Prince Abdul Sa’ad was a strongly built man in his thirties. He was dressed in a simple white linen robe. At his belt he wore a beautiful gold-handled dagger. His brown face with its trim black beard and desert hawk’s nose was striking against the contrast of his white headcloth. His eyes, under thick black brows, were impressive. Liquid brown, they were at the same time both expressive and implacable. He looked like a prophet! In truth, he was almost handsome, she thought.

He told her that she was his slave and would remain so for the rest of her life. When she argued and demanded that she be allowed to go and that he contact the American Embassy, he almost smiled. Later, of course, she realized how ridiculous she must have seemed. A woman claiming her rights in Arabia was like a hen claiming parental jurisdiction over her eggs.

“Be careful, mister. I’m an American. The daughter of a congressman,” Kelly warned.

“I know who you are,” Abdul Sa’ad said.

Then he left her alone with her thirst.

She lay curled on the dirt floor, her eyes filled with visions of sparkling fountains, water spurting wastefully from hoses as people washed their cars, cans of beer in ice and sunlight sparkling on the surface of Lake Tahoe, where her family would go for the summers when she was a girl. She was dying, dying because Abdul Sa’ad wanted a little nookie, she thought grimly.

Everyone likes to think he’s unique, she thought. Whenever she had read about people dying of panic in a fire, or heard on TV about a POW who had succumbed to brainwashing, an inner voice would reassure her that they had been weak, that she would have been able to resist. That was all nonsense, she now realized. Anyone can succumb. It didn’t even require any sophisticated technique. She was willing to sell her soul, for that was surely the price, for a glass of water. You’re easy, Kelly. You come cheap, she accused herself.

Later, she woke and lay staring into the darkness, shivering despite the burning heat. Her throat felt so dry she could barely breathe. She was waiting, she realized. Waiting for something to happen, or—tell the truth, Kelly—waiting for someone to save her. That’s what women do; we wait, she thought, blinking eyes so dry her lids felt like sandpaper. We spend our lives waiting for a man to rescue us, from home, from being single, from boring marriages. We wait, forever going on diets, buying clothes, fixing ourselves, so that the label will be so attractive that we’ll be the one piece of goods he picks off the shelf.