20
What if she does not want to come back to me, Darius wondered as he stared at the silver cup of tea that had once been steaming hot but was now cold and congealed. Perhaps I should have slept with her again instead of holding myself back. Perhaps I should not have told her everything. Perhaps I should have kept her for myself. Ya Allah, what have I done?
The Sheikh walked through the long hallway of the southern wing of Noramaar’s Royal Palace. A warm breeze oozed its way along the sandstone floor as Darius walked barefoot past these seldom-used rooms of his sprawling palace. This had been where the old Sheikhs of Noramaar had kept the women of their harems, and Darius smiled tightly as he walked into an enclosed courtyard and stopped near the black marble fountain that had been turned off and drained years ago.
There were doors lining the walls that faced the courtyard and fountain, each door painted a different color, some of them with Arabic inscriptions above them, others with symbols, a few with jewels embedded into the old teakwood frames. Darius smiled as he walked to one of the doors and ran his fingers along the inscription. It marked the rooms of the nikaabi, women of the harem who could be shared with guests of the Sheikh so long as the guests were of royal blood. To the left were the rooms of the wakaabi, women who could be offered as rewards for great service to the kingdom. Generals and soldiers were often the ones graced with the gift of a night with the wakaabi.
Finally Darius stopped near the last door, marked with a single diamond. These were the chambers of the shikaabi, the women who came here untouched and would never be touched by any except the supreme Sheikh himself. The king’s private stock. Ah, the days of old!
Darius laughed out loud and shook his head as he slammed his palms against the door. The history of man and woman is a strange story, is it not, he thought as he touched his head to the old teakwood and then turned and walked back to the fountain. Adam and Eve. Samson and Delilah. Romeo and Juliet. He laughed again as he thought of those famous couples of myth. The choice to be together brought about the downfall of each of those couples. Had there ever been a great love story that did not end in tragedy?
“Perhaps Jan’s theories are correct,” he muttered as he looked down over the wall of the black fountain. He saw the levers to turn the water back on, and reached down and slowly released them, smiling as the old pipes gurgled and spat and slowly began to serve up their flow once more. “Perhaps those stories were tragedies because they denied the true history of man and woman, that the story of one man for one woman is a myth, a fiction itself.” The Sheikh dipped his hand into the warm waters of the fountain and took a breath. “Of course it is a myth. Look at these rooms of the old harem. Look at the history of infidelity in every culture, society, and household. Look at every ruler from Genghis Khan to Henry the Eighth to Cleopatra to the queens of the Russian empire. They all loved many in their lifetimes, many at the same time. Jan is right. Our true nature is not what we think it is. It is not what we want it to be. She is right. By Allah, she is right!”
And so what will be the story of Jan and Darius and Ephraim, the Sheikh wondered as he stepped into the fountain and stood there, knee deep in the warm water, surrounded by the empty rooms of this palace of fantasy. A tragedy? A farce? Or a love story?
Who knows, he decided as he stepped out and headed back down the sandstone hallways, pulling out his phone along the way and breathing hard as excitement whipped through him. It had been two days since he’d been back in Noramaar, and by now he had no doubt that although Ephraim had taken Jan, she’d also allowed herself to be taken, which meant only one thing: It was time to bring them all together.
But where, he wondered as he dialed Ephraim’s private line and waited, wondering why he would expect Ephraim to answer, wondering if he even wanted Ephraim to answer. Where to meet for the first time? A hotel suite? A palace? Europe? South America? Paris? Rio?
The answer came to Darius just as Ephraim answered.
“Two days, Darius?” came Ephraim’s deep voice over the phone. “It takes you two days to call to check on your woman?”
“My woman?” said Darius after a moment’s pause. “Or our woman?”
Ephraim was silent, but Darius could hear him breathe. “Darius, how well do you know Jan?”
“Well enough. How well do you know her, Ephraim?”
Ephraim laughed, but it was a measured laugh. “Well enough to know that there is much I do not know about her. Do not underestimate her, Darius.” He paused and took a breath, his voice going cold in a way that told Darius everything he needed to know about how well Ephraim “knew” Jan by now. “And do not underestimate me, Darius.”
“I am wary of making any estimates in this game,” whispered Darius. “None of us knows how this will play out.”
“Yet each of us knows how we want it to play out, yes?”
Darius frowned as a chill ran through him, the sensation transforming into a steady buzz that troubled him. What was Ephraim saying? That he wanted Jan for himself? Had she told him everything? Had they already fallen in love? The thoughts came quick and hard, and Darius had to take several breaths before he remembered that much of this game would be played in their own heads, with their own emotions, their own doubts and uncertainties, needs and wants, ambitions and aggressions.
“Do we, Ephraim? Do we truly know how we want it to play out?”
Ephraim laughed. “I know how you want it to play out. The three of us, Jan between us.” He snorted. “Or Jan on top, rather. Queen of two kingdoms. The grand Sheikha who unites two kingdoms on the brink of war. Ya Allah, I do not know whether to laugh or cry at your childish idealism.” A pause and then his pitch deepened. “Perhaps it is indeed time for Noramaar to have a new ruler. Perhaps the good Sheikh Darius has lost his mind. That is what happens when you do away with your harem and spend your days holding your royal cock in your hand and holding these delusions in your mind.”
Darius breathed deep and ignored the insult. “And is your harem bringing light and joy to your nights, Ephraim? If so, please return Jan to me and that will be the end of it.”
“Return her to you? She belongs to you?” Ephraim laughed. “Ah, you have showed your hand, Darius. You already feel the possessiveness of a jealous lover. You are not prepared to play this game, because you have allowed her to get under your skin.”
Darius smiled, his eyes narrowed and focused. “And you have showed your hand too, Ephraim. I hear it in your voice. She has gotten under your skin too.” He paused, and when he heard the heavy silence on the other end of the line, he knew he was right. “Do you see why I chose her? Why it had to be her? Why it had to be a woman who could stand up to the two of us? Stand between us? Stand above us if it comes to that? Do you see, Ephraim?”
Ephraim was silent for a long time, his breathing the only sign that he was still on the line. “Yes,” he said finally. “She could stand up to the two of us. Stand between us. Mentally, intellectually, and physically. She could handle us both.” He took a trembling breath and whispered softly: “She could take us both.”
Darius felt that old excitement of competition roar through him as he gripped his phone so tight it almost cracked down the middle. It was time. Time to take this to the next step and see how it would play out.
“Noor Island,” said Darius quietly. “Two days.”
Ephraim paused. “Noor Island,” he said slowly. “In the middle of the Golden Oasis? It is too small to land a plane. We can only get there by boat.”
“I think you can find a boat, yes?” Darius said. But he knew what Ephraim meant: Noor Island was a patch of raised desert, dead in the middle of the vast Golden Oasis. It was neutral territory, land owned by neither kingdom. But it was also small and wild, the desert plants so overgrown that not even a helicopter could land there. The bed of the oasis near the shoreline was shifting sand, with water levels that could change overnight, making it dangerous to bring a large boat in to shore for fear of running aground.
“We have palaces the size of football stadiums, mansions in Europe and South America, properties in Asia and Australia, and you want to meet on a patch of sand in the middle of nowhere?” said Ephraim, half laughing.
“The Golden Oasis is not nowhere. It is everywhere,” said Darius. “That is the place. Why, are you afraid of the rumors of the peculiar island snakes of Noor Island, vipers and constrictors that eat each other and are always hungry for fresh meat?”
Ephraim laughed. “Snakes and desert islands. What other way to let this twisted tale play itself out, yes? All right, Darius. Noor Island. I am sure Professor Johansen will be thrilled. She is a biologist by training, after all. You, me, and Jan, in a pit of snakes. Let the games begin.”
Darius grunted as a vivid image of that night back at Oxford came to mind. But instead of that slim Scandinavian princess between them it was a curvy American queen spread wide and filled deep, from top and bottom, front and behind, inside and outside. He pushed the image away, but the imprint remained, almost like it was a vision of an event that had already happened.
“Noor Island,” Darius said, somehow knowing that Ephraim’s mind had travelled to the same place in that moment. “The three of us and the snakes. Bring your own anti-venom.”