Three Ladies and the Gent

Three Ladies and the Gent

    This place of rest is called “the Inn of Abu Masrur,” from the stories told by Scheherazade. And so the strange tale begins again. His first night in the mythical hotel finds him greeted by the three ladies from the book. John sits on a Divan where the blonde woman plants herself on his lap. She uncovers her hair from her veil. She asks John, “Good sir, what name does my hair go by?”
     John smiles at his good fortune to be in the company of not one but three beautiful women. He ponders for just one minute. Then he says, “Yours is the sun which brings warmth to sea gazers on a cool and breezy spring day.”
     She slaps him briskly across the face and says, “Fie. That same sun can burn ocean watchers who are under the illusion of coolness from the wind.”
     The red-head lady hops into John’s lap with a smirk. She holds her ponytail in a bunch and presses it to his nose. She asks John, “Good sir, you look to be of good breeding and will surely answer me politely. Tell me as a man to a woman. If you were a dictionary writer what would you call mine?”
     I say, “Yours is a wreath of holly berries hanging on the door as an invitation to guests for the love within.”
     This time the lady smacks both his cheeks until his silly smile melts. She tells him, “Those berries are poisonous. While pleasing to the eye they are not to be consumed. Are you implying that my love is toxic?” She pinches John’s nipples through his shirt and pulls his hair.
     John wonders when they will relent. Then Rudabeh the black-haired hostess who invited him jumps into his lap with her smile a promise of more than slaps and pinches. She undoes the sash which bundles her hair to let it fall across her porcelain shoulders.
     She asks John, “Good noble knight. Just let your olfactory senses imbibe the scent of my hair. So much rides upon this. You may be my future husband. But this is no mere formality. The words that spill from your mouth will choose our fate.”
     John replies, “Your perfume is that of the botanical gardens of Babylon whose fragrance rivaled a thousand roses.”
     “You have picked the spot where I wiled away the hours in centuries ago. There you and I fell in love. So you see, though it no longer exists it rests sacred in my memory.”
     John replies, “I remember the figs we shared in the shade of the trees. But the sweetest fruit of those gardens was your kiss.”
     She says, “Let me kiss you to see if my lips are still as sweet.”
     The rough play is over now that Rudabeh minty kiss is upon him. He says, “We’ll buy our poor man’s figs rolled in cookies from the dollar store. That way we’ll have them out of season.”
     She says, “Honey, just hide those sweets from me or else my Babylonian figure will be history.”