Things quickly go downhill from there. I am no longer starving, but I give up studying for the bar because I’ve lost the ability to concentrate and lyrics, sensuous and needy, are the only thing that come out of my pen when I try to take notes. Being cooped up in Zahir’s concubine room only makes it worse. The satin sheets are torture against my skin and the bath’s undulating water laps cruelly at my naked core. Almost like a tongue…but not nearly enough.

I tell Nabida to stop the mid-afternoon tea, because just the smell of food sets my pussy to clenching uncontrollably. And soon after I have to tell Raima not to pat me dry when I get out of the bath for fear of what my livewire body might do.

I’m still tracking the days until I can call Holt, but the hours of those days seem to have rearranged themselves around the torturous meals. The rest of time is a blank space filled with desperate, unsatisfying masturbation and lyrics knocking on my brain, asking to be let out. And soon the primal wanting and the deep unsatisfied ache become all I know.

Day Twenty-One finally arrives, but Zahir does not.

“He is away in Ardu Alzuhuwr on business for the next two days,” Nabida says while doing my makeup. “But he has left you another gift.”

Raima presents me with not one, but two smart speakers from a slick tech company I’m pretty sure hasn’t officially announced their development of a smart speaker to compete with Alexa and Google Home.

She places one in the bathroom, and one in the main room so I can to listen to music while I study… if I can ever pull myself together enough to study again.

Nabida announces I have been given special permission to eat alone at the table until Sheikh Zahir returns from his trip. I also get my robe back.

Zahir is gone. This is what I hoped for. But the reprieve feels less like a reprieve and more like forty-eight hours in solitary confinement. Without the prospect of Zahir joining me for lunch, the food tastes like ashes in my mouth. Something I have to choke down to stay upright.

I learn another lesson shortly after breakfast. And that is just how quickly the human body gets used to being nude all the time. The robe feels like a cloth cage now and I end up throwing it into the hamper before returning to bed where I take a fitful mid-morning nap.

That afternoon, I text the twins instead of calling them. And I have little to say when Sylvie phones to check on me.

“Are you okay?” she asks worriedly after my third mumbled reply.

“Sorry, I just woke up from a nap and I think the heat is getting to me.” It’s a lie, and not a lie. During the two days that Zahir is gone, I spend most of my time napping or touching myself in the heated bath-pool. Eating is something I do to refuel…to tide me over until Raima ties my wrists again on the morning of Day Twenty-Four.

I don’t want to say I missed him. I refuse to say I missed him. But when I exit the bathroom that morning, we both pause and stare at each other though nothing has really changed. I am naked and bound, as always. And save for his shoes, Zahir is fully dressed in yet another sharp suit. Still, we take each other in until, with a nod of his chin, he directs me to sit on his lap.

My body relaxes as soon as I feel the familiar hard mound. No, nothing has changed. And perhaps that’s what I’ve been craving. A return to routine.

“I’ve brought some champagne back from my visit with the royal family of Ardu Alzuhuwr,” he tells me. “Would you like to share a glass with me at dinner tonight?”

“I thought none of the UAK royals we’re supposed to drink,” I answer, tilting my head to look up at him.

“We are not and we do not. None of us have ever touched a drop,” he answers. “Would you like some champagne with dinner?

I snicker, appreciating the joke. Especially from serious him. But I shake my head, a picture flashing through my mind of my mother dancing sexy with a newly signed rap duo, a glass of champagne held above her head. “No…thank you,” I answer politely, because if I start drinking under these circumstances, I might never stop and now’s not the time to fall into one of my mother’s many vices.

I have to stay strong, I remind myself. I can’t let myself starve. I can’t let myself become altered in any way. Especially with Zahir.

Unlike the morning of days Twenty-One and Twenty-Two, the mix of Jahwar and European breakfast items taste delicious. But something is off. I am beyond full and slowing down as I always do to indicate I’m finished. However, Zahir simply stops feeding me breakfast.

No “accidentally” spilled food. And the only thing he wipes off are his hands with the cloth napkin I thought he would use on me after the first food slip.

“Are you satisfied?” he asks, placing the used napkin back down on the table. “Have you had enough?”

“No…” I reply, my voice broken. I’m done. Just too worn out by the two-day hiatus to muster any more pride. It’s gone. All of it. My reserve has completely run dry…unlike my wet pussy, which desperately grabs at his hard mound, seeking and still not receiving. Not even a tiny orgasm today.

“Please,” I whisper, and I begin to squirm. It is much harder to do with my hands bound, but I wriggle my hips in a frantic circle, my eyes closing as I get lost in the hypnotizing rhythm…

…only to fly open when he suddenly grabs my face in the crook of his hand, fingers squeezing my cheeks as he jerks me around to look directly at him. “You must beg,” he reminds me.

My breath catches at his hard command, and my heart beats a wild, out-of-sync rhythm as I re-check my pride reserve…but no, it is still empty. Which makes begging so much easier.

“Please!” I moan, meaning it.

“Please, what, Prin?” he asks viciously. “Please let you come on my covered dick again? Please use my fingers on you? Please unzip these trousers and give you what you really want? Tell me exactly what you’re begging me for.”

“Please, fuck me!” I gasp, a piercing ache going through me at the thought of it…the thought of him inside of me. “Oh, God, please, please, please, fuck me!” I beg with tears in my eyes, my voice little more than a desperate moan.

He stills and for a moment, I brace myself to finally get what I couldn’t admit to wanting until now.

But instead of unzipping his pants, he lifts me off his lap and sets me on my feet like he did when I still had some pride left and could lie to him about being satisfied.

“No…no…” This time I don’t stand on trembling legs, denying the obvious. I fall to my knees because my legs won’t hold me. “Please! Please!” I beg from this position. “I’m begging like you said.”

He stands, his face cold as a New York winter. “I said you would beg. Those were my exact words. And you have.”

“What?” I whisper, struggling past the suffocating lust to make sense of what he’s telling me.

Zahir regards me with the same cold contempt from the wedding. Then he raps on the table.

“No…no…”

I crawl forward, prepared to grab at him. But I am weak with want and he…well, he has all the power here. I watch him leave the room as Nabida and Raima enter.

They rush over to where I’ve collapsed on the floor in a pile of tears and frustration. The two women speak to each other in hushed Arabic as they all but carry me to the bath.

Zahir doesn’t return for lunch. Or dinner.

“What did I do wrong?” I ask Nabida and Raima as they gently remove my make-up and rebraid my hair after dinner.

My body is slumped to the side, weak with frustration and still-raging desire.

I must be worrying them because Raima actually responds, “I do not know. It has never gone on this long. Usually, he deems a woman acceptable within a couple of days, a week at most. This…what he’s doing to you is different.”

Different…so he is torturing me.

I think. And I breathe, trying to ignore the way my core is still wildly clenching. Then, I accept. This isn’t his standard training. This is a punishment that may never end.