Aladdin - the Arabian Nights

Chapter 17

Jasmine hadn't slept that night, but she was too excited to even think of being tired. The mysterious boy had kissed her... (she realized she still didn't know his name...) and that wonderful, wonderful carpet ride! She was all tingly. Stretched out on her bed with her eyes shut tight, she could almost imagine that she was still flying, soaring above the clouds and seeing the whole world stretched out before her, able to go anywhere and do anything she liked, no rules, no one telling her she was a princess and wasn't allowed....

And if anyone saw her in this ecstatic mood, she suddenly realized, they would think the cause of it was Jafar....

It was the only thing that could have brought her crashing down to reality. Jafar had spent two nights in the outhouse now – what was he going to do to them?? Jasmine knew Jafar would never allow such an insult to go unpunished, and knowing now that he was capable of attempted murder, she shuddered to think of what he might be planning. Of course the boy would help her if he could – but how much longer could he keep this up? He couldn't keep transporting her to his room and Jafar to the outhouse every night for the rest of their lives. Not that she couldn't get used to that.... but no, Jafar would catch on, and sooner or later he would simply try something else. And he would have more than enough opportunities... no one besides herself and Jafar and the mysterious boy knew she and Jafar hadn't been married, and at some point they would be expected to live together... The thought disgusted her. How could Father do this to me?! One word from her father, and she would be free of this horrible fate – did she dare try and ask him for help? He was the one who had given her away to Jafar in the first place! But she had the awful feeling that if she didn't do something about this soon, Jafar would.

And it was just at that moment when once again she heard her father's footsteps outside the door.

"Good morning, Jasmine..." The Sultan's voice trailed off as he saw her, sitting on the bed with her head down and long triple ponytail drooping, not even turning to look at him. For the second day in a row, he'd come into her room in the morning to find her looking miserable, downcast, and with none of her usual spirit. "Dearest, what is the matter?"

She didn't answer him. She couldn't. He wouldn't help her... he hadn't before....

But she did so want to tell him, to pour her heart out and trust him to look after everything, to rely on her father to make everything all right again... Her father wasn't like her mother, who really did just think Jasmine was disobedient... There had been a time her father really cared....

The Sultan watched his daughter with concern, knowing how unusual it was for her not to just say whatever was on her mind. Even he could make the connection between Jasmine's strange silences and the time they had started, the morning after her wedding. "Aren't you happy with Jafar?" the Sultan ventured.

This got him his first reaction from Jasmine, who glanced up at him sharply. She hadn't expected her father to ask, to consider the possibility that she might not be happy with the marriage he had arranged for her... What would happen if she just answered no?

The Sultan sat down beside his daughter and took her hands in his, and she leaned against his soft plump body just like she was a little girl again and her was just her loving father, no suitors or marriages getting in the way. He urged her to tell him if Jafar had done something she didn't like, confident in his power as Sultan to take his daughter's pain away. "We'll put it right. Now, tell me everything."

And Jasmine did.

The whole story came spilling out, at least all the parts she knew – so nothing about the Genie Aladdin was so careful to keep secret from her. She told him about being transported to this boy's house somewhere in the Agrabah marketplace, and how she'd spent two nights there and he had been so kind to her, and she told him about the carpet ride and the wonderful sights she had seen (although she kept the kiss to herself). Jasmine's father, to her surprise, said not one word about how she wasn't allowed out of the palace, or questioned how any of this could really have happened. He even seemed too relieved about Jasmine being all right after spending two nights alone and unchaperoned in a strange boy's bedroom to be that upset about it. He asked her only where Jafar had been during all this.