Cleopatra's Perfume. Jina Bacarr

tugged on the restraints. “I can’t move. Satisfied?”

      He shook his head. “No. Not until you listen to what I have to say.”

      I wanted him to fuck me so I listened.

      “The dragoman who found the perfume saw it work its magic.”

      “How?” I asked, skepticism creeping into my voice. “Did he use it himself?”

      “No, the perfume saved the girl he loved from an angry mob.”

      “Keep going.”

      He explained how the girl dabbed the perfume on her wrists, not knowing its power. The guide and his lover were from two warring desert tribes and when the chieftains discovered their indiscretion, they began stoning the girl. Raising her arms to protect herself, she disappeared before their eyes. When they discovered the perfume had saved her, they fought over the magic scent and several men were killed in the brawl. Frightened, the dragoman spirited the perfume away and begged me to sell it for him so he and the girl could leave his village and start a new life together.”

      I laughed, my breasts heaving up and down. “You tell a wonderful story, Ramzi, but I’m still not convinced.”

      Smiling, his dark eyes challenging me, he removed a small amount of the solid perfume from the alabaster box sitting upon the dresser. How did it get there? Then he rubbed the unguent between his fingers and applied the perfume to his bare chest. Next, he untied my wrists and removed the dagger from his waistband and placed it in my hand, the curving edge pricking his skin until a drop of blood appeared.

      “Drive the blade deep into my heart,” he said.

      “I can’t. I won’t.”

      “Do it.”

       “No.”

      “You must. If I’m threatened with a violent death I will disappear.”

      “You believe the legend?”

      “Yes.”

      “And you’re willing to put your life in jeopardy to prove it to me?”

      “Yes. Can’t you see how I worship you? Your eyes, your lips haunt me, your skin so fair. I have dared to explore your mysteries, but it’s not enough for me. I want you with me always. Whatever happens, Cleopatra’s perfume will protect you from danger.”

      “You’re insane!”

      “Yes, I’ve lost my senses, ignored reason, flung my soul into the sea to pay for my sins, but nothing is as important to me as you.”

      “Ramzi, I—I…”

      “Don’t speak. Let me show you how much I need you.”

      Drawing the white satin coverlet down over my breasts, he pinched my nipples, then pulling it down farther still, he pushed my thighs apart and inserted his finger deep inside me. I lifted my hips to allow him easier access, groaning expectantly when he rubbed my clit back and forth in the steady rhythm he knew would take me to the brink. Before I could climax, he withdrew his finger. Would he use his tongue to take me where I wanted to go? Tension skirted across my neck and back, making me groan again. What was he waiting for?

      I dropped the dagger and it rattled onto the rug, where I don’t know, didn’t care. I wanted him, hot and raw, inside me. Did I believe his wild tale? No. I admired his ardent performance, his show of bravura with the dagger, but I was a modern woman, capable of knowing a romantic version of the shell game when I saw it. Surely he knew I wouldn’t try to kill him. Then why the pretense?

      I convinced myself he saw me as a woman of his world, sweeping black kohl upon my eyelids with the fantail of a white peacock. I imagined it pleased him to believe I retained the air of the veil about me and couldn’t make my own decisions. He wanted to be in control, so I let him.

      I arched my back when he slid his cock into me, sighing with delirium as he began moving in me with a fierce urgency, harder and harder until I heard him gasp. I shuddered with a satisfying orgasm when I felt him shoot his hot semen into me. I made up my mind. I’d do as he asked and settle on a sum with him to purchase the artifact. What harm would it do to let him think I believed the story of Cleopatra’s perfume?

      The next morning I wired Mrs. Wills to send me the funds.

      Ramzi vanished soon after I gave him the money. When I heard the news, I found it difficult to breathe, the muscles of my stomach hardening while my emotions lapsed into depression. His disappearance struck me in the gut with the impact of something sharp ripping me apart. He’d thrust his dagger into me after all and I never saw it coming.

      Hitting my fists into my palms, I cursed him, spat at him, then hurled my shoe against the wall and broke off the heel. Grabbing the box of Cleopatra’s perfume, the urge to throw it across my hotel room gripped me. Only the insistent ringing of the telephone stopped me from destroying it. Lady Palmer couldn’t wait to give me her take on the situation. She was convinced Ramzi was murdered, my money stolen; others said he disappeared into the desert; still others said he fled to Cairo to ply his trade of seduction under a different name, a different guise.

      Whatever his reason for deserting me, I couldn’t stay in Port Said. During the summer of 1939, the port city was in a state of flux, flooded with Greeks, Italians, Syrians, Armenians, as well as Jewish refugees. I paid them little attention. My mind was too busy analyzing every moment I was with Ramzi, reliving every penetrating stare, every caress, every thrust of his cock in me. Always asking why, why I’d allowed myself to feel again, to dream, to let go and indulge in a dangerous obsession with this man. What did I know about him? Nothing. He knew me only as Lady Marlowe, dear reader, and that’s how it must remain. To reveal the details of my past would invite a certain scrutiny, perhaps danger as well, and I can’t take that chance. All you need to know is I was unsure of myself and harbored the doubt that no man, save my late husband, could love me for who I was and that I possessed no power within me to inspire such a deep love again.

      Life in Port Said went on as usual. Tea dances, boring games of bridge, walks on the beach. A week, two, then three passed. My pain turned into a numbing feeling, then finally I rebelled against feeling sorry for myself. It accomplished nothing. As for the money I gave Ramzi, I controlled the fortunes of Lord Marlowe’s vast estate, so I dismissed the lost funds as nothing more than a bad debt. Eager to leave the city, I made plans to depart for Bombay with Lady Palmer and her wayward daughter, Flavia.

      I should mention the young woman was no worse for wear for her interlude with Ramzi. Doe-eyed with brown hair longer than the current style, her silk dress hung loosely on her royal bones, belying the sensual sway of her hips and small waist underneath. She hadn’t forgiven me for interfering with her bawdy tryst. She refused to look me in the eye when we’d meet, though I hadn’t mentioned her indiscretion to her mother, merely that I’d found her drinking in a disreputable bar. I had my own secrets and prayed I would find an ally in the girl, but she disappointed me. She dismissed my offer of friendship with a toss of her head, as if I were invisible. To her, I was, for I wasn’t born with a title. Spoiled, beautiful, her flesh never poisoned by disillusionment, Flavia Palmer possessed the breeding I’d kill for, the manners I’d spent years learning and the resilience of youth to find another warm body to assuage her sexual hunger.

      I, in turn, suffered from a fierce need to forget this man I knew as Ramzi, the perfume he gave me emitting from my soul as well as my body. Yes, I wore the perfume, and kept a small amount wrapped up in my handkerchief nestled between my breasts in my brassiere. Why? Why does a woman do anything when she’s suffering from the bitterness of love lost? I ask you, dear reader, do you know? I don’t.

      What surprised me more was how much like Flavia I’d become.

      I discovered this troubling aspect of my personality one afternoon when I strolled with Lady Palmer and her daughter through the open market in Port Said. Black women selling rich mocha coffees, the dried beans sun-golden in color, squatted on mats, the once-bright red fibers dulled by the impressions of their bare feet.