“But it's not what you want,” he said. “And it doesn't feel right. I really should go.”
“No, no please! I don't want to be alone,” she begged him.
Ben's voice was harsh as he spoke. “I am not in the habit of raping innocent young virgins.”
“You know as well as I do that if I am willing it's not rape.”
“Not technically, no,” he had to agree.
In a small, hesitant voice she asked him, “You don't want me?”
“Oh Charis, I can honestly say that I have never wanted anything in my life as much as I want you right now.”
“Then please stay – please stay with me.” Once more she begged him. Her fear of what was to happen had not gone, but at least this Ben was young, and despite herself she liked him. She’d known him for less than half an hour but already felt comfortable with him, almost safe with him. If this vile thing was going to happen to her, rather with him than anyone else. And if he left her, who was to say another prince, one old, fat and ugly wouldn’t take his place?
There was a long pause while Ben looked searchingly at her. “If you are really sure it is what you want.”
Charis nodded.
“Very well. Get rid of this then,” he said indicating the robe she was wearing. “Get into bed and I'll join you in a few minutes.” He turned to go into the dressing room but looked back. “I must warn you though, it will most definitely not be over in two minutes, possibly not even in two hours.” And he disappeared through the doorway.
Charis watched him leave. She was trembling from head to toe. Ben was right when he said it wasn’t what she wanted but she’d meant it when she said she wanted him to stay. The thought of being alone and waiting…waiting to see who would come to use her body had terrified her. When Ben had walked into the room she’d almost sobbed with relief and had to stop herself from running into his arms and begging him to take her home. She was sure he was her Ben, the love of her childhood. But he couldn't be. Her Ben, not really hers at all but on the rare occasions that she had thought of him in recent years that was what she felt he should have been, was a doctor in England, not a prince in Cairo. And then this Ben had spoken to her in Arabic…and the spell had been broken. But it was true that she felt safe with him and she instinctively trusted him. Charis didn't know why. Was it because he looked and sounded so much like the other Ben? Her Ben? Or was it something that innately belonged to him? Whatever the reason and whatever happened between them was infinitely preferable to her horrific thoughts of the alternative. And after Ben left, whether tonight, tomorrow or next week, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go on. She would have to end it all but this time she would make sure she succeeded.
She heard him leave the bathroom and knew he would be back in just a minute or two. He’d told her to take off her robe and get into bed so she pulled on the ribbon tying the belt around her waist.
*****
Ben had deliberately taken his time, first in the dressing room and then in the bathroom, to give Charis time to regain her composure, or give her time to ponder his last statement and change her mind. He hoped it would be the latter. He was worried…worried and very uncomfortable. But what to do? She seemed determined and he was having a serious argument with himself about the situation. What was she doing here anyway? She was certainly a very desirable young woman, perhaps the most desirable he’d ever seen, but still he hesitated, not sure how to proceed, wondering what would be the right thing for him to do. She obviously didn't want him to leave her alone to face an unknown partner. Maybe he could still convince her to change her mind. And all the time the thought he was having was that this could be an important turning point of his life, almost as though fate had led him here…led him to her, as though some force beyond himself was drawing them together.
So he’d undressed and put on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, hung up his suit and put his shirt, socks and underwear into the laundry bag (knowing that Ravi's staff would have them cleaned and returned to him tomorrow), gone into the bathroom, brushed his teeth and washed his hands and face. When he returned to the bedroom Charis was standing where he’d left her, eyes filled with tears and struggling with the ribbons on the robe.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “It's in a knot and I can't undo it.”
Ben took her into his arms and felt her trembling. He stroked her hair, kissed her forehead and whispered, “It’s okay…it's okay. Here, let me do it for you.” He untied the knot, but instead of slipping the robe off her shoulders, he wrapped it tightly around her and re-tied the ribbons. “You are not ready for this Charis. Your first experience should definitely not be like this.”
“No, no,” she said with tears in her eyes. “It must be now, it must be here with you. Please,” she begged him.
“But why?” he asked. “I don't understand. Tell me. Trust me, please. Maybe I can help you.”
“I'm sorry. I just can't,” she whispered and looked up at him. Then with a quick, firm movement untied the ribbon and slipped the robe to the floor.
“Oh, Charis,” he whispered gazing at her naked body. “You shouldn't have done that. You know you just passed the point of no return?” When she nodded, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, climbed up beside her and as he looked at her, spoke to her in Arabic again.
“That's what you said before,” she told him.
“Did I?” he questioned.
“When I said I couldn't understand you.”
“Oh yes…so I did.”
“What does it mean?” she asked.
Smiling at her, Ben said, “Well, if I was saying it in English it would be something like ‘you are so incredibly beautiful’ but a more literal translation would be ‘your beauty is beyond words to describe’.”
Charis, in a surprised and almost shocked voice, responded, “But I'm not beautiful!”
“You are without doubt the loveliest girl I have ever seen,” he told her.
“No one has ever told me that I'm beautiful! Well, maybe my dad did when I was little but no one that I remember.”
Ben smiled. “You don't ever look in the mirror?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” she replied.
“What do you see?”
“Just…me!”
“Beautiful you! No boyfriend has ever told you that you're beautiful?”
“I've never had a boyfriend.”
Ben was shocked. “Never?”
“No.”
“What's wrong with all the young men you know?”
“I don't know many young men.”
“So, no boyfriends – and no kisses?” he questioned.
“No, no kisses.”
Slowly Ben leaned over her. He touched her face with his fingers, then put his hand under her chin and turned her face to his. His head bent to kiss her slowly and tenderly. Her lips were soft and sweet so he kissed her again...and again...and again.
*****
Ben woke suddenly and looked at the clock - 1a.m. He'd been asleep for less than an hour. He hadn't allowed himself to drift off until Charis had fallen asleep, cradled in his arms, but now she was gone. He waited a few minutes for her to return, thinking she'd just gone to the bathroom and as he lay there he thought back over the events of the evening and how, just before she’d drifted off to sleep, she’d put her hand up to his cheek and said, “Thank you, Ben,” in her soft voice. “I'm so glad it was you.”
She was so sweet, so innocent, so beautiful, but as time passed he became worried. Where is she? He got up, put his sweats and t-shirt back on and went to look for her. He checked the dressing room but it was empty. He quietly entered the bathroom. It was dark and at first he thought that it too was empty, but at the quietest sound, maybe a muffled sob, he realised Charis was curled up in the corner between the bath and the vanity, wrapped in her robe, crying silently as if her heart was breaking. He sat on the floor beside her, pulled her into his arms and onto his lap, and she clung to him as if he were a lif
e saver. He gently rocked her back and forth, stroked her hair and whispered softly to her, comforting her as if she were a small child.
“It's alright. It's okay. Please don't cry – tell me what's wrong,” until finally she stopped crying and he was able to talk to her. “What's wrong my love?” He was shocked by her answer.
“Oh Ben, I just want to die!”
Distraught, he answered, “No Charis, please no. I am so sorry. I knew I should have left you alone.”
“Don't say that, Ben,” she managed to whisper. “It's not because of you. As soon as you came into the room I knew I was safe with you, and you’ve been so kind.”
“But if it's not because of me, what’s wrong?” When Charis just shook her head and refused to speak, he asked again, “Charis, what is it sweetheart?”
The tears began again. “Oh Ben, I just can't…”
“Can't what?” Again she didn't answer so he said in a more forceful voice, “Tell me!”
After a minute or two she asked, “What will they do with me when you're gone?”
Ben was puzzled. “I'm sorry, what do you mean?”
“What will happen to me when you leave here?”
“What do you want to happen?” he asked.
“I want to go home.”
“Then you’ll go home,” he told her.
“But what if they won't let me go?”
“I’ll take you home. If that’s what you want, I promise, I'll take you home.”
“They may not let you,” she insisted.
“That’s one of the perks of being a prince. I can do whatever I like.” He paused for a moment then asked, “Charis, who is this they you keep referring to?”
There was another pause before she answered him and in a small voice said, “The man who bought me.”
Ben was devastated. He knew, of course, that buying and selling of young girls for sex went on but had never considered it could happen to well brought up and educated English girls which Charis obviously was. And he realised, too late, that he’d allowed his physical desires to override his common sense and concern for her, and hated himself for it.
He felt sick to his stomach at what he’d done…how he’d treated this beautiful girl. He’d been raised in a home where women were treated with respect, as equals, and yet he’d used her for his own pleasure. He vowed that somehow he would make it up to her. He hoped that one day she might forgive him but he knew he’d never forgive himself. Charis had described the men involved as degenerates, lecherous and debauched. He agreed with her and felt the description fitted him, too, he who was supposed to care for women.
Ben wiped away the tears of anger and disgust that he felt, at himself, at the situation and the heinous practice of selling girls for sex. Surely there must be a way for someone to do something about it.
“Oh, God, oh no, oh Charis I’m so sorry. I should’ve known. I should have thought. How could I have been so stupid, so dense?” Then after a pause he added, “I'll kill him!”
“Do you know him then?” she asked.
“Oh yes! I know him alright. It's my cousin Ravi, the owner of this place. He'll think it's all a big joke. How dare he? I'll kill him,” he said again. “But if he bought you, who sold you? Do you know?”
“It would’ve been Henry,” she answered him. “And I should’ve known not to trust him. I should have known not to come.”
“Who is Henry? And why would he sell you?”
“It'll be because of the house – he always thought it was going to be his.”
“What house?”
“My house, my home, Meadow Lea Hall. It's in Wiltshire and it's such a long story.”
“Then tell me, but first can we go back to bed? This floor is getting very hard on my backside.”
*****
For the second time that night, Ben carried her to the bed, this time making sure the robe was securely tied and wrapped around her. He lay beside her and held her in his arms and Charis felt safe in the knowledge that Ben would be taking her home and she wouldn’t be passed around from man to man for their sexual gratification.
She started to talk, a little diffidently at first, but with Ben's encouragement she managed to tell him her story. She told him the history of the house and how beautiful it was and about the Beresford and de Sellé families. He could tell how much she loved her home and how proud she was of her family history. She told him of her grandfather, William, and the death of his wife when her mother had been born and how William eventually re-married so his Elizabeth could have a mother. How Mildred and Henry had come to live at Meadow Lea Hall and made everyone so unhappy. He learned about Elizabeth's death, another death in childbirth, and also about Charis' idyllic childhood with her father, until the day he’d died. How at her father's funeral, only James' swift action in grabbing her had stopped her from throwing herself onto his coffin as it was lowered into the grave. She was sobbing, inconsolable in her grief, and as she confided in him, he knew she was crying at the memory. So he held her and whispered softly to her until she was able to continue and learned about her banishment to school but how it had eventually become her refuge. About Mildred locking her in the shed and how for years afterwards she had nightmares that someone was coming to kill her, and how she was still afraid of the dark. How after school was done she’d taken care of Mildred until she died and then of Henry's insistent e-mails inviting her to visit him.
“I think that Henry was furious that none of the Meadow Lea Hall money came to him. Mildred had allowed, encouraged him to think it would all be his one day and then not only did my grandfather make no provision for him in his will, but his mother had nothing to leave him either. The allowance she received from the estate was very generous and she always managed to give quite a lot of it to Henry but it stopped when she died so his money tree died, too! He did ask me for money once but it had to go through James and James gave an unequivocal no. I think he's been scheming for years how to get his own back and some money out of me. I suppose he got used to the easy money and expected it to continue.”
“How old is he?” Ben asked
“He's fifty now.”
“Well James was right! At fifty years old he should be able to support himself. So what did he do then?”
“He kept e-mailing me and I finally ran out of excuses. My house was finished…my exams were over. On Monday the ticket arrived and after discussing it with James and Helen I decided to come.”
“But Charis, how did you get here? To Ravi's house? You couldn't have walked up to the door and said, ‘Here I am - your latest sex slave’?”
“But, oh Ben, that's exactly what I did!”
“Not exactly, surely?”
“As good as.” She paused while she tried to gather her thoughts, how to explain it all to him. Finally she managed to tell him how Henry had told her he would meet her in Cairo, how he was sorry he'd been held up but would join her within the hour. Of course, he never came and then she found out what she was really doing there…how Henry had sold her in exchange for continued rights to the site. He couldn't get the house so he'd snatched her instead. She’d tried to tell them there was a mistake and when that hadn't worked she'd screamed and fought but it didn’t do any good. She'd demanded to see the British Ambassador but they just laughed at her so she had to give in…there was no alternative. They brought her up to this room, shoved her in and slammed and locked the door.
“And then you came,” she said. “And I felt safe.”
“What happened before I came?” he asked.
“That's it! You came,” she insisted.
“No,” Ben replied. “Something else happened.”
“I've told you everything.”
“No, Charis. When I arrived the door was open. You said they slammed it shut. What happened in between? Did those men do anything to you?”
Charis managed to shake her head and then whispered, “No.”
Ben insisted again. “Then what happened?”
Very softly, and slowly at first, she told him how when they pushed her into the room they were so rough that she fell on her face on the floor. She lay there for several minutes before she dared to even move. Finally she'd looked up and all she could see was the bed and she knew she couldn't do it, so she’d decided to kill herself. Her first thought was to use pills but she couldn't find any in the room and her bags were in the hall, and besides, she didn't have enough anyway. Then she thought she could have a bath and drop an electrical appliance in the water but none of the appliances had long enough cords. Her final thought was to cut her wrists while in the bath, but she couldn’t find anything sharp enough to do it so she tried to break the glass in the window but it wouldn't break. By this time she was panicking so she'd banged harder on the window. They'd heard her and thought she was trying to escape so they kept the door open and watched her to make sure she didn’t leave.
As she told her story, she occasionally hesitated, but he encouraged her with questions and comments until she’d told him everything. He wanted to ask more questions, to know more about her life, but he knew she was exhausted so he stroked her hair until she fell asleep in his arms. He wished she’d confided in him, if only she’d told him, he would’ve taken her home, taken her out of here. But she'd been so insistent. He realised now it was because she had been so scared, terrified of what was to come.
Ben lay awake for a long time. He’d made love to many women before but he knew it was different with Charis. He’d never had as much physical pleasure with anyone as he’d had with her, but it was so much more than that. The emotional feelings he had when he thought about Charis were entirely new to him. He wanted to hold her in his arms, to protect her and keep her safe, and to cherish her. He knew he was beginning to fall in love for the first time in his life.
*****
It was five in the morning before he finally fell asleep. He awoke suddenly, hours later, and Charis was gone. For a moment or two he felt the beginning of panic, and then he heard her. She was in the bathroom and she was singing. Her voice was sweet and pure and he recognised the words - a song he remembered from his days in Sunday School.
Charis Page 4