub her face with his, his moustache scratching her lips.

"Would you have my whip, girl? Hmm? Is that what you want?"

"Yes," she pants into his mouth, her teeth clicking against his, a stuttering cry breaking from her mouth as his teeth close around her lower lip. She wonders if he draws blood and she doesn't care, doesn't--

He pulls back with a huff, his mouth slick, his eyes wide, and oh, Merciful Lord, the way the front of his robes now swells from the size of his erection. He makes a point of licking his fingers, his palm wet from her sweetness, lapping her from his hand with perverse delight. There is but a faint streak of blood upon his hand, now transferring to his mouth and painting his ever-red lips even redder.

"Then, stay still," he smirks, knowing full well she cannot escape her bonds.

He walks across the room and picks up the whip, but instead of using it upon her, he tucks it underneath his arm instead. He reaches into his pocket and holds his hands out against a lantern, as if he were warming something between them. She can hear the clinking of metal, see something glittering between his fingers.

"What are you doing?"

"Preparing your gift. You see, I meant to give you these earlier, before I was so rudely interrupted by that one of God's less agreeable creatures." He lifts out his hands and within them, he holds three smooth metal spheres the size of eggs; all silvern by the look of them. Do you know what these are, my child?"

She swallows. Whatever he means to do with them, she is sure of what their final destination will be: it is not a matter of whether they will end up inside her body or not, only a matter of how and where. "I can guess."

He twirls the spheres like a juggler, grinning. "A courtesan might use these to learn how to tighten herself, but did you know they can also be used by men--for the opposite purpose?" He closes the distance between them, holding the spheres up to her face, letting her see their exact size, assess their weight in his hand. "And since you have proven yourself to be quite the little sodomite, I thought, well..." With a mocking little pout, he curls his fingers around the spheres again, making them clink and ring in his hand. "It would only be fair of me to share."

She closes her eyes in realisation. "Oh, God."

"Yes," he drawls, nodding; his eyes sparkle as he leans close, relishing her flush and his own wickedness, revelling in it. "I'm going to open you up, my sweet." He knows exactly what his every word is doing to her, merciless, forcing her to face that which she'd asked for in her mind. She had wanted to be opened, claimed, taken like he had never taken her before, even if she could never have imagined this herself. But with each one of his words, each one of his actions he is making those visions come true, giving them a shape and form corporeal, inescapable, undeniable, real: he himself all her hidden desires become flesh. And oh, how he enjoys it, Jaffar the old tyrant now turned the executioner of her shame, extracting confessions from her in the language of shivers and moans. Thus, he pours his honeyed words into her ear, his lips brushing wet against it. "I'm going to use these on you until you open for me, open wet and wide. Until you are gaping for me."

He walks around her, whispering a soft command: now, the invisible chains begin to lower her body little by little until her back curves out, until her buttocks are pushed out, pressing against his erection as he comes to stand behind her.

He runs the spheres down her spine, letting her feel their weight, their warmth. "You will take all three of them for me," he promises, kissing her shoulder. "And you shall hold them in for me for... well," he says playfully, "until I deem you fit for the taking." She can feel his grin against her back. "If you are very good, I will reward you with ten lashes."

She suffocates a cry, jerking away from him, but he clasps her belly. "No? Well, then. If that's not enough to satisfy you, my lady, I promise ten for your front, ten for your buttocks. Perhaps one more, for good behaviour? How do you like the sound of that?"

She stumbles and she falls, crashing into a sudden panic. Her heart gallops in her chest, cold hysteria crushing her lungs until she cannot breathe, panting violently, asphyxiated. She kicks back against him, screaming, thrashing hopelessly within her bonds.

The whip, the spheres drop noisily to the floor as he captures her, knowing her far too well to read this as anything but a part of their play. These are but the death throes of her shame and he knows this, knows that in this moment a gate has been opened, a gate he must now push her through. Calmly, he wraps one arm around her chest and with one hand, he clasps her mouth, muffling her shrieks, calming her too-rapid breathing.

"Do you know what I'm going to do after that, my sweet?" he croons, ruts against the cleft of her buttocks. "When you're covered in welts, weeping for mercy, crying out my name?" He crushes her against himself, growling wetly against her ear, biting it, licking it. "I'm going to fuck you." He drools into her ear, drops of his saliva sliding into its whorls, filthy, animal. "Because this is what you want, is it not? Isn't this what you have been dreaming of? Hmm?"

She can but wail into his palm, her hysteria now crashing into a violent arousal that rips and tears at her bones, the very fibres of her flesh. She trembles against the firmness of his body, the softness of his silks as they slide against her back, the way he holds her tight, mercilessly tight. She is safe, safe in the embrace of his long, thin arms, his hands compressing all panic out of her, wiping all fear from her with every caress. Thus, he removes her fear from her, removes it as a choice altogether and seats himself in its place, leaving her no choice but to obey him, to surrender herself unto him. To kneel at his feet only to be ordered to rise, to become the woman he wants her to be: a woman beautiful, proud, strong.

And gladly, sobbing from her gratitude, she yields. She nods in his embrace, nods furiously, so grateful he has released her from the burden of words. She answers him with her body instead, her cunny wet as it presses into his silks, her nipples painfully hard under his squeezing, cupping, caressing hand. She screams against his palm, screams her last until she is delirious from delight: screams all her shames and her desires and her joys into it, so that he may pluck all of them from her. Take all of them, my beloved; she thinks. All of me.

"Shh. Shh," he whispers, taking his hand from her mouth, turning her head to kiss her softly, tenderly. He tucks his chin over her shoulder and strokes her waist firmly, holding her against the heat of his body, his cheek against hers until her breathing evens. "You're beautiful," he smiles against her lips, his eyes glowing with love, glad. "Shall we begin?"

Again, she nods, stealing another kiss from his lips, nods once more. He leaves her briefly to collect the spheres, to choose the oil best suited for tonight's play. And with his movements, she intoxicates herself, with the happiness she can now see reflected in them: happiness in the spring of his steps, his walk even more languid and sensuous than usual; happiness in the way he glances at her over his shoulder with the most lascivious of smiles.

Finally, he takes his place behind her on his knees, sighing in delight, adoration. "I never thought I would get to do this," he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss upon the small of her back.

She can hear the clinking of glass, metal as he oils the spheres. When he reaches between her buttocks with oiled fingers she gasps, jerks. She had rinsed her guts earlier, but the pain in her hips had made it difficult, her fumbling with the syringe making her sore on the inside.

"Shh," he whispers once more, spreading the cleft of her buttocks with gentle hands, rubbing her anus with his thumbs. "I promised to take your pain, didn't I?" he says, warmly. "Well, the unpleasant sort, at least." He reaches inside of her with a fingertip, oiling her, taking her shallowly with it. She can feel, smell that he is using the thickest of oils, the gentlest, and it is the care that he now shows her that melts her body's resistance, allows her to open for him so easily. It is his love for her that draws his finger further in with each breath she takes, sending shivers from her toes to her cunny to her breasts to the top of her head, bursting out of her mouth in moans of delight. Yet he takes his time opening her, pushing one forefinger inside of her body at a time, first alternating and then together; now and then, he pauses to add some more oil, slowly tugging her open.

"Does that hurt?"

"A little. My womb..."

He shifts a little, huffing with concern. He wipes his other hand, now penetrating her arse with but two fingers of his right hand, his touch gentle and tending as if he were nursing her rather than preparing her for lovemaking. With these fingers, he slowly makes his way deeper to press against the back of her womb, that sweetest of the pleasure-centres within her body, rubbing against it softly. Indeed, she can now feel pleasure there, enough to make her cunny pulse in delight; yet there's also a flash of pain there, a familiar old pain deep within her womb.

She can hear him breathing, breathing deep: now, it feels as if he were moving his mind inside of her, too, feeling for her--yet it's something he seems to be doing but lightly, without fully connecting his mind with hers, as if he were merely taking a look inside of her.

"What are you doing?" she slurs, shivering a little.

"Feeling you," he says, quietly, his voice breaking a little with pain. Sensing her unease, he whispers a cleansing rune over his free hand and takes it to her clitoris, rubbing it softly to ease her discomfort.

What does he feel? Does she even want to know what he sees inside of her body, now? She imagines the worst of deformations, tumours, scars and nearly retches in disgust, all pleasure leaving her despite his caresses.

She is about to ask him to withdraw, but it is then that he makes a noise low in his throat: some primal, dark sound, as if a sound from before language. He moves his fingers once, twice and from his fingertips, she feels a liquid warmth spreading inside herself. It is not unlike the pleasure of sex, of orgasm: the warmth moves through her in waves, rippling gently through her womb, her hips, making her cunny clench against his hand, her clitoris swell between his fingertips.

"My God," she murmurs over and over, her words but broken prayers--whether of fear or gratitude, she does not know. But pray she does, suspended between his hands as his warmth pulses through her, diffusing through her, healing her. Jaffar whispers gently against her buttocks, kissing them, stroking her inside with his fingers, cupping his hand against her cunny as if there were nothing more precious for him in the world.

"There isn't," he murmurs, for he has heard her. "But I mean all of you; it would be cruel of you to make me choose which part I like the best, delicious as your cunny and arse are," he chuckles. Finally, he withdraws his fingers. "There. Is that better?"

She takes in a deep breath, focuses her consciousness and guides it to the afflicted body part, the way he has taught her to look for illness. She curls her mind around her womb and feels pain in its front, but where there had been pain at its back, there is now none. He had taken but a small part of her pain to be safe, just like he had promised: where his fingers had touched her, she no longer aches. There is but the warm glow of arousal, little flashes still sparking from that spot to her womb and her clitoris, making her tighten in anticipation of pleasures to come.

But she realises the silk inside her is now much, much heavier from blood, soaked--and as she clenches, it falls out of her, spattering in a bloodied mess onto the floor.

"Oh, Merciful God." She groans in shame, tries to cross her legs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

But with the patience of a saint, he cleans up the mess and she can swear it was not all blood, but that whatever he had healed in her, loosened from her had come out with the rag. She doesn't want to know what it was, still murmuring apologies when he mops the gore off her thighs, her cunny. Again, he hushes her, rubs her stomach, her cunny; he kisses the small of her back as he pushes a fresh roll of silk inside of her. "Don't apologise for Nature, or to your doctor for healing you," he says, pretending sternness. "Besides," he grins, "I believe we had some lovemaking to do. Or do you hurt too much?"

"Less," she smiles at him over her shoulder. Desire coils in her hips once more and she glances at the spheres, then back at him, her smile widening into that of a true wanton. "Open me."

He bites her buttock with a playful growl, then slaps it. "I shall. Lean towards me, my love; arch your back. That's it."

She shifts upon her feet, closes her eyes and returns her consciousness to her hips: now, she gasps only in excitement as he pushes the first of the spheres against her anus, pressing it into her with his flattened fingers, stretching her slowly.

"Oh--"

"It's not as big as I am," he says mock-apologetically. "But it should do for now. Push out, oh, there, there; good girl, good girl--"

The sphere slips inside of her and she wails: it is wide, warm, heavy; it settles inside of her as heat, as weight, as pleasure. It is so unlike his cock, bizarre to her, strange; it presses against the muscles of her anus from the inside, not from the outside. It's not unlike having a full bowel, except now the sensation is much heavier and only pleasurable, only sensual in nature; luxurious, even. As Jaffar pushes another sphere inside of her and it clinks, rings against its mate within her flesh--oh, but she moans, gasps for breath at both the sensation and its perversion.

But a perversion is, by definition, something unnatural: something that twists, soils, stains. Yet what he is doing to her is again the act of turning something filthy into something pleasurable, something clean; claiming what should be the dirtiest part of her body with his love.

"The last one," he whispers, pressing a soft kiss to her buttock, his voice thin and reedy from desire. He is holding back; she knows that if he let himself, he would take her here and now. But she knows it is the anticipation, the preparation, his drinking in of her reactions that gives him the most pleasure of all. She can feel him hovering at the edges of her consciousness, him basking in the sweet heaviness, the sweet stretch of her flesh as he pushes the last of the spheres inside of her. The way they ring together once more, a soft tremor of sound inside of her guts, oh--oh--she can feel him reeling, heady from its waves as if he were listening to sweet music.

And she cannot remain quiet any longer, cannot. She groans, howls, that howl vibrating the spheres inside of her, her voice resonating through them--oh, but she cannot stop making noises, cannot stop her cunny from clenching over and over. With a shock of pleasure, she realises that she is now sodomising herself with the spheres, with the waves of her voice, with the contractions of her own muscles.

"Jaffar!" she cries out and he's there, there, his hand upon her cunny, rubbing her clitoris. He does not say a word, only moans into her arse, pushing the spheres inside of her with his tongue and--oh, God!--she can feel his teeth clicking against the metal.

It is the shock of the sound, the sensation, the image of him doing so that now makes her come undone: she staggers, convulses around the heavy metal inside of her, against his fingers, against the shamelessness of his mouth. She moans, keens from the bottom of her lungs; she keeps on unravelling, pulsing, sobbing helplessly as Jaffar keeps kneading at the spheres with his fingers and his tongue. It's too soon but she doesn't care, for it feels too wonderful: again, she moans like a harlot, grinding her cunny into his hand, quivering so that she loses her balance. She is held up only by his hands, only by his spells, and she is free.

"But my sweet, my sweet," he laughs against her back. "I have barely even started."

Only noises come out of her, noises as her head lolls forwards in utter contentment. Even his laughter sends aftershocks, miniature orgasms coursing through her body; every touch of his hand upon her belly makes it spasm once more.

"You are out of your wits, my girl," he murmurs gently as he moves to stand in front of her, brushing her hair away from her face. "I think you need to be woken up a little. What do you say to that, hmm?"

"Mmm," she manages, smiling at him as he lifts her head up by her hair. The drugs, the pleasure are like a dream and the pain from her scalp a sharp shock, but not unpleasant. It awakens her, brightens her eyes like a sip of coffee after a long night's sleep, returning her back to herself.

"Thank you," she says, more clear-headed now, ready to take whatever it is that he wants to give her.

He picks up the whip and lays it upon her cheek with such love in his eyes that she can't not return it, smiling so hard her face aches, laughing as he taps her cheek playfully.

"You won't be laughing soon, my sweet," he grins, tapping a little harder. "Which side shall I maul first?"

"Whatever pleases you the most, husband," she purrs coquettishly, leaning back into the taps, the sting of them but hardening her nipples once more.

He takes a few steps back and swishes his whip, considering her. He lets her wait, staring at her, even if she knows he has already decided. It is for her sake that he waits, leers, adjusts his erection through his clothes, making a show of himself. Finally, with a satisfied hiss, he stops touching himself, twirls the whip in his fingers and nods. "The back first, I think. So I can make sure the spheres stay in."

And that the sting will make me feel them more acutely, you mean, she thinks, and this is what arouses her the most, what makes her love him so. He may pretend playfulness, spontaneity; yet in his head, he has already calculated everything, created the most complex of patterns, formulae in his desire to drive her out of her mind.

It is then that he undoes his sash and she thinks he will undress completely, but he holds out the sash out to her instead, weighing it in his hands. The well-worn black silk embroidered with his name in golden script, with benedictions from the era of his brief rule, the last vestiges of his lost kingship. Blessings upon Jaffar, son of Yahya the Barmakid, King of Kings, Lord of the Believers, the border of the sash reads. May God grant him a life long and full of happiness.

"Open your mouth," he says, tenderly. "I would not have you bite off your tongue."

And it is with his name, with his benedictions, his long and happy life that he binds her, lays soft blessed silk upon her tongue to protect it, his hands worshipful as they lift out her hair. She leans her head into his hands, into his silk, into his caresses, whispering silent prayers of gratitude. He breathes faster, his pupils wider, and from the worshipful lover, the beast emerges once more: after tightening the knot, he shakes her head by it, tilts his own like a cat gazing at its prey.

He does not say a word, only stares, huffs through his nostrils, lets her head drop and walks behind her. She swallows around the sash as she listens to his footsteps, the swishing sound the carpet makes as he kicks off his slippers, trembles as he touches the whip to her buttocks to measure the best distance from which to deliver his blows.

And then she falls, falls, for he has lowered the invisible chains again: her arms, her hands are lifted but her torso drops into a horizontal position so that she is standing up, bent at a straight angle from her hips. Her weight is taken from her, only her feet carrying her now and she has barely had time to settle them upon the floor when the first one of his blows lands.

She shrieks in surprise, for it is a far harder stroke than the ones he had given her before, a considerable sting even through the opium, the hashish. Or perhaps it is exactly because of her drugged state that he feels free to strike her so: first, he lashes her from the right, then from the left, then from the right once more.

By the fifth stroke, she is panting, wordless from the pain, the patterns of the carpet swimming in her vision; the arabesques of it unravelling and re-weaving themselves in front of her eyes.

"Enjoying yourself, my darling?" he purrs, relishing her gagged silence as he lets the sixth blow fall, the seventh: now she is no longer panting but her breathing is still, shallow; her eyes falling shut, afterimages of the arabesques curling beneath her eyelids.

She would weep if she could, weep because of what he is giving her, what he is now revealing to her of himself: all of his blood-lust, flesh-lust, the full, ravaging force of his desire coruscating through her with his every blow. But oh, God, even worse are the sounds he makes, the sounds; his ragged breathing, his wet hisses as each blow lands, as he makes her twist and dance to the rhythm of his hand. Guttural groans rise deep from his belly as he marks her, devouring her every tremor, intoxicating himself with her pain. It is the opium singing in his veins, too, that allows him this monstrosity, allows him--eight, nine and perhaps that is blood that creates a sudden wetness upon her buttocks--to be a greater beast than he has ever been with her, ten--

At his last stroke she is plunged into blackness, her consciousness but a pinprick of light, swallowed into his hungry darkness. Her body heaves, grows slack and she cannot hold on, cannot. The weight pulling at her insides is too much and one of the silver spheres bulges out of her, drops, thuds heavily onto the carpet. Her arse clenches around the rest, sending painful convulsions through her guts. She would apologise if she were capable of noises, but she isn't; Jaffar tuts but lets her hang in place, suspended within her pain, suspended within his bonds, suspended within his love.

He is quiet as she is quiet, allowing her this silence, this trance, this meditation of the pain-intoxicated fakir. He is not touching her with his hands or his mind, yet it is as if he has left something of himself inside of her with his blows. For now, the arabesques of pain unfurl and grow and shoot from behind her eyes into her entire body, curling around her every limb, tugging at her cunny, her arse, her breasts. With pain, he has bound her, woven patterns of beauty upon her skin and through her flesh, threading himself through her, holding her together.

He breathes heavily through his nostrils, trails his warm hand across her buttocks, back, neck, hair. With a whisper, he tugs and she is lifted, lifted until she is completely upright once more. She lurches with vertigo, her head lolling to her chest and she is wet, flowing everywhere. The silk in her mouth is stained, saliva dripping down her chin; the silk in her cunny soaked with her arousal, dripping down her thighs.

She still cannot speak, gag or no. He tucks his whip underneath his arm and cups her face, kisses her softly through the sash, kisses her nose and cheeks in quiet benediction. He wipes her tear-stained kohl with his thumbs and looks into her eyes, searches them, feeds her but the one question:

Do you want me to continue?

She closes her eyes and within her mind, she cries out, spreading her wings of light. It is as if her soul wants to lift out of her body, to better fly towards her master's heart. And as he reaches into her mind, he soothes her, hooding her from the brightness that threatens to blind her, binds her to her body once more.

My king, she whispers in joy, fluttering against the cage of her flesh, eager to escape, so great is her ecstasy. You have taken me to pieces, yet I would be broken into smaller pieces still, ground to atoms, so that you might breathe me in like perfume.

Ah, but then I would exhale you, he purrs into her mind; I would reshape you into a woman's form if only to enjoy you once more, to have a body to press against mine. Stay within your body, my love, for the night is still young, and I would yet enjoy your flesh and have you enjoy mine. The pleasure-pain is but the first act, the sodomy I promised you the second, but something greater awaits us beyond that: for did I not promise you the completest, most sacred of joinings after? Would you not grant me that?

And it is true. As much as she wants to fly out, dissolve, she also wants to remain within her body, to take everything that he can give her, to have him take everything she is capable of giving. She wants join with his body, wants to swallow him within her flesh until they are one. With a cry of sweet anguish, she settles back within her muscles, her marrow, her blood, shuddering as gravity returns and tugs her back inside her flesh.

Please continue, she thinks, please, her returned soul suddenly melancholy, suddenly forlorn at being denied dissolution, even if she knows it is for the best. I need you, she tells him, tears filling her eyes.

His expression wavers, so full of sadness, of heartbreak at his having denied her. Perhaps he is even asking himself if he has acted selfishly. He, too, seeks comfort, seeks love and is loath to relinquish her to the embrace of ecstasy just yet, preferring to share in hers, to intertwine it with his own.

Thus, he pulls the sash aside, sinks both of his hands into her hair and kisses her. It is a kiss full of such softness, such tenderness she wonders if any man in the history of the world has ever kissed a woman with such love; if they are the first two to have ever loved like this, if they are the last.

And it is from her kiss that he drinks mercy, acceptance, forgiveness, still in ecstatic awe that she truly is here, warm and alive in his arms. That she had left Baghdad and that she had come for him, had healed him, had married him. That she had left the world of the living to rescue him; that she will never abandon him, that she will be his as long as she lives. That the monster she had so feared is now the monster she wants, and that for her, no other form of earthly love could ever compare.

"Please, beloved; your whip," she babbles against his lips, into his kiss, her tongue trembling against his. "Please, Jaffar."

He glances down, taking the whip in his hand. "You feared I would leave you, because you were but a few years older," he says, his voice tinged with a mixture of disbelief and mirth. He takes a step back and traces her thighs with the whip, taps it against her cunny. He shakes his head and sniffs back tears, a fond smile breaking through them. "My little fool. You do know I would take you even if I were a reckless youth and you a toothless hag?"

"I do now," she laughs, because she believes it now. "And you know what they say about toothless women."

He bursts into laughter, glancing down at his erection, at the wet stain on his robes. "I think he is enjoying the idea all too much. Control that wicked mouth of yours, old wife."

"Or then what, my love?" she smiles. "Would you gag me again? Would you dare?"

He regards her for a while, his eyes slitted with mischief. Slowly, he drags the tip of the whip across her belly, chest, neck, tapping at the tip of her chin. "No. No, my dear; I can think of far more interesting methods of stopping that shameless little tongue. In fact, I think it is in need of a little discipline. What a shrew I've married, always so quick to mock her husband; I have put up with it far too long..." he tuts, tuts, tuts. "Open your mouth."

Her eyes fly wide; he but laughs. "I did not specify where the blows on your front would land, did I? Do not worry. I am still saving some for those delicious breasts of yours. It would be a shame to leave them unmarked."

She is so aghast her mouth falls open of its own volition: she feels foolish, standing there with her mouth gaping open like that of an animal figure on a fountain. Of course, this tickles his sense of humour, makes him smirk widely.

He taps her lip. "Stick your tongue out; that's it. And don't forget about the spheres." His eyes narrow with heat once more. "Once my whip has sated itself upon your flesh and the time comes for my prick to take its share, you'll be glad to have worn them. That, I promise you."

At his words, at the thought of his cock inside her arse she clenches, trying to draw the remaining two spheres deeper inside her body, secretly mimicking the way he would take her, reeling at her own shamelessness. At the contraction, the spheres press against the back of her womb once more, returning her to her state of restless arousal, making her toes curl against the carpet. He swishes the whip in front of her face and reflexively, she closes her eyes, worried that he might damage her face. Goosebumps break out all over her skin and her breathing quickens. What if he should break her nose, what if he should hit her eye, what if--

--and it is then that the first blow lands upon her tongue, the sting unbelievable. She jerks, falls back with a howl, pulling away from the blow, a thousand sparks of pain bursting through her mouth, her face, her neck.

"Open your mouth," he commands, his eyes made of ice, his mouth but a gleaming, twisted red stripe of cruelty. Shivering, she closes her eyes once more, sticks out her tongue, panting in anticipation of pain, far more frightened now than when he had been whipping her buttocks. At his second stroke, stars explode behind her eyes and she falls once more, dangling from her bonds by her wrists, blinking tears from her eyes.

"Mercy," she pants, her tongue thick, swelling, the taste of blood filling her mouth.

He raises his eyebrow. "If you can still beg for mercy, it's a sign you are not hurting enough. Get up. Open your mouth."

She swallows, reels and knows this is what she had asked for: his ice as well as his fire. Had she not asked for him to be her teacher? Had she not asked for him to scour her, to cleanse her? The spheres weigh heavily in her arse, trying to escape and with great effort, she squeezes her muscles to pull them back inside.

It is then that she realises there is no pain in her hips any longer, no pain at all. The pleasure-pain he has given her has so overwhelmed her it has conquered the pain in her womb, drawn it out of her body through her buttocks, her tongue. She swallows back a bloodied sob of joy at the realisation, staggers back onto her feet and opens her mouth, rolls her tongue out once more and waits, waits.

The last blow is harder than the rest, making her cry out loudly but before she even falls, he is there, gathering her into his arms, kissing her. It is a tender gesture, oh, tender and cruel: for now, he sucks her tongue into his mouth, sucks it, drinking in her blood, drinking in her pain, drinking in her screams, her cries. Jaffar the lover had said he was no ghoul, but now Jaffar the beast feasts upon her like one, sucking and lapping her pain into himself as if it were an invigorating elixir. And it is as if he grows in size, swallows her whole, dissolves her upon his tongue.

With a hiss, a growl he pulls back, dancing back from her, sending her swaying. And without warning, he raises his arm and strikes her across the breasts, once, twice, thrice; four, five times. She convulses, snaps back from his blows, twisting and turning in agony. Her breasts, her poor breasts; he could have torn her nipples off with the force of his blows, she realises in her horror, sobbing helplessly. Yet, he didn't, he didn't; he had measured his strokes perfectly, framing her nipples with a bright red pentagram of strokes. In awe, in pain she pants, stares at him, stares.

His face is beading with sweat, his eyes those of a madman, the kohl around them smeared from his exertions. Scent heaves from him, sweat evaporating his perfume into the air, his musk filling her nose, her lungs. Staring back at her, he pulls off his robe, pulls off his shalwars, standing before her a satyr, wild, erect.

He picks up the whip once more. "Spread your legs."

"No," she cries. Not there, anywhere but there.

"I don't think you quite understood me. Spread your legs."

"No!" She presses her legs tighter together, but cannot form the word 'dove,' cannot.

It is then that he spits out a command, flicks out his fingers, then snatches them into a fist. And to her horror, her legs are taken off the ground, invisible hands coming up to lift her behind her knees. Jaffar tugs at the air, tugs until her hips are lifted, too, until she is spread out before him as if on a bed of air, her cunny exposed to him, bare.

"That's better." He moves to stand between her legs and cups his hand over her mound, rubbing it softly, gazing into her eyes all the while. His gaze is worse than his hand, looking soul-deep inside of her, challenging her, mocking her lies and her shame, calling out into the light that which has remained hidden inside of her.

Slowly, slowly with his caresses he opens her, makes her folds swell further the way only he knows how; softly, he dips into her wetness and taps at her clitoris with his thumb. "This is what I am here for, beloved," he murmurs and laughs, laughs as her body betrays her and drips down onto the floor, making her wail in shame.

He nods. "I promised I would heal this poor little cunny tonight. And I am a man of my word."

She closes her eyes and whimpers, bites her lip, unable to answer him in words. He continues to rub at her, rub her until she is squirming, until her belly is dipping, until she jerks back from his caress. "Stop. I beg of you, Jaffar; stop."

"Now, why would I do that, when you clearly don't want me to?" he purrs. He leans down and gives her slit a quick lap with his tongue, shameless, then pulls back, licking menstrual blood from his teeth. "Now, be a brave little girl for me and take your medicine." He steps back and rests the tip of the whip upon her mound. "Look at me."

Swallowing down saliva, blood, fear she looks at him, looks at him, stares. The way sweat gleams upon him in the warm light of the lamps and the cold light of the evening rain, the way the muscles of his arms flow underneath his skin as he lifts his forearm, the way his veins are filled with life, with arousal. The way his chest heaves with his heavy breathing, the way strands of his hair cling to his cheeks. The redness of his lips, the way they curl in the wickedest of smiles, his crooked teeth gleaming white. She loves him, loves him--

His first stroke is gentle, surprising her: it is but a sharp snap upon her mound, a snap of pleasure through her hips, her spine, her breasts. "Oh--" she cries, but the second one is harder and oh, Lord, tomorrow there will be a stripe, right there, at the top of her slit and she will feel him with her every step. She jerks back from the pain as much as she can as hot and cold tremors lash through her body, she still in shock that he would hurt her even here, at the very seat of her pleasure. And that despite herself, she would enjoy this so much, enjoy having the most sensitive parts of her body marked by him, hurt by him. She thrashes, trapped within the net of her pleasure-pain, her pulse drumming faster and faster until her very blood sings for him, cries out for more.

"The last one," he sing-songs, takes one more step back, raises his arm high.

The last blow over her mound is so cruel, so hard she cannot even scream; she convulses so violently the spheres are expelled violently from her, clattering onto the floor noisily, rolling to his feet.

He stops one of the spheres with his toes and shakes his head, tuts. "You are certainly in need of more practice, my love. Although I must admit you did admirably for a beginner," he says, his smile full of true warmth, now; true warmth and a tender gladness.

She is heaving, gasping, still in shock from the blows, her arse still clenching, missing the spheres the way it always misses his prick after he has been inside of her. Oh, that she should now miss even inanimate objects after they have become the instruments of his love, of his pleasure: the whip and the spheres now become extensions of him, parts of him.

I'm sorry, she wants to say, but no, no: it is "Thank you," she now groans, sobs; "thank you." She writhes in her bonds until she cannot struggle any longer; her muscles fall slack and she is but pain, sweet pain flowing from her cunny into her every limb.

He gathers the spheres, wipes them clean and sits behind her, lowering her to sit down on the floor so that he can embrace her from behind. She can still feel his bonds around her wrists even as he lets her hands fall to the floor, even as he rubs circulation back into her arms. But she does not care any longer: she merely leans back into his arms with a sigh, exhausted. She lies there for long moments, barely conscious, sinking into the warmth radiating from her welts, from her swollen arse, from his arms around her. She floats, floats and all she can feel is peace.

It is only when she feels the rumble of his laughter against her back that she stirs into wakefulness.

Jaffar pats her shoulder, chuckles. "My little huntress, you do hunt far and wide. First, you would leave your body; now you would escape me into sleep?"

"Mmm," she mumbles into his kiss; drunk, happy, relaxed. She can feel his erection pressing into her back, knows he wants more. But she is so tired, still in a haze: her limbs are heavy from fulfillment, her womb blissfully quiet. Therefore, she does not resist as he cups her breasts, squeezes them, lifting her a little, finally arranging her upon the floor into a position that pleases him best. It is a pleasant, prostrating one, one that does not strain her muscles: her head and arms rest upon soft cushions, the invisible chains lifting her hips and her buttocks, spreading her legs. She arches her back, her cunny tightening in pleasure once more as it is exposed to the evening air.

"You've posed me like a cheap street boy or a cat in heat," she groans, smirking at him over her shoulder.

Jaffar laughs, raising his eyebrows. "Oh, you just watch, my dear; I intend to take you like both."

She rocks her buttocks. "I'd like to see you try."

"I never try. When I want something, I take it."

"Is that so?" But her sweet mockery dies upon her tongue as he presses one of the spheres against her anus. The quips she had meant to throw his way turn into whimpers, wails of shame as sphere after oiled sphere slides into her arse easily, so easily, now. Her arse loose like a catamite's, and he has not even taken her yet, "Oh, God--"

"Quite the street boy," he hisses, leers. "So open and wet; you must be a popular lay." He curls over her, his cock rubbing sweetly against her cunny, his voice dripping with heat. "How many men have you taken today, before me?" he teases, twisting his hand into her hair. "Hmm?"

"But one," she pants against the cushions, pants as the pressure of his hips pushes the spheres deeper inside of her, merciless against the back of her womb. She staggers, her breath catching in her throat; she wants to reach behind herself to touch him. But when she tries to move her hands, she finds he has again locked her wrists in place. She groans, jerks against her bonds, jerks against him, against his smug laughter. "He was a cruel and merciless man, my lord!"

"Really? You seem as if you enjoyed him." He squeezes her breasts, dragging his claws down the welts he's made, making her teeth clamp down over a scream, at which he only claws at her harder. "I must prove myself better than him, so that you will not forget who it is that provides for you." He nips at her ear. "Who it is that truly cares for you."

"Yes," she gasps against the pillows, her smarting tongue thick against the fabric.

"But now I am faced with a dilemma, my dear. For what should I prove myself through--by besting him at kindness, or cruelty? Hmm? Which would you have me show you?"

"Mercy," she says, pleading, rubbing herself against his hips, his cock, desperate to finally have him inside of her. She has waited so long, so long, oh--"Take me," she whispers, "Please."

"Well, then," he shrugs and starts to tug the silk strip out of her cunny, "I suppose I must."

"But, Jaffar--" she had expected sodomy, expected him to--and her voice turns into a wail of terror as he presses the head of his cock to her cunny, past its lips and inside of her, inside of her while the spheres are still nestled within her guts. "Jaffar!"

With a long, filthy groan of selfish satisfaction, he rocks himself inside of her, uncaring of her protests. It hurts, oh, Merciful God, it hurts and terrifies her so--yet her every sensation is soon swallowed into a shocking, unspeakable vastness of pleasure. A pleasure so sharp it overwhelms her, peaking fast, driving her forcefully towards a sudden climax. But her muscles do not know how to, for she has never been so penetrated, so stretched, so completely and utterly filled.

She cannot even speak, her eyes rolling back in her head as he keeps on taking her, the head of his cock gliding past each sphere on every stroke, making them resonate inside of her. Dimly, she wonders if he could kill her like this--oh, God! She pales, claws at the brocade, all other sensations of her body swallowed by his thrusts, his hips slapping against the red-striped agony of her buttocks. She cannot believe this; that he would dare try and give her all this, that her body would even be capable of taking all this, beyond what she'd thought was possible. Yet it is real, real and not an illusion woven by the drugs.

For he leans against her, rutting shallowly into her, licking up sweat from the hollow of her spine, pressing her shoulders into the cushions. "Exquisite," he pants wetly against her cheek, making the most disgusting of snorts, huffs, grunts in her ear. As he grabs her by the hair, turns her head and forces her to meet his eyes, she can see his tongue is hanging out of his mouth, lolling red and wet.

Oh, God, but he revolts her, frightens her so much that her disgust trips over into adoration, his hips and his noises pushing her so close to release it hurts. She loves him and she hates him, his vileness like a cut to draw venom from her veins: all the poisons still within her, all the bitter humours still roiling within her now burst out in torrents of insults through her lips. "You filthy, wretched unbeliever. You dog, you pig," she screams into his face, yet he laughs and fucks her all the harder, scrambling her foul words into but hopeless ululations.

Each roll of his hips, each roll of the spheres sends a white-hot shock of double pleasure through her: it's as if she is being taken by two men at once, one of flesh, one of silver, all Jaffar. She has never been taken, touched, claimed in so many places at once, yet release still eludes her, the stretch too vast, keeping her on the brink forever, forever.

And Jaffar is not helping her: rather, he is relishing her thrashing, her insults, her desperation. He pulls back, slows down his thrusts and brings his thumb to the silver spheres now peeking, bulging out of her arse. "So delicious," he moans, overwhelmed himself as he rolls his thumb against the spheres, fucking her with them as he fucks her cunny, pleasuring himself as he pleasures her. "So beautiful, God--push them out for me, my sweet, push them--"

"I can't," she cries, too full, sobbing in frustration.

But he shows no signs of withdrawing, oh, no; he but pushes deeper into her, then stays still, chuckles.

"Try again."

She tries and she tries, pushes, to no avail. Her muscles refuse to obey her, stretched beyond their capacity to contract; completely subject to Jaffar's will. "Please. Please, my love, withdraw."

"Oh, no," he laughs and shakes his head, droplets of his sweat falling from his hair onto her back. "Not until I've felt this pretty little cunny clutch around my cock in release." He brings his hand to her clitoris, slaps it, pinches it until sharp spikes of heat cut through her hips, until she wails against her arms. And yet he keeps on rubbing her, crooning at her, his perfume heaving around her, assaulting all her senses, demanding surrender. "Let go, my sweet; let go for me."

Her throat sore from screaming, she curls her back, pushes her head down, rides his cock, desperate, desperate, rocks herself against his rubbing, slapping hand. In shock, she gazes between her legs, watches as her fluids, both clear and red drip down his cock, hang off his sack and yet he keeps on pushing into her: uncaring of the mess, taking her, taking his pleasure of her.

It is this sight that finally plunges her over the precipice and without words, she exhales, glides into the quietest of orgasms, punctuated by tremors rather than convulsions. But now it is her entire body that experiences the impact of it, his thrusts rocking it through her with the deepest of waves, like seismic murmurs underneath the sea. It is as if she is watching herself, him, feeling them from underwater: quiet, muffled, swallowed entirely until she sinks, sinks underneath the waves.

She only comes to her senses when he withdraws from her, parting her buttocks, kissing her cunny, her arse. Her knees buckle, give, and if it were not for her bonds she would crash into the cushions.

He laughs and blows on her arse, blows, spreads her with his thumbs. "Push them out," he says, "Show me."

"You are a sick bastard," she groans, the act so reminiscent of defecation she wants to refuse, even if she knows she is thoroughly clean.

"I only object to the 'bastard' part, my dear. Have you never heard the phrase 'as debauched as a Barmakid?'" He grins and pinches her labia together around her clitoris, making her hips jerk, making the spheres roll inside of her once more. "Besides, would you not indulge a little sickness from me, after all the work I have done to heal yours?"

The spheres are so heavy inside of her, so heavy they bring nausea to her guts now that the highest peaks of her pleasure have passed. And she wants to be rid of their weight--but that he wants to watch, that he is practically drooling, kneading and clawing at her buttocks to see her better--she shudders, but knows she has no choice. Hiding her face in shame, she pushes.

"That's it," he laughs. "It's like watching a pretty little bird laying a silver egg."

"That is the most ridiculous thing you've ever said!" she groans. "You are not helping."

"Would this do?" and without warning, he pushes a few fingers inside her cunny, curls them upwards, pushing at the spheres.

A cry breaks in her throat as the first sphere stretches the muscles of her sphincter, spreading her open wide. Oh, God, it's disgusting, so disgusting; yet the most disgusting thing of all is the pleasure it brings her, devastating, undeniable. When the sphere falls out and her arse clenches shut violently, the tremor of ecstasy that rocks through her sends her reeling. "Oh God, Jaffar," she cries and he but takes her with his fingers, the noises suddenly wetter and she has never felt as debauched in her life. Helpless, she lifts her back and pushes again, the nerves in her spine flashing white like the lightning outside. As the second sphere leaves her body, clatters against its companion upon the floor, her voice is but a low, guttural groan.

He hushes her, kissing the small of her back. "Good girl. One more." He withdraws his fingers, spreads her buttocks again and sits down to watch. "Let go."

She pushes, pushes, her stomach lurching, her chest cramping from the effort and there, she has reached the widest part, she's almost there--

And it is then that Jaffar pushes the sphere back inside with his fingers, deep, deep, his laughter as wicked as can be.

"No!" she sobs, tries to kick at him, swearing she will strangle him with his own sash once he frees her.

"Yes, my sweet," he purrs, stretching out the vowels, planting another kiss on her arse, his tongue slipping inside of her with such ease that she mewls. He feasts upon her, relishing her looseness, openness, playing with her anus with his thumbs. "Try again."

She pushes once more and he lets her, this time; he returns his hand to her clitoris, murmuring soft sounds of encouragement. Her every muscle smarting, she pushes, pushes--but it is at that that her point of view somersaults and she sees double. She can feel the rumble of Jaffar's laughter within her own chest, see herself with his eyes, and even if she reflexively closes her eyes in shame, she still cannot erase the vision.

He sends it to her, spreads her flesh out before her mind's eye as he now spreads her before himself: the sight of her welt-striped buttocks, her abused arse but a wet, red and black hole, gaping open wide. And within it, a glint of silver peeking out, shining with oil; her cunny shining, too, as he strokes her, dripping strings of sweetness and blood into his palm. She keens, curses him, writhes, but now feels her cries of shame and agony vibrating through his body, transforming there into ripples of delight. She feels his cock twitch in pleasure, feels him drip, every cry of hers caressing him on the inside.

And he murmurs "You're beautiful, my sweet, so beautiful;" lets her feel the love he feels for her, intertwined with his wicked relish. He curls himself inside of her belly, sings the tremors of his arousal through her flesh. She claws at the cushions as he echoes through her, as he coaxes her, croons to her, telling her to let go of the sphere, let go of it for him, to indulge him. Every time she pushes, every time she rocks her hips out it sends another shiver of pleasure through him, he so joined with her she can now feel the hair on his arms standing on end.

He bends down to worship her, to lick her, to feast upon her once more. She shudders as she tastes herself, first the sweetness and the metallic salt of her cunny, feels his cock twitching against his belly as he laps at her. But it is at the taste of her arse that his balls lift and he groans, trembles as if with chills: he is so close to release without having even touched himself, the forbidden, musty taste of her guts the greatest of delicacies ever offered to his tongue.

Tears prickle in her eyes at his joy, the absolution he feels in her allowing him this, the most perverse and the most sacred of kisses. For now, he is tasting her on the inside, as deep as a person can taste another, his tongue within her flesh, trembling against her living heartbeat. And it is the strangest thing that it should make her soul-wings flutter open wide once more, her soul yearning to lift free: with great effort, she calls herself back inside of her body, whispers I love you, and concentrates one last time.

She pushes at the sphere, now almost completely out, pushing Jaffar out with it, separating him from herself. He snaps free of her and there, there it is again, the click: the unmistakable click as his teeth meet metal. She cannot even scream at him, at how filthy, how abominable, how disgusting, how perfect he is as he sucks, bites the sphere out of her, then spits it out to join the others upon the floor.

And then he is upon her, his face, his nose buried between her buttocks, his tongue deep inside her arse, his greedy, wet panting making her cunny clench painfully gainst his chin.

"Please, Jaffar," she whimpers, pushing her arse back onto his rutting tongue, needing more, more; for his prick to take what his tongue is now tasting. Her voice becomes very small, her need making her brittle, hollow. "Please, my king," she whispers so that he should fill her hollowness once more, "please."

And he is inside of her, on top of her, releasing the chains binding her wrists and her waist, letting her body sink into the cushions. Softly, quietly he slides into her arse until her limbs flutter, flutter upon the floor, her body made of but sweetness. She is gone, gone, sinking, his fingers laced with hers; the entire weight of his body upon her, the way he knows she likes him to, her pillow wet from tears. He barely moves, the smallest undulations of his hips washing her, him clean with ecstasy; clean from all filth, clean from all sin.

"Beloved," he whispers and falls into her like rain. And from his nourishing, the golden vines curl forth from her once more, reaching into him in turn, every pulse of her pleasure a flower bursting into bloom inside of his being. She blossoms inside him, blossoms and with a hoarse cry, he surges inside of her, drenches her just as he had promised, spurts again and again as if he couldn't stop, as if his pleasure could never end.

And she draws it out of him, squeezes her muscles around him, pulls at his very soul with her roots, her vines until she is rich with him, heavy with him, saturated with him.

She turns around underneath him and invites him inside of her arse once more, his erection sore but never diminishing: all of him so full of life, so full of love.

Oh, but I would make love to you until the world ends, my sweet; until the earth was scorched and burned, he sings within her, falling into her once more.

Her hands finally free, she brings them to her sore cunny, to the red stripe he had left over the hood of her clitoris. She rubs at herself even if it hurts, hurts after his whip, after his fingers, after everything; yet it is the sweetest pleasure of all.

Finally, finally she is allowed full release with his cock inside of her; finally, the muscles of her cunny and her womb are allowed to contract and tighten as hard as they will, to flutter over each and every one of his thrusts in her arse. Her hands slip upon her clitoris and she is so wet, so wet, shouting from the bottom of her lungs as she gushes over his cock, shouting in his face as he keeps on taking her. His cock slick with sperm, he pushes inside of her through her orgasm, moving within her long after she has finished, taking every last one of her tremors upon his cock, catching every last one of her sighs with his lips.

"My sweetest," he whispers into her mouth, gathering her into his arms; "my sweetest, sweetest love."

She beckons for him to lie on top of her, wraps her legs around him, still holding him within herself. "Says the fountain of sweetness," she whispers, "having made me like unto himself."

The rain has gone and the last rays of sunset fall upon them through the latticed windows: little stars, vines dance upon Jaffar's back as he sighs into her shoulder, utterly content, spent. She lets her head loll back, all of her consciousness falling into his weight: into the scent of musk, jasmine and roses.

***

When she wakes up, it is in their bed: going by the position of the moon, it must be near midnight. Aches and pains are what have stirred her into wakefulness--that, and the sound of Jaffar at the washbowl, clearly only having just woken up himself, mopping at his prick and his thighs. At her groan of pain he turns, tosses the towel aside and crawls into bed. "Good evening, my lady," he smiles, nuzzling her face. "Is the pain pleasant or unpleasant?"

"Both," and she wriggles a little, wincing, realising she cannot lie on her front or her back without putting pressure on the welts he had given her. "Where did you put the medicine?"

"It's still in my pocket, I think."

She is still fit enough to walk, so she collects the packet and after a moment's hesitation, also picks up the spheres. Sucking on a piece of candy, she settles on the bed, twirling the spheres in her hand. "A year you've made love to me and never told me about these."

"It's rude to talk with food in your mouth." He kisses the candy from her mouth, smirking, but with a playful tussle, she reclaims it from him. He sits beside her, wraps his arm around her and runs his fingers over the spheres. "I developed quite a habit with these things when I was younger, I must admit. They were much better than a real lover--at least when it came to men," he adds quickly when she flashes him a jealous glance from underneath her brows.

But her jealousy soon melts at the visions that now flicker through her mind: of Jaffar, lying in bed with the spheres nestled inside of himself, masturbating, panting into the pillows; oh, but she feels the idea right in her cunny, wincing at the pain a clench of arousal now gives her.

But it is no matter, as the pain is swiftly fading, replaced by drowsiness, by renewed desire. "I would love to watch you use them," she murmurs against his lips, purring as the drug unfurls sweetly within her belly once more.

"Perhaps later," he promises, lust glittering in his eyes as he takes a piece of candy himself, lying down on the bed beside her. She cannot mistake his cock stirring against his thigh in the moonlight, his stomach dipping as his breathing quickens. "Perhaps I shall show you indeed."

And there they lie, in a haze of opium, of moonlight, of pleasure: and like the moonlight, with her fingertips she traces the curves and contours of his body, worships her Jaffar. His smooth-shaven chest, the dark red of his nipples, the same shade as his mouth. The weight he has shed along with his years, his ribs even more prominent than before, his thighs so thin they're nearly skeletal.

But his thinness is beautiful, that of a dancer--made of lean muscle and sinew, full of strength and grace. And more beautiful still are the feminine accents of his body: the wide, womanly curves of his hips, the elegance of his hands, his eyelashes even longer than hers, blacker than the shadows they cast upon his cheeks.

And it is with his hands and his mouth that he worships her back, quiet, soft. He kisses every mark he has left upon her body, soothing them, caressing them, marvelling at the way he has decorated her with them, written his love upon her with the calligraphy of the whip. He breathes in her skin, her hair, the perfumes of incense and sweat and opium and blood; he nuzzles the traces of sap upon her thighs, the remains of honey upon her lips.

Finally, he laces his fingers with hers and nuzzles her face. "You conquered Death for me," he whispers, his lashes a moth's wing flutter against her cheek. "I cannot tell you how glad I am to live again. To feel food, wine upon my lips again; to feel your touch upon my skin once more." He squeezes her fingers. "Yet, I am still hungry, and I know you must hunger, too. Would you join with me once more, a joining greater than any others before it?"

"Gladly," she whispers into his mouth, her hand upon his woman's hips. "Until man becomes woman."

"Until woman becomes man," he smiles, his hand upon her boy's buttocks.

He lights the lanterns by the bed so that they can study the book by their light. Together, they trace the illustrations, the drug now making the images stir, swirl into life underneath their fingertips. They examine and rehearse the positions, laughing into each other's mouths as they show each other the gestures they now see, feel the illustrations making. Several times, they read the recitations, go over the rituals, choosing the simplest of them to start with tonight.

She moves to sit in his lap, sinking both hands into his hair, ruffling it madly, he laughing into her kiss. His eyes are heavy, soft, happy; so happy as he returns her kiss, his hands warm and loving upon her back. According to the book and the rite they have chosen, it is the woman who should be the active partner in this union, the man the one being taken: already she can feel Jaffar holding back, offering her only the minimum of caresses, choosing to drink in hers instead. It is not something they have practiced much, their natures being better suited to the opposite arrangement. But now, Jaffar himself shifts, stirs in anticipation, as if drunk on the very thought of lying underneath her.

"Shall we begin?" he says, his eyes glittering in the lamplight.

"A moment." She removes her silk roll again, tosses it aside, then wraps her arms and legs around him. "There. You cast the circle."

"Very well."

He closes his eyes, murmurs under his breath and she closes her eyes, too, joining him. He sends his consciousness to greet every corner of the room, invoking Air, Fire, Water and Earth, all the elements and directions, sealing the room from outsiders, from anything that would harm them.

And she follows him, lets her words and her spirit echo his: together, they offer prostrations to all guardian angels, placate all djinn, pray to the Almighty for guidance. Together, they draw a circle of energy around themselves, then draw the energy up to curve above them as if erecting a dome, sheltering themselves within it. Together, they seal it with the appointed syllables, chanting the closing prayer in unison.

"It is done," he says, greeting her with a kiss.

The casting of the circle had followed their usual patterns, well-worn and familiar. It is only now that they step outside of their usual experience and move onto the love-rites described in the book, using only their bodies as instruments.

Despite her trust in him, despite her concentration, despite the opium, Yassamin shivers a little at the possibility of something going wrong. She can hear his breath catching--he must be feeling the same, even if he masks it well, through years of experience. The true magician must be brave, he always tells her, or at least show a brave face when dealing with powers beyond the reach of most mortals: show weakness, and you invite disaster. Therefore, she, too, must be brave; she must remember she is not an ordinary woman but a sorceress, a manipulator of her own fate.

Thus, she straightens her spine, lifts her chin, faces him with pride. She must not fear--the magician does not fear but acts, shapes, transforms.

It is for this very purpose, for the banishing of fear that many rites open with salutations, invocations of the Divine within the participants. This rite is no different: however, its invocations follow the patterns of ancient marriage vows. And like a proud, nervous young bridegroom, Jaffar now takes her hands, smiles. He takes a deep breath before he salutes her and she can feel her heart opening for him like a flower, expanding towards him before he even speaks the words.

"In thee, heart-dweller, I greet the woman within myself, so that she may arise and join with me in joy."

And she feels his heart expand, too, breathes him in, breathes in his delight before she invokes him in turn:

"In thee, heart-dweller, I greet the man within myself, so that he may arise and join with me in joy."

"In thee, I invoke all the forces and powers of the stars," he says, kissing his way across her skin, whispering a syllable of power over each and every part of her body.

She closes her eyes as each one of his kisses ignites a light within her: with his lips, he lights rows of lanterns in the darkness of her flesh until she glows bright, bright like a festival at night. With each one of his kisses from her fingers to her toes, from her cunny to her heart to her mouth, she glows. At last, he finishes with a kiss upon her brow, and white light like that of the sun streams down from her forehead, illuminating her, and as she opens her eyes, he sits bathed in her light.

She breathes deep, exhales, exhales that light: "In thee, I invoke all the forces and powers of the waters of life." And she kisses, invokes life into each of his limbs in turn, tears filling her eyes as she is reminded of how she had brought him back from the dead. She had performed this rite unknowingly, improvising; had already had the seeds of knowledge and of immortality within herself.

And gladly, she plants them within his soil once more. With her lips, with her whispers she stirs his life-waters within him, all that is in him liquid and flowing. With her kisses, she stirs his blood, her ear so close to his chest she can hear his blood rushing through his heart; he the wellspring flowing open, sweet and wide. The sap rises in him, in his spine, in his erection now rising to meet her lips; sap beading at the tip of his cock, quivering like dewdrops upon a blade of grass. He ripples, ripples; his eyes flicker like a pool stirred by a gentle wind, soft tears of joy falling upon his cheeks. He is rain, he is a river, he is the ocean open wide.

And she sits upon his lap in the moonlight, takes him inside of herself, takes him within her love. There they sit, man to woman, cock to cunny, fire to water, heart to heart: within them, her rays illuminating his waters, he flows sparkling, glittering in her sunlight. With each roll of her hips he rushes faster, higher; with each one of his kisses, she shines hotter, brighter.

Drunk upon her, he reels in her arms, parting from her slightly, laughing a breathless "I love you" against her lips. "Beloved," and his voice is high, sweetly lilting, as soft as a woman's, "I would have you take me."

She moans, aflame with desire, as keen, as hard as he is at his beastliest. It is as if she is broader, heavier, stronger; he now softer, more pliant, sweeter: thus, the man in her pushes the woman in him down upon the sheets, pins her arms down and takes her like she needs to be taken. Jaffar looks up at her--him--in awe, his--her--eyes wide, and it is then that another gate, the final gate between them opens.

They have shared consciousness before, but now it is herself Yassamin experiences underneath her, in Jaffar's body, in his eyes, in the soft noises bursting from his mouth as he is taken. With a sudden shock she sees, hears, feels her own desperation, her eyes now staring up at her blue, black-lashed; her own tears escaping from them down his high cheeks.

"Please," he prays and she hears herself, the woman who had saved him from death afraid, broken and in pieces, yearning to be taken, scoured.

And within her body, she feels her Jaffar-heart expanding with compassion, with pain, the need to heal his beloved. He feels rage, anger at the ones who have hurt her boiling violently inside of himself, wants to tear her out of her past and make her forget everything except the present. With whips, with bites, with even blood if needs be; if only to heal her, to make her whole again. To take this, the soul of the one he loves more than life itself and shelter it, mend it, return it clean and shining from his love.

She keens on top of him, arches, curls with the ache in her heart, her limbs; these words echoing through her, falling from her lips like fresh water: "I am the wellspring that waters the jasmine. I am your husband and I have been put upon this earth to shelter you, to nourish you, to keep you from harm."

"Then let me give to you of my soul, of my flesh, my very life as a mother to her child, so that you might live," Jaffar whispers, soft, soft, pulling her to lie down on top of him with all her weight, the way she knows he likes her to.

He keeps moving inside of her, through her as she keeps moving into him, each surging into the other, swallowing each other until divisions, dualities crash together and dissolve, lose all meaning. Jaffar breathes through her mouth, makes love to her with his cunny, dancing upon her cock; she is but rising sap, water, milk, her spine afire, her balls full and sweet as she rocks herself into his flesh. It is no longer the pleasure of a man and a woman joined but more, beyond: in their joining, they have become not two but the one human body, the one human soul.

And it is all the love, all the pleasure, all the ecstasy that a human being is capable of feeling that now rushes through their joined bodies. It takes them, reshapes them, takes their oneness and pierces it, opens it into a circle, the sifr so beloved of mathematicians: the void, the number of infinite space. They are but expansion, expansion until consciousness itself disappears, fades and there is but silence: the circle shrinks in on itself until they are but a dot suspended in whiteness, in darkness. Then, even that small grain of awareness disappears and they are nothing.

The moon smiles at them through the latticed windows, scattering patterns of stars upon their skin, travelling slowly across their bodies as constellations travel across the night sky.

Slowly, awareness returns, awakens them from their slumber, draws them back into their bodies once more. Neither of them knows whose body it is that first says it, hears it, but the thought that now pierces them both is Jaffar's. It spikes within him, a sensation of utmost fullness, ripeness; of power he could, but no longer wants to contain. He is humming with it, incandsecent with it, his milk cooked up by her fire; he is ready.

He pulls free of her mind for a moment, separates himself for the pleasure of joining with her once more. He dips his fingers into her hair to kiss, to breathe his desire upon her mouth as words.

"They told me I should contain this; that I should keep all of this to myself, each and every drop. They said I should but use your body to bring up the nectar; to keep you from drinking from the source lest you drain me. Do you think I should?"

She opens her eyes and he is most definitely himself again, leering wickedly, his eyes sparkling the way they do whenever he is about to commit a sin. She grins and draws in a deep breath, stretches luxuriously above him, moon-stars dancing upon her breasts and belly. "I would like a taste of your immortality indeed, beloved."

"I thought you might." He sits up, catching her as she yelps, them both laughing between kisses, still shimmering within each other. He squeezes and smacks her buttocks, squeezes them again, feels her welts: it hurts, he moans inside her in delight, "Oh, but it hurts," he moans out loud into her mouth.

In return, she lets him feel the joy that is the full length and breadth of his cock inside of her, the sweet friction of it, the sweet soreness in her cunny and her arse. And she does not hallucinate it: he blushes, he actually blushes, flushes as he feels what he is doing to her, again the nervous young groom on his wedding night, full of pride and joy.

She cups his face, kisses him, wraps her legs around him and smiles. "Drench me, then."

"Oh, no, no, no, my sweet. It is you who should do it; I insist. Remember what the book said."

That the man should draw out the woman's elixir, that the woman should draw out the man's, to milk it from him. She closes her eyes and shifts her hips upon him, her cunny fluttering around his cock, making him purr against her in delight. She opens her eyes, smirks. "Does that please you, my master of magics?"

Her cat-prince but purrs again, smiles with his eyes slitted, bunching her hair in his fists. "You would consume me, then, my little witch?" He rolls his hips a little, his cock dragging inside of her long and sweet, drawing out a moan from her throat.

"I would," she answers, flicking her tongue against his, squeezing him in turn. "I would indeed," she moans and kisses him harder, riding him harder, riding him the way she has never ridden him before; all of her focused upon taking him, drinking from him, his pulse and his blood and his sap humming against her. "Shall I milk you, my love?" she pants, bolder, now. "Shall I drink my fill of your white?"

"Yes," he groans, his mouth falling slack, his eyes clear and pale in the moon's light. He has held back for so long and she can feel him: his balls so full they are aching, little sparks of blue-white pain skittering over them every time the head of his cock hits her womb. Yet he tries to draw it out, still--but is it not she who decides when he comes undone, now?

She glances at the spheres upon the bed, then back at him.

He shudders, shudders, the way she has shuddered underneath him at every taboo of hers he has broken. And it is now she who finds herself the master, the teacher, intoxicated with her newfound power. She knows what she must do, now; knows how to break his resistance as he has broken hers, to better drink from his love. With her gaze, she traces the shape, the size, the texture of the spheres, closes her eyes and summons the memory of them inside of herself: their weight, their heat. With a soft whisper, she now makes them take shape inside of her body, now made of the gold of her light: as heavy, as real as their silver counterparts. Only now, she transfers her focus inside of Jaffar, into the deepest reaches of his body--and with a wicked smile, she takes the spheres and slides them inside of him.

Jaffar gasps, howls, cramping around her, sobbing loudly in her face. His eyes fall shut and his face contorts with pain, with pleasure, with chaos at his sudden penetration. Disbelieving, he chokes, unable to speak, in such shock that every hair on his body stands on end. She can feel his stomach lurching with nausea, his mind reeling, staggering against hers as the sudden, heavy pressure upon his spinal nerves nearly makes him faint. Yet his cock but swells further, hardens, leaps within her flesh, his balls tightening against her cunny.

He rocks within her, his forehead against hers, his breathing but a stutter. "I-I love you," he sobs, so very quietly, "I love you."

And it is in that moment that she knows, truly knows the ecstasy that can only belong to the cruel lover, the ravisher, the beast. The pleasure she takes in the act frightens her with its intensity, for she could never have imagined herself, him like this. Yet, had he not called her, carved her as his Simurgh, his healer; envisioned himself as but a small, fragile beast underneath her? Underneath her wings, he whimpers, helpless, his eyes snapping open wide: the gratitude, the beauty, the surrender in them makes her sob, laugh, cup his face with love and pride.

"And I love you, my sweet Jaffar," she whispers, kisses upon his lips.

He shakes his head, again unable to form words, rapt with awe: his breath hitching in his throat, he closes his eyes once more, lets her feel more of what he is feeling. The weight of her body upon him, the weight of the spheres as they press into the very seat of his pleasure, blinding him with ecstasy, blinding him with her white light; the wet, tight heat of her cunny, the sweet streaks of her blood and arousal now running down his sack and thighs. His entire consciousness is focused only upon her penetrating, enveloping him; all of him existing only for her, only to complete himself within her.

"Let go, my love," she tells him as he has told her so many times. "Let go, Jaffar."

"My sweet--" And with a sob, he buries his face into her shoulder, clings to her, his limbs around her like vines. All of him becomes whiteness, white heat, white fluid, white, white; it is as red flesh, as a sea of red life-blood that she spreads out to engulf him, red blossoming around him like a thousand poppies, red swallowing him into herself.

With a hoarse cry, he shoots himself into her, through her, his consciousness swirling into hers as his sperm swirls into her life-blood, mixing them completely, utterly. Yet the mixture of their elixirs renders this a greater alchemy, a joining more violent, more devastating than others before it. For all the power and all the potential of creation itself, the energy meant for the begetting of a new human being now floods through their bodies instead. Those energies now multiply, multiply and divide within them, life itself sparking within and renewing their each and every cell, unravelling and re-knitting bone, marrow, sinew.

She gulps in air as the heat in her, them both climbs higher and higher, as the lanterns he had ignited in her now burst into flames, exploding. She is seared in the fire of knowledge, of the Simurgh's pyre, her self sloughed from her and she wonders if this is not death.

Yet she has never been more alive, this an exact reversal of the day she had brought him back from the dead. Her veins incandescent, her skin glowing with fever she falls, rises like flames: no longer a curling leaf, she, for now she burns like a forest of fire.

And then, water, water, a cool stream, a wellspring watering her, bringing down the heat in her limbs and her head; water soothing down her flickering. He lies on top of her, still nestled deep inside of her, cooling her with his kisses, with his hands, with his weight like the sea.

She wonders if he has changed her, if he has given her back her years, wonders; but he hears her thoughts and quiets her with a finger to her lips.

He looks no older, no younger, but she wonders.

Again, he hushes her, now within her mind. I once poured my waters through you; you once poured your light into me. Tonight, we poured ourselves into each other; does that not make us even? And he asks this of himself as well, the experience so new to him, too, filling him with wonder, with awe.

She laces her fingers with his, smiles up at him. Or perhaps, we have just made ourselves immortal. However, I am perfectly happy with even.

He laughs into her mouth as he claims it with a kiss. I, too, am happy with even.

"There is but one act we've forgotten, my dear," he finally speaks in words, nudging her with his hips, his cock still hard inside her.

"I am sore," she groans, although she cannot help but smile. "I knew you for a greedy man, but was rebirth itself not enough?"

He purses his lips in a mock-pout. "Oh, no; it's not that." He pulls out of her and slides down her body, resting his chin on her belly. "Only that the book insisted that in order to enjoy the elixir's full benefits, one should consume it." He frowns. "Did you not read it at all, wife?"

"I thought that was metaphori--" and she cannot form words any longer, because he is lapping at her, making her yelp, giggle, scream: she is so happy, so content she cannot even be disgusted with him as he drinks their mixed fluids from her. She is sore against his mouth, his tongue, hisses as his teeth graze her swollen folds, even if she cannot suppress one last shiver of delight. But soon the pain overtakes the pleasure and she pushes at his head, wincing.

"Stop. Please, Jaffar, dove."

His mouth, his tongue streaked red and white he leans down to kiss her, to pass immortality into her mouth from his as if it were but another piece of medicine, of candy. It doesn't taste as foul as she'd expected; in fact, the metal, the salt of her blood, the sweetness of her arousal have but improved the taste of his sperm, its soapy slickness now subdued as it spreads within her mouth. And to her surprise, she can indeed feel a faint spark of life energy as their tastes dissolve upon her tongue, snapping from his tongue to hers, tickling her palate.

He pulls back from the kiss, chuckling. "There."

She shakes her head. "Anything else you may have forgotten, you will have to save for later." She yawns underneath him, pulling him to lie down beside her. "And I mean it," she mumbles against his chest.

He kisses her head and pets her hair, his laughter rumbling against her ear until she falls into soft, warm dreams of tigers, of cheetahs, of leopards.

***

The next morning, she awakens to pain once more. But it is a pain much lessened, now: it is but a pulsing ache in her hips, only a fraction louder than the sweet soreness of her marked skin, of her limbs. And for this, she is grateful; today, she can at least speak.

"Jaffar."

She turns, only to find him awake. He has had coffee brought into the room and now holds out a cup to her, along with a piece of opium candy. The bitter fragrance of the coffee awakens her before she even touches the cup with her lips and she leans back into the pillows to enjoy it, to slowly suck upon the candy. The pillows, the sheets feel crisp and the bed spreads out before her stainless, white. She looks around herself, bemused.

He laughs, removing his nightshirt. "Good morning, beloved. And yes, you were so fast asleep I had to check for vital signs," he chuckles as he climbs in next to her. "Pairi woke me up by gnawing at my toes but I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of stirring, so she moved on to you. You didn't even flinch--you should've seen the indignant look upon her face! Later, there were two servants here and you did not stir even as I moved you out of bed while they changed the sheets."

She stretches in delight. "It seems we have found the best of sleeping draughts, my love."

He tugs at her nightshirt until he reveals half a breast, stroking the welt peeking out just above the silk. "Mmm. It was strangely reminiscent of this day I bought myself a sleeping slave girl," he purrs, kissing her ear. "Only today, you did not murmur of djinn, but of cats, and I think I heard you moan my name--in rather a lascivious way, I might add."

She claps her hand to her mouth, then her eyes, groaning in embarrassment. "Oh, God."

"Oh, yes. The servants were scandalised, by the way. They thought you were moaning in pain, especially once they saw the state of the sheets. They must have imagined I had been chastising you."

"Like a slave girl?" she nuzzles his face, making light of it, but upon his face she can see embarrassment, worry. "Jaffar, did you not tell me but a few days ago that you wanted them to think us animals? So that they would pass the news on to Baghdad, to scandalise all of Persia? I imagined you relished the thought."

"I am not so sure, now." He frowns. "If they only think that I beat you, that I treat you like a brute. Wouldn't the best revenge be to show our enemies how happy we were?"

"Then I shall tell them I am happy; I will show it to them," she says, clasping his hand. "That should scandalise them even further." She kisses his hand, then brings it back to her breast. "When the girls rush to tend to these welts--and I know they will--I shall moan in delight at the memory. At what a perfectly beastly lover I have in Jaffar, son of Yahya. That should set their tongues wagging."

His eyes fill with mirth and he shakes his head. "My dear, you are quite possibly a worse libertine than I. Would you challenge my reputation as the most debauched soul in all of Persia? Would you dare?"

Smiling, she sets down her coffee and kisses his mouth. "This is what you get for removing my pains, beloved. It is dangerous to loosen a woman's shame and chastity from her."

"Mmm-hmm." He returns her kiss, sighing as he lies down on top of her, rubbing lazily between her legs, freeing her of her nightshirt. "Would you like me to loosen them some more?"

She groans in frustration, wrapping her arms around him. "I would love for you to, my beast--but not yet. It's as if a herd of cats has been at me."

He winces a little as he moves on top of her, clearly love-sore himself. "If you have been savaged by cats, I feel as if wild horses have stampeded over my back. Therefore, as your personal physician," he grins, "I declare we should spend the day in bed and rest our limbs. I am sure both our bodies have had enough." Even then, he quiets a little, strokes her cheek, still somewhat concerned. "But what of your melancholies, my love? What of your demons, your nightmares?"

"There are very few left, after last night."

Because she is happy, so happy, and it is not because of the opium. She feels clear, bright, for he has washed her clean so completely: the happiness brought on by opium is always warm, dark, hazy, but the brightness she now feels in her heart is that of a spring day, of fresh water and sunlight. So much melancholy has been loosened from her through the pain he has given her, the love he has healed her with; she feels airy, light.

"It was not a nightmare of death I dreamt last night, my love, but the happiest of dreams. My husband was not dead, but had been returned to me."

He smiles, nuzzles her face. "I am glad to hear that. Would you still like me to have a peek? I feel as if I have not thanked you enough."

And in his eyes, she spies his desire to give of himself once more, sees the lingering youthfulness of the bridegroom she had known last night, he eager to shower his bride with gifts. Perhaps she spies even a little guilt, a little fear that he had hurt her too much.

"Heal yourself first, husband," she murmurs, rustling in the wrapper for another piece of candy.

She holds it out between her teeth, but Jaffar does not snatch it from her straight away. Instead, he kisses it, sucks upon it, making a shiver of arousal curl deep within her cunny.

"You are impossible," she groans, squirming underneath him as he finally takes the candy and rolls it in his mouth, swirling his tongue against his cheeks, his eyes glittering impishly.

He sucks upon the candy, barely able to keep his mouth closed, that's how hard he is smiling; he blows her a little air-kiss from his pursed lips. He lies down beside her, resting with her for a long while until the opium lights his eyes once more.

"Come lie atop me, my love," he murmurs.

She stretches and curls an arm and a leg over him. "What if I should fall?"

He shakes his head, smiles. "Then fall into me, my sweet," he says. "I shall catch you."

With a sigh of lazy contentment, she spreads herself out over him, covering his every limb with hers, the star he had drawn upon her chest framing his heartbeat.

And into him she falls, listening to his breathing, to his pulse: like a drum, it entrances her, pulls her into him, calls her to nestle close to his heart. She falls, falls until a door opens within his mind and she steps through it into their study.

Jaffar sits there upon his cushions, at his low work table; she seats herself down inside of him, for he would share his work with her. Thus, with his eyes, she takes in all his familiar clockwork equipment, the tools with which he makes things fly, walk, crawl and sing: hammers, pincers, cogs and wheels; bodies, encasings of brass and fur and glass.

And within his hands, he holds the creature that is dearest to his heart, with such reverence he can barely breathe. Softly, delicately he cups within his palms a bird, a white falcon, tending to it with utmost concentration and care. It is alive, mechanical yet animal, an animal with a living soul, not a creature of his crafting: it is a child of the wilderness, capable of feeling hunger, thirst, pain.

And it is the falcon's pain she now feels, the pain in her wings as Jaffar stretches them out, testing them, the falcon's bones so brittle underneath his great hands; sees despair in her eyes of living jet. Like its sisters, it is a noble animal, noble when cleaving the sky with its sickle-sharp wings, riding the winds, deadly and proud; swifter than any of God's creatures. But break its wing and it becomes the poorest of them all: upon the ground, exposed, it becomes the most fragile of things, most helpless, exiled from its kingdom in the heavens. Even a mouse could, then, have its revenge on her, gnaw at her while she were still alive; thrashing, screaming her pain to the unheeding sky.

"What have they done to you, my beautiful huntress?" Jaffar whispers, shaking his head, his chest expanding, then contracting with pain. "What have they done?"

She can but cry, plead, writhe and kick in his hands. For now, she finds herself separate from him, finds herself the falcon, looking up into his eyes. His eyes frighten her, for she is but an animal and does not know if this greater beast has come to eat her, devour her, to sate itself with her flesh. She knows his eyes for those of cats, enemies of all birds; yet his paws are gentle, his long fingers soothing in her feathers as they caress her wings with utmost tenderness.

And in her wings the pain, the pain, the neverending pain. She was a human once, a human child called Yassamin, and she remembers how she had always wanted to learn how to fly. She would flap her arms, flap her arms, run around in the garden until she was exhausted and still, the ground would pull her back, relentlessly returning her to the realm of earth-bound creatures. She would weep in frustration from the bottom of her lungs, her heart so yearning to fly, only for her mother to tell her a human's breast was not built the same way as a bird's; that a human could never have the strength of a bird's chest, the lightness of its wings. She had felt she had been lied to, that she had been cheated; cheated from the sky to which she knew she belonged.

But now she has known flight, has known the kingdom of the sky. She has known a king who had turned her from girl to falcon, had given her the gift of flight. Yet now--she does not know what has happened--but she has failed him: she has failed to take flight. She yearns to fly, but the pain still clips her wings, cripples her. All she can feel is that pain; an endless yearning, a desperation.

Yet now, it is love that she sees in his eyes, he calling her to trust him; even if she is but a creature of the wilderness, even if she is fragile, broken; even if she is afraid.

Her heart trembling, her feathers trembling, she ceases her struggle and lets her weight sink into the nest of his hands.

There is a star upon her breast and he presses his fingertips to it, against the rapid flicker of her heartbeat.

"Would you let me heal you?" he asks her; his voice gentle, as gentle as the spring wind.

And that wind lifts her, lifts her until she closes her eyes, until the star on her chest opens and unfolds like a flower, until her very chest falls open underneath his hand.

"Heal me," she sings to him with her gold and her brass and her feathers, sings with her clockwork whirring, clicking before his eyes. Remove one cog and you will paralyse her; stop one spring and you will mute her; break her heart and you will slay her, take the sky from her forever.

"My sweet beloved, my heart-bird," he whispers, his words soft from tears. But even if his voice wavers, his hands never do, no; not his loving hands, so delicate upon her metal, upon her flesh.

With his fingers, he reaches inside of her, deep into her chest underneath her brass and her feathers, to the dimmed lantern of her heart. He opens its window, opens it and the pain makes her tremble, the pain and the shame of being so laid bare.

For it is shame she now feels as he sees but black coals, cool even after his tending, even after years of his love. Even after their joinings, there are but a few coals glowing there, but a few, tiny pinpricks of light here and there within her. There are songs in her throat but they are but cold incense, only half-burnt; too cold, like her, to take flight.

"Beloved," he whispers once more, "Beloved," with no scorn, no pity; only compassion and love.

He touches his fingers to his own chest, draws a flame from it and settles it within her heart. And as the fire spreads inside of her, engulfing her heart, engulfing her very being, she screams. She thrashes in pain, for the flame now fills the hollows of her bones, searing her. But the pain is brief, brief and beyond it, she only feels gentleness, warmth. For now, he cradles her in both of his hands like a newborn child and blows upon her heart, blows upon it; with his breath, he now gives her life, and the coals within the lantern of her heart glow bright, bright.

And she is light: all heaviness removed from her, she is but warmth, all shining. When she opens her eyes, her embers set the irises of his eyes alight, his eyes as bright as the morning sky. He smiles at her, smiles; kissing her, caressing her with his love, he seals her breast. With his love, he holds her to his heart, her heartbeat against his, beating in time.

She curls up against his chest, closing her eyes, resting within his soft dark velvets, his love as vast as the night.

But it is then that she feels movement, feels she is being lifted, carried; she can hear the sound of his shoes whispering upon stone steps.

He lifts her upon his wrist and they are on the rooftop, the morning sun dazzling her eyes. The sun has never been brighter, the sky never bluer, his smile never more beautiful, and she aches. She cries, cries deep from her chest, spreads her wings in greeting to her king: the yearning in her breast is too much for her to bear.

"Fly, my beloved," he says, the corners of his eyes crinkling with a smile as he lifts his hand, lifts her until she can see the great grasslands, the vast forests spreading out before her, open wide. "Fly, my beloved, fly."

He flicks his wrist and she is in the air: carried by the wind, by his love, soaring high. She cries from the very depths of her joy, spirals high into the spring morning, swooning with the ecstasy of flight.

She spirals, she swoops, rises once more to greet the sun; to sing her praises, to give her thanks to God.

And in that moment, she feels the wingbeats of another, the one God had sent to be by her side: And he is with you, wherever you are.

Jaffar greets her, sings to her, spirals around her, his falcon-eyes sharp and sweet with love; her protector, her beloved, the shadow of his wingtip a blessing upon her heart.

A cry of joy bursting from her heart, she greets him back and together, they soar into the blue vastness of the morning sky.

***

END

***

My heart, the bird of the wilderness, has found its sky in your eyes.
They are the cradle of the morning, they are the kingdom of the stars.
My songs are lost in their depths.
Let me but soar in that sky, in its lonely immensity.
Let me but cleave its clouds and spread wings in its sunshine.

--Rabindranath Tagore