Page 8 of Hot & Heavy

"Ahhhh," Zena said with as much honest sympathy as the empty-headed girl could garner.

"Toki the Trader sold me to Caliph Abdul Abba in the Baghdad marketplace." An experience I would not want to repeat… ever.

"I have heard of him. Why would such an important caliph be interested in such as you?"

Zena's incredulity should have been insulting, but Madrene was beyond caring about such trivial concerns. All she cared about was escaping, something she'd been unable to do thus far. Besides, her appearance probably was dreadful. Her blond hair hung in a single, disheveled braid down her back, not having been washed or combed since she'd left Baghdad. She wore an ankle-length, hooded gunna of coarse linen with a rope belt. She could hardly remember the times when she'd worn embroidered silk and jewels. Well, this garb was better than the transparent garments she'd been forced to wear before coming here. "To answer your question as to why any man of importance would want me, it could be because Toki, the traitor, told everyone in the slave mart that I was a Norse princess, accomplished in the bed arts." Blather, blather, blather. Betimes my tongue outruns my good sense.

Zena's little mouth formed a circle of surprise. She did not question Madrene's lineage, having more interest in other matters… like sex. "Do you have such talents?"

"Hah! I never noticed any art in the bed furs of Karl, my former husband, and he is the only man with whom I ever coupled. To further enhance my desirability, Toki claimed I could do exquisite things with my mouth, whatever that meant. Needless to say, the bidding was enthusiastic."

Zena frowned with confusion. "You said your former husband was the only man you have lain with. How can that be? Did the caliph not purchase you for his harem?"

"Yea, he did. The slimy weasel! As did the other seven caliphs and sultans who purchased me after that, including your husband, who brought me here."

Zena's dark eyes went wide at that number. Then she resumed frowning. "Does my husband know this?"

"He did not when he purchased me. He does now." Madrene now knew how a man could holler and break wind at the same time.

"Why did those men not use your body? Are you diseased?"

Madrene smiled to herself in remembrance. She had never been one to believe in luck, but that was the only way she could describe all that she had escaped. Oh, her capture by Steinolf had been unlucky, but she had not suffered too badly these two years since. Except that she wanted her freedom. She wanted to return to Norstead. And she would do so… somehow, someday. Mayhap she should pray to the Christian Mary, mother of the One-God, and Freyja, the Norse goddess, to deliver her from this wretched land.

"Why are you smiling?" Zena whined. "Are you laughing at me?"

"Nay, I am not laughing at you." Leastways, not on the outside. "And, nay, I am not diseased."

"Then continue with your life story… and cover that smelly butter. It turns my stomach."

I would like to give you a life story… one about a dimwitted maid being knocked over onto her fat buttocks. "That first night I was pampered in Abdul's luxurious home. Abdul's harem girls bathed and perfumed my body and forced me to wear a garment which was so sheer my nipples and nether hair were visible to one and all. I would have run away, but there were always guards about to make sure no one escaped from his harem."

In fact, the same was true today. She could not even go to the bushes to relieve herself without Gadi the goatherder following after her. She glanced over to where he leaned against a tree watching her. He winked at her, and Madrene almost gagged. She feared, with good reason, that Fakhir would eventually tire of her and hand her over to the big man who made no secret of his lust for her. Gadi would take her; willing or not; she just knew he would.

"Go on, and stop daydreaming."

Madrene made a face at Zena, who didn't have the sense to know she was being mocked. "That first night, dressed in those sheer garments, I was led to an opulent room of marble walls, velvet cushions, soft carpets and low tables overladen with food. The room was filled with men only, except for the serving girls. The men reclined on rugs and ate whilst listening to music from a harpist behind the curtains. I was led in front of the men to sit at Abdul Abba's feet, which was apparently a great honor." If the men in my family, or in my troops, ever lay about on the rushes afore the hearth and demanded that girls on bended knee serve them food, they would have been laughed out of the hall.

Instead of being repulsed as Madrene was by that image, Zena sighed with yearning.

"Abdul fed me grapes and other delicacies like a lapdog, not allowing me to use my own hands. When he gave me a fig in honey sauce and it dripped down my chin, he and the other men thought that was a great jest. Abdul even drizzled some of it over each of my breasts; that, too, was considered a mirthsome feat." Men and breasts! Really, what a fuss they make over bodily appendages.

The giggle that escaped Zena's lips did not amuse Madrene. "And then what happened?"

"Later, they led me to Abdul's bedchamber and disrobed me. There lay Abdul on his silken bed, naked as a newborn babe, with his dangly part… well, not dangling." Whoo! What a sight that was. And hairy balls! I have ne'er seen the same before or after.

"Huh?"

Madrene rolled her eyes at the thick-headed girl. "His manpart was standing up like a knight's lance. As small as Abdul was in stature, that part of him was… well, huge… if one was wont to be impressed by such things." He, for one, certainly thought he was Allah's gift to women.

"And then?"

"And then I pointed at it and said, 'If you dare to put that thing in me, may the gods and goddesses frown down on you and turn your staff to butter.'"

Zena gasped at her temerity.

Madrene had been surprised at her own temerity at the time. She hadn't planned to say what she did; the words just came to her in the moment. Luckily for her, as it turned out.

"Did Abdul's guards smite you down?"