Acts of Love (18 page)

Glorious as she was, much as he wanted to come, to have her swallow every last drop of the copious orgasm he held back, he wanted more. Ahmad stopped her with protestations of love, erotic suggestions to excite her imagination. She submitted. Once more he was in command.

Chapter 13

Love did not govern Arianne’s splendid days and magnificent nights. What she and Ahmad had together was primitive. Sexual licence was their aim, what they never wearied of. New and exotic fare was what satisfied their appetite for each other, not love. Basic instincts governed their closeness on their journey up the Nile. Arianne was too busy living every minute, experiencing the erotic life again, to analyse, rationalise or justify. She merely assumed her actions were governed by love.

By day they sailed, and when time and privacy permitted, they spent hours together talking. Out of respect for the crew, and not wanting to offend or to detract from the excitement on board for the race and their determination to win it, the lovers were discreet in exercising their daytime lust for each other.

Ahmad’s talk was always informative and amusing. He could truly charm. Arianne listened and learned, was somehow mesmerised by it. Her own contributions were far from dull – they kept Ahmad’s attention, incited in him an even greater interest to possess Arianne utterly. Conversation and affection, stolen kisses and caresses, filled their lazy days while they waited for night to fall and the bedouin tent to be raised. Within, an antique brass brazier, with its domed and spired lid topped by a plumed bird cast in brass, waited to be lit to warm their romantic haven. The lanterns spread a soft, warm glow over the period Persian carpets adorning the deck, and over the gold, silver, crimson and purple brocades woven in luscious patterns that covered the large cushions strewn about.

Periodically through the day, when Ahmad felt that Arianne might be slipping from the erotic spell he cast over her, he would whisper lewd and exciting things in her ear: promises of passion to come after dark; thoughts that both excited and frightened. But frightened not enough to calm desire or to cause her to forget what
ecstasy, what bliss he could wring from her. He had only to say a word, to touch her in a certain way, for her to think of being enslaved to him in lust within the tent, where, from the small, many-drawered, inlaid chest of wood, ivory and gold, he would each night withdraw some new and exciting object made specifically to intensify a woman’s sexual pleasure. Like the huge fresh-water pearls on a silk cord which she wore even now in her vagina. He had placed them there so that during the day at any given time, whether in front of people or alone, he could order her to indulge herself, to contract the muscles of her vagina and feel those lustrous pearls, until she drove herself, as he held her hand or caressed her hair, to come. It felt wickedly sexy.

After several days on the felucca she began to wonder if the erotic ointments that were housed in small porcelain pots in the chest were not addictive. He used them on the outer and inner labia, those most sensitive of lips, and massaged them inside her vagina. The ointments heightened her pleasure, made her voracious for a man’s penis and crazy with desire. They did, too, inspire in her longer, stronger and more violently exciting orgasms, multiple orgasms that exhausted her to near fainting. But there were things from the box to sniff, to revive her. There was always something more to control her, to enslave her to him, to the Eros embodied in him. Once such scented salves had faded away, she missed those heightened moments, and yearned for Ahmad to appear with his tiny pots of female ecstasy. But there was always something more, ever varied, always exciting, to be discovered in Ahmad’s box of sexual wonders. Ahmad could and did on many a night seduce her with the erotic contents from the inlaid box – something to make her beg to be transported to that wonderful realm of sexual oblivion …

After several days on the Nile, one day seemed to drift into another. Time lost its meaning. They might have been together a day, a month, a lifetime. They were living and loving in a time-warp, where there was no beginning, middle or end – just dawn and dusk to measure their life by.

The river and the scenery had now become more dynamic and romantic. It was a scene that had regressed through the centuries of time. For the desert was there stretching out from the narrow band of green on the banks of the Nile as far as the eye could see
into an arid, stony silence. The feluccas were spread out on the Nile now. The triangular sails, both behind and in front of the
Osiris
, seen at a distance, were like giant, prehistoric wings fluttering whitely under an unusually warm winter sun as they skimmed low over the waters of the Nile.

Each morning just before dawn, Muhammad would light several lanterns and wake Arianne and Ahmad. He would prepare a huge pot of strong black coffee, bring from the stores one of the several cured hams they breakfasted on, with a bag of bread, baked hard in ovens in Cairo, bread whose savour was to be resurrected by dunking in their morning brew. Slabs of cheese, a dish of butter, a large pot of honey. Oranges from a basket. When Arianne and Ahmad surfaced from their tent, light would be just breaking through the darkness, the stars and moon fading from sight. Ahmad would extend the plank from the rail of the boat to the bank, cross it and call to the crew to board.

From the first morning they had awakened on the
Osiris
, the pattern was set. All ate their fill because no more food was served until dark. They gossiped to each other, mostly about politics, or discussed the day’s sailing, checking on their immediate objectives, and ensuring that everyone knew the drill. They were invariably the first to weigh anchor, theirs was the first sail to catch the wind.

On board each had his chores, and must pull his weight. An erotic voyage it may have been for Arianne and Ahmad, but for the
Osiris
to win the race had always been the prime concern. And Arianne did her chores as well as the next man, which gained her the respect and admiration of the crew. She did the washing-up, kept the stores in order, cleaned the lanterns in the morning, then lazed about all day unless called to help with the sail, or – if no one else was available – to sit on the bow’s rail and scan the river for obstructions, or a rogue current. Someone was always on watch for anything that might impede them.

Now their plan was entering its final stage. They were lying in third place. This was the stretch of the Nile they had been waiting for, here was where they had their chance to win. No one knew the Nile from this section of the river to Aswan better than Abdul Wassif, a captain of his own felucca, who now took over.

Every second would count. Nothing must be left to chance. He demanded of them, ‘You must want to win so much you can taste success in your mouth. It’s on your tongue, there is nothing more delicious in the world than the sweet taste of success.’ He had charged them up, their adrenaline was running. Fresh energy and passion inspired them all. They set sail with new vigour.

All Abdul Wassif’s commands were translated by Ahmad for Arianne. Even she was given a new job on the
Osiris
. ‘You’ve brought in a ringer. Clever move,’ she told Ahmad, adding gleefully, ‘we’re going to win the race.’

‘Had you any doubts?’

‘Frankly, yes.’

He began to laugh. It was a self-satisfied laugh. Sly? devious? She wasn’t sure, but it did irritate her, and she didn’t quite know why. ‘You’ll tell me anything goes when you’re out to win, or something like that.’

‘I wasn’t going to tell you anything, but, yes, that’s true.’ Again the complacent look in his eyes as he added, ‘In love or war. And have no doubt, my lovely Arianne, to win is always to wage war in one way or another.’ His gaze seemed to burn into her soul. It excited nearly as much as it frightened her. But she had no time to think about it. He swept her off her feet and swung her round and round while kissing her crazily all over her face. Ahmad was happy and it was infectious. Happiness makes it so easy to forget the questions.

Arianne and Ahmad were sitting together in their favourite place, at the bow of the felucca, their feet dangling over the side. There was hardly a breeze. The heat felt good. A short time before, they had taken a shower together in the stern of the felucca, where a small dressing room had been built.

Arianne’s hair was still damp. She shook it and ran her fingers through it. She caught sight of Ahmad watching her and recognised a look he sometimes had for her. It was not frequent, but when she did catch it, it touched her heart. It was a loving gaze, filled with contentment.

Both were dressed in jeans and white cotton shirts. They went barefoot. They looked and felt younger than their years. Both knew that they were not like adults playing serious sexual games,
but young lovers. Arianne reached out to take Ahmad’s hand in hers. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a ring: a large and beautiful cabochon ruby mounted on a ring of blue-white diamonds. He slipped it on her finger. A perfect fit. The gem sparkled in the sun. It was a voluptuous jewel that cast an erotic spell; a powerful gem, no doubt with an intriguing history attached to it. One sensed great loves and great tragedies within the ring.

Arianne said the first thing that came into her mind: ‘It might have belonged to Catherine the Great of Russia.’

Ahmad threw back his head and laughed. ‘It
did
indeed belong to Catherine, mistress of those she ruled and master of those she loved!’

Arianne hardly heard his words. She was mesmerised by the beauty and the magic of the ruby. It was an extraordinary gift, and she knew that she could not accept it. It frightened her. Ahmad had given her many valuable gifts, but none quite as startling as this one. Many times she had been overwhelmed by his generosity, the connotations of his extravagant gestures. They sometimes disturbed her. They were powerful statements of what she was to Ahmad. They caused her anxiety, conflict, because she was those things to him – mistress, his sexual slave – because he sometimes trod a sexually sinister edge, and she was not unwilling to match him there, step for step. At times Arianne even coveted his sexual corruption of her. His gifts were sometimes like labels she was meant to wear, messages declaring to the world the dark side of her own sexual nature. They spelled out – albeit à la Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels – whore, mistress, erotic love. She detested labels, adored her secret life with her husband and lover. In days past, she had always accepted those special labelling gifts he had lavished on her because Jason had always been there to calm her unease. Her husband and her lover had always protected her from each other.

Arianne had been aware that behind Jason’s and Ahmad’s façade of intelligence, kindness and love there lay cunning and selfishness. It had never mattered to her: she was unconditionally in love with Jason. How easy it was to give herself up to his and Ahmad’s sexual whims. She had made them her own. She revelled in sexual excess because love governed, love made the
choices. When she married Jason she became an instrument of his will. It suddenly occurred to her, while looking at the magnificent ring on her finger, that that was exactly what Ahmad wanted. And here, with that blood-red ruby dancing fire and passion in the light, was the label to prove her right.

Arianne felt suddenly thrust into an awareness of Ahmad that she had hardly encountered before. She had held Ahmad in high esteem. He had seemed above other men. Was he merely mortal? Had she lain with him for so many years only to find suddenly that he was a stranger?

Such thoughts ran crazily in her mind as she gazed into the rare Burmese ruby. What magic powers lurked in the heart of that jewel to conjure such thoughts? Or, she had to ask herself, was it the label he pinned on her when he had presented her with that so-unsettling ring? There was no Jason any more to protect her. She was alone with Ahmad. Suddenly she understood that she hardly knew him, yet he had a most profound power over her. An insistent inner voice asked: Who is this man to whom I so willingly surrender my whole being every time lust takes over?

‘You’re dazzled. You’re also speechless,’ he told her, amused by her reaction to his gift.

His words seemed to recall her from her anxieties. ‘I have never seen a piece of jewellery so grand, so exciting. It’s true it has rendered me speechless. But now I have my voice back, I have to tell you that I adore it and always will. But I cannot accept it.’

Now he laughed at the very idea that she might return it to him. ‘It doesn’t suit you?’ he teased.

‘I have no place to wear it.’

‘In bed with me is place enough.’

This relieved some of the anxiety she was feeling over the gift of the ring. Here was more familiar ground. He placed a finger under her chin, raised her head, and, gazing into her face, searched it as if he expected some revelation. Whatever it might be wasn’t there, and that seemed to satisfy him. He placed his lips upon hers and kissed her. His hands roamed under her shirt and caressed her bare breasts. He rolled her nipples between his fingers and felt her squirm under his touch.

She felt calmer about him, even if not about the ring on her
finger. Was she being fanciful about Ahmad? Had their relationship been more complex than she had imagined for all those years the three of them had been together? Yes, she told herself, you were being just a bit foolish. Never one to read too much into situations, she was relieved to rid herself of her anxiety over Ahmad and his intentions.

They held hands again and sat in silence for some time just drinking in the landscape. Several women draped in black were walking along the bank. They had appeared as if from nowhere. A line of children trailing a donkey behind them soon caught up with the women. Arianne and Ahmad waved to the group on the bank. Ahmad called out to them in Arabic. When asked who they were and why all the boats were on the river, he told them. More waving until the felucca left them far behind – small black dots on the green bank. He placed an arm around her. ‘Happy?’

‘Very.’ That was no lie. She had fallen once again under the spell of Egypt and her handsome Egyptian lover.

‘Then come for me.’ A sensual tone was in his voice. Lust for her was in his eyes. He didn’t wait for an answer. He whispered in her ear how he would like to take her. He inflamed her with images she found irresistible. She wanted to come. She squeezed on the pearls again and again. How exquisite always to have something inside her to kiss with her cunt. He held her tight. When she came he felt her tremble in his arms, and he wanted to weep for the joy she gave him when she sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. He had sensed her slipping away from him. Now he had her back again. She was so deliciously easy to corrupt. But Ahmad was in no way a fool about women. He knew he did not yet have Arianne’s unconditional love. Her love for him was still like quicksilver in the hand – tenuous, elusive. Time, it was only a matter of time, he told himself.