Cleopatra�s Perfume (24 page)

Executing a perfect pirouette, I let my hands drift down to my shaved pubic mound shimmering in gold, lingering on my thighs, then I slid my hands around to my rear and posed with my fingers splayed on my buttocks. The glint of the ruby-and-pearl ring on my forefinger guided the eye of everyone in the room to the cleft between my arse. Except for one man. I locked eyes with the stranger who captured my interest, a shiver coming over me when I realized he wanted me as much as I wanted him. I let him know my body was in joyful anticipation of such a union by lowering my eyes and admiring what I could see was an impressive bulge in his pants despite the low lighting. Then I let myself go, unveiling my mad scheme to unleash my lust for dominance over the crowd by having an orgasm here in the club.

But not by having live sex.

No. I would seduce the crowd as Cleopatra had seduced the mighty Caesar.

With anal beads.

Burning with desire, I leaned over, my arse up in the air as I pulled slightly on the nearly invisible thread hanging between my buttocks where Mahmoud had inserted a string of blue beads inside my anal opening. I flinched, remembering how he spread my legs, then brushed the cord of beads across my anus before nestling them inside me. The very act itself was quite pleasurable, my anus well lubricated with the oil of the gods to smooth the way as he tapped my rectal area to help me relax my muscles. Next, he inserted his finger
inside me, knowing he’d find resistance, his movement slow and gentle. Then he inserted the beads in my anus one at a time, putting as many inside as I found comfortable. When I planned my dance, I intended for the Nubian to pull the semirigid beads out of my arse, his manipulative black fingers slick with olive oil gripping the azure blue beads one at a time, while I brought myself to orgasm manually.

I’ve changed my mind,
my eyes told Mahmoud. He bowed and moved back, but not before I saw surprise and disappointment cross his dark brow. I would miss Mahmoud’s tender touch and his skill in performing the art of pleasure, but I had made up my mind. Though the Nubian burned like an eternal flame, knew no fatigue and asked for nothing, all of which amplified his worth in my eyes, I needed someone who could do more than satisfy my physical needs.

Was the stranger such a man?

I was filled with a sensual reawakening. I was seducing a new man. I had every reason to believe my deleterious sex life was about to change.

I performed a series of short steps leading me closer to the stranger I coveted tonight. I always prided myself on being a dancer who didn’t merely execute movements, but who experienced the dance through the pulsating rhythms inside me. I wanted to experience an erotic dreamscape as I had never done before, my spirit fusing with technique, redefining my art not as something impermanent but as a lasting impression on the audience so deep it scarred a portion of their soul.

I shimmied, wiggling my shoulders as Josette switched from jazz to Debussy, adding a classical aura to my ancient dance. I stopped and stood before the stranger, then turned my back to him, my nude
buttocks so close to the bulge in his trousers, we nearly touched. A pleasant sensation went through me when he reached out to caress my gold skin. I wiggled away. But not far.

“Will you be my Caesar tonight?” I said to the stranger, twisting my head around and offering him the metal ring attached to the string of beads in my arse for easy extraction. I uttered the words in a hushed voice loud enough for him to hear. “And pull out the beads?”

“Fast or slow?” he asked, grinning. I blinked, noting his accent. So he
was
American.

“
You
decide.”

“And afterward?” His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t playing games and he wanted me to know that.

“
I
decide where we go from there.” I kept my voice hard but not without a teasing huskiness.

He grinned again. “How can I lose?”

“You can’t.” I looked up at him and laughed. “And neither can I.”

I wiggled my arse, setting off a hip-rattling shimmy that I could see set his teeth on edge. As if his libido raged and he wanted to stop my dance. I couldn’t stop now if I wanted to, though when I look back on my performance, I realize it was a macabre blend of both depravity and grace, my metallic body luring this stranger into my web of obsession which nearly cost us our freedom as well as our lives.

I reached between my legs, inserting one finger, then two, hiding my private moment in the cool shadows hugging the hot spotlight, while its tentacles gripped my buttocks with white light. I brushed my fingers across the tiny bud inside me, hard and rigid, my body coming alive with a wanton sexuality as I stroked my clit back and forth, swaying my hips in a compelling rhythm, feeling the need for
release rising within me. When I knew the moment was close, I threw my head back, moaning, drinking in the attention of the feverish crowd watching me, their voices eerily silent as they held their breath.

All but the stranger.

I could hear him breathing hard behind me, an impatient tug on the cord alerting me he wouldn’t wait much longer to free the four small beads imprisoned inside my anus. When my climax came, it happened fast, so fast I couldn’t stop shuddering as an intense euphoria rolled over me.

“Now!” I cried out. “Pull the cord
now!
”

Letting go with a guttural moan, I reached the pinnacle of my orgasm, squeezing my pubic muscles together as the stranger pulled out the beads one by one. His calculated movements stimulated the tight ring of muscles around my anal opening, making them contract and sending wave after wave of pleasure rolling over me, some so powerful their intensity gripped me, making me dizzy with a mixture of delicious rapture and abject curiosity. I couldn’t stop the unbelievable sensations racing through me, while at the same time, all I could think of was,
Would the stranger follow me? Join me in a continuation of our erotic scenario away from the scrutiny of hungry eyes?

And if he did, would I regret it?

I had my answer when I bade him to accompany me to a private alcove behind the bar.

“You were magnificent,” he said, handing me the string of beads.

“Keep them as a souvenir of your visit to the Cleopatra Club,” I said, wrapping them in a cloth napkin and stuffing them in his jacket
pocket. He flinched. I whipped off the skullcap and veil, my platinum hair flying around me.

“I want something else.” He nuzzled his face in my damp hair, then his lips brushed the nape of my neck, sending a cool shiver down my naked back. Lifting up my face, I turned around, knowing he would kiss me. His lips were but a breath away from touching mine when Ramzi stormed through the beaded curtain and grabbed my arm, hurting me.

“No woman makes a fool out of me.” He didn’t let go, his fingers digging into my upper arm. Gold paint rubbed off onto his skin, but he held fast.

“Leave me alone!” I yelled.

“You heard the lady,” the stranger said, his tone threatening.

The Egyptian ignored him. “Get dressed. You’re coming with me.”

“No.” My refusal was short but firm. I struggled to control my breathing, though I threw away any need to explain myself. My raw desire for satisfaction had been assuaged, but I wasn’t finished with the stranger. “This is my last night at the Cleopatra Club, Ramzi. I’m leaving.”

“We have a contract,” he insisted.

“It doesn’t include my body. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m dining with—” I looked at the stranger. He’d taken off his brown leather flight jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Ready to pummel Ramzi? That thought gave me courage, not to mention the sight of his muscular chest outlined in a tight shirt injecting a shot of decadent adrenaline into my exhausted limbs.

“Chuck Dawn.”

I smiled. “Mr. Dawn and I are old friends.”

Ramzi wouldn’t back down. “You lie, my English lady. You use men like a dancing girl uses a scarf, rubbing it back and forth between her legs—to pleasure only herself. No man can satisfy you.”

“Take that back, pal, or you’ll regret it,” Chuck said, his fists clenched, ready to strike. A cavalier. I liked that.

“Calm down, Ramzi, you don’t understand Eve.” Maxi came between the two men, her slim boyish figure shapeless in a man’s suit. She wore a monocle in her left eye. I hadn’t seen her wear that masculine ensemble for years. “She was the queen of the Berlin cabarets until she abandoned us to marry a devilishly handsome gentleman.” Maxi glared at me, her eyes flashing with a jealousy I’d never seen before as pure as the gold paint shimmering on my skin.

“I see what this is all about, Maxi. All these years and you never said anything to me about how you felt about my marriage.”

“You never asked.” She grabbed Ramzi’s arm. “Buy me a drink.”

“No.” He pulled away from her. “I’m not leaving without my English rose.”

Maxi snapped the monocle out of her eye and rubbed the glass between her fingers in an impatient manner. “I
insist
you buy me a drink.”

“He won’t listen to you, Fräulein. My brother always wants what he can’t have.” Laila put her hands possessively around the German girl’s waist. “And so do I.”

“Are these people friends of yours?” Chuck asked, a quiet intensity in his voice, his eyes glaring at the Egyptian. He wrapped his leather jacket around my shoulders. In spite of the heat of my dance, I shivered.

“I believed they were,” I said.

“We’re getting out of here.” Chuck looked around for the exit, then noticed two Moors blocking the lift. “Though I imagine it won’t be easy.”

I gave him back his jacket, then grabbed my galabiya off the chair, but I didn’t put it on. I allowed him one more look at my nude, gold-painted body. “I never said anything about me was easy.”

He grinned. “So I’m finding out.”

Ramzi came between us, his posture indignant, hands on his hips, demanding my attention. “I made love to you as if you were a goddess, but I didn’t know then you were an ice goddess.” He snapped his fingers and the Moorish guards advanced toward us. “I won’t allow you to walk out on me.”

“She can and she is,” Chuck said, his answer succinct.

The American advanced toward me, ready to pick me up in his arms, when Ramzi threw a punch at him and hit him on the jaw. Chuck recovered quickly, his arm snapping with the sudden fluidity of a jungle cat on the attack as he grabbed the Egyptian by his belt and his crotch and shoved him down headfirst onto the bare parquet floor and held him there. Ramzi struggled, but he was too surprised to react in an effective manner. He choked, sputtering curses in Arabic, but Chuck was on top of him, his knee in his back, holding him down and squeezing all the breath out of him with his arm around his throat.

Shocked, unable to speak, I covered myself with my galabiya, my mind scrambling.
Who was this man?
I had to stop him before he killed Ramzi. Yes, dear reader, in spite of my lover’s infidelity, I couldn’t allow him to die.

“Let him go!”
I yelled, pulling on the American’s sleeve, any
thing to stop him before he broke the Egyptian’s neck. “
Please,
he’s not worth it.”

Chuck grunted, then with reluctance he let go of Ramzi. “The bastard’s lucky. Next time—”

“It will be
your
neck.” Ramzi squeezed his hands together in a stranglehold.

“Don’t count on it, pal. Where I come from, we know how to deal with slime like you.”

Ramzi’s dark eyebrows crossed, his face ripe with sweat. He looked at the American with a flicker of his angry, black eyes. “I hope you enjoy your evening with the English rose. Her fragrance will enchant you, but beware, she bites like a cobra and is just as deadly.”

Before I could utter a retort, the American said, “I’ll take my chances.”

Ramzi attempted a smile. “Then I wish you more luck on your quest than what the great pharaohs enjoyed. Their ode to paradise lies in ruins, their temples in decay. I, on the other hand, am like the winds wearing down the Pyramids to desert sand. I shall endure.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Chuck said.

Listening to their banter, I had remained silent during this existential battle brewing between the two men for my body.
And
my soul. But no longer.

“Have I nothing to say in this?” I argued. “Or am I to be treated like a slave sold to the highest bidder to satisfy a man’s desire?”

“Be careful, my English lady,” Ramzi warned, “Cleopatra’s perfume can protect from a violent death, but not from men’s lust.”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Chuck wanted to know.

I smiled. “It’s a game we play. Isn’t it, Ramzi?”

He touched his fingers to his mouth, then to his forehead, bowing as he said, “As you wish.”

“I’ve played enough games,” Chuck said. “We’re getting out of here.”

He took the robe from me and wrapped it around me, covering my nude body, but Ramzi wasn’t finished.

“When it comes to the art of pleasure,
monsieur,
” he said, “the English rose soon tires of
el-ihh012Bl
and requires other stimulation only a man such as myself can give her.”

It was the American’s turn to smile. “I’ll let the lady decide which cock she prefers.”

And with that, we left the Cleopatra Club. Covering my face with the hood of my robe, I smiled, impressed with his understanding of Arabic slang for the male organ. The stranger was no tourist with home-bred angularity looking for excitement in the dirty backstreets of Cairo. That intrigued me to know more about him.

Drifting in the new scent of arousal making me tingle, my need for him was vibrant, passionate, committed. I focused on this stranger calling himself Chuck Dawn and dismissed Ramzi from my mind. I would pay for that. Pay dearly. I had no idea what erotic storm raged inside the Egyptian, what nefarious deed he would commit to keep me for himself, to possess me as he would a fine artifact, exposing me to his private audience of one, confining me, making me his forever. What happened that night made me realize Ramzi was tightening a rope around my neck. I had to loosen it or die.