CONFESSIONS OF A SULTANA - ΕΞΟΜΟΛΟΓΗΣΕΙΣ ΜΙΑΣ ΣΟΥΛΤΑΝΑΣ

CONFESSIONS OF A SULTANA

It has been a long time since I have been here, inside this palace, among the highly decorated domes, the gold, the precious stones, and the silk fabrics. Inside this formal room reserved for me, I have my crowns, colorful fabrics, and shiny diamond jewelry. Every day I dress in different silk, which falls softly on my shapely body. Every day, the jewels that adorn my arms, legs, belly, and chest change.

I was young when I got here. Fifteen years old and still a virgin, with red cheeks and an unruly gaze. My parents brought me. They were talking about a better life. I was one of their seven daughters, and they couldn't support all of us. Beauty was evident from my first steps in life, so fate sealed their decision to send me to the sultan early on.

I entered a little girl and became a woman. The sultan's other wives kept a secret pact not to reveal anything, a long-standing agreement, for all the new arrivals. Back then, still young, I didn't see the irony of the situation, their sad eyes, nor did I hear their song of despair at night. It was well hidden, the shared secret that I now know too.

I immediately went in for education, music, poetry, dance, and history. I was trained to express pleasant feelings and behave socially and sexually. I had not seen the Sultan, but I knew that they were preparing me for him.

The day I was presented before him, I was hypnotized under the stare of his black eyes, tanned golden flesh, and regal shape. A girl's innocence was replaced by the expectation to be his, to please him, to drive the little girl away, and to love him like a woman.

Passion and ambition took root in me. I wanted to conquer him. I wanted to make him mine. I wanted to be his wife, the only one. To ascend next to the throne, to be his queen. He put me in private apartments next to his palace near him. Away from the other women, it had been a long time without their company, and he had forgotten them, so it was my turn to claim him. No one made him feel like I did. No one touched his warm caress as I did. My Sultan, my King, my Maharajah.

He made me a different woman. I experienced love with him, lust, and desire. He taught me the secrets of body and soul. Only the Sultan could make me feel this way, to learn things I didn't even know existed. Some things are rarely revealed to common mortals, which not everyone is lucky enough to experience. Only my king offered me this precious gift of true love.

The sealed secret kept by the other sultanas met me one day. Everything was torn down. By order of the sultan, I returned to the harem. The sultanas looked at me with irony, and I saw the lie built around me crumble. He managed to conquer me, and it was never me. And the persistent conqueror decides to continue his journey, to conquer other continents and other women.

It has been years since I returned to the Flower Room, around the other three hundred sultanas. We have everything, but not him. The sultanas change, new ones come, and younger ones, all, in turn, live the same story with the sheik, and return to the harem with a broken heart. Some pick up their pieces by themselves. Others find suitable companionship, a friend who will satisfy their needs.

We try to please each other, but always in secret. Those who were caught are executed. No other man can lay eyes on us. They are not allowed to look at us. We lack male companionship, male caress, and male satisfaction among many women. Only the eunuchs are near us, all humming, watching us in the shadowy corners of the harem. They know their hands will be cut off if they try to do anything.

On the soft silk covers, eating grapes and drinking sherbet. I'm smoking a gold hookah full of opium. I lose day by day, year by year, my freshness, my consciousness of time. In my golden cell, in the cloud of opium, I relive the happy moments with him. I release my sexual repressions and live out fantasies that are sealed inside my mind. I lose myself in the fairy tale starring my sultan, waiting for him to return to me, but I know well that I have become just another concubine.

Created by Diana Chemeris

https://dianachem.com/2022/08/25/confessions-of-a-sultana/