Dudley Dudsborough was a collector of artifacts. He was especially fascinated by all things recherché. He had an affinity for rare and uncommon things and took to them much as pandas take to bamboo shoots, and giraffes to acacia trees.
Gypsum dolls and terracotta animals crafted in historical times held him as spellbound as a full moon does the Timber wolf. He played with Bronze-age statues and stone-age tools much as a horny Dutch girl would play with black dildos and mammoth vibrators.
Abyssinian limestone pots and alabaster Grecian jars tickled his fancy and sent him into chortling fits of delight.
However, what really warmed the cockles of his heart and sent it pounding with glee was all things Arabian: from Ali Baba jars to Aladdin lamps, and Hammurabi tablets to Sinbad Amulets… the rarer the object the warmer his cockles.
One day Dudley Dudsborough heard something that led him past the realms of normal glee and sent him soaring into the boundless empyrean of delirium and elation.
It had come to his attention that an artefact rarer than rare and choicer than choice was in the hands of his dealer in a small town called Barsalla, located in what was once the land between two rivers, Mesopotamia.
Dudsley packed his suitcase lost in reveries of this latest artefact. Could it be a Sumerian toilet bowl? – Or a smoking pipe from Ur? Could it be an Akkadian writing stone? – Or a clitoral stud from Nineveh? Thoughts of cuneiform styluses from Babylon plagued his mind like Biblical locusts; images of Assyrian battle-axes roused him from his slumber like pre-monsoonal thunder on the Gangetic plains.
On the flight he could hardly stop touching himself with satisfaction. He popped over to the bathroom cabinet and jerked off to fantasies of arcane manuscripts and exotic papyri.
He landed in the ancient land of Iraq and was met at the airport by his dealer, Ahmed, who was very mysterious and hush hush. Ahmed kept scouting the place for imaginary muggers and illusory assailants who seemed to him to be lurking behind every pillar and under every stone or blade of grass.
The two of them lay perdu until after dusk. Then, under the cover of darkness, Ahmed escorted Dudley through murky streets and shadowy alleyways. All the while Ahmed kept whispering hoarsely how rare and precious this object was. He informed Dudley that there was not a man alive in the country who didn’t wish he could be in possession of this object.
Finally after a walk of two hours where he was lost in a miasma of anticipation Dudley was informed that they had reached their destination.
They walked into a hovel. Bearded men glared at him. Turbaned heads followed his every move. Ahmed ushered him into a dingy corner. Placed on a table was the object covered with a dirty cloth.
Ahmed whipped the cloth away with the flourish of a mad magician’s leggy assistant. He grinned from ear to ear like a bonobo that had just concluded a three-hour session of sexual callisthenics. He gesticulated wildly to the object and asked Dudley to take a closer look.
Dudley walked closer and looked at the shiny metallic object. It was something he had never seen before in his life. It looked strangely burnished and luminescent in the moonlight. It took his breath away. He thought it looked almost futuristic and couldn’t imagine the ancient Iraqis creating anything like it.
“Every man in Iraq wishes he had one of those,” Ahmed informed Dudley.
“What is it?” he finally managed to whisper to Ahmed.
“It’s a roadside bomb from Basra,” Ahmed replied.
