This one's not for the faint of heart. Over the course of the story there will be death, suicide attempts, a fair amount of physical and mental abuse, some egregious torture and a hefty dollop of foul language, but hopefully a happy ending. Actually, the last bit's a given since it's me doing the writing, but between here and the end is a rocky road, so please if any of the above is likely to be triggering for you, please, please think twice about reading.

This is the bit where the CAUTION: Violence applies. When the text changes to dark red or maroon, it means things are about to turn a little rough. When it changes to bright red, then things are about to get a lot worse. Please take care while reading.

Chapter 11

I followed them out of the room leaving a whisper of speculation behind me. They led me to the principal’s office where I was met with a look of angry betrayal from Mrs H.

What follows is unpleasant. Laura is stripped, degraded and brutally tortured over several days. The dark colour covers some of the humiliation and the reaction of Laura’s friends. The lighter red is when it gets violent. The end of the red text indicates where it’s safe to continue reading.

“Take off your clothes,” one of the policemen demanded.

“What?”

“Your clothes. Remove them.”

“But...”

He grabbed a handful of my dress and yanked at it, ripping it from my back and unbalancing me so I fell onto my rump. My hijab fell loose revealing my pixie cut. Hair grows about half an inch a month and the three months we’d been in Jeddah had only just about given me enough hair to style. It still wasn’t a look that anyone here would accept as appropriate on a woman, even though it couldn’t have left me looking less like a man.

The hormone patches Mum had bought for me had done a fair job of filling out my bra. As breasts went, they were small still, but no-one could deny they were there. Even the part of me I’d never wanted had shrivelled to the point where it was all but unnoticeable. Unfortunately, all but is not the same as entirely. The way I landed jiggled it loose and, small though it was, it was there for all to see forming a distinct bulge in my knickers.

Mrs Habib scowled at me for a second then turned her back on me.

“Come,” the more vocal of the policemen said to me, throwing the remains of my dress on the floor and hauling me to my feet. There wasn’t a lot of me to haul so it was effortless for him, but from my perspective it felt as though he was yanking my arm from its socket.

I tried not to make any noise and to move with him, but he didn’t make it easy. He dragged me sideways making it impossible for me to walk, then yanked at me impatiently when he felt I was resisting. I yelped involuntarily prompting him to tug at me more violently.

I fought my way onto my feet and scurried along rapidly in an attempt to keep up, all the while blushing furiously as my near naked body was marched past glass fronted doors filled with familiar faces.

Outside felt cool. It was actually in the mid-thirties with the sun beating down out of a clear blue sky, but I wasn’t used to the feel of air on my bare skin. I didn’t have time to enjoy the sensation though, as the brute holding me pulled open the door of a nearby van and threw me bodily inside.

I cracked my head on something hard and sharp and saw stars while the van lurched around me with policemen climbing in after me and settling onto the bench seats. None of them offered to help me and before I could recover enough to get up, the van started and sped out of the school grounds.

Between the reckless lurching of the vehicle, the lack of outside reference and the spinning in my head, I felt a nausea overwhelm me. The gorge rose in my throat and I spewed the contents my stomach – a surprising quantity given the small amounts I had eaten at lunch – over the boots and trouser legs of my captors.

They cried out in protest and I received more than one boot in the face to add to my misery. It didn’t help settle my stomach, but I’d apparently emptied its contents, so I spent most of the remainder of the journey dry retching.

At the far end of the journey we pulled up inside a rough enclosure with high walls made from corrugated iron sheets and wooden beams. The ground was bare earth which I was encouraged to examine at close range after I was thrown bodily from the van.

I tried climbing to my feet and made it as far as my hands and knees before a heavy boot caught me in the lower ribs. I’m not sure if I imagined it, but I thought I heard something crack. Certainly pain flashed through me like hot lava.

I flew several feet before landing hard on the dirt. The ground was rough enough to scrape off bare skin wherever I made contact with it. I had little doubt what was coming next and curled myself into a tight foetal position with my arms over my head before the first blow came. Backbone exposed, but not much I could do about that.

Reading about it does nothing to prepare you for the experience. Small as I was, they couldn’t fit more than half a dozen around me without risking hitting each other, but it was more than enough. It meant they could take turns which in turn meant the were unrelenting. One would drop out, winded and another would take his place, kicking with renewed vigour, on and on without any sign of an end.

It only started with the boots. Heavy army boots designed to cope with any terrain. They were tough with hard edges and I was soft with no significant padding. It hurt enough when they hit the softer parts of me, their blows reaching deep enough to bruise my underlying organs. When they hit bone though, my hips, my ribs, my arms and lower legs, that was what caused me to cry out.

My cries only encouraged them. Each time I let out an involuntary yelp, the next kick would be harder, more enthusiastic. I bit down on those helpless noises my body so wanted to make, gritted my teeth and endured.

It only served to escalate matters. A brief pause then something hard reaching through my defences and cracking me in the jaw. I tasted blood and could feel a few loosened teeth. I tightened my arms around my head, ignoring as much as I could the pain from my damaged bones. What followed took the whole experience to another level. Hard wooden clubs beating down on my arms and legs, shock blows reaching through to my bones, cracking them, shattering them it felt like, then the hose pipes. Thick, sand filled, wrapping around my body, splitting the skin, rupturing capillaries in my muscles, spreading pain like I had never known.

In the midst of it all, the boots added their own contribution to my misery. Enough if the kicks were well placed enough to land between my legs, and then the pain would flare bright enough to take me to the edge of oblivion.

Never quite all the way though. These were experts in their trade, striking hard enough to cause a maximum of pain yet never quite hard enough to take me all the way into unconsciousness. How long the beating lasted I cannot begin to guess. Hours, days, I lost all sense of time. The pain stretched on interminably and all I could do was burrow into that innermost part of me and hold on.

They say that extremes of pain do not last in memory, that childbirth is such a traumatic experience you would never choose to go through it a second time if you could truly remember what the first time was like. I learned something of the truth of that over the next few days. The first was the worst for all that it lasted so long. Finally I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness, and only then did they ease up. No sense in flogging a dead horse or, so it seemed, one that was incapable of feeling pain.

The second day was worse than the worst. I woke to a bucket of ice cold water splashing over my tender skin. It stank of... I revised my opinion of what had just been thrown over me. Stale and acrid, I spat out what small amount of foulness had made it into my mouth. I would regret doing so later when the day passed without a drop of water being offered to me, but that was the least of my concerns. Strong hands grabbed me, renewing the excruciating pain of the previous day, except that was only the beginning. I was thrown once again onto the rough ground and fresh blows landed on tender bruises proving to be a far more unspeakable agony than anything I had experienced. After that my mind entered a numbness as my body succumbed to a torture that was no less terrible for being a repetition of the previous day.

Being stoned to death couldn’t have been more horrible, because at least there would be an end to it. This was designed to take you to the very edge of your endurance and leave you wondering how much you really wanted to fight your way back from it, given the sure knowledge that if you did, all you had to look forward to was more of the same the next day in an increasingly broken body.

I didn’t even try to count the days. I assumed they were days in any case. More like periods of beating followed by periods of unconsciousness. A rude awakening in which I would swallow down as much of the liquid foulness thrown over me as I could stomach and then a brutal manhandling before the beatings would start over. Never anything to eat, but then I’m not sure my damaged jaw and uncomfortably loose teeth would have been able to cope with food. I was never given time to make use of a toilet, nor was there a toilet around as far as I could see. It didn’t really make much difference. With someone else’s urine as my only source of hydration, I was probably overloading my kidneys with urea, which meant I really wasn’t filling up my bladder much. The rare occasions when I had to go, I was already such a stinking filthy mess that it didn’t make any difference where I evacuated myself. It hurt to pee anyway, so I didn’t do it much.

Nothing had remained of my underwear by the end of the first beating, so for most of my time in that place I was reduced to less than an animal. Naked, smeared with my own excrement, covered in someone else’s piss and existing as a tiny ball of consciousness within a massive ball of pain. It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to stay still. It just hurt.

In rare lucid moments I wondered what had gone wrong. What had happened to put me in this place. To think was to raise my consciousness to a point where I was acutely aware of the torment my life had been reduced to. In those moments I’d dive back deep within myself, holding the child within me deeper still, trying to keep Max from the worst of it. Somehow I held on.

And then a day dawned that was different from the others. It started the same with light pouring into my cage and me scrambling on agonised, fractured bones for the shadows. Whimpering in expectation of those same rough hands, that same brutal drag into the courtyard, the same blows, the same involuntary cries of pain, so far removed from my consciousness I scarcely believed they came from my mouth.

This time was different though. No abrupt dousing in urine. Instead tender hands and a soft touch that still drew whimpering cries of pain from my cracked lips. Soft words that made no sense. How long had it been since I’d heard words other than the brutal insults of my captors. This wasn’t Arabic though. They couldn’t reach through the near madness that filled my mind. Then the words turned angry, but they weren’t aimed at me. Somehow I could tell. Then gentle hands lifting me. They tried to be gentle, but they hurt. Everything hurt.

Then something cold wiping my arm, a sharp prick. I almost laughed at that. You call that torture? Then a soft numbness that spread and filled me with peace and darkness.

I awoke to the sound of rhythmic beeping. The pain was there but held at bay by a numbness in my mind. I tried moving and the pain screamed at me, still too distant to reach me, but it did something, triggered some alarm. Within a minute a kind face was looking down at me, shining a light in my eyes.

That hurt. I wanted to laugh again, but that really would have hurt. I closed my eyes until the light went away. Words were spoken, but they were dim and indistinct as though a long way off. I couldn’t make them out. I didn’t try. Sleep beckoned. More words in the background, but they faded as I slipped back into unconsciousness.

There were other times like that, and the sense of remoteness lessened each time. Eventually a day came when I woke to the intolerable sensation of my entire body itching. I couldn’t move to scratch anything and eventually called out feebly for help.

The kind face appeared within my field of vision and smiled down at me. This time I noticed the white coat.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I itch everywhere,” I said, “and I can’t move.”

“That’s because pretty much your entire body is in an immobilisation cast. You have quite a few fractured bones. What do you remember?”

“Thankfully not much. Is there anything you can do about the itching? It’s going to drive me insane.”

“One might suspect you are already insane, doing as you did. A great many people wanted you dead, and one of the main reasons you are not is that a great many of them wanted you to suffer first.

“Another is that you have a number of powerful advocates who spoke on your behalf to the crown prince, and he has seen fit to intervene.

“Some of the details are unclear, but it seems certain aspects of your, er, physical nature, shall we say, were passed to a radical branch of the police. You’ve heard of CPVPV?”

“The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,” I managed with an unsuccessful attempt at moving.

“Ah yes, you’ve been studying our history haven’t you?”

“Can you do something about this itching or not?”

“I am doing something, which is to say I’m trying to distract you. The casts have to stay on for now, and there’s no way to reach the places that itch without compromising their effectiveness. Now, if we may return to your recent history. Do please allow it to distract you if you can.

“Both the king and the crown prince have been working to limit the influence of such extremists. It is unfortunate that your details were passed to this particular group because your nature and your recent activities are just the sort of thing that these people stand most strongly against.

“They came to the school where you were working – I have to ask, what is it that made you feel that as a trans woman you could get away with doing such a thing?”

“I don’t consider myself a trans anything. I am, and always have been, a woman. My father brought me to this country with a shaved head and wearing boy’s clothes with the intent of forcing me to resume my life as his son, but one of the airport officials...”

“Commissioner Ahmad. He was one of the people who spoke to the crown prince on you behalf.”

“He insisted I was a girl and made my father dress me as such. He then arranged for the police to visit us and ensure that I was continuing to live as a girl. He thought I was a girl trying to be a boy, but I told him the whole male thing was my father’s idea.”

“Yes. He continued to insist that you were a girl, even after we told him what you actually have... er, had between your legs.”

“I’m sorry doctor. What was that last bit?”

He sighed. “Perhaps it would have been better if I hadn’t mentioned that just yet. I was told you were quick”

“It’s a little late to change your mind now, doctor.” At least he’d managed to distract me from the itching..

“There is no easy way to tell you of this. You suffered a considerable amount of trauma while you were in police custody, in particular to your genitalia. Much of what was there had to be removed.”

“How much?” The thought of being catheterised for the rest of my life did not appeal.

“More than any man would feel comfortable speaking about. Both your testicles were ruptured and there was extensive necrosis to the soft tissue in the penis.”

“My sphincter?”

“That remains intact as does the head of the penis, but almost all of what remains had to be removed.”

“Exactly what do I have down there, doctor?”

“Please understand, I find great discomfort in talking about such matters. To lose one’s manhood is a thing I think most Arab men would dread above all others. To perform an operation to change a man into a woman, most of us see this as a sacrilegious act against Allah, and most doctors would refuse to conduct such a thing. The damage to their reputation alone would be...”

“So you chose to turn me into a eunuch rather than a woman.”

“Not true on several levels. For one, I am not a surgeon so none of what was done to you was by my hand. For two, the man who saved your life acted out of necessity rather than choice. He removed only what would have killed you. And this he did because, for three, the king decreed that for us to leave you in such a state after the treatment you received at the hands of our officials – radicals to be sure, and acting beyond their authority – would be unjust.

“Throughout your surgery, he insisted your surgeon remain in constant video contact with Mr Chakrii who is a highly skilled and respected surgeon from Thailand. He has performed a great many successful operations such as yours and is widely considered to be the world’s leading specialist in his field. Once you were stabilised, the king arranged for Mr Chakrii and his entire medical staff to be flown here to complete your, er, transformation. As I understand it, the final outcome was considered to be an outstanding success.

“You are, as far as modern medical science can make you, in all respects a woman, though why any man should wish such a thing...”

I closed my eyes and breathed in the relief. I’d have been happy at that stage to settle for being able to pee on my own, perhaps to have enough of me left down there to complete the transition at some stage, but to have it already completed was a wonderful feeling. I tried squeezing my thighs together, but between the restrictions imposed on my movement and the feeling of something packing out the space down there I was unable. I settled for talking; it was about the only thing I could do in my current state.

“Do you see women as being less than men, doctor.”

“Different certainly.”

“If it was only different, surely you wouldn’t consider being turned into one such a terrible injustice.”

“My culture considers women to have a lower status than men, which means to change a man in such a way would be to take away from him some of his birth right, to consign him to a leaser life in which he would be controlled by his peers.”

“And yet, in your mind you must accept that women are no less intelligent than men.”

“There is a gulf between that which is in the mind and that which is in the heart. I have seen this, and yet I still feel it to be wrong.”

“Indoctrination perhaps? Brainwashing is a harsh and evocative word, but perhaps one we should consider.”

He stiffened.

“I do not mean to disparage your faith, doctor. There are faults in the way we all choose to worship God, and they are of our making, not his. We would all do to question our traditions from time to time, because even with the guiding hand of the Almighty, we are prone to mistakes. Sometimes through ignorance, sometimes through deliberate manipulation of people’s beliefs.”

“Please do not speak of such things. You will make enemies.”

“Doctor, I appear to have made enemies without speaking of such things. In my culture we recognise women as being equals, at least in principle. There is momentum within our beliefs that means a great many men hold onto outdated beliefs in this matter, but the law sides with women in their call to be seen as nothing less than men. Even if this weren’t so, I have always believed myself to be a girl and, even in a culture such as yours, I think I would only have found contentment as a woman. There is something in the way in which I think and feel that causes me to prefer female company and a female way of life. This transition I have been given is something I’ve sought all my life, and I believe I would have wished for even if I had been born in your country.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad my origins are in a culture where not only being a woman, but being a person who desires to become a woman, is not something that is considered to be so wrong.”

“Well, don’t expect such openness of mind here.”

“I don’t doctor, though I do hope I may be able to influence a few less traditional thinkers.”

“Yes, well once again I feel you should lower your expectations.

“I have kept you awake too long. You need rest and to sleep.”

“I’m not going to be able to sleep with this itching, doctor.”

“Perhaps not. I will instruct one of the nurses to give you something to help you sleep. When you next wake, there will be visitors if you feel up to it.”

“I should like that doctor. You still haven’t told me how I came to be rescued.”

“I will leave that for your father to tell you, after all it was his doing.”

“My father?” I couldn’t imagine Mike acting in any way in my interests.

“Yes, but sleep for now. He will tell you of it when you wake.” He nodded at a nurse who came over and swiftly prepared a syringe which she injected into my IV line. The world faded to black within seconds.

I awoke to the sound of quiet talking. I grunted and Mum’s anxious face appeared in front of me.

“Laura,” she gasped. “Thank goodness, we were so worried.”

“We?” I croaked.

“Your Uncle Peter is here.”

“Dad?”

“No, he’s... Oh, yes. I suppose.”

Peter’s cautiously smiling face appeared behind Mum’s. “Hi Abri. Or is it Laura now?”

“Mum’s preference. I kind of like it. Will someone please tell me how I got here?”

“That’s more Pe... your dad’s story than mine. As far as I knew and thing, you didn’t come home a couple of weeks ago and your... Mike refused to do anything about it. I contacted the school and was told not to call again, then I called my dad who’s been talking to me every day since we’ve been in this country. When I thought to call Peter, he was already on his way here.”

I shifted my focus to Dad’s eyes.

“That app of yours is a lifesaver, Abri, and I mean literally. The alert came through just as we were coming together after lunch. The director wasn’t happy with me, but then what are understudies for. He threatened to blackball me, but I didn’t much care. I’ve had a go bag in the car since you came over here and a ticket on reserve, so I called Paul and told him I was on my way here.

“I arrived in Jeddah in the early hours of the morning, found a hotel and grabbed a few hours sleep. First thing in the morning I followed the map on your app directly to the girls school where you’ve been working and into the principal’s office.

“She wasn’t that pleased to see me, but once she realised shouting at me wasn’t going to get rid of me, she eventually told me what had happened to you. From there, I started making enquiries of all the police stations and got nowhere.

“After three days, I went back to the school. I’ll give her some credit, Mrs Habib was concerned that I’d not been able to find where you’d been taken. She gave me access to the security footage so I could at least go back on my search with a number plate and a photograph or two of the arresting officers.

“By the end of the week, I’d made enough of a nuisance of myself that one of the high ups in the security forces came to see me. I think he’d intended to escort me onto a plane out of the country, but when I showed him your photograph, his attitude changed very abruptly. He took me to see your mum and... yeah. I’d been in touch with Lisa since the beginning of the week, but with nothing useful to report. Mike was being about as useful as a fishnet condom as usual. This time, with my official companion things went a lot different. The man wanted to know why Mike hadn’t reported your absence and made a lot of very angry noises.

“When I showed him the security camera photographs I had, he became quite troubled and made several phone calls – in Arabic, so I had no idea what he was saying – and the next thing I knew we were back in his office, videoconferencing with the king and crown prince of all people. The principal of your school was there to, Mrs Habib. Of course I didn’t understand a word being said, only that it was all very heated. I thought Mrs Habib was arguing against you, since she knew about your bits, but it turned out she was arguing along with the police official to persuade the royals to get involved. It took a while to bring them around, but I’ll say this for them, when they commit to something, they do so all the way.

“It took another couple of days to make our way around all the haunts of these radicals these PDFQs or whatever.”

“CPVPVs,” I chipped in.

“Yes, them. By the time we found you, you’d been in their hands for twelve days. I...” He bit his lip, tears streaming freely from his eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him cry. “I could barely recognise you through the bruises and the filth. Your whole body was black and blue, and I mean all of it. Even the soles of your feet.”

The tears got the better of him again and Mum pulled him into a hug. Tears blurred my own vision, only I had no way to wipe them away.

One of the paramedics who’d come with us gave you something to put you under and you’ve been in a medically induced coma since then.”

“How long?”

“Nine days. They had to operate.”

“The doctor told me.”

“Not all of it I imagine.”

“My bits are gone.”

“Yeah,” he laughed through his tears. “The first gender reassignment surgery in the Middle East. I imagine they’ll want you to keep that quiet.

“They did right by you there though. They flew in the best specialist there is along with his entire team. God knows what that cost.

“They had to open up pretty much every part of you though. The number of broken bones in your hands and feet, you’d likely never have walked again, or held anything.”

“You’re scaring her Peter.”

Mum was right, I knew how complicated hands and feet were bone-wise.

“Oh shit, sorry. It’s okay sweetheart. They may not have any experience in chopping willies off, but what they can do in other areas is beyond amazing. They had a separate surgeon working on each of your hands and feet at the same time. Talk about jigsaws! Mind you They said it’s as well you have such young bones. Outer part pretty much shattered in places, but held together by a sort of softer interior. They let me watch from the gallery. It took hours, but they were meticulous and put everything back exactly where it belonged, then used some sot of organic cement to hold it together. They said it doesn’t just hold the bones together, but it encourages them to knit back together stronger than they were to start with. It’s the reason they have you in this immobilising cast. If you shift any of the breaks out of position, it’ll be extremely hard to fix a second time round.”

“Scars?”

“You really are a girl, aren’t you? They used laser scalpels which apparently don’t create much scar tissue. For the most part they just made relatively minor incisions and pealed back your flesh to get at the bones. The chief surgeon seemed to think there would be almost no signs.”

“Why doesn’t the rest of the world know about this kind of treatment?”

“Probably a bit because it’s prohibitively expensive, and probably a bit because it was developed for use on horses.”

“Horses!?”

Peter shrugged. “They value their horses in this part of the world.”

“And it’s being used on my because...”

“Because the king decreed it. Because without it you’d be a bag of jelly and bone chips.”

“Peter!”

“It’s alright Mum, I’d rather know. Can you tell me anything else? I mean my organs must have taken quite a beating, and I only had someone else’s piss to drink for two weeks.”

“Laura!”

“Can’t help it if it’s true Mum.”

“And this would explain the severe uremia you experienced,” the doctor said from the doorway to my room. “Not so bad as to cause kidney failure, but it was close. Many of your other organs were quite badly bruised too, but you are young and the treatment is effective. It will take a while but you should make a full recovery.”

“Thank you doctor. Perhaps I might ask how much time?”

“The body cast will be removed in five days. I know, it is an eternity when your skin itches as yours does. After that, your bones will be strong enough for you to walk and behave as normal, but they will ache and your joints will feel stiff at first. This may last several months I’m afraid. We don’t know how long since, for one thing we only have our observations of the horses we have treated which do have few similarities with human beings, and for another we haven’t used this treatment on someone as extensively injured as yourself.

“The bruising to both your skin and organs will fade within a month or two as will the tenderness you will most certainly feel. The same applies to your, er , new arrangements below. You are catheterised for the present, but this will be removed when you are released from the cast. After this you will be restricted from strenuous exercise for some weeks.”

“That’s so much better than I was expecting, doctor. Thank you. I thought broken bones took much longer to mend.”

“It varies. Smaller bones typically six to eight weeks and more if you don’t immobilise them. Larger bones more like twenty weeks. Your breaks are extensive and quite serious, and they definitely won’t be mended when we take the cast off, but the cement, the glue that was used will hold everything together and encourage your bones to knit so the healing time will be shorter. That being said, you will feel a considerable amount of aching in your bones all the time they are mending. I anticipate you will feel considerable discomfort all over your body for a month or two after the cast is removed and you will continue to feel discomfort in your thighs and hips especially for four or five months.”

“It still sounds so much better than I was expecting. Er, when will I be able to return home?”

“To your home here in Jeddah, or your home in England?”

“There’s a difference?”

“I’m a little concerned how air travel will affect your recuperation. Once we have you out of the cast, I would want to observe you for a few days before discharging you to your home here in the city. A few more tests and perhaps a couple of weeks beyond that and I imagine air travel will be safe. I won’t guarantee anything at this stage, but I am tentatively confident we can get you home to England before Christmas.

“For now, rest is again essential. You have had a good visit with your parents, yes?”

“Erm,” I said as Mum and Peter looked at each other a little sheepishly.”

“I’m missing something, I think.”

“This is my Uncle Peter,” I said. “My father is...”

“A piece of shit?” Mum suggested.

We all looked at her with varying degrees of surprise.

“I’m coming round to your point of view,” she said to me. “He showed no concern and made no effort after you were arrested, despite my obvious worry, and he hasn’t come to visit you since you’ve been in here, nor has he even asked how you are. He even went so far as to complain about the amount of time I’ve been spending here the other day.”

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said, “then who is...”

“My brother,” Mum said. “He has legal guardianship for Laura in any case, at least in England he does. I’m not sure how it works here.”

“As far as I’m concerned, this is my dad,” I added twitching my eyes in Peter’s direction – the full extent to which I could move.

“I’ll make a note of this. In any case, you need to rest now, so your mother and your, er,, dad should leave now. Will you be able to sleep without assistance?”

“I think so. I think I’m getting used to the itching.”

“This is common. Whatever our circumstance we acclimate to it in time. It is as well also. I have decreased your pain medication because I do not wish you to become dependent, but if you find the discomfort too great, ask for help. You are being monitored at all times and a nurse will come to you if you ask.”

“Thank you. I seem to be saying that a lot, but I really am grateful.”

“Yes. Perhaps you will have an opportunity to offer your thanks to those primarily responsible for your care later this afternoon.”

“You’re not suggesting I’m going to have a visit from the king or the crown prince?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Neither will be visiting you, though they are concerned and have sent a representative for when you feel up to it.”

“After my rest then. I suppose it wouldn’t do for Saudi royalty to be seen consorting with a deviant.”

“You understand our culture quite well.”

“For an infidel.”

He laughed again. “For a deviant and an infidel. We shall talk again soon. For now I will leave you to sleep.”

I didn’t get much rest. Partly the itching, partly the pain, which was worse than it’s let on, partly wondering what this representative of the crown would want to say. I must have dozed for a short while at least because when I opened my eyes, I found a middle aged Arab in robe and keffiyeh standing in my doorway.

“As-salamu alaykum,” I greeted him

The traditional greeting went through its various stages. I continued in Arabic.

“You honour me with your visit. I realise I am not the sort of person you would wish to speak with.”

“I have spoken with women before. You are foreign and allowances must be made.”

“You are kind. I owe the king and the crown prince my life.”

“Both the king and the crown prince regret that your life was placed in jeopardy.”

“It has been said to me that I put my own life in jeopardy.”

“Perhaps there is some truth in this, and yet both the king and the prince would wish that no visitor to our shores be subject to the unpleasantness you experienced.”

“It seems your country is not ready for people such as myself.”

“As Allah wills it.”

“Does not Allah will that we should choose our own futures.”

“It is as you say. Yet sometimes the choices we make do not bring us the futures we wish.”

“So, how are we to know what choices we should make to bring the best future.”

“We are bidden to follow the Quran and the teachings of the prophet.”

“And what is it the Quran says about people such as me? What does the Hadith say?”

He looked uncomfortably to one side; the first show of anything other than smug self-confidence.

“It is my understanding that on the subject of those born men who choose to live as women, the Quran has nothing to say, and that among the sayings of the prophet, sallallahu alayhe wasallam, there were times when he welcomed such individuals into his home and permitted them to mingle with his wives.”

“It is said that one cannot fully understand the Quran or the aHadith unless one studies them in the language in which they were written.”

“I have heard this too. I am aware my Arabic is not perfect, but I had hoped it good enough for such a task. I have been told I speak it better than many rural natives.”

“Then perhaps it is for this reason that the king and the crown prince are so insistent that you have done nothing wrong and that it is our responsibility to see that you are adequately recompensed for your troubles.”

“I am grateful for my life and for the health that is being restored to me. It is enough.”

“Your life was not endangered nor your health so harmed except by the actions of our countrymen. The king believes more is owed.”

“And if I can think of nothing I would want?”

“The Saudi Royal family is the wealthiest family in the world. Surely there is something you could ask for?”

“I understand the medical team who operated on me to make me physically as female as it is possible were brought here at the king’s expense. This is no small gift, and I can think of no gift I could appreciate more.”

“And yet...?”

I thought for a while. “There is, perhaps one thing I might ask for, but it worries me that I may be asking too much.”

“You believe you can ask for too much from our king? Ask and it shall be given.”

“Do you know the story of the man who invented the game of chess?”

“Perhaps you would enlighten me.”

“It is said that the Grand Vizier Sissa Ben Dahir gifted the first chess board to the Indian King Shirham. In return the king asked what Sissa would ask in return. Taking the chess board, Sissa said to the king, ‘On this first square, give me one grain of rice, and on this second give me two, on the third four, and so on, doubling until you reach the final square.’ The king declared that this seemed a fair price and decreed that it should be paid until his accountants calculated the total and found it to be more the five hundred billion tonnes. The story is almost certainly untrue, but it teaches us not to make a promise without understanding what is being asked.”

“Then ask, and I will tell you if you ask too much.”

“I would ask that the crown prince agree to listen to the council of a woman regularly.”

The man stiffened. “You are right, you ask too much.”

“Perhaps you would tell me why.”

He looked at me sternly.

“Does the Quran not teaching us that men and women are equals spiritually?”

He nodded reluctantly.

“Does this not mean that men and women possess wisdom in equal measure?”

This time he just stared at me.

“And if this is so, why should a wise king, or prince, accept wisdom from one and yet deny it from another.”

My visitor appeared to have turned into a statue.

“I understand there are many who would object to such behaviour and for a member of the royal family to do as I have asked would weaken his position in the eyes of such people. This is something I would wish to avoid. I would leave it to the king to decide how often would be meant by regularly; once a week, once a month, once a year perhaps. It would also be for the king to decide who would be a worthy woman to offer such advice and whether or not he should heed the council offered. If it would help, they might say they are only doing so as an obligation to me because of what was done to me by extremists ”

“What is it you seek to achieve by this?”

“That a woman should be permitted to contribute in some small way to the ruling of this country. The more it can be seen by all that what they have is valid and worthwhile, the sooner the true value of women in this culture will be seen and accepted.”

“I will take this to the prince. He will decide if it is something he is prepared to give.”

“Please tell the prince I do not wish to cause difficulties. I am a foreigner and I do not understand this country as well as you. If he thinks granting this would cause more harm than good, then I would not wish him to commit to such a course.”

“I believe you understand our country very well, and you possess the wisdom we would wish to hear. Both the king and the prince share your views on the value of women in our country.”

“But not you?”

“I do not believe my country is ready for such a change.”

“And if Allah wills it?”

“Then it will be as Allah wills. It did not please me to be sent here today. I believed you to be an abomination and worthy of damnation.”

“Those who do good, whether male or female, and have faith will enter Paradise and will never be wronged; even as much as the speck on a date stone.”

“You have read the Quran.”

“Only in part and in as much as it supported my studies.”

“This has been most instructive for me. I do not say this easily, but you have humbled me this day. Even if my king does not choose to grant your request, I will ponder the words we have shared this afternoon.”

“Then we have already achieved much. I am most grateful for your visit.”

“I wish you a swift and painless recovery.”

“And I wish you clarity of mind and peace in your heart. Ma’a salama.”

“Ma’a salama.” He bowed and withdrew.

It took no time at all for me to fall asleep after that. I may have spotted the doctor coming into my room, but I was already halfway into the land of dreams. If he said anything to me, I didn’t hear him.