Cleopatra�s Perfume (28 page)

I exited the crypt, running up the stairway before Ramzi or Maxi could stop me. I had no desire to placate them by watching their dull performance any longer. I was an unwilling participant in their private war, but I refused to be a victim. Yet I couldn’t get the incident out of my mind. The danger had passed, but the smell lingered…

Like a woman leaving her scent behind…

A woman named Cleopatra.

After Maxi’s rash departure from Cairo, Ramzi haunted me everywhere. Following me with Mahmoud not far behind. I was perplexed
by the discovery that my run-in with the Egyptian did not arouse desire in me as it once had. Why? Was it that by the unmasking of his declaration of something other than the pleasures of the flesh (his love for me) he has effaced from me all emotional response toward him? I was bothered by that thought, as if I was a woman who could no longer love. I would soon discover otherwise.

In spite of my lack of ardor toward him, Ramzi maintained a facade of wanting me, needing me, though every time we met his speech was memorized, poeticized beyond what I believed him capable of doing. (Did Laila have a hand in that?) When I convinced him I hadn’t changed my mind and I was leaving Cairo in a few days, he panicked, a mysteriously satanic lift to his eyebrows sending a cold shiver down my spine. I wondered what secrets he wouldn’t reveal. Would I ever know?

Strange days of loneliness and inner turmoil followed. I continued using cocaine, anything to settle my frazzled nerves. How
could
I stop? Ramzi’s presence everywhere I turned unsettled me, daunted my courage, my belief the American flier would return waning with each day. I began to lose hope I would see Chuck Dawn again. Why was that so important to me?

I admitted I found him damnably attractive, even bordering on a fetish regarding his wide square shoulders, muscular back, and his hips moving with strength and power when he thrust into me. I found myself fantasizing about a string of blue beads again finding their way into my arse, but not until I deftly slipped my hand between the buttons on his shirt before slowly undoing them one by one, my fingertips tapping on his bare skin, making a path down to his groin. I had no doubt what I would find there and the memory of his cock, the head big and shiny, drove me to use more and more
of the drug to assuage the pain of that loneliness. I realize the dizzying effects of the white powder were no substitute for the state of heightened desire I experienced with the American flier, but the drug was an impulse I couldn’t deny. Demanding, insistent, addictive. I refused to admit it wasn’t the sex I craved as much as the companionship, having the nearness of a man who wanted me without controlling me as Ramzi had.

Tapping into the romantic ideals of a woman much younger in years than I, I sought to find that nearness with Chuck Dawn. Yet what did I know about him? What did I need to know other than when he looked at me, his eyes threw off sparks, stinging, sharp. Stripping off the elusive veil I wore over my soul to protect it. He didn’t know who I was under my aristocratic demeanor, didn’t care, but I wondered if he saw through my charade, the illusion I created, as had Lord Marlowe. I believed I could create that same special bond between us if given the chance. I
had
to see him again. I couldn’t let him go.

Waiting was painful. The days turned from one into the next in the same manner as I write each page in this diary, as if I couldn’t spin day into night fast enough. I could barely eat. My body was empty, the inner fire gone. The evenings I spent alone. I was restless. Stirred by unspent passion. Fueled by the drugs. I couldn’t stand it. I could not rest, so I fantasized about Chuck, taking me on my knees, sweat pouring down his face as he ground his hips against me, each thrust harder than the one before.

Worse yet, the more I realized Ramzi was obsessed with keeping me in Cairo, the more I retreated, my emotions crystallizing to such a degree I felt nothing. I was numb inside. I found myself dressing
in beige, khaki, earthy brown, colors I hated, colors I found nonsexy, anything to smooth the chaos raging inside me. I saw my life as an unfinished painting containing nothing but clusters of tiny dots that didn’t form a whole picture. What I
didn’t
see then was those dots consisted of nothing but specks of white powder, and the canvas was slowly dissolving into a vast nothingness.

It is only when I step back as I write this diary and the images leap to life, brilliantly illuminated by the sexual encounters I enjoyed, that I see what really happened, how my downward spiral was all part of a larger plan, one that I had no control over. This epiphany penetrates the haze covering my memory, implying my journey back to that time of decadence is worthwhile, whether I head toward an earthly paradise after the insanity of this war ends, or the dark promise of death.

Since I must continue to wait here in Berlin for this forced encounter with a woman I no longer call my friend, I will finish my diary and recount to you the extraordinary phase of my journey that livened my soul with such joy I again feel the wetness seeping between my legs with the renewed fragrance of desire I haven’t felt since the last time I saw him. I have stained the page with a few drops of that wetness, so if your curiosity made you question what the scent is making your nose tingle, now you know. I can’t help but wonder if
he
remembers my scent…

Chuck Dawn. He evoked a turmoil and vulnerability in me I hadn’t known since his lordship put me over his knee, pulled down my knickers and spanked my bare buttocks with his loving hand. The American flier
did
return and it is those two days and nights I wish to recount next.

I promise, you shan’t be disappointed when you turn the page.

W
e held each other, hands groping, hearts beating madly, our clothes disheveled, my white silk trousers down around my ankles, my knickers crumpled over my thighs, my blouse somewhere on the floor, my brassiere dangling from the rearview mirror by its satin straps, and one white pump half buried in the golden sand outside the motorcar. My legs pointed straight up through the open roof, my other shoe dangling off my toes. I squirmed with pleasure, kicked it off, and my shoe flew through the air.

We hadn’t spoken for at least an hour, fumbling to rid ourselves of our clothes, wiping the sweat from between my breasts, then my thighs, with my blouse, and getting sweaty all over again when Chuck pressed my breasts against his bare chest, covering them with a glistening patina that made my skin glow. He seemed fascinated by my nipples, pressing his fingers on the nubs, commenting on the softness of the pink crinkled flesh of my areolas, tugging on them then rolling the hard tips between his thumbs and forefingers
while I uttered tortured moans through dry lips. My voice became raspy from the guttural sounds emitting from my throat and carrying through the open roof over the empty arid desert. The dry air was unforgiving on my vocal cords, making me cough and choke, as if to punish me for indulging in so much pleasure. I shouldn’t have opened the roof on such a hot afternoon and allowed swirling sand to invade our refuge, a 1937 Flying Twenty Standard motorcar, black and no longer as shiny as a paladin’s boots, but covered with a light blanket of sand, but I did. The romance of swooning in the American flier’s arms, not to mention his probing fingers finding me moist and wanting when he tugged at my knickers and pulled them down, exposing my pussy then splaying it wide open, glistening with drops of wetness so precious here in the middle of the desert, was too much for me not to fulfill.

I lay back on the padded burgundy seat wiggling with delight when he gently touched my soft pubic hair and began to tease me with the tip of his finger, making slow circles in one direction then the other. I begged him not to stop, to take me here in my motorcar, never believing he would. I had a lot to learn about this American flier. Muttering under his breath there’d be hell to pay if he was late getting back to London but he’d come up with some excuse, he moved closer to me, hitting his head on the cream-colored roof, but that didn’t stop him. I’d never tell him, but he looked so damn handsome with a stray lock of sandy-brown hair hanging over his forehead, his eyebrows crossed in frustration. He pulled off his open white shirt so quickly (he wasn’t wearing an undershirt) I didn’t have time to wipe the grin off my face. My smile widened when he pulled down the zipper on his trousers, and before I could
see a hint of his Y-fronts, he slid his cock into me. I squealed with pleasure, lifting up my hips to meet his, him grinding and pumping with strong, steady thrusts, me wondering if the Standard Motor Company had this in mind when they promised their customers the ultimate in speed and control. I arched my back and made a sound that existed somewhere between a word and a mewling sound, but my message was clear. I wanted to climax. Now. My voice had that tone to it that said I wouldn’t be denied what I wanted or else. Rather brash, I admit, but I was filled with such arrogance from the effects of seeing him again and consequently I offer no excuse for my behavior.

He grunted, though I detected a fire in his eyes that burst into a flame with the sound of my voice, lower, huskier. He moved faster and I brought my hips up higher to meet each thrust, my pubic muscles tightening around his cock until I couldn’t hold back the convulsions any longer. I reached a pinnacle of pleasure I hadn’t known before, riding the wave as multiple spasms made me forget I was making love to a man in my motorcar that I hardly knew not far from the watchful eye of the Sphinx.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover a wildness and raw strength about him that drove him to take me harder, faster, deeper than I’d ever known. I willed him to keep going but he couldn’t wait. A rush of excitement came over him and he slammed into me with the urgency of a man who couldn’t stop if he wanted to, shooting into me with a long, hard thrust, yelling out, his bare chest shiny with sweat and dusted with a fine patina of sand. I hadn’t stopped coming, my breathing hard, my pussy muscles squeezing tight and sending wave after wave of pleasure through me. It was as if we were both
locked in our inner worlds, burning with delirium, riding the crest of our blinding lust, though knowing any moment someone could come upon us. My late husband was adventurous, but never like this.

My romantic sojourn to reach new heights while having an orgasm had begun when we parked off to the side of the road, less traveled today, I noted with surprise, to dally a bit longer on our way back to Cairo after visiting the Pyramids. I had insisted on being the navigator when we started out, convincing him I knew the way, as I had made this trip many times in the past. I had a driver from Shepheard’s bring my motorcar round to a back entrance of the hotel. I had no desire to become entangled in the bustle of British officers racing around in a mad frenzy, babbling about the German army crossing the Polish frontier. I didn’t want anyone to see me leave with the American. Anyone as in Ramzi or Laila.

The day was lovely when we headed for the Pyramids in my motorcar with its six cylinders and seven-bearing crankshaft and front torsion bar for improved stability. I smile as I write down the technical jargon for this fine motorcar made in Coventry. (Lord Marlowe insisted we own a similar roadster since it was manufactured in the charming town where we had our hideaway cottage.) I was rather pleased to locate such a motorcar in Cairo, noting we could cruise quite comfortably at seventy-five miles an hour.

With Chuck at the wheel, his strong hands twisting and turning the steering, he commented how it held the road when he put his foot on the accelerator. I admit I enjoyed watching the hard muscle in his forearm tighten when he shifted gears. I licked my lips, he noticed, commenting we could stop if I was thirsty.
I was hungry,
I
said, toying with the buttons on my blouse, and slid over closer to him, close enough to feel the heat of his breath on my bare neck when he took his eyes off the road. Just for a moment. With a teasing smile, I reminded him I had picked up a basket packed with tea and biscuits from the hotel kitchen and placed it in the concealed locker designed to hold suitcases. I suggested we stop near the Great Pyramid, then slipped a finger into my mouth and wet it with my saliva before sucking on it. I enjoyed watching him squirm, his breathing coming faster, drops of perspiration breaking out on his forehead. I felt so naughty, like a young girl on a secret rendezvous with her handsome flier.

We sped past villas with gardens filled with flowers, swaying eucalyptus trees and shadowy palms before we reached the Mena House Hotel at Giza. We slowed down to pass by the line of tourists gathered outside the gate and waiting for local dragomen to take them up the hill to see the Great Pyramid then down the hill on the other side to see the Sphinx, all astride a bored camel overloaded with colorful amulets and beads.

I waved when I saw Lady Palmer and her daughter, Flavia, waiting to make the half-hour ride to have their photograph taken with a camel, but we didn’t stop. I couldn’t help but smile when I imagined her reaction should they meet up with a jackal or a hyena on their trek. I hadn’t seen anything of her since I left Port Said, though I knew she was stopping over in Cairo before continuing to Bombay. I had found Flavia trying to sneak into the Cleopatra Club, but I promptly had her removed, as much for the girl’s sake as my own. I didn’t need her poking her nose around the club and gossiping about my activities, nor did I want her to fall under Ramzi’s spell
again. Underneath her saucy exterior, she was a respectable girl and I owed it to Lady Palmer to keep her that way.

A foul mood suddenly came over me as if I were observing the Pyramids at sunset and I could see nothing but the darkness on their shadowed sides. I remembered that day in Port Said when last I saw the British noblewoman and her daughter. That was also the day when my fantasy world collided with reality and I sent the Jewish girl away to meet her untimely destiny. I was still trying to convince myself I was entangled in what I had perceived to be a hopeless choice and that was why I didn’t help the girl. Was I being neurotic thinking about her now? I shivered. Or was it because Maxi’s presence and her disturbing stories about life in Germany had severed my sharply defined boundaries between my world of social standing and refinement and her world of prejudice and dictatorship?