(Synopsis: Russet Thompson is an architect and designer sent to spend several days touring the Harem of a eastern Pasha to get ideas for a new attraction at Ultima Resorts. Sir Adrian Calendar, the Prince's personal secretary, shows her around, including the Playroom, where one of the odalisques (harem girls) is being disciplined. Russet finds it both uncomfortable and exciting. The next day…)
I slept much better than I expected. The bed was superb and I didn't stir until a maid tapped on my door in the morning. I was still trying to mumble an answer when she opened the door and sidled in with a heavy tray.
She was the female version of the dark-eyed boys, complete to the shy smile, though she was modestly gowned in an embroidered caftan. She helped me sit up, arranging pillows behind me and tenderly deposited a tray over my knees. The coffee was excellent, strong and thick with cream and sugar. The rest of the meal was up to the same standard, though strange to my western sensibilities; rolls still warm from the oven, dates, pungent goat cheese, and quartered oranges so ripe they were practically bursting from their skins. It was delicious.
I showered and did my hair in a French twist, striving for a buttoned up, professional image to offset my indiscretions of the night before. I winced away from remembering what I'd said and done. It would be nice to think that Adrian had slipped something into my wine, but it was probably just the effects of jetlag and too much champagne coming after a prolonged period of abstinence.
I emerged from the bath to discover breakfast cleared, the bed made, and my clothing from the day before missing, spirited away by elves, or at least the Turkish version thereof.
I dressed in tailored trousers, a long sleeved silk shirt, and my flats, and was wondering what to do next when the same maid scratched at the door and ushered me out. She didn't seem to understand English, but led me to a pair of tall double doors, where she once again knocked deferentially before waving me through.
The room was a library or perhaps an office of sorts; all dark wood, leather-bound books, and gorgeous Persian carpets dominated by a large desk. Two very tall, pointed windows filled in with elegant tracery threw long pools of light across the dark tiles and brilliantly patterned rugs.
Adrian sat at the desk surrounded by heaps of papers and more than one empty coffee cup. When he rose to his feet and came towards me smiling, I saw that he still wore the remains of his dress suit. He'd abandoned the dinner jacket and tie, his crumpled white shirt was open at the throat and rolled to the elbow, exposing sinewy tan forearms, and his narrow feet were bare.
"Didn't you go to bed all?" I asked, staring.
"No, I napped for a bit but it took most of the night to assemble all this clobber," he said, taking my hands in his and pulling me forward for a kiss. So much for my resolution to go back to a formal footing.
"But what is all this?"
"My end of the bargain. I don't make promises often but when I do, I keep them. This stack is a list of all the things we use—spices, oils, incense, recipes, and the names and address of the firms who supply them. Also our rug merchant, our chandler, and our iron-monger, the clever laddie who makes our sconces, grills, gates, and also various ingenious devices of a sexual nature."
My eyes opened wide. Even if importing supplies was prohibitively expensive, having the recipes and being able to purchase originals for copy at home would be a treasure trove.
"This pile," Adrian said, putting his hand on a stack that looked to consist of taped together pages of varying size, some of them enormous, "is photocopies of the original plans of the palace, dating back to the 17th century, and the blueprints of the remodel done by His Highness' esteemed father. There's also information about the hammam. It was updated then, and again about ten years ago, so there's all the business about the pools that you wanted.
"And this final tidbit," (a mere slip of paper) "permission from Prince Mustapha to photograph anything you want—buildings and rooms, of course, not people—and to publish the photos, if you wish."
"My God, it's like Christmas! You've done all my work for me. How can I ever thank you?" I knew how rare it was to have permission to photograph the inside of an occupied palace was, let alone an actual harem.
Adrian turned and hitched his hip up on the edge of the desk, putting himself between me and all that loot. "But I don't want thanked, sweet Russet, I want paid."
My heart sank. "I'll have to discuss it with Darius, of course. I don't know what he has budgeted for this." Inwardly I was seething. What of all his fine talk about the Prince being his friend? Now he wanted a kickback on it? And was the money going to Mustapha or was it going to him?
"Not money, darling. I told you I'd have a proposition for you that you couldn't refuse." He grinned at me, his mussed hair and general dishabille making him look boyish. "A barter."
"For sex?" I asked, blushing again.
"Not at all," he said, his face falling into sterner lines. "I don't buy sex, and besides you were willing to sleep with me last night just for a giggle. When we make love—and I certainly plan that we shall—we'll do it for joy, for mutual pleasure. No, I have something else in mind. "
"Well, then what?"
"We'll take that step by step, but the first," he patted the first stack, "won't be too arduous. I want you to have the Seraglio experience, under my direction. For these, the lists of materials and suppliers, all you have to do is allow yourself to be pampered as though you were a concubine in the Sultan's harem."
There had to be a catch. I set my heels and stuck my chin out. "And just exactly what will that entail?"
"A morning at the spa, eastern-style. Manicure, pedicure, massage, perhaps a henna rinse. Women pay a small fortune for the same services at home. Think about it, you could design a spa at the resort, using the same facilities that your clients will be romping through in the evening."
I felt an awful lot like Eve, when the serpent said, 'Hey, taste this," but he was right. It would be a tremendous draw. I could envision the ad copy now: 'Be Pampered Like A Sultan's Favorite.' I could do it anyway—fake it—just basing it on a traditional day-spa, with costumes. But what if it really was different? And think of the article I could write for our trade publication, about a real day in the Seraglio.
"What's in it for you? I asked bluntly.
"Seduction?" he suggested. "Control? A chance to expose you to something new and different. Why not expand your horizons?"
I thought about consulting Darius, but I knew he'd think I should be willing to sacrifice life, limb and sacred honor for the cause, let alone my dubious virtue. I preferred not to give him a chance to tell me so.
"Is that the kind of deal would you cut Russell?"
"Russell?"
"If I'd been male, as expected. Would you have wanted to expand his horizons, too?"
"Poor Russell would have gotten the ten-penny tour and turfed out as soon as I could manage it, darling."
So I had a chance to get more information than one of the male partners would, or at least that was what Adrian, the crafty devil, wanted me to think. Still, it sounded harmless enough. I settled down to serious negotiations.
