White Moon Black Sea (5 page)

“Yes, it gave up on him. He died here and is buried in the cemetery up on the hill above the port.”

Humayun listened to the pair talking about the others whom she had shared those happy days with. They were talking about a woman called Marcia Maine, a dumpy, seventy-five-year-old Australian, revered if at all for a onetime opera hit. She had been in Xania for a very long time composing operas. Once a year, usually at Christmas, she invited them all for a drink. Her life was filled with visitors, invited guests who passed through Xania on their way somewhere else. The Australian musical world, along with avant-garde New York, waited vainly for her to repeat her success.

Humayun remembered the woman and felt her presence and those happy days as if she and Rashid were living them all over again right then and there. She began to laugh and, slipping her arm through Rashid’s, she asked Liz in English, which was much more polished since she had last been in Xania, “There was a very odd man from Hollywood, a sort of half-man, half-girl — Teddy. Yes, that was it, Teddy Todd —”

Rashid interrupted her. “Of course, Teddy Todd, that screaming queen.” Rashid laughed for the three of them. “He was a joke. A Hollywood cameraman. Hadn’t Joan Crawford stolen him from Hedy Lamarr, who in turn had hijacked him from Joan Bennett because he got their best angle every time? He had been coming to Xania long before any of us and spent several months of the year here.”

Liz stopped laughing, took a drink of her beer, and said, “You two won’t believe it. He is still here. Still dressed by Rodeo Drive at all times. Still pounding out his interminable memoirs. Still appearing each year with a wow of a boy just old enough to pass for his grandson. He still leaves
right before Christmas every year for Beverly Hills and a little tuck here and there to keep his face-lift in place. Remember how the other homosexual foreign residents tried to tell him to play down his queenliness and confine his voracious sexual appetite for Greek sailors to the port? Wasn’t noticeably successful.”

“Teddy Todd. Do the Islanders still laugh at him but soak up his generosity, just as we all did?”

“Seen any leopards with their spots changed? He still holds a small court of his own at a table on the other side of the Kavouria restaurant, and always in the sun. And even now, the odd time that we do go to the Kavouria, one by one we give up our tables in the shade and join him. There are other foreigners of the old days still living here, but they and the life they used to live are so different now. We have all changed so, all except Teddy. We keep to our houses most of the time, except for shopping or an occasional afternoon sitting with friends from abroad. There is no longer a long table for us at the Kavouria. Now, when we do dine here in the port, it is usually at other, newer restaurants that have an international cuisine.”

Liz Cordell began gathering up her basket of shopping and stood to say good-bye. She looked at them and said, “You know, it really is lovely to see you both again. It’s all so boring, and bourgeois here now. I even bore myself asking, ‘Where are all the interesting, talented people now? The crazies with dreams to fulfill, the creative and interesting Greeks. Where is the drama and the scandal we all thrived on? Oh for a younger version of Maude and William Murphy to arrive here again.’ Remember them?

“Wasn’t she just like a charwoman, he an ancient little prince of a man? An old and famous roué in the Paris of the twenties where he ran with the bohemians of the day. Hemingway, Miller, Fitzgerald all put bits of him into print. Still with a twinkle in his eye for the ladies and a pinch for the young girls. Still the roué at a very old age, with a nagging Maude to care for him, pick up slippers, sweep the ashes from his collar, and chide his obsessions with women and fucking.

“Still after forty years, writing the great pornographic novel. Poor, with rich and famous friends he never imposed on. He was as much a delight as Maude was a boring, worrying, bitter nag. Anytime she heard him air his lust, she’d sit up and holler, ‘You disgusting old man, shut up. No one wants to hear your filth. Why do you go on so?’ ”

Liz laughed a little and continued, “Remember when she would catch him kissing and petting a young girl, she would beat him about the chest and pull him away as if he were a senile old fool or a child? Sweet, filthy, cunt-mad Willie, who all his life never wanted to do anything but fuck, who wanted to experience all that was possible sexually. And poor, dumpy Maude with her common features, her tatty gray hair, heavy moustache, and those dreadful wrinkles that appear on the upper lip of some old women. Where
did
they pick each other up?

“Poor old Maude. She wore herself out trying to make ends meet for them. Abused him for still wanting to fuck her and every woman alive. They were regulars at the long table at noontime meals, unless their allowance ran out. I really liked the old boy. I wish she could have been nicer to him.”

Humayun had liked him too, even if he was always touching her thighs under the table and whispering things in her ears that it was better not to understand. “What happened to them?” she asked.

“Oh, the Murphys left the same year as you did. They were trying a new place — Ibiza — after some scandal that resulted in their papers not being renewed.”

The three kissed one another on the cheeks, and Liz said as they parted, “You were our prize young dilettante in those days, Rashid. Slotted in as a perfect contrast to Larry Wardman and Malcolm Phipps and Martin Bolder and Ian Weston. What happened to us all, and where’d you all go to live and play out your dreams?”

“What happened to us, Liz, is we grew up and became successful. Where did we go? We’re still circling the world looking for a Xania that might work for us.”

Rashid and Humayun sat in silence for a few minutes after Liz left. The past was there with them, but the past
was the past. They both felt it without having to speak of it. Humayun was aware that Rashid could not take his gaze off her.

“You are one of the Xanias that still works for me, Humayun. Let’s go.”

They had surprised the owners of the Kavouria, the taverna that had been their favorite place to eat in the old days, who had thrown their arms around them in a glorious welcome. After coffee at a tiny table set on the cobblestones overlooking the water, with a fine view of the restored period mosque built during the Turkish occupation by one of Rashid’s ancestors, they walked the few steps to Rashid’s house. Each caught up in nostalgia for Xania, they were as two young lovers on holiday.

3

T
hey had hardly slept, just dozing off between each act of sex, and, as was always the way with them, the excitement doubled and trebled with every ensuing coupling and orgasm. More, they always wanted more, and it had to be different and more thrilling. Both were masters of getting what they wanted. In the morning, sitting on the balcony where they could look over the sea and partaking of a breakfast of champagne, fresh figs and strawberries, omelets stuffed with wild mushrooms and slivers of crisp bacon, and wild honey and sweet butter on freshly baked bread only served to sharpen their taste buds for more of each other. Lust was upon them like a morning dew, and all thought of anything else was far from their minds.

It was never over for them. Rashid was being sensitive, creative, sensual, and complex. And he wanted her, Humayun, all over again. She felt exactly the same way herself — she wanted him. He stood up and tenderly drew her to him. Slowly he stripped her of the diaphanous black
silk shawl she had wrapped herself in, careful not to touch her skin as he did. He kissed her lips lightly with great gentleness. When she was completely naked, he ran his fingers through her long, golden-red hair several times and then, putting his hand on her shoulder, he turned her around, his eyes boring deep inside her as he surveyed every inch of her body.

She stood there with her exotic sexual master, who touched his lips tenderly upon hers, yearning to be taken by him yet again. To feel him penetrate her with wild passion was the least of her erotic desires. In a low, husky voice, he ordered her to stand there as she was and be very still …. Humayun was trembling with desire for him. Her breasts sensitive, begging to be touched. She wanted Rashid to plunder them with his hands, to suck them. She wanted to feel the fierceness of his teeth upon her beseechingly protruding nipples. She sighed, filled with the urge to be drained of her passion for him.

He never took his eyes from her body. They kept roving over it slowly, and as he looked he opened his silk robe and let it fall where he stood. Then it was her turn to look. Her eyes were fixed on his long, thick penis resting against his thigh. He watched her watching him and saw a lasciviousness in her eyes that told him what she wanted.

He finally touched her, held her face in his hands and then ran them caressingly down her long, slender neck to where it tapered into her wide-shouldered, tall, lean body dominated by firm, magnificently full breasts. She shivered with anticipation as he clasped her narrow waist. Slim-hipped from the front, she had full and voluptuously round, tight buttocks.

He adored her; he recognized the greed in her eyes for his long, thick phallus and knew how much she wanted him. He was merciless in taking her, but not before he had laid her on the breakfast table and plied her with strawberries dipped in honey and cream, then sucked them slowly from her vagina, all the time nibbling on her clitoris. The heat of the sun, the sound of the sea only added to the sensuous morning.

Then he stood naked and rampant before her, waiting
but not giving her what she wanted. She finally reached out to take his throbbing penis in her hands and with all the right words began to goad him into a near-frenzy for her. He pushed her down on her knees and, lifting her beautiful face up, he ordered her mouth open. Her sucking drew him to the edge of sexual ecstasy, his words of instigation were hardly necessary. He pressed his hands down on the top of her head and all but gagged her with himself, commanding and controlling the way she served him. And this most extraordinarly submissive and feminine beauty delivered herself freely to the violence of his passion for her.

Rashid led her into the bedroom. Now he would give her what she wanted, what they both wanted, penis and cunt fucking together to achieve an endless stream of orgasms to draw them out of the world and into an oblivion of sex.

After he was spent, Rashid left the room for a minute and returned to the bed with two small glasses of Metaxas. He looked down on Humayun, who was lying on her back, one arm folded over her eyes, her hair streaming out across the pillow. Her knees were close together, bent at an angle to the top half of her body. She looked to Rashid like a voluptuous naked broken doll. What was it that impelled him to this breaking of her?

He smiled while looking down at her and an excitement went through him, for he
had
broken her. Putting the two glasses of brandy on the side table next to the bed, he sat down on the edge of it next to her. For the first time that morning he showed some tenderness to her. He stroked her hair several times and then took her arm away from her eyes. He bent down and, turning her face to him, kissed her tenderly, gently on her bruised lips.

“Have a glass of brandy with me, Humayun, and then you must dress. Christos has been waiting for us in the port.” He handed her the glass. To her he seemed so different now from the man who had taken her violently all through the night and the morning.

Humayun sat up with her knees tight together against her chest, hiding her nakedness, and sipped her brandy. She was aware that a dimension she had always sought in
loving Rashid did exist. No matter how tenuous it was. This strange interlude, returning to Crete and to his house where it had all begun, had proved that to her. She could be more to him than an obedient sexual servant. Now the knowledge had entered them both. For her this was a joy, a finding of what had long eluded her. Would it change the life they shared, this confirmation of the bond linking them in the role each played for the other?

In her heart she could only want this strange, unexpected interlude to go on forever. But she had shed the illusions she had once held about Rashid. She knew he would transform himself confusingly from lover to sexual master, as he had done in this very house so many years before. She had been shocked then. No such thing could happen now. Their positions had been defined, and they had lived happily with them ever since.

Rashid sat down next to her. She locked her gaze to his. He gathered her in his arms and slid her onto his lap, caressing the nakedness of her. They remained silent, savoring their brandy. Humayun was aware of contentment. It declared itself to her in his every gesture, the way he held her in his arms. She could see it in his face, sense the beat of it in his heart, the flow of it from his skin. She knew deep in her soul that, wonderful as it was between them, that serene joy enveloping him had little to do with her. Yet how could she be offended? It was enough for her that he was happy and content, and that they were what they were to each other.

Finally, he spoke. “I don’t expect we shall ever return to Xania. Do you?”

“Maybe not together, and not in our bodies, but I know I shall. All my life, and after I am dead. My soul will wander under the sun in this old port of Xania, this house, and haunt this sea. How can it ever forget the beauty of Crete, the love and passion and happiness it found here with you? Oh yes. My heart and my soul will roam here for eternity.”

They looked into each other’s eyes and Humayun was delighted to see in Rashid’s that the outside world had not yet come completely between them. She took her moment.
She placed her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss that ignited a flame of passion in them both. This was where their love lay, in a shared erotic life. She wanted him to know that she understood that. The kiss was calculated to end their newfound dialogue on another kind of love, one that had come to them through their years of sexual bliss together.

Passion spent once more, they hurriedly started to dress, knowing how angry Christos would be for the hours they had kept him waiting. They laughed and teased each other about their enormous appetite for all that was sexual. Rashid left Humayun to finish dressing. She was to join him and Christos at a café a few doors away from the house. His leaving alone provoked her memories of the last time they had left this house … it had not been together then either.

Memory took over. She had taken a swim. A gay and happy Humayun had entered the house. She had been surprised to see that Rashid had a friend who had come to stay. A handsome, tall, slim Frenchman with the kindest, smiling, sexy eyes she had ever seen. A warmth, a lovingness had emanated from him which had overwhelmed her. Unnerved by it and the intrusion of a stranger in the house, she had behaved outrageously with Rashid in front of Pierre.

That night the three of them had lain on goatskin carpets before a roaring fire. They drank Calvados, cracked walnuts and ate the sweet meat of them, and plucked huge hothouse strawberries from a large bowl in front of them. Delicacies brought over by Pierre from Paris for the New Year.

Rashid and his friend talked a great deal about Xania and the foreigners who lived there. Then, to her surprise, he had told Pierre about Humayun. It appeared all so vivid to her now, their words and what happened ringing clear in her memory.

“Ah, my Humayun. Do you find her beautiful, Pierre?”

“I could hardly deny it.”

“Would you believe that she is my sexual slave?”

“Could a man expect such good fortune?”

Rashid snapped his fingers and she rolled over against him. Putting his arms around her, he said, “Shall we prove to Pierre how lucky I am?”

With a neat movement he stripped off her sweater, baring the upper part of her body to Pierre’s appreciative gaze.

“Your slave,” she asserted proudly.

Fondling her breasts with gestures that were frank invitations to Pierre, he continued, “And do you enjoy being in bondage to me?”

“How could it be otherwise?”

“Wonderful, eh, Pierre?”

“You are to be envied, Rashid.”

“True. And I like to watch other men’s envy grow. Humayun, strip off your skirt and your underclothes, slowly, for me.”

She obeyed and could see the excitement her obedience stirred in him. Roughly he pulled and twisted on her hard, pointed nipples. There was a menace and danger in his eyes that she was helpless to resist. Entranced by it, she craved more instructions. She lay there in his arms with the firelight gleaming over her body. The three were silent for a few minutes, leisurely drinking and picking at the delicacies. Rashid broke the silence.

“Humayun, I want Pierre to see what a beautiful cunt you have. Spread your legs open.”

She had no idea what made her hesitate. She had no qualms about exhibiting herself to men; in fact, she quite enjoyed it. It excited her to sexually seduce, and the years with Rashid’s father had taught her there was power and praise to be gained by doing it well. There was even a greater reward. It had pleased Rashid’s father to show her off and lend her to other men: To obey and please him became her gratification. Instinctively now she knew that it was Rashid who made her hesitate. Never had she been with such a young and exciting man, or one so complex, one who matched her own sexual appetites and made it clear to her that he would keep her and enrich her life. In that moment of hesitation she forgot herself and her place. He reminded her sharply.

Though her hesitation was only for a moment, Rashid registered it. He slapped her hard across the breasts. His excitement was palpable.

“Remember, you are my slave. Obey.”

She promised herself then and there never to need reminding in future. She would earn a place in his life that would make her indispensable to him.

Her arms extended upward as her legs spread wide. He reached down with caressing hands and parted her pink and silky-soft labia as wide as he could. With delicate fingers he toyed with the slit between her legs in a way he knew would bring her pleasure. Delight shone already in her eyes. Huskily he announced, “Humayun, tonight is to be special. Let’s show Pierre what a divinely erotic woman you are. Let us offer him a superb sexual exhibition. Then I will put you on the block. Auction you off to my friend. If he bids high enough, I will sell you to him, for a week. No more, only a week. Just long enough to see how much I will miss you. It’s time we moved on from Xania anyway. What do you say, Pierre?”

“You cannot be serious?”

“Oh, but I am. Entirely serious.”

“And what does Humayun have to say?”

“Yes, what do you have to say?” Rashid asked, gazing deeply into her eyes.

The lust Humayun saw in the look he was giving her left her no choice. The idea of displaying their mutual lust to Pierre aroused her to answer, “I am your slave. I will show my bondage in any way that you desire.”

“Answered like a slave. So, Pierre, will you make a bid for her?”

Was Rashid likely to follow through, Pierre wondered. It was too bizarre. “Whose are the rival bids?” he asked.

“Why me, of course. Since I have the advantage of having had the lady, and know what a rare jewel she is, I will allow you to whet your appetite for the sale. You shall have a preview. At my invitation.”

So Pierre was tantalized, as only a man can be who desires but cannot yet have, who sees another man make free with what may soon be his. Rashid flayed bare
Humayun’s sensual being in every act of sexual humiliation possible. Humayun opened herself to them, turning them into acts of supreme pleasure that spilled into convulsive orgasms.

When he was finished with her, they lay in each other’s arms in front of the fire. Pierre sitting only a few feet away from them, was overwhelmed with lust. An enforced voyeur, he was half-spent by restraint. He found Humayun the most sensuous, sexually hungry woman imaginable. Her extraordinary physical beauty made her a siren he could not resist.

“Well, Pierre?” Rashid said after some time. “Actually, I need not ask, I have only to look at you to know that you must have her after the sample, the taste of what you will bid for. Take her. Come and take her.”

Pierre made no move.

“Go to Pierre, Humayun,” he ordered.

She remained where she was. Coolly, Rashid reached for a narrow black snakeskin whip. She knew that whip. Before the leather landed on her flesh, she had rolled over into the arms of his friend.

Pierre had watched them all through their orgy and had said nothing. He said nothing now. He placed his empty glass on the hearth, raised himself from the goatskin carpet, and, taking her in his arms, lifted her and carried her upstairs to the bedroom. He kicked the door open and laid her on the large, old-fashioned, four-poster bed. He undressed and then carried her into the bathroom where he bathed her. Next he dried her off and carried her back to the bed.