by Jina Bacarr
Not for long.
I pulled in my breath when I felt Mahmoud slide me down off his shoulder and lay me down on the floor in the center of the Cobra Room. I forced the dizziness from my brain as the rhythmic cacophony of piano notes stirred my blood to unleash the primitive beat pulsing in my soul. With a snap of his wrists, Mahmoud unrolled the rug, exposing my nude body from its self-imposed cocoon of centuries-old Arabic fibers coated with flakes of gold paint from my skin. Like a lotus unfurling, I stood up slowly, stretching, pulling my muscles, raising my arms up high over my head like the sacred flower at dawn, Cleopatra’s ruby-and-pearl ring catching the eye of the spotlight, my body reveling in performing the erotic dance I had made famous years ago in Berlin when I danced nude covered in gold paint. Then, I was in a state of recklessness, eager to prove my wildness, make a name for myself. Now, I wanted my revenge on Ramzi and his infidelity, an ugly emotion at best, but a real one.
I grabbed a sheath of shocking blue feathers from atop the piano, fluttering them wildly, then pranced across the room, dipping my fingers into champagne glasses, letting the golden liquid drip down over my breasts, my belly, drizzling like honey over my nude pubic area, and down the insides of my thighs, but it couldn’t quench my thirst. A different state possessed me, an extraordinary sense of discord, a distortion of all that I was then.
My mood shifted, brought on by the knowledge that I was not the same young girl. I was Lady Eve Marlowe, but there was no turning back. I wanted to run from the spotlight, wrap myself up in the widow’s gray I had refused to don, forget this crazy idea of seeking retribution against a man I thought I loved. I was hurt, but I realized hurting him wasn’t the answer.
I had been careful not to arouse his suspicions earlier, promising him I would receive him later at my hotel. I had no intention of seeing him or Maxi. After tonight, I would no longer come to the club. The rapture of shocking the crowd gave me no pleasure. Tonight I danced without form, my frenzy building, tossing my head with fury, bitterness. My muscles stiff, as if I’d turned into stone.
I squeezed my eyes tight not to allow tears to slide down my golden cheeks and streak them like kittens’ claws. I knew why. Why hadn’t I seen it before? Thrown away this insanity before it went too far? I knew the answer. We all embrace secrets, keep them hidden inside us. I had performed my dance nude the night I met Lord Marlowe in Berlin at Cabaret Montmartre, a wicked, raucous establishment where customers concealed their identities behind a black or white half mask. I remember how his eyes riveted to every part of my body, from my bare breasts down to my shaved pubic mound, peeking around to my firm buttocks and down my thighs to my slender calves. I shivered that night when I realized my skin burned under his gaze—
I stopped my dance with an abrupt movement. No one dared breathe. The moment hung suspended. I shivered again tonight when I realized another pair of eyes watched me with that same intensity.
Ramzi?
No. Someone else. I saw him edge closer to where I danced, but I couldn’t see him distinctly. Tall, manly, how I knew that I don’t know, not suave like Ramzi, but raw and untamed. I smelled him as surely as I smelled the spicy aroma emitting from my armpits and between my legs where I had applied Cleopatra’s perfume. Why did this man affect me so? It became clear to me. I wanted to relive that night when I first met his lordship, if only for a little while, then I would leave Cairo. Yes, dear reader, I had changed my mind about staying here. Remember, at this time in my life I was wildly extravagant, rebellious and indifferent to criticism from anyone. I would run from here, travel to Paris or Rome, someplace, anywhere to experience an interchange of laughter, sun, wind, caresses, for I know now a woman who clings to a man who doesn’t love her is a fool. And I was no fool. Ramzi was the fool, taking advantage of what he believed was my obsession with him. Like most men of his type, suave, ambitious, somewhat narcissistic, he believed all women were his playground, even my friend. It was Maxi’s betrayal I didn’t understand and didn’t know if I ever would.
A surge of power overtook me, releasing me from this shadow self I had created where I could hide. I didn’t wish to hide any longer. I wanted to live. To seduce and be seduced. To wrap the image of this stranger who attracted my attention in passionate movements, indulge in frantic desire. I swayed my hips back and forth in a provocative rhythm in different variations, allowing everyone an interesting view of my golden buttocks, shaking them so they quivered, men leaning forward, women peering over their shoulders, all of them moving with me in ecstasy. I danced in such a frenzy even the walls seemed to become pliable and swayed with me like fun-house mirrors distorting everything as I whirled past them. Two female dancers tossed jasmine petals into the air, which fell on my nude body like lucent raindrops, landing on top of my golden skullcap and crusting my hard nipples with golden dots. I continued moving my hips in an undulating rhythm, my spirit in a deep state of arousal, the evocative tango music cooing in my ear.
I saw the stranger again, the desire, the excitement in his eyes. The split second he took to reach out to try to grab me was the time I needed to see him clearly. Sandy-brown hair, skin tanned by the sun not the gods, an irresistible streak of maleness riding down the side of his jaw in the way he moved his mouth.
I turned slightly, my rear to him, and the way he looked at my nude golden buttocks made me more than uncomfortable. Aroused. Hungry, as if he’d already stretched my anal hole, penetrating me, and he wanted to do it all over again. His hard gaze made me squeeze my legs together and push as a pleasant feeling set off a contraction I couldn’t stop. I turned away from him, not wanting him to see the expression on my face, for I couldn’t hide the sensation racing through me, my pussy opening and closing on its own, yearning for someone to stroke it, enter it, its nakedness glittering with faux gold in a sea of matte silks and white dinner jackets and dark robes. Earlier I would have settled for a slender feminine finger to sweep across my clit and make it burn, her tender sighs evoking a gentle passion in me. That flame no longer burned, suffocated by a restless autumn wind stirring my embers. I wanted a man to entice my hungry libido, dear reader, this man.
Who was he? Not British. His swagger demanded attention not coming from breeding but something else. Most likely, he was an American adventurer. Because I was a dancer, I knew the body hungered to find its rhythm in the way of moving. His languid stride was most revealing to me. This man took his time, observing everything, everyone with his sexual soul, including me. No wonder I couldn’t take my eyes off him, his presence was so intense. With my deepening anxieties, my addiction to sex and drugs, and my obsession with Ramzi over, I was ripe for the scent of a new man. More than ever I needed a torrid love affair.
I had no idea Ramzi also sensed my restlessness. I saw him enter the private room, Maxi at his side. Laila was behind them. They sat down at our regular table and a waiter in a red fez and white dinner jacket and black bow tie brought them cocktails. I could see them whispering to each other, Maxi laughing, Laila staring, Ramzi smoking his chibouk. Smiling and with my fingers linked behind my head, I sashayed over in their direction, but danced by them and continued my performance near the stranger who’d captured my attention. I’d give him—and everyone in the room—a climax to my dance they’d never forget.
I signaled to the maître d’ to have the lights turned down. Within seconds the private room was transformed into a dark atmospheric display of overheated bodies covered by shadows. I stood alone under the hot white heat of the intense spotlight, my left hand spiraling upward, my right cupping my bare breasts. I can imagine how I looked. Nude body, my features contorted in lust, a red scarlet streak across my lips, heavily lined eyes visible above the sheer gold nose veil, pure white pearl beads flapping about my face and hitting my upturned chin shiny with sweat. I was high on cocaine, which I’m certain produced that incredible wildness in me that night, dear reader, for to believe I engaged in such madness without the drug would make me see myself as a lower creature devoid of m
orals than I could bear to reveal to you. What I can say without hesitating is that I no longer had any compelling interest in Ramzi’s sexual antics, nor was I entranced by his dark looks and sophisticated personality. A new man was on my horizon, a man I sensed would tame my erotic mania, and that was precisely what I needed.
Executing a perfect pirouette, I let my hands drift down to my shaved pubic mound shimmering in gold, lingering on my thighs, then I slid my hands around to my rear and posed with my fingers splayed on my buttocks. The glint of the ruby-and-pearl ring on my forefinger guided the eye of everyone in the room to the cleft between my arse. Except for one man. I locked eyes with the stranger who captured my interest, a shiver coming over me when I realized he wanted me as much as I wanted him. I let him know my body was in joyful anticipation of such a union by lowering my eyes and admiring what I could see was an impressive bulge in his pants despite the low lighting. Then I let myself go, unveiling my mad scheme to unleash my lust for dominance over the crowd by having an orgasm here in the club.
But not by having live sex.
No. I would seduce the crowd as Cleopatra had seduced the mighty Caesar.
With anal beads.
Burning with desire, I leaned over, my arse up in the air as I pulled slightly on the nearly invisible thread hanging between my buttocks where Mahmoud had inserted a string of blue beads inside my anal opening. I flinched, remembering how he spread my legs, then brushed the cord of beads across my anus before nestling them inside me. The very act itself was quite pleasurable, my anus well lubricated with the oil of the gods to smooth the way as he tapped my rectal area to help me relax my muscles. Next, he inserted his finger inside me, knowing he’d find resistance, his movement slow and gentle. Then he inserted the beads in my anus one at a time, putting as many inside as I found comfortable. When I planned my dance, I intended for the Nubian to pull the semirigid beads out of my arse, his manipulative black fingers slick with olive oil gripping the azure blue beads one at a time, while I brought myself to orgasm manually.
I’ve changed my mind, my eyes told Mahmoud. He bowed and moved back, but not before I saw surprise and disappointment cross his dark brow. I would miss Mahmoud’s tender touch and his skill in performing the art of pleasure, but I had made up my mind. Though the Nubian burned like an eternal flame, knew no fatigue and asked for nothing, all of which amplified his worth in my eyes, I needed someone who could do more than satisfy my physical needs.
Was the stranger such a man?
I was filled with a sensual reawakening. I was seducing a new man. I had every reason to believe my deleterious sex life was about to change.
I performed a series of short steps leading me closer to the stranger I coveted tonight. I always prided myself on being a dancer who didn’t merely execute movements, but who experienced the dance through the pulsating rhythms inside me. I wanted to experience an erotic dreamscape as I had never done before, my spirit fusing with technique, redefining my art not as something impermanent but as a lasting impression on the audience so deep it scarred a portion of their soul.
I shimmied, wiggling my shoulders as Josette switched from jazz to Debussy, adding a classical aura to my ancient dance. I stopped and stood before the stranger, then turned my back to him, my nude buttocks so close to the bulge in his trousers, we nearly touched. A pleasant sensation went through me when he reached out to caress my gold skin. I wiggled away. But not far.
“Will you be my Caesar tonight?” I said to the stranger, twisting my head around and offering him the metal ring attached to the string of beads in my arse for easy extraction. I uttered the words in a hushed voice loud enough for him to hear. “And pull out the beads?”
“Fast or slow?” he asked, grinning. I blinked, noting his accent. So he was American.
“You decide.”
“And afterward?” His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t playing games and he wanted me to know that.
“I decide where we go from there.” I kept my voice hard but not without a teasing huskiness.
He grinned again. “How can I lose?”
“You can’t.” I looked up at him and laughed. “And neither can I.”
I wiggled my arse, setting off a hip-rattling shimmy that I could see set his teeth on edge. As if his libido raged and he wanted to stop my dance. I couldn’t stop now if I wanted to, though when I look back on my performance, I realize it was a macabre blend of both depravity and grace, my metallic body luring this stranger into my web of obsession which nearly cost us our freedom as well as our lives.
I reached between my legs, inserting one finger, then two, hiding my private moment in the cool shadows hugging the hot spotlight, while its tentacles gripped my buttocks with white light. I brushed my fingers across the tiny bud inside me, hard and rigid, my body coming alive with a wanton sexuality as I stroked my clit back and forth, swaying my hips in a compelling rhythm, feeling the need for release rising within me. When I knew the moment was close, I threw my head back, moaning, drinking in the attention of the feverish crowd watching me, their voices eerily silent as they held their breath.
All but the stranger.
I could hear him breathing hard behind me, an impatient tug on the cord alerting me he wouldn’t wait much longer to free the four small beads imprisoned inside my anus. When my climax came, it happened fast, so fast I couldn’t stop shuddering as an intense euphoria rolled over me.
“Now!” I cried out. “Pull the cord now!”
Letting go with a guttural moan, I reached the pinnacle of my orgasm, squeezing my pubic muscles together as the stranger pulled out the beads one by one. His calculated movements stimulated the tight ring of muscles around my anal opening, making them contract and sending wave after wave of pleasure rolling over me, some so powerful their intensity gripped me, making me dizzy with a mixture of delicious rapture and abject curiosity. I couldn’t stop the unbelievable sensations racing through me, while at the same time, all I could think of was, Would the stranger follow me? Join me in a continuation of our erotic scenario away from the scrutiny of hungry eyes?
And if he did, would I regret it?
I had my answer when I bade him to accompany me to a private alcove behind the bar.
“You were magnificent,” he said, handing me the string of beads.
“Keep them as a souvenir of your visit to the Cleopatra Club,” I said, wrapping them in a cloth napkin and stuffing them in his jacket pocket. He flinched. I whipped off the skullcap and veil, my platinum hair flying around me.
“I want something else.” He nuzzled his face in my damp hair, then his lips brushed the nape of my neck, sending a cool shiver down my naked back. Lifting up my face, I turned around, knowing he would kiss me. His lips were but a breath away from touching mine when Ramzi stormed through the beaded curtain and grabbed my arm, hurting me.
“No woman makes a fool out of me.” He didn’t let go, his fingers digging into my upper arm. Gold paint rubbed off onto his skin, but he held fast.
“Leave me alone!” I yelled.
“You heard the lady,” the stranger said, his tone threatening.
The Egyptian ignored him. “Get dressed. You’re coming with me.”
“No.” My refusal was short but firm. I struggled to control my breathing, though I threw away any need to explain myself. My raw desire for satisfaction had been assuaged, but I wasn’t finished with the stranger. “This is my last night at the Cleopatra Club, Ramzi. I’m leaving.”
“We have a contract,” he insisted.
“It doesn’t include my body. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m dining with—” I looked at the stranger. He’d taken off his brown leather flight jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Ready to pummel Ramzi? That thought gave me courage, not to mention the sight of his muscular chest outlined in a tight shirt injecting a shot of decadent adrenaline into my exhausted limbs.
“Chuck Dawn.”
I smiled. “Mr. Dawn and I are old friends.”
Ramzi wouldn’t back down. “You lie, my English lady. You use men like a dancing girl uses a scarf, rubbing it back and forth between her legs—to pleasure only herself. No man can satisfy you.”
“Take that back, pal, or you’ll regret it,” Chuck said, his fists clenched, ready to strike. A cavalier. I liked that.
“Calm down, Ramzi, you don’t understand Eve.” Maxi came between the two men, her slim boyish figure shapeless in a man’s suit. She wore a monocle in her left eye. I hadn’t seen her wear that masculine ensemble for years. “She was the queen of the Berlin cabarets until she abandoned us to marry a devilishly handsome gentleman.” Maxi glared at me, her eyes flashing with a jealousy I’d never seen before as pure as the gold paint shimmering on my skin.
“I see what this is all about, Maxi. All these years and you never said anything to me about how you felt about my marriage.”
“You never asked.” She grabbed Ramzi’s arm. “Buy me a drink.”
“No.” He pulled away from her. “I’m not leaving without my English rose.”
Maxi snapped the monocle out of her eye and rubbed the glass between her fingers in an impatient manner. “I insist you buy me a drink.”
“He won’t listen to you, Fräulein. My brother always wants what he can’t have.” Laila put her hands possessively around the German girl’s waist. “And so do I.”
“Are these people friends of yours?” Chuck asked, a quiet intensity in his voice, his eyes glaring at the Egyptian. He wrapped his leather jacket around my shoulders. In spite of the heat of my dance, I shivered.
“I believed they were,” I said.
“We’re getting out of here.” Chuck looked around for the exit, then noticed two Moors blocking the lift. “Though I imagine it won’t be easy.”
I gave him back his jacket, then grabbed my galabiya off the chair, but I didn’t put it on. I allowed him one more look at my nude, gold-painted body. “I never said anything about me was easy.”