The Devil's Concubine Read online

  “As soon as I was in his arms, mine instinctively wrapped around his neck. I was spellbound and couldn’t stop staring into his eyes. It was the first time I had seen them up close and it felt like I could lose myself within them, escape the world and lose myself to an endless array of emotions.

  “I wondered why he looked so somber and why he was so quiet. Through his anguished eyes, I sensed his sorrow, his silent plea for help. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by the sweetest drowsiness I had ever felt in my life. All my worries disappeared. At last, I was with him. I was in his arms. I ran the back of my hand down his cheek and felt the incredible heat emanating from him. He watched me suspiciously, seemingly bothered by my boldness, to such a degree that I became confused and took my hand off his cheek. I studied his face carefully. In spite of his peculiar sternness, I had never seen such a mixture of sweetness and beauty. Soon my eyelids became so heavy I could no longer keep them open. As I slipped into a dream where nothing mattered, I gazed at his lips and imagined mine softly on them. For a few fleeting seconds, I felt my conscious being wrapped in a warm dark haze which restrained all of my senses. It was a pleasant, delightful intoxication whose arrival submerged me into a state of sensual peace. From this state, I vaguely felt my cheek carelessly caress his hair. My arms, afraid of losing him, tightened around his neck in one last conscious act.”

  –III–

  “It was day when I opened my eyes and discovered the unfamiliar and strange structure that had protected me, perhaps, all night long. I was inside a small, square shaped temple that opened to the outside between an endless procession of columns that were crowned with flower shaped capitals. Centuries before, the columns had supported a stone roof, which now lie broken in pieces on the ground. I ran outside anxiously because I was alone, scared, naked and because I wanted to find him.

  “When I got outside, I discovered I was on an islet in the middle of such an enormously wide and still expansion of water that it was difficult to tell whether it was a river or a lake. Small palm trees were scattered along the islet’s borders; they sprouted from soil that looked sandy and dry. The islet was small, you could walk from one side to the other in five minutes. Many different types of fascinating and lush plants, which I didn’t recognize, grew in its fertile soil.

  “Just as I was beginning to feel even more frightened and alone, I suddenly heard a splash in the water. I approached the shore carefully and hid behind some foliage. My heart stilled and a happy smile spread across my face. I wasn’t alone. He was there.

  “He swam with his back to me and I noticed he had left his clothes on the shore and therefore must have been completely naked. That idea made me quiver. I didn’t even dare breathe to keep him from noticing my presence. I began to sweat like never before in my life, as much for the humid heat, which you felt in that place like in no other part of the world, as for the disturbing passion which seized me.

  “It seemed as though he were gliding through the water without making the slightest movement, slowly, silently and completely at ease. His hair, wet to the root, floated behind him like the majestic feathers of a black swan. Abruptly, he turned and swam toward the shore.

  “I wanted to run away so he wouldn’t catch me spying on him, but I couldn’t take a step; just like I couldn’t stop staring. Every one of his gestures and movements was a glorious sight, which filled me with thousands of passionate emotions. I must have stood there with my mouth open when his splendid, wet body came out of the water. I saw his profile as he looked at the emptiness, the nothing, in his periphery. He gathered his hair to one side of his neck and squeezed it with his hands. Every movement mesmerized me, bewitched me. He possessed the perfect balance between grace and strength; he looked like a beautiful, mysterious feline ready to abandon his misleading and graceful stride to savagely throw himself upon his prey. Yes, this is what I saw. A concealed and composed potency ready to erupt.

  “For the first time I noticed he had absolutely no hair on his face, in spite of appearing to be around twenty-five years-old, or perhaps twenty, or thirty. Beneath his callous expression, I could sense a strange conflict that made it difficult to tell his age. As far as I could see, there was no hair on his chest, arms, or legs. However, there was a small dark and curly triangle adorning his sex.

  “I remembered how I had seen him a few seconds before, submerged beneath the water, so distant, as though he were contemplating Earth from a superior world, as distant as he had been all the other times I had seen him.

  “ ‘He’s a swan.’ I thought while purposefully ignoring his most disturbing physical attribute.

  “He turned his head and looked in the direction from where I watched him hidden. Or so I thought I had hidden. ‘Come to me,’ he said in a soft voice.

  “I was extremely surprised and ashamed for spying on him. I thought his voice was the sweetest sound that I had ever heard and the words he pronounced were a dream come true. Almost immediately, I moved to obey him but suddenly realized I was naked so I stayed hidden.

  “ ‘It’s just that,’ I stammered. ‘I’m naked.’

  “My modesty was partly feigned because I was proud of my beauty and wanted him to see it. Also, he had already seen in the nude while I slept.

  “He held out his hand to me just as he had done at the port in Marseille and remembering how I was kept from grabbing his hand then made me move toward him without a second of doubt. I quickly walked toward him, held his hand in mine and was enthralled by ethereal bliss. We were Adam and Eve discovering each other for the first time in a small paradise centered in a barren world.

  “ ‘You saved my life,’ I said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

  “ ‘You think so?’ he answered and his question left me more confused than the tone of his voice or the brief, ironic expression that crossed his face.

  “ ‘Of course,’ I answered without hesitation. ‘you followed me from Marseille, right? You couldn’t have been at the market by coincidence.’

  “The sun shined onto his pupils turning them into resplendent blue stars. Drops of water fell from his wet hair onto his delicate features. He blinked as they entered his eyes, then he looked at the water which instantaneously reflected its dark green hue into his eyes. He lifted his hand and wiped the water off his forehead and wet eyebrows.

  “ ‘That’s right,’ he whispered as though he were confessing an inadmissible secret. ‘I came for you.’

  “I should have been happy hearing those words which I so much wanted to hear, but something about his demeanor worried me. Although he let me hold his hand, he didn’t show any compassion, but rather seemed bothered and angered by my presence.

  “ ‘Where are we? What is this place?’ I asked and pointed toward the building where I had slept.

  “ ‘That is an old temple,’ he answered. ‘And this is just a random island on the Nile, far, very far from Alexandria. You are completely safe; those men can’t harm you.’

  “ ‘I know,’ I immediately responded without understanding the full extent of his words. He made a gentle but sure movement to make me let go of his hand.

  “ ‘Who are you? What’s your name?’ I asked. He looked at me as if I had asked him an unexpected question.

  “ ‘Shallem,’ he answered after a few seconds. ‘My name is Shallem.’

  “ ‘That’s beautiful!’ I exclaimed. Any name given to him would have seemed beautiful to me.

  “He didn’t say anything. I felt the sun’s rays burn my skin and the sweat dripping all over my body. I wanted to ask him a thousand questions but it was plainly evident he wasn’t ready to answer them.

  “ ‘I want to go for a swim,’ I stated, anxious to end how awkward I felt because of his strange behavior and our nudity. Swimming would erase the feel of his fingers against my skin and the hint of his smell, which lingered around me.

  “ ‘Then do it,’ he answered.

  “I carefully slid into the water and rubbed my body with my hands so as to clean
myself. Then after submerging myself, I turned and looked at him.

  “ ‘I’m dreaming, right? You aren’t real and neither is this place. Nothing you do is normal, you don’t act normal. This place isn’t real and you’re a figment of my imagination, the perfect fantasy. You’re not normal, I knew this the first time I saw you. What’s happening? Have I lost my will to live? Have I died without knowing? If so, you’re my angel, my guardian angel. Get in the water, my angel. Before I wake from this dream.’

  “I don’t know why I said those things. I suppose I was under so much stress I was about to lose my mind. Actually, I felt like I was in some sort of strange drunken stupor, as if I were really drunk and had lost all inhibitions and said the first things that came to mind. I never did have a clear sense of reality. Anything unexpected was able to throw me off, confuse me.

  “ ‘You’re not dead, Juliette, nor dreaming,’ he responded. ‘Get out of the water.’

  “I immediately did as he asked.

  “ ‘I haven’t told you my name.’ Once again, I was confused. ‘I wanted you to ask me my name. How did you know it?’

  “Lost in thought and withdrawn, he looked down toward my chest. It felt like my head was trembling and something dreadful held me by the base of my neck.

  “ ‘You’ve answered your own question,’ he answered.

  “ ‘I haven’t gone crazy,’ I told him. ‘You’re real.’ I tried to calm myself and looked down toward his uncovered manhood. ‘Angels have wings, not genitals.’

  “ ‘Let’s go inside the temple, I have something to show you,’ he responded.

  “Quickly, he began walking toward the entrance to the temple. I ran after him and grabbed his hand so I could feel his electrifying touch again. He didn’t try to stop me.

  “ ‘Lie down,’ he said after we entered the temple.

  “ I looked at him surprised, thinking he wanted to make love to me right then and there on that dirty, dusty floor. I was devastated, not because I didn’t want to be intimate with him, but because of the cold and traumatic way things were happening.

  “Half eager and half resigned, I did as he asked. Trembling, I lay down and waited to feel his warm skin against mine. But he didn’t get on top of me as I was expecting. He moved to one side and knelt by my head.

  “ ‘I’m going to take you somewhere. All you have to do is close your eyes. Do it, close your eyes,’ he said quietly.

  “I did as he asked. I felt something in my mind slipping away. I was losing consciousness. Then I felt an indescribable and wonderful sensation, a brief vertigo that carried me, in less than a hundredth of a second, to another part of the world. There were no tunnels nor lights. Suddenly, I was just there.

  “I turned around, terrified by what just happened, and saw that Shallem was beside me. I didn’t care if I were in hell as long as he was with me. Where had we gone? It looked like some beautiful place on Earth; we were standing in an area that was closed off by plants. An endless cascade of water fell from the stony surface of a small waterfall and splashed into a crystal clear stream that was illuminated by a bright light.

  “Through some sort of metaphysical understanding, I knew I had left my body completely defenseless in a forgotten temple somewhere on the Nile. But I didn’t really care. No. I didn’t care at all. It was only a fleeting thought. An awareness amid many that I learned with supernatural clairvoyance as soon as I found myself freed of carnal ties. It was I but I wasn’t flesh and blood, I was an immaterial replica of myself. Maybe not my most pure essence, my spirit, but something else it is made of. Like the Ka ancient Egyptians believed in. They believed humans were composed of four elements: the body; the Ka, an intangible double of the body; the Ba, comparable to the soul; and the Khu, a spark from the divine flame.

  “Nevertheless, Shallem was tangible. I hugged him without difficulty and was able to hear his heart beat with my ear pressed against his chest. He was trying to separate us, he grabbed my shoulders and made me turn toward a wonderful sight. I didn’t even notice when he let go of me.

  “It was then that I witnessed the greatest wonder I had ever seen until that day: an indescribably beautiful angel appeared before me, floating a few centimeters above the ground, surrounded by a bright gold radiance. In that instant, I knew with certainty he was an angel. His face was identical to the faces of angels I had seen in churches and in paintings in books. His hair was golden and his feathered wings were snow-white. For no apparent reason, I suddenly felt very afraid.

  “He lightly landed on the ground next to me and slowly fluttered his exquisite wings with no other intention than to fascinate me. Then, the aura that surrounded him slowly started to vanish.

  “I watched him in a trance, hypnotized and enraptured. All of his gestures were soft and delicate; all of his movements graceful and elegant. He slowly folded his wings onto his back and the ethereal essence of which they were made disappeared. He stood there naked, free of all divine adornments, and stared into my eyes while he raised his right arm above me, just like a priest about to bless me. I was terrified by his presence and wanted to run but I wasn’t able make a single movement. He looked at me with intrigue and curiosity, as though he could enter my soul through my eyes.

  “Then I saw his face approach mine and I tried hard to escape but he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. While he held me against him, I felt the heat coming off his body and smelled him. His lips approached mine. I screamed: ‘Shallem!’.

  “I desperately tried to get away from him but in a stupor I realized that there was nothing I could grab and push away. I lost my balance and the hands I couldn’t touch gripped my waist and kept me from falling. I could see them, I could feel them, but I couldn’t touch them. Blood gushed to my head. I was terrified and screamed, ‘Shallem!’.

  “Senselessly, I tried to grab the arms which encircled me, which held me, but they weren’t made of anything more solid than the light that had illuminated him. He was incorporeal, untouchable, ethereal.

  “I was completely horrified, my head was crammed with questions I couldn’t answer.

  “Unable to turn my head, unable to take my eyes off that creature whose touch filled me with terror, I held my hand out behind me, demanding Shallem’s help, screaming for him.

  “ ‘Shallem, Shallem,’ I sobbed, faint with terror, while desperately shaking my hand in search of his. ‘Let me go! Please, let me go!’ I begged.

  “He didn’t seem ready to grant my wish and all I could do to defend myself was hit air each time I tried to distance myself. Again, I saw his lips approaching mine and uselessly struggled in his arms. I kept screaming one name: ‘Shallem! Shallem!’

  “The angle moved his expressionless face away from mine and lifted his gaze toward Shallem and then he brought it back to me. Although I knew I couldn’t do anything, I started fighting again to free myself from him.

  “ ‘Shallem!’ I screamed incessantly. ‘Shallem!’

  “I finally felt Shallem’s strong arms grabbing my waist and chest and with one fierce jolt, he freed me. The creature stood a few meters away and, for a brief second, I saw a look of surprise on his face. Immediately, his expression changed and he became as still and inexpressive as a statue.

  “While Shallem held me protectively against his chest, I could sense how aggressively they stared at each other. I grabbed Shallem’s hands and pressed myself against him as hard as I could. I closed my tearful, horror-filled eyes and wished I could disappear from that abominable place and presence.

  “Neither one of them said a word but I knew they were speaking to each other in some inexplicable way.

  “ ‘It’s over,’ Shallem said. ‘Forever.’

  “The being looked at him silently and then, slowly tilting his head, he looked at me with his hypnotic eyes and extended his hand toward me, arrogantly urging me to go to him. I didn’t move. Nothing could make me leave Shallem’s arms, which now held me more forcefully allowing me to feel a pleasurable wave
of heat that protectively and sensuously wrapped around my body. I closed my eyes and rested my head against his chest. I felt myself grow weak, and conserved only the slightest bit of indispensable consciousness to realize I was still alive.

  “ ‘I love you,’ I murmured in a daze. ‘Take me away from here my angel. Take me with you.’

  “I felt the same vertigo as before. A free fall, which pulled me toward my body in the temple with more gravity than the Earth itself. As I reentered my corporeal body, I didn’t feel a smooth possession, but rather a violent collision, a dry blow and an immediate expansion in every one of my cells. I woke up surprised, gulping down air as though a sudden pressure on my chest had just knocked the breath out of me.

  “We were in the temple again. I stood and crossed my arms across my chest, worried I would have a nervous breakdown. My feet and hands felt frozen in spite of the sweat I felt pouring off my body.

  “ ‘I’m scared,’ I stammered. ‘I’m scared.’

  “I was on the verge of becoming delirious and knelt down crying and began rocking back and forth as though I were trying to my sanity.

  “He was staring at me uncertainly. Suddenly, I stopped moving because I felt something strange in my heart, an arrhythmia or something similar that unsettled me. He knelt down beside me and brushed my hair behind my ears. That was the first affectionate gesture he had given me; my heart jumped with joy. When I looked at him again, I barely recognized him. His eyes were filled with concern. Those melancholic and imploring eyes, which seemed to sink into the depths of my heart. Never in my life had I seen such a wonderful, loving expression. All traces of intense severity were gone. He seemed lost and uncertain.