Her head was down. She was not looking at me.
She just sat there. From time to time she sighed.
I was afraid to speak for fear she would run away. But after a very long time, I whispered, "Why are you downcast?"
In a very low, husky voice she said, "O Master, I am sad because I cannot tolerate the thought of being without the bare necessities of life. I sigh for the deprivation of not having silk handkerchiefs, French bubble bath, antiperspirant and Chennel Number 5. I require only minor cash to buy them—a few hundred thousand lira."
She looked so sad, slumped there. She was a wild, primitive nomad of the Kara Kum desert. It would not do to remind her she was now a slave. Naturally she needed money to buy necessities. How she must have missed them, tending camels in that sandy waste.
"They are yours," I said in a lordly manner.
At once she sat up straight. Her eyes flicked at me and then were demurely downcast.
She picked up her little drum and began to beat upon it, slowly, timidly. Then she began to hum a wordless, plaintive tune.
I knew she was encouraging herself.
The drumbeat grew stronger. Then in midbar she changed over from the drum to the silver tray and began to beat upon it instead.
The tune she hummed became stronger, faster, less plaintive.
As she sat, her body began to sway. She came to her knees. Her body swayed more.
Her bracelets were hitting the tray with a crash! The beat became faster. In a sitting position, but sitting on nothing, she began to kick out with her feet, one after the other!
In that sitting posture, kicking out her silvered toes in rhythm, banging the flashing tray, she sailed around the room humming some savage tune! She actually seemed to float above the floor!
From one end of the room to the other she went, back and forth. Now at the end of each passage, she leaped up, came down on her heels, extended and cried, "Heigh!" And then each time, her bracelets rattled against the tray. Barbaric!
She was going in wide circles now. It was a Russian dance! She went faster. The tray crashed louder as she banged it.
My body began to jump with the rhythm of it. I was following her with my eyes but my body also began to twist to the left and to the right.
The circles were getting smaller. She was closer and closer to the center of the room.
And then she was back in the center. She was humming more intensely. She was on her knees. She was swinging the tray above her head, the flat side facing me, left and right and left and right, banging it with her hand each time.
I found my body twitching in response to the rhythm. My eyes followed the tray.
The yellow-orange flame flashed and flashed. I found myself panting in rhythm.
Her hips were grinding now. She ripped the veil from her face. Her eyes were on me like hot coals.
My body was jerking, all of its own accord, back and forth, back and forth.
Suddenly she sank on her heels. She put down the tray. She seized her cura irizva.
With the same tune she had been humming, she began to strike chords.
Her eyes were scorching me. She began to sing:
Unspent kisses clog my throat, Unspent smiles lurk
Behind my lips.
Unspent passion dams my breath
And sucks back in
The unspent tongue!
My hands
That ache
With unspent caress
Tremble
When I think
Of pouring out upon you
All my flood Of UNSPENT LOVE!
It was unbearable! I cried out, "Oh, my darling!" I flung out my hands to her.
The cry, the gesture, startled her. She cowered away. And before I could protest, she abandoned her instruments and fled from the room!
Before I could reach her door, the iron bolt was in place.
I tried to plead. I begged. But my voice must not have been able to penetrate the door. It remained locked.
After a long time I went and got five hundred thousand lira and pushed them, one by one, through the crack under the door. The last one simply stayed there, its tip still showing. I looked at it for the rest of the night.
The next day I got bold enough to creep along the wall of the inner garden but, alas, the hole I had found was now plugged up.
I thought I heard voices in the garden once. I could not be sure. I spent a miserable, aching day.
I did not really have too much hope. But around eight, a small boy came to me. He said, "Utanc told me to say you should take a bath and get your turban on and go into the salon."
Oh, never was a bath taken so fast.
Almost in no time, I was in the salon.
I waited.
At long, long last, the door crept open.
Softly and quietly she slipped in. She was wearing a tight jacket that left her arms and belly bare. It was of gold embroidery. She wore baggy pantaloons of gold. She had a gold band with flowers around her black hair. She was veiled in a golden veil. As she sat, I saw that her fingernails and toenails were painted gold. She was carrying a flashing sword and her cura irizva.
But she sat with her eyes downcast, her head bowed. From time to time, she sighed.
"Why are you sighing?" I said at last, very softly so as not to frighten her.
"O Master," she said with downcast eyes, "I cannot tolerate the thought of not being able to call Istanbul, Paris and New York to order, C.O.D., the small and vital things a poor woman has to have to preserve her beauty in her master's eyes. I need a telephone in my room with a WATS line and an unlisted number."
Well, naturally a wild and shy desert girl from the primitive and uncultured wastes of the Kara Kum desert wouldn't want to have her phone number listed.
"It is yours," I said in a lordly way.
She began to hum slowly and plaintively. She picked up the sword and began to tap the blade in rhythm, first to her right, then to her left. Her body began to move with the sword.
The sword seemed to be leading her, pulling her up little by little to her feet as it went from left to right. Her eyes were on it, following it.
Her feet began to move, steps to the left, steps to the right.
The yellow-orange flame light clashed upon the sword, rippled over her body.
Now she began to slash with the sword as she danced. The whoosh-whoosh of it blended in with the tune she was humming.
Then the sword began to spin. I was terrified she would cut herself!
Then with one hand on the tip and the other on the hilt she began to leap over the sword and back again in rhythm! And gracefully!
Suddenly she let go of the tip end and began to whirl. She had the sword extended. She became a blur of gold.
She leaped into the air and came down!
The sword lanced up!
I was certain she would stab herself!
The razor edge slit her veil!
The two halves fell apart. Her face was revealed. She seemed fixated upon the upright sword. Her head began to go back. Her hips began to work. Her belly muscles began to writhe.
The sword seemed to pump up and down.
The tune she hummed was turning into moans.
Her hips ground harder and harder. My own body was moving in rhythm to hers. I could not control it. I did not try!
Suddenly she upended the sword.
She drove it into the floor!
It quivered there!
She sat behind it.
Her eyes went from the sword to me and I was almost scalded by the passion in them.
She savagely yanked her cura irizva to her. But then she sighed tremulously.
She struck a chord of great longing. She sang:
Let me drink of you.
Let me drink with my eyes
The bold male beauty of your limbs!
Let me drink with my breath
The brutal male scent of you!
Let me drink with my tips
The taste of your male flesh.
Let me drink and drink and drink
Before I starve
Of longing for you!
Let me drink,
Let me drink,