“What do you think you are doing?”
Scheherazade glared across the chamber at her new husband- with anything but love and admiration in her eyes. He stared back, expression more annoyed than anything, and, after what seemed like a lifetime of not knowing what to do and neither of them talking -this was extremely uncomfortable... they had only just met after all, the Sultan began to stand. Scheherazade didn’t know what her next move should be whatsoever. Her thoughts began to all be the same.
For all that is good, he is going to murder me right here!
“Look around! I give you all of this!” The Sultan gestured to the room of luxurious fabrics and fine prints and goods, his arm on a swivel. “…And you try to deceive me? What do you have to say for yourself?”
Silence.
More silence.
Finally, Scheherazade spoke.
“So is this our first fight?” she said with a smirk, toying with the lace on the sleeve of the wedding gown she had still not changed out of.
“Who do you think you are?” the Sultan bellowed at her, taking a step closer.
Arms flying up to defend her face, Scheherazade shrieked out, “Okay, okay, I know you’re going to kill me in the morning and I was going to see if I could get out of being murdered by distracting you and…”
“What did you just say?” the Sultan interrupted her again.
If we’re going to give this whole “wedding” and “sharing an eternity” concept a chance that has GOT to stop Scheherazade thought, but instead she just continued, “I realize it was not my brightest idea…”
The Sultan’s expression softened and turned to concern. “So say you had distracted me all of tonight. What about tomorrow night?”
Scheherazade frowned, thinking. “Well, I hadn’t gotten that far…”
“Do people really think I have been murdering all of my wives?”
“Well, yes…”
By this point the Sultan was on the floor, his head in his hands. “Why must the town always see me as such a horrible person?”
“Well... you did kill your first wife…”
“Shut up; she deserved it.”
That’s when Scheherazade did shut up; the fact that the man she was now married to was the cold-blooded killer of someone he once loved shot shivers up her spine, but she needed to ignore it. He hadn’t killed her (yet) so she still had a chance. She knelt down next to her husband, realizing this is the closest they had ever been in proximity to one another. “So are you saying that you… didn’t kill the other girls?”
The Sultan looked her in the eye. “No of course not.”
“Then where are they?”
The Sultan sighed and then began:
“So, back when I found out my wife was being disloyal, I was distraught. I had no idea what to do with my life. Did I think killing her would make the pain decrease? Yes. Did it help?” he shook his head. “Not in the least. I went on and got married to another woman. She was very pretty but not the most intelligent. The marriage I knew would be nowhere as satisfying as my first, so I took her to the closet that had once belonged to my true love, let her pick out whatever garments and jewels she fancied until her heart was content. After that, I found her a husband in another land.
This has been happening the past 173 days of my life and it is exhausting. I have met 173 various women, and all of them are now off in different lands with different husbands whom I hope they enjoy.”
Scheherazade didn’t know what to think but she knew what she needed to ask, “when were you going to show me the closet and find me a suitor?”
The Sultan smiled softly. “I’m not going to. I think I want to keep you.”
Author’s Note: The idea of this story came from the conception of the thought: what if the Sultan Schahriar wasn’t actually killing all of his wives, but instead keeping them hostage in some form or fashion? What if he, then, did not fall for the tricks of Scheherazade, and she ended up there as well? The one thing that stuck me as strange while reading the story itself was that she never considered what would happen if she survived her first night with this new husband of hers. Would she have to constantly repeat the same scheme every night until she eventually ended up dead?
It was intriguing to me to think about what would happen, which is why I decided to write about the wedding night, only with the special twist that the Sultan is smarter than he looks and catches on to his dear wife’s little game.
As for the image, I chose the image of the Sultan because it helps create the visual I want the reader to get of the chamber in which the two sat during this interaction. Since I am working on a project that is a portfolio, I am hoping this is another twisted tale that can go along with my past work.
