The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [389]
“Did I hurt you?” he whispered.
“No!” she said.
He thought of Aliena, and felt guilty; then he realized how foolish that was. Why should he feel that he was betraying a woman who had married another man?
Aysha looked at him for a moment. It was almost dark, but he could see that her face was suffused with desire. She lifted his hand and put it back on her breast. “Do it again, but harder,” she said urgently.
He found her nipple and leaned forward to kiss her, but she pulled her head back and watched his face while he caressed her. He squeezed her nipple gently, then, obediently, pinched it hard. She arched her back so that her flat breasts protruded and her nipples made small hard puckers in the fabric of her dress. Jack bent his head to her breast. His lips closed around her nipple through the cotton. Then, on impulse, he took it between his teeth and bit down. He heard her sharp intake of breath.
He felt a shudder pass through her. She lifted his head from her breast and pressed herself against him. He bent his face to hers. She kissed him frantically, as if she wanted to cover his face with her mouth, and pulled his body to hers, making small panicky sounds in the back of her throat. Jack was aroused, bewildered and even a little scared: he had never known anything like this. He thought she was about to reach a climax. Then they were interrupted.
Her mother’s voice came from the doorway. “Raya! Aysha! Come inside at once!”
Aysha looked up at him, panting. After a moment she kissed him again, hard, pressing her lips against his until she bruised him. She broke away. “I love you,” she hissed. Then she ran into the house.
Jack watched her go. Raya followed her at a more sedate pace. Their mother flashed a disapproving look at him and Josef and then went in after the girls, shutting the door decisively behind her. Jack stood staring at the closed door, wondering what to make of it all.
Josef crossed the courtyard and interrupted his reverie. “Such beautiful girls—both of them!” he said with a conspiratorial wink.
Jack nodded absently and moved toward the gate. Josef went with him. As they passed under the arch, a servant materialized out of the shadows and closed the gate behind them.
Josef said: “The trouble with being engaged is that it leaves you with an ache between the legs.” Jack made no reply. Josef said: “I might go down to Fatima’s to get it eased.” Fatima’s was the whorehouse. Despite its Saracen name, nearly all the girls were light-skinned, and the few Arab whores were very high-priced. “Do you want to come?” Josef said.
“No,” Jack replied. “I’ve got a different kind of ache. Good night.” He walked quickly away. Josef was not his favorite companion at the best of times and tonight Jack found himself in an unforgiving mood.
The night air cooled as he headed back toward the college where he had a hard bed in the dormitory. He felt he was at a turning point. He was being offered a life of ease and prosperity, and all he had to do was forget Aliena and abandon his aspiration to build the most beautiful cathedral in the world.
That night he dreamed that Aysha came to him, her naked body slippery with scented oil, and she rubbed herself against him but would not let him make love to her.
When he woke up in the morning he had made his decision.
The servants would not let Aliena into the house of Raschid Alharoun. She probably looked like a beggar, she thought as she stood outside the gate, in her dusty tunic and worn boots, with her baby in her arms. “Tell Raschid Alharoun that I am seeking his friend Jack Fitzjack from England,” she said in French, wondering if the dark-skinned servants could understand a single word. After a muttered consultation in some Saracen tongue, one of the servants, a tall man with coaly skin and hair like the fleece of a black sheep, went into the house.
Aliena fidgeted restlessly while the other servants stared at her openly. She