From the Dungeon to the Tower of Wishes… is an evocative argument for an erotic story: pain and pleasure. The Tower that inspires this short tale was real, it’s in the Alcazaba of Málaga. No one knows to which of its towers it’s referred, the legend doesn’t have a date because it doesn’t appear in any chronicle. We can just imagine the Muslim Málaga previous to the Catholic Reconquest: When the blood covered the last war episodes in the Kingdom of Granada; When the Caliph of the citadel still enjoyed the naked beauty of the young women of his harem… This is how our story begins:
Mr. Diego de Arco, a Castilian Knight from Santiago’s Battle Formation, was arrested by the Muslim troops in one of the raids that took place during the Reconquest. In view of his noble condition, he was condemned to stay the rest of his life in the dungeons of the Alcazaba of Málaga. Dungeon means subterranean silo, as the Arabs made the most of these gloomy grain warehouses, also keeping these prisoners in the dark. These sinister prisons were the nightmare of any Christian soldier. The death was preferable, because their lives would be wasted away tragically; At the mercy of the diseases, the blindness, the insects… and immobilized by chains and shackles, their emaciated bodies would end up becoming the food for the rats.
Once there, Mr. Diego realized that the fearsome hell was even more horrible than the one described by any survivor. However, among the most unhappy prisoners’ wails there was a rumor circulating, an encouraging delirium, that others attributed to the madness: The Tower of Wishes. Every once in a while, generally with the imprisonment of new prisoners, the Nasrid guard took one of them out from the dungeon to take him to the Tower of Wishes. There, one of the Odalisques from the Caliph’s harem, waited, ready to satisfy her sexual desires.
Except for the Caliph’s four wives, the rest of the women who surrounded him were considered Odalisques and, among all them, the beautiful ladies stood out, and were destined to their Sir’s entertainment: Young ladies with wide hips and firm but not quite big breasts. Depending on the season, and as a therapy, the harem’s owner enjoyed other archetypes of women: tall and thin; young ladies with an androgynous aspect; fat and healthy looking women, black women… These last ones weren’t very well considered while the Slavs (blond and red-haired with blue eyes coming from the North) and the Mediterranean women (white skin and dark eyes and hair),were object of desire and lust for the powerful men who could keep them in their harem.And although some of them used the tongue ability of the eunuchs (castrated guards who protected them) to provide themselves with pleasure, others looked at the newcomers soldiers who paraded to the dungeons, while they took a walk through the souk. After all, a Caliph couldn’t satisfy all his women: numbered by hundreds or thousands…
Which desire motivated such fantasy for those tormented prisoners? The freedom…? The pleasure?
The fate decided to answer the Castilian Knight’s curiosity before the slow pass of time could waste it away in the torture chamber: At nightfall, under a torch’s fire and escorted by the sabres’ shadow, two Nasrid guards leaded him to the top of one of the Alcazaba’s tower. There, once he was liberated from his shackles, he was abandoned in the semidarkness nourished by the candles’ light and the incense smell. On some of its comfortable corners, there was a semi naked young woman with long and dark hair waiting for him who, removing his rags, finished with the few strengths that had kept him healthy during his short stay in the Alcazaba. Mr. Diego couldn’t stop thinking about his freedom while the passionate Odalisque clinged to his numb body. That was the only desire that the tower could provide to a prisoner. And, for this reason, once the Odalisque’s libido was satisfied, the guards fulfilled such wish cutting the unfortunate lover’s throat. They couldn’t allow that sign of betrayal.
They tell that the beheaded can still think a few seconds before they die; Enough for the Christian soldier to conclude that, indeed, the desire of all the prisoners was to be executed before returning to the terrifying Arab dungeon… After all, he had been lucky: What is more liberating than death?
Once there, Mr. Diego realized that the fearsome hell was even more horrible than the one described by any survivor. However, among the most unhappy prisoners’ wails there was a rumor circulating, an encouraging delirium, that others attributed to the madness: The Tower of Wishes. Every once in a while, generally with the imprisonment of new prisoners, the Nasrid guard took one of them out from the dungeon to take him to the Tower of Wishes. There, one of the Odalisques from the Caliph’s harem, waited, ready to satisfy her sexual desires.
Except for the Caliph’s four wives, the rest of the women who surrounded him were considered Odalisques and, among all them, the beautiful ladies stood out, and were destined to their Sir’s entertainment: Young ladies with wide hips and firm but not quite big breasts. Depending on the season, and as a therapy, the harem’s owner enjoyed other archetypes of women: tall and thin; young ladies with an androgynous aspect; fat and healthy looking women, black women… These last ones weren’t very well considered while the Slavs (blond and red-haired with blue eyes coming from the North) and the Mediterranean women (white skin and dark eyes and hair),were object of desire and lust for the powerful men who could keep them in their harem.And although some of them used the tongue ability of the eunuchs (castrated guards who protected them) to provide themselves with pleasure, others looked at the newcomers soldiers who paraded to the dungeons, while they took a walk through the souk. After all, a Caliph couldn’t satisfy all his women: numbered by hundreds or thousands…
Which desire motivated such fantasy for those tormented prisoners? The freedom…? The pleasure?
The fate decided to answer the Castilian Knight’s curiosity before the slow pass of time could waste it away in the torture chamber: At nightfall, under a torch’s fire and escorted by the sabres’ shadow, two Nasrid guards leaded him to the top of one of the Alcazaba’s tower. There, once he was liberated from his shackles, he was abandoned in the semidarkness nourished by the candles’ light and the incense smell. On some of its comfortable corners, there was a semi naked young woman with long and dark hair waiting for him who, removing his rags, finished with the few strengths that had kept him healthy during his short stay in the Alcazaba. Mr. Diego couldn’t stop thinking about his freedom while the passionate Odalisque clinged to his numb body. That was the only desire that the tower could provide to a prisoner. And, for this reason, once the Odalisque’s libido was satisfied, the guards fulfilled such wish cutting the unfortunate lover’s throat. They couldn’t allow that sign of betrayal.
They tell that the beheaded can still think a few seconds before they die; Enough for the Christian soldier to conclude that, indeed, the desire of all the prisoners was to be executed before returning to the terrifying Arab dungeon… After all, he had been lucky: What is more liberating than death?
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