Zuleika and the Barbarian

'I am going to our apartments,' she whispered softly. 'Come to me as soon as you can,' and she nipped at his earlobe.

'I will come when I can, Zuleika. There are many men here of great importance to Dariyabar whom I must meet. You know what is to come, but they do not, and I would have them our friends,' the khan told his wife. Then he turned away from her to speak with a wealthy merchant of the city.

Zuleika decided that she was offended. This was their wedding night. Their real wedding night. There would be no amusing sexual games with Bahira and Sabola. Tonight they would be together, and have the leisure to enjoy each other. And he preferred to remain in the hall to chatter with merchants? He would pay for that insult, she decided silently to herself. She walked slowly through the hallways of the palace to her own apartments.

Rafa greeted her, her look questioning. 'Where is the khan?'

'In the banquet hall talking with the city's men of business,' Zuleika responded, her tone distinctly annoyed.

Rafa considered a moment, and then she said, 'He is wise to do so. When he is sultan one day, he will need their cooperation.'

'Any other time but tonight,' Zuleika replied. 'This is our wedding night! And do not tell me that I have already tasted pleasures at his hands, that is not the point. This is our wedding night!'

'You are a grown woman now, my princess,' Rafa said. 'You will be our sultana one day. You must think of Dariyabar.'

'Do not presume to tell me my duty towards Dariyabar, Rafa,' Zuleika snapped. 'I have done my duty toward this kingdom always and ever. But this is my wedding night! Go now, and leave me to myself. I do not need you to find my lonely bed.'

Rafa bowed, and departed. It was always better to take Zuleika at her word when she got like this.

Alone, the princess looked about, and decided that she would bathe in her private bath. She shrugged her gown from her body where she stood. Rafa would pick it up in the morning. She walked naked to her bathing room, filled the sea sponge with fragrant liquid soap, and washed herself. Next she rinsed herself in the marble shell basin beneath the fish spigots, finally descending into her bathing pool. She felt calmer now, but she was still angry. Well, had she herself not told him she was the key to Dariyabar? He had possessed himself of the key, and now he had what he had fought for for three years. He had Dariyabar. Her father would be dead by the end of the moon's cycle. She looked through the pale cream and gold marble pillars separating her bathing room from her gardens, and saw the thin crescent in the sky.

Each day the moon grew fatter brought her closer to losing her father. Would it not have been better if he had died several nights ago? At least then he would be safely with her mother, and she would not have to bear this eternity of waiting. Ibrahim had always favored her brothers, but she knew now that her father admired and respected her even if she was a female. And he had always been good to her. It was something to remember, and it was a good memory. She floated lazily in her bathing pool, her long, dark ebony hair streaming out behind her.

But she would not be just a sultana. She knew everything that there was to know about Dariyabar, and its history. Amir Khan had to listen to her, and at least consider her advice. She would not be an ornament, or a creature to be appreciated only for the pleasure she could give him. She was far more intelligent than her brothers had been, and she was equal in intelligence to the khan. Why were men so stubborn? Sabola wasn't that difficult. He had departed the banqueting hall with Bahira early. But Sabola is not to be the next sultan, a small voice murmured in her head. 'The Gods!' Zuleika swore. She hated that little voice, especially when it was right.

'May I join you?'

Zuleika turned her head in the direction of her husband's voice. 'Have you concluded your business, my lord?' she said, half-angrily.

'I have,' he calmly replied. He went about washing himself in an efficient manner, rinsed, and then dove into the bathing pool, surfacing next to her. 'I am surprised that you do not understand the importance of what I was doing tonight,' he began.

Zuleika's feet hit the marble bottom of the bathing pool, and she whirled about to face the khan. 'I understand everything, my lord! Given the brief time we have for you to soothe the citizens of my city before my father dies, you must make the most of your time. But this is our wedding night! Could you not have waited until tomorrow?'

'Now, my princess,' he began, almost laughing at the look of pure outrage on her beautiful face, 'the opportunity was there to show the merchants and ship owners of Dariyabar that I am not a barbarian, though you have all called me thus. They needed to know that I understand the various elements that make up their great trade. That my main goal in attacking the city was merely to gain an entry to the sea and that trade. They needed to understand that I am not a monster, that I love and adore their princess,' he finished with a mischievous smile.

'Do not try to wheedle me, Amir!' she grumbled at him.

'But, my princess, who else is there for me to wheedle?' he teased her, and reaching out, he pulled her resisting form against his.

'I hate you,' she said, half-heartedly.

'No, you don't,' he replied.

'So you love me?' she said, and began to melt at the pressure of his thighs and his belly on her thighs and belly.

'From the first moment I saw you,' he confessed.

'Indeed?' she replied.

'I am an impulsive man,' he told her. 'You do not yet love me, my princess, but in time you will. You are a careful woman who must consider the entire issue before you will commit yourself, or in this particular case, your heart.'

It startled her that he should know her so well after only three days. 'You are arrogant, and you presume far too much,' she responded, and pulling away from him swam to the steps of the pool and stood up, looking back at him a moment. Slowly she ascended the marble steps, the droplets of water gleaming like diamonds on her beautiful lithe body. 'It is possible that I just might forgive your behavior tonight,' she told him, drying herself off. 'You have pleased me in the past. It is possible you may do so again, my lord.'

He chuckled. 'Now, my princess, who is being naughty?'

Zuleika ignored his remark, and picked up a crystal flask containing a thick pale green cream. 'You will rub me with this lotion,' she said, and turning, moved slowly back into her bedchamber.

He quickly dried himself with a length of toweling, and then followed her. She was already lying upon her belly. A warm breeze, scented with damask roses and lilies, blew through the silk gauze draperies that hung between the marble pillars through which he viewed a walled garden. There was the song of a nightingale coming from that garden. Straddling her, he used her delightful and provocative bottom as a seat. Uncorking the crystal vial, he watched as the pale green cream coated its sides, finally pouring itself out into his palm. He set the container aside on the ebony table. Then rubbing his two hands together to distribute the fragrant cream, he began to massage her with slow strokes of his big hands.

'Ummm, that is quite satisfactory,' she murmured as those hands swept up the long line of her back and over her shoulders.

'Just satisfactory?' he mocked her. Then he continued to massage her until all the cream in his hands had been worked into her pale skin. Now he reversed his position, and poured more cream into his hand. Distributing the lotion between his hands a second time, he began to massage her round buttocks with an expertise that frankly surprised her. His supple fingers dug into her flesh.

'Ohhh, yes!' Zuleika said. She could feel her desires beginning to rouse themselves. 'You have obviously done this before, my lord?'

He smiled, but said nothing, instead going on to massage each of her long legs in its turn with the spicy liquid. Now he turned about once more, pushing her wet hair from her graceful neck and pressing little kisses upon the damp skin. He poured more cream, and rubbed each of her arms, her hands and long fingers.

'Amir?'