Archive of Our Own ^beta

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.

Chapter Text

Jaffar has always been a man fond of courting the impossible, a champion of lost causes, delighting in taking on projects others would dismiss as but wild fantasies. Yet, if his father could sit a dozen clerics from all the world's faiths around the same table, he says, turning this into a successful conference on the topic of love instead of an armed conflict, then nothing should be impossible for a Barmakid, he declares.

And it is little Ishtiaq who is his latest project, his brand new quest for a miracle: for now, Jaffar declares that he shall make a hunter out of him yet. All with the aid of his engineering skills, his magics, his witchcrafts: he aims to take the place of the mother cheetah one way or another, and himself train Ishtiaq in the hunter's art.

"But do you yourself know how to hunt the way a cheetah does?" Yassamin asks him, genuinely curious, despite the flame of irritation that now flashes in Jaffar's eyes at what he thinks is but pessimism, naysaying on her part. She had hunted gazelle with her pards many a time in her youth, but the kill itself had always taken place a fair distance away: cheetah-keepers still debate as to whether the beast suffocates its victim or breaks its neck or tears it open, or uses a mixture of all three to dispatch its prey.

And then there are the animal's instincts, the lightning-fast reflexes crucial to its survival, and its explosive energy: a cheetah can only sprint once a day on an empty stomach, after which its energy is completely exhausted. "I do not mean to insult you, husband, but you yourself know your limitations," she says as they descend the stairs into the shabestan. "There's your eyesight, for a start..."

"I do not need mine," he says, pulling the sheet off the creature he has been building for the past few days. "We will be using hers."

Yes, well. Yassamin had suspected it was going to be something of this sort: for Jaffar has indeed built a clockwork cheetah out of his gems and his living metals. He waves his hand and the silvern beast whirrs into motion, its opal eyes flashing with golden fire; now, it crouches, looking around itself. "She can see for miles, and I have programmed her with everything I have learned of the cheetah, from all the cheetah-keeping books of the world."

"All of them?" Yassamin teases him. "Are you absolutely sure you did not leave out one or two? A later edition of the Book of--"

"Shush," he hisses, poking his elbow into Yassamin's side. They both know full well he is exaggerating for effect: he could, indeed, sneak his ghostly form into all the libraries of the world if he so wished, but it's doubtful whether he has learned all there is to know about the ways of the cheetah. "What she knows is more than enough for our purposes."

"When are you going to put her to the test?"

"As soon as possible. They grow so fast we mustn't waste a day."

And therefore, that Saturday, the entire family sets out into the grassland valley a few miles beyond their house, one of the few patches of Samarkandian Sogd not covered by dense forest. Yassamin has made sure to make it a delightful picnic for the children: her horse is laden with delicious foods, the scent of the sweetmeats distracting Anwar so much that he nearly falls off the donkey cart he, Salsabil, Ishtiaq and the metal cheetah are riding in.

However, it is the donkey who is the most restless of the lot: it whinnies nervously and flicks its ears, having to cart a predator around in such a fashion. Ishtiaq himself remains perfectly calm: they have hooded him in the manner of a falcon to keep him from being distracted, and Salsabil sits by his side, gently petting his back with long, firm strokes.

For slightly older cheetahs, after they have been captured from the wild, are tamed by the loving presence of women: they are taken to the harems of their owners, one or two women keeping them company for hours every day, talking to them and petting them, softening them with their gentleness the way male cheetah-keepers never could. As soon as Salsabil had heard of this custom, she had appointed herself the head cheetah-tamer of the household and had started to spend all her days in Ishtiaq's company, telling him stories, jokes, even reading to him from books.

So persistent had she been that Yassamin had had to start teaching the children in the courtyard, their daily lessons now shared by Ishtiaq: the children had sat either side of him, and Ishtiaq himself had listened to Yassamin's lessons more intently than the children had done at times, as if he truly were curious about medicine, astronomy and religion. Jaffar had but laughed and decided this must have been because of Yassamin's voice: a voice so pleasant it would charm the birds out of the trees, so why wouldn't it charm any wild beast? "Look at me," he had said, and gifted her with a kiss.

And now, Yassamin uses this opportunity to teach the children further, educating them in the rituals of the hunt. "Did you know that in India, the sultan's best hunting-cheetah would be carried upon the back of an elephant, in a gilded howdah?" she asks the children as she rides beside the cart. "It would be a magnificent procession, with musicians and attendants to announce his coming, like he was a mighty prince."

"I saw one of those processions in my youth, when I visited India," Jaffar says over his shoulder. "A magnificent sight it was indeed, although I could not help but wonder if the cheetah were made nervous by the noise--and how on earth they did not frighten away all the blackbuck! Perhaps the procession was for but show, to but display to the people the sultan's might. Very much in the way they paraded your mother around Basra whenever she went on the littlest of shopping trips," he smirks. "On her pink elephant and everything."

"There are pink elephants out there?" Anwar asks, having only seen ordinary ones in the city and in Mohammad's stables.

Yassamin shakes her head and laughs. "They painted the poor creatures I rode upon, and I was terrified to ride them in the first place. Remember how frightened you were when you got to ride one on Nowruz? There you are. As your father says, it was for show, to make the people believe they were witnessing something real. When it wasn't quite real."

"Which is very much like what we're going to do with Ishtiaq today," Jaffar says as he, too, slows down to ride beside the cart. "For we have to make Ishtiaq believe that the silver cheetah is, in fact, his mother, teaching him how to hunt, how to feed."

"I will guide the gazelles nearer to us," Yassamin says, "so that the silver pard can make the kill as close to us as possible, showing Ishtiaq how it's done."

"Why can't you just tell him how to do it?" Anwar asks, as if his parents had not realised the obvious, and that this whole elaborate play was unnecessary.

"Animal children learn only by example," Salsabil recites, speaking like a little book, as always. "They do not possess man's reasoning faculties, but use instinct to guide all their actions."

"What's instinct?" Anwar asks.

"It's what you do without thinking," Salsabil says before their parents can interrupt. "You did it just now, when you tried to dig into Mother's saddlebags without permission. And fell on your bottom instead. That's what happens when a human tries to use instinct instead of reason," she says, nodding sagely.

Jaffar laughs. "Something like that."

But now they have arrived at their destination; they tether the animals and spread out their carpets, Yassamin moving the saddlebag out of Anwar's reach. "Not until after the hunt. It's not polite for the hosts to eat before the guests have eaten, and it is Ishtiaq who is now our guest. Once he's caught something, we'll wash and pray and then, dine," she tells the children, having been on numerous trips like these as a child herself.

Forlorn, Anwar slumps on the carpet. "Very well," he says and starts tugging at the grass.

Jaffar lifts Ishtiaq off the cart and sets him down into the grass, not removing his hood yet. "There we are," he says, gentle, sweet. "Yassamin," he says, still in that same, soft voice. "Are you ready to begin?"

"I am," she says and she lifts to her feet, closes her eyes and raises her hands to the sky.

Mesmerised, all watch as Yassamin now begins to weave her magic: with the eyes of her spirit, she casts her sight wide, wide, across the entire vast valley, searching for stirrings, breath, scent, beasts, beasts. There's a hare rustling here by the brook--no, not what they are looking for--birds on the other side of the brook--no, no--she must cast her nets wider still; wider. And it is only at the northernmost end of the valley, where the grass is shortest and yellowed by the sun that she finds a small flock of gazelles, perhaps only a dozen animals.

The prey has been found, she tells Jaffar telepathically, her voice echoing into the children's ears, commanding stillness, silence.

The hair on the back of her neck stands on end as the silver cheetah whirrs into life: Jaffar sends his consciousness into the creature, into Yassamin's mind, into Ishtiaq's: from this moment on, the four must work together, flow together, kill together in perfect synchronicity, harmony.

Jaffar pulls the hood off Ishtiaq's head. Watch, my son, he speaks to the animal, in a voice strange, new; it is a voice feminine, feline even for him, enough to startle Yassamin. There they come, my sweet child; there they come. To feed us, to nourish us, to offer to us their blood: come, my darling Ishtiaq; come watch, watch, watch, watch.

And now, Yassamin has plucked the weakest two from the herd. Two older creatures, nearing the ends of their lifespans, one of them almost lame--this should be easy. But as soon as she has thought of that, she also sends out a prayer to God, an insallah humble and true, so as not to let her pride ruin this endeavour.

I am sure cheetahs know not of such things, Jaffar smiles into her mind. Come. Bring the gazelles forward.

Yassamin moves her consciousness around the herd a gust of wind, a pressure, a tremor of the ground; the gazelles feel uneasy, restless, and therefore begin to trot away from their grazing-grounds, now moving towards her and Jaffar. The very moment the two weaker gazelles can be seen clearly, she whispers out a command.

Now!--

Run! Jaffar tells the silver cheetah and it springs into motion.

It's as fast as a true cheetah, he is glad to find: yet he has to drive it forwards with immense force, so that his own heart starts to pound in his ears, so that he himself becomes short of breath, starts to sweat underneath his turban. Run, run, run! There, there, there! he guides it, and there--one of the gazelles takes a sharp turn to the right, and so does the cheetah--

There is a distant crashing sound, the nauseating noise of twisting and crushing metal: Yassamin's entire body is jolted back as she takes in the impact of the silver beast crashing into an unseen rock, hidden behind tall grass.

Destroyed, destroyed, the silver cheetah now lies upon the ground a heap of mangled metal; it is dead, dead, dead.

No, no, no, no, no! Jaffar cries, in rage, in frustration--weeks of his work, wasted! Destroyed! This cannot be--

A mirage! Create a mirage! Yassamin tells him, while the weakest of the gazelles begins to tire, begins to slow down.

I will try--Jaffar groans out loud and lifts out all the psychic energy he had loaded into the cheetah, sucking it out of the crystal matrix in the creature's chest. Gathering it into his hands, he then balls up this energy and casts it out a sphere swirling, a ball of molten, sparkling silver and gold: this ball now flares out into the shape of a cat in mid-air, a cheetah hitting the ground running, Jaffar imitating the movements of a true cheetah as well as he can. And into this mirage-shape, he pours out his entire knowledge of the cheetah, all of his memories of decades spent hunting with the pard, hoping against hope that this phantasm will be enough to teach Ishtiaq.

Ishtiaq?

In the world of the flesh, Jaffar reaches out for Ishtiaq with his hand, but Ishtiaq is gone. Damn and blast! The moment he had turned his attention from him--

But there, there: before his eyes, Yassamin's vision, she sending her consciousness into the brain of a crow soaring above the field, the crow already anticipating a feast--it has spied the trails of dust billowing up from the ground as the two cheetahs, illusory and real, now rush towards the gazelle from two opposite directions. Yassamin shares this vision with Jaffar, with the children, now severing her vision from Ishtiaq's consciousness, so as not to disturb his hunt.

Oh, my! Jaffar laughs, pouring his laughter into their shared vision: now, he but urges the phantom cheetah onwards, chasing the gazelle until both the mirage and Ishtiaq are within striking distance.

And it is within but seconds that the ghost-cheetah is upon the gazelle. With one swift tug of her paw, she swats at the gazelle's hind leg, cutting its tendons: the taste of iron bursts into Jaffar's mouth as her teeth close around the gazelle's throat. Victory, victory!

Victory, victory! the cry echoes through their minds--but this time, it is not a cry of Jaffar's. For now, Ishtiaq's teeth close around the gazelle's neck, too: whereas the ghost-cheetah's fangs had punctured its neck, Ishtiaq's smaller ones cannot do this yet. But what he can do is close his little jaws around the gazelle's windpipe: by instinct, he bites down hard, hard, hard, his smaller frame tossed about like a doll as the gazelle writhes in its death throes.

But it is of no use for the gazelle: letting go of the cheetah shape, Jaffar takes up the energy once more and now shapes it into a long, sharp knife. With a last burst of energy, he thrusts the knife into the gazelle's neck, cutting its throat with a swift prayer: at this, blood bursts into Ishtiaq's mouth, too. Now, Ishtiaq is safe from the gazelle's kicks as they fade away in death; but oh, the wild drunkenness as he tastes his first blood, his first kill, another's life surging into his throat! Yassamin sways with it, swooning from it, Jaffar moaning in pleasure deep from his guts as he drinks from Ishtiaq's thrill.

No wonder blood is haram, if it can cause such intoxication! Yassamin thinks at Jaffar, a little uneasy at having tasted from a substance forbidden.

The laws of halal and haram are only for men, Jaffar tells her: we are but feeling what he feels, taking in a nourishment entirely lawful for him. Jaffar sighs in a pleasure gentler, sweeter this time; his sigh is rich with a father's love. "Our son."

"Our son," Yassamin sighs in equal love and opens her eyes, coming to embrace Jaffar, leaning her head on his shoulder, still swooning from their little hunter's bliss. "Can you feel it, too?"

"Beautiful," Jaffar says as he kisses Yassamin's hand; his entire body shivers as he feels Ishtiaq lapping at the blood. "But he is too young to bite through the skin yet, and as such, cannot feed himself with the beast's flesh; we should hurry up and divide the carcass."

It is only then that Yassamin thinks to look at their human children. Both Salsabil and Anwar seem stunned, shocked; she remembers how saddened and awful she had felt on her first hunting trip, so she now goes to hug both children, soothing them. "It may seem cruel, but it is necessary for a cat's survival," she says, kissing both little heads.

"I was not thinking of that," Salsabil murmurs in awe. "I--I want to do this again. Please? Can we do this again?" she says, her little frame trembing from excitement; she, too, must be under blood-intoxication.

"Not today, but perhaps in a few days' time," Yassamin tells her as Jaffar takes his horse and goes to fetch the gazelle. "A cheetah can sprint only once a day, and a good hunter never takes more than he needs. That gazelle will be enough for all of us."

"As long as we eat it soon," Anwar moans; he gets to his feet, lifts his shirt and presses his belly to his mother's ear. "Can you hear how it's gurgling?" he complains.

Yassamin but laughs. "We'll set up a fire and cook the beast here. Come."

"Before you ask, Yassamin, it was a lawful killing," Jaffar says as he returns with the carcass, already neatly gutted, the crows left to their banquet. "I plunged the dagger in before the gazelle died. That, children, makes it halal. You must always remember this, when hunting by yourselves--it has to be a human being butchering the animal. Once it becomes a kill made by an animal, it becomes tainted and unlawful, not safe for human consumption. The same thing with blood--you must drain it all before it starts rotting inside of the animal, ruining its meat."

"I'll remember," Salsabil nods, staring at the carcass, fascinated. "Teach me how to take it apart, Father."

Yassamin looks up at Jaffar, shaking her head. "And here, I cannot even look! Truly, our little Diana here is a greater huntress than I could ever be," she murmurs, a little concerned at a child of six being this much at ease with blood and gore. Is it you she has inherited this from? she asks Jaffar.

Perhaps, Jaffar laughs into her mind with great pride, his eyes glowing as brightly as the sky. It seems that today I have gained not one, but two great hunters for children. "Come, then, Salsabil," he says and gives her a small knife. "You prepare the meat with me, while these two master chefs warm up the cauldron."

"Did you hear that, Anwar?" Yassamin says, taking him by the hand. "Come. How do you want us to cook it? Savoury or sour? With porridge or vegetables? How about a little murri, and a dash of Zahra's advieh? Hmm?"

"Whatever cooks it the fastest, Mother!" Anwar cries out in despair.

Yassamin but laughs. "Dried limes it is, then. Let me show you."

Chapter Text

***

Later that winter

***

"It's haram, Salsabil! I forbid you from tasting from Ishtiaq's kill from now on!"

"But, Mother!" Salsabil cries and wrests her arm free from Yassamin's grip. Again, her mother had surprised her swaying, swooning while Ishtiaq had taken a gazelle. "I don't drink the blood. It can't harm me if it's not going inside of me!"

"It's the intoxication that does, daughter, and that's the problem. I don't want you doing anything foolish, harming yourself in that state!" Yassamin sighs. "I do not wish to forbid you anything, beloved child; you know this. But God has forbidden intoxicants for a good reason: people lose control of themselves, and thus bring harm upon themselves and each other. Please understand--you are but a child, and you are reeling as if you had been taking wine!"

"What's this?" Jaffar asks as he returns, loading the gazelle carcass onto his horse.

"Mother thinks I'm drinking blood," Salsabil groans and rolls her eyes. "When I'm not. Look. I'm not drunk," she says and hops onto her feet, spinning around and around and around. "I am perfectly well balan--" she cries and trips on her feet immediately, landing on the rug in an indignant heap. "Nevermind," she groans, rubbing her behind. "But... Father. Please. Don't let Mother take this away from me! I feel better, I feel stronger, so it must be good for my health. Please, Father," she says, her lower lip trembling, her eyes filling with tears. "It's the most wonderful thing I have ever known."

Jaffar exchanges glances with Yassamin. They both know that out of the twins, it is Salsabil who has shown a greater sensitivity to the spirit world, to magic: they have both been repeatedly surprised at how strong and how steady Salsabil's presence has been whenever they have been working magic with the children, how concentrated she has been whenever they have run together with Ishtiaq to bring down gazelles. Whereas Anwar has been content to merely watch, or has been reading books during their hunting trips--that, or he has voted to stay at the house as he has done today, playing with Sonbol and Zahra.

And now, Salsabil is still glowing with the awe of the experience, from having run and and pounced and willed and killed; from having wielded the life-force itself with her mind and her hands. From having touched Death, from having taken a life to feed a life, realising herself for a living, vibrating link in the cycles of Nature: not something many people, let alone girls of six will often get to experience. It is the experience of the warrior slaying an enemy in battle, the heathen priest performing a sacrifice, the mother giving birth.

And now she is rippling with it, her little body barely able to hold it all. They will have to help her with this, but also protect her from damage: this, Jaffar knows.

"My little witch," Jaffar says and makes to ruffle Salsabil's hair; she, however, knows him too well and yanks her finely plaited braids out of harm's way. Jaffar ignores this, and straightens out her beloved cap and veil instead. "Your mother is right. God has forbidden intoxicants because people do not know how to use them right. Very few people can do anything right, as you yourself so often have remarked. But even for those special people who have the intelligence to do things right--people like you, your mother and I--it takes many years of practice and concentration to be able to control our minds perfectly. Like it is with magic. We would not want you to fall over during an important spell just because the pleasure of the power clouded your senses. Now, collapsing in ecstasy is fine for a mystic, but for a magician, it's extremely dangerous and could cost you your life. We only want you to be able to focus."

"But of course I will focus!" Salsabil says, yanking up her chin, insulted that her father would not trust her. "Besides, I have seen you and Mother drink wine."

"That's because we are older," Yassamin interjects, regretting having said this as soon as the words have left her mouth--Salsabil hates being talked down to, the little adult she is. "I mean that our bodies are fully grown, and that your body and your senses are still but developing."

"Ah, but it is good that we have started you on the ways of magic at such a young age," Jaffar says, placating Salsabil as he now sits beside her. "Will you truly promise to focus? Hand on heart? Not just for the sake of promising, but so that you will not break your mother's heart if you end up hurting yourself."

Salsabil clasps both hands over her heart and begins to recite breathlessly. "I promise, by the Almighty God and his Messenger and all the prophets and Ali and Fatima and all the imams and all the angels and all the djinn and the Buddha and Shiva and Freyja!"

Yassamin rolls her eyes. "Those last three are not our religion!"

Jaffar but laughs. "Says the living Ishtar. I, on the other hand, think that you can tell a great magician from her not turning down any power that might help her," he says and looks at Salsabil with pride. "We'll make a great witch out of you yet."

Instead of a good Muslim? Yassamin sighs into Jaffar's mind with great exasperation.

I'm sure we'll manage both, he tells her.

But now it is Ishtiaq who interrupts them, demanding their undivided attention. He has grown massively in size over these past few months, having now matured into what must be his final size and shape: however, like a cub, he now flops onto his back and offers his full belly for pettings, demanding caresses.

These, Salsabil--a well-trained animal masseuse by now--offers him gladly. "It helps with his digestion," she says quietly, her voice barely audible from underneath Ishtiaq's massive, loud, rumbling purrs. "I can feel the blood and the bile moving more swiftly when I do this," she tells her parents, a proud little veterinarian as she massages Ishtiaq's belly.

"But that's excellent," Jaffar tells her, prouder. "How about here?" he dares scritch Ishtiaq from underneath the forelegs, feeling for his chest. "It is a brave heart, a good heart, a great heart you've got here, my son; a great heart," he purrs back at Ishtiaq, adoring.

"And he is about to fall asleep," Yassamin murmurs, smiling as she cups Ishtiaq's cheeks from behind and offers the top of his head a kiss. "Come. Otherwise we'll not get home before nightfall."

"Is he drunk, Father, do you think?" Salsabil asks, quietly; she is clearly still thinking of what her parents had said, not taking the matter of intoxication lightly, serious as she is in her religion despite everything.

"It's hard to say," Jaffar tells her. "You felt it as we did. Probably even more strongly than we did, in fact. It is said that upon this Earth there always walk a set number of maidens--some say thirteen, some say forty--who feel magic and the life force more keenly than the rest of humankind does. Therefore, it might have been your own perception, the way some foods and herbs have extreme effects upon certain people, but others are not affected by them at all. Perhaps this was why you felt so light-headed, and Anwar didn't feel much at all--only a virgin girl could feel the magic, being full of the force of Creation and of Love, but not having released hers into the world yet by marrying and having children."

"I have heard of that legend, too," Yassamin murmurs and lays her hand on Salsabil's belly, giving it a little rub, too. "That the moment the womb is touched by a lover, even in spirit as the girl falls in love, the energy contained in it begins to flow outwards. This is why some holy women choose to remain virgins, to keep the magic within themselves--that way, the energy that would otherwise have been spent on a husband and children can be used for magical purposes, or to better commune with God." And now she looks at Jaffar from the corner of her eye, smiling. "I thought of becoming one of those women, had it not been for my djinni."

"And I am glad," Jaffar says and kisses Yassamin's head. "That you chose to lavish us with the magic of your love instead."

"Will the magic go away, then, if I marry?" Salsabil asks, astonished as Jaffar and Yassamin help Ishtiaq into the cart.

"Evidently not, if you but find a wizard for a husband!" Yassamin laughs, Jaffar not only having awakened her magic, but always having returned it to her twofold through their joinings, charged with his own. "But such men are rare, and often practice celibacy themselves."

It is true that she and Jaffar are different, extremely different from other magicians, in that energy is never wasted between them. It is very rare that a person knows how to contain energy, how to contain magic, and therefore anything given to ordinary wives and husbands during lovemaking would be diffused in their bodies, dissolved; whereas Jaffar and Yassamin always take in the other's love and contain it, then return it to the other in an unbroken cycle, so that both are usually nourished by their joinings instead of drained by them.

Salsabil considers this for a while as she rolls up her rug and heads for the cart. "In that case, it's simple. I shall never marry!"

"You've said that since you were three," Yassamin says as she helps Salsabil climb into the cart beside Ishtiaq. "I am beginning to think you mean it."

Jaffar smiles at them from upon his horse. "It is grandchildren your mother wants. Methinks Anwar can provide us with plenty enough, and that your children will be the children of others, you the wise woman teaching them," Jaffar says warmly, now lost in a vision of the future: Salsabil the scholar, lecturing girls and boys in all the sciences, languages, esoterics. "Have you decided what your specialty will be, yet?"

Salsabil strokes Ishtiaq's side as they lie there in the cart face to face, curled up together like two cubs. "Everything."

Yassamin bursts into laughter, but it is a laughter kind, sweet. "Just like your father, then. Even in his sleep, he murmurs of books, of libraries."

"Everything will come, if you have but the right attitude," Jaffar tells them. "Look at Ishtiaq. All the books told us that it would be impossible for us to teach him how to hunt, and here we are. We should hold a feast for him; a coming-of-age feast."

"But it's our birthday on Tuesday!" Salsabil cries. "We should celebrate with him!"

Yassamin looks at Jaffar. "Why not? Although I fear Anwar will be jealous."

"I will take care of Anwar," Salsabil says, nodding firmly.

"That's exactly what worries me," Jaffar says and raises his eyebrow.

***

Yassamin feels a hypocrite, forbidding her child the same pleasure she has been enjoying herself for these past few months: the sharp intoxication, the euphoria of the kill. She had never thought she would discover a huntress in herself, not at this age; even in her youth, she had thought of hunting as a mere pastime. But to now experience what the pard does, to feel what he feels as his victim chokes to death in his embrace, its kicks and its spasms not unlike an orgasm's throes--oh, there is a perverse eroticism to it, one she cannot deny. And had it not been for Jaffar, she would never have recognised such connections, he having opened in her paths to understandings beyond those available to an ordinary princess on her white horse, merely a lady enjoying a spot of sport.

No, no: until she had met Jaffar, she had known nothing of the ways of the beast, the hunter, the one who takes, ravishes, slays; she had always been the gazelle herself, Yassamin the hind gentle, kind. Even in love, she has always preferred being the one taken; ever Yassamin the giver, she who lavishes her husband and her children with her affections, giving to them of her body and her soul.

Yet now that she is still bathing in the power of the hunter, saturated by the blood of the gazelle, heady with the drunkenness of the victor, she finds awakening in herself a new kind of fever: a raw, wild, masculine heat. Seldom has she known this mode of being, but now it overtakes her a rush; absent-minded, she licks her lips and she is licking blood from her chops. She needn't look at Ishtiaq to know that this is exactly what the pard is doing this very moment, his consciousness still quietly present deep at the bottom of hers, never completely severed, the way her connection with Jaffar and the children is always there for her to come back to, whenever needs be.

Mother, Ishtiaq thinks as he looks at Jaffar; Sister, he thinks of Salsabil; Brother, he thinks of Yassamin.

Brother, Yassamin thinks and laughs, laughs so loudly within her mind that Jaffar hears it, turning to look at her over his shoulder as he rides before them, smiling.

What is it, my sweet? Jaffar asks Yassamin; in mind only so as not to disturb Salsabil with it, making sure that she is closed off from this conversation. For he has noticed this new energy now rising within Yassamin, like one immediately notices the perfume of a new visitor: a perfume masculine, of herbs and spices and musk. It is something he has not felt from her in a long while, and the sodomite in him is immediately stirred; his eyes sparkle with a hopeful curiosity. He cannot quite believe it; Yassamin can tell.

Therefore, she gives to him a glimpse of it, this gazelle-blood, cheetah-blood now rushing through her veins: the curl of it in her cunny, the heat that now pulls at her clitoris and fills it, swells its tip. Oh, but a clitoris is not enough, not now, no, no, not tonight; tonight she wants more, a cock, a prick. Therefore, she breathes in deep, rolls up this energy within herself, sending it deep into the bottom of her hips: from her hips, she lifts it up into her genitals, up with each pulse of her clitoris, letting it swell and extend into a prick. A prick, a prick: she exhales and her labia lift to embrace its tip on either side, forming a prick half-hard; her folds sink and fill and become a pair of heavy testicles.

In fact, so keen is this virility in her that she does what she's only ever done once or twice before: she lets all of her cunny and her womb transform into the male glands, organs; so entirely does she transform herself that now she is completely male underneath.

Jaffar nearly falls off his horse. My God!

Now, Yassamin has to laugh out loud as she adjusts herself in the saddle--this may not have been the most ideal of places for this kind of transformation, but oh, the look upon Jaffar's face! It is priceless. How about that, my husband sweet? she purrs into his mind, a rumble deep. How about we go home and bathe, and you give this a nice, good suck?

Jaffar sputters, flushed; she can tell his hair is standing on end, and so are other parts of his anatomy. He clicks his tongue to urge his horse to go faster. "Come. Let's hurry."

Salsabil looks at them suspiciously, but she soon returns to the drowsing sleep she's been sharing with Ishtiaq.

***

"What's come over you?" Jaffar laughs, purrs low into Yassamin's ear as he hops off his horse, smacking her on the arse as they rush from the courtyard to the baths. They had thought the blood-rush an aphrodisiac before, but the desire brought on by it has never been this strong in her, she never so unlike her usual self, as if she had become a new man: some mixture of a youth, rake and male animal, all of this making her light-headed, so much so that she staggers in her steps.

"I don't quite know," she says, taking Jaffar by the sleeve. "But I know what I want. Come."

And this "come" is unusual in that it is not a request from her, not a negotiation: it is a command. And as such, it startles Jaffar, making him look at her with awe, curiosity, even some trepidation. For were this an ordinary stirring of desire, she would be flirting with him, playing a back-and-forth with him, but she no longer wants to negotiate. So has this heat risen in her that she, now the very image of the arrogant and impatient youth, thinks she will burst lest she gets to drive this force into someone, something. Just as Jaffar had thought of volcanoes, of plants rising and dying, so does this same force now surge upwards in her, and as they make it into the dressing room and take off their clothes, she is fully erect.

He takes her in his arms and kisses her, pressing himself against her now-flat chest; he moans in delight and ruts against her erection. "Let's see what we've got here," he croons.

With a sudden, violent movement, she pulls back from his arms and slams him back against the wall. "No."

Jaffar stares at her, dumbfounded. She, too, is astonished at what she has just done: both of them, she knows, are now wondering if she is not possessed, acting so like a stranger.

But no, no; she does not feel the presence of a djinni or a ghoul or anything of the sort within herself: it is only that she wants to, needs to be in control.

"We are not going to do it that way," she says, in a voice so stern it makes even her own blood run cold; Jaffar jerks, stiffens against her. "Not man to woman. Man to man," she says, yanking off Jaffar's hair tie, disorientating him further with the pain; she sinks her hand into his hair and gives him a kiss, a kiss violent, a kiss passionate; the lecherous, wicked sodomite relishing his wickedness.

"God!" Jaffar groans, and through his eyes, Jaffar the frightened boy-child looks back at her in worry, a little terror. Jaffar could stop this game right now--or could he? That is the question that now hangs heavy in the air; whether a cry of "mercy" would stop this, stop it once and for all. She has never been this violent with him, has never taken such liberties with his body; always, even when she has played the man to him, she has negotiated, asked for his permission, made sure their desires had met.

But all such things feel alien to her, now, as alien as they do to an animal, a satyr, a marauder; and this is what now excites Jaffar as he listens for her mind, excites him as much as it alarms him. For now, she is touching that most deeply sodomitic part in him, the part that yearns for a ravishment in order to let go of all expectations of manhood placed upon him, the part in him that wants to but spread his legs and scream in delight as he is taken. Like all sinners, he wants to feel as if he has no choice; he wants to have the choice of shame taken from him, just as he has always removed it from her in their games. This--just like the act of binding one's lover--is the greatest of graces in that it renders the victim innocent, blameless.

And never has she dared play the ravisher to him this way, but now she might, might--

No, she shall.

A shudder goes through Jaffar as he hears, feels her make her decision; he jerks against the wall and surrenders, his soul in freefall.

Yassamin is there to catch him. For now, she takes him by the jaw and squeezes her hand around it, hard, a grip bruising; she can feel the thrum of his jugular, oh, so much like the gazelle's as it now flutters against her palm. His eyes are wide, fair; his face seems so young, that of a page.

And what does a page do if not serve? She sends to him this question, this demand, refusing to take silence for an answer.

She tilts her head to the side like a cat. How will you serve me tonight, my child?

He licks his lips. "May I wash you, my lord and master?" he asks.

And oh, oh: he can't have used a title like that in decades, Yassamin realises, he can't have used it for a lifetime: Jaffar, son of Yahya, once the most powerful man in the empire has now willingly made himself her slave, her catamite. Oh, but her eyes flutter shut and her prick leaps against her belly at Jaffar's submission, at the anguished exhilaration now flooding from his body into hers. She laughs deep in her belly, a pard's churr; her laughter a little hysterical as she can feel his prick lifting against hers, competing with it in its display of perversion's thrill.

She lets go of his throat and steps back, looking at him from head to toe, encompassing his bent, twisted, beautiful body in one glance. "You may. Come."

***

His mouth on her cock is divine.

Yassamin leans back against the tiles, sitting on one of the marble benches lining the walls, the warm water of the shower sluicing down her body. Jaffar has cleansed her well, massaged her all over, unable to stop adoring her new genitals; yet, she has not allowed him to suck her, stroke her properly until now, until they are both completely clean.

The water, however, gets in her eyes: therefore, she turns it off with a gesture so that she may better enjoy his mouth with her eyes as well as her flesh. And what she sees takes her breath away: Jaffar, upon his knees before this rare pleasure, stilling with his lips upon her frenulum; his wet eyelashes clinging to his cheeks as he nuzzles her cock, his hands clasped around her prick as if it were the most precious of instruments. The instrument of his pleasure, the hope of his fulfillment, the promise of her love inside of him: this, he worships, anoints with his kisses. Presently, the skill of his thumbs presses out a groan from her belly, the pressure of his tongue giving it a note tremulous; the vibrations travelling up and down her bones, making her tense with desire ever sharpening.

She strokes his head, his wet hair, its black and silver strands; tenderness yearns to break through her fever, and for a brief while, she lets it. Groaning, she rewards him by massaging his scalp, rutting into his face; she shivers as he tilts his head sideways and lets his teeth glide slick across the underside of her cock. He has not touched himself, yet, even, instinctively letting her decide the rhythm of his pleasure, too.

"I would you looked into my eyes, my boy," she murmurs, a scold sharp, yet fond; she clasps his jaw from underneath.

He obeys and offers to her his eyes: at the beauty of them, her balls lift in their sack--oh, she had forgotten how much they could ache! For his eyes, his eyes are bluer than the tiles that now surround them, the blue of heavens vast and wide. But instead of wanting to lose herself in these skies like she usually does, she now wants to imbibe them, consume them inside of herself: she wants to push inside of him, scoop him up like food in the hand and fulfill herself with him until she is sated, replete.

"Why is it that you are not sucking me yet?" she asks him, squeezing him a little with her thighs, thighs that still retain their natural feminine softness.

"I was but waiting for your permission, my lord and master," he answers, and oh, his voice! Again, her balls lift, her very spine rippling electric as he so caresses her ears with his speech: that sweet, feminine meaow he rarely lets his voice lift into in public. How he must have had tutors trying to train this note out of his voice, to make his voice deeper, lower, more masculine, when this was its most natural, most beautiful lilt. "But I cannot lie," he continues, having sensed how much she loves this voice pouring down the soft skin of her prick, another form of anointment, perfuming, care. "I would love to pleasure you with a suck, if you but allowed me it, my lord and master," he says, the last two words snapping sticky off his tongue like thick honey.

"Ah!" she cries, and now a spurt of sap escapes her cock; he is quick to catch it with his tongue, a tongue slick and fast and clever, swallowing her taste into his mouth a nectar. She can feel what he feels as the sweet slickness spreads upon his palate, the touch of lye a promise of sperm thicker to come. "Suck me," she hisses, her fist tangled in his hair; she kisses his mouth greedily, licking her own taste from the roof of his mouth, curling her tongue within. Thus, she opens his mouth for the purpose of pleasuring her prick, prepares it with her own kisses, opening him, opening.

On a cruel whim, she purses her cheeks and spits onto his tongue, and oh, Jaffar's cry of surprise at that! The sweetness of his shock, his terror, the slap of his own cock against his belly--

But now, she has had enough: keen to ravish, she takes her cock and plunges it into his mouth, thrusting deep. Jaffar keens around it, the foam of Yassamin's spittle still hanging off his lip; she tugs his head back by the hair so that the angle of his head pulls upon her cock sweetly. "God, God, suck, suck!" she groans, thrusting deep into his throat deliberately to give him the violence, the further insult of the choke; again, she spits where her cock sinks into his mouth, and he all but weeps as the spittle sluices down the sides of his lips.

My Yassamin, the beast! Never have I seen you like this, felt you like this! he sobs into her mind as the head of her prick seals his throat; again, he chokes, his eyes glittering from tears. Oh, Yassamin; what are you doing to me? What are you doing to me? he vibrates into her mind, her being, sending to her the sweet, sinful, awful pleasure of his submission.

"I should have thought that was perfectly clear," she tells him, never letting go of his hair, the brute in her speaking these words, a man crueller, older than Fadl, even, a man now taking the place of all those who had used him. This, she now knows to be her mission, the purpose of her transformation: she has come to him a healer, a lover to wipe clean those early smears from the book of his years, to write her name upon the pages of his youth instead. She who is so much better than any of those other men, mightier than any of them, made as she is out of the heart of his soul: his Yassamin, the centre of his being.

And now, this new man she has become groans from deep in her guts, rutting into her Jaffar just right, just right; now, she is offering him the coarse language, the roughness he desires and deserves and needs. "I am fucking your mouth, and I am going to come into it in a moment," she pants. "And you are going to swallow up every drop, are you not? Hmm? Milk my cock, lap it all up?"

Jaffar pulls back for breath, now spitting into his own hand and closing it around her cock, offering her primitivity, crudeness in equal measure, the baseness she, too, craves. "I shall," he growls from between wetted teeth, pumping her cock in his fist, leaning in to suck her now-small and hard and dark man's nipples.

At that, she slaps him, slaps him so hard his hair flies. "Did I give you permission to do that?"

He but laughs, spittle and phlegm and sap dangling between his teeth and tongue; he is manipulating her and they both know it, having played this game often enough. "My sincerest apologies," he croons, and does not mean it at all; this signals he desires another slap, and she gives it to him.

"That's enough," she snarls, still holding his hair in her fist; he tosses in it like a horse in his bridle, his snorting laughter disgusting her, yet making her cock pulse in his stroking hand still. "Now, suck me to completion. Behave yourself well, and I might even fuck you after," she says, again forcing him to swallow her cock. "Look up at me, look up at me," she huffs between thrusts, wiping her mouth and nose with the back of her hand; her body trembles, her back slippery as she slides up and down against the wall a little, shifting her position as she takes his mouth. "Make me come."

And in this, she lets him hold the reins for a while, lets him perform for her; Don't let me down, now, she tells him with her mind, letting go of him and offering herself to him, bracing her hands upon the bench, clutching the rough linen towel beneath.

And he offers himself, gifts himself to her as she has gifted him with this rare pleasure--no, not just a rare pleasure, he tells her, but a rebirth: just as she had thought earlier, he tells her, she is indeed changing his past. Indeed, she is taking the shape of those shadow-men who had hurt him and is now dressing herself in their garments, taking upon herself the responsibility of educating Jaffar the youth in the ways of the sodomites, turning herself into a figure unique: a master, a protector, a teacher--one of pleasure and of service and of love.

Even in his roughness, he tells her as he extends his tongue and slides down his head, taking her inside of himself deep, deep; even in his violence he is more than I could ever have hoped for, more than what I was ever given; oh, Yassamin, let me show you, let me make you see--!

And now he kills his ability to gag, paralyses his throat, sacrificing even the very air in his lungs for her pleasure. For you mean more to me than air, my shaykh, my king, he murmurs into her mind a prayer as he takes her with his throat, bejewelling her cock with the pearls of his spit, the crystals of his tears. Now I know what you meant when you told me I was more than you thought you could ever deserve, a lover who was not supposed to exist--at times, I find this hard to believe, Yassamin; a dream, a dream. But now you are showing me--now you have become him for me in turn, oh--Yassamin--!

"Suck, suck, suck," she growls at him, not having the heart to break from this role, now, even if within her swirls the expansion of the love she has always known for him, her true self bursting into life as her blood surges upwards, as her glands pump more and more fluid into her balls, more, more, mercury--lava--bursting--rising--heat--

And Jaffar turns his head, rolls it, pulls back and leaves her cock untouched, not letting her come so soon, no, no; she cries out in rage at him for this, again slaps him for this like a lord would his servant, sobbing in her thwarted arousal. "You bastard!" she cries, but she loves him for this, her own tears now sliding down to her curled, snarling mouth.

Once more, she gathers his head to her cock, and this time, she knows, he knows he will not stop; he begins a steady suck, a steady stroke, cradling her balls in his other hand. Again, he forces himself to swallow her, gifting her with that exquisite squeeze of the throat; the sap has so risen in her that now he is choking with it, his mouth and his nose bursting with strings of it, his eyes red from weeping, and he is beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, straining so that she, too, can feel it: the way his knees ache on the hard tiled floor, the way his back aches, his legs ache from all this time he has spent upon his knees. But he knows these for an aphrodisiac of the one dominant, and oblates these, too, for her pleasure in the crucible of his body; in turn, that sadistic stranger that has tonight stepped into Yassamin's flesh cups these pains in her palms and drinks them into herself like wine.

But now, the time has come for her to pour herself into this vessel and she thrusts, carves, makes way in him for herself, pushing into him, parting for herself the flesh of him, roaring as she begins to surge inside of him.

And he opens himself for her, hollows himself inside, holds himself for her open wide; never ceasing in his sucking of her, he keeps to an absolutely perfect rhythm, so as not to interrupt her soar into release. And underneath all this there sings in him a hunger, a hunger for sperm, semen, seed; the great sin he has not tasted of in years. Oh, come, my sweet Yassamin, come. Just as we have tasted of another creature's life tonight, now let me taste your life, my love, tonight; let me taste your seed upon my tongue tonight.

But she can barely hear him: she has become that surging life-force, more than she ever could become in a body female, all of her now made of but the seed--all of her being the seed, the life that enters the body of another and is consumed. The power with which the male orgasm blasts out of her always shakes her to the bone; while the female one is more profound and spreads deep into the body itself, the male release is verily the death the poets have so often described it as. The white heat of her bones, the white heat of her spine, the white flashes that spark from her nerves all now blast out of her, shoot out of her with so much force she is left but an empty shell in her contractions' wake.

Empty, empty, so empty she becomes that she wants to weep as she finds her end in Jaffar's mouth and throat, weep. Yet, at the same time, his love floods into her to fill this emptiness, the very sight of him worshipping her so a balm: she cries out and shivers as he drinks of her, as he pulls back just enough so as not to miss a single burst of her sperm upon his tongue. She is now but the cock, the balls, the glands, spilling and flooding this strange womb that is his mouth; yet this makes perfect sense to her, his soft wetness now accepting her not unlike a cunny, his moans those of a woman loved.

"Thank you," he groans out loud, panting against her as if it were he who had just spent himself; his mouth smiling, smeared white as he rests his head upon her thigh. "You taste wonderful," he speaks in awe; she senses in him the urge to share this taste with a kiss, but he aches too much and cannot move easily just yet. For a moment, she cannot move either, her orgasm having been so powerful it's as if it's sucked the very marrow out of her bones, the blood from her veins--how can men take this, time after time?

But now it's Jaffar who, having recovered somewhat, gathers her into his arms, sits into her lap and kisses her, pursing her come into her mouth just as she had spat in his. Taste your love, my sweet; never have I tasted a man as delicious. Is it because this was a substance cooked by a body female, from your woman's fluids that it tastes so sweet, like the cunny itself, only with sperm's salt?

She marvels at this taste as well, but tells him that it must be as it is with his own sap--but a natural sweetness.

"However, we are not finished yet," she says, smiling against his lips. "I promised you a ravishment."

Jaffar nods. "It would seem a waste to not use this, yes," he murmurs, laughs, rocking against her body, using his own belly and his genitals to massage her sore prick, sending a little psychic caress to it to keep her hard for him, warm. "I would ride you, my lord and master, if you let me," he says softly, gently, the dreaming voice of the boy who had fantasised of a perfect master, one kind even in his cruelties.

"Shh," she says, brushing hair aside from his face, soothing the red marks she has made upon his cheeks. "I would you showed me what you dreamt of, this old man lover of yours, my sweet. So that I might become him for you," she murmurs.

Jaffar stills there for a while, his expression grave; he frowns, and it's clear that this dream of his is a dream painful, never having been fulfilled.

Is that how much you wanted him? she asks him, offering him the clemency of speaking mind to mind, so that he would not have to struggle with words, but could respond to her with but his emotions, sensations.

Suddenly, he leaves her; she feels a sting in her heart, until she realises he has but left to collect the oil, now briefly applying some on his arse and upon her cock. He says nothing, yet sits on her cock and begins to impale himself upon it, deliberately giving himself pain; he winces, and Yassamin wonders if sex between men has always been this way to him, so much so that it would not feel right for him to be penetrated without pain. For she can feel that it is to punish himself that he does this, now; to punish himself for the sin of sodomy at such an advanced age. Any man old enough to grow a beard should leave this role to women and boys beardless; and while he knows this foolish custom is against everything he knows about human diversity, the complexity of human desire, that guilt will always haunt him even as he follows his heart, a dark angel of judgement looming above those who love beyond the law, beyond the norms.

"I lost that dream at seventeen," he tells her, his voice hard, cold, stark as it echoes off the tiles, he speaking far too loudly. The pain, the honesty necessitate this loudness: he is giving himself pain just as he is distracting himself from it, not only physically--the way pain is always present at the beginning of sodomy--but mentally as well, now letting her penetrate his soul, too, it seems. It is with this pain's whip that he defies that dark angel, banishes him, casts him out; it is with his words that he again digs himself out of the rubble of ancient laws and establishes the truth of his own desire.

"I wanted him. Oh, how I wanted him," he says, still too loud. But now, he closes his eyes and sighs, balancing himself against the tiles as he lowers himself further down; it is a cry terrible, a cry wounded he makes as he slides down onto her cock fully, making her shiver despite the utmost pleasure now given to her by his body.

For a long while, he trembles upon her, catching his breath; when he speaks again, his voice is tremulous, again the soft meaow of a cat.

"But I was already too old: I had ceased to be a boy and it was time for me to become a man myself. And it was then that Woman came into my heart and my bed. The tribal girls of the Caspian, Fatima, slave girls;" he breathes, now looking past her head at the wall, bent over her as he is. "I lost that other dream long ago."

"Until now," Yassamin says, again taking charge, not negotiating, not asking, but telling. "Come. Move, and I will be him for you."

He laughs a little, rocking his hips, his expression that of wistful disbelief. "Never could I have imagined the woman of my dreams with the prick of my dreams," he says softly. "Let me get used to it first," he says and kisses her nose, her forehead.

"Master, I should think," she corrects him and bites him upon the neck; not a bite merely playful, but a bite hard enough to discipline him, to remind him of his position; she smacks and claws at his buttocks, pushing her hips up a little. "Say it."

And oh, the look in his eyes as he now pulls back, his arms wrapped sweetly about her neck like he was the vainest, the most coquettish of bejewelled court catamites; he even sends to her a whiff of perfumes feminine, surrounding their bodies with a whisper of sweet ambergris. "My lord and master," he purrs slowly, lisping it, sticky, sickly, sweet; "my lord and master," he again meaows in uninhibited, leering delight, milking her prick with his hips.

Oh, but his lust is now a cloud thick about them, hardening Yassamin's prick further; she leans back and closes her eyes, luxuriating in the smooth silk of Jaffar's arse. The arse, the arse; even when pleasuring women, she has preferred its texture to that of the cunny, always a silk so smooth to the touch, the pulse of the veins within always filling her with tremendous awe. And then, the heat! It feels so much hotter than the cunny, even if she knows this should be impossible, the sweet flutter of his pulse now making her howl into Jaffar's shoulder--how could she have gone without this for so long? She is a fool, a fool; this is the stuff addictions are made of, this is what empires are gambled for and lost--

Then let me serve to you my body an opium, a wine, a hashish, my lord and master, he swirls into her mind, plucking from his mind the memories of those substances, brushing her senses with their silks, too, their fragrances, their ecstasies: for a brief moment, he offers her the keenness of touch opium engenders, the sort that makes one lie in bed and stroke one's arms for the pleasure it brings; for a moment, the rush of wine as it liberates the spirit to leap up and rejoice, dance, sing; and now, the mad laughter brought on by hashish bubbles from her lips onto his.

My God! Do that again!

I am exhausted of magics now, I am afraid; he groans, regret replacing the rush of the intoxicants; he can only maintain the spell for so long. I practiced even that for weeks! But I would offer you my body, if I may.

"You'd better," she says and bites his lips, smacking his arse again, now laughing as they are both finding it hard to keep up their roles, so enwrapped they are in their memories of each other. But she is damned if she is not going to try; again, she adopts the tone of the commanding male. "Go on, then, slave; ride me," she says, with a spark of true wickedness to her eyes, a thrust severe from her hips.

But it is at that that Jaffar lifts her up, pulls out the towel she has been sitting on and casts it upon the floor; he pulls off her and kneels upon the towel instead, offering his arse to her on all fours. "A little easier, this."

"Insolent trollop," she says and smacks his arse; and even if he is right, she still takes her time smacking his arse a few more times, adoring the way his arse gapes and then purses shut; a little trickle of oil escapes it and she has to, must lick it up with her tongue. She shivers at the delicious dirtiness of this, her prick slapping against her belly, her skin rippling with goosebumps. Oh, but he had used the oil with honey, with saffron; no wonder he had felt so hot on the inside, she thinks as she mounts him, eager to again be inside of this sweet heat.

"Please, my lord and master," Jaffar croons to her still as she balances there; now, she slides so deep into him that it is she who is seeing stars. Jaffar's voice breaks and he stiffens, clutching the towel in his fists; he stops breathing and she punishes him with a few harder thrusts, still wanting to mimic the cruel ravisher, giving Jaffar what he wants, what she wants. And this is why she brutalises him for a moment, not caring for his pain or his pleasure at all--the animal blood within her screams in delirious delight at this play, taking charge, not allowing Yassamin the gentlewoman to step in her pleasure's way. For now, the tightness, the sweetness, the heat of Jaffar's flesh is so great that she becomes the opposite of a gentleman, the lover brutally selfish, unable to stop thrusting no matter what; underneath her, Jaffar buries his face in his arms and whimpers, stroking himself in despair.

She feels a giant, monstrous, wicked and it's wonderful; she drags back her cock from Jaffar's arse and wonders if this yellowness is saffron or filth, and not knowing this makes her balls jump in sickening delight. She keens high in her nose so that she hurts her head, shivers as she watches her prick disappearing into him, sliding in and out of him, the way she is now cleaving his flesh wide: oh, but she loves this, the muscles of his arse squeezing around her prick in pleasure-pain--and now, she has hit the bend. The bend, the bend of the colon is what the tip of her cock is slipping into, now, demanding entry: she is not yet fully sheathed in him, a few inches of her cock remaining outside of his body; therefore, she knows that she can still take this last bastion of him, penetrate this last gate of him, wrap about herself his viscera a robe of honour.

"Give it to me," she growls deep from her chest, a voice not her own, a voice full of greed. "Open up for me, boy, open up for me, boy, open, good;" she hacks, striking the small of his back the way a ravisher forces a boy's arse to yield to his prick. "Push out, push out, boy, don't you know how to do it, hmm?" she abuses him, and she does not know where she has found this knowledge--has she picked it up from his memories, his nightmares, his sleep? Yet the words find her lips nevertheless, her mouth smacking with their filth: "Try and shit me out, boy," she laughs, wicked, evil, knowing this but opens that bend for her further, "go on, shit!"

And it is at the shock of this word, at her entering his colon that Jaffar is forced, pushed, kicked into orgasm: his shriek is high, echoing off the tiles as his sperm now splashes onto his thighs, Yassamin's. "Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!" he howls in his shock; his arse loosens, farts out the saffron-oil in yellow rings around Yassamin's cock, and the beast in her laughs, laughs so loudly and madly and deeply that it swallows up the echo of his moans. She pulls back her hips and batters him with deep, hard, long blows, laughing as each one spatters more sperm onto Jaffar's belly, Jaffar's psyche bleeding into hers, offering to her the sensations of his orgasm just as she has always offered him hers.

She feels for every pulse, every peak, every ripple of it and fucks herself straight through each one, penetrating his very orgasm's rings; each squeeze of it a circlet crowning her mighty phallus, crowning her the victor, all of Jaffar's flesh shuddering in surrender as it yields to the might of her prick.

This chaos that is him she now gathers into her arms, wrapping herself around him; Jaffar can no longer kneel, so she lowers him down onto the towel and takes him lying down. Now, she is so deep inside of him, in such a position that longer thrusts are no longer possible, but she does not need many: after all, she has her slave. "What's the matter, boy? Have you forgotten why you're here?"

"No, I--" Jaffar moans, nuzzling sweat from his forehead into the towel.

"Then, make me come," she says, rolling her hips into him, adoring the gooseflesh, the faint hint of pain-sweat upon his back as she penetrates him so deep within his guts. She swims in his pleasure-pain, his fatigue as he begins to milk her once more; she stays completely still as she lies there, holding him, clasping his arms, her weight anchoring him to the floor. "That's it, that's it, that's it, my boy," she croons and keeps moving only a little, drinking in the terror Jaffar now feels of perhaps not being able to give her enough, of perhaps passing out--is he orgasming? Is he urinating? He cannot tell--it's always this way with sodomy--oh--God--!

But now, she has mercy on him and gives herself a psychic kick, a jolt up her spine, hurrying herself towards orgasm once more; "Go on, go on, go on," she croons into his ear and adores him, loves him as he squeezes her with the last of his strength; now and then, she chooses to bite his shoulder to give vigour to the last of these squeezes.

His cries, his clenches, his twitches, his sobs pour upon the floor, and in them, she finds her end: the entire bathroom echoes with her cries as another series of heat-blows beats her release out of her body. In her delirium, she fancies heat-demons tear at her flesh, her bones, so do they tear all the energy from her body and from her limbs, only to push it out of her body through her genitals: she is no longer in control of herself, howling and slipping on top of Jaffar as she empties her balls into his body. She peaks with each thrust, peaks so high that she pierces the clouds; Jaffar offers to her of his sensations to drive each peak even higher, so that she is now making love to the sky.

For now, he shares it all with her, his experiences physical and mental: the sweat of her face stinging his back, the sluice of her sperm down his perineum, the nauseating sweetness of her seed buried in his guts, so voluminous he can feel it sloshing there, nauseating and oh, so wonderful, deep.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, he sobs into her, pouring his love into her as she pours herself into him as sperm, his love filling all the spaces her fire has burned hollow and black within her. My master, my king, the one who possesses me so utterly that she has become my heart and my soul itself, he sighs into her flanks, caresses up her spine, whispers into her heart's chambers.

But now, it is done, she is done: the virility that had so possessed her leaves her as she moans her last atop him, manhood pouring out of her mouth and down the drain. She groans and rolls off Jaffar, now feeling cold and forlorn. Her entire body shudders as her breasts fill out and her genitals return back to their female shape, now feeling shrunken and miserable; they, too, are numb with cold.

"Hold me," she asks, her teeth chattering; there is nothing of the beast left in her, made as it was of some spiritual camphor, now having burned completely, perfectly into nothingness, leaving no residue, no trace. Who was she, he? Who is she, now? Is she the same Yassamin any longer? And this coldness feels like that of fever, but not a fever hot and purifying, only that of deathly chills. Chills--

But it is then that Jaffar's arms come wrapping around her, embracing her; he gathers her up and turns on the shower, making the water as warm as that of the womb as he holds her underneath its spray. Whereas she has lost the man in herself, this spirit having been but a visitation, Jaffar could never lose that half in himself that was born female: thus, Yassamin feels herself filling with femininity once more, with warmth, Jaffar pouring his own inside of her, making her remember her own body and her self once more.

Always, always is she astonished by this, no matter how long she has known him as lover: in Jaffar, there is enough love for them both, she thinks, him knowing how to love as man and as woman, as father, son, brother, sister, mother, slave--and wife.

"Your love is more complete than mine," she now whispers against his shoulder, feeling guilty for this, a terrible melancholy taking over her for some reason.

"You even become maudlin like a man after copulation!" he laughs, a little wistful; yet, he does not mock her. "Forget not that we are but two halves of the same being. It is thanks to your love that I am now here, alive and breathing, holding you in my arms; therefore, you are yourself the creator, the mother of this love. It was but Yassamin I gave back to Yassamin, like returning a purse you'd dropped."

"It is a thought distant this very moment," she whispers into his shoulder, but now, the water gets into her mouth, and she is too frustrated to even speak any more.

"Come," he says and turns off the water, collecting for them fresh towels. "If we stay here any longer, we will both turn into raisins!"

Chapter Text

It is to her bedroom that they retire.

Ever since Yassamin had decided to set this room aside for love, she has been rearranging it, redecorating it for the purpose: she has had the walls painted as red as the tents of Arab brides, has brought in several censers to perfume the room with precious musks and oudhs. The fabrics upon the divans, the floors and the bed had been rich to begin with, but now, she has brought out all the brocades she had taken with herself from Baghdad. They are all fabrics she had previously thought too extravagant for an engineer's house, but ones she hadn't had the heart to give away, their very patterns suffused with memories of pleasant nights spent in her husband's company.

Previously, she had not wanted to raise suspicion by letting Zainab and the other women of the city see items too opulent for her new station, embroideries and tapestries only a queen could afford, but now, she has solved this problem by receiving her guests elsewhere instead. This room, she has turned into a shrine to the passion she and Jaffar share for each other, a treasure-chamber celebrating the riches of their love. Each object in it is as if an illuminated, richly decorated border in a precious manuscript, framing a brilliant poem or a holy verse: yet in this case, these illuminations surround individual fragments, scenes, paragraphs of the ever-unfolding story of their love.

Jaffar deserves this living celebration for his love, for his devotion, for his care: he, in turn, had insisted that Yassamin should indulge herself. Both of them work hard on their dolls, spending many hours building them and refining them; they divide their time between the workshop and the even more important work of educating their children, so that one of them is always teaching the children while the other toils in the shabestan. Therefore, it is vital that they should have a safe haven of peace and pleasure to retire to after a long day, a place that is set at a distance from the demands of both engineering and child-rearing: a chamber devoted purely to rest and love.

Jaffar, too, had dug up some of his own treasures to decorate their shared nest, and thus, the room is now lit by colourfully painted lanterns, the ones his family is famous for; in the corner stands the clockwork crane that once used to tell the time in his study. However, now the brass bird remains completely still, standing there for but decorative purposes only, Jaffar having declared timekeeping anathema in a room devoted to unhurried love. The adjoining washroom, too, is the most well-equipped in the house, and Jaffar had even built them a little cooking alcove so they need not leave this room for any reason whatsoever.

And it is from this alcove that he now returns from, carrying sweet tea, dried dates and almond cakes upon a platter silvern; he performs an elaborate court bow as he sets the platter down in the middle of the bed.

"To think that you still remember how to do that!" Yassamin laughs as she recognises the little dance. "Our pages used to imitate the ones they performed in Baghdad."

"I started the craze for elaborate bows," he purrs with pride as he climbs into bed with her. "I practiced mine for weeks."

"Yes, to better display your arse to wealthy benefactors, I'm sure," she grins into her tea.

He ignores her barb and pops a date into his mouth. "It was thanks to my hips that I could perform that bow in the first place, I'll have you know. Others fell over. It's not often that one is born with legs this long attached to a pair of hips as wide as a woman's."

"And what wonderful hips they are," she murmurs and gifts the curve of his hip with a kiss as she passes it, while setting down her empty glass. "I hope I did not hurt you too much."

He but laughs and flashes his eyes up at the ceiling; these are the exact words he always uses after their wilder love-plays. "My knees bore the brunt of the battering, I think. I shall be fine after a few days."

He means the battering as a joke, yet... "I frightened myself, Jaffar," she says, lying there, regarding him. "I am not sure if I want to experience that again soon--not because it was not pleasurable, but..."

And now, she pauses, weighing the pleasure against the unknown, terrified at how quickly she had succumbed to these urges, these selfish lusts. "No... it is because I fear losing control of myself."

He knows exactly what she means, the terror and the ugliness of the concept of rape hanging heavy between them. She can tell he is about to say that it's doubtful she would ever end up in a situation where she would inflict that greatest of crimes upon anyone, but at the same time, he is impressed by her morality. If anything, he feels more than a little ashamed of how carelessly he'd had, in the past, used his slaves to sate his desires, seldom pausing to consider whether a girl might have hurt as he'd taken her, while still forcing herself to smile lest she displeased a man who had the power of life and death over her. In this, too, his Yassamin has taught him of the full human experience, male, female: he may have a body and a spirit that's half female, but never has he had the experience of being seen as a woman, treated as a woman by the rest of the world, let alone had the experience of growing up with the threats and the pressures and the moral burdens inflicted upon a woman.

No--his experience has been different in that unlike a woman, he has had the opportunity of becoming the one on top and staying there. A man is taken as a boy and then becomes the taker of boys and women himself, not caring for his own memories of the pain of being taken by older men--or rather, in a twisted way, he comes to enjoy being the one exerting his power over another, exacting vengeance upon the world for all the pain he has suffered. Even as a boy, he lies there and thinks of the day he will become the one driving himself into the body of another: just as easily as the man born a slave becomes a tyrant should he ever rise to the status of a master, so does the victim become a perpetrator when given half a chance.

But women know better than this, their bodies always ruled by men, no matter how far they might get in the world; they know what it is like to be the victim always. Therefore, the wise woman would rather eradicate the roles of victim and perpetrator altogether. Jaffar's own mother had been one of these women who had seen the poisonousness of such arrangements, and had called for loving kindness instead: why, Jaffar had even mocked Ettabeh for it, calling her a secret Christian or Buddhist for the way she had always spoken of forgiveness, of not turning violence into a cycle. One had to rise above one's own evil nature, she'd said, had to put an end to evil by controlling one's urge to perpetuate it, had to sacrifice one's own desire for vengeance to bring about greater good. It was Ettabeh who had always told him that revenge was the resort of fools, and that it was far greater a pleasure to see people blossoming from the love you'd given them.

But having been surrounded by beasts like Harun and Fadl, Jaffar had never believed it.

Not until he had met his Yassamin, that is. For is this not exactly what he and Yassamin are doing? Thanks to her intelligence and her understanding, Yassamin had taken his sadistic streak, had taken his thirst for blood and pain and turned them into instruments of their love-play, a pleasure that satisfied both participants without harm. Their marriage has been a journey of ever-unfolding miracles, the latest one having taken place but an hour ago: to think that Yassamin could have taken even his memories of violation and repainted them, turning even those into blazing conflagrations of love!

"But you do understand me, husband, do you not?" Yassamin asks him, still a little unsure, even if she has heard his each thought clearly, as if he had voiced them out loud. "Why, despite this miracle, I would not wish to experience losing myself like that again?"

"I do, my love. Worry not--I would not judge you, no matter what you did. Whether you tore me to pieces or decided to remain forever female. And I do not say this lightly," he says and looks into her eyes. "I do mean it. There is nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you, I am afraid--I would let you stab me a hundred times and still, I would go to my death blissful, repeating to the angels your name."

Yassamin buries her face in her pillow and sighs; she knows he is not exaggerating. "You are a madman," she laughs, feeling a madwoman herself; once again, she finds it difficult to even comprehend such a love as his, but she knows better than to challenge him.

"And I know you want to show the children a good example," Jaffar says as he moves the tray onto the bedside table, having finished his tea himself; he burrows under the bedcovers and takes her hand. "Besides, Ishtiaq does not need any more training, I don't think. You've seen him; he is now perfectly able to catch a gazelle even without our help."

"That's what I was thinking. I felt guilty intruding upon the experience, somehow; you felt how he was no longer heeding us, and we were but drinking in his emotions. I felt..."

"Like a ghoul," he says, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. "Supping upon his life."

There is no accusation in his voice; she knows he thinks her prudish at times, always so keen go back to ways pious even after she has broken God's laws, over and over. But he knows her well enough by now not to judge her; it is he who could learn from her in piety, and he knows it.

"You can keep on doing it," she says, kissing his hand. "I have had enough of the intoxication of the kill for a while; perhaps I will fortify myself with a sip now and then."

"Aye," he laughs. "Think it a medicinal alcohol, then. But what will we do with Salsabil? She will miss it."

"Perhaps she will forget it; if we but explain to her that Ishtiaq has now come of age--"

"She is no fool," Jaffar says, shaking his head. "She would not understand why this should mean she should not join him in his hunt."

"And I can't very well show to her what it did to me. She would not understand it yet."

And now, Yassamin shudders--there is something in Salsabil that could become dangerous were she not brought up with enough care; she is so strong and so intelligent and already so weary of ordinary people that she could become a little tyrant herself, were they not careful. And already, she is learning to associate killing with pleasure! They would be mad to let this sort of thing continue.

"This touch of the beast--it is far too dangerous for man, let alone a child," she says. "It is a far cry from your playful beast, the one you have under such perfect control, a beast tethered by Love so that it does not run berserk. This thing we have experienced is what it is: the wildness of an animal. It is exactly why God has forbidden alcohol, exactly--oh, Jaffar. You know what I mean."

"I do." He nuzzles her face. "However, know that I do not think you a sinner for what you did to me just now. You served me in Love, and I cannot see any sin in it, no matter what the law-books might say. It may be proud of me, but I trust the heart's knowledge over all holy writ," he sighs, closing his eyes. "And I am certain, absolutely certain that there was no harm in this," he says, like a judge declaring a deed lawful and the case around it closed.

She squirms a little, knowing him to be right; now, she is a little ashamed, trying to understand why she feels as she does. "I cannot explain it--playing the man makes me so uncomfortable afterwards. And this came upon me so suddenly, like a possession, so that I could barely control it at all. And you know what my nature is; so opposite to what we did today--oh, we have been through this, husband," she frowns.

"And never in a million years would I hold it against you to be what you are," he says, opening his eyes once more, again staring into hers intent, serious. "You have understood my being," he whispers, "my being half woman, half man--why would I ever judge you for being a woman, and one open-minded at that, often taking steps other women never would for the sake of my pleasure?" he shakes his head. "No. I do not fault you for wanting to be an ordinary, healthy woman, my love."

She looks at him for a long while, squeezing his hand; she knows that in saying this, he, too, is processing this, coming to terms with it, affirming to himself the facts. He is telling not only her but himself that he should not feel guilt for what they have done. "Oh, Jaffar, it's absurd. Why do we worry when it's perfect, now, just the way it is?"

"I suppose I am still a little shocked," he laughs and sends to her the sensation of his sore arse, her sperm still lingering within his guts. "But you are right. Perhaps we are so spontaneous and so creative that we do not even know how to handle our own genius," he grins. "That we have to talk about our love, that we have to analyse its ways in minute detail, like theologians."

"It is a matter holy, and I do not care who thinks I blaspheme in saying that," she says. "Jaffar... did you truly mean it? When you said that I offered you..."

"What you always tell me I am offering you?" he says, quiet. "The perfect lover? Yes. An unreserved, exhilarated, loving 'yes' to all of that, my child. I did not even think of wanting it, so unexpected it was; truly what they call a lightning bolt from the blue."

"Jaffar..." she shakes her head, tears filling her eyes.

"For God gives to us of his bounty, far more than we deserve," he recites and kisses her forehead. "But that's enough theological debate for tonight. Come, my little philosopher, let us sleep."

"Good night, my big philosopher," she says and kisses his forehead in turn. "And thank you," she whispers, caressing his cheek. "For not only having accepted everything I said and did, but for everything I ever--" and now, those tears escape her eyes. "For loving everything I am, even when I am possessed by madness!" she laughs through her tears.

He joins her in her laughter and gathers her in his arms, rocking her; his purr lulls her to a deep and sweet and satisfying sleep.

Chapter Text

Anwar dances in the middle of the courtyard and all sit still, mesmerised by the beauty of the play. He has tied colourful ribbons to his arms and his legs, all of them streaming behind him like the feathers of the Simurgh as he swirls there and spins; with the exhilaration, the ecstasy and the devotion of the dervish, he whirls and whirls to the mournful tune of Jaffar's reed-flute.

Iridescent, pearlescent, purple and pink and yellow and red and blue and gold, his feathers trail behind him as with great speed and agility, he whirls from one end of the square to another. He whips himself into spinning faster and faster, pushes his body into taking leaps longer and longer; in a frenzy, he somersaults and flips forwards upon his hands, his feet, his hands, his feet; now, he becomes a human cartwheel, all of his colours blurring and blending into another so that it is as if a rainbow had rolled itself up into a ball and decided to dance across the yellow paving-stones of the square.

As the melody of Jaffar's flute grows more and more frantic, Anwar again moves to the centre of the square and spins upon one foot, holding his arms level to his chest; gradually, he lifts them to the sky in prayer. Now, he is breathing so heavily through his little lungs that Yassamin can hear him huffing, puffing, but never does he lose his concentration for one moment: remarkable for a child who can never concentrate during lessons, she thinks, but it is a paradox not unheard of--children who are restless students often make the most one-pointed of athletes, warriors, fakirs.

Jaffar picks up his flute rhythmically as he plays, lifting up his son with each note, up, up; with each note he gathers up speed, up, up; finally, his notes merge into but one trilling, fast double note. Anwar spins out into his full height, one leg bent like the number four, his face and his hands turned towards the heavens; with a sudden, shrill, peaking noise, Jaffar ends his tune. With this final note, Anwar leaps high and lets himself crash into the ground in a swirling motion, his silks forming a perfect whorl around him, a rainbow-coloured rose unfurled.

Anwar remains there upon the ground, panting; the dance calls for stillness at this moment, a silence contemplative, yet he cannot help but peek at his mother from past his still-trembling arm, breathing with his mouth open against the pavement.

"But that was marvellous!" Yassamin cries and extends her arms as Jaffar and Salsabil cheer Anwar, trilling their tongues and beating the platform with their palms as they welcome him back to his seat. He climbs in with a struggle, his little body heaving with clean sweat; Yassamin welcomes him with a tight embrace. "We have a master dancer for a son."

"How did you like it, Ishtiaq?" Anwar asks, immediately going up to the cheetah who has sat motionless through the entire play.

Salsabil presses her ear to Ishtiaq's chest. "His heart tells me he liked it!" she declares, ever the veterinary expert.

"Happy coming-of-age day, Ishtiaq!" Anwar says and hugs Ishtiaq tight, despite the grumbling noise Ishtiaq makes. "May God extend your years and your kingdom," he says, full of happiness and delight.

"But that's what you say to kings!" Salsabil interjects.

"He is a king," Jaffar says, ruffling Anwar's head. "Of the valleys and the grasslands, so this is but apt."

"Go on, then, Salsabil," Yassamin says, handing to her daughter the thick song-book. "Which song have you chosen for us tonight?" she asks, Salsabil having insisted on a protective spell around her room during her practice, so that her song choice would remain a surprise.

"You'll see!" she says and rises to her feet, ignoring the book as if it were an insult to imply she would ever need it. Already, she has memorised several books; therefore, one song is nothing in comparison.

It turns out this is a song of the time of the ancient kings, a song of great heroes and battles, of lands and loves lost and won; Yassamin recognises the tune, but not some of the verses, and she looks at Jaffar curiously.

In case you were wondering, yes, Jaffar tells her telepathically in the middle of a refrain. She made up some new verses herself.

My God! Yassamin thinks, but still, she listens to her daughter intently, not wanting to miss any of the new additions.

On and on Salsabil sings, of great adventures with great detail, imitating shock, surprise, anger, delight; already she is learning to modulate her voice according to mood. Her voice has yet to reach its full strength and character and range, but even now, she is bravely pushing the limits of what it's capable of: Yassamin can recognise the techniques she had herself taught Salsabil as her little belly ripples from the physical effort of her song.

Already her voice is captivating--is this what Yassamin had herself sounded like as a child? It is the strangest thing to listen to for Yassamin, as she'd always been complimented for her voice, recognised for it: now, it is as if she were listening to herself. Yet, it delights Yassamin to now witness this talent passed on to a new generation: Yassamin's own mother had been a great singer in her day, one of the reasons why she had been the Sultan's favourite.

But now that this beautiful voice Salsabil had inherited from her mother is paired with the intelligence, the eloquence, the linguistic ability of her father, it becomes more than the sum of these parts: already, her skill approaches genius. Yassamin need not look at Jaffar to feel that he is doing exactly what she is herself doing this very moment: displaying to Salsabil his pride, his encouragement, his joy, his exhilaration.

When Salsabil finishes, she is trembling, panting; energy ripples from her, having encompassed the entire platform. She is still in a trance, having exerted herself so that she is pale, sweating; Jaffar starts to beat the platform with his palms to both applaud her and to bring her back to her senses. Yassamin cheers her, throws a handful of white rose petals over her a rain; finally, it is Anwar who hugs her out of her trance.

"Come on," he tells Salsabil, shaking her a little; "time to return to the sublunar world!" he declares as he leads his sister to sit beside them once more.

"With you two, we are always in the realms of the angels," Yassamin says softly and hugs Salsabil, kissing her forehead. "Always surrounded by light."

Jaffar raises his eyebrow--he very much wants to say that this is when the children are not behaving like two devils, but he chooses to bite his tongue instead. "You truly have been a pair of little angels today, but look at you! Performing at your own birthday party! It is we who should be entertaining you." He looks at Yassamin, then at the children. "What entertainments would you like?"

"Fireworks!" both children cry out in unison.

"I had considered that," Jaffar says, "but animals are frightened of the noises, terribly. It's Ishtiaq's special day, too, so it should be something that he, too, could enjoy."

Anwar frowns. "Can't you make noiseless fireworks? Or cast a spell of silence around them, just like you did over Salsabil's room, so that we can but enjoy the lights?"

"Animals are afraid of the lights, too," Yassamin says. "All forms of fire. Their reason cannot tell harmless fire from dangerous fire."

"I could try and tell him," Salsabil says, a little shyly; she knows how her parents feel about her spending too much time in Ishtiaq's head.

Yassamin and Jaffar look at each other. It is true that Salsabil already possesses some of Jaffar's skill at calming, placating others by magical means, that exact same force with which Jaffar has always removed Yassamin's inhibitions before their wilder adventures. Salsabil has used it with their animals before, has comforted her brother with it; perhaps this would indeed be a good idea, considering it is the opposite of the blood-intoxication. During the latter, Salsabil becomes drunk on devouring the life of another, human compassion and empathy leaving her for a moment as the animal's hunger drowns them underneath itself; yet during the former, she has to actively exercise that compassion and that empathy to calm another living being.

It is Jaffar who first voices this, looking at Salsabil very seriously as he picks her up and seats her in his lap. "It is a spell that requires absolute concentration and absolute love," he tells her, looking into her eyes, gently holding her small, pale hands in his huge, brown ones. "You have to open up your heart completely whenever you do it, and that's always dangerous; but it's necessary for the spell to succeed. Just like you have to turn the tap all the way at the showers in order to release enough water to wash off dirt, so you have to flood the recipient with your love and your care and your calm. They will not be able to feel loved or calmed otherwise: it is your own love and your own calm that you have to pour into them."

"I understand, Father."

"And I can help!" Anwar says, climbing into Jaffar's lap as well. "Please. If we both do it, then it will most definitely work!"

Jaffar ruffles Anwar's hair. "You're saying that because you want the fireworks. But I think you should cast the spell well before we start, so that we can make sure Ishtiaq is calm and will stay calm."

"It is like opium," Yassamin says, almost to herself. "But for a pain of the mind, a pain of the heart. You two are to be his doctors and to administer it wisely, in the right amounts. Use too much, and he might fall asleep!"

"He's doing that already, look!" Anwar whispers loudly, pointing at Ishtiaq: he has laid himself down upon his rug, drowsing lazily with his head upon his paws, his eyes almost closed.

"I sent the thought to him," Salsabil whispers proudly. "See, Father? I said to him, 'Ishtiaq, rest.' And it's working!"

"My little sorcerers," Jaffar says and embraces the children. "All right. You can have the fireworks--" and he raises his finger to his lips so that the children will not stir Ishtiaq with their cries of delight--"but we must be careful, now. Salsabil, Yassamin, you stay with Ishtiaq while I go prepare the powders; I'll set the fireworks up at the back of the garden. Anwar, you tell the servants to clear the garden and to close the stable doors. You can cast a little spell over the animals there as well, if you like. Their hearing is keener than ours, so they might hear the fireworks even through closed doors. Can you do that?"

"You can count on it!" Anwar cries and hops off the platform with his ribbons flying in the air, running towards the stables a living rainbow.

"Now, Ishtiaq, this will not hurt at all," Salsabil says in her doctorly voice, scritching Ishtiaq behind the ears. "I want you to listen to me very carefully," she says and begins to whisper in the beast's ear.

By the time Jaffar returns to the courtyard, it's dark; Yassamin, Salsabil and Ishtiaq are all dozing together upon the platform, wrapped up in blankets, happy in a cloud of love of their own crafting. Jaffar is loath to disturb this idyll as he carefully climbs onto the platform and parts the magic, as if curtains to step through: Ishtiaq is fast asleep and so is Salsabil, her head pillowed upon his chest; Yassamin lies behind Ishtiaq upon cushions and while he can tell she is awake, she, too, is in a love-trance, drugged by happiness.

An entirely different intoxication, is it not? Jaffar whispers to Yassamin's mind as he crawls beside her, as quiet as a cat. For he can feel it: Salsabil's heart, Yassamin's heart, Ishtiaq's heart--they have all expanded to touch each other and from there, they've expanded further into one great heart, one great heart beating as one, encompassing all three within its love.

Jaffar sits down cross-legged, breathes deep and opens his heart in turn: he imagines a heart shape in his chest and widens it until it expands a few inches outside of his body, glowing, feeling for the touch of the triple heart next to him. He listens for this love, sends out the beats of his own, asking for permission to join it--

And now he cries out loud in surprised delight, for it is Yassamin who now expands this love to encompass him, too. So joyously, so gladly, with such great happiness does she take him that his entire body is jolted; he is accepted into this greater heart, swallowed by it, four hearts now beating as one.

My love! he laughs into her.

Feel Salsabil, Yassamin tells him, smiling at him with half-closed eyes. We needn't fear: see how much our daughter loves.

And now, Salsabil stirs into wakefulness and finds there is something, someone missing: her brother. Thus, she sends out her heartbeat, her family's quadruple heartbeat in search of Anwar; each beat is a wave, a ripple that she throws out and then scoops back towards herself, like a fisherwoman casting her net and dragging it towards herself again.

Brother mine, brother mine, where art thou? she asks in the words of an ancient song, sending the echo of her love through the courtyard. We are ready.

And there he is: little Anwar staggers into the courtyard, carrying a large basket. He huffs and puffs as he sets the basket down on the platform. "Zahra told me to bring cakes," he whispers, thinking Yassamin and Ishtiaq asleep.

Jaffar lifts his finger to his lips and gestures for Anwar to sit down. "Concentrate," he whispers, but Anwar is already swaying, his eyes closing: he, too, becomes swallowed in the great heart. Can you feel us all? Jaffar asks.

Yes, Anwar answers, his own heart leaping in delight.

Then we can begin, Jaffar thinks, and now both Salsabil and Yassamin sit up very slowly and quietly. Make sure your consciousness stays with Ishtiaq, Jaffar tells them all, that's it. Can you feel how happy he is?

Perfectly happy, Salsabil whispers into everyone's minds; her joy at this makes Ishtiaq stir into a soft purr.

"You know, I envy him," Jaffar says out loud, but still in a very quiet murmur. "Bathing in our love like that."

"Would you like me to put you under, then?" Yassamin asks, laughing, her heart light.

"Perhaps later," Jaffar says, smiling.

He looks at the rooftop over the kitchen, and sees the servants have gathered there to watch the display. They are but shadows illuminated by two lanterns, the spring skies above them vast and dark and quiet; it is a most beautiful, starry night. He cannot help but think of those legends of the tribal peoples who think that stars are the souls of the pious, chains of lanterns hung from the foot of God's throne, illuminating the world below with their loving radiance. And is that not what he, what they are about to do, to illuminate the sky--if only for a brief while--in celebration of love, human and animal? This moment shakes him, inspires him into sudden prayer.

"In the name of God, the most merciful and clement," he whispers. "We give thanks for your blessings upon this night, this night as beautiful as the one seven years ago, when you gave us these two beautiful children. And now, you have blessed us with a third child in the form of Ishtiaq, teaching to us of your miracles inherent in all your Creation. Almighty God, accept these lights that we now send to touch the dust of your feet as the prayers of thanks they are," he says, his eyes now glistening with tears; "Amen."

"Amen," all whisper after him; Ishtiaq's purr an ever-continuing prayer about them.

Jaffar raises his hand, and the night bursts into bloom.

Pink and red and blue stars, ribbons, flowers explode into the skies, illuminating the darkness with myriad-coloured fires: the servants' delighted noises drift softly to the courtyard, while Jaffar, Yassamin and the children remain quiet, entranced. Ishtiaq but rests his head on his paws and purrs; Salsabil peeks into his mind and from it, all can read that the flicker of light is now to Ishtiaq but the play of sunlight upon grass: a harmless, sweet glittering at the edge of his mind. The bangs and the booms of the exploding rockets are to him but the cracking of dry branches and leaves, but the noises of rough sand underneath his feet; Yassamin breathes out a sigh of gratitude and relief.

But now, the time has come for the final fireworks, the most magnificent: just for Salsabil, Jaffar sends a gold and red and black pard leaping about the sky, its tail scattering sparks in its wake. She squeaks in delight and claps her hands, and Jaffar can feel she wants him to teach her how to recreate this exact display later: he promises her this as the cheetah leaps into nothingness, fading softly into the dark.

For Anwar, he has created a mighty Simurgh, spending his most precious coloured powders on her wings and her tail: she opens into the sky so enormous that all are startled a little. Her rainbow-wings encompass the entire breadth of the house, her tail blazing with the fire from which she was born, and now, she leaps high into the heavens, higher than any of the other explosives they have seen tonight, carrying to God their prayers.

While everyone is still staring--the children's mouths completely open, Jaffar is glad to see--he finishes the display with something simpler, but no less profound. The last burst of colour in the sky is a whorl of glittering blue petals: a giant blue rose unfolding, glowing soft and sweet and light.

"For you, my sweet Yassamin, my sweet love," he murmurs, glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

She glances back at him, then at the fading blue light in the sky: she blows from her hand a spell like a kiss up to the heavens, and now, the last petals of the rose fold around to form a great blue eye. The holy eye of protection, the eye that wards off evil, the djinn-fire blue of Jaffar's eyes watching over them all, guarding them all, keeping them safe within his love.

"For that is what you are," she says, staring up at the sky, the tears in her eyes glittering like the stars.

All is quiet as the sky darkens; all hesitate to speak, miraculous displays like these always evoking deep thoughts, thoughts unusual, philosophical in human minds.

Therefore, it is fitting that it should be the noise of an animal that finally stirs them all from their reverie. "Mrrrk?" is the noise Ishtiaq makes, slowly blinking his eyes as he lifts his head. A little alarmed, his nostrils flutter as he smells the remains of the gunpowder upon the air; however, Anwar is quick to distract him, offering him a pot of meat he had brought from the kitchen for this very purpose.

"Clever boy," Yassamin tells Anwar as he wipes his hands clean; "clever boy, clever daughter, clever husband," she tells them, and like the Simurgh, she gathers all of them into her arms, their hearts still beating as one.

Chapter Text

It is midday, and Yassamin and the children have retired to their chambers to rest past the heat of the noon. Only Jaffar is still toiling away in the cool darkness of the shabestan, too absorbed with his latest doll to quit now. If he can have this silver maiden finished today, then Zainab might stop pestering him for an entire week--a rare respite indeed, for which he is willing to put in a little more effort.

But it is then that a husky, quiet, feminine voice calls to him from the foot of the stairs. "Master?"

"Sonbol, I have told you not to come here!" Jaffar growls over his shoulder.

"I am so sorry, master, but..."

There is an anguished urgency in Sonbol's voice that alarms Jaffar. He turns around upon his cushions--oh, but his legs have gone to sleep, full of pins and needles as he unfolds them. Yet, as he drops the loupe from his eye and comes to see Sonbol clearly in the lantern light, he is taken aback.

For now, Sonbol lies supine before him on the floor, cowering before him like a slave; this is something Jaffar had never got Sonbol to stop, despite having freed him a decade ago. It embarrasses him, but Sonbol always insists--yet, this time, this display of humility seems no mere gesture; Sonbol even seems a little afraid.

"But, my dear friend!" Jaffar cries. "Has there been an accident? Come, speak!"

"No, master. This was the only time I could speak to you alone, when the mistress sleeps," Sonbol says, not raising his face yet; already he knows of the telepathy she, Jaffar and the children share and does not wish to be overheard. "I have come to ask for your help."

"I would prefer it if you did it man to man, then," Jaffar says warmly and lifts Sonbol from the floor, embracing him like the old friend he is. "Come, what is it?"

Sonbol winces, still finding it difficult to look Jaffar in the eye. Like all eunuchs, he looks younger than his years, his rounded features and the extreme darkness of his skin hiding many of his wrinkles: he appears fifty rather than sixty. Yet, today, he seems his age, his face full of sorrow and pain. "It is not a matter easy to discuss, but in 'man,' you have touched upon it, master."

Jaffar had thought it something of the sort. "Let us have tea to loosen your tongue, then. Know that you may trust me with your secrets, just as I have trusted you with mine," he says and leads Sonbol to the cushions near the bed and the cooking-alcove he has had installed in here as well. Always, he has served as the personal physician and spiritual counsel to his staff, even more so to the loyal few who had followed them to Samarkand. Therefore, as he prepares the tea, strong and sweet, he also sends to Sonbol some of his calming-magic, helping him relax. Only then, does he press the matter further.

"Is it Zahra?"

Sonbol rolls his eyes and presses his face into his hands. "You truly are a witch, master."

"I thought I had sensed a... closeness, that night of the fireworks." He had seen two shadows merging, perhaps in a kiss, but he had not been sure; he had been too busy concentrating on the fireworks to pay much attention to what the servants had been doing.

"Then you must also know what it is that I have come to ask for," Sonbol says, staring at his hands. "Spare me the pain of having to put it into words."

"Does she return your affections?"

"She was the one who started it!" Sonbol laughs, soft, fond; he shakes his head in disbelief. "The madwoman has asked me to marry her. She must be truly desperate."

"You are a good man, Sonbol. And it is a good nature that women look for in a man, first and foremost--" he raises his hand when Sonbol flashes him a dark look, "but I do not mean to belittle the crime inflicted upon you. This is about the device I gave you, is it not?"

"Yes," Sonbol says, now finally looking Jaffar in the eye, a fierce glare from underneath his gray brows. "And you must know that it's not as if I were ungrateful."

Jaffar has never doubted that. Upon their move to Samarkand, he had constructed Sonbol a pleasure-harness, not unlike the one he had given to Halima: one that penetrated its wearer and massaged the front of their sex, in order to make up for what they did not physically possess. It had, in fact, been Sonbol himself with whom Jaffar had first tested and perfected the eunuch version of the device: Sonbol had been so taken with it he had broken down in tears of gratitude.

For every eunuch knows of leather phalli, of dildos, of ways in which to massage the prostate to achieve the release otherwise denied to his kind; but this device of Jaffar's had eliminated the clumsy business of toys entirely, leaving its wearer free to enjoy penetration in whichever position he wished. In fact, Jaffar had built three devices like this for all the three eunuchs of their household, had even gifted each of them with a special saddle-chair in which they could use the weights of their bodies to exert pressure upon what remained of their genitals, to maximise the pleasure given by the toy. One could ride the toy or simply command it to curl and thrust inside the body, or even do both at the same time; it was a most marvellous device for masturbation.

But it is something more than masturbation that Sonbol now wants, needs.

"I think I follow you, my friend," Jaffar says. "What you want is a similar device, but with a prick in the front to pleasure Zahra with?"

Sonbol flushes and frowns, unable to look Jaffar in the eye. "It would be a lie to say I didn't," he murmurs.

Jaffar raises his eyebrow. "As improper as it sounds, I would have to consult her first, to see what suits her particular anatomy." For men often dream of massive pricks, but end up hurting their women as a result: eunuchs in particular would be at risk of trying to compensate too much. "That, and as far as I know, she has never lain with a man. I would recommend that you begin with the pleasures of the mouth and the fingers, and then move onto pricks leathern, ones held in the hand. First, ones she can manipulate herself, to get herself used to penetration, ones of different sizes to see which suit her sex best. Once you have found the right size and shape of prick, bring it to me, and I will construct a mechanical one for your harness--let me show you," he says, taking a piece of paper and drawing upon it a quick sketch of a device similar to the one he had built for Halima. "The prick goes inside her, obviously, the root of it firmly attached to the part that massages you from the front--I presume her riding you will bring you the most pleasure," he mumbles, half to himself. "But I think we can do better than that--what do you think of this?" he asks and points at the diagram. "If I make it so that the front will also be connected to the part that goes inside of you... a sort of pulse going from the front to the back... so that the device will deliver a stroke against your prostate as you thrust into her. A stroke for each thrust, so that you can enjoy several different positions without your pleasure being lessened in any way. That's the best I can do. Does that sound fair to you?"

Sonbol swallows. Again, Jaffar realises what a shock it is to ordinary people when he talks so openly of such intimate matters, when to him, this is but an engineering project first and foremost. He has been so used to talking about pleasure-machines with Yassamin and Zainab that he often forgets these are not matters easy for others to discuss--and then there's Sonbol's shame and bitterness at his condition to be taken into consideration. But Jaffar had forgotten--oh, what a fool he is! That he would talk to Sonbol so freely not only about his maimed genitals, but also his future wife's cunny!

He is an idiot, an idiot, embarrassment now falling over him a cloud; he wipes his pen and lays it back in its box, a little awkward as he turns to Sonbol, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I apologise," he mumbles. "I do not wish to be insensitive, or to proceed too fast. Please forgive me."

"Perhaps we should forget about the whole thing," Sonbol mumbles himself; this is all so embarrassing to him that the shame and the awkwardness practically roil off him. Sonbol has always been a fellow quiet and reserved, the most dignified of Jaffar's staff: even when they'd lived in Baghdad, he had never been one for the other eunuchs' dirty jokes and promiscuous habits, preferring to keep to himself instead.

"It is quite unusual," Jaffar says, "but we are an unusual family, are we not? Zahra is a good woman, and women like to play, to explore the arts of love in bed without hurry. I daresay that what you will be giving her is more than most women will ever receive. And I am not exaggerating! Both Halima and Zainab have told me that most women only ever reach release from being sucked and fingered, not from being taken; yet few men ever bother to do this, so quick to sate their own pricks."

Sonbol shakes his head and laughs nervously. "I wouldn't know about fingers or tongues," he says.

"Really?" Jaffar asks. For from what he has known, the women of the grander harems positively buzz around the eunuchs, looking for satisfaction without the risk of pregnancy; some had even married eunuchs and said they had been better lovers than men intact, taking the matter of pleasuring a woman seriously to compensate for the loss of their genitals. But then, many eunuchs only love among themselves, or seek men to lie underneath: that way, they claim, there is no pressure to perform. And yet, there are some eunuchs who go so far as to declare their state a blessing! This so that they may effortlessly devote themselves to piety and chastity instead, now that their desires will not be constantly pulling them away from God's grace. So Sonbol must have been one of the latter two types, only used to the love of men and other eunuchs, or only the love of God, even: no wonder he is nervous.

"Really," Sonbol says, wincing. "I have some idea of... well. But I would like to browse some of your books, if I may."

"My dear fellow, I would be more than glad to help!" Jaffar says and embraces Sonbol with one arm; both the engineer and the lover in him are thrilled at the prospect of this new project. That, and now he finally has a chance of paying Sonbol back for his years of loyal service. "It's the least I could do. We'll begin at the library, tomorrow, after the sunset prayers. I daresay we'll make a master lover of you yet."

Sonbol looks at him, dumbfounded. "This is madness. A fever-dream of utter madness!"

"Aye," Jaffar laughs as he digs underneath the bed, taking out a large box of toys. He lifts out three leather pricks of varying sizes, smiling gleefully as he displays them to Sonbol. "Isn't it fantastic?"

***

However, it is Yassamin's help they need to introduce the idea to Zahra. Wasting no time, she lures Zahra into her bedchamber and gets her tipsy on a bowl of strong wine, then brings out the leathern toys: the room fills with the women's hysterical giggles as Jaffar and Sonbol watch the proceedings in Jaffar's crystal.

"I think that's a good start," Jaffar says as Zahra measures the toys with her hands, flushing in her excitement. "She has not run away yet, nor passed out from fright."

But as Yassamin demonstrates to Zahra a technique that's clearly about shoving one of these pricks up the husband's backside, Sonbol but swallows nervously. "I am going to die."

"But of pleasure, my dear man, of pleasure!" Jaffar says and pats him on the back. "Let us leave them to it. I brought the book I commissioned from Halima, on all the techniques she knew of pleasuring women. Read this and you'll be as skilled a clitoris-sucker as Sappho herself!" he declares, dimming the crystal and opening the thick volume on a page illustrating the pleasures of the mouth. "This is better than a prick--let's see..."

***

Yassamin is still cackling like an old hag as Jaffar enters the bedroom, Zahra having run off with the toys, Sonbol having been left in the library with the books. "This is a household gone mad! Mad!" she declares and rushes into Jaffar's arms, gifting his mouth with a sloppy, drunken kiss.

Jaffar but twirls her around, spinning her, spinning her, chuckling from deep in his chest; never did he think he would be this happy playing the love-doctor, making other people happy as if he had never been a cruel tyrant at all. "It is your love that has made it like this, my little witch," he murmurs against her lips. "You have so filled me with your love that I feel like sharing it, giving to them of our happiness's bounty."

"The generosity of the Barmakids," she says and nuzzles his face. "Is there any of this nectar left for me tonight, husband sweet?" she asks and gives his genitals a grope.

Jaffar purrs against her neck as he covers it with kisses. "There might be," he teases; "there might be some nectar here for you indeed," he croons as he ruts into her hand.

"Mm?" she murmurs as she falls to her knees, mouthing his prick through his silks. "I demand a taste of this sweetness."

"Be my guest," Jaffar says, but not before he has lifted out the bag he's brought with himself. "You may even suck me dry if you wish, since I thought I would test a new... variant of the toys in question, as it were," he leers and tosses the bag onto the bed. "But not yet!" he laughs and takes Yassamin by the hands when she tries to peek into the bag. "Continue with what you were doing, my sweet."

"I am not even going to give you the satisfaction of complaining about your bringing engineering into the bedroom again," she says and shakes her head, fumbling a little with the laces of Jaffar's shalwars. "Or your perversion for delay!" she declares with drunken determination. "As long as this particular pleasure-device is all mine," she says and digs out his prick, "I do not care one whit!"

"How much wine did you have?!" Jaffar laughs as he sits upon the bed and spreads his legs, pulling off his shirt and tying back his hair.

But it is then that Yassamin swallows him into her mouth and his entire body is set alight. Oh, but he loves this, adores being taken into her mouth when he is still soft--and he knows she loves this as well, this miracle of his flesh filling out in her mouth, hardening against her tongue. To feel it in one's hand is one thing, but to feel each pulse against one's tongue, to be able to relish the first drop of sap that is pursed out of the tip as the flesh engorges and fills: indeed, she sends to him the heady pleasure of this, her adoration of it.

And now that she has entered his consciousness, it is her intoxication that surges into his veins, too, taking him by surprise; as she pulls off his slippers and his shalwars, he has to brace his hands against the bed so as not to fall.

"My God, that was some strong wine," he says, now worried if Yassamin will even be able to orgasm; he feels a little guilty already.

Shhh. But let me serve you; should the wine get in the way, you can always give to me of your own pleasure. It would be a nice change, she laughs into his mind, he always so keen to steal her orgasms himself.

"Oh, but gladly, gladly," he murmurs, soft as he cards his fingers through her hair until it is a fragrant cloud about her head, inhaling her as her skin's heat, too, releases the attars of jasmine and rose she wears upon her skin. He closes his eyes and sighs, moving all of himself into her as he slowly hardens in her mouth, lengthens; he shivers with exquisite tenderness as she pulls back in a long, rolling suck, never taking her loving eyes from him. And oh, but this suck is followed by a swirl of her tongue, a purse of her cheeks as she brings up more spit, remembering how wonderful this slickness had felt as he had sucked her prick not long ago. This experience, too, she gives to him, even sharing with him the little discomfort as she has to tarry there, producing the spit; the greater discomfort as she deliberately chokes herself upon him to bring up thick phlegm from her throat for an even better slide.

"You spoil me," he sighs, and groaning, he lets himself fall back upon the bed, his arms and legs lax, all of him surrendered to her, surrendered; he sends back to her the happiness, the sweetly humming warmth she has now filled his body with, the tightness and the heat in his hips to give vigour to the tightening of her cunny in turn.

Yet, even if he is the one of them that's sober, he finds it difficult to concentrate as she lifts his feet onto the bed and takes his arse with her mouth; he squirms and his hips lift off the bed reflexively, only to be pinned down mercilessly by her hands and her mouth, she swallowing his cock once more. For a long while, she teases him thus, moving from his cock to his sack to his arse and back again; there, he tosses, rapturous as she holds his hands, their fingers laced.

"Please, my lady, I beg of you," he cries, hoarse.

She is only glad to pull back for breath a little, balancing her head on his thigh; she looks up at him tenderly, cradling his prick against the softness of her cheek. "What is it that you want, my love?"

"You," he moans and springs up from the bed, pulling off her kaftan, taking her to lie on top of himself, holding her tight. "I've changed my mind. I think I want to be inside that little cunny after all," he says and smacks her arse with both hands, spreading her so that he can now slip his cock between her thighs. "Right here," he sighs and kneads her buttocks, moaning in delight as she squeezes him between her thighs, wetting him with her arousal. "Please, Yassamin."

"Mmm," she says, almost absent-minded: again, her attention is drawn to the bag. "Let's see what you brought us, first."

It is a toy somewhat different from what he had given to his servants: it is a long prick made of a light brown leather, double-headed, all of eighteen inches long.

"Oh, my!" Yassamin cries as she holds it, weighing it in her hands. For it is indeed a heavy beast, yet so well-padded that the mechanism cannot hurt the user--or rather, the users.

"How does this work, then, my genius?" she asks.

"It has a thrusting mechanism on the inside," he says and takes one end in his hand, stroking it playfully. "Heavy metal spheres thrust back and forth by a magnetic force, which you activate with a spell," he tells her, giving the toy a little rub with his thumb as he whispers a rune.

Immediately, the prick begins to judder, the beads thrusting back and forth inside of it; they move so fast and with such force the toy nearly flies out of Yassamin's hands.

"Like a woodpecker!" Yassamin cackles, having nothing else to compare it to.

"Do you want me to call it that?" Jaffar laughs.

"Perhaps not," she says and shakes her head. "So this is meant for a couple to use?"

"Yes. Or, of course, a woman can wear it in both orifices simultaneously, but I suspect that would be a little uncomfortable," he winces. "I expect it'd be easier for you to wear it in your cunny, but..." he draws his fingertip up the toy, flashing her a wicked glance. "I would love to see if I could take you while we were both sodomised by it," he tells her, adoring the way her eyes widen, reflecting his most lecherous leer. "We would have to hold it in place with magic, of course."

She raises her eyebrow, measuring the toy. "Being taken by Sarosh would be easier, if you but gave him two pricks."

"But that's exactly why I made it. So we wouldn't have to go downstairs if we wished to be taken as we took each other. Lazy, I know, but..."

"All right," she says, laughing. "But you're on top. I'm too tired to ride."

"I'm not feeling very athletic myself," he says. "But we could try it lying down. Come."

And it is Yassamin who first takes the toy inside of herself, lying on her back as Jaffar slowly, tenderly eases it into her arse. He still remembers the hurt and pain she had felt deep down in the soul when he had last taken her arse too fast, and he has been making up to her for his crime ever since. In fact, he spends such a long time kissing and sucking her cunny, now, that she even ruffles his hair and scolds him a little for going too slow--however, he enjoys the opportunity of teasing her a little in turn.

That, and he can never resist the taste of her, the utter sweetness of her cunny's sap, more intoxicating than any wine; he closes his eyes and sighs in delight as he swallows her pleasure-shivers from her cunny and lets them travel to his own genitals, now so packed with blood they ache. On and on, he continues pleasuring her in this manner, greasing the dildo with thick cream, adding more and more as he goes; he makes sure to work his way inside with little dips and always withdraws when she feels the slightest bit of pain, so as not to let the pain win at any point. Moving within her and with her is the key, teasing her body into opening little by little; each time she stiffens, he pulls the toy out and sucks her cunny instead.

But now, it is in pleasure that her hands clutch at the sheets, a pleasure deep in the belly, a pleasure singing electric through her nerves, a brightness hard and dizzying like looking directly at the sun. She pants there, her eyes flickering back and forth underneath closed eyelids, glossy from smeared kohl; her chest heaves, her breaths spasmodic, her nipples pointing towards the canopies.

Six inches of the prick, he has buried in her, six inches; his triumph crowned by the glorious sight of her cunny swollen like a ripe fruit, its flush a shocking red. Drunk or no, this is the utmost state of arousal her cunny is capable of reaching: its petals are thick and heavy, even purpling at their tips, her clitoris lifted out like a little prick; the outer lips plump and swollen and heavy, even the entrance to her sex firm to the tongue from packed blood, just like the flesh of his own prick. And there, there: her cunny trickles, not just from her urethra but her vagina, too, all of her become a fountain of nectar: in awe, in pride he watches as the thick, sweet fluid pours out of the mouth of her cunny in pulses as if to slicken the cock, to invite it further in.

She is ready.

"Jaffar," she rasps, and she is ready; Jaffar's blood whistles in his ears, his vision spinning as he moves to straddle her. He closes his mind to her for a brief moment, not wanting to hurt her with the pain that he now gives himself as he lubricates the other end of the prick and takes it inside of himself. He is in a rush, but it is a sweet pain, this, he so used to penetration that he can take the leather prick easily as he sits on top of it: it is a sickening joy with which he now howls as the pain lances through his body, immediately followed by lashes of pleasure.

He falls onto his back on the bed and lets go of the dildo, his hands shaking: their legs now laced, they rest there cunny to perineum, buttock to buttock, arse to arse. He howls through his nose and clutches the sheets just as she does: his arse clenches around the invading prick, but now he can feel her slight movements, too, she unable to stay still herself.

"Oh, my God," Yassamin moans, laughs as she looks down, then lets her head fall back once more. "That feels wonderful."

"So do you," he sighs and clasps his cock, his balls with his greased hands. "Stroke yourself a little, and then I will tell it to start thrusting. Are you ready?"

"No," she laughs, squeezing her clitoris between her fingertips, "but do it, still."

And it is with a light, slow rhythm that Jaffar begins their taking. The main mechanism, the matrix of crystals that controls the toy at its crux is now nestled between their bodies, each shaft encasing three heavy steel spheres, the spheres now impelled into movement by the pulses emanating from the matrix. Even if the thrusts are a little short, they are remarkably like the ones of a real lover, even if Jaffar says so himself, yet this is very different from being taken by Sarosh: this way, they can both lie down and needn't move very much, the back-and-forth movement being left to the spheres themselves.

Curious, he peeks into Yassamin's mind, and finds she is astonished by this herself: soon, she, too, discovers that she needn't move much, except whenever she desires more vigorous friction from the ridges, from the glans of the toy upon the surfaces of her guts. Jaffar nearly comes into his hand as he feels a burst of sap from her cunny against his balls, she letting out a high cry of surprise.

Well, my sweet! In that case, let us see what you think of the harder thrusts! he chuckles into her mind.

He instructs the pulses to come faster, harder, deeper, but he has barely started before she is already convulsing, orgasming so violently that he has to hold her in place with his own thighs pinning down hers; he laughs and drinks in her screams as she sprays his balls, his cock with her ejaculate, her hand flying on her cunny. He revels in this, swims in her pleasure and scoops some of her ripples into his own body to give himself a little orgasm, too, an internal one deep in the guts; now, it is his turn to paint his belly with his sap, his eyes rolling back in his head from how good it feels.

"We must do this every time we're--we're too tired--" he gasps when he can breathe again; cold shivers run up and down his body and he has to take his hands off his genitals so as not to come fully just yet. "My God!"

"Quite!" Yassamin pants herself. "But I am starting to ache, my love, and I would have you in my cunny. Come, let's see if you can take me like this."

"I made it long enough for that," he groans as he struggles for balance; it's not easy for him to climb on top of her without letting the dildo slip out of himself.

In fact, he has to send out a psychic signal to lock the dildo in place, now that he finds a good position on top of her; but this results in a wonderful sensation, feeling as if he, too, is held in place, impaled upon the toy as he now nestles inside of her cunny. "How do you like that?" he asks and brushes sweaty hair from her face, kissing her softly, still catching his breath.

"Pleasure and pain both," she says, but this, they both know from every time she has been doubly filled--he knows from experience that she cannot take this sort of penetration for long. But then, they are both close to the edge, so now, it should take but a few moments to undo them both.

"Hurry," she says; the white shivers of pleasure-pain are now so intense inside of her that she cannot even wrap her arms or her legs around him, even if he can feel her urge to do so, the little guilt in her as she fails to move her limbs.

"Shh," he kisses onto her lips, himself gathering her legs and her arms around him, holding them in place with a light binding-spell, one that she can release any time should she so wish. "Is that better?"

She bites her lip. "You forgot to leave me something to rub mys--"

"But why would I do that, when I've got a perfectly good hand here myself, my sweet?" he chuckles as he takes his fingers to her clitoris. He loves this, loves the way she arches into his hand, her teeth biting into her lip so hard it turns white; white like the pleasure again lashing up his spine, hers, pleasure-lines surging from his body into hers, looping from her body into his until they are but an ouroborean circle of euphoric light. She, being the more filled of them, is upon the edge already, and therefore he plunges her into the greater light of orgasm first: he slows down the thrusts of the toy, paces them so that they hit her whenever his prick withdraws from her cunny, alternating thus, and even now, he makes sure to leave gaps between the thrusts for her own contractions.

And never has it been this white, white, the white of sea foam, the white of snow, the white of clouds, the white of the soul as it lifts itself to the noonday sun in prayer: it is an orgasm violent, tearing through both their bodies at once. Immediately, he lets go of her bonds, knowing she might hurt herself with her convulsions otherwise; keening, she takes her own hand to her cunny to bring it to yet another peak, a third until she is blind, he is blind, blind. He soars into her, he the white bird into her sun, high, high; he is weightless, his body made of glass, of light, light. He lets go of his consciousness, letting the toy do what it may on a course automatic; for a brief while they are both taken by magic itself, not controlled by either of them. It is a moment terrifying, yet it is that terror that now blasts yet another wave of ecstasy through them, scalding them, blanching them, for a moment both of them but white ash.

Ash, ash, white ash floating down like snow; ash, ash blown by their breaths, their heartbeats, ash white like the sheets.

The sheets. Satin. Silk. Threads. Sheets. Fabric in his hands, tangible, tangible, real; he focuses on these and by the sense of touch, the rustling sound of the silk he is brought back to earth. The toy slips out of them both and he nudges it aside with the same spell he had locked it in place with; it now lies still, the dead thing it is, now emptied of its magic. His body feels hollow, as does hers, that dizzying euphoria always brought on by having been thoroughly taken through the gut, that strange but wonderful emptiness left inside of the hips still rendering them both a little restless.

It is she who finally grounds him fully, the alcohol in her veins weighing him down, too; she uses this mild form of poisoning, this heaviness in her limbs to ground them both. She rolls herself on top of him, taking Jaffar's prick between her thighs once more: now, it is bathed in the sweet flood of his own sperm, trickling warm out of her cunny. Nestled, he is nestled, safe and warm; within the soft paleness of her flesh he dozes, too tired to hug her, merely lying there grateful for her weight and her warmth.

"That was strange," she tells him, finally, her head pillowed upon his chest.

"It was, wasn't it?" he purrs, stroking her back. "It felt like I have sometimes felt when making love to you in sleep debt, in fact. That whiteness, that sense of unreality, yet the pleasure of it so intense it took me by surprise."

"I thought of that, too," she says. "It was that unreal quality of the sleep-deprived state... what on earth did you put inside that toy?"

"Nothing I didn't put inside of Sarosh," he says. "Logic tells me this must have been something inside of us, a blockage of energy that needed to come out, pooled in the body's higher energy centres. And that the only way to release it was through something as powerful as a penetration of that sort. The intensity from the stimulation of the great spinal nerve, yet doubled, two people feeling it at once... perhaps that was enough to push it through the tops of our spines and our brains, piercing that blockage and releasing the energy. Do you follow me?"

"Absolutely," she says. "Now tell that to the magicians to whom abstinence is everything--how they must be poisoning themselves!" she huffs. "I feel... cleansed. Like every time after sodomy."

"The great paradox," he murmurs. "To find such cleanliness in the body's sewers."

But at that, he can feel she is not so sure: she whispers a purifying rune and pushes the now-clean toy off the bed, flashing another rune across the sheets so that neither of them has to sleep in the wet spot. "There," she says, kissing his nose.

He laughs and returns the favour, lashing a pair of purification runes over their genitals, their arses as well; Yassamin yelps in his arms.

"We truly have become masters at the art of laziness, have we not?" she smiles and yawns.

"Not laziness. One: I am a man ancient. Two: we both work hard; we've earned ease. Besides, this way we don't have to leave the bed to wash," he murmurs and turns her onto her side, burying his face in her breasts. "And I don't want to leave the warmth of your body. Not for a few hundred centuries at least."

"Mmm."

"Also, before you ask, the children are asleep. So is Ishtiaq. So no checking upon them now," he says and clutches her tight, like a child clinging to its mother. "Sleep."

"I feel restless, still," she says. "And it's not the usual energy I feel after love, either," she murmurs into his hair. "That insomnia-like thing... do you still feel it?"

"A little. But I don't want to go and get valerian now," he groans. "Let us rest at least, please," he says and takes her hand, kissing it. "Step inside my mind and I'll entertain you with something."

"A lullaby?" she grins.

"Of sorts. Come here," he says and pulls her down so that they rest forehead to forehead, drawing the blanket over them both. "Can you see what I see?"

"The plains," she smiles against his mouth.

"Excellent. Now, follow me," he whispers, and then, he speaks no more.

Their eyes close and the green plains of the Sogd open before them; he roams the long grass with her a pard. So long have they spent in Ishtiaq's mind that they now know the grasslands intimately, their every sight, sound, smell, touch; they wander together a pair of cheetah siblings, carried by the sounds of the wind and the crackle of dead grass underneath their claws. The great Sogd rushes past them in the distance, and beyond it, the blue mountains; between them, the sun is a bright vermillion dot as it sets in the purpling west.

Behind them, they can hear the faint sounds of others, a pair of chirping cheetah cubs: Salsabil and Anwar, the path of their own dreams crossing that of their parents; beyond them a happy cheetah bark: Ishtiaq.

The grass brushes against their flanks, one cheek butts lovingly against another, and they continue on their journey towards the blood-red sun. And it is in the evening's blue and its red and its purple that they are lulled into a happy, nourishing, deep and sweet sleep; above them, the stars come out and finally, they are swallowed by the fragrant, soft darkness of the night.

***

END

***