Cleopatra�s Perfume Read Online Free PDF Page B

to orgasm thinking about it, my pen shaking as I lay it down and unbutton my white silk trousers and insert my fingers inside me and stroke myself…panting, hanging in anticipation of what I know will come if I continue rubbing the hard ridge inside me, my body gyrating in time with the movements of my fingers. I open my legs wider to allow my fingers easier access…
     
    Excuse the abrupt interruption, dear reader, but my need overcame my reason. I’ll be embarking soon on the first leg of my journey to Berlin, but first I must continue with my story and why I returned to the Near East after my husband’s death.
    I’d enjoyed many pleasant interludes with Lord Marlowe in the region during our marriage: from the polo matches at the Gezira Sporting Club in Cairo, to excursions to see the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid, to traveling down the Nile to Luxor and Aswan. It was also where I could escape the suffocating air distorting the reality that dominated London’s clubs. I couldn’t survive in that atmosphere of pearls and perfect vowels, where one’s place in society was bred into the bones, though from what I’d seen in many a Mayfair drawing room, they grew brittle from a lack of blood flowing through their veins.
    I packed my trunk and left London.
    I was familiar with the sea route, having traversed it many times over the years with my late husband. After traveling from London by train to embark on a ship at Genoa, the luxury P&O steamer went on to Port Said and would then pass through the Suez Canal to Bombay, Hong Kong and Shanghai. What should have been a tranquil journey of reflection, I must admit, turned out to be a pattern ofrecurring neuroses. Chatter aboard ship became more stifling than staying in London. My independence was at stake. I had no place to hide from my fellow British passengers, many of whom knew of my recent widow status and whispered among themselves about the scandal brewing when word got back to London that I was traveling alone. And wearing white wide-leg trousers and an open white blouse with ample cleavage showing.
    From behind my round dark glasses, I watched the gentlemen eyeing my pointy breasts and the ladies watching them. I shaded my eyes from their stares, but I had nothing to hide. White denoted purity of heart and I had every right to wear it. During my years of marriage to Lord Marlowe, I’d remained chaste, taking no other man to my bed; but now I was alone, and companionship was not something I merely desired. I needed a man and I needed him badly.
    I disembarked the ship at Port Said to idle away time shopping for tropical skirts, pants, cameras, inexpensive jewels and French perfumes. Lucky for me, the shops remained open all night to cater to travelers until the ship departed in the early-morning hours. It wasn’t long before boredom, the heat and the flies, as well as the dirty looks from my fellow passengers, drove me to explore the port city on my own.
    I doubted these ladies with their noses stuck up my business would dare follow me into a seedy-looking bar that reeked of male sweat and alcohol and with cigarette smoke so thick it drifted like a seventh veil over the crowd. I sat down at a small table and ordered Egyptian beer, what Lord Marlowe called onion beer because of its strong taste.
    Raising my glass, I was congratulating myself on losing the gossipy women, when a slightly built Egyptian wearing a red fez with a long black tassel half covering his face shuffled over to me and bowed, thenasked to tell my fortune. I shooed him away, knowing full well this wallah would gladly dish out what British locals called pukka gen— advice to the lovelorn—to any lone female willing to listen.
    But he wouldn’t give up, insisting he had a special rate for a pretty lady with hair the color of the moon. I put down my beer and smiled at him. With a line like that, how could I refuse?
    I invited him to sit down, and before the air could settle underneath his sagging