Just after he grew out of boyhood, when he was very wild and afraid of nothing, Ayesha, the youngest wife of Emir Faruk abu Husain, discovered that he existed, and showed him a way to come to her in abu Husain's harem. He knew he would die writhing on a spike if the emir's slaves caught him, but he was also quite certain that such a thing could never really happen to him. With a boy's eagerness and excitability, he had spent himself an instant after he joined Ayesha in the darkness on her couch. "The emir is very old and has many wives," she purred. "Rarely can we slip a beautiful young man like you past the harem guards. So we must learn how to pleasure each other. There are many things that will delight a woman's body besides a man's rumh. Shall I show you?" He was curious, and at his whispered agreement she pushed his head down between her legs and told him what to do. "And put your fingers _here_ at the same time. Ah, that feels very good." * * * * * He looked at Sophia lying open before him and said again, "How like a flower." He saw dew on this flower, and he bent to taste. He did to her the things he had learned from Ayesha and later on from other harem women. As he worked upon Sophia the magic of the harem, he listened to her breathing as it grew faster and faster. He watched her breasts rise and fall, her chestnut-color nipples standing up. She groaned and tossed her head from side to side, the groans turning to screams as she reached a pinnacle. He brought her to another, and another. Panting, almost crying, she put her hand on his head. "No more. This way of the Turks is wonderful, but I want you inside me now." He stretched himself full length beside her, put his face, wet with her own sweet liquor, against hers and kissed her with lips and tongue. She seized his shoulders, her nails digging into his muscles, and pulled him over on top of her. The way was so well prepared that he was within her in an instant. He knew that he could not hold himself back very long, and he gave himself up to the floodtide of pleasure. He raised his head a little so that he could look down into her wide amber eyes, and so that she could see into his soul at the moment when he gave all his force to her. Almost at the same moment the muscles in her face tensed and her neck corded. Through clenched teeth she cried out again and again and again. Their bodies relaxed together. Daoud felt that now, in the aftermath of frenzy, their flesh was melting and flowing together and becoming one. They lay in silence, and a distant growl of thunder told him that the storm outside had passed. He had not noticed its dying away. He felt a cool breeze blowing through the windows. It seemed as if hours passed while they lay there in silence, arms around each other, legs entwined, and he listened to her breathing slowly grow calmer. She stroked his cheek and played with the blond hairs on his chest. "Is anything changed now?"