32
The sun rose slowly as Jan caressed Ephraim’s thick hair and touched his forehead. The fever was gone, and she exhaled as she glanced down at his leg and then over at Darius, who was seated on the ground alongside, dreamily gazing toward the eastern horizon.
“You’ll go blind if you stare at the sun,” she said softly to Darius as she ruffled Ephraim’s hair. “Didn’t your mother ever warn you about that?”
Darius lazily glanced over at her. “I never knew my mother.” He paused for a moment, looking down at Ephraim, who was awake and alert and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the attention he’d been getting over the past two hours as Jan and Darius anxiously waited for his fever to subside. “Neither did he.”
“You are correct,” said Ephraim, moving his head on Jan’s lap and grinning at Darius. “I did not know your mother.”
Darius laughed and shook his head. “Ya Allah, that poison seems to have made you sharper. Perhaps we should all take a swig of it.” Then he took a breath and gazed meaningfully at Ephraim before looking up at Jan. “I mean of course that neither of us knew our mothers. Both Ephraim and I were born at great cost.”
Jan felt Ephraim’s body tense up as he lay against her, and she pulled her hand away from his hair so he could sit up. She frowned as she looked at Darius. “You mean both of your mothers died in childbirth? That’s a weird coincidence.”
“Coincidence is one way of putting it,” said Ephraim, sitting up and pulling his knees up to his chest as he examined the dressing Jan had put on his snakebite. Then he glanced at Darius. “Shared curse is another way.”
“Well,” said Jan, blinking as she tried to make light of the sudden heaviness in the air. “I know my mother all too well, and that isn’t always a blessing, let me tell you guys.” She paused. “What about your fathers,” she asked quietly, looking at Ephraim and then Darius. “There isn’t a lot of detail on the Internet about you guys or your kingdoms—at least not in English. I tried using some online translation tool to read a few Arabic sites, but the results were too messy to get a clear picture. All I know is that you’re each an only child.” She paused again. “Whose mothers both died in childbirth, it appears. So what about your fathers? They were the Sheikhs before each of you took over, yes?”
Darius grinned and shook his head, glancing at Jan and then at Ephraim, green eyes shining in the rising sun. “Do you want to tell her or should I?”
Ephraim grunted. “Go ahead. This whole thing was your idea to begin with. Tell her. Tell her that both our kingdoms were ruled by Sheikhas, not Sheikhs. That our mothers were both queens, each of them the only children of the previous generation.”
Darius rapped his knuckles against Ephraim’s dressing, making the younger Sheikh wince. “I thought I was going to tell the story. Next time do not steal my thunder, Ephraim.” He grinned and then glanced over at Jan, nodding his head. “Yes. Our fathers were both outsiders, brought into the kingdoms by marriage. It was our mothers who were the heirs, the rulers, the queens.”
Jan frowned, blinking hard as she glanced at one Sheikh and then the other. They’d both mentioned their days at Oxford, and indeed they’d both referred to being kings back then. Kings, not princes. “Wait, so after your mothers died, the thrones of Habeetha and Noramaar passed directly to each of you? Not to your fathers?”
Darius nodded, his brown muscles flexing. All three of them were still bare-skinned, sitting close together by the fire, which was somehow still going as the sun rose over the waters of the oasis. The breeze was warm and gentle against Jan’s skin, and perhaps it was still the aruha in her system, but she didn’t feel an iota of self-consciousness as she sat with her two naked kings on a blanket.
Ephraim nodded. “There were councils and proxies in charge until we came of age, of course. But yes—I was twelve when I ascended to the throne of Habeetha. Darius was ten when he first wore the crown of Noramaar.”
“Wow,” said Jan. “That’s young. So your fathers ruled on your behalf until you came of age?”
Darius shook his head. “No, just the councils. Our fathers had no standing by our laws. They were both outsiders. They had both married into the royal families of Habeetha and Noramaar.”
“Did they have other wives?” Jan asked, frowning again as the strange parallels between the two Sheikhs’ lives began to emerge.
“No,” said Ephraim. “The husband of a Sheikha is not permitted to take other wives according to the laws of both our kingdoms. An unusual rule, but not unheard of. Still, it caused some distress in our fathers’ family, if the stories are true.”
“Both our fathers were cut off from their own family for choosing to marry our mothers,” said Darius. “It was considered an act of submission and weakness for them to forsake the right of a man to take multiple wives.”
“Were they from royal families too?” said Jan.
Darius nodded and took a breath. “Yes.” He stayed silent, and Jan felt a strange unease as she watched Ephraim glance over at Darius and then look toward the fire, whose flames were finally getting drowned by the gold of sunlight.
“Family,” said Ephraim quietly, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed, his expression confusing Jan for a moment.
“Family,” she repeated, still confused at why he’d said the word. And then it hit her. Both Sheikhs had used the word “family,” not “families” when talking about their fathers’ origins. “Wait,” she blurted out, her eyes going wide. “Your fathers were from the same family? Your fathers were related?”
“Brothers,” Darius said, his voice barely a whisper, his eyes narrowed into slits as he stared at the flames along with Ephraim. “Two brothers who walked away from their kingdom and family. Two brothers who bowed their heads to their wives and queens, took on background roles in new kingdoms, an act that back then would mean ridicule and shame for the family.”
“Why?” said Jan, not sure what she was asking, for the moment ignoring the revelation that these two men were in fact cousins. Somehow that didn’t shock her as much as it should have. It seemed to explain that underlying bond they seemed to share even though they were at one another’s throats in the press. If anything, that was the mystery now: How could Ephraim and Darius, knowing that they shared the same blood, be at one another’s throats and on the brink of war?! Yes, certainly the history of the world proved time and again that brothers killed brothers, sons murdered fathers, and mothers poisoned their daughters for wealth, power, and politics. But Jan was certain there was something more here. Why had they never mentioned being cousins? Why had there been nothing in the local news about their connection? What was she missing?
“Why?” she asked again, not sure which question she was asking first. “Why doesn’t everyone know about this? Shouldn’t this be a major part of the press coverage of your feud?”
Ephraim grunted, touching his dressing again and shrugging. “Our mothers died over thirty years ago, Jan. And they had us quite late in life, which means their own marriages took place forty or so years in the past. Before the Internet. Before the time when everyone knew everything about one another.”
“Back then a royal family could closely guard its secrets, control what information made it outside the family and the kingdom,” Darius added, squinting toward the sun and then reaching for his sunglasses. He put them on, looking almost comical: A lean, muscled, bronze Adonis, naked except for his Porsche Design sunglasses. He grinned and shrugged, and for a moment Jan thought his broad shoulders moved in the same way Ephraim’s had when he’d shrugged earlier. “Our fathers were young when they married our mothers, and they were written out of the family history, lineage, and fortune. In a sense they did not exist as anything other than the husbands of Sheikhas. It was done to insult them as much as anything. To strip them of their identity.”
“And did it?” Jan asked softly, her head spinning as she tried to understand the patterns being played out here, if perhaps this part of their shared history was why these two proud Sheikhs were willing to experiment with this radical arrangement. Were they trying to make up for something? Prove something? Reclaim something? Fight something in themselves? Accept something? Reject something else? Who the hell knew?! Oh, God, why didn’t she study psychology instead of sex?!
But perhaps the sex has brought you to the answer, came the thought as she watched her naked kings relax as the sun warmed their naked frames, both of them smiling now as they talked freely about secrets that perhaps they had never talked about, perhaps never even thought about this explicitly! These men have sought you out for all those reasons, she thought. The psychology is complex, just like a person’s identity is a composite of experience, genetics, upbringing, actions of intent, events of accident. Look at how these men are talking about their past now, freely and openly, exposed and honest like their bodies under the morning sun. Would this have ever happened if not for what these bodies have shared?
And what have these bodies shared, Jan? What have they shared?
You, came the answer on the breeze that rolled in off the surface of the Golden Oasis. They’ve shared you.
Jan gazed at the two naked Sheikhs as that warm breeze enveloped her even as the sun bathed her in golden heat. Neither of them had taken a bride, and as far as she could tell, neither of them had even come close to it. By now she knew of Ephraim’s history with his harem, and she’d read snippets of press talking of a younger Darius with models and actresses, but there’d never been any serious links, no broken engagements, nothing even close. Why? It had to be related to the strange connections between their fathers, the way those old marriages had stripped those men of their identity and history, made them nothing more than husbands of queens. Were these two men secretly afraid that taking brides would do the same to them? Was that why they were subconsciously prepared to share her—because they felt that between the two of them they could control her, possess her, dominate her, own her?
“You’re scared,” she blurted out, her thoughts completing themselves in speech as the two Sheikhs stopped mid-sentence and turned toward Jan. “You’re both terrified that what happened to your fathers will happen to you, that marrying a woman somehow takes away your power, your identity, your independence. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s part of this, whether you two can admit it or not.”
Ephraim’s face clouded over as he stared at Jan, and although Darius’s eyes showed a glimmer of recognition, he stayed silent too. Then Darius took a breath and glanced at Ephraim.
“I will admit it if you admit it,” he said, half-grinning though something in his voice told Jan that she’d hit home—at least for Darius, who was clearly the more self-aware of the two Sheikhs.
“I admit nothing,” Ephraim said quickly, not even a half-smile showing on his dark face. “My identity does not depend on a woman, and it never will.” He looked back at Darius. “And if yours does, then you are weak, Darius.”
Darius smiled, not taking the bait, his own green eyes narrowing as he stared down the younger Ephraim. “Marriage is about sharing an identity, merging identities with another, creating a new identity from the union. You know that, Ephraim. That is why, just like me, you have never married or even come close to it. You know, just like I do, that marriage will change some part of your identity.” He glanced at Jan, then down at himself, and finally back at Ephraim. “It will change all of our identities. It cannot be otherwise.”
Ephraim shook his head, the darkness in his eyes more pronounced as he stared at the ground. “I do not yield my identity to anyone. I would not even consider it.”
“But you are considering it. You are here, and that says everything,” said Darius without missing a beat, and Jan’s breath caught as she saw how Darius was taking control of the conversation without losing his cool.
“All it says is that I am a gambler and a player of games,” Ephraim replied. “That is my identity, and no woman . . .” he paused and glanced at Jan, blinking and then looking away, “. . . no matter who she is, will make me submit. No woman will make me yield.”
Jan could see that Ephraim wasn’t going to yield to any argument, submit to any logic, nod his head and agree with any point Darius made, no matter how reasonable or obvious. He was too stubborn, much more so than Darius, and certainly less willing to accept the vulnerability in himself. He needed to be shown that Jan wasn’t asking either of them to submit to her. She didn’t want that, and she knew it. Not in private, at least. Not when it was the three of them. She’d already submitted to each of them in private. She’d already submitted to both of them together in private. Now it was time to take it a step deeper, a step farther, a step darker. It was time to see if they could submit—not to her, but to each other. After all, this marriage would be three way, and since both men were clearly heterosexual to the point where they were not in the least threatened by being around one another’s naked bodies, Jan knew she’d always be between them, the connection, the shared space, the conduit to this new shared identity that would need to happen before their kingdoms could ever be joined.
Which meant Ephraim needed to be shown that Darius was right about marriage being a commitment to creating a new shared identity, a merging, a union. But Darius needed to be shown something too: that the new identity would only come about as a result of action, not words. Action and experience. And experience was the realm of the body, was it not?
Yes. It was time to move from the realm of words to action once again. But what action? How to bring Ephraim around? How to make him yield by showing him that he would never have to yield at all?! And how to make Darius see that although he had been the first and in a sense would always be the first, he would need to yield to Ephraim too, make way for his co-husband. Make way for Ephraim . . .
Oh, God, she thought as the answer came from the core of her body, making her shudder even though the sun was hot and bright above the three of them. Oh, God, can I do that?
“No,” Jan said, her voice trembling when she realized what had just gone through her mind. “No one is going to make you yield, Ephraim.” She glanced at Darius and then back at Ephraim. “In fact, I am going to ask Darius to yield.” She took a breath and blinked as Darius’s face clouded over with a deep frown. “I’m going to ask him to yield first rights to you, Ephraim.”
“First rights will be determined by whose child you bear first,” growled Darius, shaking his head, still frowning as if he was trying hard to understand what the hell she was playing at. “We have already agreed on that.”
“I’m not talking about the right of first husband. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now there’s another bridge to cross . . .” Jan whispered, slowly standing up, not missing the way both Sheikhs’ cocks moved as she stood there naked before them, her breasts hanging free, her legs firmly together, her dainty triangle looking like dark-brushed gold in the sun as the warm breeze swirled around her naked buttocks, whispering for her to go forth, to go on, to go where she’d never gone before—where no man had ever gone before.
Slowly she walked past the kings and back into the guest house. She found her bag and rummaged through it to find the little jar of virgin coconut oil she’d carried with her. With trembling fingers she opened it and touched the clean, natural lubricant, taking a deep breath and blinking hard before turning and walking back toward the door leading out to where her Sheikhs were waiting.
Silently Jan placed the jar of lubricant on the thick blanket between the two Sheikhs, and then she slowly went down on her knees. Her heart was pounding, her breathing getting heavy as her heat rose even as she saw Darius’s cock filling out in a way that told her the older Sheikh understood.
He may understand what I’m suggesting, but will he accept, Jan wondered as she slowly leaned forward onto her elbows, raising her rear as she heard Ephraim mutter in Arabic and sit up straight, his cock hardening so fast Jan almost gasped.
“Darius was the first to have me,” Jan whispered as that tingle whipped through her core once more when she realized both Sheikhs were fully hard again, rising to their knees behind her, Ephraim stroking his cock as Darius’s erection flexed on its own, the tension mounting as they once again got pulled into the competition of who would mount her first, a competition that she knew would last their entire lives, giving her an excitement that would always make her wet and breathless because of the way it touched a hidden part in her psyche, perhaps her soul. “Nothing can change that. But perhaps we can balance it out.” She turned her head and glanced at Darius, into his green eyes. She was getting to know these men better now, and another shiver passed through her when she allowed herself to admit that perhaps she could truly love both of them, truly bond with each of them as individuals, truly see herself as the wife of two men.
But first the three of us have to strengthen our bond, she told herself. The competition between them when it comes to my sex is arousing and exhilarating, and clearly it gets them going as well. But along with that there needs to be cooperation, a true sharing of my sex, a real balancing of these men’s needs.
“Darius,” she whispered as she held his gaze for a long moment and then glanced quickly at the jar of clear oil. “Are you ready to truly share me with him? Are you prepared? Really and truly prepared?”
Darius moved forward on his knees, his jaw tight, his muscular thighs flexed and thick as his heavy cock bounced gently, its shaft so thick that Jan almost choked in fear when she remembered that Ephraim was even thicker! Can I do this, she wondered as she felt Darius’s hand caress her smooth white buttocks as Ephraim growled in the background like a goddamn animal ready to fight. Can I take this?
“I do not need his permission,” Ephraim said as he moved forward from her left, caressing her thighs from behind as Darius massaged her ass. Ephraim’s fingers moved up from beneath slowly, and Jan could feel her pussy respond with a release of warm wetness as two pairs of hands massaged and rubbed her ass and thighs from behind, their strong fingers kneading and pressing with increasing force until they were massaging the lips of her vagina together from beneath, fingering her until she could barely speak as her juice dripped onto their hands and fingers, her aroma filling the air.
“I asked Darius a question, and I want both of us to await his response,” Jan muttered, trying her damnedest to stay in control as she felt so many fingers enter her that she almost came right there, on all fours in the dirt, like a goddamn animal. She turned her head halfway and glanced at Darius, whose face was peaked with arousal. “Are you prepared to share me, Darius?” she asked again, turning her eyes to the innocent white jar of oil on the blanket and then looking back into his green embers that were ablaze with both recognition and conflict.
Slowly Darius’s hands moved away from beneath her open thighs, up along her sides, grasping her buttocks firmly as Ephraim continued to rub her clit and mound. Then Darius parted her rear crack with his strong hands, and Jan almost fainted when she realized that both Sheikhs were silent and hard, Ephraim to her left, Darius right behind her, both men staring at her clean, dark rear, her most forbidden space, her most virgin place.
“Yes,” Darius whispered as he leaned forward and kissed her rear pucker in a way that almost made Jan choke with the most filthy arousal as she struggled to stay conscious enough to control what was going to happen. “Yes, I am prepared to share you. I am prepared, Jan.”
“Then prepare me,” she moaned as she felt his tongue circle her dark rim from behind. “Prepare me for him.”