Let me drink,

Let me drink,

Oh Allah, let me drink

Before I die of love

And EMPTINESS!

The sobbing plaint was more than I could take. "Utanc!" I shouted.

It broke the spell!

She cast away the cura irizva with a clatter.

She fled from the room!

And even though I was very fast, the door was locked and barred before I could reach her room.

I stood there for hours. I couldn't stop trembling. I went to my office and wrote out an order for a WATS line with an unlisted number. I slid it under her door but the edge stayed in view.

The next day I realized that I was becoming physically ill. I ached all over. Things were in a sort of a blur. I just wandered about, stopping now and then and staring and not seeing what I was looking at.

I thought to myself that this was no good, getting ill this way. I would not be fit if anything did happen to bring Utanc to my bed. Although I almost never touched the stuff, a bit of Scotch might do me good. I had been keeping a bottle to give to the captain of the Blixo when he arrived. I went to a cupboard to dig it out.

It was gone!

I called the waiter.

He said he didn't know anything about it.

I wandered around some more. I couldn't even sit down!

The waiter came in to serve me my supper.

He kept standing there, twisting his hands, so I looked at him. The waiter had a black eye!

"Sultan Bey," he said, shuffling his feet, "I came to confess that it was I who took the Scotch."

But really, even though this was a marvelous opportunity to punish him, I was too far gone. I simply waved him away. I couldn't eat my supper either.

Maybe I would die and simply be through with the whole thing. I had decided finally and inevitably that this was the best plan when, suddenly, there was one of the small boys.

"Utanc says that you should bathe and put on a turban and go into the salon."

Weak as I was, I made pretty good time!

I waited quite a while.

Then there was a slither at the door. It cracked wider. In she came. She was carrying a bucket, two unlit torches and her curo irizva.

Quietly she took her place in the center of the room.

She was dressed in red-embroidered pantaloons and vest. She had a red band with flowers in it around her black hair. Her toenails and fingernails were scarlet. And so was her veil.

But she just sat slumped, eyes downcast. She sighed deeply. She looked listless.

At length I got up courage enough to whisper, "Why are you sighing?"

"O my master, I am sad because I cannot tolerate the thought of being cooped up all day in a single room and garden. Were I to move about on foot, I would be stared at or attacked upon the roads. I feel I can never be happy without a BMW 320, fuel-injected engine, five-speed stick shift, rally-model sedan."

For the first time I felt a surge of horror. Such a car would cost a million and a half Turkish lira!

She sighed tremulously. But then, of course, she would feel cooped up. A wild, primitive desert girl, she was used to the limitless vistas, rolling dunes and the vast sky of Russian Turkmen. Her leg moved slightly. I was terrified she would run away.

"It is yours," I said.

She began to hum quietly. She picked up the two torches and went over to the open lamps. She lit them. She came back to the center of the room.

She stood there, a torch in each hand. Their light and the lamplight made moving shadows around her on the floor. The live flame seemed to make her body writhe.

Humming, she began to juggle the torches, tossing them and catching them, one after the other, in rhythm.

Then she sped to the right and sped to the left and back and forth. I was turning my whole body to follow her. At the end of the run, she tossed a torch high, turning and then catching it.

She narrowed the run. And then she was standing in one place. She was still juggling the torches. But now, each time a hand was momentarily free, she was tugging at her red veil. Little by little, her face was becoming bare.

Then the veil was gone!

She stood there juggling the torches. But now there was a change. The torches were crossing from one hand to the other, both together as they spun. I turned right and left, following the flame. Her feet began to beat the rhythm of the tune.

Her body now seemed to be writhing more. Or was it just the flame shadows?

It was her body!

Her belly was moving!

She was beginning to grind with her hips. She was going from one foot to the other. The torches both together were being tossed from left to right and back again. My body moved of its own accord to follow them.

Her chin was coming down. Her eyes were fixed upon me.

Then, as she stood there, grinding her hips, moving her belly, her head began to come up. Up and up! Her eyes began to glaze!

Her mouth was open, slack. I had never noticed before that her mouth was large, that her lips were full and red. And wet.

The tune she hummed was phasing over into moans!

Left, right, my own body was jerking back and forth in time to those grinding hips and flying torches.

Then suddenly she stood still. She was shuddering. A torch was in each hand now. She was crying out faintly.

She was having an orgasm!

The two torches, one in each of her hands, held level, began to approach each other.

Suddenly the flame heads ground together!

She screamed in ecstasy!

Then she sank abruptly down, cross-legged. At the same moment she dropped the torches into the bucket where they hissed and steamed.

She seemed dejected.

Her fingers fumbled out and she found her cura irizva.

She struck a plaintive, quavering chord.

Her eyes came up and fixed themselves on me. There were tears in them!

The indefinite oriental music began to flow sadly from her fingers. In a voice that was a dirge of sorrow, she sang:

You have no need of me,

You beautiful man.

You do not want my arms.

You do not wish to feel

The entwine of my legs.

You have no need Of pressures from my breasts.

You do not need

My hands with their caress.

You do not crave

To flood me

With your juice.

But OH, you brutal male,

If ONLY that you DID!

As her crying words died away in the hall, I was totally beyond the ability to react.

I sank back. I whispered, "Oh, Utanc, have pity on me. I do want you. I will die, Utanc, unless I have you."

There was a tiny sound beside me.

A hand was lightly caressing my cheek. The softest whisper floating in a haze of perfume, "Lie quietly, darling."

There was the click of a light switch. Then the sound of the lamps being capped.

It was totally dark.

Another stir beside me. A delicate hand on my chest. Lips, full and soft and moist against my cheek—a delicate kiss.

I reached up to grasp her jacket to pull it off.

"No, no," she whispered. "I am much too modest to be seen undressed by a man in the dark."

She pressed my arm back against my side. She kissed my throat. "This is all for you. Do not think of me. Think only of yourself. Tonight is yours."

She was removing my turban in the dark. Then she kissed my eyes.

She removed the caftan from me and then she kissed my chest.

She pulled off my boots and kissed my feet.

Then she gently undid my belt and slowly began to pull off my pants, her lips kissing lower and lower as the flesh was bared.

Lightly she began to caress my shoulders and arms with her fingertips. She took my ear lobe between her teeth in a gentle way. Then her tongue sought the entrance of my ear.

Quivers of pleasure began to go through me. I once more sought to reach her with my hands and pull her garments away.

"No, no," she whispered. "There is no need for me to undress. I am too shy. This is your night and your pleasure."