A Night in a Moorish Harem/The Arabian Lady's Story

I was born in the dominions of the Imam of Yemen. When I was sixteen years old I was selected by one of his emissaries for the Imam's harem. My parents were well pleased with my preferment, and I set out from home with girlish glee. On being introduced to the harem I was bathed and elegantly dressed; then I was led to a room where the Imam was sitting conversing with his ladies.

He was an old man with a countenance indicating a feeble character. The conversation showed the supremacy which was exercised over him by his wife, Ayesha, a very fat lady, whose corpulence seemed to be her only charm. After a while the Imam began to look at me a great deal, which I could see she noticed.

At last he called me to his side, where I stood with his bare arm around my waist, answering his questions. His arm gradually lowered and I felt his hand under my petticoat. I suppose he thought the other ladies did not see him, for I was standing very close to his side. The eyes of Ayesha, however, were on the alert; they flashed with anger.

The Imam's hand explored my thighs, and at last his finger entered a place where no man had ever before touched me. It felt its way carefully in and soon met with an obstruction. The pressure upon it, though slight, was very disagreeable to me, but I did not dare to repulse the Imam.

What I did not dare to do Ayesha did. 'Your Highness,' said she, 'has promised to present a virgin to the Sultan of Muscat; I think this one will do in default of any better.'

'Yes, she is a virgin,' he said, partly answering her and partly giving vent to his own thoughts.

'Shall I order the chief eunuch to see to her?' said Ayesha.

The Imam gave a long look at me, then he looked at the black thunder cloud on the brow of Ayesha, from beneath which her eyes were flashing.

'Yes,' he said, 'you may give the order.'

I supposed the graceful charm which rewarded his obedience was in possession of some state secret which controlled him — or it may have been her temper.

The next day I was on the road to Muscat, where, after several days' journey, I was duly presented. The Sultan received his present very graciously. I heard him say a bale of rich goods should be returned to my former lord. Then he ordered the female slaves to care for me very tenderly. They bathed me and perfumed me and dressed me in the richest apparel and jewellery, then they led me to a sumptuous repast — they could not do too much for me, whom their lord delighted to honour.

After supper the Sultan came into the women's apartments. I had learned from the slave girls that Fatima was his favourite wife. She was a beautiful woman, but I found afterwards that she had a cruel and pitiless heart. She did not seem to care for the attentions the Sultan lavished on me. I even thought there was a gleam of satisfaction on her countenance as he led me to a remote part of the harem.

We passed through two or three doors until nothing could be heard of the sounds of music or conversation we had just left. We were now in a rich apartment with an elegant bed. As I was somewhat agitated the Sultan sat on a sofa beside me and began to soothe me. His person was agreeable and I began to enjoy his conversation. I knew what was coming, but I neither desired nor dreaded it much.

'Now please undress yourself,' he said. I obeyed at once, taking off everything but my chemise; in the meantime he had stripped stark naked. It made my heart beat violently as I looked for the first time on a man's shaft ready for action. He came and unbuttoned my chemise and let it drop to the floor. I covered my face with my hands.

He lifted me and laid my back on the bed close to the edge of it and knelt on the floor beside me. Then he spread my thighs wide apart and opened the lips between them and made a critical examination of my virginity. 'By Allah!' he exclaimed, 'a crescent-shaped maidenhead. It brings good luck to the captor!'

'I am glad it pleases you, my lord,' said I, timidly.

The Sultan gave a sudden cry of agony and fell across me. I took my hands from my face and saw Fatima holding a shawl tightly around his head while a man whom I had never seen was driving a dagger into his body with repeated blows. I tried to call out, but my voice was frozen with horror.

'Dare to make a noise,' said Fatima, 'and you shall share his fate.'

I knelt to plead for my life, but they took no further notice of me till they had satisfied themselves that the Sultan was dead. Fatima flung the covers over the body.

'Let me be the first to congratulate you as Sultan of Muscat,' she said, turning to her companion.

'The most beautiful woman in Muscat has the right to congratulate me,' he said. Then he turned towards me, let his eyes rove over my naked form and addressed some soothing words to me.

'Have the decency to put on your clothes and follow me, hussy,' said Fatima.

While I was dressing the Sultan parted with Fatima, first giving her some instructions about the harem to carry out while he went to confirm his authority with the troops.

The conspiracy at the crowning act, at which I was present, was perfectly successful, and the new Sultan reigned without opposition. Fatima was absolute in the harem. She kept me as much as possible out of sight of the new Sultan, though she allowed him to have free access to the other women. He took every opportunity to speak to me, but I avoided him with horror. I could not forget the scene of the assassination.

One evening after he had been more persistent in his attentions, Fatima called me into a room alone. She told me to lie down on the bed, and, when I had obeyed her, she turned my petticoats up over my head. I was so afraid of the beautiful tigress that I dared not stir; I only begged for mercy.

'Lie still, I shall not hurt you,' she said, and, having pulled my thighs apart, she opened my sheath with her fingers. I heard the 'click' of scissors and felt a slight but keen pain. I put my hand involuntarily to the place and felt that my maidenhead was gone.

'Now,' she said, 'you will not play your arts on the Sultan any more on pretence of being a virgin.'

I burst into tears of mortification and anger. and went into my room with the blood trickling down my thighs.

The next evening the Sultan came into the women's apartments. Fatima hastily ordered me from the room on some errand.

'Don't be too harsh with the poor maid,' he said.

'Maid!' she retorted, contemptuously. 'She has lain with half the young men in Yemen.'

'I will match your wager on that,' he said.

'Very well,' she said. 'If you are right you shall lie with her tonight. If I am right I will dispose of her.'

This conversation was carried on in a low tone, but I overheard it. She arose and bade me follow her. The Sultan came after us to the bedroom.

'Now feel the hussy,' she said, 'and satisfy yourself.'

The Sultan, brute as he was, was very much embarrassed. But he drew me towards him, put his hands under my clothes and with his finger satisfied himself that my maidenhead was gone. I was then dismissed with my cheeks flaming with rage and shame, and then the two devils passed the night together. Once more after this the Sultan sought an opportunity to be alone with me, which I baffled. Fatima's keen eyes detected him and my fate was sealed.

That evening I was seized in my room by the eunuchs, bound and gagged and sewn in a sack. After being carried a short distance in silence, the creaking of a boat and the rippling of water revealed to me the awful doom to which I was to be consigned. I could not move; I could not call. I was lifted and flung into the water and heard a boat row away.

I settled slowly under the waves, and, as my clothes became saturated, the water reached my nostrils. I made in hopeless agony a prayer to Allah; as if in answer to it I heard the stroke of oars. They became louder and louder till the water settled over me and I knew no more.

I returned to consciousness lying in the bottom of a boat, the sweet moonlight streaming in my face and the eyes of a young man gazing earnestly into my own. He must have been pleased with what he saw there. 'Sweet houri of paradise, she lives,' he said, in a tender and manly tone.

His attentions were unremitting until I was fully restored and my lungs freed from water. Then he arranged me in the bottom of the boat with his coat for a pillow. 'Lie close, we may be observed,' he said.

He rowed silently to shore in the suburbs of the city where he had a little dwelling, which we reached without observation and to which he made me welcome. He offered me in the most delicate manner some clothing of his own until mine could be dried. Then he cooked me a nice meal, and after I was thus refreshed we conversed without reserve.

He listened to my story with his face beaming with compassion; it lighted with joy when I allowed him to infer that my person as well as heart was still to be disposed of as far as any man was concerned. I emphasised man for I thought of the fiendish and jealous rape Fatima had accomplished.

Hassan, for that was his name, soon told his story. He had come into the city to seek his fortune and had been driven to smuggling to obtain a livelihood. It was while on the alert at this vocation that he had been able to save me. 'We must fly before morning,' he said, 'if we would be safe.'

He would be the happiest man in the world if I could suffer him to take me to his desert home. So much kindness after so much cruelty completely won my heart. He read my assent in my eyes and, kissing me tenderly, went out to make his preparations to go. We were soon both mounted on a single horse and miles away from Muscat.

We had been an hour on the road and were still borne along at the same unflagging gallop. Hassan held me in front of him like a baby in his arms, often kissing me, his kisses constantly growing more ardent until I felt his stiff shaft pressing against my person. He suggested that I should ride astride awhile and rest myself by a change of position.

I obeyed his suggestion, turning with my face towards his, putting my arms around his neck, while my thighs were wide open over Hassan's. He let the bridle drop over the horse's neck, whose headlong pace subsided into a gentle canter which was like the rocking of a cradle. Hassan put his arm around my loins and lifted me a little; his other hand was busy clearing away the petticoats and then I felt the crest of his naked shaft knocking for entrance between my naked thighs.

I was willing to yield to Hassan anything that he wished but no sooner had the lips of my sheath been penetrated than I involuntarily clung more tightly around his neck and, sustaining myself in that way, prevented him from entering further. I found the sensation entirely different, however, from that which I had experienced when the fingers of the Imam explored the same entrance. Now the organ seemed adapted to the place and excited a sensation of pleasure.

I offered my mouth to Hassan and returned his ardent kisses with an ardour equally warm. A desire to secure more of the delightful intruder overcame my dread of the intrusion. I loosened my hold on Hassan's neck and my weight drove his shaft so completely home, notwithstanding the tightness of the fit, that his crest rested on my womb. It felt so unexpectedly good that I gave a murmur of delight. The motion of the horse kept partially withdrawing and then completely sending it in again at every canter. The first thrust, good as it was, was completely eclipsed by each succeeding one. I could have murmured with delight still louder, but kept still for very shame. What would Hassan think of a girl so wanton?

But he was in no condition to think. He was fiercely squeezing and kissing me, while at every undulating motion of the cantering horse he seemed to penetrate me more deeply. The pleasure was too exquisite to be long endured. It culminated in a melting thrill, and my moisture mingled with the sperm that gushed from Hassan's crest. He reeled in the saddle but recovered himself.

The cantering motion drove his shaft less deeply in as it became more limber. It finally dropped out of me, a little limp thing drowned in the descending moisture. 'What a conquest for a slender girl to achieve over such a formidable object,' I thought.

Exhausted, but triumphant, I dropped my head on Hassan's shoulder.

'Poor girl,' said he, 'how it makes you bleed!'

'Never mind,' I whispered.

He always remained under this innocent delusion, for the trying scenes of that eventful night brought on my period prematurely and my petticoats before morning were stained with blood. Twice more during the night he slackened the speed of his horse, and each time we completed an embrace equally satisfactory. At dawn we were beyond the reach of pursuit, safe and free.

El Jelis finished as she began, with her back towards me, while I was reclining against Myrzella and Virginia. The graceful Arabian was astride my thighs, partly kneeling on the carpet and partly lying on my loins. She played with my genitals all the time she was telling her story and my shaft got so stiffened that she inserted it.

It was sufficiently excited to enjoy the charming retreat where it was cherished. My glands relaxed and my pendant was fondled in her tapered fingers and caressed by the soft hair which hung down from her loins. I lay luxuriously quiet, but El Jelis had been longing all the evening for the connection and she could not keep still. She made little wanton motions with her loins all the while she was speaking, and at every move the moist, warm tissues where my crest was hidden quivered with life and imparted their vitality to me.

I would have summoned energy to give her the thrusts for which she longed but I postponed it from moment to moment, revelling passively in the lascivious situation. El Jelis could no longer restrain herself. She finished her story and began to play her loins up and down my shaft, which though erect to its full size, was not entirely rigid, and it bent with her vigorous motion. Her position was favourable to the play of her loins and she moved them with greater and greater rapidity.

I seemed to have changed my sex and to be a woman actually enjoying the thrusts of her paramour. In a few moments I would have been ripe to melting, but El Jelis could not wait; her buttocks settled heavily upon me, her sheath loosened and her moisture flushed my genitals. She sank back with a deep sigh into my arms, which drew my shaft completely out of her and exposed it like a tower rising tempest-beaten from the waves.

It subsided at once when the stimulating efforts of El Jelis were withdrawn. I was not ready for another onset. The ladies were too polite to laugh; I had exerted myself too much on their behalf. El Jelis threw the scarf and then nestled quietly in my arms.

It fell to the ninth lady. She was a Parisian and her name was Renйe. The others had done well to leave her to the last for she was the most beautiful woman in the room. The sweetness and vivacity of her expression and the grace of her manner lent additional charm to her perfect features and her splendid form.

She was of medium height with full contours, graceful as a fawn yet voluptuous in the bold roundness of her bosoms and the grand swell of her thighs. Her complexion was wonderfully clear. Her snow-white skin was so transparent that a delicate pink tinge showed plainly beneath it, especially at the little ears and the small tips of her fingers. The rosy tinge was deep on her lips and her mouth was like an opening red rose. Her large hazel eyes were clear and full and the long lashes that partially veiled them could not conceal their lustre.

Her hair was of a dark chestnut colour, but if the light fell full upon it, it was of a golden auburn; it began to curl at the centre of her head where it was parted, and would have descended in a luxuriant mass to her knees if it had not been carefully confined by combs. The hair at her loins was dark but had a ruddy tinge.

After she had exchanged a kiss with me she reclined in a graceful position at my feet where I could uninterruptedly feast my eyes on her marvellous beauty while she told her story.