Day Two: Zahir is once again waiting for me when I come out of the bathroom after my morning hair and makeup session. His chair is pushed back just far enough to accommodate one thinnish black girl seated sideways on his lap. This time, I don’t hesitate.

As it turns out, a little food given and taken away is far worse than no food at all. My quaking stomach leads the way as I quietly take my seat on him.

He scoots in, shifting my body so my naked pussy is once more positioned on top of the hard monster. I can tell he’s doing this intentionally. Baiting me to see what I’ll do on his string.

I force my hips to remain still as he feeds me a breakfast of fresh berries, slices of cucumber and tomato, and crispy falafel ball dipped in a tangy yogurt he calls labneh.

“Are you satisfied?” he asks when I’m no longer taking careful bites of food from his hand. “Have you had enough?”

I nod miserably, not trusting myself to respond.

“Good…” he murmurs. Then he pours himself a coffee from the beaked pot and offers me a sip. I usually drink my coffee with sugar and milk but damn if this version doesn’t instantly switch my preference to black. It is delicious and cinnamon-y with a hint of smoke that must be the cardamom.

Without conscious thought, my hand lifts to the other side of the cup to hold it steady for a second sip. That turns out be a mistake.

Zahir removes the cup and puts me out of his lap. Then he raps on the table and a few seconds later, Nabida and Raima have removed the breakfast and the beautiful coffee.

I am allowed to study for about three hours, but today Raima interrupts me five minutes before lunch and she’s holding a skein of silken black rope.

“You will hold out your hands, please,” she says before expertly binding my wrists.

I say nothing and neither does she. We both know who gave her the order to tie me up and that there’s nothing I can do about it.

I somehow manage not to squirm during lunch. But there is something about having my wrists bound as he feeds me. I keep my mouth shut, but my other lips tattle all the tales. I am dripping, becoming more and more slick with every bite of food Zahir gives me. Eventually, I become so wet, my pussy lips slip and spread wide, sinking my core so far down on his hard mound that I can feel the cloth line and metal of his zipper as it clenches around him with a mind of its own.

Neither of us say a word after he puts me off his lap, but like yesterday, I can see I’ve left a mark. And I leave an even bigger one on his new suit at dinner.

Zahir is forcing me to walk around naked 24/7 and only allowing me to eat from his hand with my wrists bound. But my body doesn’t care. It responds to him with dumb primal need and this time, the feeling doesn’t recede after he leaves.

“Can I have a minute alone in the bath?” I ask after Nabida removes my makeup and Raima braids my hair.

They grant my request. And I vow not to make it about him as I descend into the warm water. I dip my fingers beneath the surface and doggedly focus on my standard Jason Momoa fantasy while I rub one out.

That’s Day Two. Days Three, Four, and Five unfold in more or less the same way.

On Day Six, Zahir asks at lunch if I would like to call Holt while he’s docked in Cairo. “No,” I answer quietly as my pussy clenches around his mound. “But I do need to talk to my sisters and tell them I’m alright…”

Nabida hands me a phone at the end of my afternoon study session. I quickly dial the familiar number and manage to wake up Kasha about fifteen minutes before she should technically be out door for school.

“Prin!” Kasha screams. I can hear her running into Sasha’s room where she puts me on speaker phone. I’ve been gone for over a week, but before we can talk about anything of substance, the girls immediately force me to moderate an ongoing argument about who gets to drive my car while I’m away. Once that’s settled (I tell them to take turns…duh), I listen patiently as they update me on their spring musical rehearsals, possible prom dates, and everything in-between. Holt and Sylvie invited them over to Connecticut for Spring Break the first week of April and they’re thinking of going for the summer, too, since I’m not due to return until September.

“Did you know they have TWO swimming pools? And we can swim in both of them!” Kasha exclaims. Unlike our pool, which I was forced to drain in order to cut costs shortly after paying my first quarterly property tax bill.

In any case, it sounds like Sasha is doing her best to keep the house and her sister in line. Sasha has put together a list of things for me to take care of when I return home, including a broken toilet on the second floor, and what Sasha fears may be bats in our attic. In the end, and despite my seriously messed up circumstances, I feel guilty. While the girls are balancing school with the drudgery of home maintenance, I’m living in a palace with a lagoon, a pool-sized bathtub, and a full staff who attend to the residents and keep the palace in better than good working order.

“Can you come back for to see us in the musical in April?” Kasha asks, interrupting Sasha’s to-do list. “Just for a visit?”

“I wish I could, sweetie, but I’m not allowed to travel for another six months per my marriage visa.”

It is a lot easier to lie to them than it should be. But I don’t want the girls to worry about me or get wind of what’s really going on over here. That means I have to stick to the lie I had Sylvie relay to them. That Zahir invited me to stay at his palace under a temporary marriage contract because it’s the only way to “date” in Jahwar. But really this is simply a way for me to study for the bar in peace, while I see where this thing with Zahir leads. And no matter what, I’ll be returning to the States in six months to take the bar in September.

Romantic Kasha happily buys my story, but Sasha asks me a bunch of questions, including the new Disney princess standard, “Seriously, you went and married a guy you’ve only known for a day?”

I answer as vaguely as possible, but I don’t blame them for sounding confused when we finally say good-bye an hour later. I’m confused, too.

I thank Zahir for the phone when I see him next at dinner. I do this even though I really don’t want to. Truth is, he’s manipulating me into behaving politely…. he’s playing me like I’m a record on his turntable. And I’m letting him win.

“You are doing very well, Prin,” he says after my head down thank you. “I will have the phone brought to you twice a week from now on.”

On Day Six, I start getting things. First my phone privileges, then—on Day Seven—my bedding. On Day Eight, Nabida leaves me a wash cloth for what has now become my after-dinner alone time. And on Day Nine, after my afternoon study break, Raima serves me a full tea, which I’m allowed to eat by myself: sparkling date juice, scones, crustless finger sandwiches, salmon pinwheels, and a black sage tea Nabida claims will help me digest the afternoon meal.

I’m allowed to call the twins twice a week and have afternoon tea on my own. But my closet remains empty, and Raima continues to bind my wrists before each shared meal with Zahir. Fourteen more days to go. Just two more weeks until Holt and Sylvie’s big family vacation is finished, and they return to Connecticut. Then I can call Holt and put a stop to all this without feeling like I’ve ruined his post-wedding vacation with his new wife and sons.

But then on Day 10, a blob of jam falls off the piece of brioche Zahir is placing into my mouth. It lands on one of my naked breasts.

We both look down at the orange spot, and then back up at each other.

“May I get that for you?” Zahir asks, his voice perfectly polite. As if there’s any possibility I can do it myself with my wrists bound as they are.

I nod and add, “Yes, please.” Because this is the game I am being forced to play with Zahir until I can call Holt without a fit of conscience.

But instead of reaching for a nearby white cloth napkin, Zahir lowers his dark head…

I gasp, both my stomach and my pussy tightening as his mouth captures my full breast and gently licks off the jam. I watch his tongue as it makes its way towards my nipple… mesmerized by the sight and the feeling it leaves on my skin. Long after the jam is gone, Zahir continues to suckle at me, drawing on my nipple as if there’s more jam to be found and he’s determined to remove it.

Then I feel the monster again. Pushing against the back of my pussy in hard, unyielding circles while Zahir’s tongue milks my breast.

I want to tell him to stop…I should tell him to stop…but instead, I come. It’s a tiny orgasm, the kind that would normally make me wait a half hour before trying again with my Magic Wand back home in Jersey.

But I’m not in New Jersey. I’m in Jahwar, naked in Zahir’s lap, unable to deny what just happened. I had an orgasm. Caused by a man. And with that, my original reply to his question from the first day of training goes from zero…to one. One man has given me an orgasm, while fully clothed and with nothing more than his mouth and the imprint of his dick.

“Are you satisfied?” he asks, his voice little more than a coarse growl in my ear as I tremble in his lap. “Have you had enough?”

No. No, I have not. My pussy aches with the faint echoes of that little orgasm, as if insisting it wasn’t nearly enough. But I manage to gasp out, “Yes. Yes, I’m done!”

This immediately earns me a one-way ticket out of his lap.

Zahir may have released me…but I soon learn it is the kind of reprieve a cat gives a mouse—right before slamming a paw down on its tail when it tries to escape.

He becomes very clumsy over the next few days. At lunch, he spills honey on my other breast. At dinner, a bit of cream cheese from the khaliat al nahl honeycomb bread falls on the left breast again. Then more jam plops onto the right the next day at breakfast.

“Are you certain you are satisfied?” he asks after another small lunchtime orgasm. “This is only finger food. Imagine the meal I could give you if you would only ask me.”

I somehow mumble my way off his lap but as soon as he leaves the room, I tell Nabida I need to take a short nap. And this time, I am unable to imagine anyone but Zahir as I finger myself to completion.

By Day Twelve, Nabida and Raima have fallen into a new routine of allowing me a thirty-minute “nap” after breakfast and lunch. But it is not enough. I’m tired of only my hand to give me pleasure, and the orgasms I achieve on my own feel shallow in comparison to the dark promise in Zahir’s voice. More often than not, they leave me feeling even more bereft. Like sparklers when what you really wanted were 4^th of July fireworks.