The Dahran Offer

By Gerry Taylor

The Dahran Offer is the continuing narrative of international intrigue based on the adventures of Sir Jonathan Martin, a gay banker, who has become the owner of some slaves.

A boring and uninteresting life is changed forever as he makes discovery after discovery about himself, life, international business, politics, and modern society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jul 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684707263

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The Dahran Offer

Gerry Taylor

Copyright © 2019 Gerry Taylor.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-6847-0727-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6847-0726-3 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

All characters and events in this novel are fictitious, and not based on any real person, happening or situation. Some geographical places, cities and countries mentioned do exist. Dahra as a country does not.

Gerry Taylor

July 2019

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 07/11/2019

Also, by Gerry Taylor

First trilogy

The Dahran Secret

The Dahran Retrainer

The Dahran Offer

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PROLOGUE

They say ‘business is business’ as if that excuses all the twists and pressures of deal-making. I believe however that the Fates watch over us and put opportunities in our path, exposing us to crises and opportunities which we have but to open our eyes to see.

I have been fortunate enough to have accumulated sizeable wealth and a very uncomplaining workforce. I think you will agree that the Fates have not just watched over me, but they have been kind into the bargain.

The adventures, about which you are going to read, highlight some matters which occurred during my work in Dahra. I hope that you enjoy reading of them, as much as I have in living and profiting from them.

Many of the issues raised in the narrative are metaphors for modern life. Spot them if you can.

My apologies, but I have forgotten to introduce myself. Martin, Sir Jonathan Martin at your service. I live in Dahra, an exotic Sheikdom on a peninsula, where money, power, sex, and politics all intertwine like the roots of the Dahran Aloe vera.

Dahra,

January 20xx

1

CHAPTER

Diplomats

Diplomacy is war without weapons.

Gerry Taylor

It is my firm belief, and it has not varied over the years, that diplomatic do’s are best avoided — at all costs. That, alas, is the result of experience, a posteriori, as they say. Of course, when it happens, and you are asked to attend and the white embossed card with the perfect calligraphy and the gold edging states your name in such a charming manner, reliable, and normally sound common sense goes out the window, and you are flattered.

It gets worse when someone from the Embassy rings up and says, ‘Sir Jonathan, the Ambassador was so hoping that you could attend the reception.’

You are twice flattered. They know you exist! You are more than just a banker who by a strange quirk of Fate just happened to get a ‘K’ and have the title of ‘Sir’ prefixed before your name for services to banking and international finance.

Would they have done it if they had known all one’s grubby little deals and schemes and what one owned? Then again, they might just have invited you because you are a leading light and business force in Dahra, that small, but significant desert Sheikdom which only sits slap-bang on top of the world’s fifth largest reserves of oil and fourth largest reserves of gas and basks in a midday heat only equalled in the wastelands of the central Sahara.

I had not responded to the direct R.S.V.P. number and email address on the bottom of the New Year invitation, for no reason other than it had just come in the morning Bank post and was sitting with a dozen other items of fresh correspondence laid on my desk which I had collected from my secretary. Though not to be held on New Year’s Day itself, it was one of those do’s where the flag is flown and information at all levels flows.

The phone call itself should have warned me. If I had not responded for say a full week, they might well have chased me up. Not even allowing the invitation to get past mid-morning coffee smacked of indecent haste. That, as I say, should have warned me, but, alas, did not.

Flattery to one’s ego is like hot air into a rising balloon and I heard myself replying, ‘Please tell the Ambassador that I shall be delighted to attend.’

I told the Bank’s receptionist who keeps all our synchronised computerised diaries to note the time and date on the computer and I then put it out of my mind to look after the more pressing task of placing half a billion euro in German fixed bonds.

My work at Deckhams Bank, so to speak, is to place the vast amounts of money put on deposit with us in suitable investments around the world. When I say vast, I mean funds of epic proportions. Underground, the Sheikdom may well be awash in oil and gas, but once having surfaced and having been sold on international markets, the funds which pour in leave the small nation awash in currency.

On the day of the reception, Faisal al-Farid, the Bank’s driver assigned to me, knew where to go. I had never been to any of the embassies since arriving in Dahra eight months beforehand, not even to the one which flew our own flag over its front door. When I told Gustav Ahlson, my junior Partner at the Bank, that this would be my first ‘do’ so to speak, he murmured that over eight months without a diplomatic reception must be a Dahran record and that he himself attended two, but also avoided, at least, two a month. Receptions were one of the perks of junior managers who had the evening time and energy for them.

I had informed myself from Gustav that I would be quite respectable in a dark suit, that nowadays nobody went in an evening suit and that there was no need for a bow tie, unless I wanted to — which I did not.

The Ambassador, Sir Basil Chormunley (pronounced ‘Chumly’, I was advised with a murmur by an aide) and his wife, were just inside the Embassy’s internal doors greeting guests as they arrived.

‘Sir Jonathan, I am indeed delighted to meet you at last’ — double handshake presidential-style for that greeting – ‘I just do not know how we have not met since your arrival here, some eight months ago.’

I let him off the hook by saying that I was in and out of the country a lot. A little white lie as I just fly the New Concorde to London and back once a month for our third Monday of the month meeting of the Deckhams’ Board.

Other guests were arriving, so I went on in accepting a flute of very good champagne on the way. I did not know what I expected at an Embassy reception, hundreds of people perhaps, but in fact, there were maybe some thirty persons standing around, an almost equal proportion of men as of women. The men were all dressed in business suits – thank you, Gustav, for the good advice – except for one man over-dressed in full evening suit and whites, perhaps with somewhere else to go afterwards.

‘Sir Jonathan?’ a man said coming up to me ‘Ken Wallace, deputy Head of Mission.’

Ah! Not just diplomats, people with a mission as well!

‘Delighted to see you here. We have, in fact, been quite looking forward to meeting you.’

Who were the ‘we’ I wondered? Why a banker? – though Deckhams as a Bank goes back centuries and the Deckhams through our Chairman, Lord Charlie Deckham is related to half the royals of Europe.

‘Who do you know here?’ the deputy Head of Mission enquired.

I professed a total ignorance of all those whom I could see, so he said ‘Well, let me then introduce you around until Sir Basil comes in.’

Wallace moved like a dolphin in blue water in the diplomatic circle of the invited guests. Within five minutes, I was speaking to both the Italian and French Ambassadors and was soon joined by the Danish Ambassador. We were a little group in a corner so to speak and had I been more alert, I would have realised that the deputy Head of Mission had so organised it that we were ‘protected’ or ‘shielded’ from the main group of invitees by a number of lesser diplomats from other embassies.

The diplomats skated on the ice of contacts and relationships and business and finance with an ease born of years of practice. The outer group opened and closed admitting a woman, who was introduced as Eva Friberg, the new Swedish Ambassador. Sweden had in recent times realised the importance of the Dahra’s reserves, or so I thought, and had stopped being represented from Kuwait. More ice-skating!

Finger food was beginning to be served around the guests, but the outer group was an effective ‘shield’ as far as I could see from being served canapés and some nice smoked salmon on brown bread.

At last, Sir Basil, broke through the outer circle and said, ‘I think everyone has arrived now’ and turning to his deputy Head of Mission who had again materialised by his side, he said, ‘Thank you, Ken. I can take over from here,’ and with that, opened a side door leading the group of us into a smallish dining room, where a table was set in readiness for perhaps half a dozen or so people.

Already, there was a man seated in there at the table reading some papers and he rose up, I noted, to come to greet me and not the other diplomats. He introduced himself as the German Ambassador.

I also noted two things. Sir Basil locked the door behind us and going over to the sideboard, pressed, with a deliberate push of a finger, the red, button on a small gadget. Two circles of what looked like steel or aluminium on top of it started to rotate.

‘Now, my friends, I think we are almost ready. We shall not be interrupted, and the room is now secure,’ he said pointing to the rotating circles on top of the gadget on the sideboard.

‘François, will you look after the red? Mario, the white? let us please sit down and feel at home. Do help yourselves,’ as he waved at the various cold dishes on the table.

François du Serret and Mario del Fiume, the French and Italian Ambassadors became obliging volunteer sommeliers.

‘You will forgive, Sir Jonathan,’ he said addressing me, ‘for the small deception in getting you here?’

The Ambassador was talking to me. Forgiveness? Deception? What was he going on about?

‘Ambassador…?’ I started to say.

‘Please, call me Basil. You are among friends here.’

‘Basil, I am quite at sea. I am here to attend a reception, nothing more. Excuse me, but you all seem to have an agenda of which I am not aware.’

‘Good,’ the German Ambassador commented slapping the table, as if at the Munich Bierkeller festival. ‘It is holding. I knew that it would, if we did it this way,’ he said looking around at his colleagues.

‘What, Ambassador, is holding?’

‘Gerhardt Kaufmann, but Gerhardt, please, Sir Jonathan. Our proposed plan. I think, Basil, you had better explain the bolts and nuts as you say in English of what is being proposed here this evening.’

Sir Basil just stopped long enough serving himself a smoked salmon canapé, to look around the table and say, ‘Ah, yes, the nuts and bolts, a summary.’

‘Jonathan, since you arrived in Dahra,’ he began, ‘you have had not just good, but extraordinarily good fortune. You saved the deputy to the deputy Finance Minister’s life, rather dramatic, I must say. Quite a rugby tackle!’

He was referring to an episode the very first week of my arrival. I was not going to tell him or those present what type of return payment had been made to me.

‘Some weeks later, we were about to invite you to the usual round of things, when the Foreign Office asked us not to. Nothing wrong with you. Just not to.’

‘Then for some reason, Deckhams’ fortunes in Dahra seemed to rise and rise, as you very soon became the number one private merchant Bank by far, not just in Dahra, but throughout various of the Emirates.’

He was referring to the inflow of almost half a trillion euro over six months into the Bank. I do not think that he would have been aware of the extent of our new-found deposits from the Sheikdom, and I was not going to tell him. Nor was I going to tell the gathering of diplomats that this was because I had done a favour to the al-Akhri’s, one of the most powerful Dahran families, netting them over half a billion euro in the space of a week.

‘Then we had a memo from the Palace no less, by-passing the Foreign Office, that should you ever require assistance, it was to be given immediate attention by the Embassy and no questions asked.’

‘Since then, Jonathan,’ he continued, ‘your standing in the Dahra business and financial community has soared as none before you. Your name is spoken with awe by the entire al-Akhri family and by Farouq al-Hamdi. You do know he owns the largest opal mine in the world. These are people not given to exaggeration or hyperbole.’

‘When we enquired after some months of the Foreign Office if there was any change in your status, thinking that they might have forgotten to tell us, the reply was a clear "hands off’ that you were not to be bothered. You may have noted that we had not to this point even invited you to a reception. That was until last week.’

Sir Basil reached out to help himself to some more salmon and mayonnaise and then, with the true timing of a symphony orchestra conductor bringing in the oboes, he struck, ‘By the way, Jonathan, how many slaves do own at present?’

The silent rotating gadget on the sideboard was the loudest sounding item in the dining room. I look at the Ambassador, who was engrossed in putting the dollop of mayonnaise on the salmon canapé. The other Ambassadors were looking at me, with expectation, questioning with their eyes, forks halfway between plates and mouths.

‘Sir Basil and it is ‘Sir Basil’ now,’ I said with some irritability and tetchiness, ‘You have me at a disadvantage, in that I did not know that this reception was to turn into an interrogation. In second place, my home is my castle, or rather here in Dahra, my Palace and, what occurs there, is my business and no one else’s.’

I was beginning to wonder if they knew about Gustav Ahlson’s slaves. With the Swedish lady Ambassador at the table, I was not too sure either way.

‘Sir Jonathan, please do not be offended. This is not an interrogation, quite the contrary. We are intrigued in a diplomatic way and from a professional point of view amazed, but more than that, we have been instructed as a collective to contact you to put a proposal to you. All our Governments know of the age-old slave trade here in Dahra. It is one of the best kept political secrets from the public of the new millennium.’

‘What we have been able to glean is that you are now the owner of some slaves — we do not know how many and that the word ‘Retrainer’ has been used with awe in your regard. That whatever system you use, it works for retraining the attitude of those, who are slaves, who become utterly loyal to you, not out of fear, but it is said, with respect.’

‘By the way, congratulations on the discovery of water on your property. It has been the talk of the capital.’

I knew the ploy. The Ambassador was giving me time to think and to put my thoughts together. The eyes of all in the room were on me without blinking an eyelid.

I sipped on a glass of water which was in front of me, pushing the flute of champagne to one side. I thought that I had better avoid the champagne if I were to keep a clear head.

‘Ambassador… Basil, I own twenty eight slaves. Some were given to me and some I have bought.’

‘Sir Jonathan,’ the Italian Ambassador said, ‘we know, in fact, very little of all of this and are trying to get some facts so that we can, on behalf of the European Union Governments — you see, we are speaking on behalf all of them —put a proposition to you.’

The German Ambassador chimed in.

‘Jonathan, can we ask you a series of simple questions?’

I nodded.

‘Are your slaves well treated’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you treat them well?’

‘A specific diet, something over four to five hours of work each day, set exercises each day, a number of inter-related things’ — I was not going to mention here the existence of a buddy or sex partner for each.

‘Has anyone tried to escape?’

‘No.’

‘Do you punish the slaves?’

‘I have had just one slave punished in public for hurting two slaves. This punishment was before the others and he apologised to the other slaves whom he had hurt.’

‘Are they in good health?’

‘Yes, they have excellent medical and dental treatment given by an in-house doctor and dentist. I cannot say from where, but there is also a permanent rotation of fifteen to twenty slaves, who come for a month at a time to the Aloe Palace. No one forces them to come and after a fortnight, they are back to their owner, and if I may say so, always anxiously waiting to return to the Aloe Palace, my home.’

The Swedish Ambassador was looking at me in a rather intent fashion.

‘How do you retrain them?’ It was the French Ambassador.

‘That. Ambassador. I would prefer not to say.’

‘Do you sell your slaves when retrained?’

‘No, I do not. Such is not my intention. Not now, not ever.’

There were several glances around at this comment which I could not fathom. I thought I had said enough and decided that it was time that they told me what was going on.

‘Now, Ambassadors, I have told you what you have wanted to know and answered your questions. What is the proposal which you intend putting to me?’

They looked at each other and then looked back at Sir Basil. He raised his eyebrows and opened his hands, as if enquiring ‘yeah’ or ‘nay’ from the others. Each of them in turn nodded.

‘The proposal is this, Jonathan. Our respective Governments and other Governments for which we speak want your facility to take some other persons.’

I bridled at that. My ears pricked up at the diplomatic language. My home, my Palace was being referred to as a ‘facility’ and those whom I would be asked to take were ‘persons.’

I held up my hand.

‘The Aloe Palace’ I said, ‘is my home and home to my slaves. It is not a facility. Under a second heading, in Dahran law, I am the sole person, apart from the two professional medical personnel who live there by contract and my Bank driver who chooses to live there, but all others are slaves, not persons.’

‘Yes, Jonathan, we realise that, but we are working with new concepts here and I do apologise for referring to your home as a facility.’

‘Those whom, we would wish to send, Jonathan,’ he continued, ‘in effect no longer exist in our countries, let alone in our societies. They are people who, for instance, are in prison for the rest of their lives, either given long sentences in moments of public or political hysteria and some even, who are innocent of the crimes for which they were jailed.’

‘Let me give you some examples,’ he went on. ‘In one of our countries — we have compiled among ourselves various common examples — a man was sent to jail for poisoning eight people. He has been in jail for six years now. There was hysteria when it happened. No one has visited him in four years. Two new DNA tests have shown that he could not have done it and the real culprit was helped escape by a very powerful organisation and is now living in the Pacific area. Due to political circumstances, the prisoner cannot be released because of the organisation involved.’

‘Another example. Anti-terrorist legislation exists in all our countries. Our Governments now each know that at least one or two people are in all respects innocent and were convicted either on falsified or botched Police evidence or the planting of evidence by international investigation or security forces at the frenzied heights of various terrorist episodes.’

‘Several of the Governments are most concerned about the fabrication of evidence as it was provided with the help of international security bodies so to speak. These prisoners cannot be released without bringing down entire Governments and causing political chaos. There are also some cases of verdicts of natural life which in other countries would be sentences of less than five years in jail, if that. You realise that no two countries have matching lengths of sentences for crimes. In the main, these are cases where the innocent cannot be released and so, one man suffers so that the majority community can live in peace.’

‘Ambassadors, what you are saying is that you want innocent people to live the lives of prisoner-slaves for the rest of their lives, so that Governments may continue.’

‘Hard as it is to say so, but yes,’ Sir Basil replied. ‘If you decline to assist, this conversation will never have taken place. If you do agree to assist, you can do so to the level which you think possible and you lay down your own ground rules.’

In more ways than one, the reception was over. Any appetite for eating had long since disappeared.

‘In all how many such persons are you talking about?’

‘We would not be sure. We have been told to mention a figure of thirty, but it could be to a considerable extent higher. Each EU country would have at least one such person. Some a lot more,’ the French Ambassador commented.

I looked at the six faces around the table whose Governments knew of the slave trade in Dahra, who now in all probability knew of some of their own citizens being there as slaves and, who were now asking that further of their citizens live out the remainder of their lives as slaves with me and mine.

If I had harboured any qualms of conscience or morality about owning slaves before that moment, they disappeared in the face of the political hypocrisy which trained diplomats had been asked to convey. I told the Ambassadors that I would speak with them in one week’s time. Same place, same room, same hour.

As the meeting concluded the Swedish lady Ambassador caught my eye and I waited until the others had bid their adieus.

‘Sir Jonathan, thank you for having met with us. I, but not the other Ambassadors, am aware of the position of your general manager, Gustav Ahlson and I am under personal and ambassadorial Royal edict, the sole one ever issued to me in a long career, to lend assistance to him at any stage should he request it. Because of the arrangement you have made with him, that Royal edict has also been extended to you.’

I made no comment other than saying ‘Thank you, Ambassador.’

The meeting just held with the Ambassadors, I now see, was as momentous and fateful for me as my actual arrival in Dahra itself some eight months earlier.

I returned to the Aloe Palace in some internal turmoil. I could not eat dinner and toyed with my food. I have always found that if sleep or food do not relax you then sex will. The fine food of the dinner had not enticed me. Sleep did not beckon. So, I opted to call for sex and retired some hours earlier than usual to the worried looks of Bob Conrad, the Canadian slave who served my table and of Flavio Pinelli, my Italian slave and cook.

Each night a slave is waiting to be my companion for the night and one whom, in the usual run of events, I choose in advance. As I arrived at my bedroom suite, Ross Wells, an English slave was waiting, hands behind his head ‘at display’. I had not asked for any slave that night, but it was if all knew that the best lover had to be sent. Ross had been a London call-guy and escort, so he knew all the moves and was blessed not just with the right sized tackle, but had a smile to melt icebergs.

‘Does everyone think that I am so out of sorts, that you have to be in my bed pal for the night.’

Ross smiled the smile and said ‘Afraid so, Boss. If you do not mind, Boss, I would like to have Vitali Belov give me a helping hand.’

Vitali is a Russian slave, Ross’s buddy, lover, and a great masseur. Not just that, but he has the healthiest of cocks which is almost permanent perpendicular erection at the slightest encouragement.

‘So, when did the great Ross Wells start doubting his prowess in bed?’

‘Boss, I do not doubt anything, but we all need a little help from time to time. Whatever is bothering you, putting you out of sorts, is now bothering all of us. It is as clear as the stars in the night sky. I just want to make sure that you know how much we all care for you.’

‘Okay, where is Vitali?’

With a grin, Ross gave half a whistle and Vitali trotted in from the adjoining bedroom.

‘Now, Boss, the question is are you putting up a fight or are you going to surrender?’ Ross enquired with his impish smiling face.

‘Two to one is not fair, so I had better surrender. Do you not think?’

‘Very wise, Boss,’ Ross said, and Vitali nodded in agreement as he said laying out his massage oils.

Using my own technique against me, Ross and Vitali had me undressed in no time at all and with two fingers on my chest as I do with the slaves, spun me around and again with two fingers on my shoulder pushed me face down on the bed.

As Vitali worked the oils into my shoulders, I felt Ross’ tongue start at the soles of my feet and I just knew where that tongue was going to end up before Vitali got down to my waist.

Half an hour later when in the soporific state of bliss, half between relaxed floating and massaged contentment, Ross turned me over and while Vitali worked my scalp and facial muscles, Ross, with two licks of his tongue, brought me to full erection, straddled my hips and slid down on my hardness.

Ross’s sphincter muscle control is superb at any stage. I could see him grinning down at me, his hands behind his head, as if ‘at display’. The rectum muscles tightened and relaxed in tempos of slow waltzes and quick foxtrots.

Vitali leaned over my face to lick and play with my nipples. His hairless balls were just an inch from my lips, and I allowed myself to pass my tongue over their pink scrotal enclosure. His cock went from erect into total unsheathed flagpole-status dribbling precum which I took it in my mouth, promising myself that I would have him off before Ross had me come.

In racing, they say ‘by a nose’. I came in one pent-up climax when Ross went into overdrive and Vitali feeling the agony and the ecstasy of my release, shot load after load down my throat.

I do not remember anything after that other than waking up in the cool airy morning spooned between the two slaves, who were half-clutching me, Ross, from behind — an arm around my waist and Vitali to the front, holding my right hand between his — his blond Russian features untroubled in the total relaxation of sleep.

I thought that I was very fortunate to have two such very good slaves. The entire Palace would know with question by breakfast time in gory detail what had happened. So, I decided that I had better put on a cheerful face, or I would be downright exhausted if this sex therapy went on for the full week until my next meeting with the Ambassadors.

Retrainee notes number 19 M.O for S. bint A.

Background

A fine well-built Egyptian garden slave in his twenties who just ignores his Mistress’s instructions. Nice refined lady who is known in social circles for her water gardens. Heard of the Retrainer though S.K. at Emporium.

Slave bought about four months before this. Works in twenty acres of gardens, no problem with actual work when done, but ignores orders.

Retraining

On being brought to the Retraining room, to G.A.’s and my amazement, M.O. dropped to the floor and spread his arms and legs. No stranded starfish on a beach was ever so well spread-eagled. The oddest action ever!

From his angle, G.A. pointed out