Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh Read Online Free

not just shake your head. I think I will have to teach you how you must speak to a concubine. You are so innocent – just a boy really. But there is no need to be frightened of me. All you have to do is tell me that I am pretty and which parts of me are especially pretty.’
    ‘You are the most beautiful women I have ever seen’. This was no great concession on Orkhan’s part. As he contemplated her, he was struck by the delicate colouring of her face and the soft vulnerability of her arms. If only the catechism could be over, then he might be in full possession of this softly, enchanting curvy creature. Although she was telling him not to be frightened, he still sensed something frightening in the supernatural quality of Anadil’s beauty, which was like the beginning of terror. She seemed to him to be a visitant from another world.
    ‘Well, that will do to begin with. Now, if you take your hands off me, I will undress myself for you.’
    Stepping away from the bed, she stood to let cascades of gold, silver and brass drop to the marble platform, followed by her yellow robe. In a few moments she stood naked before him. Then she turned away, and looking over her shoulder, she said,
    ‘In the Harem, we girls like to read before we go to bed.’
    She went over to the lectern and came back to the bed bearing the book. She sat close beside Orkhan and spread the book between her thighs.
    ‘It is called ‘ The Perfumed Battlefield: or Questions Posed by the White Sultan to the Dark Girl ,’ she said, spelling out the words with difficulty.
    She turned the pages. The book was illustrated. Together they contemplated exquisite little pictures of women surrounded by ditches and ramparts, men advancing with battering rams and long, hooked implements, and brightly coloured smokes drifting across fields strewn with flowers and corpses. In flimsy looking castles men and women encountered one another in hand-to-hand combat. There were also abstract diagrams painted in gold and black with arrows of direction and schematic flags. On the last page was the image of a man, painted all gold. A woman knelt in front of him, her face pressed to his groin, and another stood behind him, peeping over his shoulder, and he was grinning madly – a silvery gleam in a golden face. Having reached this image, Anadil hastily riffled backwards through the pages.
    ‘Here,’ said Anadil, leaning heavily against Orkhan, is “The Chapter on the Need for Good Intelligence” and this is “The Section on the Naming of Parts”.
    One hand moved across the page, marking her place as she read. She was stroking her breasts with her other hand.
    ‘What are these called?’
    ‘They are called breasts,’ replied Orkhan, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice.
    To his astonishment, she slapped him lightly on the face.
    ‘Only the vulgar call them that. These are my moons. It is the language of love and poetry. Look here, it says so in the book. You have to practise. Say to me, I love your full moons.’
    And she offered them up to be kissed.
    Now, since she was now sliding a hand underneath his robe and fumbling between his legs, there was no power in Orkhan to refuse. Even if he thought that her games were silly, she could be indulged for a few moments more. He was prepared to crawl over the ice, bark like a dog and sit up to beg if only she would grant him what he desired. Her breasts were soft and came to delicate points.
    ‘I love your full moons,’ he repeated obediently and kissed them.
    ‘And what is this between your legs?’
    ‘It is my cock.’
    She brought her hand up from between his legs to slap him again.
    ‘That is very vulgar. I would be ashamed to call it that. In the Harem we call it the pigeon, or, sometimes, the one-eyed man, or sometimes the cherry-blossom branch, or again the weeping one. It has many names. Here they are in the book.’
    Then she let the book drop to the floor and, leaning over him, she delicately forced her