Nollie jumped into the back seat and said, "Let's go."The drive was short and quiet. I had no idea how to start or continue a conversation. There was ... big hole in my chest where my heart had been. I had never felt so empty.Emily bustled us into the house, and as Nollie put my clothes away, Emily sat with me on her couch and hugged me. After a few minutes Nollie returned, and took her seat next to me.Emily turned my shoulders to face her and said, "I've been through this before. It isn't easy,. And jealous at the same time. I keep wishing that someone would love me that way.”Todd hugged her close. “Someone will, some day. You just have to find the right person.”And they fell asleep, wrapped in each others arms.The next thing he knew, Todd was awakened by Michelle softly shaking him. She looked down at him with red-rimmed eyes and spoke with a pleading tone in her voice.“I am so, so sorry. Can I talk to you?”Todd bit off his response, and gently slid his arm out from under Nicole. . “Nearby”—I laugh to myself when I realize how easily I may now say this of a place that in my life before would have required two days of hard travel to reach. I laugh, too, when I remember how great it seemed to me on our first visit, how very large and with so many people; now I know it to be only small among the great centers of people that exist now.Winter is ended and the trees and plants now bloom. In the time when this begins to happen I ask Linda should we not sow the ground in order. Ernesto nodded."Oh," was all she replied, and she turned and ran to a bathroom where she retched and retched and retched at the realisation that she had been made to eat her husband's bollocks.Just then there was a stir in the harem with concubines and eunuchs rushing hither and thither. The Emir's mere presence, unannounced and unexpected, in the harem had caused a flutter among the women and the eunuchs alike, and the rumour was that there was at least one other man with him. Rubina was.