Chapter 2: The Khanum's Pleasure
The man who was called Erik had been summoned, and I waited impatiently for him. He always kept me delayed at his leisure, something that I one day intended to make him pay dearly for. But...not today. Today, he was too useful.
I had sent away my servants. I was tired of the rumours that were spreading throughout the harem, and after I had been bathed and appropriately dressed, I lay on my divan, alone and properly weary of this tedium. I was not ashamed that I had taken to meeting my Angel of Doom in the same room, with little more than a gauze curtain between us, though the man who had spread that news did not live to spread any more. If he had, he certainly would have ignited the whole harem with my latest scandal; I had chosen to remove my veil.
I wore a veil because, in general terms, it suited me to do so. I did enjoy the mystery that comes with such a mask; and it pleased me to know that beneath it, I was more beautiful than even that mystery could imply. However, it also pleased me to show Erik what I willingly chose to hide. It incensed him to think that someone as beautiful as myself would hide their face when they did not have to, and then he would think of his miserable plight, and become even angrier. It was really quite amusing, not to mention attractive.
A servant appeared in the door, and carefully kept her eyes glued to the floor as she spoke, so as not to see my facial nudity. If she saw, she knew she would be killed, and it was as much a selfish gesture as a mark of respect. I smiled at the top of her head with portention that was lost on the girl. "O Khanum," she bowed carefully, "The magician is here."
"Show him in," I ordered, "And then wait outside."
The girl did as she was told, and a moment later, the tall and nearly skeletal form that I had come to almost love, in a peculiar way, entered.
"'The magician,'" I mocked amusedly, "The magician indeed. Tell me, Magician, could you possibly conjure yourself up any later? Your tardiness really does grow tedious."
"I am afraid you called at an awkward moment," he said, coldly, confirming that he had indeed received my present. I brushed some dark hair away from my shoulder.
"I dare say I did. That is partly why I wished to talk to you. However, I do have a momentary task for you," I said, letting boredom flood into my voice in droves. I reclined back on the bed, stretching my arms lazily as if I were going to ask him to do nothing more horrible than fetch me a glass of water.
He bowed slightly, his attenuated form pulling forcibly on the fabric of his coat, accentuating his gauntness of frame. "How can I be of service," he intoned, and though it was meant as a question, his funereal voice dragged the dipthong down into the mud of his tiresome depression.
"The girl that brought you in," I said, still maintaining my lofty and detatched air that I knew would so irritate him in a moment, "I want you to kill her."
The sight of his all ready stiff form get even straighter was so tickling to me that I had to control the urge to laugh out loud. Even through his mask, I could see him frowning deeply, and his glare only served to make me joyful. "Bring her in here," I ordered, trying to keep...how did he say it? Oh, yes. Trying to keep l'ennui in my voice, to hide my excitement.
He strode silently to the door and opened it. I heard his voice but not his words, and a moment later, he and the young servant girl re-entered, the door shutting behind them. The girl gasped when she saw my face unveiled, and this was so ironically amusing that I couldn't control my laughter. That she would gasp upon viewing my face...I wondered what she would do if I ordered her to look upon the true face of her future assaultor.
"Am I that surprising?" I asked, deceptively warm. The girl immediately fell to the floor, bowing and scraping, mumbling apologies and declarations of my freedom and beauty. Her adulation would have made any woman preen pridefully, but I was not any woman, I was the Khanum, and this girl had a purpose for me. "Get up, girl! Stop that grovelling."
The girl stood slowly, her head still bowing to me as if she had some sort of tic.
"Erik," I said, gesturing to the young girl, "This girl's name is Chaka."
That was a lie, of course. This particular girl was far too young to have a name...and anyway, it displeased me to name my servants. I was certain that they called one another a specific name, amongst themselves...but what does a lion care what the rabbits name each other? But a name would suit her, for now, since it would assist in Erik's disparagement.
He bowed to her, politely, as if he were a suitor and not a murderer, and said, "Good evening, Chaka."
True to her training, she bowed respectfully to him, and did not speak. She seemed rather confused at having been brought forth and suddenly named, and this naivete was really very funny, if one took the time to think about it. To think that someone could live nameless for so many years, then finally get what they certainly desired most, only to have it ripped from them, moments later.
"What am I to do?" Erik asked, his tone absolutely glacial in the summer heat. I put a finger to my lips in thought, and leaned forward on the divan.
"Show her your face," I said, and though I fought it, one side of my mouth curled up into a delighted smile. He hated being unmasked, but I could not deny myself the satisfying screech of horror that my servant was likely to emit upon seeing his terrible countenance, nor the uncontrollable flinch of shame and hurt that Erik had not yet been able to train himself out of.
I was surprised at the ease with which he obeyed me. I was used to an objection, or at the very least an unhappy sigh...but neither greeted my ears, to my pleasure. Perhaps I was finally breaking his will! This excited me beyond reason. Resigned, he lifted his hands to the mask and drew it away from his face. The servant girl barely glanced at him before she screamed, and burst into noisy, terrified tears. She began to back away from him, eyes unable to move from his gaunt monstrosity, praying so loudly and quickly that it sounded as if she were speaking in tongues.
"Pick her up," I ordered, over the noise, and Erik did so, holding the struggling slave as if she were nothing more than a scarf blowing in the wind. "Hold her to you, Erik." This, finally, seemed to affect him. It amused me that he would sooner kill a girl than hold her close, and I had to refrain from saying as much, to keep focused on the task at hand. However reluctantly, the man did follow my orders, holding the girl's back against his chest as she thrashed wildly to get away.
His eyes did not implore mine as we gazed at each other, and he barely hesitated when I ordered him, simply, to break the girl's neck. Her all ready large eyes widened even further, and she began screaming in a manner most unbecoming to a lady, until Erik masterfully cut her off with a quick snap of her spinal column. The limp servant fell to the floor like so much dirty laundry, and I laughed gleefully at Erik's marvellous performance, not to mention his self-control. He hated hurting women, and I knew that had I not been there, he would have bent over her corpse and mourned.
"Did she displease you somehow, or have you simply missed my talents?" he asked me, coldly, betraying his true thoughts to me.
She'd given me the girl's name on purpose. It was easy enough to kill, frivolously. The Khanum had taught me to love the thrill of death even more than I all ready had. But to end the vitality of a body was different, far different, from murdering an innocent servant girl.
Chaka's lifeless body slipped from my grasp, and I dared not let the anger or sorrow in my heart show in my expression. My depression from earlier had not ebbed, and I felt a sudden urge to sing a requiem for that pretty dead thing on the floor beside me. How easily it could have been the girl sent to me laying there, now. How wastefully life was spent, here.
"Did she displease you somehow, or have you simply missed my talents?" My tone was icy, but my heart, regrettably, ached. The woman's almost childish laughter at the girl's death, and now at my contrition, grated on my nerves as so many of her mannerisms did.
I could not quite see her clearly through the curtain that held decency in place, but I could see enough to know that she was not wearing her veil. She mocked me, without seeming to intend to, but I knew better than to think that any pain or unhappiness she caused me was not maliciously and meticulously planned beforehand. She was hardly dressed, as scantily clad as my slave girl (what a hateful phrase!) had been, though she was much thinner, and her body was showing signs of age. Her arms lay like willow fronds across her many pillows, her wide hips accentuated because of the position she chose.
"Erik, do you remember a conversation we had, a while ago?" she asked, ignoring my question.
"Refresh my memory," I said, replacing my mask onto my face.
"Don't put that back on," the khanum ordered, suddenly angry and petulant, "Take it off again." I opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me off with, "You may make a pithy comment first, if you wish, but do take it off."
Checked, the pithy comment died on my lips, and I shamefully removed my mask. Despite my irritation at the woman, I had to admit that I had deserved that. The presence of this immensely predictable woman was beginning to rub off on me. When my mask lay discarded on a lamp table, the khanum spoke again, as if she had not been interrupted.
"Do you recall, I asked you if you had ever had a woman. If memory serves me, you didn't answer me."
"Perhaps I can remind you that I did answer you, madam" I said, calmly, "If you remember, I said that I am terribly busy."
"Perhaps a more direct answer would be prudent," she replied, instantly. She remembered my reply, of course. And, for that matter, she knew the answer, as she had then...but that did not satisfy her. Only by admitting my humiliation could I satisfy her perverse longing. I sighed heavily, and though I desperately wanted to stare at the floor, I looked that hateful, tempting woman directly into her unveiled eyes.
"No, madam," I said, with politeness so pointed I could have stabbed her with it, and would have, for that matter, "I remain virginal."
There. I had said it, to the greatest extent that she desired, and I had managed it without a demeaned sigh. This seemed to please her, as she leaned forward suddenly, a look of acute interest on her elegant face.
"What did you do with that girl I sent you?" she asked me, and I sighed. I'd been right. I almost always was, especially involving the predictability of the khanum. I was suddenly glad that I hadn't touched the girl. If I had made love to her when I had refused the attentions of the most powerful woman in Persia...
"I ate her," I replied, scathing mordancy dripping like poisoned honey from every syllable. The laughter that burst forth from the khanum was riotous, startling and disturbing. I had been expecting her wrath, but it seemed she was in a good mood, today.
"So...even when I send you the means to your end, you do not follow through," this appeared to interest her greatly, as she paused for a moment in thought, and then continued, "Are you even capable of wanting a woman?"
That comment was meant to incite me to anger, and it might have, had I been anything other than aware of the khanum's tendencies. Of course I was able, and again, she knew that I was...doubtlessly it had been reported back to her what had happened between myself and the slave girl...but she would insist on insulting me.
"Next, madam, you shall be asking if I also require oxygen to live."
"Sometimes I do wonder," she said, playfully, and then spoke again. "Erik...I know your name, but do you yet know mine?"
Even my adroitness at reading the khanum's thought patterns did not prepare me for that. I was taken slightly aback, and probably pulled a face before replying, "I do not." Which was true. It had occured to me, of course, that she probably did have a name, but I suppose I had never precisely cared what it was.
"It is Vashti."
"Ah," I replied, unsure of where this was leading.
"It means beautiful," the woman I now knew to be named Vashti continued, and she pulled the curtain away, revealing her face to me clearly, "Do you find it to be fitting?"
I paused for a moment, before answering in the affirmative. And she was a handsome woman indeed, though she was approaching her middle age. Scowl lines traced around her mouth, and hints of crow's feet were vaguely apparent at the edges of her eyes, beneath the caked make-up...but I would have gone so far as to call her beautiful, yes.
She smiled at me in such a manner that let me know that I had narrowly avoided punishment, "I'm so glad you think so."
There was a long pause, as the woman before me gazed directly at me, almost hungrily. Her eyes scanned me from head to foot, with particular attention to...to a certain area that caused a light blush to attend to my pale cheeks. As a matter of fact, she was almost unabashedly staring, now, turning her head from side to side as if to get a reckoning on my girth. Slightly appalled but highly aroused by this shameless behavior, I knew she was baiting me, once again. She was making me think that she was interested in me, to see how I would react. Would I let my guard down? Or would I simply turn bright red and say nothing. Determined not to give her the satisfaction of heightening my opprobrium, I cleared my throat.
"Why, precisely, have you sent for me, madam?" I asked, as frigidly as I could manage, given the fire in my belly. Only now did her dark eyes stray from my lengthening chagrin to my face. There was a look of light surprise in them.
"You do not know?"
"No, madam," I replied, truthfully, "I do not."
She sat back, as if genuinely shocked at my words. I felt my temper flaring, as it always did when I did not feel that I had complete control over the situation at hand. I was not certain what the khanum was thinking, not sure what she had intended for me, and this disturbed me. But she was not to reveal her plan, just yet, for the next thing she said to me was a complete non-sequitur.
"I think it quaint that you continue to wear your stuffy French fashions in Persia," she stated with an arrogant smile. I barely paused at this sudden change of topic, being at least slightly used to the khanum's disposition to abberation.
"It pleases me," I replied, shortly.
"But the heat," she insisted, and someone who did not know the woman might have mistaken her argumentativeness for concern for my comfort.
"When there is heat in France, we still wear these clothes."
"Hah! You westerners are fools," she stated, unequivocally. I found myself disinclined to point out that she presides over a country in which the women wear pants and the men wear skirts. In any case, I would not have had time for my comment, because she immediately followed her sentence with, "Would you care for a seat?" she asked, gesturing to the space beside her, "Or do your stiff trousers not allow it?"
"Perhaps I prefer to stand," I said, feeling my heart fill with trepidation. I was aware of her improprieties...meeting me at first in the same room, then with the opaque, guarded curtain replaced with a layer of gauze silk, then completely alone, and now without her veil...but to invite me to sit beside her was surely a breach of her social mores so extreme that she could not have meant it.
"I wonder if I was unclear," the khanum breathed, sending a shiver down my spine, "I recall ordering you to sit down."