with the understated elegance I loved about him. I felt that same obligation to help her when she sought me out in Port Said and told me her daughter was missing.
Earlier she had made plans to take the girl on a picturesque tour of the city, she told me, extolling the values of “going native” in a cart drawn by two mules, riding up and down the tree-lined streets past the lighthouse, then the Victorian buildings with purple-red bougainvillea overflowing on the terraces. Flavia refused to go. She assured her mother she’d have a better time at the afternoon tea dance, insisting she’d befriended some British girls she met on the beach visiting from St. Claire’s English School. That was the last time she saw her daughter. When Lady Palmer returned from her city excursion, Flavia’s new friends informed her the girl had left the hotel.
With a man. A tall Egyptian with a charming French accent, they said. Sweeping her away into his arms as if his galabiya, indigo blue robe, was a magic carpet flying around him, the orange-hued imma on his head contrasting with his black hair, the tightly wrapped turban giving him a courtly demeanor. Bidding the British schoolgirls adieu with a grandiose gesture of his bare brown muscular arm, his large ruby ring set in pearls dazzling them, the girls sighed, speculating he must be very rich and very important.
They said his name was Ramzi.
When I asked my British circle of friends about this Ramzi, no one knew much about him, though I watched more than one spectator-pumped miss sigh with a near-rapturous want, as if she’d gladly drop her knickers for a quick poke. I knew I must find him. Was he the souteneur the fortune-teller warned me about, the man who held the key to unlocking the great waves of pleasure I so desperately sought? I shuddered, though in a pleasant manner. I intended to see for myself.
Wrapped in a black curve-smothering tunic with clasps of bright copper and gold placed between my eyes to hold my nose veil in place, I hired a local guide to take me around the port city to places where men wearing dark-colored gandourah sat under the blue-and-white striped awnings of restaurants, playing games and smoking from nargilehs, water pipes. I kept my distance, my heavy cloak trailing over dirty floors rife with crawling creatures, until—
“Asim knows of this man you seek,” my guide said.
“Which man is Asim?” I asked behind my veil, trying to read their faces.
“The man with the dagger fastened with a leather band to his left forearm. He says Ramzi took the girl to his nightclub.”
“Is he sure?”
He nodded. “Yes. The Bar Supplice.”
“Why did he take her there?” I knew the answer before I asked. The French word supplice meant torment.
His mouth twisted in a dirty grin. “In Port Said, one does not ask why. One knows.”
“Take me there. I will pay you well.” I made him an offer, knowing I straddled two worlds here in a culture that judged me as a lesser being than men, but hadn’t I overcome similar prejudice when I, a commoner, married Lord Marlowe? I couldn’t stop now.
“I get into much trouble if Mahmoud sees me bring you there—”
“Mahmoud?”
“Ramzi’s bodyguard. He can snap a man’s neck in two with his hands.” He made a gesture that left me no doubt he’d seen Mahmoud render such a punishment.
I removed the soft georgette from my face as if to remind him I wasn’t like the women of Port Said who lived in a male-imposed fear behind the veil. In a steady voice, I made him another offer. A higher one. He shook his head. I kept raising the ante, trying to persuade him. After all, money meant nothing to me. I’d inherited a vast fortune to spend freely, along with a title, when Lord Marlowe was killed in a motorcar accident. I’ve no doubt he meant for me to indulge in our secret passion after he was gone. A shiver went through me even as I sweated under the heavy robe. This could be the end of my journey to find that passion again. I repeated my offer. The guide’s answer was still no.
I raised the abaya, robe, above my ankles, then my knees, to reveal my white wide-leg trousers, as if my gesture had become a symbol of the shift in my demands that now went beyond asking questions. I must make him understand I wouldn’t go away without an answer. My own curiosity and needs had been replaced by a feeling of dread. I was certain the girl’s life was in danger. No doubt Lady Palmer’s daughter had succumbed to the allure of an exotic man with a charming accent; but after a few whiskeys, I imagined her naked and trembling on her hands and knees in front of him, then lifting his galabiya and taking his cock into her mouth. So young she was, not more than twenty, and inexperienced. What did she know about performing fellatio? Such a delicacy must be savored by a woman.
Fighting my own needs, I must do what I could to help her, if only to repay a favor to my husband’s loyal friend. A woman’s body was a distraction in the Arab world, I knew, something chewed upon, then what was left over was tossed away like scraps to the dogs. I had no doubt the man who had seduced Lady Palmer’s daughter was such a deviant.
Casting his eyes downward as if to hide his thoughts, the guide nodded at my final offer. The price was set. He led me down a street filled with multistoried houses with Greek names, as if that gave the brothels a touch of class. Inquisitive girlish faces peered at us from grimy windows, yelling to men straggling from house to house, intent on tasting as much female flesh as their bodies could endure.
At the end of the street, the guide pointed to an ornate door painted to resemble a golden orifice, though I could see chipped paint belying the possibility of any precious metal underneath. Bar Supplice, he assured me, though no sign proclaimed what kind of torment went on inside. I paid the guide, adding a generous tip. Without counting the large notes, he bolted down a side alleyway, jumping over the body of a beggar woman who had collapsed onto the dirt, her open hand asking for alms even in death. I turned my head away, the fetid smell of her rotting corpse announcing the presence of evil everywhere. I could do nothing for the unfortunate woman lying in the dirt, but I could save the girl.
Snatching up my robe to keep from stumbling, I pulled open the door. Though the hour was not yet sunset, darkness greeted me with the secret handshake known to all who entered this den of debauchery. I walked with confidence down the cool cavelike corridor as if I wore a cloak of invisibility, my feet treading over the worn path to decadence as had so many before me, my anxiety increasing with each step. Or was it my anticipation to experience something wildly erotic with its overripe sweetness and pungent aftertaste?
I wasn’t disappointed. On a small round stage surrounded by empty tables and chairs and lit by a sole spotlight, I saw a partially nude girl stretched out on a soft sand-hued rug. The white-skinned nymph wore nothing but a loose robe of coral-red silk spread out around her like a scarlet angel’s wings. A tall Nubian lapped at her pussy, licking with zest, his long tongue darting in and out of her, his giant presence dwarfing her slenderness. She threw her head back and thrashed about on the rug, groaning. A dark-haired man in an indigo blue galabiya and orange-hued imma sat cross-legged next to her, smoking a chibouk, a long Turkish pipe bound by blue silk and gold threads and studded with what appeared to be rubies.
I resisted the temptation to breathe in the sickening-sweet smell of what I recognized as hashish. I needed all my senses to save the girl. I faced one problem: I never expected the man I assumed to be Ramzi would have such an effect on me. Dark eyes, black brows with a sardonic twist that added an erotic aura to his nearly perfect features, a strong jawline, broad shoulders, he was so handsome I swore if he looked at me it would be the obliteration of whatever common sense I still possessed. He maintained a certain grandeur, nobility. Vulnerable as I was, I ached to acquiesce all control to this archseducer of women. I couldn’t take my eyes off his sensual mouth sucking on the amber mouthpiece, drawing in the fragrant smoke from a bowl of baked clay, then blowing rings around the girl’s bare breasts. How I envied her.
Lady Palmer’s runaway daughter.
I stared and stared and stared, my eyes not blinking but my hand moving upward to touch my breasts then slide down my midriff and rub my soft mound. When I saw the Nubian change position and nudge