Soldier is taken prisoner and finds himself in a Harem

The Harem

Fiction by Johnny Cumlately

My name is Asif - at least it has been now for many years. But I was born David - David Jones - in a small village in the west of England. My parents ran the village shop and I went to the local primary school. Later, I attended the secondary school in the nearby town.

I was not good at lessons and when the time came to leave school at the age of seventeen, I decided to join the army. Other jobs were not easy to get at the time and at least it seemed to offer security and adventure. After initial training - "square bashing" - I became Infantryman Private Jones 8934621 in the West Country Fusiliers. The regiment had its main barracks about 10 miles from home, so I would go home whenever I had leave or a weekend pass.

I courted Alice, a girl from the village and we used to spend our Saturday evenings at the cinema, usually having a kiss and cuddle in the back row. In those days unmarried sex was still frowned on and our relationship remained strictly chaste. I never formally proposed to her but we seemed to understand that we would get married one day, although we were both then only 18.

Military orders put an end to our plans when the regiment was posted out to the Middle East. Two small kingdoms, whose territories adjoined a British Protectorate, had been at daggers drawn for years but oil had just been discovered in the area and we were given the job of trying to keep the peace so that oil wells could be sunk.

Conditions in our camp were fairly primitive. We were involved in a few small skirmishes with the locals but mostly we were just bored and I was homesick. Army life then didn't seem so attractive!

Perhaps the inactivity allowed my unit to become slack. Anyway, we were out on patrol one day when we ran right into an ambush. We were heavily outnumbered and I watched aghast as several of my colleagues were mown down. Being at the rear of the platoon, I just had time to throw myself to the ground but a few moments later found myself looking up at the wrong end of a rifle. We had been warned that the local warriors were not in the habit of taking prisoners and I thought that I had had it. However those of us who survived - 10 in all - were disarmed, herded up and marched way.

After about an hour in the hot sun, we reached what appeared to be a few huts in the desert. We were pushed into one which had no window, just a bare sandy floor and locked in with one of the warriors standing guard outside. We were kept there for two days in that stinking hut with no food and only a single pail of water to share out.

Eventually, we heard sounds of activity outside and were hauled out and lined up. A man dressed in a posh long robe was seated on a camel. He looked along the line of prisoners and, pointing at me, signed to our captors. Still 18, I was the youngest of our group by some years. My hands were tied behind my back and I was lifted onto another camel and began an uncomfortable ride across the desert. I was never to see or hear from my colleagues again.

After what seemed like several hours, we came to a town which was dominated by a high minaret. I was taken into a house and offered a much needed drink which I drank greedily. It was the first real drink I had had since being captured. I don't know what it was, but it tasted sweet, like honey. I'm sure it wasn't alcohol which was banned locally but nevertheless I soon passed out completely.

When I gradually came to, I found myself laying on a pile of cushions in an room which had a high ceiling covered in Arabic symbols. There was a beautiful girl standing by me dressed in a long gown but not wearing the total cover of a burqa as was usual for all females in that part of the Middle East.

"Hello, Asif, my name is Fatima. I will look after you and in a few days you will feel better." She seemed to speak English fairly fluently but with a noticeable accent. "You are among friends now and starting a new life. Drink this!"

I sipped from the cup she offered which again tasted like honey. I was aware of quite acute pain in my groin but was still very groggy and quickly drifted back to sleep.

Several hours must have gone by but when I next woke up, I was instantly fully conscious. Fatima must have heard me stir. "Are you feeling a bit better?"

"A bit, but what has happened to me? Where am I?"

"You're in the Sultan's palace. I'm one of his wives and you are going to help to look after us. No one is allowed in our quarters unless they have been cut. That's why you have some pain."

"Cut? What do you mean?"

"They've cut off the bits from between your legs and then cauterised the wound to stop it bleeding."

She gently lifted the sheet which covered me. What I saw almost made me gag. My cock and balls had gone. Only a short stub, less than half an inch, of my cock was left.

"It will soon heal and you'll be quite happy without it" she said, confidently.

My knowledge of the facts of life had been rudimentary until joining the army and had increased considerably since but did not extend to this. Maybe I would be better off here in a palace than in the army. I had no idea of the long term consequences of what had been done to me. What did Fatima mean by "Starting a new life" and "Helping to look after them"?

She explained to me that I was now a eunuch and would be living in the Sultan's harem. Eunuchs could never make love, so the Sultan could be certain that all his wives were kept exclusively for his pleasure.

She gently bathed the wound and replaced the sheet.

Two of her companions appeared and wanted to see how I had been cut. It transpired that the Sultan had twelve wives and they all came in over the next hour or two. They were all very lovely girls who I guessed ranged in age from 18 to 40. Apart from Fatima, none spoke any English. Fatima told me that she had spent two years in London training to be a nurse but gave it up without qualifying to return home under family pressure. The Sultan had fancied her as a wife and that was final.

I recovered fairly quickly and was soon able to walk around under Fatima's supervision. I discovered a problem when I wanted to pee. She took me to a communal toilet which had no doors and was little more than a hole in the floor except that it was tiled and had a constant stream of water under it. The girls had no personal modesty and just squatted over it. I learned to do likewise! My little stub left no alternative.

Their lack of modesty among themselves extended to wandering around their quarters nude although mostly they wore brightly coloured silk kaftans. However, the kaftans were usually left loosely open leaving nothing to the imagination. I was given a similar garment but of black cotton.

Fatima set about teaching me to speak Arabic. I had had little success with French at school and found it very difficult but after about six months was able to hold simple conversations. Written words totally defeated me however.

There were two other eunuchs, both considerably older but as I initially spoke no Arabic, I was unable to compare notes with them. As soon as I was able, I was given various simple tasks to do and was eventually allocated four of the girls for whom I performed personal duties. These included washing and bathing and covered their most intimate parts. Later, I was also to be required to give them sexual favours, particularly for the older girls who were no longer the Sultan's favourites. In return they would play with my nipples and stroke my crotch which I found very pleasing even if the response was limited!

I noticed that the older eunuchs were very feminine in looks. They had grown modest breasts and had quite voluptuous figures. Their hair was long and soft. Particularly when naked in the bath, they could have been seen as females with no cocks or balls, just a tiny stub like mine. By the time I had been there a year, I looked very like them only more so as I was much younger.

I learned that the Harem was part of the Sultan's palace but the only door was guarded by an armed warrior day and night, part of the main palace guard, more, I suspected, to keep intruders out than inmates in. There was a large central hall with a high domed ceiling. The floor was marble and the walls richly ornamented with mosaics. Reflected light filtered in from around the dome so that the whole building was always cool, even in the desert heat. Furnishing was mostly just piles of cushions and luxurious Persian rugs. Off the central area were smaller rooms for the girls' sleeping quarters and a large communal bathroom. The bath was about 10 feet square and about 2 feet deep constantly fed with fresh water. The eunuch's rooms were behind the bathroom.

We were given plenty of food and drink, but no alcohol of course. The menu was slightly monotonous but I soon got used to it.

When the Sultan commanded the presence of one or more (often two) of his wives, it would be our duty to prepare them with a scented bath. They would wear a niqab (a head scarf with an eye slit) while a female palace attendant escorted them to his quarters.

How did I react to the presence of so many beautiful and often naked girls? Back home my modest, almost Victorian, education and background had meant that I had never seen a woman naked. Nor did I understand that lack of testosterone was what had made me very feminine in appearance. And I was still a virgin. I loved the presence of these girls but my castration meant that I did not develop any sexual feelings towards them.

One day, I asked Fatima if she knew what had happened to my former army colleagues. She just shook her head and drew her hand across her neck. I got the message and never asked again. I was the lucky one and had no wish to escape, even had that been remotely possible. I assume the army listed me as dead. Indeed I hoped so for Alice's sake so that she could find a good husband. But I was sad to know that I would never see my parents or my home again.

Fiction by Johnny Cumlately.

July 2009

jclately@hotmail.com