Part 1 can be found here.

Megan felt groggy to the point of nausea, but she couldn’t work the spit up to swallow, let alone vomit away the dry bitter taste in her mouth. Even her eyes failed her as it was too bright to open them and the darkness only offered a spinning increase to her queasiness.

Finally she settled for sitting upright on some kind of bed and shading her face with her hands. There was a strange dry clean smell she couldn’t quite place as she strived to remember her name or anything at all useful, but none of this was as important as something she couldn’t quite recall.

Slowly she gained some awareness, noting a big window to her left through which bright sunlight rushed in, and to her right a sand brown tiled wall with tasteful Arabic patterns embossed into the glaze.

Memories of a smiling man unsettled her but she pushed them aside as she focussed on a jug of water beside the bed on which she sat, and an arch that led through to a bathroom. It seemed a major decision to her just then, which exactly did she need first.

“Oh my God,” she gasped as all at once she remembered being kidnapped.

This memory was incentive enough to stand up to grab the jug and then seek out the toilet in the other room. Then a brief inspection of the room told her there was nothing but a robe, a locked door and a rooftop view of an ancient brick-built city she didn’t recognise. Beyond this lay red and purple mountains and sand, lots of sand stretching out to the desert.

“Did you miss me?” she sighed as she tried the door again before heading into the bathroom for a shower.

The whole experience was too surreal to be threatening and given that she had silk sheets and a luxury bathroom she guessed she was in no immediate danger. Maybe Ahmed had missed her too. She snorted derisively at the ridiculous and childish thought, it just wasn’t his style.

“Any chance of some room service,” she yelled belligerently and flipped off the closed door.

Maybe someone was watching, but hell, she was an American and no one was going to fuck with her. The only trouble was… apparently they already had.

*

By the time she came out the shower a small dark woman with lose long hair and a long linen dress to her ankles was waiting to greet her. She was smiling broadly as she held out fresh towels, but all Megan’s questions were shushed aside.

“All I want to know is where the… the heck we are?” she protested.

The woman ignored her to clap her hands together twice and Megan could have sworn she barked, “Enchilada.”

“Is that a whole enchilada or just a half of one, because I am really not that hungry,” Megan quipped, “I was only kidding about the room service?”

The woman, still ignoring the American, might have said an angry, “Enshasha” and then “deppa,” but that would have only been a guess and in any case it meant nothing to Megan.

“Hey, it was just a joke,” she replied in an irritated voice.

“It is good that you are happy,” the woman said in English as three more women came in wearing the same full length linen attire.

The fabric of these dresses was stretchy and clung in all the right places, but there was something unsettlingly translucent about the clothing. Especially as it was obvious that none of the women wore anything beneath and their nipples and pubic areas were more than hinted at. Somehow it was worse that one of the women was of European appearance with straight natural dark blonde hair. Megan tried to meet her eyes but the woman’s deep blue orbits seemed fixated on the floor tiles.

“What is this place?” Megan asked assertively, “Is this some kind of maid service?” then she laughed mockingly.

Her tittering stopped as she was surrounded and taken by both arms and led out of the room.

“Where are we going?” Megan asked casually as she tried to bond with the first woman who seemed in charge. “I need a robe.”

In fact it was too warm even for the large bath towel she was draped in, but there was something improper about being almost naked out in the corridor. But what a corridor; it was as wide as most hotel rooms and was hung with expensive drapes with gold and stylish vases at intervals set into recesses in the walls.

“Hey neat place you have here, is it a hotel? It certainly beats the Holiday Inn,” Megan chatted. Speaking seemed as good a defence as any, but she only wished someone would answer her.

The passage led to a huge set of wooden doors that opened seemingly by themselves as the women approached. Beyond them was a pool and along the walls of what looked like a huge private spa were open shower stalls.

“Hey I showered already, maybe we could skip the…eh…” she saw massage tables that added to the spa feel, only some of them appeared somewhat clinical, “…can’t we just get to the hairstylist maybe?”

Megan was led to a large enamel tiled table which turned out to be a kind of very shallow bath raised to waist height. There were way too many shower heads and other nozzles available along the sides for Megan not to feel apprehensive as to their purpose.

“You will get onto all fours please,” the original woman spoke.

As Megan heard this, the towel was pulled away leaving her naked and it seemed to her that the woman glanced at a mirrored wall as if looking for something.

“Jesus,” Megan snapped angrily as she attempted to cover herself with inadequate arms.

The woman swatted her hard on the bottom and spat something in her own language. “Do not blaspheme,” she added.

“Hey,” Megan yipped and rubbed her behind. “What is this?”

The woman leaned in close and whispered harshly as she slapped the top of the wash station. “You will get on here, all fours, your backside towards that end of the room. Do it now.”

Megan swallowed hard and compared the woman’s determined gaze with that of the other women.

“Yeah, I can do that,” she drawled, “It might be fun, you know like back home in the spa,” and she moved to obey despite some serious blushing.

The woman returned a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. “Wash her,” she snapped, “Thoroughly, very thoroughly.”

Megan looked backwards from where she was kneeling and gulped at the sight of the odd lozenge-shaped shower head one of the other women was holding.

“Is that what I think it is?” she asked nervously.

*

All Megan could think about as she was led from the spa room to yet another part of the palace, was the large mirror that had overlooked her rather too intimate cleansing. She had a queasy feeling that it might have been a one-way and that she had just been put on show for someone.

The continuing feeling of exposure was not helped by the fact that she now wore the same translucent clinging gown that her escorts wore and she let her hands clench and unclench as they hovered over her dark triangle seen through it at the top of her thighs. Nor did the dress leave much to the imagination about her breasts or behind, so clinging was it, Megan would have felt less naked if she had been fully nude.

“What do you want from me?” she asked her lead escort with rather less bravado than she had earlier mustered. She wasn’t quite ready to look any of the other women in the eye.

None of them answered her.

The long corridor from the spa room led to an open veranda overlooking the city. There were cooling fountains and pillars of marble framing the shaded expanse and Megan was put in mind of a biblical film set.

“Ah, Miss Kent,” said a voice behind her and she whirled around with a start.

The smiling man was quite old, but not wizen nor stooped. In a grey craggy way he was quite handsome and from the easy way he carried himself she could sense his authority even at a distance. He wore long patterned robes and a traditional headdress that suited him, but the most impressive thing about him was his unwavering eyes.

“Might I take a guess and suggest that you are Ahmed’s grandfather the king?” Megan said coolly and made a show of a bow before adding, “Your majesty.”

“An intelligent woman,” the man returned a warm smile with a gentle inclination of his head before adding too quickly for Megan to grasp a long string of words she took to be his name. Then he said, “I think both our reputations have preceded us.”

“You are well known Sir, although I am not sure my reputation matches…” Megan began.

“Tsk, tsk,” the king dismissed her with a hand wave, “Do not play the modest maiden with me…” the choice of words made Megan blush given her encounter in the spa, “…I have read the first draft of your book and much else of your work.”

“Oh did you like it?” Megan said cheekily, although it irritated her that he had read files not even her agent had seen.

“It has a certain racy colour, but in truth I found it rather vulgar,” the king said in a tone of regret. “But be unconcerned about that, I can think of so many ways to improve it… one way or another,” he added.

Megan tightened at the throat and she moved her arms again to ensure that they obscured her charms.

“For instance,” the king continued, “You could accept a three, four or even five year contract here in the palace, all on generous terms of course and then with some authorised edits you could release your book with a measure of authority.”

“A contract? Doing what?” Megan asked suspiciously.

“Why as a courtesan of course,” the king said warmly, “Why think of it, ‘my life in a harem’ or ‘discipline of the east’ or… well I’ll leave that to you, but I think you get the picture.”

“I think you have me mistaken for someone else,” Megan said nervously and trying to suppress her rage. “What makes you think…?”

“Now, now, I really should resurrect those charges against you,” his voice was sharp now, “You have already proved an embarrassment to your state department. Three years in prison and a public flogging or two… I don’t think you would have much credibility afterwards and you would be the author of a quite different book…”

“You don’t think…” Megan spat angrily.

“Oh I don’t think, I have so many people to do that for me,” he held up a hand. “… Lawyers, publicists and other interesting black-op types… You on the other hand have no one. I even took the liberty of dismissing your agent. Email is so useful that way is it not? No one will miss you and no one even knows you are here.”

“If you think…” Megan snapped, but she was silenced with a hand.

“I have told you, I don’t think, but I will give you time to do so,” the king said with a tone of finality and then he dismissed her with his fingertips.

*

Megan’s thoughts were in a spin as she was led dumbly back up the corridor, but this time it was not to her room or the spa, but to another large open chamber.

There were several women dressed as she was and others not so well clad. They all seemed at ease and gathered languorously in small groups on scatter cushions and marble benches set near yet more fountains. But at that moment all eyes were on a man and rather uncomfortable woman in the centre of the room.

The naked woman bent double over the fold-away rack was pale skinned and obviously European. Her tight bottom was uppermost and exposed and Megan was in no doubt to its fate. She swallowed hard and wished the scene was not so salacious to her.

“Goddammit, please it Benji,” the naked woman wailed out in a harsh nasal New York accent. “Not again, this is the second time this month, what did I do?”

Benji was a large dark-skinned man, naked to the waist and over endowed with muscles. He didn’t look particularly angry but the thin rod-like whip in his hand looked mean enough for both of them. A point was being made and it was being made for her benefit, right down to the fact that the woman was American.

“Benji, Benji please…” the woman yelled anxiously.

Some of the women laughed and there was a joshing incongruous sorority atmosphere to the occasion. Megan caught her breath.

“Keep still and take your medicine,” the man growled in English, again giving the impression that this was a show for the newcomer’s benefit.

The wand in his hand hissed out and lashed across the American woman’s bare flesh in a blink to be met with another hiss of a different kind emanating from the woman’s throat. The stinging red line grew at once forming a crimson clone of the whipping rod on her skin.

The American wriggled obscenely and at another stroke began to breathe heavily.

“How many strokes did I say?” Benji asked her casually.

“Thirty sir,” she panted and Megan saw her tense up.

“Relax now and count them even as you thank me,” Benji told her.

Then the whip cracked again.

“Aiiie…. Eehhhh,” the woman’s breath was strained and rapid but finally she managed to groan, “Three, thank you Sir.”

“You’re welcome,” Benji chuckled and whipped her again hard.

Megan realised she hadn’t been breathing and licked her lips as she steadied herself. She thought of her own flogging and of Ahmed… this was all about him wasn’t it?

To be continued...