CHAPTER 3 --LESSONS
Bagoas was a person of power. Physically powerful from exercise, which some of his peers neglected; mentally powerful from hard experience and long discipline; financially powerful, as shown by the gold coins jingling from his belt; and powerful in this place where he served the Governor of Ouarzazate in a high capacity.
Bagoas was Overseer of the Governor's Harem. The Governor's wife, and the Governor's two harem slavegirls, were in his charge. This meant, of course, that he was a eunuch. Having learned to focus his mind on his particular tasks at hand, he seldom let his mind run back to that terrible time when, at the age of ten, slave raiders entered his village, burned the houses, and carried all the able bodied inhabitants off to their slave train. He seldom thought now of the anguish he, and five other pre-pubescent boys of the village, felt as they saw their parents chained by the necks and forced with whips into the slave trader's train. The things that happened afterward had been long erased from his mind. He only allowed himself to remember that six weeks later he was in the slave market, being shown as a fine young eunuch. There the Governor Glaoui, father of his present master, had purchased him for his household, and he began the life that is reserved for those without balls.
Bagoas put the thought out of his mind. His ability to focus on the present and to do what he must to preserve and increase his position of power meant much more to him now than his lost balls did. Through long training and experience he had learned the eunuch's place in Moorish society, and had pulled himself up to a high pinnacle in his world. He would not let weakness of mind take that from him.
His body servant and chosen protege Hamid, a fine young eunuch of eighteen years, was waiting for him as he finished his breakfast of fruit and tea. Motioning to Hamid to follow, Bagoas crossed the courtyard of the Taouririt Kasbah, where the other servants respectfully saluted him and entered an ornately carved and decorated door. Climbing the stairs he stood before another door guarded by two eunuchs armed with scimitars. They bowed to Bagoas, and by now were used to seeing Hamid pass through the door with him.
Bagoas and his student entered the harem. A large central chamber had three arch ways opening from it. Two were curtained, while the third had a gilded lattice work door before its fine silk curtain. This, in the East and thus nearest to Mecca, was the chamber of the Governor's wife Durrah, the Pearl, whom he called The Pearl of Great Price. Bagoas pointed silently to a corner of the room where Hamid sat upon a pillow. Then he scratched on lattice work door, calling softly, "My lady?" Hamid was quiet as a desert mouse when the curtain was pulled back and the lady appeared behind it. Through the lattice he could see that she was tall and beautiful , for here in the harem she was unveiled and wrapped only in a light silk robe pulled across her large breasts.
"Bagoas, has my husband sent for me?" she asked.
"Alas, no, my lady," replied Bagoas. "Allah has willed that the Governor be kept busy for some days now with official business, and his orders to me this morning did not ask for any service from the harem." He knew that in his subtlety she would understand that though her husband had not called for her, neither had he asked for either of the slave girls to be brought to him.
"Thank you, Bagoas," she replied, and let the curtain fall.
Seeing the mistress served, if not satisfied, Bagoas was ready to proceed with his professional duties. He clapped his hands twice. The curtains in the two archways were pulled open, and the two slave girls appeared, each clad in a smooth flowing gown. Saiesha, a black Abyssinian beauty with large firm breasts, wore a white robe through whose thin material could be barely seen her large dark nipples and the patch of black hair in her crotch. Maria, a Spanish girl captured in the Moorish conquest, wore a red gown, and her pointed nipples poked up in the soft material in a way that would have enticed any man so lucky as to see them. Neither Bagoas or Hamid was stimulated by the sight, of course.
"Hamid, today we have important lessons. You will see how the girls are prepared to serve our master." Motioning to the two girls to move to the center of the room, he then nodded at them and they both dropped their gowns. They were totally at ease standing naked in front of the eunuchs. "Last week, Hamid, I taught you how to determine if the girls were properly shaved. Do you remember?"
"Yes, master," said Hamid. He motioned to the two girls, who went to a bench at the side of the room, and each placed one leg on the bench, thus displaying their clean shaven pussies to his gaze. He went to each girl, knelt by her and rubbed his beardless cheek against her pubic mound and over the lips of her pussy. "Indeed, Bagoas, they are as smooth as a baby camel's nose," he said.
"Good," said Bagoas. "Now recount to me the preparation they must undergo to be ready for their duties."
"First the perfumed unguents, my lord, rubbed over their body and into their breasts and the lips of their lower flowers. Myrrh for the lady, lesser scents for the slave girls. Then if it is the Governor's wife being prepared, the girls dust her with the soft fine powder. Next the cosmetics are applied, and particular care is given to see the carmine tint for the nipples and for both the lips of their face and the ones between their legs."
