and we chose Roxelana to take you through something lower and more physical. It was my fault. I thought that you might have been ready for Mihrimah, when clearly you were not. Still Roxelana probably gave you what you needed… ’
She looked as though she was going to say a lot more, but at that moment a ragged fanfare of shawms accompanied by cymbals sounded outside the Rapturous Chamber.
‘The Valide Sultan has arrived,’ said Anadil, looking apprehensive. ‘I only hope we are not approaching the final ritual performance too quickly.’
Chapter Eight
DYING OF PLEASURE
When Orkhan in the Cage had fantasised about life outside its walls, he had had no idea that the reality would be so strange. Together with Anadil, he passed through the outer reception room and emerged into daylight once more. The Valide Sultan, dressed in heavy black and red brocade and flanked by attendant concubines and eunuchs, stood waiting on the grass. This was the first time that Orkhan had seen her when she was not laughing. She stepped forward to brush at his hair with an anxious gesture. Then she embraced him, before pulling back a little, so that her hands rested on his shoulders, and she began to address him,
‘Beloved son, this is your mother’s proudest day of her life. Beloved son, you are now only a few moments away from encountering your betrothed and consummating the marriage which for so many years I have been dreaming of for a child of mine.’
Although the Valide Sultan faced Orkhan directly, she did not seem to see him. She was gazing into the past, staring at it with such intensity that she seemed to see everything that had vanished so many years ago in perfect detail.
‘I was born in the Harem,’ she continued. ‘And I have spent all my life within its walls. I remember that, when I was little, I had a toy model of the Harem, perfect in every detail, to play with. I used to put my dolls in it and have them play at harems, for of course I knew of no other world. I used to arrange weddings and wedding- feasts for my dolls within its tiny rooms. But there was one particular doll, which was an especial favourite of mine, whom I could not marry off for a long time. This was because I could not think of a bride who should be noble enough, rich enough and beautiful enough to become the wife of my favourite doll. Then one day I was inspired and decided that he could marry the Divinity and then there could be the grandest of all wedding feasts for such a mystic marriage.’
She sighed, reluctant to leave her memories,
‘That was long ago and all in play. Yet what the child dreamed of in play has come to fruit in reality today. For Orkhan, beloved son of mine, I have betrothed you to the Divinity. Even now the Goddess is hastening to your bed. Listen!’
Orkhan, listening, heard nothing save his mother’s stertorous breathing.
‘She is close! Very close!’ the Valide Sultan insisted. ‘Just now She is like a gentle breeze stirring in the tops of the trees. Then, when She comes to you, She will be like a forest fire and, finally, when you consummate your love you will be swept up in the flaming cyclone of Her embrace — or so it may seem to you. But who can describe congress with the Infinite? Here I am, an ordinary mortal, and I am trying to tell you in words about something for which there can be no words.’
Now the Valide Sultan really did look at Orkhan and her voice hardened,
‘I see from your eyes that you are afraid. Do not be so. You are only a day out of the Cage and you have already enjoyed several women. Yet the delights you have experienced with them will come to seem as nothing when the Goddess comes to your bed. You will look back on your first fumbling explorations of sex with women and, by comparison with what you have since experienced, it will seem to you that you were then fucking creatures no more substantial than shadows. Foolish people think that the ultimate mystery of life resides in the spirit. The wise know that it is found nowhere save in the flesh. The Goddess who is even now beginning to spread Her mighty thighs is the fleshly incarnation of ultimate love and all other women are merely the ghostly and reflected images of Her infinitely voluptuous body. She is robed in oceans and sunsets. But she will strip herself for you. Do you not like the firm breasts of young women? The Goddess has breasts which are larger than mountains.’
‘I will try to describe the fierce delight of being in bed with her. Your hair will stand on end and your eyeballs will pop out of their sockets and you will bite your tongue and she will crack your spine in her embrace and that will only be the beginning of it. Death is the bed on which the lover joins the Beloved. Yet, I promise you, you will not want to resist, for She will seem to you dearer than life itself, and you will yearn only to be melted in Her flames. As you melt with desire, you will experience yourself in a state of liquefaction and it will seem to you that your whole body is being melted into semen, until you are ejaculated out of your own penis in a paradox of ecstasy. Orgasm comes as a flash of white lightning filling the dark horizon of the soul. In a single love-bite the Goddess will devour you, so that you are She and She you, so that you will find yourself shafting yourself.’
The Valide Sultan paused, lost in this vision, before resuming in a steadier voice,
‘After you have been bedded by the Goddess, you will see Her in all other women and experience infinite rapture with them as often as you choose. This is what it means to become the Golden Man and it will be proved when you take Mihrimah to bed, for, after you have been bedded by the Goddess, then straightaway you will take Mihrimah as your second wife and embrace her, and it may be that with the Goddess’s favour Mihrimah will conceive. In such a manner, I shall become the grandmother of a child of the Divinity, something which I have yearned for since girlhood.’
‘Mother, I am not ready for this honour. I think that I need more time for preparation. I should like some time to think about my duties as a bridegroom.’
She smiled reassuringly,
‘I only wish I was a man so that I could take the Goddess to bed. If only I could make you understand how it will be, then you would certainly not still be standing here talking to an old woman like me, for you would be rushing to the bridal chamber, anxious not to delay your meeting with the Beloved by a single minute. You are young and healthy and Anadil, Mihrimah and Roxelana are all good girls. They are appointed handmaidens of the Goddess and they have made you as ready as you will ever be. I know that you are not going to disappoint me, as Barak did. The Goddess made the world in order to be loved by it, so you cannot help but love her when she comes for you. But I should not stand here prattling away like someone who has lost her wits. I will leave Mihrimah here to describe the precise manner of your love-making with the Divinity and what you must do to please your bride. I will now hurry away to the Porcelain Pavilion, where my girls are even now preparing a post-nuptial feast. Beloved son, I will be waiting for you there and anxiously hoping to hear of your emergence from the Chamber of Rapture.’
With that she abruptly kissed Orkhan on the brow and walked away.
Now Mihrimah and Anadil came close to him and Mihrimah began to speak in a low muffled voice,
‘Now you know that your mother glories in the fact that it is one of her sons who is about to become the Golden Man. It now falls upon me to explain the sequence of actions to be followed when we return to the Rapturous Chamber.’
She paused to check that she had all his attention, before insisting,
‘It is most important that you should be fully aware of what you are about to undergo.’
‘It is better to know what is going to happen,’ chimed in Anadil, ‘for the unknown is always frightening, is it not?’
And Mihrimah resumed her speech,
‘This is how it will happen. There will be just the four of us — you, me, Anadil and, of course, Roxelana, for she is one of the strongest of the concubines. Together we four will enter the Rapturous Chamber. We will undress you, and you will assist in my undressing. Next, as you stand in contemplation of me in my lustrous nakedness, Anadil will take your cock in her mouth. Then swiftly — it must be very swift — Roxelana will produce the silken bowstring and throttle you. You will then ejaculate in the ecstasy of the Death of the Just Man and, in so doing, experience the Holy Rapture, which is the gift of the Goddess. Yet you will be dead for an instant only, for Anadil will have collected in her mouth all your semen, which contains the departing life force, and she will swiftly deliver your semen back to you in a loving kiss. Now the dead man drinks of the dead man’s seed and chokes and shudders
