The Tale of the Destroyer
by Charles Pratt

This is one of my erotic stories.

As an erotic story, it does contain descriptions of a sexual nature, and is written for adults only .

Needless to say, if:

you should visit a safer site, like this one...

And a gentle reminder:  I retain the copyright, and all rights thereto...  

A fter Friday prayers at the mosque in Harlem, being the stubborn old man that I was, I walked two miles to my son's house for dinner. My granddaughter Coronya, who was nine years old, greeted me at the door. I swept her into his arms joyfully and kissed her on the cheek.

Then Hassan, my firstborn son, greeted me. We chatted about the weather, the Knicks, and the lack of a professional football team in New York. Then his wife announced dinner. As we ate, we all chatted happily about Kuwait's rejuvenation, the idiotic leaders in Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain, and the lack of a professional baseball team in New York.

After dinner, Hassan told Coronya, "I think that you should go to bed now."

"Yes, Father." she replied.

I then said, "I think I'll tell her a story while I tuck her in." Hassan chuckled, "Father, please do not make it too long of a story, or else Coronya will not go to sleep until the dawn!"

As I tucked Coronya into her bed, she asked me, "Grandfather, I have read many stories of the glories of the world that the Prophet lived in. In all of them, the Destroyer comes at the end. And in all of them, he is shown to have no mercy. Is this true?"

I replied, "I can say that the Destroyer will show mercy to whom he will show mercy. And I will tell you a story about a time when the Destroyer did show mercy." And I began:

T hey were lost. Rachel was certain of that. After a few moments of futile effort, Daniel had to concede that she was right. The maelstrom from the Empty Quarter had suddenly struck their eight-meter sailboat, en route from Bahrain to Kuwait, with deadly results. Their rudder was lost, and their compass and loran damaged beyond hope of repair. Their waterproof PC, on which they stored their navigation charts, wasn't shockproof, much to their chagrin. And they had only one sail left. Still, they were happy to be alive - eight-meter waves and gale force winds should have drowned them.

"Damned Heyerdahl!" growled Daniel, running his hand through his tousled brown hair. (After having read Kon-Tiki, Daniel could not ever conceive of giving up.) "I'm going to die in bed, not here in the Gulf."

"Relax. Thor had a simple balsa raft and a steady current." Rachel soothingly replied. "Besides, he didn't have those damned tankers to run him over."

"Well, my beautiful, blond Norse valkyrie, those tankers could come in handy now." Daniel retorted. "In case you didn't notice, we have no rudder, no navigational aids, and only one sail left."

"You are right, my charming, handsome Wisconsin cheddarhead." Rachel assented. Glancing at her watch, she continued, "By the way, National Geographic wants the first draft of our article, with pictures, in only nine days."

"Well, we had better get back to terra firma." Daniel purred, reaching for Rachel's slender waist. "What course should we set?"

"As it's almost sunset, and I cannot see land," Rachel replied, unbuttoning her blouse slowly, "let's set our sea anchor and raise our lantern. Then, I will show my husband what else to do."

"Aahhh..." Daniel sighed happily, gazing longingly at his lovely wife.

"Oooh…" Rachel cried softly, as her husband gently kissed her breast, while his hands searched for the waistband of her slacks. Her hands weren't idle, however; she had it in mind to do the same to him…

"Ouch!" Daniel's foot smacked the side of the cabin as he was shifting position, so that he could give Rachel what she wanted, while she could reciprocate. As she gently licked his member like a lollipop, he searched for her nexus of pleasure - but which one? She loved it when he played with her breasts, and she enjoyed it when he sucked and licked her navel.

"Oh!" - he found her clit with his tongue; as he suckled it gently, his hands stroked her firm buttocks. "Oh!" - she was close to breaking his resistance, as she was about to find out what was in the middle of his lollipop…

The morning found them entwined, en déshabillé, as the boat rocked gently to and fro. Needless to say, when they awoke, they did not get up - at least, right away….

O ne good thing to be said about the Gulf is that, despite the leviathan tankers, the maniacal Iranians, and the omnipresent desert sun, it is quite simple to navigate in an emergency. If one's taste runs toward Iranian maniacs, sail east. Otherwise, sail west. Since Kuwait was on the western shore, Daniel and Rachel sailed west. It was quite an arduous task constantly tacking to and fro, with only the sail, to keep some semblance of a steady course.

"I wish we had Farley Mowat's boat, make and break engine and all." Daniel said.

"Happy Misadventure?" Rachel replied laughingly. "I know what you really want - his Irish coffee, brewed with 100 percent rum!"

"Well, what do you think I want - curdled camels' milk?" Daniel retorted.

"Actually, since you are a cheddarhead, and since these Arab countries had the foresight to prevent drunken driving more than a thousand years before the invention of the automobile by banning all alcohol, yes!" she replied.

S o they passed the time until they sighted land at about two in the afternoon. They anchored their boat and swam twenty meters to shore. From their anchorage was sand as far as the eye could see, except for a small cluster of mangrove trees a short distance north of them. They began strolling toward the grove.

"Daniel, look here!" Rachel exclaimed. Daniel hurried to her side and saw, set in the sand near a large mangrove, an ornately decorated bronze door.

 "Let me see if I can open it - whew!" Daniel puffed as he opened the portal. There was a ladder leading into the darkness. Being curious, they went back to the boat for their flashlights, and then descended into the earth.

There wasn't much to this exploration, for there was only a small storeroom, dusty and empty - almost. Daniel saw an ornate glass bottle with a bejewelled cork, and picked it up. "Open, sesame!" Rachel laughed, as Daniel opened the bottle. As if a thunderbolt had exploded, something was ejected from the bottle!

"I am Mustafa, of the jinn," said the former prisoner of the bottle. "You have released me from a confinement of one thousand years. Praise be to the Prophet for sending you to release me. And now, please do not be afraid of me, and tell me your names." Their shock was understandable, for Mustafa was two meters taller than Daniel, and his visage, apparently frozen in unspeakable anger, was something one needed to adapt to.

"I am Rachel, and this is my husband Daniel. We are travelers who were bedeviled by the sea. Our boat was damaged in a violent storm. We do not know where we are. Do you?"

"No, for as long as I have been confined here, I did not know where I was." Mustafa replied, "But you have saved me. So I offer to you a choice. I will either grant you three wishes, involving all of my powers, or I will be your most helpful servant for a season."

"As we would like to treat you with respect in the same manner as we would like to be treated," Daniel said, "we would ask of you your service for a season."

"As my masters wish, I will obey." Mustafa said, bowing before them and kissing the ground at their feet. Rising, he then said, "Your boat is in need of repair. Please allow me to help you repair it properly." "You may," Rachel replied, "but first, please partake of food and drink with us, for after your long confinement, you surely are in need of refreshment." To this, Mustafa assented.

A s they left the chamber and walked to their anchorage, a company of soldiers wearing khaki fatigues saw them from 200 meters away. The soldiers chased Daniel, Rachel, and Mustafa until they reached the sea. Mustafa then raised himself to his fullest height and exclaimed, "You will leave us alone or I ...AAAUUGGGGGHHHHH!"

One of the soldiers had opened a jinn catcher bottle and trapped Mustafa inside. (A modern device invented during the Six Day War, the jinn catcher uses the principle of a magical vacuum to entrap any of the jinn who are near.) Then they tackled Daniel and Rachel, bound and hooded them, and threw them into a jeep, which sped off. Before they knew it, Daniel and Rachel were carried into a large tent.

One of the soldiers, a captain, asked them, "What are you doing here?" Daniel replied, "We were lost at sea in a storm."

"A likely story, one that Saddam would never believe in a million years." the captain snarled. "This is Iraq, and we are the Revolutionary Guards, not the AAA. If you do not tell us what you are doing here, you both will die a horrible death - so TALK!"

"But he did tell you the truth!" Rachel snapped.

"That's enough of all these lies," the captain growled. "Guards, unhood them. That's it. Now you will see what the Revolutionary Guards do to spies and liars!"

Daniel watched helplessly as the captain stripped Rachel. "You are too beautiful to kill right away," the captain purred. As Daniel watched helplessly, the soldiers savaged Rachel unmercifully, as only such so-called men can do to women. They took her from behind, from the front, took her mouth, took her ass, whipped her, scratched her with their fingernails and their knives, took her to heights of unimaginable pain, and made certain, all the while, that she received no pleasure. 

To her credit, Rachel did not cry out once during her horrendous six-day ordeal; that was, after all, part of what the Guards had in mind. Daniel did scream; however, when someone is kicking you in your groin, your solar plexus, and your face, while your wife and lover is being tortured in front of you, you'd scream too…

As the captain swung a scimitar at Daniel, to decapitate him, Daniel cried out softly to Rachel, "I'm sorry...." Then Rachel breathed her last words, "I love you...", and finally succumbed of her ordeal....

... W ords came into Daniel's mind (was it he who was singing them?):

        I know you're out there somewhere, somewhere, somewhere,
        I know you're out there somewhere, somewhere you can hear my voice.
        I know I'll find you somehow, somehow, somehow,
        I know I'll find you somehow, and somehow I'll return again to you.

He sensed falling from a great height, saw a bright flash, and noticed that he appeared to be in a bazaar somewhere in the Middle East. As he beheld a giant palace on a hill overlooking the bazaar some two miles away, he noticed something: All the men were wearing clothing reminiscent of the era of the Arabian Nights, while the few women there were shackled hand and foot, and wearing very little, save a brand on each woman's right hip in Arabic, which he could not read.

Daniel beheld himself. He was dressed in stereotypical British explorer fashion: khaki bush shirt and knee-length shorts, pith helmet, black leather boots, and sunglasses. He turned to a bread merchant, who was selling his wares in a stall next to his shop, and asked him where he was. The merchant replied that this was the afterlife, that if one weren't a man, one would be a slave at best. The merchant also told Daniel that the palace on the hill was where those women who weren't Muslim, but possessed the most delicate beauty of body and soul, were broken into helpless concubines for the pleasure of those who were of the highest rank in the afterworld: the ayatollahs and the martyrs of the jihad. Those who weren't lucky enough to be beautiful, the merchant continued, were given to a life of heavy labor and squalor in the work camps - and the men there would not be gentle with them at night.

Just then, a squad of soldiers on horseback galloped into the bazaar. The merchant pulled Daniel into his shop, and buried him in a pile of flour sacks. When the soldiers left the bazaar, the merchant uncovered Daniel, apologizing for the abruptness of his actions. He then told Daniel of a convent school in the woods between the bazaar and the palace, and suggested that Daniel go there for help after sunset.

"Who are you?" Daniel asked.

Handing Daniel some robes and a headscarf, he shook his head in reply.

At dusk, his robes over his other clothing, Daniel left the bakery and trotted to the convent school. When he knocked, a woman answered the door. She was slight in stature; however, when she looked at Daniel, he realized that she possessed powers beyond his reckoning. She took his arm and led him into a chapel. She motioned to Daniel to sit at the table in the sanctuary.

From a curio cabinet, she took a crystal ball and placed it on the table. Then sitting across from Daniel, she held out her hands, indicating that he should place his hands in hers. He did so, sensing that their small size belied an inner strength of great magnitude. As she held his hands, Daniel could feel her mind entering his, reading it, opening it fully to her ministrations. He involuntarily closed his eyes for a time, yielding himself completely to her.

When he opened his eyes, she gestured toward the crystal ball. It showed a sight that made Daniel cry out in anguish: Rachel, bound, gagged, en déshabillé, completely helpless, being tortured unspeakably by four hooded men. The woman held Daniel's head in her arms, rocking him gently, to and fro, until he had yielded himself completely to her quiet ministrations once more.

When Daniel had recovered, she confirmed his worst fears: Rachel was in the palace. Thanks to her ministrations, he took the news quite calmly. She picked up a dinner bell, and rang it. When a servant appeared, he was asked to summon another Sister. She ran into the chapel, short of breath and flushed of face. As the Sisters talked, Daniel observed that the other sister looked like his grandmother: Pleasantly rounded, pleasantly aged, pleasant in manners, but quite formidable in her own right. He also noticed the coat of arms on their robes, the words, "Cor ad cor loquitur."

The Sisters looked at Daniel inquisitively. Then, they beckoned to him, leading him to a dressing room. They told him of a plan which, if followed to the letter, would succeed in reuniting him with Rachel - if he wanted to try. Daniel immediately assented. They left the dressing room. Daniel looked at the wardrobe. There was a light blue grey suit, summer weight, with matching tie, a white dress shirt, black dress shoes, black stockings, and a pair of sunglasses. There was a little dandruff on the collar; otherwise, the clothes were clean. He wondered who else had worn the suit. However, that didn't stop him from changing into it.

Once Daniel left the convent, everything worked perfectly. He was able to sneak into the palace without being seen. The few guards that tried to stop him were easily dispatched - the savate course served him well. Then, he reached a corridor where two guards with AK-47's blocked a door - the door to the torture chamber where Rachel was. Unfortunately, the Sisters had not thought to give Daniel a Kevlar vest or a gun. Fortunately, the doors to the room burst open at that moment, knocking the guards unconscious. It was Rachel!

How had she escaped? Suffice it to say that Rachel was very strong willed. As you recall, she was sailing their boat in the storm, not Daniel. Suffice it also to say that the Guards had not primarily tortured Rachel; they were torturing Daniel through Rachel, testing his love for her, trying to break him.  Suffice it to say that she took a terrible chance that she could only take once - pretending to be broken so that they would release her from her bonds, and allow her the luxury of being taken, in private, by one man at a time...

"You have succeeded in proving yourself," Rachel told Daniel, leading him out of the palace. She looked a lot like Eva Marie Saint, with her blonde hair in a flip. Once out in the countryside, they reclined on a grassy knoll.

As they embraced, Daniel knew who else had worn the suit - then he saw a flash inside his head. He collapsed, as if struck by lightning....

.... The Republican Guards threw the headless corpses and the jinn catcher bottle into the desert, then the heads. Happy, relaxed, and contented, they went to sleep.

A raven flew over the bodies of Daniel and Rachel and landed. He was famished, but something stayed him from devouring the bodies. Then, he saw a bottle with a bejewelled cork, and he hopped over to it. As those of his kind are wont to do, he clasped the cork and began to fly away with the bottle. The cork popped from the bottle, and the raven flew off with his prize. And thus, Mustafa was free again.

When he saw the bodies of Daniel and Rachel, he knew at one glance what had happened, and his countenance changed for the first time in a thousand years, from rage to pained sorrow. He carried their bodies to the chamber where he had been held in the bottle, and laid them to rest inside. Then he climbed out wearily, bowed toward the west, and cried:

"Oh God, from whom all blessings flow,
Why hast thou let them suffer so?
I've failed them in my sacred pledge.
My throat should feel a sharp sword's edge.
But, before Destroyer's fate I meet,
Grant me one favor, short and sweet.
Avenge for me these heathen men,
And I should die in peace by then."

"Take me now, for I am unworthy of thy mercy.", Mustafa sobbed quietly.

"I will not take you now.", a soft voice murmured behind him. Mustafa looked up into the visage of an elderly man, weather beaten, wearing a black hooded robe, looking not too unlike Obi-Wan Kenobi.

"And who art thou?", Mustafa asked.

"I am the Destroyer.", the stranger replied. "God has sent me to you with a message. If you can find the perverted men who took these innocents named Daniel and Rachel, and avenge them within two days, I will restore their lives. Though I cannot remove their memories of the ordeal that they have suffered, I can, at least, give them peace. And I will grant to them a long and happy life."

"And, by the Prophet, what do you, the Destroyer, require in the way of vengeance?", Mustafa asked.

"Just their painful, violent deaths.", the Destroyer replied.

Mustafa then asked, "If, by the Prophet, you would grant me seven days, I will..." then whispered something into the Destroyer's ear.

"You are quite the creative one, when it comes to vengeance, aren't you?" the Destroyer chuckled softly. "You will have your seven days. And I assure you, Mustafa, that when your time comes, that you will go neither to Paradise nor to Hell. You will work with me!" With that, the Destroyer disappeared in a cloud of dust.

I n a room not unlike the great hall of Union Station in Chicago, Rachel and Daniel sat together on one of a line of benches. Both were dressed in knee length white cotton robes. Silver shackles and chains secured Rachel's wrists and ankles, while Daniel's limbs were free. Turning to him, she managed to hold his head in her hands, and he remembered…

"… T ime, ladies and gentlemen!" the bartender called. Daniel was well and truly drunk by this hour, and he staggered out of the State Street tavern into the street, when someone knocked him onto the other curb - just in time for him to miss getting hit by a city bus.

"Daniel! Watch where you're going…"

"Rachel! What are you doing here?"

"I should be asking you that, since you seem to be non compos mentis…"

"I'm all right…" Daniel stood, and then dropped to his knees, shaking.

"Oh no, you're not! Why you go out drinking so much, I'll never understand…" Rachel picked Daniel up and helped him to a stairwell, and half-carried him to her small campus apartment…

Rachel and Daniel were classmates at the university - she was studying photography, and he English. After that evening, she visited him more and more. She enjoyed reading parts from his assignments with him - from Romeo and Juliet to Pygmalion, they acted like Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn at a rehearsal - she was a great help to him. And he was becoming more refined as he drank less - he found that he didn't miss the bar scene a bit as he spent more time with her.

Eventually, she proposed to him. He didn't say a word in reply; he merely reached for her waist, pulled her to him, and kissed her. She smiled at him afterwards, laughing at the lipstick smeared on his cheek; Daniel had a bit more to learn, but all in good time…

Daniel now recalled one other thing, from the convent: the Sister had shown him, in the crystal ball, what would have become of him if Rachel had not happened upon him that evening. It was not pleasant; he would have died that evening in hospital, of massive internal injuries caused by that bus hitting him…

D aniel gently removed her hands from his head. Then he knelt before Rachel, and pried the shackles from her ankles. Having freed her ankles, he sat beside her and freed her wrists from the shackles there. Then he held her head in his hands, and slowly kissed her, ignoring the creatures (were these angels, or heavenly clerks?) walking to and fro. Daniel had merely wanted to reassure Rachel; she had other ideas, signaling them by placing his hands on her breasts.

"What are you doing?"

"What more can they do to me?" Rachel replied, running her hands up Daniel's legs. "If this God is going to do to me more of what He allowed to happen to me, because I resisted what happened to me, this won't make it any worse…"

"He's going to have to deal with me first - oooh - are you sure that you're not being too naughty?" Daniel replied, as her hands reached her goal…

" T hat wench was sweet, wasn't she?" a Guards corporal slyly asked the captain. "When do we get more?"

"When we go to the Kurd provinces next week, I am told that there is much more fruit to harvest." the captain replied.

Suddenly, all the men in the bivouac heard a noise like a thunderbolt! Then a voice boomed, "I AM MUSTAFA! YOU ARE DOOMED!"

"Jinn catchers ready?" "We're in position, Captain!" "FIRE!!!"

As the Guards opened their jinn catchers, Mustafa raised his right arm, as if saluting the Prophet. Then, all of the jinn catchers exploded in a puff of blue smoke, and voilà! All of the Guards were now scantily clad, fully endowed young women!

Just as they realized what had happened to them, another battalion of Republican Guards showed up. They had neither seen a woman nor been paid in over a year. So, they were quite angry at the world.  When they saw the women, the Guards threw themselves upon them with a will. The women who were once Guards did not suffer as gracefully as Rachel did. However, the weakest of them survived three days of constant rapacity before succumbing, and the strongest lasted five.

Mustafa, for the first time in more than one thousand years, smiled.

S o, Rachel and Daniel were released from the Destroyer's domain, and they lived long and happy lives. They had two sons and two daughters; each was a blessing to them and to the world. Their firstborn was twin daughters; as it turned out, they were conceived in the heavenly waiting room. They could only have been named Angela and Angelina. (By the way, National Geographic got their story on time; Rachel's picture of Mustafa's bottle got the cover.)

Mustafa did not serve only a season for Rachel and Daniel. He still felt that he should have prevented their suffering. Thus, he became their servant for the remainder of their days.

When the Destroyer took Rachel and Daniel together, in their sleep, they yielded themselves to him without resistance. They knew that it was their time. Then Mustafa became the servant of the Destroyer.

" B ut how does one know that the Destroyer kept his word?" Coronya asked, yawning. "And how did you know all that happened to Daniel, Rachel, Mustafa, and the rest?"

"Perhaps another time, when you are a little older, I will tell you, and you will understand." I replied, kissing her gently on her forehead. "Good night."

As I walked home, I thought about her question. How could I tell her the truth? What could I say to her?

"Hey, you!" I heard from behind me, feeling something thrust in my back.  "Gimme your money - or I'll..."

I snapped my fingers, and continued walking.  From behind me, I could hear the wailing of a man in extreme pain, and could smell burning flesh.  In a moment, the screaming stopped.  I continued walking home.

What could I tell Coronya?  And when?

For the truth was quite simple - I am the Destroyer.

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