I stare, too shocked to speak.

Do I frantically try to cover myself with my arms and hands? Demand he leave? Scream? Run into the bathroom and hope someone left me a towel? I mentally flip through each option like I’m searching for the best possible scene for an in-production rom-com.

“Where…uh, where are my clothes?” I ask lamely.

Not the best first line. The producers at His Majesty definitely would have made me do another take. But I’m standing here buck-ass naked, while Zahir—save for his wing-tip half boots, which I can see near the door— is fully dressed in a tailored pinstripe suit. Forgive me for not being able to think up a pithy one-liner.

Zahir picks up a tall silver coffee pot with a beaked spout and pours steaming dark liquid into a small gold-etched glass. He raises the glass to his lips with both hands and takes a careful sip before answering, “You will not have access to your clothing until I deem you acceptable.”

Acceptable. Raima’s words about me exercising for an hour per day after I am deemed acceptable come back like the Ghost of Two Days Past.

I jerk my head back as the gravity of my situation dawns on me like a slap to the face. “Wait, you’re holding my clothes hostage until I am docile enough for you? Or some fucked up shit like that?!”

I know I am not supposed to curse in Jahwar. It is considered disrespectful, among other things. But I think it’s safe to say I am definitely not the most disrespectful person in this room right now.

Instead of responding, Zahir takes another sip of his coffee and settles back into his chair. The only frigging chair at the table, I might add. “This is excellent coffee. The staff brews it with cardamom, cinnamon, and a pinch of saffron. Would you like some?”

Yes…but aloud I say, “I would like my clothes.”

“Then perhaps you should work harder to please me,” he answers, his voice polite to the point of sounding almost sinister.

It is a struggle not to pull out my Jersey birds and straight cuss him out like the trashy girl I know he still believes me to be.

“Okay, fine. Yes, I’d like some coffee please,” I say, deciding to play along. I make a big show of looking for a chair. “Hmmm. I guess I’m supposed to stand with my drink until you think I deserve a chair, right?”

“No,” he answers, setting his cup back into a gold-rimmed glass saucer.

Before I can feel any relief, he adds, “I expect you to sit on my lap to receive breakfast at my leisure. If you are good and respectful, you may have a few sips of my coffee after you have finished eating.”

I stare at him. Then stare at him some more. Then—fuck this shit—I straight cuss him out. Reading him for filth, like it’s November sweeps and the show’s renewal status is on the line.

However, Zahir merely sits at the table, taking leisurely sips of his coffee as I cuss his ass all the way to New Jersey and back.

When I finally run out of breath he says, “You will remain naked until I deem you acceptable. You will eat from my hand and only from my hand until I deem you acceptable. If you do not—”

“Eat from your hand? Like a dog?!” I spit out, cutting him right the hell off.

“If you do not eat from my hand like a woman I deem acceptable,” he answers, his voice as calm as mine is angry, “you will starve.”

“Go right ahead and try to starve me! I’ll tell Holt you’re withholding food!” I shoot back, pulling out my wali card like a life-line.

“Yes, of course, you will, Prin,” he answers, raising his coffee back up to his mouth. “You’ve already done so much to sabotage Holt’s wedding, why not also ensure the demise of his first family vacation by forcing him to return and clean up even more of the mess you’ve made? In any case, until I provide you with a phone to make that call, the fact remains that you will only eat when it is on my terms.”

My lips clamp and unclamp. I want to call his bluff, but I know he’s right…I already ruined Holt and Sylvie’s wedding night. And if I call Holt now…assuming I can even get my hands on a phone…I would be solely responsible for ruining their family vacation-slash-honeymoon, too.

Zahir must see his point made in my faltering expression, because he comes to a stand and raps the tabletop with his knuckles, like I’d seen him do in his office. And just like that, Raima and Nabida return and, eyes lowered, begin clearing the table.

“She may have her study aids and water, but nothing else,” Zahir tells them in English—no doubt to ensure I understand just how much power he has over me. Then he leaves without another glance in my direction.

He returns for lunch, and I refuse to sit in his lap.

He returns for dinner, and I make a big show of announcing I would rather go to bed hungry as I climb into a now sheet-less bed. Not surprisingly, between the stress and the lack of food, I end up falling asleep…

“Please do not throw us across the room,” Nabida says when she wakes me an hour later. Zahir is, thankfully, gone.

She places me in the bath and begins scrubbing off my make-up. We don’t talk like we did before. The friendly spa vacation feeling is definitely over. Nabida and Raima aren’t my new friends. They’re two women who work for Zahir. And this time, I don’t bother asking questions I know they won’t answer.

When Nabida leads me back into the bedroom, Raima is putting the finishing touches on making the bed with fresh sheets and a cover…which are then whisked away again the next morning soon after Nabida wakes me and leads me into the bathroom.

The women don’t bother with a robe this time. I’m patted dry and shown to the makeup chair. I consider batting them away, but yesterday’s feeling of hangry has given way to fatigue. I sit back and let them do what they want.

Zahir is at the table when I emerge from the bathroom. I say nothing, just watch Nabida and Raima bow before leaving the room.

“Would you like breakfast?” Zahir asks, his voice as cold and polite as always. So polite.

I don’t answer. Instead, I sit on the bed and watch him watch me over a tantalizing breakfast of pita, olives, and some dark and delicious smelling dip.

“I will see you again at the midday meal,” he says after fifteen minutes of this. Then he leaves, and the Wonder Attendants return.

I do my best to study, but the room is too warm and my mind refuses to work properly. I have barely managed to memorize a page worth of legal terms and when I look down at my notebook, there’s a line written there: stripped me of everything then asked if I wanted coffee with that.

Fuck. A lyric. Which is a drug I no longer do, since my fledgling dream of becoming a professional songwriter went down with my dad’s plane.

I tear the notebook page out and ball it up, just before Nabida and Raima show up to clear the table and me so Zahir can return for lunch.

“Would you like a sfeeha?” he asks during lunch, lifting a gorgeous dough pocket with minced meat inside. “It’s one of the things I missed most when I attended school in the States.”

Would I like a sfeeha? I stare at him angrily. Then I come around the table…

…and quietly take a seat in his lap.

In the end, it doesn’t feel like I have much of a choice. I’m hungry, and my ability to reason is rapidly draining away. I can’t concentrate enough to study…or not write song lyrics… or plot my way out of this. I’m becoming weak…

An image of my mother’s prone body on her bedroom floor comes back to me. She still has a Sharpie marker in her hand. I try to shake her awake only to realize that this time, she is way more than passed out. Her beautiful eyes are open, but her soul…it has flown off in the night and it’s far, far away—fuck, lyric. See, what I mean?

But I can’t succumb to weakness like my mother did. The twins still need me. I can’t be a songwriter. I have to pass the bar and make it through the next six months with my mind intact, so that I can get another law job as soon as I’m back in the States. That means I can’t starve to death. If I want to win this game, I’ve got to eat.

Much to my annoyance, Zahir doesn’t act even a little surprised at my sudden acquiescence. He simply begins feeding me, as if he knew I’d cave all along. First, he gives me some dates, which taste like fucking heaven—seriously, why aren’t dates more popular in the States? They’re the perfect food. Sticky and sweet with just the right amount of hunger-busting fiber.

Next, Zahir feeds me bits of hummus and pita, followed by a couple of sfeeha pockets, which turn out to be a lamb and pine nut mixture baked into a kind of semi-sweet phyllo dough. In other words, sfeeha equals straight up ambrosia and it only takes about six or seven of them until I feel truly full.

I don’t say a word during the entire exchange and neither does Zahir. But when I’ve finished my last sfeeha, he asks, “Would you like some coffee?”

I shake my head. “Water.”

“Water…” he repeats, voice leading.

“Please,” I say, cashing in another pride chip to push the world out.

The coffee pot is within easy reach, but he has to shift me in his lap to grab the glass jug. He does it easily, lifting up one leg and sliding me back as he reaches for the water.

And that’s when I feel it for the third time. Holt said Zahir wasn’t a monster, but I can feel one beneath his pants, hard and all but pulsing.

I squirm in Zahir’s lap, trying to find a place to put my bottom so I can drink my water and be done with this lunch. But then a new heat rises in me and I begin to squirm for a different reason.

He has finished pouring the water. It is there for me to take. But instead of reaching for the glass, I keep squirming, the heat suffusing me as I try to satisfy a sudden aching need.

I can feel his eyes on me, so I close mine to block him out. I don’t think about Zahir at all, just about the monster I can’t see, hard beneath my pussy. Giving me a steady purchase as I try to find a rhythm that will yield what I want—

Two hands clamp down on my hips making it so I can’t move. “You will beg,” a voice whispers in my ear, even as the monster pushes into the back of my naked pussy, so deep, I dumbly clench around it, trying to get at something I can’t have. So deep, my wet core will definitely leave a spot on his pants.

But not deep enough.

With an easy lift up and down of his thickly muscled arms, Zahir removes me from his lap. I stand on trembling legs, trying to figure out what just happened. What came over me…

And, oh God…I did leave a spot. Hot shame washes over me as I take in the dark wet patch on the crotch of his no doubt expensive pants.

But if Zahir is feeling similar embarrassment, it doesn’t show. Instead, he steps in close and asks, “Are you satisfied? Did you get enough?”

We both know he’s not talking about the food…and that my answer is no. But I nod anyway, stubbornly ignoring the heartbeat that has found its way to my core as I say, “Yeah…I’m done here.”

A beat of silence passes. Then, “How long has it been since you were with another man?”

I shake my head, not wanting to answer.

“Months?” he asks. “Years?”

The answer is none of his business and I remain silent. But Zahir must see the truth in my averted gaze.

“Years,” he says, shaking his head slowly. “And tell me, Prin, will I be your first—?”

“No,” I answer, immediately cutting him off. I have no problem answering this question.

“…your first orgasm?” he finishes, his voice taking on a censorious tone at my interruption. “Has a man ever made you come? Or only your vibrator? If you answer truthfully, I will permit you to have one vibrator to keep you…occupied until our next meal.”

I bite down, hating the amused emphasis he puts on the word “occupied,” and hating how much I want to answer just to win that prize. My pussy feels hollow now, aching with the memory of something almost within reach before he abruptly snatched it away.

My pride saves me in the end. It may be battered after the lap incident, but it’s still working. It clamps my lips together and tells me not to think about what I’d do with a vibrator if I had one to use after Zahir left.

Besides, the truth is too embarrassing to admit. Like, I’m going to tell this cruel and sadistic bastard that most of the men I’ve dated have been more interested in our Instagram posts than in making sure I came. Hell, a few of the moderately famous ones expected me to do all the work. To perform for them, like I was one of the strippers at the clubs they rapped about and was being paid to entertain them.

“I’m satisfied,” I insist, taking a step back. “Now go away, please.” I lean hard on the please so there is no possible way in hell he can mistake it for actual politeness.

For a moment, Zahir stares at me, his dark eyes taking me in as if I’m a puzzle he’s almost figured out…then he raps on the table.

Soon after, he’s gone in a flurry of Arabic and bows from Nabida and Raima. And he doesn’t return for dinner, which feels like a punishment for not giving him the humiliating truth he wanted.

If so, it works. Ravenous with a newly rekindled hunger, I make a notch inside my head: Day One

Because, make no mistake, this is the real day one for me. And my new normal for the next six months. What about that wonderful spa vacation, you ask?

I’m pretty sure that was only given to fatten me up.