This is the 3rd chapter of part one of a trilogy of novels of gay sex.
Keywords: authority, control, slavery, punishment, re-training, submission, loyalty
This story is entirely a work of fiction and all rights to it and its characters are copyright and private to and reserved by the author. No reproduction by anyone for any reason whatsoever is permitted.
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The Changed Life by Gerry Taylor
Chapter 3 - Dahra
Dahra is one of the hottest places in the world according to those who keep records. There is some place in the middle of the Sahara which is worse. But in Dahra, one single minute in the noonday sun will leave a European very uncomfortable. Five minutes and you will have a bad sunburn. Its coastline is its only saving feature as far as geography goes with two deep sea ports and beautiful unpopulated beaches. Even in December, except on cloudy days, it is uncomfortable to sit on the beach. So all who can, just sit at home in the shade of palm trees by swimming pools.
It has three things going for it. It is a Sheikdom with some form of alliance with both the Emirates on the Gulf and with Saudi Arabia itself on whose peninsula it sits. The Sheik is an absolute monarch and any form of government which a democracy might bring is regarded by both the monarch and the people as simply undignified and unbecoming of the nation.
Its second item worth mentioning is its oil. I am a banker, so I do not really understand about things in the ground and such, but a geologist friend there explained it to me saying, "Think of a big ice cream cone upside down. The entire country Dahra is sitting on the very tip of the upside down cone and almost everything else down underneath in the cone is oil."
Well, my friend was almost right, because the third thing was that instead of there being just one upside down cone, there were in fact two, one of oil and one of gas, which those exploring for water in the foothills of the mountains had discovered by accident.
Oil and gas - that is the modern Dahra in a sentence - and of course, everything Arab that goes with both. It has a modern capital city, off whose pavements you could eat your breakfast they are so clean, if you could only stay in the sun for the time it would take you to eat it. A health and education system paid for by the Sheik is on a par with Switzerland or better. No crime to speak of. Who would want to rob a car in 120 degrees as one cynic opined? No real tourists as it is far too hot. An outwardly calm life style of business for some four hours a day and the rest of the time to do your own thing.
The historical Dahra was a darker story. Its two deep sea ports were once the main slave lines into the peninsula. But that was centuries ago.
I had arrived literally a week after the famous board meeting. The Dahra office was headed up by a Swede, Gustav Ahlson, whose English was better than mine. He was unusual in that he was there for over twenty years, and as the most senior Deckams banking executive in the country under me, could have asked for any posting in the Bank and got it with the snap of his fingers.
I had heard it said that he had turned down two offers to be posted as a partner elsewhere, simply wanting to stay in Dahra. While he actually ran the office, the volume, value and prestige of the business required a partner to be there to deal with the many relations of the Sheik who were in every key post and facet of Dahran life, and who would not deal with a mere employee however important he was. It was a matter of power to deal on a basis of equals when dealing with equals in business.
Our merchant Bank had the business of investing some the country's billions, spreading them around the world to finance other ventures. It was a continuing battle to find good investment opportunities and not have the money just sitting in various national Government bonds and stocks.
Consequently, I found myself the day after my arrival in meeting with the deputy of the deputy finance Minister to get his authority to invest two billion euro in a Finnish geo-thermal venture, which would in some fifteen years make a twenty-fold or so return on the investment made, and being backed by the Finnish Government it was as safe as houses, as we say in banking circles.
The meeting was not in a bureaucratic finance office but in one of the Four Diamond hotels as they were not being called - ever since the dropping of the star rating system now regarded as appropriate for second class venues.
I went alone. No briefcase, no papers, no mobile phone, the facts and figures in my head. As I drew up to the hotel in the Deckams Bank limousine, I noticed a rather large fountain in what appeared to be a very green park and a lot of activity there including a TV crew. I asked the driver over the intercom what was going on, and he informed me that the new fountain had just been switched on.
It was quite an extraordinary sight. Maybe it was the dry heat of the day and it was still only nine o'clock in the morning, but the air around the fountain positively shimmered with a mirage of refracted lights in every cascading droplet of water over what appeared to be the purest of white marbles.
Although I had been briefed on the man I had to meet, the deputy to the deputy finance Minister, I was pleasantly surprised. His full name in Arabic was quite long, but I was told in the Bank's briefing that I should address him as "Your Excellency" and that the shortened version of his first and surnames were Tariq al-Akhri. He had various degrees, one being from the London School of Economics.
Ahmed was definitely Arab, but spoke grammatically word perfect English, with a slight American accent in saying some words. One "Your Excellency" was enough for him, and he said, "Please call me Tariq." And looking round, said "Where are the others?"
"Others, Tariq? What others? I am here alone. I am going to deal with you alone and I hope that you will want to deal with me."
He burst out laughing, and showed a fine set of exquisitely crowned teeth. With a wave of his hand, he indicated at least six members of the Ministry who were hovering in the background and whom he had to bring forward for me to meet. Many, by their surnames alone, were obviously related to the Sheik's family. As I was there to deal with one man, I did not bother to be other than polite, and did not clutter my mind with their names or functions.
Tariq's politeness was refined to the nth degree. Sweetmeats, with dark coffee, tea offered in a variety of ways, figs from the coast, dates from the lower mountains. He was the essence of Arab courtesy to a stranger and visitor to his country. His politeness was only matched by his acute questioning of some of the finer points of the proposal before him, and whoever were to think him a fool dressing in the traditional Arab long flowing white thoub and gold braided ogal headband would have been an even greater fool.
The Bank had done it work well. There was nothing substantial to change in the investment proposal. It would be a blue chip investment, government guaranteed at the other end, with huge profits to be made by the Sheikdom. We agreed that the documents would be brought to the Finance Ministry for signing by both side on the following Thursday.
Once the business was concluded, Tariq offered to walk me down to the limousine. I protested saying that I did not want to inconvenience him, that having found my way to Dahra, I could find my way to the door. He laughed at the pun on words, and dismissing his staff, walked me down anyway.
As we approached the door, a group of sportsmen and their bags and equipment started to come in, some perspiring after the short trip across the hotel forecourt in the sun and whose latter stragglers were still descending from the coach.
"Ah," Tariq commented, "the Estonians have arrived. We are playing them on Saturday."
"Not in this type of sun, I hope, Tariq, they look a little damp already just walking from the coach."
"No, Jonathan," - this was the first time he mentioned my name, up to then always Mr. Martin - "it will be about eight in the evening when the temperature is much lower. Even the extremely fit could not match our heat."
"Well they all look very fit to me, I must say, though a bit on the thin side for my liking" I replied.
"And what is your liking, as you put it, Jonathan?"
I realised I had skidded on to dangerous ground, as I had not really checked out what the social politics of the country might be. I knew Kuwait was ok and intended to visit it at weekends time permitting. Egypt, I remember, might have been one thing, but Dahra was very close to Saudi, where nothing was permitted.
"Sorry, that came out the wrong way. They all just look so thin like whippets and a bit, I don't know."
"So you do not think that they are the peak of manhood then. What is your ideal type of man then? Surely not weightlifters?"
We laughed as we walked down towards the limousine.
"No, Tariq, I suppose it would be anyone a bit fitter than myself" and I patted my own stomach, which was, if I say so myself, quite firm. "I suppose someone who was superbly fit but well built, you know like those Aussie types who play football."
"I know exactly what you mean," Tariq replied with an middle eastern enigmatic smile.
I made to take my leave and said "I am going to take a minute to see this splendid new fountain up a little more closely. I am told it was switched on just this morning and it looks absolutely stunning."
Tariq insisted in crossing over towards the park with me, saying that his cousin in charge of Public Works had had it built to refresh this part of the city with its cascading waters which were on some new type of silent recycling system. He was gesturing towards some of its features, when from the side of my eye I saw a Mercedes swerving in off the road and heading straight for us.
It was surely reflexes on my part, nothing more, but I dived taking Tariq out of the path of the oncoming car in a tackle which would have done the England rugby team proud.
He was not a big man, but neither was he small, and the power of my leap at him threw us both out of harm's way. One of the newly inaugurated park's benches in stainless steel or some such metal was totally demolished. The grill of the Mercedes disintegrated, the hood flew open and steam hissed out.
To say that there was pandemonium would be to put it mildly. I had landed on top of Tariq, so in reality he did not know what had happened. The noise of the crash was followed by the most deadly of silences broken only by the splashing of the water. Then all hell really broke loose.
The sequence of events for me is a bit blurred. I was pulled to my feet. Tariq was hoisted up off the ground. Someone opened the driver's door of Mercedes and a body fell out. There is no language in the world like Arabic for making a guttural noise. And noisy it was.
Those holding me and supporting Tariq turned out to be his bodyguards who had been so much in the background during our meeting and walk though the hotel and over to the park that I had not even been aware of their presence.
The body on the ground beside the car was recognised as that of a prominent leather manufacturer. Of matters medical, I know nothing, but even I could see that he was stone dead and from the look on his face, I would have guessed that it was a heart attack. The university hospital coroner subsequently confirmed a massive coronary.
All of a sudden the shouting seemed to subside and Tariq rushed over to embrace me. He was so shocked that he was talking in voluble Arabic, in which though I am fluent, even I had difficulty in following. He owed me his life. His wives and children were in my debt. The Sheikdom could never repay me. These phrases were repeated again and again in his shock.
It was only when he embraced me for a second time that I felt something was wrong with my right wrist and almost fainted with the pain. More shouting as I was supported and the Bank's limousine was brought round to whisk me off to the hospital. It was not yet midday.
The hospital had obviously been alerted, because a very worried doctor was at the private entrance to meet me with two nurses and a trolley, and seemed quite relieved when I got out of the limousine unaided and appeared to me under my own control, though holding on for dear life to my right forearm.
I hate hospitals. It's nothing personal. It's just me. The doctor got less worried by the minute as I lay on an examination table and I simply closed my eyes to the lights on the ceiling as they x-rayed and palpated the wrist, the arm, the elbow and anything remotely attached. There was a hairline fracture just above the right wrist where I had either landed on Tariq or Tariq, in falling, had landed on it as I rugby-tackled him.
There seemed to be a long phone call going on and it was Tariq demanding to know how I was. The doctor was explaining away over and over again in Arabic that I would be ok, explaining what it was and what it was not. So I finally got up off the table, walked over to the phone and explained to Tariq himself that I was fine.
By the time I got back to the Bank, it was abuzz with conversation and a round of applause greeted my entrance. What I had not known was that the TV crew had got it all on film and my rugby tackle had been slow- motioned to show me at one point horizontal to the ground as I saved Tariq.
The following morning the headlines were around the financial world even an inside photo on the third page of the FT as "Finance Minister saved by Banker" summarised matters. The 'deputy to the deputy finance Minister' bit had been edited out, and the brevity required by headlines edited in!
To be continued...