It is at this point, dear listener, that I would remind you that though we have traveled millennia for my tale's beginning, our story itself has thus far chronicled less than a single hour. For all the flash and wonder, little had happened in the world itself outside of my grubby little alleyway, and dear Bekhat yet slept in blissful ignorance. All these great changes slumbered within me, invisible as the thoughts that whirled madly through my mind on the short walk back into my home.

It was contradiction that captured me most; I had power now, power over the hearts of any women in the world, yet still my own soul rested with one who loved me already of her own free will.

And there she was, shifting slightly to move her eyes away from the slit of light that had snuck its way past the curtains to illuminate an enticing hint of her skin. Such a lovely woman Bekhat was; fierce in her loyalty her own, submissive utterly to her beloved, with a tongue that could bring the heights of ecstasy or flay the paint from the wall depending on her mood.

The dark waves of her hair were unchanged over the years, falling across shoulders of a rich gold hue and framing a petite face with brown, almond-shaped eyes (a gift from some far-sailing ancestor who had returned with a prize of a wife) and bow-shaped lips that never needed the stain of berries to shine red. She was, it is true, no more the slip of a girl she had once been, and it suited her magnificently. The curve it had added to her hips, the weight of her breasts that rested so perfectly in my hands, had made her more beautiful than even I had ever thought possible. I may have been slightly biased about her beauty, granted, but the speculative looks from male, and sometimes female, neighbors when they did not believe me watching suggested otherwise.