She felt herself blush at the thought even though she was alone in the room. Am I seriously embarrassed at admitting that I have an ego, she wondered. Does that mean I don’t really have an ego? Ohmygod, do I have self-esteem problems then?! Oh, why did I read so many issues of Cosmo when I was a teenager! Or maybe I didn’t read enough Cosmo! What’s happening?! Am I going insane?! Am I about to get my period?! Is that a sexist thing to think?
Just stop yourself before you do or say something really stupid, she told herself. Just relax. You’re getting married in three weeks! You’re having the fairytale wedding in an exotic kingdom, the dream you’ve had ever since you learned how to read!
Johaar, she thought, taking a seat behind her computer and flipping on the monitor. She typed the word into the search bar and clicked, almost absentmindedly, just wanting to lose herself in photographs of the golden desert, those tall minarets, the quaint Arabian marketplaces, the white and yellow bungalows, the Royal Palace made of blue sandstone, and . . . the Sheikh?
Lora frowned when she saw the first set of search results. They were all about the Sheikh of Johaar. She’d read a bit about him: Sheikh Amir Al-Johaar. He hadn’t been in the news much when she’d done her research and chosen Johaar for the wedding—indeed, she’d chosen the little Middle-Eastern kingdom precisely because she’d never heard of it before. It seemed perfect: traditional but not extremist, from what she’d read. The Sheikh had eliminated most of the old laws that favored men over women when it came to education and employment. There were no draconian punishments like they still had in Saudi Arabia. And there was for some reason a direct flight from London to Johaar International Airport—just one flight a week, but still surprising for such a tiny kingdom. So Lora had taken it as a sign that this was the place, and she’d somehow persuaded Mark that instead of inviting two hundred people they barely knew to a wedding in New Orleans, how about they fly twenty people across the world to a destination wedding that they’d all be talking about for the next twenty years!
“Yeah, who’s gonna pay for twenty plane tickets? You?” Mark had snapped when she told him.
Lora had blinked in surprise, but she told herself Mark was just stressed about some deal he was trying to close. “Well,” she said. “I thought we’d both pay for it. Just like with the wedding. Half and half.”
Mark had rubbed his forehead and looked at his phone. “I didn’t even want to pay for the New Orleans wedding. Why do we need two hundred people at a wedding anyway? Such crap.”
“That’s my point, Mark. We don’t need two hundred people. So I did the math, and for what it costs for decorations, caterers, and booze for two hundred people in the US, we can fly twenty people to Johaar for a week!”
“Remind me not to ask you to do any math for my business deals,” Mark had replied, still barely looking up from his phone. Then he did look up. “Because those numbers do not make any fucking sense. Twenty international plane tickets? Hotel rooms for a week? And we still have to pay for a goddamn wedding reception in this place you’ve dug up.”
Lora ignored the language and swallowed as she prepared for her sales pitch. Were the next twenty years going to be like this? Mark staring at his phone and insulting her math skills? She shook her head and cleared her throat. “The numbers work just fine. That’s why I picked this obscure kingdom. They’re trying to encourage tourism, so they’ve arranged for discounted direct flights from London to Johaar. All flights include one week of accommodations and meals at a four-star hotel. I guess the Sheikh’s Ministry of Tourism is subsidizing all the hotels or something. Anyway, I called the hotel and they’ve agreed to let us use their ballroom for the wedding because it would be great publicity for them.” She paused. “There is a small catch, though.”
“Here we go,” Mark said, almost in triumph. “What is it?”
“Well, since there’s this state-sponsored effort to encourage tourism, they want to hold a grand gala three days before the wedding ceremony. I guess in Arab culture every wedding has several days of festivities leading up to the actual nikaah ceremony.”
“The what?” Mark said, his face twisting into a sneer.
“Nikaah,” Lora said. “It’s the Islamic wedding ceremony.”
“Cool. Are we converting to Islam now? Is that part of the catch?”
“No, silly!” Lora said, her face going red as she tried to stay calm. What was up with Mark? “The hotel manager explained that in their culture a wedding lasts a week, with several different parties and ceremonies before the final vows. It’s a way for all the guests to get to know each other, and it creates bonds that last a lifetime. I thought it sounded nice.” She looked away and took a breath when she saw that Mark couldn’t give a shit. “Anyway, the point is, they’ve offered to host the wedding as long as we agree to this grand gala three days before the wedding. And take some photographs, of course.”
Mark snorted. “A grand gala with twenty people? How lame is that. They must really be desperate.”
Lora shrugged. “Maybe they are. Who cares. Anyway, the hotel manager said it would be kind of an open reception for the other hotel guests and a few other invitees.”
“Like who? The king himself?” Mark finally put his phone down and raised an eyebrow. Oh, lookie, he smells money, Lora thought—immediately ashamed at the thought, of course.
“The Sheikh, you mean. And no, I don’t think the Sheikh will be there.” She’d shrugged. “Although you’re free to invite him, if you want.”
Now as she thought back to that conversation with Mark, Lora remembered what Carmen had said about inviting the Sheikh to the wedding, and she clicked on the “Images” tab of the search results and scrolled down. OK, she thought. I see what Carmen meant when she asked if I’d seen a photograph of Sheikh Amir. He certainly does photograph well. Younger than she’d expected, with high cheekbones and olive skin that seemed to glow in every picture. Dark green eyes that were always focused, intense, like he was always after something, always with his eyes on the prize.
“Oh, but he’s engaged,” Lora muttered as she clicked on a photograph of Sheikh Amir with a gorgeous woman with black hair and blue eyes. She was taller, thinner, and certainly more royal than Carmen. “Sorry, Carmen,” Lora whispered, not sure why she felt a little pit in her stomach when she saw the photograph.
But when the main article connected to the photograph came up, the headline and summary said:
Royal Split—Princess Screws Up. Or Screws Around, Rather!
Well, another one bites the dust. Rumors of infidelity have prompted Sheikh Amir of Johaar to end his engagement to Marissa, a minor Princess connected to Monestonia’s Royal Family. We haven’t seen any proof of the supposed screw-up, but we’re working on it! Stay tuned!
“Huh,” said Lora to the computer screen, puffing out her cheeks and reading through a couple more articles before flipping back to the photographs. She absentmindedly scrolled through the collage of images: the Sheikh in a racing jacket waving the checkered flag at the Monaco Grand Prix, Marissa politely standing behind him; the Sheikh in jeans and sunglasses, touring a refugee camp in the Middle East; the Sheikh in black European-style swim-trunks at the beaches of Spain, blue waters in the background, rock-hard abs and a large bulge in the foreground.
Oh, shit, I can’t look at that! Lora thought, guilt, shame, and arousal whipping through her all at once as she realized she was staring at the heavy crotch of the supreme ruler of Johaar! She blinked and shook her head, forcing herself to close the web browser and come back to reality. She felt short of breath, flushed, hot. What the hell? Was she seriously getting aroused from looking at a picture of a half-naked guy? What was wrong with her?
She rubbed her eyes and breathed deep, holding the breath and exhaling slowly. Her eyes burned. She needed to clean her contacts. She needed to do a lot of things. Shit, she was getting married in three weeks!
2
“Three weeks? That is all? You could not stay engaged longer than three weeks, Amir? I thought you would finally settle down, but no. Ya Allah, what use are you? Big muscles and a heavy stubble, but you are still a child.”
“This has nothing to do with me, Father. You heard the rumors,” said Sheikh Amir, flexing those big muscles involuntarily as he paced beside his father’s bed. The old man barely left that bed these days, and when he did it was on a wheelchair.
“Yes, I heard them. But I do not believe them. That woman would not betray you if her life depended on it. It is more likely you planted those rumors yourself just to get out of the marriage.”
Amir tilted his head back and roared with laughter, his green eyes shining from the glow of the sun. He shook his head and glanced at his father, the old man shriveled and fading, a shadow of his former self. The old Sheikh had been tall and strong in his youth as well, and Amir turned away from him as he pushed away the fear of the genetic muscular disorder that stole his father’s mobility at too early an age.
“Ya Allah,” Amir said, smiling and shaking his head, placing his hands on his tight hips and inhaling the warm desert breeze coming in through the open balcony that faced the west. Outside he could see the sun setting red over the ocher dunes in the distance, the shining domes and minarets of Johaar sparkling like jewels as the evening prayer call rung out across the kingdom. “Are you implying that I would plant a rumor that humiliates me just to get out of a marriage? I am a king, and if I want to do something, I just do it. I do not need a reason. I do not need an excuse.”
The old Sheikh grimaced as he tried to shift in his bed. Immediately Amir strode over to his father and helped him turn and reach for the glass of lemon-water, raising it to the old man’s lips and waiting while he drank.
“You sound like a spoiled child, not a king,” muttered the old Sheikh, nodding his head and pushing the glass away. “Please stop watching Game of Thrones, Amir.”
Amir laughed again when he saw the sparkle in the old man’s eyes—eyes that were getting dimmer by the day but still shone with mischief and affection at times. “It is done, Father. Marissa is history.”
“For a thirty-three year old man, you are accumulating a long history of failed relationships and broken engagements,” the old Sheikh said. “This is what you get for trying to challenge the old ways.”
Amir snorted. “The old ways of arranged marriages with four different women? Ya Allah, Father! I cannot bring Johaar into the new world if I cling to old traditions that have no place in it.”
“Sometimes the old ways are the best ways, Son. Consider it.” He shrugged in his bed. “Clearly you have the appetite for more than one woman. Or is that a rumor as well?”
Amir grinned. “You have been hearing a lot of rumors lately. Perhaps I shall take away your iPad.”
The old man laughed. “But I am halfway through the third season of The Americans!” The laughter morphed into a hacking cough, and the old Sheikh took another sip of his tonic before laying his head back. “Speaking of Americans, how is our new tourism initiative going? Are we seeing the foreign currency roll in yet?”
Amir nodded but without much enthusiasm. “It will take time. The advertising campaigns are not really underway. The first few direct flights from London have been relatively empty, according to the Minister for Tourism.”
“Put some more effort into it, Amir. Perhaps even put yourself into it.”
Amir frowned. “What do you mean? Myself in the tourism ads? Am I an animal in a zoo? Will people come to watch me sit on the throne and say, ‘Off with their heads!’?”
The old Sheikh coughed again as he chuckled. “I would crawl out of my deathbed to witness that.”
Amir swallowed hard as a lump formed in his throat. Both he and his father knew the old man was never leaving this bed. The muscular disorder was so rare it didn’t even have a name yet, but even a nameless disease can take a man down. Already the old Sheikh’s internal organs were failing as the disease spread. He did not have much time.
“I should line up the bloody doctors who promised to cure you and then failed,” Amir growled, clenching his fist and walking past his father’s bed and towards the open balcony. He breathed deep of the desert air, taking in the distant aroma of the evening fires that were common this time of year. The Arabian New Year would hit at the next New Moon, and the Johaaris had a peculiar tradition of building bonfires out in the open desert and staying up all night, eating and drinking, telling stories, playing music, and dancing to bring in the new season. The night was still a couple of weeks away, but the younger Johaaris liked to get started early.
The old Sheikh was silent as he stared at his son. Then he sighed. “We all live and die by Allah’s decree,” he said quietly.
Amir whipped around, his face peaked. “So I am destined to die the same way, Father? Losing control of my body? My days ending helpless in a bed?”
“Allah’s decree is not the same as destiny,” said the old Sheikh. “It can be changed.”
“So how do we change it?” Amir shouted, slamming his fist into the headboard of the gigantic teakwood bed, almost shattering the thick wood and perhaps even his hand. “How do we get you out of this bed and back on your feet, to finish your rule?”
The old Sheikh shook his head. “My rule is done, Amir. The throne is yours. The kingdom is yours. The future is yours. Perhaps that was Allah’s decree, and my sickness was only incidental. A means to His ends.”
Amir ran his fingers through his thick black hair, shaking his head as he began to pace. He clasped his hands behind his back and turned on his heel when he got to the far end of the sprawling, hundred-year old bedroom. His father was right, and Amir knew it. God’s decree or not, Amir was Sheikh and supreme ruler, and there was work to be done. The Kingdom of Johaar was not blessed with the vast oil wells of Saudi Arabia or the pure, high-quality oil of some of the smaller kingdoms. There was some oil, but it was being pumped to capacity and the writing was on the wall. The last three generations of Amir’s family had invested their billions of dollars in oil revenues wisely, and the kingdom was wealthy enough to continue to provide free education and a monthly stipend to every Johaari citizen. But Johaar needed to find its place in the new world, and for that Sheikh Amir needed to keep the younger generations engaged and invested in their kingdom’s future.
Amir’s father had pointed out years earlier that the younger generation of Johaaris would leave for the larger, more exciting cities in greater Arabia, the Far East, and the West if there was nothing to keep them excited about their small homeland. Fostering startup companies and other initiatives were underway, but those took time to get going, and the old Sheikh had suggested tourism as one way to raise Johaar’s profile in the world.
“Tourism also has the effect of raising a country’s profile in the eyes of its own citizens,” the wise old Sheikh had told Amir. “It will give the younger Johaaris a sense of pride when they see Americans and Europeans and Japanese visiting our tiny country with their tiny cameras and making a big deal out of it. Keeping the newer generations invested in their kingdom will bring returns down the line. Mark my words, son.”
And so they’d appointed a Minister of Tourism and begun the series of initiatives and investments designed to bring in both foreigners and foreign currency. Amir had been ambivalent about the whole thing to begin with: In his mind it felt tacky and desperate to be offering discounted airfare and subsidized hotel rooms to bring in tourists. That would only bring in the discount-hunters, the people on small budgets, the deal-seekers. He’d instead wanted to raise prices and try to make Johaar a destination for the rich and famous of the Western world. Would that not raise their profile more than bringing in the typical “ugly American” tourist with his already maxed-out Visa card?
But the old Sheikh had been adamant. “The western world is seeing a backlash again
st the elites, the so-called ‘One Percent.’ And besides, we cannot compete with some of the world’s elite vacation spots anyway. Do you think we can get George Clooney to sell his house on the French Riviera and set up shop in Johaar? We must play to our strengths, Amir. We can position ourselves as affordable but not cheap. An exotic destination that will give even middle-class foreigners a taste of old Arabia. They cannot find that in the modern city of Dubai. And Saudi Arabia is still too strict and austere.”
“Old Arabia,” Amir had said. “All right, Father. I will take it under advisement.”
Old Arabia, came the thought as he scanned the peaks of Johaar’s minarets, the smooth curves of the domes, the distant swells of the ever-shifting dunes. The sun had dipped out of sight, and the prayer calls were done. Once again Amir had missed the evening prayer. It had been months since he joined his people in the Grand Mosque in Johaar’s City Center.
Amir sighed when he turned from the balcony and walked to his father’s bed. He pulled the soft woolen blankets over the old Sheikh and touched his forehead. Still warm. The fever was constant, it seemed. How much longer could the old man’s body fight the disease? Was this Allah’s decree or His punishment? Was there a difference?
The young Sheikh summoned the attendants to watch over his father, and then he left the room, pulling out his phone as the teakwood double-doors closed behind him. He punched the keypad and waited.
“It should not take my Minister of Tourism three rings to answer a phone call from his Sheikh,” said Amir sternly, though his green eyes sparkled and his dark red lips curled into a smile. “Now tell me, how are things going? Do we have any takers for my father’s idea of giving away plane tickets and hotel rooms to bring in some noisy Americans?”
Privilege for the Sheikh Page 2