Chapter Text
***
You are the endless Love,
You are the heavenly song,
You are the Mother and Father,
You are the one I will always know.
Rest now, my soul,
Leave behind your religion
And your empty show of faith.
Remember when you had no religion?
Remember when all you had was Him?
-Rumi
***
"His name is Ishtiaq," Jaffar says as he lifts the squeaking bundle out of his saddlebag, himself still sweaty and dusty from his hunting trip.
"Ishtiaq?" Yassamin asks, astonished as she and the servants come to receive Jaffar in the courtyard. Has he found a child, a babe exposed in the plains? It's not as if they couldn't afford a new mouth to feed, but a new human being, unexpected! She is not sure what to think about this, shocked as Jaffar cradles the little bundle in his arms and coos at it tenderly.
"Jaffar, I--"
"Come," he says, his eyes twinkling with happiness, his face alight, just like the day the twins were born. "Look. Isn't he beautiful?"
Jaffar steps closer to Yassamin, unfolding the blanket a little. There's another squeak, and it is then that she realises that this is no human child: it is the young cub of a cheetah. The cub looks at her with its bright yellow eyes, patting at the blanket with its paws, chirping mournfully like a bird.
"Oh, my God, Jaffar! You gave me a fright."
Jaffar raises his eyebrow and laughs, kissing her on the cheek. "We will raise him as our own," he grins.
She rolls her eyes, yet cannot help but be charmed by Jaffar and their new, furry child, the way Jaffar rocks him in his arms. "But why 'Ishtiaq'?"
"It is a tale sad to tell. We found him alone in the grass, with signs of other riders having been there recently. They must have taken his mother and his siblings," Jaffar says, his face dark with sorrow and anger. "It's monstrous, absolutely monstrous. As you can see, he is far too young to have learned to hunt by himself--they must have taken his family but for their pelts," he spits.
It is as her father's animal-keepers had told her: to make a hunting-pard, you have to catch him at an age when he has just learned to hunt himself, just when he is old enough to leave his mother--at an age equivalent to human pubescence. A grown cheetah cannot be tamed as easily, and a cub this young wouldn't yet know how to hunt--it cannot be taught this by a human, only by its mother.
"A terrible waste of life," Yassamin murmurs, for the cheetah is among the noblest of beasts, the most intelligent of hunters; swifter than a dog, as friendly as a dog, but without its uncleanliness. A cheetah of the right age could fetch thousands upon thousands of dinars, more than a well-trained slave: only princes can afford them. The cruel fiends who'd taken this poor creature's mother and his siblings must have been truly desperate, if they could not wait a few months longer.
"A terrible waste indeed," Jaffar murmurs, caressing the little cub's forehead with but one fingertip. He pets the cheetah awkwardly, as if his fingers suddenly seemed too large and clumsy, as if he were afraid of hurting him. This is strange, unusual from a man as graceful and as self-assured as he; it's plain to see this animal child has stirred deep and profound emotions within him. "I found him weeping, crying for his family; it seemed his entire being was made of but longing," he says. "Hence, Longing made a fitting name."
And now his own eyes fill with tears: it is obvious to Yassamin what he must be thinking of, and now her own mind fills with visions of Jaffar weeping for his slain women, his slain children, his slain mother and father. And now, she understands what lies at the bottom of Jaffar's anguished concern for Ishtiaq: it was himself he had seen mirrored in this creature orphaned, had found in him a twin brother in his suffering: no, he could never have left Ishtiaq where he lay.
"Oh, Jaffar," Yassamin whispers and comes to embrace him, holding the little cheetah tenderly between them. He presses his face into her veil, wiping his tears into it, nuzzling her, huffing into her hair from his sorrow; between them, the little bundle squeaks still, trilling its sad birdlike song.
"Come, my cheetah-mother," Yassamin says as she pulls back. "We'll find a room for him, keep him warm. Zahra, save a gazelle thigh for the little fellow here, will you?"
"Yes, madam," Zahra says, unable to resist a peek and a pet herself. "The master will make a good mother, if you don't mind my saying so," she says before she goes to unload his horse.
Jaffar smiles, laughs through his tears as they walk back to the house. "I, the mother?"
"But of course," Yassamin says, kissing him on the cheek. "You were the one who found him. Although I think Zahra meant your being like a pard yourself. It is not merely I who thinks you a tall, thin cat," she grins.
"I thought of keeping him in my bedroom. At first," he says. "If you don't object."
"I always slept with animals in my bed!" she says as they make their way to Jaffar's bedchamber. "As long as you remove him while we make love."
"Yes," Jaffar laughs. "I'm sure his little mind would be disturbed were he to see his poor mother so tortured," he says and nudges Yassamin with his elbow. "Bring me that basket, will you? Let's set it here, at the foot of the bed."
Yassamin does as she's told. It is a large willow basket made for carrying flowers--Jaffar had been making extracts again, a process that required absolute mountains of flowers and herbs--and this basket is perfect for a cheetah, large enough even for a grown one to curl up in. "It even smells of fresh grass," she says as she sets it down on the floor. "It should help him feel at home."
"Let's hope so," Jaffar says as he undoes the blanket from around Ishtiaq. "Will you hold him for a moment?"
She sits down on the floor with Jaffar, holding Ishtiaq in her lap; the little cub trembles from nervous excitement and what must be fatigue. "He's so small," she murmurs as she pets him, holding him firmly to calm him. "I've never had a big cat this small."
"Oh, that tiger of yours!" Jaffar says. "Is it true that you shared your bed with it? Or was that but something you made up to stir Theo's desire?"
"On the colder nights, yes," Yassamin says, fond memories filling her mind. "He was like a warm mountain of muscle and fur beside me," she sighs. "I've never felt anything like it," and now she grins at Jaffar playfully. "I thought I might feel the same once I had a husband, the weight of someone large and heavy beside me in my bed. But look at me now, married to a cheetah!"
"Soon you'll have two cheetahs in your bed, I'll wager," Jaffar says as he picks up Ishtiaq and lays him in his new bed. "You'll want to sleep between us eventually, won't you, my little fellow?" he tells him and scritches him underneath the chin. "Hmm? Then your mistress might not be able to tell us apart in the night. If she grabs your prick instead of mine, I advise you to but take it in your stride."
Yassamin winces, putting her hands over Ishtiaq's ears. "Shush. Don't listen to him. Besides, cheetah pricks are covered in spikes!" she says, shuddering. "I don't know about you, husband, but there is a limit even to my erotic curiosity."
Jaffar chooses to scritch Yassamin underneath the chin instead. "Very well, my dear. Shall we introduce him to the children yet, or let him rest first?"
"Let's let him rest. We'll tell the children tomorrow. And I would have you in my bed tonight, my sweet, before I have to give you up to your motherly duties," she says.
"You may count on that," Jaffar says and lets out a delighted cheetah chirp.
She laughs, lets go of Ishtiaq and pulls Jaffar into a kiss.
***
"You are beautiful," Jaffar murmurs as he lounges upon the bed, adoring his Yassamin as she stands at the foot of it, undressing for him with a sweet languor. She knows how much this slow unveiling of herself pleases him, and he makes sure to reward her for it with the warmest of his gazes, the sweetest of his words, lavishing his love upon her a perfume.
For each new night of intimacy, each new nakedness she shares with him--oh, each is to him a sweet wonder, each new day of his husbandhood a grace he thought he'd never deserve, a gift for which he most humbly thanks the Lord each day in his prayers.
"You think so?" Yassamin asks, demure. Her stomach ripples, the long scar upon it tightening as she moves; she has never quite ceased being ashamed of the marks her pregnancy has left upon her, but that only gives Jaffar something to work upon, a shame to undress from her every day.
"The most beautiful woman in the world," he says, knowing she never takes this for granted, even if it is to him the truest truth; he is but happy to be given the chance to articulate it. "Undressing for me, a balding wretch with crooked teeth?" he laughs. "It truly is a miracle, my sweet, that you should humour an old man so."
"Not so old where it counts the most," she smirks, glancing at his growing erection. "Why, you fill as fast as a lad of sixteen!"
"When have you had a lad of sixteen?!"
"I have seen them in those memories you have chosen to share with me, remember?" she laughs. "And it is you I prefer, my old man; I have missed your love," she sighs. "So very much."
"Mmm. So much that you would tease me even now, is that it?" he grins. "To but spin on my agonies."
"I do so love to see you tortured," she mocks him sweetly, a parody of the coquette. "It was you who tortured me first with an unreasonably long absence: this is but my seeking a little justice, husband sweet."
For three days, he has been away hunting, enough to raise a fevered hunger in both their bodies, a hunger marrow-deep; both husband and wife are now glowing with the anticipation of reunion. She rolls her hips as she slides off her clothes, her eyes a liquid, dark honey; he, too, makes a feast of himself for her eyes. He purrs as he reels there on his side, leaning his cheek on his hand, a gentleman fresh from his bath: his hair oiled and undone and his skin perfumed, he lounges there comfortable in his nakedness, warming himself in the rays of her love.
She makes to take off her jewellery--her heavy earrings, an enormous necklace and a coined chain from above her forehead; however, he stops her with a gesture. "Leave them on," he says softly, smiling. "I like to hear their music as you make love to me."
"Very well," she says, amused. "Anything else?" she asks as she casts off the last of her garments, her bracelets clinking as she assumes a most charming pose in the centre of the room, an Aphrodite rising from a foam of silk.
"Dance for me," he says warmly, rocking his hips; he but brushes his prick with his hand, not quite stroking it yet.
She raises her eyebrow and laughs, a tinkle of crystal bells; her mirth ringing with her ornaments as she throws back her head and stretches, reaching her arms towards the ceiling. The beads of her necklace dance merrily upon her breasts, the bells upon her anklets chiming softly as she shifts there; when she drops her head and looks at him again, her eyes are ablaze, sending a jolt of heat through his body. Oh, but the way she can still make lust pool thick in his belly, desire uncurl in his limbs after all these years! He shifts and strains upon the bed, desire now bringing a sweet tension to his body as his prick fattens in the cup of his hand.
"Good girl," he purrs, adoring, that purr lengthening his prick more, more; he leans back and sighs in delight.
She smiles widely at him, her teeth pearls in the iridescent shell of the evening sky. Her arms still raised, she curls her fingers elegantly, cupping them, fanning them; dark from fresh henna, their patterns pour down her forearms in feathered sweeps and curls. Sweeps and curls, like her hair now tossed aside as she begins to sway, gazing at her hands as she rolls her hips: she pushes them out, offering her cunny, smooth and plump the way she has prepared herself for love tonight, prepared herself for his pleasure, hers. She tenses, lifts to her toes as if to touch not only the ceiling but the sky, her entire frame trembling as she reaches high, high; the fat upon her hips ripples sweetly, her toes--equally ornate with henna--curling in the nap of the carpet.
With a twirl, she springs into movement, spinning and spinning and then facing him once more: now, her golds and her silvers rattle like distant sabres as she begins a tumultuous dance. It is a curious mixture of a warrior's threat and the demanding, cajoling, luring dance of the courtesan: Yassamin claws at the air as if to tear Jaffar's soul from his body and into her arms, a prey to be devoured raw; yet, again she offers her sex as she dances, undulating her belly, her body taking on the sinuousness of a serpent. Her arms, her hands tear at her spirit-Jaffar a maenad, her mouth drinking in his very blood; her eyes flutter, at times roll back in her head in imitation of the throes of release. Her hips judder and shake, jerking up, up! in that movement he knows comes from the tight clench and the squeeze and the upward pull of the cunny.
Mercy, he wants to cry, shivering where he lies, but he does not allow himself this, no, no; all his hair stands on end as Yassamin crawls into his bed a woman to him unfamiliar, tossing her hair, arching her back, a beast simultaneously ravishing and swallowing her prey. Instinctively, he pulls back, so that he is now lying down on his back, supported by his elbows; his bacchante-lioness-snake--oh, his Chimera!--crawls over him, panting, her hair a cloud of perfumed poison about him, her breath sweet upon his lips.
And there, she stills, staring, panting, rippling, an animal female coiled from fever's heat; her eyes fix him, pouring the honey-wine of them down his throat so that he is no longer breathing, pressed into the bed, pressed into the cushions, choking, reeling, still.
He narrows his eyes and hisses from between his teeth; he clutches at the sheets--no, he thinks better of it: now, he clutches her hair in his fist, his cock leaping at her cry of pain as he bends her back, back, back, back. He crushes her against his body with one arm, twisting her hair cruelly in his other fist; he never takes his eyes from hers, bending her so far back that she might snap, oh, his prick hot between her thighs.
He brushes his lips across hers, scratching her cheek with his moustache: he can smell her cunny, can feel it clenching against his prick. He holds her there, holds her, twisting his hand, still twisting: when she finally lets out a cry, he takes her mouth with his, plunging his tongue into her mouth, taking it like it was her cunny, huffing against her teeth.
She screams and he pulls back, a string of saliva dangling between her mouth and his; now, she is trembling from sweet terror, at the beast Jaffar can now see reflected in her eyes, the beast with eyes of ice, his prick already shifting to push into her cunny, seeking its way past its lips.
Yet he shoves her aside, tossing her back onto the bed. "Turn around. Show me," he spits, slapping her on the arse. "Show me how you want me to fuck you."
Her eyes flashing, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand; still, she does as she is told. As she turns around, strings of her cunny-sap dangle between her thighs; she is so open and so heated that the petals of her cunny have unfurled, the mouth of her vagina peeking black from between them--oh, a target for his prick's arrow, and he has to bite his tongue in order not to pierce her immediately, to throw her down and savage her.
He squeezes his prick, hissing, hissing; he spits on his thumb and plunges it straight into her arse. She is still screaming when he pulls it out and sucks her salt-and-metal must from it, needing to have this taste before he truly begins.
There. Now, he can finally lean back against the pillows and start watching, start stroking himself, he as wet as she is, using his own sap to slick up his prick.
"Didn't you hear me, girl? Dance. Dance that little arse of yours like you would dance it upon my prick," he commands.
Furious, she glares at him over her shoulder, yet he knows his Yassamin, knows how she thrives on this, lives for this, the queen made the slave girl. In another dancing movement, she tosses her hips up from the bed, yanking them high, pushing out her cunny to tease him. She growls a little in her throat as she settles to lean her head on her arms, throwing her hips to and fro, jiggling her buttocks, moving them in slow and deep circles. The way she does when she rides him, the way she does when she becomes but hot and hungry cunt out to devour his prick and his being, consuming his flesh and his soul whole. A reversal of childbirth, he has thought of it at times, so much has her lust terrified him, left him in awe: the man sucked back into the womb, the way the heathens say Mother Earth swallows her children, oh, oh--again, the altars of fertility goddesses fill his thoughts, awakening that pagan inside of him that worships at the cunny.
The cunny, the cunny: she purses it, oh, he can see this; a little more sap trickles out, more as she brings her hand to her clitoris, not even asking for his permission to stroke it. But if she thinks that'll get him to discipline her, then she's wrong--he's cleverer than this and ignores her transgression, earning him another glare over her shoulder.
"What's the matter?" he coos, effortlessly condescending. "That's exactly how I want you to rub your little cunny, rub it just like that when I'm inside you, my pussycat," he croons, that eunuch-lisp he knows so disgusts her and arouses her. "Just like that, slick it, sticky-sweet, so you'll squeeze around my prick all the tighter," he purrs, pushing his own erection down and rolling his palm over its head, shivering in pleasure at the pressure. "Come, my child. Surely you can take me harder than that? Hmm?"
"You bastard," she spits, and that wicked slant in her eyes--oh, his cock fills out, pulses even more, now: for it is a look that tells him she has had an idea.
And that idea is what now makes him gasp out loud: for now, Yassamin sends out those psychic tendrils they always love to caress each other with, to reach places otherwise unreachable during lovemaking--
And right now, right there before his eyes, she uses them upon herself instead.
Yes, herself: astonished, Jaffar watches as she puts her hands down, yet the lips of her cunny remain open, the petals of it pulled apart in display, her little clitoris rolling in its hood. It is a sight shocking, yet so arousing it makes him tingle from his scalp to his toes: he is served another jolt as she pushes an invisible finger--no, that has to be two--inside of her arse, offering him a little gape.
And as she now begins to spread out that gape, to share in her pink and her red and her black he cries out, a keen high from his chest; his cock spurts out a thick rivulet of sap. Helpless, he sobs in defeat as his Babylonian so displays herself, holding open both cunny and arse; the way she is now taking herself instead of letting him do it, allowing him only to take her with his eyes.
His eyes, and his nose; she is now exuding perfume, fragrant with sex, the waters and the oils she has prepared her arse with for tonight's play. It's as if--yes, she must be doing this deliberately--these scents are all now enhanced tenfold, assaulting his nostrils and now, wonder of wonders, even his vision becomes sharper! He thinks of asking her to use this spell on him when he is working--he could use the improved eyesight!
She but laughs. "I heard that."
He shakes his head. "It is most marvellous. Please, continue."
And now, she keeps on looking at him, pushing a finger of flesh inside of her arse, dipping it in so that she may lick her taste off it in a tease; his mouth waters as she sends to him its sweet metal-salt. "Delicious," she purrs.
"You little--" but of course, she has bound him to the bed, of course: that's why he couldn't move! He lies upon his back, defeated, his prick fat and heavy as it rolls upon his heaving belly, aching. "Bitch!"
Yet she does not answer him, her revenge her complete absorption in herself, her own pleasure. There is but the sound of her jewellery, the music he'd thought to accompany his own taking of her; now it obeys but the thrusts of the ghost-hands, the ghost-prick she is now taking herself with. And then there are the noises she herself makes, soft and wet: the smacking of her mouth as she pants into her arms, the hoarse little cries as she insinuates an invisible prick inside her arse; the huffs through her nose buried in the pillows.
She is fucking herself shallowly, too, he can tell: the invisible prick is taking her in but short thrusts, only spreading and stretching and pushing and pulling at the muscles of her opening, the furled skin of her anus. She is deliberately avoiding pushing herself into orgasm, visibly teetering upon the brink of it as she tenses and clenches there, removing her hand from her cunny when she comes too close to the peak.
"Clever little girl," he groans, lifting his back from the bed to give his cock some stimulation at least, letting it drag across his belly--oh, but this just makes the ache worse; his cock pulses and stretches all the more, as if wanting to make a cunny out of thin air to relieve itself with. "Saving yourself for me?" he croons with all the mock-pity he can muster, clenching his fists. "Can't come properly without your master's prick right here, can you? Doesn't feel good unless it's me up your little cunny, up your little arse, hmm? Touching."
She but moans in defiance and slaps her cunny, slaps it and rubs it, taking her knuckles: now, she has had enough of teasing. She vanishes completely for a moment, and in a flash, she reappears above him: now, she is straddling him so that she is facing his feet, her cunny and her arse offered right above his face.
"God--!" he cries, but his curse turns into a hopeless wail as a drop of her wetness falls into his mouth, one drop even flying into his eye. "Please! This is too much!" he moans, yet something in him does not cry "Mercy;" some wretched self-torturer in him still but shouting out "Please, Yassamin; please."
"Oh, but I have only just started," Yassamin groans at him, her voice unfamiliar to him in the depth of its heat, strange and dark as it drags in her throat. Her cunny clenches, pursing itself over his face as her arse remains held open, now without any rutting movement inside of it, just the open gape: her flesh breathes over him in nauseating, yet fascinating detail. The rippled and uneven surfaces of the rings of muscle, there, there at her opening; and beyond it, the smoother walls of her rectum, that hot and wet silk his cock must have now or he shall perish.
"Please!" he cries. "I mean it. I am an old man. I will have a heart attack;" he coughs as another drip of her cunny's sap falls into his mouth. "Please."
"But I must prepare myself first," Yassamin says, her voice still raw and strange, but her expression now playful as she levitates a bottle of oil from the bedside table. The only sound in the room is the little plop as the cork is removed: then, Jaffar's astonished cry as Yassamin tilts the bottle in mid-air, pouring a stream of clear, thick liquid straight into her gaping hole.
And immediately upon the tails of that cry of Jaffar's, now rings a scream of Yassamin's: to have the oil touch the innermost parts of her rectum immediately, at first contact takes her by surprise, and now her arse clenches shut completely, she clutching at the bedcovers, her entire skin covered in goosebumps. "Oh, God!"
"You've wasted the oil, now!" Jaffar groans as the bottle falls and spills all over his chest and his belly.
"It is no waste," she murmurs and gathers herself up.
And before he can utter a word of protest, she lowers herself on top of him, proceeding to spread the oil all over his body with her own. Her entire body, she turns into a tool to massage him with, rubbing the warm, rose-scented oil into his skin with her flesh: her arms, she uses to spread it onto his thighs, her breasts to spread it onto his hips, her belly to kiss it onto his prick. She clasps his prick in love and strokes it, gentle, sweet: to finally be so touched, to finally have her hold him in her hands almost undoes him that very moment. He cries out into her thigh, panting into it, biting the soft flesh of it and he does not know why: perhaps in revenge, perhaps to stop her, perhaps to reward her; oh, he is going mad from his need.
"Yassamin, please!" he moans, spitting his own hair from his mouth, so much is he tossing there; yet, Yassamin but laughs and swallows his cock into her mouth. He has to use a spell, now, to stop himself from coming, has to knot the channels inside of his body so as to not spill just yet, not yet, not yet--
Yet it is to no avail. With a laughter cruel and sweet, she reaches inside of him and undoes these knots, laughing so that some of the oil she had poured inside of herself bursts from her arse onto his face. He mewls in disgust and despair and delight; oh, such a humiliation at such an early part of the play, and now his wife undoing him with the very same magic he had himself taught her!
But his Yassamin is relentless, a beast. "Oh, no, you don't," she laughs, spitting oil from her mouth onto his balls. "No cheating. If you've kept yourself from coming so far with but the power of your mind, surely you can do it for a while longer?"
Now, he doesn't even bother to answer her in words; he but roars and cries and howls as he bucks into her hands, into her swallowing mouth, throat. His body no longer cares what his mind thinks, what Yassamin might think, want: it surges upwards and outwards, the sperm that has been gathering in his balls for days, the ache that had made his prostate swell now rising and spreading and rising still, ready to erupt from him. He is about to erupt, erupt--he had always thought this a poor metaphor, but is he not made of molten fire? Of hard and hot lava, of fire, fire, flooding fire, flood, fire--
"You are free," Yassamin's cry over the din of his fire-storm, heat--she bending over before him, offering cunny and arse--
And he is upon her. With one brutal thrust, he forces himself into her cunny, slapping against the soft, wet, fat lips of it, their heat meeting his. Roaring, surging, howling, he mounts her and ravages her, slamming her into the mattress with each of his thrusts, ejaculating as soon as he is inside of her. He comes and he comes, yes, fire, molten--"Ah!" He claws at her ribs, claws at her arms, biting the skin of her back, marking her, thrusting into her so violently that his bones creak, so that his joints make snap. He is coming apart, falling apart at the hinges, he thinks and laughs deliriously as he pours himself into her, white-hot into her red: she but ululates underneath him, spasming helplessly underneath him.
"This was what you wanted, was it not?" he asks as he falls upon her, panting, still in shock at having spent himself so violently, so soon, so fast. He clutches at the sheets, rubbing wet hair from between their faces so that he may kiss her over her shoulder; her cunny clenches around him--perhaps out of disappointment?--now that he has stopped thrusting and remains still inside of her. "You wanted to undo me like a lad of sixteen, and that's what you got."
"Oh, husband, I know you better than that," she says, squeezing her cunny around him again, again. "You are never sated with just the one release."
He hisses into her ear--"Then milk me, woman. Isn't that what your mother taught you in her chambers? Hmm?" he asks, now lowering his entire weight upon her, making sure that he is filling her cunny completely, pressing into the deepest back end of it behind her womb. "How to please your prince, your lord and master, your king?"
She did indeed, Yassamin tells him telepathically, Jaffar having crushed her lungs too much for her to even attempt speech.
It's as she had told him: all princesses receive detailed training from their mothers in the arts of love, the training of courtesans. For in a grand harem, where even a slave girl can rise up through the ranks to become queen, competition is fierce, and it is only the women who can please the sultans best that emerge from this battle victors. Only the most gifted of women--in the arts, the sciences, but most crucially, the erotic arts--could ever hope to gain and retain a high position at court. Therefore, Jaffar wonders what her mother must have been like, now--how magnificent a mistress must she have been, to have taught her daughter to milk a man like this? Had she instructed her with a cucumber? Had she--?
Do not talk about my mother! Not at a moment like this!
"I apologise," he chuckles, kissing her shoulder, lacing their fingers. "Continue what you were doing. Please."
She answers him with but a sigh, a call, an opening. She relaxes her entire body and lets him inside of herself, and he lets his soul sink into her, heavy with love into her flesh: as her cunny envelops him, so does all of her envelop him, all softness and the sweetness of honey-sap. Her scent floats around him, veiling him with her fragrance: the purples and the pinks of the sunset themselves Yassamin, painting him with her love.
Yet underneath this love, he can sense in her a little frustration, a little voice inside of her that curses herself for not having let herself come earlier: she still hasn't reached release. But this sound, he soothes with his kisses, with a little roll of his hips, finally moving his cock a little inside of her: as she keeps on milking him, keeping him hard, he promises her not one but several releases, the way he always lets her come and come around himself. Can you not remember, my sweet? Always, always I make sure of it; always I leave you satisfied, for it is your satisfaction that crowns mine.
And now, she moans, moans and adores him, the way he sends to her what he is doing this very moment: the knowledge of muscle and nerve and spirit required for a man to cheat his way past the fatigue that normally follows the male orgasm. He shows to her the pathways of energy he manipulates in himself to push himself past the orgasm into a continued state of arousal, never letting his desire dwindle in between: he concentrates upon those glands in himself that correspond to the female womb, retaining the heat therein, just as a woman does, capable as she is of making love all night. Few men can master this skill, he has been told, especially if they are men as heated as he, as lustful as he, he always having been a satyr even by male standards. For just as he possesses a woman's soul within his male one, so does he possess the passion of a woman in addition to a man's--the desires of two people, my Yassamin! he laughs into her soul. Therefore, I am the only person in the world with enough passion to sate even a Babylonian demoness!
It is this natural two-sexedness of his that gives him the gift of female insatiability, that surge of energy women have immediately upon orgasm: whereas a man becomes lethargic, wants to sleep, a woman becomes rejuvenated, full of spirit, eager to play once more. It is as the Earth-worshipping pagans have told them: the plant rises, sends forth his seed, dies and is no more; but it is the Earth who feels within herself a new spark and bursts into life, teeming with the potential of new creation, ready to begin a new play.
And so it is with Jaffar the man-woman, as eager as the nymphs of Lesbos, Yassamin laughs into his mind.
It is true, she tells him. From all my dalliances with women, I recognise this joy in you, this eagerness to go on all night, this wonder, this gaiety, this glee. Making love to you is always like loving a man and a woman at once, my Beloved sweet. And with this loving purr into his mind, she massages him with her sex more vigorously, now, knowing that he is past the danger of sleep: she luxuriates in the feel of his cock inside of her, milking it, feeling its thickness, the wonderful heat of it, the shape of it. The way the head of it nestles just behind her womb, the very throne-room of her pleasure; and oh, oh: if they both stay very still, she can even tell his pulse apart from hers, his veins beating against hers--oh, but now tears fill her eyes, a gladness that makes her sob out loud her happiness, her gratitude sent up to the heavens a prayer.
My blood sings to your blood, he hums into her the old refrain: my spirit to your spirit, my flesh to your flesh; my blood sings to your blood against mine.
"Then come move into me, my love," she now asks him out loud, resting her head on her arms, smiling sweetly, passionately, full of happiness and glee. "Take me."
"Lift up a little," he tells her, tender, sweet; he gestures for her to take her hands to her cunny, her favourite way of reaching release. "Ride your hands, and show me;" he says and sends a tendril of thought up her spine, his laughter, his curiosity--he is always fascinated by the way she orgasms, finding something new in it each time.
"Engineer talk," she snickers, and every time she says that, there's something new to it, too; he cannot help but let out a purring laugh.
"Come: I could feel you were near the brink but a moment ago," he says and begins to move into her in a steady rhythm.
This, in fact, is often his favourite part of their lovemaking: when he is no longer in a rush towards orgasm, he can control his body better, and can focus on giving Yassamin pleasure, bathing in her bliss himself. Whereas his great masterplans, his grand erotic plays can involve the most complex of plots, this is a time of simplicity, of ease; now she who had played the ravisher, the maenad becomes once again the sweet young woman he knows and loves.
Not that I did not love the maenad, he hastens to add, stroking the soft flesh of her hips as he moves into her. But now I know you will not tear me into pieces and devour me whole! he laughs.
How can you be so sure? she laughs wickedly into his mind and gives his cock a tight squeeze--one so violent it makes him yelp.
I know you will not eat me alive, my sweet, because you will want to keep me as your slave, as your servant, as your pet, he churrs into her mind.
"Then, move faster, harder, pet," she gasps, and as he does, she loses the ability to speak, in mind and in spirit: she but shows to him what she feels, the very bliss-spot where, upon hitting it, his prick strikes pleasure rippling through her body like sunlight rippling through water: with her thoughts, she guides him to the right place, shows him the right length and pace and depth of thrust to unravel her with.
There, there, he thinks at her, not daring to change the pace and the depth of his thrusts at all, now, taking pride in the precision of this, taking my woman like clockwork, he moans into her mind, like clockwork! "Come, my sweet; oh! You feel so wonderful--oh--come, my little wicked, wicked demoness!" he groans, because he knows these are the exact words she needs this very moment; "make this sweet little cunny come around my fat prick; come!"
And she does: an entire week's worth of frustration is unravelled in her by the command of his body, his voice, his spirit, each one of his thrusts a wave heating her, melting her, lifting her to the heavens. Quicksilver, she rushes up around him, flickering hot and up his spine, rising through his flesh and bone in turn, rising, rising, high, high, high, high; the hair on his neck stands on end as she so rises into him a liquid heat, all of her dissolved by him, in him, him.
Yet this sensation is entirely faceless, featureless: it's one of those sublime orgasms where he cannot feel any particular visions from her beyond this one simple symbol of a heat rising; he cannot hear any words from her, for there are none that could describe this sensation. Rapturous with enlightenment, he realises what this is: it is no more and no less than the tawhid. The unity, the faceless oneness, the omnipresence of God, he thinks in his ecstasy: the way her attributes are wiped from both her and him by the power and the majesty of Love. In her surrender, she-he is sublime, ineffable, a thing of awe.
But he, still a heathen sinner, weeps within and murmurs to her these words: "Oh, but I wish you gave me a face to worship again, my love; a shape to adore, you who are my idol, my sweet Yassamin," he moans and he mourns into her, laughing around her a little melancholy as he holds her there, rocks her.
Now, he can feel her around himself once more: the tiredness of her hands from having rubbed her cunny, the last orgasmic ripples of her womb's muscles above his prick.
Is that better, my love? she asks him, too tired to even reach for him as they lie there, spooned.
Infinitely better, he sighs into her mind, kissing her neck, cupping her breast, still firm within the love of her flesh.
I am but catching my breath, she thinks.
I know, he laughs. You never play with your arse just to tease me, he chuckles into her mind. It is sodomy you want still, and it is sodomy I shall give you, whenever you--oh. How did that happen? he asks innocently as he slips his cock into her arse, just like that, just like that, she now choking a scream into her arm.
"You bastard!"
"You do feel so fantastic when I take you by surprise," he sighs.
"It hurts," she groans.
"I apologise."
"Do you?" she spits. "Sometimes I wonder if you truly care at all, if there's pleasure in it for you."
And that is the sound of true pain, hurt. "I--I am sorry."
"Never enter me without warning like that," she says. "Ever. And no, don't you dare pull out now!"
He brushes hair away from her face, but she refuses to turn her face to him; this breaks his heart. "Yassamin. I am sorry. I truly am. What would you have me do?"
"Help me. There must be a spell--"
His entry had hurt her that much, after all this play? Now, he is so shocked he softens a little, but as she had told him to stay hard within her, he daren't stop. "God. Yassamin. I had no idea. Here--" he murmurs and sends his consciousness to her arse, and he does indeed find cramping, clenching not that of pleasure; he soothes the nerves with a golden warmth, the same warmth he uses to nurse her womb's contractions during her bleeding. "I truly am sorry. I did not realise. I but thought--from my own experience--oh, it is different for a man. Please, Yassamin. Forgive this old sodomite?"
But now, she has burst into tears, sobbing around him with such force he is nearly pushed out of her. He peeks into her mind, and it is a chaos: she is more hurt by him having betrayed her trust rather than the physical discomfort. Despite the wild start, she had been looking for tenderness, especially after having given of herself to him so, deep down in the soul. And she would never want him to stop now, could not bear it if they now parted in anger--she wants him to make up for it, wants pleasure to wipe away the pain. The worst thing he could do now was to stop.
"My love, my love--I never meant to hurt you. Please--if there is anything I can do to make up for my stupidity, I will do it."
"Promise to never do this again. And don't just say it, and then do it again. I want you to learn, truly learn not to--you always--"
"Now, that's not true," he moans, pushing into her, pushing her into the bed, taking her as she is still sobbing, knowing this is what she wants; she even spreads her legs for him, yearning for him to take her until the pain is gone. "It's not always--you know I try my best," he tells her and shows to her his mind. He shows to her all those times he has regretted his impulses, shows her all those times he has controlled himself so as not to say something that would hurt her, all those the times he's refrained even from simple jokes when she'd seemed to be in the sort of mood where even the lightest of jests would have seemed an insult. "Believe me, my love."
"I'm sorry, Jaffar," she says, wiping her face on her hand. "It's just that you were away for so long. And it's soon my bleeding, too. You know how quick I am to be hurt by everything, seeing demons, malice everywhere."
He laughs a little, tears now filling his own eyes. "That explains your heat, then," he says, nuzzling her neck, never ceasing in his taking of her. "And before you say it, I do indeed take your pain and anguish seriously, whether the blood-humours contributed to it or not. Pain is still pain, whether it's caused by dark blood or not."
"My doctor," she says, clasping his hand and kissing it. "Please. I would see your face," she says, suddenly so small and so fragile and cold underneath him, a little bird in his hands.
A little bird as he turns her around, as he gathers her into his arms, making sure not to even brush her cunny with his cock as he pushes it into her arse once more--the last thing he wants to risk right now is giving her an inflammation. He tells her this with his mind, shows to her his care, even whispers a purification-rune over her cunny to make sure it's clean; a soft golden glow shimmers around her cunny as he does this. He blows over his right hand and the golden glow shimmers around it in turn: this so that he may use his now-clean hand to stroke her clitoris, softly pressing her wrists into the bed with his mind, softly spreading her legs with his spirit.
"Now," he says as she lies splayed underneath him, her weight taken off her weary limbs by his love; he moves his thumb in soft circles around the root of her clitoris, the weight of his thumb upon the left side of its hood, the place she loves being touched the most. "Is that better?"
"Yes," she smiles through her tears. "Except for one thing."
He tilts his head and rolls his hips into her, smiling gently. "And that is?"
"Kiss me?" she asks.
And her voice is still so small that it breaks his heart: he makes himself as great as he can be, as powerful as he can be, as masculine and as motherly as he can be as he now takes her mouth with his. Oh, but he calls up all of his power, all of his might to form a protective circle around her being; with his body and his mind he calls up this energy until the very room hums with it. The powers of earth and fire and water and air, all under his command, he now makes into a fortress around her, his love within it a safe bower for her to rest in: around her, he is blossoming, flowering with all the things he loves about her, showing them to her one by one. Her laughters, her skills as they build the dolls together, her beauties as she teases him in her bed the way she has done tonight; the way she reads to their children, the way she smiles joyously when enaptured in prayer. Thus, he showers her with all his happinesses, swearing to hold her like this forever, forever; sheltering all of these things, all of his Yassamins within the treasure-chamber of his heart.
"Yassamin, my Yassamin," he murmurs into her mouth, taking her pain from her sighs, swallowing all her hurt with his lips, dissolving all of her anguish upon his tongue. "It's all right, it's all right, it's all right," he whispers and now his tears mingle with hers, both glimmering upon her cheeks in the last rays of the setting sun's light: "I am here, my sweet, here, my sweet, here, my sweet, sweet."
"Oh--" and she arches underneath him, swallowing her sobs, her entire body tensing as he pushes past that bend in her guts, pushes her into an orgasm far deeper than the one that had preceded it, one full of fire and of spirit and of shapes, attributes, colours; deep. She is so open to him that it terrifies him, her psyche now an open wound: so does she open herself to him that he can see all her memories of him in turn, good memories, bad memories, memories soft and kind and terrible. It shakes him to see himself so through her eyes, to see Jaffar the witch-king who had so frightened her at first, that dark-robed figure who had haunted her garden and her dreams, ceaselessly following at her heels like some hell-hound--oh, this he regrets. But then, she shows to him Jaffar the fool who plays the horse to his children in the courtyard, bucking and whinnying as he tosses each child upon his back: she shows to him his expression this very moment, a man confused, a man in tears, a man torn betwixt laughter and sorrow.
"My madman," she says, shaking her head; "I but want to show you that this is how much I love you, you fool, you idiot--"
He laughs and presses his forehead against hers, kissing her nose.
"And this--I want this--" she now tells him, tugging upon her bonds, showing to him Jaffar the beast, the one who had so ravished her in his tent that first time he'd taken her like a boy, the one who had so keenly shared her with others, the one who burns bright at the centre of her heart and her womb and her guts, like this, like this. "Take me, now, Jaffar, take me, take me, please! Come with me, come--oh, please, I could not bear it if you did not come inside of me, inside of me, inside of me, now, now--please!"
And now, he can barely tell which one of them is Jaffar and which one is Yassamin: as he moves into her, he feels the sweet, tight grip of the magic bonds about his own wrists. He shivers in pleasure as he feels each one of his thrusts inside his own body, as if a giant prick were taking him in turn--his own prick trickling the way Yassamin's cunny now trickles in another orgasm, over his prick, prick, prick--
Shall I show you? Yassamin laughs to him a demoness; now, she has released her hands herself and is rubbing her cunny, clutching his body with her legs and he lets her, adores her. Yet still, she asks him, still she laughs around him: Shall I show you, my sweet, my sweet?
He is already spiralling away, all of him but a great cry of "Yes!"--therefore, he hopes she will take this as the answer to her question, too. Oh, but lights dance in his eyes and he can no longer form words with his lips--he is cloven unto as he cleaves unto Yassamin, all of him so gloriously full, full of heat white and red, heat--
Oh.
For now, Yassamin guides her vision behind them for a look, and there, he sees himself taking her: her legs, spread underneath him, his cock slick and white from foam as it sinks into her arse, delicious, his balls so full and so high, so close to the peak.
But it is what's between his own legs that now shocks him, what makes him utter the final cry that plunges him into release.
For it is his arse that is now gaping. He is taken, he is taken by her prick invisible and he is open, but a vast black and pink hole between his buttocks: terrified, exhilarated, he howls, cries, sobs as he now watches himself held so open wide. Held, filled, filled and empty, this paradox turning his mind inside out, just as this invisible presence beats upon his prostate, beats upon this very bend in his guts that he now beats in Yassamin.
And it is into her that he now falls, laughing, howling at this marvel: she is now coming inside of him as he is coming inside of her, prick into arse, arse around prick, Yassamin within Jaffar, Jaffar within Yassamin. Oh, God, almighty God, but he can feel her trickle inside of him! Yes, oh, God, God: she is now guiding her own ejaculate into her ghost-prick! How she managed that, he has no idea, but he is drenched with her, bursting with her, fluid slurping out of his arse down the seam of his perineum and he is gone, gone.
It's ridiculous, it's wonderful, it's amazing and it's madness, madness; she laughs underneath him, sending to him the glory of her own release, the absolute wonder of his prick as it swells at the moment of his orgasm, the way his arse loosens at the same time: inside her and around her and in her and above her and underneath her he, she comes, comes.
"This--this witch--this witchcraft--!" he gasps, stutters into her shoulder as he keeps on shooting his seed into her, whimpering as she offers him the vision of his now-abandoned arse pursing shut, trickles of her sap spurting out from it, as if from a little cunny--oh, but she knows how to devastate him, every time.
"And it was I who was supposed to take you!" he cries, collapsing over her, panting, consumed whole.
"You did," she cackles; but it seems that she is cramping, for she now pushes him to lie on his side, she herself quickly bending and stretching her limbs and rubbing tension out of them. "I had wanted to try that trick for a while."
"Which one?" he moans, hopeless, light-headed.
"Transferring the ejaculate. The amount of concentration it required--" she laughs and shakes her head. "Perhaps it was an advantage that you hurt me so; I think the anguish I felt helped me focus my energy. The anger I felt, the frustration... it sharpened my will to a peak."
"A-ha! Do not for a moment think that this will get me to hurt you in such a manner again. I refuse to do anything of the sort; I absolutely refuse," he says, cupping her cheek, kissing her nose. "I am still so very sorry. There's still some devil left in me, I suppose, some instinct of the ravisher; yet know that I am trying my utmost to tame him."
She kisses his nose in turn. "It's fair enough. I was the one who let her demons out first tonight," she murmurs. "And I hurt no more. And I must, in turn, apologise for being so harsh with you."
He winces. "I am going to have to sit on extra cushions for the rest of the week."
"I did not mean that. I meant my harsh words."
"Oh, so you don't care about the soreness of my poor arse?"
"Your little cunny?" she laughs, wickedly. "It's taken far more than that. Don't be such a baby."
"You evil little bitch!" he cries, laughing. He makes to grab a pillow in order to start a fight with them, but they are on the other side of the bed--and now, he is overtaken by a yawn. "I will get you for that. Some day," he says and gathers her into his arms, despite her protests of his sweatiness. "For now, I shall choose to keep you prisoner in my arms until dawn."
"What about Ishtiaq?"
"I left him in Zahra's care for the night."
"Poor creature. He'll have to spend tonight without his foster-mother, then. Are you sure that's wise?"
"Do you want me to fetch him?" But even before he has finished saying this, he knows Yassamin to be in the right. It is Ishtiaq's first night here, and it would not do to separate him from Jaffar, if he is indeed to take on the role of his mother. Ishtiaq needs to know that he is safe, that he is cared for by everyone in the house; who knows, if he thinks himself prisoner, he might expire from sheer fright.
Jaffar makes to ring for Sonbol, to ask him to bring Ishtiaq over; however, Yassamin stops his hand before he can pick up the bell. "No, let's go to your bedroom; we'll save mine for sleep and love. How does that sound to you?"
"Sensible," he says and gets up to fetch his robe. He is so tired he could fall asleep here this very moment, but he is so soft from love he could not bear the idea of leaving an orphaned little creature without love tonight. "There's plenty of love to go around," he murmurs as he offers Yassamin her robe, as he helps her pack her things.
She pecks him on the cheek. "Indeed," she says and takes him by the hand. "Come, then, husband. Let us go love our new son," she grins.