Work Text:
"To refuse me now is to refuse the shah himself," said Erik steadily. "If you resist I shall take you by force and then return you to execution at his hands. But only come to me willingly for this one night and I swear you shall go free at dawn. One night buys you the rest of your life and the means to spend it in honorable comfort. And perhaps, after all, that night will not be so terrible as you fear . . ."
Suddenly, she was silent and still. In her mind, behind the heavy paint of lashes and the cloying scent of chives, she was repeating the litany: 'I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total annihilation.' Before this instant, she had been resigned to let fear master her—fear was less frightening than the unknown—because this had been the end, the apocalypse, the epiphany and the armageddon of her tiny, soft shoed universe.
But now she needed to focus; she needed to find the center of her suddenly swirling galaxy, the place where it was calm and there was only a single black eye, waiting and blinking for her to find an inner sanctum. She must not fear. Fear was the mind-killer, and the Angel of Doom had made her an offer.
Freedom.
Peace did find her: a cold, hard thing. She did not fear. She was no longer the swirling storm of red desert—hot and impotent to change, beat on by the unyielding sun that was her fate and the continual pulse of shoes over her that was her life passing: trampled, obscure, repressed, trapped. She was not sand slipping through the cool neck of the hourglass and settling; she was as the glass itself: calm, glacial, undisturbed. She was the chiseled, crystal chalice that he could pour himself into, and she was cold enough not to feel it.
The next day she would be free, and she would pour forth like water.
Tonight she would be the subservient slave he wanted her to be; her painted face could act the part. She would be an automaton, his invention, and she would let the power of his command infiltrate her completely—and she would not care. She would bear the sickening, caressing way in which he had said those words: 'one night'—for the word that had come after: freedom.
She would stand, the folds of silk and cotton flowing down around her, and she would extend a bronze hand to be encased in the jail of his white fingers. She would be a prisoner of his suddenly flaring gaze, of the incredible way anyone could see him tightening beneath the robe he wore. She would be a slave, the worst kind of slave; she would be the final desecration and the temptation to sin incarnate, because tomorrow she would be free.
And so she did stand, and she did take his proffered hand, and she did wear a mask less scrutable even than his: suddenly, she was humble; she was receptive; she was his wife.
She did not hear or see the others leave, so consumed was she by concentrating on this role. He did not seem to care either, ignoring them completely as he pulled her, gathered her, enveloped her in the deeper reaches of his apartment. They were beyond the curtain to the bedroom; the gauzy caress of it clung to her even as she pushed further inside the soft, waiting embrace of that room in which hell waited with appalling intimacy.
It was darker here, the soft light licking little whirls of warmth about them. The hallows in the dusky contours of her skin gleamed golden in that illumination, glowing and ripe like the fresh fruit of a pear. It was even kind to his mask, making it seem for a moment, here and there, like a human face. She found herself almost lulled by that illusion, by the warm impassivity of the mask, by the languid haze of opium smoke that lingered in the upper corners of his apartment, by the way his cold, unbearably bony hand was warming in her own, just like a human hand. Perhaps . . .
The others had gone, and yet still, he was finding it extremely difficult to let go of her. Her palm was pillowed—so soft; and her eyes reminded him of the deeper, darker parts of her that he could even now be entering, exploring the mystery of her womanhood and the secret of its submission to him.
But it was not a willing submission, and that was what changed things. She was the feather on Anubis' weight of his soul; she was the one sin that could provoke him to utter darkness. She was an enticing Eve in this land without a perfect Adam, and she was also the fruit that he longed to taste, to unfold and explore, to know from the ripe skin of her to the pulsing core of her, and all the sensual, satiny flesh between. To possess her would be the most blissful and sinful act that he could commit. She was, in the end, the beautiful promise of a knowledge he could never have.
At last, he dropped her hand. "You may go," he said simply, with effort. The words were tight and self-contained, like velvet wound into a compact ball.
He watched her eyes widen and saw her fall back a step, further into the dark. And the dark began to move, slipping and sliding with a kind of velvet softness about her that hummed, with a warm, almost mechanic sound. She had never seen so many cats at once, he knew, she would have been considered unworthy. Even as she sank to her knees before him in their presence, the felines were not the cold and choosy things they were at court; they purred with a shifting, heavy warmth about her, the darkness warm and writhing with them.
Seeing her like that, he silently cursed her. She could have no idea of how she was tempting him, how completely decadent that posture of submission was to him. The sheer cloth of the odalisque costume flowed in and among the felines, her sensual curves mirroring their languid movement, the soft hum of the warm animals magnifying the pulsing waves of softness and oblivion she promised. There was something almost animalistic in the offering, something suggestive in the way the cats caressed her, something ancient that called to the most primal part of him and made him want to forget everything else. He wanted—ya Allah but he needed—
"I said you may go, child," he said more gently still. "Nothing, after all, is required of you. You are free of me forever. Forget this cursed night ever happened, and go to sleep for the rest of it." He paused and looked away, his voice suddenly a trifle ragged. "Alone, in your white sheets."
She remained on the floor of his apartment, and then his voice came suddenly in a paroxysm of rage. "Shall I force you, child?" There was fury in that voice, but fear, too, a panic building that was close to madness. "Go! Now!"
He saw her tremble slightly and did not care. "Yes, you fear it don't you? You fear me? Then why don't you leave?" Erik hissed at her. "I swear to you, if you stay a moment longer, what you fear most will happen, and neither of us will be able to stop it!"
She was so small—just a little heap of girl there on his floor. She was so vulnerable, and he, sick soul that he was, enjoyed it, wanted it, got off on it and needed it, and only saw with the most arduous of efforts that she was still trembling, that he had made her afraid . . . that perhaps she was crying.
A part of him wilted, releasing the tension that had been so unbearable in his body since the moment she'd walked in his door. He'd been lying, of course, about losing control. All she had to do was produce tears and he was completely lost. Erik—master builder, magician, sorcerer, killer, Angel of Doom—would always be unmanned simply by an innocent woman's tears. He waited, letting her tears wash over him, hoping that they would cleanse him completely of this shameful desire. "Please, child," he said at last. "Don't cry. Please don't; I can't bear it."
She stilled, and he realized that she had not been crying at all, because she looked him full in the face then and her eyes contained neither tears nor fear. She had mastered something he had never been able to achieve: even her eyes were the blank emptiness of a mask.
He did not bother to understand. "There now," he said briskly. "That wasn't so hard. Now obey one last time: go. I give you my leave. Now do it."
A ripple flowed across her face—a shifting wind on sand—and then her features settled, incredibly calm once again. She remained on her knees, and pressed her hennaed hands together in supplication to him. She began. "Master—"
"Don't call me that!" He whirled, blocking her from his sight, blocking that neck from his sight. Revealed, exposed, submissive, it was driving him into desperation.
That word, 'master', was giving him permission, even if not of her own consent. Never mind his conscience or what she wanted; she was his; she had been given to him; he could take her and it would be his right, without anyone to say that a monster such as he didn't deserve that—that pleasure, that softness, that—peace—that—oh, what was it? He wasn't even able to imagine what it would be like, and everything in him was trembling at the very idea of it, and that was enough to convince him that he could only ever hurt this unwilling child—something he could not bring himself to do. He may be a monster—but not that. Never that.
His shoulders slumped. Forcibly, he unclenched his hands, and made himself say, quite coolly: "My name is Erik. Call me that, why don't you?" She was silent, and he waved his hand. It was too much to hope that she might call him by his name. The defeat in that was enough to make his voice almost polite. "And won't you please stand up?"
He paused, looking at her. He was a sick piece of work, wasn't he; the sight of her firm, lush body waiting to be taken on his very floor was enough to make him hate her too, because he couldn't hate himself any more than he already did. It disgusted him that his mouth was actually watering at the sight of her; the very thought of his body touching hers was obscene. He looked away, his voice cold in explanation. "Having you prostrate on my floor isn't—isn't—to my taste," he spat. "I said stand up!"
Slowly, shaking, she stood. That was better—much better. He swallowed, and continued to look away, because it seemed to him as if her eyes accused him. It's not my fault, he wanted to tell her, as if he was only a child again—as if she was his mad mother; it's not my fault . . . . If she had said simply 'no' in the first place, if she hadn't taken his hand, if she hadn't knelt on his floor, if she hadn't looked at him with those beseeching, begging eyes . . . he might have had her out of here by now with none of his weakness exposed to her young, innocent gaze.
"Now," he said at last, unable to relinquish the command in his tone, because the idea that he was in control of himself helped him stay that way. "Speak. If you won't leave you must at least tell me why you stay." His tone was harsh, an open sore flowing from his mouth. "You owe me that."
She caught her breath, and he closed his eyes against the movement in her chest. His tone gentled. "I'm sorry that I frighten you, child. But please—" he was begging, he knew it; liars always begged—"there's no reason to be afraid. Tell me why you won't leave, and I promise I won't hurt you."
She looked down, her voice coming in the practiced meter of submission that she had been taught to speak, and yet her words were emphatically her own. "I want to be free," she said simply.
Erik stilled. "Child . . . you are free. Don't you understand? That is what I mean. Tonight is . . ." He turned away, and his voice was thick. "I was wrong, earlier; tonight will not be . . . necessary. You are free to spend it as you wish and return to your home." Behind him, she did not speak. Nor did she leave, as he so desperately needed her to—and soon. Wearily, he turned to face her. "This does not please you? Don't you . . ."—oh blind, disgusting, cursed hope—"don't you want your freedom from me?"
She sank liquidly to the floor again, and suddenly, he was beside her, jerking her up by her wrist—her neck, which he could not resist touching, this once. He could not bear the thought of spending another second, looking at her prone on his floor.
He did not let go. He bent it back, her neck, twisting it against his chest so she faced outward from him and he didn't have to see her, his hand splayed hard against her cheek so he didn't have to feel her. She trembled in his hands and was silent. "This is going to be very, very easy," he said simply, his voice melting over her softly, almost comforting. "You're going to tell me what's wrong, and why you won't leave. Then . . ." he paused thoughtfully, and took a long, shuddering breath that made him loosen his hold on her. "Then you're going to leave, and I'll forget it ever happened. I swear it. I swear it to you, child."
"I want to be free," the girl said again, simply, her voice coming easily, as if she was more comfortable being forced than anything else. The thought made him shudder and hold her closer, gentling his grip further.
"You are free," he said gently. His breath was in her ear, warm, stirring the tiny tendrils of smooth black that curled around the shell of it. "I've told you: you're free to go, child."
Mutely, she jerked her head, the warm bonelessness of her throat shifting against him. He could feel the pulse of her under him. It was very very fast. "If you send me back, they will punish me," she said, voice still practiced calm.
Erik was silent, gripping her neck in his hands, the smell of hair thick in his face. At last he sighed, still holding her steadily. "I would see that you were not punished. I have power to do it, child, don't you believe me? You could go back to the harem in perfect safety." His hands moved a little with his words, brushing the hard line of her jaw, the weak, unprotected skin of her neck. "Is there a problem now?"
She did not answer. Suddenly, he shook her slightly, her body brushing against his in the movement, the sheer material of her long hair-covering brushing his thighs. "Is there a problem now?"
"The harem is not freedom," she said at last, her voice dull.
His hands gentled still more. His voice, when it came, was oddly distant. "You would be comfortable there; I could see to that. And they do not treat you harshly. There are so many of you . . . the shah would only call for you once every few weeks, at most."
"For the rest of my life."
His hands abruptly weren't gripping her at all, but gently stroking the exposed flesh there, her nape, her scapula. She shuddered at the cold touch, and his voice was mild. "And so you would rather spend one night with . . . with me, than spend your life in the harem?" Softly, he pressed inward on the hollow above where her collar bones met until she could feel it on her esophagus. It was a painful pressure, light as it was, and gently, he pressed in still more. Her breath was quickening; he could feel it along the flesh of her throat, see it escaping her moist, bronze lips, a rasping rhythm, a noise: in, out, in and into him so deep that the need inside him multiplied like flowers, unfurling obscenely colored petals in the depths of him, bearing fruit that was heavy, ripe, and aching. He shook her again. "Am I correct?"
"Yes," she said defiantly, and lifted her chin.
It was so hard not to go on touching her, not to slip his hands farther down, over her collar bones, not to bury the mask in her hair . . . she was so soft, so blissfully soft, and warm, and he felt he would be content just to touch her, just to know that she was real and that she was allowing him to do this to her . . . His mother had never even allowed him to touch her, not ever, and here . . . he was allowed . . .. .
Her trembling, under his hands, was so delicate that in this tortured state he could almost make himself believe the tremors were of desire. But he knew they were of fear . . . And even that fear made her lovely, because she had accepted him for this one night; she was willing . . . She had accepted his hand almost as if it was another human hand—
But she hadn't really; he knew that too. She had accepted it as if it was the hand of death itself; she had accepted him tonight only because she preferred a single night of torture to a life of slavery—but the difficulty was that he could tell himself it was different. That very courage of that act made him almost able to conceive of a woman wanting him. When he saw the fear in her eyes, he could simply tell himself that the fear thrilled her—and, then, perhaps sink himself in the fact that she was his and forget the truth: that this was the worst sort of prostitution, not only of herself but of his own desire, because he wanted someone who wanted him for himself—and this was only lies, all of it. Such beautiful, seductive lies . . .
He sighed, and at last forced himself to step away. "I admire you courage, child," he said at last. "And the sentiment is honorable . . . and appreciated," he added reflectively. "I had not realized . . . Still, it is not necessary." He flicked his hand dismissively. "I will see that you do not return to the harem. You will be under my protection. You will be my—my wife—in everything but that which—" matters—"that which you fear. You will be protected by my name, but you will be allowed to live your life as you choose. Does that . . . suit you?"
She remained very still. His hand lifted, wanting to smooth the hair away from her still frightened eyes, but he realized the fear there was of his touch, and that his hands were never made for comfort—only taking it away. "I'm sorry that you . . . that it's my name that protects you, but I swear to you, you will be free to live the life you dream of. If you so . . . desire . . . you may even choose to take a—a lover, and you will hear nothing from me. And do not worry," he added, in afterthought, "for I shall soon be gone from here. After this I cannot—I cannot . . . Nadir will watch over you. I'll see to that. He's a good man, Nadir. Well, child, is that to your . . . taste? Are you—satisfied . . . ?"
She didn't understand; she couldn't. It had almost been believable; it had almost had a symmetry: a sickly butterfly of hope unfolding garish, violent wings. Her very doom: her savior—they said that Allah worked in strange ways, did they not? He had been the contradiction of despair and faith, his voice promising everything she desired, and yet the horror of his presence, the danger in the tension of his body, the sheer hunger in his eyes an oath that she would be paying a very, very large price for what she wanted. And she had decided she would accept that price, play that part, make this deadly gamble.
When the eunuchs had come to give her to him, she had merely assumed it was the final seal upon her doom. And yet, at her darkest hour, came this voice . . . this tremendous, holy voice—the voice that couldn't be issuing from this terror before her, the voice that seemed to be from Allah Himself. Was it coincidence that this voice had sounded, offering what she desired above all else, when she had finally thought all faith lost to her?
Faith was blighted within her, a near-dead thing with spindly legs limping under the veil of her control, her fear, her tenacious grasp on this farce Allah was determined to play out on her. And yet now it gave a sudden convulsion within her, a writhing seizure that took her breath away. Again she was off balance, gasping for focus, for an understanding of this new offer the Angel of Doom was making her—an understanding of the fact that this monster spoke of hope with the very voice of Allah. A lifetime of prayer and submission made her, at last, unknowing of what else to do, fall to her knees once more.
"You really must stop that," Erik said mildly, now with only minor annoyance. "My child, you'll hurt your knees . . ."
He walked over to her and took her by the soft flesh of her upper arm, helping her to stand. He straightened the veil over her hair with his other hand, and allowed himself to brush an imaginary fleck of dust off her shoulder with the first. His hands hovered before her for a moment, and then, wearily, fell to his sides. "Now then. You may speak standing on your two feet, you know, if it is me you are speaking to. I never understood the purpose of prostration; there's something far too . . . primal about it, don't you think?" he said conversationally, as if knowing she wouldn't answer. "It's dangerous, that, child; do you understand? No . . . of course you don't. You're only a child . . . Come now, speak; don't be afraid . . ."
"Master—"
He winced visibly. "Not that, you'll remember, child. There's a good girl."
There was such an exquisite ache in that voice, mild though it was, that it reminded her with a jolt that he was only a man. The voice of Allah and the face of Iblis, all in the body of a man—who was offering her her freedom. He was only a man, and he sounded as if he would do this thing for her he said. The shock of it was slowly soaking through and swallowing the mask of submission, of subordination, of a mindless slave, showing herself beneath—the taste of it loosening her tongue. "I have no money, no connections, ma—I . . . Oh, how shall I repay you? What—what shall I do? I will do . . . anything. I am yours to command, oh lord—I . . ."
She looked very much as if she wanted to be on the floor while speaking, and that longing for it filled Erik with a profound feeling that for once in this horrid scene was void of any desire. What he felt was pity. "My child," he said, the warmth of compassion so strong in his voice that she involuntarily looked up. He looked away, stepping away to the other side of the room.
At last, he swallowed, and spoke. "How do you find me, child?" he said abruptly. "Am I quite what you pictured? Tell me—stay on your two feet for this please—tell me, do I seem to you like a monster? You may say what you think, truly—and stay on your feet."
That skinny thing, the barely living idea of faith within her—and that soaring thing that had been stirred when she had first heard that glorious word freedom—both were rising in her, choking her, frightening her with her awareness of their fragility. It dawned on her now that the Angel of Doom—a man now, too, she saw—was offering the one thing she had never contemplated before. Oh, freedom had always been fathomable—escaping: dreamable. But this thing, this was completely new to her. In her short life, she had never known kindness.
"I . . ." she began, helplessly, futilely. At last, tears in her eyes, she whispered: "Master . . . you are not a monster."
Erik pressed his eyes closed, holding himself quite still for a long moment. "Thank you for that, child," he said at last. Then he turned to her, his eyes gentle, almost soothing, looking at her as if she was some hurt and wild cat, like those in his apartment. "Only a monster would make you pay for your freedom. This is not a . . . business transaction; it is simple human decency. Perhaps only the least human of us have it . . . but that is not the point."
Her eyes were twice their normal size in her small, golden face, and the tufts of her quick breathing moved the veil that still covered her nose and mouth in double speed. Again, he turned away from her, waving his hand. "You may go, as I said before child. But . . . there is one thing I might ask. I would not ask it of you if you believed it was required, nor would I if it frightened you. I would only ask to . . . to kiss your hand, my— . . . You see, it is such a little thing . . .
"But I would have to lift the mask to do it, wouldn't I? I would only lift it a little, just a very little, and you wouldn't even have to look—you wouldn't, child, I swear it—and I would only kiss your hand just a very little also, and just once. I would not ask it as a payment, not at all, but as a sign of what you said just now—it was a very brave thing you said!—I would ask it as a . . . a gift . . . but you do not have to give it. I have said from the very beginning, child; you may walk out right now—the adjoining apartment is mine, child, and empty, and you may go there alone . . . without doing anything, anything at all . . ."
There was silence behind him, and after several long moments—ten minutes or so at least—his shoulders slumped. She had gone. He could picture the curtains to the foyer of the apartment stirring slightly at her passing; it was only a surprise he hadn't heard the outside door click . . .
And then the odalisque was before him. She was before him and she was giving him her hand, thrusting her warm, soft palm against his bony cold one, looking up at him with liquid eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment like that; her lithe young body upright and firm, not trembling at all now. Her eyes followed his when his own tried to slip away.
And then her other hand was hovering between them. It was caught between the two of them like a gossamer web of light, something golden, beautiful—and free. And those liberated fingers touched his mask and drew it all the way off—and the other hand did not pull away. She did not pull away at the sight of the almost translucent chin, revealing veins and nerves and other unsightly deformities of his flesh, nor at the sight of his gruesome, malformed lips, nor at the gaping digusting absence of a nose. Unable to bear the sight of her fragile fingers caught within his own, or the scrutiny of her liquid eyes, he closed his own, letting the mishappen lids fall. And then he bent, lower and then lower, and brushed his lips against the top of her hand.
A tremor when through him at that simple contact—'a little thing', he had said—but it was so much. So much.
And then her hand was falling away, and he wasn't sure whether it was himself or her that had dropped it. He quickly pulled his mask back down, and felt that she did not immediately step away. He did it for her.
It was too much to say a simple thank you for, he realized. There was no way to express . . . And so he settled for the memory of it, for the exquisite feel of it. "Only one thing more, child," he said, quite simply. "Would you be so kind as to . . . Just . . . what is your name?"
"Raha," she said, and bent her head.
"Yes," he mused. He nodded. "It is fitting." He rolled the name over his tongue once more. "Raha."
Freedom.
And then she was free, and she went forth like water from him.