I wish it were that simple! I nod jerkily, looking down at my hands, the enormous wedding ring there almost laughing at me now.
“This changes nothing, azeezi.” His words are soft, but what he’s saying rings with power and control. I don’t look at him. “You are my wife, and it is time for you to start living like it.”
I gasp.
“I treaded slowly. Our honeymoon, the week afterwards, giving you time to adjust, but now that time is at an end.”
Perhaps he mistakes my silence for agreement, because a moment later he barrels on with his plan. “I will have Aliya oversee your move.”
As though it’s so simple! A done deal. Sure enough, a moment later his hands are moving to my seatbelt, undoing the clasp at my belly button, his hand staying there a moment before straying lower, brushing over my sex, a part of my body already far too sensitive from his ministrations in the cave.
“Do not worry, Amy. You are free to continue hating me as long as you would like. There will be other compensations for our marriage.”
I draw in a hurt, shaking breath, my eyes pinging to his as his words sink in. His low expectations of our marriage shouldn’t matter to me but they set a part of me to ice. I look away, hurt and anger at war within me. His hand shifts and despite my feelings I want to demur, to grab his wrist and draw it back.
I suspect he sees my disappointment, because he mak
es a throaty laugh. “Tonight, little one.” He brings his face back to mine. “In my own bed, in this palace, I will take you just as you wish, and there will be no stopping this time.” He presses a finger to my lips, a warning in his eyes. “Don’t make me kiss you here until you admit how much you want that.”
I glare at him, anger winning the war. “You’re an arrogant piece of work, do you know that?”
Another laugh. “Yes.” He undoes his own seatbelt. “You’ll get used to it.”
I want to fire a nasty rejoinder but none forms. I feel as though I’ve been pushed into a washing machine on full spin cycle. I’m completely disorientated and dizzy.
He strides across the roof, a magnificent figure of strength and confidence, nodding to the guards as he passes, his respect for them – and theirs for him – shown in every interaction. At the other side of the roof there’s a door. A distant figure opens it for him and he steps through without a backwards glance.
His confidence that he will get what he wants sits like a rock in my gut and I am very, very tempted to teach him a lesson.
Zahir
I’m furious with her and yet I smile anyway, because I should have predicted Amy would pull a stunt like this. There was no way she’d simply be reasonable and fall in with my plans. I had hoped she might, but apparently with Amy everything has to be a damned fight.
“Tell my wife I hope she feels better tomorrow,” I murmur to Aliya, returning my attention to the iPad, the FaceTime call with Elon Katabi, the leader of Salim, on hold while Aliya delivers the message to me. Her highness says she is not feeling well and has asked to delay the move to your apartment. She says she does not wish to make you ill.
It was obvious from Aliya’s reporting of this that Amy is – at least so far as Aliya perceives – far from ill. Her scepticism was apparent in every syllable.
I un-pause the conference call and resume our conversation, but my mind continues to unravel the problem of my wife. She is stubborn and argumentative, and I can feel her animosity towards me often enough to know it’s not going anywhere – and probably never will. Does that matter? Do I need her to like me?
No.
I need her by my side – a visible presence in Qabidi society, someone who can mollify the small crowd of violent, unruly supporters of the Hassan claim. I need them to see her happy with me, for them to realise a Hassan is on the throne, albeit not the one they wanted. My hope is that they will choose acceptance and peace over more trouble-making – and the harsh penalties I have been hesitating to impose.
No longer. My country is at a turning point and Amy is a part of that. If she wants to play games and deny how she feels about me physically, then that’s her prerogative. I can wait.
Amy
My plan backfired, in that I got exactly what I thought I wanted. Zahir’s polite message in response to my own – that I’m too sick to move to his rooms – was not what I’d expected. I thought he’d fight me. Bang the door down to my room and carry me to his own, anger sparking between us meaning that when we made love there’d be no tenderness, no emotions other than dislike and enmity. And then would it have been acceptable?
Would that have meant I was betraying my family to a lesser degree?
I huff as I push my elbow into the pillow, trying to get comfortable and failing miserably. There is nothing wrong with the luxuriously soft duck down pillow, nor the hand-crafted mattress. My body is on fire and there is nothing in this room capable of extinguishing these flames.
Thoughts of the old adage about ‘being careful what you wish for’ fire through my mind. Was I stupid to fight him on this point? I don’t know. My head says ‘no’. After all, it’s important that I hold my ground, that I show him sex doesn’t mean I’ll submit to him completely. It doesn’t make us friends, or anything more complex. And it’s no reason to change the current arrangement. I can have my own room, without being drawn completely into his orbit. I know I need some time and space away from his magnetic presence, time in which to make myself remember that I should hate him, even when deep down I know I don’t.
With a groan, I give up on sleep, pushing the lightweight, beautifully crafted covers from my body and moving towards the balcony. The early morning is cool – the sand dunes beyond the palace coloured by moonlight, turning them silver, just as they had been in the desert on that magical-seeming night. My throat goes thick as unwanted emotions – and doubts – flood my body.
I stare out at the desert for a long time, consoling myself that through the course of history, millions of women must have chased this landscape with their eyes, looking for answers in the wise counsel of the particles of sand and grit. I’m simply another one of them, inconsequential in the scheme of things, my worries soothed by the perspective of history’s long view.