Loretta of the Lamp - The Fallout

The Wedding (Sameh)

Noise was both sucked out of and pushed into the room as Loretta entered. The sensation of sound rushing past her ears and filling the room ahead of her entourage, and the silence within the room as the party entered. She immediately saw the Sultan on a golden sofa at the head of the room and had to look away, as her whole being rebelled against making eye contact with him. She needn't have worried for long, because the guests in the room soon obstructed her view of him, and she had forgotten that the thick veil over her face would have blocked him from knowing if she looked at him or not. So she stared at him. He did not even look at her as the amriyah entered the room. He was staring out at the crowd across the room instead, gloating at the celebration he had created and at the sight of all the people who had gathered to him. He was dressed in a white caftan with no headdress, and his hair was oiled down smooth against his scalp, black and wavy, and his beard the same, oiled and shaped delicately. His eyes for the occasion had been painted with traditional kohl much as Loretta's had been also, and the whites of his eyes stood out all the more disturbingly against the darkness of his painted skin.

Before him, six large decorative tagines were laid out, each layered in velvet and lavish embroidery and finished with silver. Gifts for her. Loretta's bridal party had brought gifts as well, similar ceremonial plates with conical tagine lids were carried before her and placed opposite to the Sultan's.

The calls and chanting reached a crescendo once the amriyah had made a full parade around the room and she was lowered at the foot of the steps beneath the golden sofa. The women who had come with her helped her up and out of the litter, and then guided her up the stairs to the sofa where a place had been cleared for her to sit next to the Sultan. As she sat down, still in a state outside of herself, the women adjusted the folds of her bridal caftan around her and smoothed them down.

"Amira," the Sultan whispered with a smile, uttering the kind of satisfied sigh someone makes when they purchase their first home and walk in the door knowing that they truly own it.

Loretta didn't react. Her mind was too far removed from her body, lost in an ether of realities, tossed between them like a ship between waves in a storm. She didn't even grimace as he placed his hands on her shoulders to pick up the edges of the heavy veil and lift it off her face, even though he was close enough for her to smell the sickeningly sweet tang of his breath. The veil lifted, and she looked past him and through him, her eyes did not allow herself to focus on him at all, the shock was too deep and thorough.

He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, and the women cheered, and the celebrations continued. Loretta turned her gaze to the room at large, and heard nothing of the words the Sultan whispered to her, until he mentioned the gifts.

"I have chosen my gifts carefully, my love," he said.

There was a knowing in his words that called Loretta's soul back into her body. "That must have been time consuming," she said, slowly.

"Ahh, not at all, my dear Amira, one has only to watch a person closely to know the things they love."

Loretta chewed the inside of her cheek, and said nothing.

"Have you chosen your gifts well, Amira?"

She turned to look at him out of the corner of her eye and glared, "I spent many days in thought over it." She hoped her sarcasm was obvious, but her body still felt wooden and foreign to movement.

"Of course my dear. What else have you had to do with your time, after all?" He turned back to her very suddenly, and took her hand up in his. The gesture should have made her jump, but it did not. "I must tell you, my love, that your disregard for who I am both surprises me and excites me. Having you delivered thus to me, at such a perfect hour as that in which we now exist, warms me."