Podcasts about Indian princess

A Butterfly wants to kill the World?Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.Although Love is both fire and shadow, we often forget to take comfort from the coolness of the memories when the burning flames are absentThere were precisely two things, okay, four things, keeping me alive. The fourth thing would come to her later when her 'furious was replaced by her 'curious' ~ as in how I knew her inhuman lingo ~ which would lead to my legacy with Grandpa.The top three reasons -She had poked my chest. It was a challenge, calling for one of my guardians to come out and play. The avatar knew I was the chosen heir of the Goddess Ishara and my goddess had devoted a good deal of time and effort to my survival and continued service in her cause. If Ishara made an 'appearance', it would be enough reason to not eviscerate me for my foul treatment of her august personage.Nope. It seemed Ishara was busy at the moment.Still, she most likely knew SzelAnya had shown a keen interest in me in Romania, though I'd never told Selena, or any other member of the 9 Clans, the Dragon's Daughter had killed Ajax for me. Figuring out SzelAnya, a storm deity, had helped me and Aya escape from our kidnapping in the midst of a cyclone in the Pacific Ocean wasn't much of a reach.But no bolt of lightning coalesced from my chest to singe her finger. No clap of thunder. Not even a cloud with a hint of disfavor appeared above us.Her obsidian fingernail began penetrating my shirt, touched my skin, then drew my blood, and something 'twitched'.That would be Contestant Goddess #3. She wasn't actually hanging around me. She didn't have to. She'd left me a memento of our last shindig before we parted ways. That was the nightmare-inducing episode where she, the chthonic goddess Sarrat Irkalli, had compressed one man's body into a dagger and then proceeded to suck another's soul into it to use as a power source for an Airbus 350 (a commercial airliner, if you didn't know).I still had that snaggletooth-looking thing at my back. Well who the Hell was I going to leave it with? Honestly, the only people I felt could keep it safe I loved too much to curse with it. Anyway, the second her divine claw touched my blood, the long dormant weapon whispered to me in a somewhat bored, lofty feminine voice from beyond the grave,Do you want me to discorporate this pathetic has-been for you?Quick check. Only the avatar and I, and her priestess-savant heard that. Of course, in downtown, New York City, noon Sunday, how weird would such a declaration be? The avatar's eyebrow arched. Her big bat-ears (still looking human to the normal viewing public) flicked this way and that, figuring out precisely where the threat originated from. Slowly, her once poking hand began to slide across my chest, along my ribs and around my back.She touched the dagger. Nothing.Gingerly, she drew it forth. I'd had a makeshift sheath made. As the blade made its journey around me, she took a half-step back to better observe it."Please don't kill him!" Theddy squealed. "We haven't had sex yet!"Being 'who' and 'what' she was, the avatar did what came natural. Fortunately for Theddy, I'd become accustomed to working with psychopaths.She stabbed the dagger at Theddy. I clamped my hand down on her wrist. The claws of her left hand came down on my constraining wrist. My free hand came down on that hand, trying to pry it free. It was a hopeless struggle, except.Yes, my old friend 'except'. Except the avatar was holding the dagger. As powerful as Ītzpāpālōtl was, she wasn't pushing against me. She was pushing against Sarrat Irkalli.Ītzpāpālōtl was a living, breathing terror machine who killed and received sacrifices on a regular basis.Sarrat Irkalli hadn't been actively worshipped in 3,000 years.Uneven contest? Oh yeah.See, Ītzpāpālōtl had spent the past 500 years continuously fighting against the Weave to keep her fingers on this side of reality.Meanwhile, for the most part, Sarrat Irkalli had sat upon her throne in the Sumerian Underworld with hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of souls toiling under her watchful gaze for eternity. Sure, her version of Hell wasn't getting any fresh deposits, but she knew how to milk the system well.Even the bad karma for the dagger's creation wasn't hers. She'd stolen it from the foolish Gong Tau sorcerers who had meant to enslave my soul, aka one-third of the Baraqu-Alal-Cáel deal she'd worked out millennia ago. It was the Weave giving her a 'freebie' for playing by the rules, if you considered the Weave sentient.And now Ītzpāpālōtl was touching it. Whoops. It wasn't as if Ītzpāpālōtl was stupid. It isn't like there are tons of magic weapons running around, much less soul-munchers like the one I had. Rationally, who would give a novice like me, a weapon like this? I say again, 'whoops'.Once I'd figured this out, I couldn't stop being me."Theddy, do you like girls?""What?" she squeaked. Here was this psycho trying to drive a Smilodon incisor into her bosom and I was giving her a sex quiz.Ītzpāpālōtl was really starting to struggle now."I, ah, are you okay?" she continued."Oh, I'm dandy. I'm serious. You think this chick is hot? I mean, would you do her in a three-way?" I proposed casually."Timothy?" Sovann."Bro?" Timothy to me."It's all good. Sovann, you want to know what my life is like? This lady who came to discuss business with me today is an immortal mass murderer. You give the word, I'll let go and this knife is going to cut her up like a Ginsu blade on market day because just cutting her heart out isn't going to be enough. Worse. Eventually she'll get back up.""Timothy?" Sovann repeated, this time with more concern. He thought I was nuts. I released my left hand. The blade flipped up, twisting in the avatar's grasp. That was the point her minions figured out something was wrong."El Amado?" the priestess-savant called out softly. The three goons began reaching for 'things'."Call them off, or I open my other hand," I cautioned the avatar. She spared me a swift, hostile look. My fingers tingled."Esten quietos!" she snapped. They stopped."Cáel, bad day, or not. This isn't you. Stop it. The girl's in danger," Timothy spoke up. He didn't mean Theddy. He meant the avatar."I'm being a real asshole, aren't I?" I sighed."Pretty much. You never let the bitches get to you before. Girl pops an attitude, you smile and move on. Life is too short," he reminded me. Too true."I'm going to put my hand over the blade," I told Ītzpāpālōtl. "When I do, you can let go."She didn't say anything for several seconds, even after my left hand covered the semi-serrated edge."Why should I trust you?" she sizzled."Because 'me' letting anything bad happen to you would make me a total, judgmental jerk. I don't know you. Whatever you did before you showed up today shouldn't matter to me. I acted stupidly. I should have stopped you. I didn't. I didn't even warn you and I could have. I was angry, and not even at you. Just angry and I apologize. Now, let go.""Why?""Hi. I'm Cáel Nyilas. Can I have my knife back? Please?"Blink. She released it. For a millisecond, it wanted to do something else because bitches are bitches. It didn't, so my palm wasn't sliced open. My right hand took the hilt. I carefully put the blade away."Yes," Theddy gulped."Huh?" Sovann shook his head at the sudden evaporation of the life and death tension. Welcome to my life. Theddy meant 'yes' to the 'girl-girl-guy' thing I had proposed earlier. It pays to keep things prioritized."What is this movie you were talking about?" Ītzpāpālōtl asked. Had she forgiven me for anything which had transpired? Bwahahaha, no way. She was taking the initiative and going with Option 1 from my earlier insane diatribe."Wait!" Sovann nearly shouted. "You nearly, I don't know, threatened Cáel's life and tried to stab Theddy and now you think you can go with us to a movie?""I told you," Timothy put an arm around his shoulder, "life with Cáel is rarely dull.""I thought you meant he was fun to party with, or something like that," Sovann looked up at his lover. "I thought his uncle showing up, and trying to kill him and then being blown the fuck away by those women and federal agents, and that other girl who pointed a gun at us, is this the new normal?""I love you, Sovann," Timothy grew compassionate. "Cáel is my best friend. He'd never deliberately hurt either of us and normal friends are something he has in short supply. Today being a great case in point."Ten seconds passed."The title is 'As Above, So Below'," Sovann addressed the avatar, "and what do we call you?"Since 'if you are not a worshiper and addressing me, I normally am about to kill you' would sound really cool in Olmec-ic, but I might be asked to translate,"How about we go with 'Obsidian', please?" I pleaded with her.She knew I was currying favor now ~ and behaving like a weather vane caught in the wall of a tornado ~ she gave a gracious bow of her head."Obsidian will do for now. Is the Legend of the dagger 'business'?" Translation: it had better not be."No," I smiled. "It's pillow talk." Rancor, 'how presumptuous', followed by 'but that dagger ups the count to three Goddess interested in him', and next to recalling all the trivial babble about me being a sexual dynamo (I prayed my PR was that good) having some relevance. Her chimera emotions allowed me to get a few more crucial words out, because even women who aren't sleeping with me are jealous."Esta mujer fue la primera en ofrecer bienes funerarios tras la muerte dee mi padre," I reinserted Theddy back into my close company. For some reason, Obsidian considered me unreliable thus had to verify what I'd just said."Did you make funerary offering upon his father's passing?" she asked Theddy. Let's think about this. The wacko chick questioning Theddy had tried to stab a huge freaking blade into her not a minute ago. Fleeing in terror while screaming for the cops? Nope."Yes. I baked him some walnut and caramel chip cookies," she nodded. "It is a family recipe." Sovann looked over the three of us, then back to Timothy."I told you 'that's impressive cocking like I've never seen before'," he explained."She may remain," Obsidian 'permitted'. Theddy wrapped up my right arm with her left and gave it a squeeze. She wanted attention/explanation."Obsidian is a Master Vampire, Theddy," I leaned in and whispered. "Before she was turned, she was captured in a raid by the fey, mentally, spiritually and physically raped and made into their sex-slave. Part of her spirit never healed properly. While this imperfection allows her to walk around in daylight, her heart can never hold on to any emotion for long, so she is forced to forever seek passion, no matter how dangerous, from the world around her."Revealing secrets? Ha. I had noticed Theddy had every work done by Laurel K. Hamilton in her place, including the comic book series."You are not supposed to know, so act like I didn't tell you anything, okay?"'Okay,' she mouthed back at me. I could see it in her eyes. My chaotic life suddenly 'made sense' to her because a best-selling fiction author said so.Obsidian thought the movie was; hilarious. She couldn't stop snickering, giggling and poking at me as horrible shit happened to the various actors. She thought the plot was 'insightful' and wouldn't stop whispering to me throughout the entire thing. During the closing credits, I told her I'd get her the DVD for Christmas ~ she knew the concept behind digital technology, but didn't own any ~ she kissed me.The first kiss was fierce and joyous with the added benefit of her tongue doing things no normal tongue could do, it stretched. Not sure how I felt about that. The second kiss was more sultry, longer and came with some accompanying body action which, I'm no virgin. Not even close. She was on my left side, so when she twisted in her seat, her left leg insinuated itself between mine. Her left hand cupped my jaw and held my head in place as her lips played along mine.A dance of the scorpion perhaps? Tender at first, then suddenly stabbing, dominant and brutal. My lips and tongue battled back, using my superior Kiss-fu to nullify her natural strength and agility. She liked it. By her moaning, she liked it a lot. As the kiss progressed, more and more of her flowed from her seat into my seat, body facing me. Her body rose over mine, forcing my neck back to maintain contact."So, Dot Ishara is hovering around somewhere close, isn't she?" I murmured as our lips separated barely a centimeter apart. One chick kissing you to make another one jealous. It's happened to me plenty of times. Obsidian didn't give a damn about Theddy, or any other mortal woman in close proximity so,"Yes," she purred. "Do you mate with her?""A man does not brag of such things, but no, unless heavy petting counts?""What will she do to you when I steal your seed?"'When'? Why was I not surprised? Why was I not surprised another concussion was in my immediate future either? Was it possible I was, learning?"Chastise me for not fighting harder," I breathed across her lips, "and, in case you forgot, I'm on a date with the girl beside me.""Who I care nothing for," she sent a cruelly playful look Theddy's way. Wisely, the girl shivered."Who I am indebted to and how I honor my debts might matter to you," I hazarded. My words hurt Theddy's feelings. That was on purpose. Obsidian took pleasure in me hurting Theddy because she was basically a vicious monster."Yes?" I pressed her gently."Yes," Obsidian allowed, easing up slightly both romantically and physically."And Theddy, if you believe I'm with you solely because of some sense of obligation, you clearly haven't been listening to your recordings," I shot the human girl a wink."Oh.""Am I, or am I not, a sex-obsessed little monkey?" I teased her. Theddy giggled. I paid for my diversion with four obsidian claws to my ribs outside of Theddy's view. After all, it wasn't like Theddy could possibly compete with her for my attention. Considering Obsidian's legendary ability to rip open her opponent's ribcages and feast upon their hearts, I slipped my left hand, the one next to her between her legs and stroked her cotton-slacks covered cunt.Theddy hugged my right arm and put her head against my shoulder. Not to be outdone," Qu  un centenar dee hombres se quemaron vivos como el sonido?" Obsidian inquired with sexually sadistic hunger. Ah, memories of burning 7P Commandos.Whoops. Theddy knew Spanish."No lo s . Ten an respiradores en," I replied casually. "Si lo desea, puedo describir lo que se siente al tirar de una flecha de guerra lanzar mi propio muslo.""Eep," slipped out of Theddy's lips."Why did you do that?" Obsidian looked over us both."Well, I was showing a little girl I believed in her,""And she shot you?" Theddy gulped."No. She hit the target I was standing next to. A co-worker mistook me for a cardboard cutout of a Jehovah's Witness and let fly. Seems she had issues with organized religion as well as a reaction to the oscillation effect of florescent lighting and ceiling fans.""But why did you pull the arrow out?" Theddy asked. "Couldn't you wait until you got to the hospital?""Mosquito," Obsidian menaced, insinuating Theddy was a pest."I wasn't thinking rationally at the moment, I work in an asylum, I had a hot date in a few hours, any of those three will do," I smiled at Theddy."Copil such as Cáel don't bother with petty human conventions," Obsidian turned my gaze back her way with her hand on my jaw. 'Copil's were 'god-touched' in her lingo."More than one girl?" Theddy mused."Four.""Okay," she sighed happily."Theddy, three under-age girls and the police office he was dating acting as their chaperone," Timothy intervened. "He hurried home so he could keep a promise to the children, not for sex." Bastard. He really was my best friend. He didn't mention my post-injury, pre-festivity sex with Odette giving me a few extra, urgently needed Brownie Points to suggest I might be a decent human being."You are a wonderful guy," Theddy ran a fingernail over my free hand. Clearly I was 'wonderful' enough to risk Obsidian's anger over. The screen went blank as the last credits scrolled away and the room was plunged into darkness. Five seconds later, the lights snapped on.Pain!"Fuck," I hissed. It wasn't any extra physical trauma causing me discomfort. No, a metaphysical dam had burst within and my stream of conscious thought had been turned into a white-water rapids. The competing cyclones of thoughts in my mind had stopped cooperating and my hypothalamus was letting me know I was in danger."Cáel", "Cáel", "Bro", and "Ishara" all came in rapid succession. I needed some space both tangible and social."I need to step outside," I eased Obsidian off me and stood up. My sense of my personal danger was ratcheting up. While I had been studying Obsidian, so I could screw her, I had discovered more and more Alal-badness.The light display had ignited a series of pressing implanted memories which had been clamoring for my attention. Things like not all 'divinities' were stewards of the Weave. Some even wanted its destruction, preferring risking all on a chaotic restructuring of reality over what existed now ~ things like Obsidian. They weren't attempting to do so because they thought they had no chance.But there was. A real serious chance to unravel reality existed; and it was staring her in the face. It wasn't 'me' as in 'I was the Anti-Christ'. But with the torrent of memories pouring forth, I knew where the peril lay and I was completely responsible for it. Hell, I was a prime ally of Armageddon and hadn't even known it.'Holy Shit!'I blinked. Timothy was shaking me. We were out in the lobby."Oh my God, Timothy," I nearly wept. "What am I going to do?""I have no idea what you are talking about. Is there someone you can talk to about this?" he suggested. Normal folks were around us. Obsidian was at my side. Sovann was behind Timothy with an arm around Theddy's shoulder."Theddy," I looked at her. "Can I catch up with you later? I just realized I've screwed up something fierce." I put my best 'really don't want to go but I gotta' face on. Her worried look brightened, she slipped around Timothy and gave me a tingling French kiss."I'll hold you to that, Cáel," she murmured when we parted."Timothy, go home, I got shit to deal with," I hoped my grin didn't become as feeble as I felt it to be."I," he started to say something. "Time not to ask questions?""Yeah.""Okay.""Wait." I pulled us to the side and went on to my toes, leaned in and whispered in his ear, "Tell Pamela 'he' sent Ajax to kill the Professor, his family and the sisters. They were the targets all along. It wasn't me, or the other women. Just in case,""Okay," Timothy patted my arm. It was cryptic. It was the best I could do. See, I wanted to cry so badly.{2:09 pm Sunday, September 7th ~ Last day}Where to begin:Every mythology across the globe has some creature, or creatures, which threatens Existence. Usually a God, or a Hero-God, slays the creature and everything is right with the world, except such a being, being older than Existence itself, can't really die, so they are carved up, buried ~ what have you.Illuyankamunus was one such manifestation of this underlying cancerous desire to destroy reality. He'd had a far more real child, SzelAnya, and she's never quite given up on her dad. Of far greater critical importance, she was 'part' of Illuyankamunus, somewhat in the way I was part of Alal and Baraqu. And yes, that meant all the offspring of Bolu, the guy I'd praised a few hours earlier, held the seeds of that malignant deity as well.And Alal knew it. He hadn't been killing off the descendants. He'd left that task up to a group far more capable of the task, the Egyptian Rite, who knew a fucking threat to existence when they saw it. Lest I forget, No secret society are the 'good guys'. Also lest I forget, I alone decided to go after the Arinniti sons to fulfill Vranus' quest. I had no divine mandate I was aware of nor any real world orders.Inadvertently, I had rounded up the last five mortal remains of Illuyankamunus in one place for convenient disposal in a remote Transylvanian town. The only problem was: if someone didn't get to them quickly, I was also about to whisk them into the loving (and heavy-armed) protective embrace of the Amazon Host, where the completion of centuries of culling would have suddenly become a cast-iron bitch instead of a simple disposal.Enter Ajax. Yeah, I bet the Egyptians were trying to figure out how I stopped him as well as Alal. I thought I was being clever by not telling most of the world. In fact, they most likely suspected; and the reality of SzelAnya watching over me was much more terrifying. Ishara had put a serious curse on the Amazons, yet her curse only affected her followers, the Amazons, who were fair game.SzelAnya had killed someone for me, and I hadn't been one of her followers. Thus I had committed a blasphemous act only a magician of some significant ability could have managed. I wasn't a sorcerer, but I had a cornucopia of mystic knowledge rolling around in my noggin. Trying to figure all this out was one of my major headaches.The others?I even suspected I knew who betrayed me ~ kinda. They didn't do it on purpose. At least I hope they didn't, because my odds-on favorite was my Mother by way of Captain Delilah Faircloth. Realistically, there was only one secret society who might help her against Grandpa and that was the Egyptian Rite, and they did send three people to Dad's funeral including two 'somebodies'. I'm an idiot.I'd chatted away in fluent New Kingdom Egyptian and it never occurred to me how odd it was for two of them to also be so fluent in it. Know it, sure, but as fluent as Kimberly had taught me to be? That should have been a Red Flag.The Earth & Sky had sent Iskender, who should have been the benchmark I judged the other delegations by, damn it.Three Condos? They'd killed my Dad and their guys had been flunkies.The 7 Pillars had been nobodies, which they'd proven by their inaction.Now I had to question why I had 3 actual  9-Clans  assassins at my dad's funeral too. Holy Ishara, I wasn't nearly paranoid enough.Anyway, why would the Amazons be aiding and abetting the End of All Life on Earth? Normally, they wouldn't be, but 3000 years ago, the majority of Human life did a colossal dump on the Amazons. And when they needed help, they got it in the form of SzelAnya and her dual-sex followers. I seriously doubt they told the Amazons their purpose was to resurrect SzelAnya's daddy. I imagine the Amazons didn't pry too much either.It turned out almost to be okay. During the 2nd Betrayal, the Amazons betrayed SzelAnya and almost short-circuited her plans by exterminating her lineage.Except for the Arinniti elders and Bolu. Good old 'except'.I can imagine when the Egyptians heard about the 2nd Betrayal, they figured they were 'okay'. Those wacky Amazons had inadvertently done the world a favor. Except an act of maternal love kept a slender hope of Illuyankamunus' return alive. By the time the Egyptians realized they'd been prematurely hopeful, Bolu's descendants were all over the Balkans and hunting them down had proven difficult.But, it gets worse. Much worse.When those Gods shattered Illuyankamunus, they scattered him in the relative certainty no one would ever gather the parts back together.His flesh was scattered across the land, modern day Turkey, but encompassing everything from Pakistan to Italy and Egypt to Poland. The flesh became soil, then plants, the things that eat plants, then food for humans. Get the picture.Whoops. SzelAnya had been doing just that for centuries upon centuries every time she mated with a mortal of Illuyankamunus' line and had offspring, they accumulated his energy, which made hunting down the few remaining ones easier to find, since they were 'beacons of badness', except...There were two key pieces missing which SzelAnya could never get. After all, you would think burying them on the far side of the world would matter, right?The 'breath of Illuyankamunus' ~ his cosmic fire ~ they buried in a volcano in a distant land far across the Great Sea. His spirit 'body' they imprisoned in a great river, again, across the Great Sea.But wait, it gets worse.The being standing next to me knew precisely where the 'breath of Illuyankamunus' was. Seems Mesoamerica is laced with volcanos. They'd discovered 'the breath' long ago and used it as a weapon called Xiuhcoatl. Better yet, Alal suspected she and her buddies were more than happy to reunite it with the rest if they thought the Weave itself wouldn't annihilate them for daring to do so.In their current, weakened state they were vulnerable to such a karmic backlash. In theory, a reborn Illuyankamunus would have access to power beyond the bounds of the Weave, older and more terrifying. Still, without the mortal remains to anchor the energy, giving it to the spirit would be pointless.Alal knew where the spirit body was (in general), but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was where it was,Of all the places the Arinniti sons could have fled to, they had to choose Brazil, the burial place of the restive spirit body of Illuyankamunus. Mother-fucker.And Ildiko 'Alkonyka' aka Dusk Lovasz had sworn she'd travel to Brazil to fulfill Bolu's side of the quest in the same way I was holding up Vranus' end. If I tried to stop her, SzelAnya would know something was up. Fuck.I was processing all of this when Obsidian violently yanked me out of the way. A cabby had swerved to avoid a flurry of trash and nearly run over us. It was the third near-concussive experience in the past five minutes she'd help me avoid while she had walked by my side. I'd been mumbling like a madman."That would be my Goddess wanting to talk with me," I looked her way."I know," she gave me a clever smile."She's really not going to like that," I shook my head."I know that too," she kept smiling. "Where is your mind?""Five lives away from making the world a safer place," I sighed."Safer for who?" she purred. Where were all the bimbos? Not only was it an insightful question, it cut straight to the heart of my dilemma.What decision could I make? If I elected to help my fellow Amazons, I risked screwing with the world. In truth, I was risking everything even if I did nothing. Well Dad was always clear that things didn't change by themselves. You needed to do something that would have an effect. So, 'What are you going to do?'More to the point, I wasn't Grandad. Killing the last five of the line of Illuyankamunus wasn't 'me', so it wasn't going to be something I'd worry about.SzelAnya wanted to bring back her Dad, I could understand that. I'd have to figure out a way for her to believe this world sticking around was more important. How? Well, I had a goddess-like creature right in front of me to probe for ideas."You are an immortal," Obsidian commented. She'd been weighing her opinion for some time. I could tell by the wonderment with which she gifted each word."What? No. I can die.""No. I don't think so. Your wounds. Normally the wounds I inflict flow freely for some time. Yours have already scabbed over," her eyes flickered to the various minor scars she'd imparted to me in the few hours we'd been together.Of course, her idea was insane, Oh God No! I was in Grandad's body. Well Duh! His body was supposed to be immortal."Are you sure?" I looked deep into her eyes."You are a young immortal, the youngest I've ever met, but you are an immortal," she seemed to be convincing herself as much as me.Stupid Assumption (on my part)! I wasn't in Alal's body. I was in Cáel's. Because the Cáel soul shard was young, Alal hadn't been able to find it because it had moved through Time, to me, sonofabitch! 'I' hadn't been around for him to find. No! I was making yet another damn assumption.What did I know? When Pamela found Baraqu, it had been in an object, not a person, though she had been short on details. When the Alal-shard went to the Land of the Endless Black Sands to bring Saku back, the Cáel-shard had been in reality, so it had been allowed to create a body, 'me'. Still, the curse Sarrat Irkalli placed on Baraqu was on Alal and myself as well, which meant I might just be immortal.My Alal-mind agreed with Obsidian's assessment. In his first years, his healing had been slow, still taking days for what took mortal people weeks. I'd stupidly attributed my swift recovery to Amazon medicines, ugh. Because I got wounded more than most Security Detail trainees while concurrently entertaining two and three sex partners."Can you talk with Dot Ishara?" I asked her."Yes, but why would I?""Sex?""We are going to have sex anyway," she smiled. I'd tricked her. Set her up with the right so I could now drop her with the left."I can bring the mbo  tat  back to life," I pledged. That was not what she was expecting at all. "If you bring the Xiuhcoatl, I can bring the flesh and we can unite the three." Mbo  tat  was the Tupi name for the legendary 'fiery serpent' of the Amazon Basin. In Portuguese, it had become Boi-tat , a will-o-wisp with a confused, Christianized mythology ~ a serpent dwelling in darkness, devouring the eyes of corpses, glowing in the forests at night."Where is the flesh?" she whispered."In his mortal children," I replied."Who?""You are a monster, Ītzpāpālōtl. I'm not going to tell you and you don't have the time to drag the information out of my mind before my allies drop on you like a nuclear detonation," I drew my body tightly to her."Why would the Amazons do this?""They are not. This is a deal between you and me," I kissed her lips. I pulled back. A few seconds later she kissed me back."Why?""My grandfather had my father murdered and I would avenge him. In the end, despite my father's Amazon heritage, my 'Sisters' will let his death go unavenged for the greater good of the Host. He was a man and they will never look beyond that ~ they will never value his life as they would that of a woman.""Your mother's father?""Yes. Cáel O'Shea of the Illuminati.""We are not at war with the Illuminati," she murmured. It was a casual observation, not a protest."You are at war with Cáel O'Shea.""He was slain.""He didn't stay dead.""You know much more than you are saying," she was finally catching on."Absolutely.""I need much more than a few names to convince my kin to help," she purred, a cocktail of sexual immersion and flesh-flaying pain."I don't work for you. You are agreeing to work for me," I was hard as iron in more than one way. Why? Boundaries. She lived in a world where only the fundamentals of reality constrained her. Having a human, no matter how polished my pedigree, or how much I might appear to be 'special', tell her 'you are not the boss' in a reasonable fashion was new and very unwelcome."What would make you think that?""My mentor taught me knowledge is a curse. It is our inability to forget, and I can see into your soul, Ītzpāpālōtl. You care not one wit for the life of an assassin. But the thought of the other 'Factors' of the 9 Clans treating you as an equal galls you almost as much as the crushing reality that you need them."You have lived 500 years in chains and I'm offering you a desperate grab at freedom," I added."Your brief glimpse of immortality gives you no insight into my existence," she bristled."Oh, how many have given up? How many have decided the fight was no longer worth it and faded from the Sunlight to make their final trip into the Underworld, never to return? Do you even visit them?" I spoke with a voice tinged with compassion and loss. I pulled upon the pitiless, blank memories of a childless Alal all those centuries and imprinted on them my own fears of fatherhood and failure."How do you know so much?" she let her fa ade crack, then blow away, in the hollowness of her own sorrow. How could I pity such a monster? I could because I was me and I wouldn't surrender that to the barbaric past and most likely horrific future. I pulled her close, resting my chin on the top of her head."You are not the first, wonderful, very bright woman who has stepped into my life, Obsidian," I whispered. "You are not even the first divinity. For all the millions of differences enforced by power and time, I think love, hate and the conflict between the two wear upon us all. If anything, you face an endless parade of hope and misery. Even if you chose to ignore it, you have seen it and perhaps it leaves its marks ~ water scarring the rocks of a riverbed."We paused. I was able to peripherally scan about and realize we'd made it to Central Park ~ the Ramble and off the beaten path."Your Goddess is a fool for not keeping you closer," she murmured."She does keep me close. You have been actively keeping me from her," I reminded my guest. "She also plays by the rules, so is of limited help in my plans for vengeance."Translation: I could enlist Ītzpāpālōtl's aid while still remaining loyal to my matron Goddess. Ishara could not provide what I needed and my Amazons wouldn't agree with my scheme, so I needed her. Three hours ago, she wouldn't have considered me a worthy supplicant, much less an allied equal, yet here she was conspiring with me to shake the foundations of Creation.Personally, I was thanking Mamitu, Destiny. Had I not been having my worst Sunday ever when we first crossed paths and then acted like a total cockhead, pissed her off and led her to holding Sarrat Irkalli's dagger, thus putting her life in my hands, and not had Timothy as a best friend, I wouldn't have taken her to the movie, and my mind wouldn't have wandered down those dark corridors of Alal's memories to piece things together.Whatever itinerary Obsidian had approached me with, my abrasive behavior had forced her to it cast aside. Dagger, movie, revelations, I was now so much more in her eyes than she had envisioned."Share my need and share with me an ounce of your sorrow," I murmured to her as I gently curled my fingers in her hair and directed her head up until she faced me."The dagger," she rumbled. While she was stroking my hard-on, I knew she was using it as a double meaning."I was pinned to an onyx sacrificial table," I began my tale. We worked off pants to mid-thigh then 'got busy'. Penetration was only going to be possible by turning her around. Ground-breaking was her ready acceptance of my instruction. I leaned against a tree, then pulled her onto my lap. She guided my phallus home.One locomotion and I sunk in deep. It was warm molasses until I hit and pressed against her cervix. For a second Obsidian trembled, then her muscles clamped down tightly, gripping my manhood firmly in a vise, keeping me still."Ah," I groaned. Obsidian had her neck twisted, so we were kissing with eye contact as I described my adventures with the Gong tau sorcerers. She shot me a quick twinkle of delight, a connection. She'd relayed physical pleasure in the way I was giving her cerebral gratification, aka hope.I rolled up her shirt, and gave both nipples a brutal tweak in response. She gasped. I was applying a little 'rough' with my tender intercourse. She rolled her tush against my groin, an invitation to double-down on my nipple-play. I kept my left hand working over each tit while working my fingernails down her abdomen. As I described the terror in old Tsu's face as he shouted out 'M iyǒu! (Mandarin for 'No!') as he recognized too late the curse he was invoking. She relished the visual of the Han necromancer's terror.'Me' smacking two fingers down on her clit earned me a squeal and a small gush of fluids on my nut-sack. Her look of astonishment was something I'd always cherish. Before me, sex was something she demanded from her followers/victims and definitely orchestrated. Her partners being fearful/worshipful must have limited their initiative."A-a-a-ah, we are being observed," she groaned, her lips less than an inch from mine. It took me a second."Which direction?" I kept pumping her, strumming her clit and treating her tit like taffy on a hot Coney Island summer afternoon. Her hooded eyes flickered to our right. I gave it ten seconds. I had to get Obsidian refocused on what I was going to do to her next, in case this was innocent voyeurism. Nope. It was Chaz.Why Chaz? See, I'm an idiot. My cryptic warning to Timothy for Pamela had been good for all of one minute. He'd called her and she'd gathered what she could and come looking for me.Why was she concerned? I was babbling to Timothy then wandering off with a 'beyond-freaky' chick I had just met named 'Obsidian' who came my way courtesy of another chick with the name of Estere.Let me see, Estere was Hashashin and for Timothy to describe someone in my life as 'beyond freaky' was bad news. Timothy was seriously worried about me and Timothy was an emotional rock ~ he didn't panic. Lest we forget, I was in a federal taskforce. A quick peek into New York traffic cameras revealed me and Obsidian wandering into Central Park from the south, so in the rescue party went, splitting up and Chaz 'lucked-out'.I still had two, no, three problems. I was really enjoying my sexual excursion with Obsidian and she was seeming to truly enjoy her experience with me. Oh, and Central Park is big, Pamela had been pressed for people, so she had pressed some unlikely participants into my rescue party."He's," smooch, "my brother, by adoption," I headed off the whole idea she'd been briefed on me already."Visual, Peacekeeper Six, OS2, L-11," Chaz muttered into his headset before taking up a casual stance on the path overlooking our trysting spot. Sex with an audience didn't bother her, so, we worked out as much action from twist, turns and two inches of in-and-out motions (she liked to keep our bodies tight) as we could. Obsidian was humming along in no time. Her vaginal walls were undulating, wearing away at my self-control.Panting, not from us,"Is he o, are they, who is she?" huffed and puffed a trio of voices from Chaz's locale. Oh. Pamela had recruited my 'Hounds'.I accidently (from a timing perspective) took that moment to grind my nails into her left nipple, pinched her clit and hammered her as hard as I could. Obsidian howled. Her vocalization exited the human realm in a cataclysmic manner.The noise scared avians a mile away into terrorized flight. Cats hissed, then raced for cover. Dogs tucked tail and ran. Streetlights a hundred yards away shattered in sprays of glass. Better yet, for the entertainment of my viewing public, she lashed out with her right hand at the closest Black Cherry sapling, exploding it into a mist of sap and pulverizing the bark and wood fiber into pulp.On the downside, her cervix gave my balls an ultimatum ~ release my seed at once, or she was going to twist off my head. My cock and balls have a long history of making decisions without me. I began lavishing her. Before I finally got the feeling I was out of the danger zone. She was back to rubbing against me and purring in blissful satisfaction."Onun g zleri," whispered Belgin, one of the Turks. 'Her eyes'?"Cáel, are you aware of the alternative nature of your liaison?" Chaz coolly cautioned me. Translation: 'mate, do you know you have your cock in a demon?'"Yeah," I coughed. I had a face full of her hair. I was working on some post-coital nuzzling along with slowly helping her get her pants back up."Ininzqueoccehpa," she hummed to me, ignoring our gathering. That was 'let's do this again'."Tehuatlcochitlehua," I replied with some fondness. She studied me for a second before deciding my term was one of endearment, thus 'you are what dreams are made of', not 'nightmares'.Obsidian had another issue to deal with. Timothy would call it a righteous cocking. Whatever it was, her hold on her human mein had slipped and her inhumanity was slipping through, mainly in her glass-like, black, multi-facetted eyes and her fingers which now ended in molten obsidian talons. On the subconscious level, her predatory nature was setting everyone close-by on edge. I could also make out the high pitched, ultrasonic pipping of her chiropteran cries ~ purpose unknown.Obsidian made her way off farther into the underbrush leaving me a few precious seconds to appreciate her retreating posterior while holstering my equipment. More people were arriving. I had one more thing to take care of before, oh look, Nikita had brought her Mom along, the NYPD Sergeant."Chaz, I need to have a quick chat with Dot before I can explain things. She's been waiting and that's unwise," I looked to the Brit. He nodded."Cáel? Mr. Nyilas? Prince?" all came my way. I relaxed as best I could. Chaz went to a body blow to stagger me, then an epic upper cut to send me to Lullaby Land.Dot & the DragonessDot and SzelAnya, in dragon form, were waiting as I tumbled forward. By the state of my haziness, I knew my unconsciousness wouldn't last long."You gave her your seed," came the accusation."Yes," I staggered, "and now you should be able to track her," I pointed out the bonus part of the arrangement. No comment."I've got to make this quick, SzelAnya, I've found your father, geographically speaking," I dropped the bomb."Don't," Dot Ishara commanded. After all, she and her divine cohorts had done the killing and corpse-dividing eons ago. Undoubtedly, they'd executed their own oaths to one another to 'never reveal what they had done' as well."Too late," I shook my head. SzelAnya's attention was magnetized. "I owe you and I'm paying my debts. I'm not blind to the dangers, believe me.""You have no idea what power you are invoking," Dot's undercurrent of displeasure was the worst I'd experienced."Wrong. I've got thousands of years of Alal boiling around in my head, Plus the rest of you betrayed her 2600 years ago. It doesn't mean I have to. And now, given the chance, I'm not. Even if you kill me, she's got enough toBack in the Ramble"Really expect me to believe," Nikita's mom was growling."Man down," I waved a weak arm skyward."Mr. Nyilas, what is going on here?" the Sergeant addressed me. I was reclining in a circle of my 'Hounds'; most were kneeling. Chaz was in a tiny bit of trouble for having clocked me."Umm, thanks for coming out and looking for me. I assure you, Mr. Tomorrow did what he did as a matter of his professional duties ~ intelligence gathering." As I struggled to stand, my ladies helped me. I saw Pamela with three Hounds coming up fast from one direction and Virginia with three more coming from the other. The gang was all here.The mutterings in non-English tongues suggested a bit of explaining was already going on."You've been bleeding," Nikita pointed out with an unspoken 'again'."This?" I pulled my shirt out and looked at the first bloodstain of my encounter. "This is the just the start of the bad news." I shed my windbreaker and then t-shirt.The professionals shouldered aside the others to take a closer look."All of these are from noon and less than an hour ago," I identified the damage. Sarge was skeptical. Chaz, Nikita and Virginia less so."They look older," the senior lawman noted."I've been curious about that," Chaz frowned."I've inherited my Grandfather's curse. My soul fragment was in the 'Here and Now' twenty-three years ago while his was, 'over there', so I was allowed to come into creation. According to my recently departed guest,""You are immortal," Virginia mumbled to finish the thought. Had the speaker not been a member of the FBI, who knows how the thought would have been received."From the memories I've been gifted with," I tapped the tiny divot on my forehead, "his healing abilities started out rather slowly too. I certainly don't want to test this theory, so no worries there," I scanned the group."How do you explain seeing your Grandfather in Hungary and again in Rome?" Virginia wondered."Again, that woman who just left," I got out."Was no woman," Nuray, another one of my Turkish Hounds interrupted. "Her eyes..." she tried to explain, "and look what she did to that tree," she pointed to the greatest piece of evidence of supernatural wrongdoing. The other two witnesses nodded."We all saw the same thing. Her eyes were, bottomless, definitely not human," Belgin affirmed. The veteran players looked to Chaz."She had a collapsed nose-bridge, lacked a blink response, her dental work was carnivorous and her tongue was extremely clipped and showed prehensile qualities," he reported calmly. Pause. Chaz was a freaking intelligence operative, after all."If her hands were a type of glove weaponry, I've never seen it s like before. While I know it is possible for a human to exert the force-pounds necessary to snap a two inch diameter tree trunk in one blow, it is a rare skill and requires intense discipline. This appeared to be done spontaneously, without preparation of any kind and as a reaction to other stimuli," he added."It was also your assessment he needed to be knocked unconscious?" Nikita's mom countered."Mr. Nyilas' psychological constructs are something the whole team has to work around. At times, he seeks 'insight' from his mind in a deliberately unconscious/non-sleep state," he replied."He claims to be talking with spirit powers. I know when he returns to consciousness, he delivers useful intelligence. I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or psychic. I don't know why his mind functions that way. I do know results. And I know I work with people who would achieve those results by other means if it were at all possible. Since we haven't found another method, we accept that from tim

As an adult, Sarah Winnemucca spent a lot of time trying to advocate for the Northern Paiute, although her legacy in that regard has some complexities. Research: ·       Carpenter, Cari M. “Sarah Winnemucca Goes to Washington: Rhetoric and Resistance in the Capital City.” American Indian Quarterly , Vol. 40, No. 2 (Spring 2016). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/amerindiquar.40.2.0087 ·       Dolan, Kathryn Cornell. “Cattle and Sovereignty in the Work of Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins.” The American Indian Quarterly, Volume 44, Number 1, Winter 2020. https://doi.org/10.1353/aiq.2020.a752911 ·       Eves, Rosalyn Collings. “Finding Place to Speak: Sarah Winnemucca's Rhetorical Practices in Disciplinary Spaces.” Legacy , Vol. 31, No. 1 (2014). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/legacy.31.1.0001 ·       Eves, Rosalyn. “Sarah Winnemucca Devoted Her Life to Protecting Native Americans in the Face of an Expanding United States.” Smithsonian. 7/27/2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sarah-winnemucca-devoted-life-protecting-lives-native-americans-face-expanding-united-states-180959930/ ·       Hanrahan, Heidi M. “"[W]orthy the imitation of the whites": Sarah Winnemucca and Mary Peabody Mann's Collaboration.” MELUS , SPRING 2013, Vol. 38, No. 1, Cross-Racial and Cross-Ethnic Collaboration and Scholoarship (SPRING 2013). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42001207 ·       Hopkins, Sarah Winnemucca. “Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims.” Boston: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1883. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/winnemucca/piutes/piutes.html ·       Kohler, Michelle. “Sending Word: Sarah Winnemucca and the Violence of Writing.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, Volume 69, Number 3, Autumn 2013. https://doi.org/10.1353/arq.2013.0021 ·       Martin, Nicole. “Sarah Winnemucca.” Fort Vancouver Historical Site. National Parks Service. https://www.nps.gov/people/sarah-winnemucca.htm ·       Martínez, David. “Neither Chief Nor Medicine Man: The Historical Role of the “Intellectual” in the American Indian Community.” Studies in American Indian Literatures , Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring 2014). https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/studamerindilite.26.1.0029 ·       McClure, Andrew S. “Sarah Winnemucca: [Post]Indian Princess and Voice of the Paiutes.” MELUS , Summer, 1999, Vol. 24, No. 2, Religion, Myth and Ritual (Summer, 1999). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/467698 Nevada Women's History Project. “Sarah Winnemucca.” https://nevadawomen.org/research-center/biographies-alphabetical/sarah-winnemucca/ ·       "Sarah Winnemucca." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631007030/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=fff26ec7. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024. ·       "Sarah Winnemucca." Historic World Leaders, edited by Anne Commire, Gale, 1994. Gale In Context: U.S. History, ·       link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1616000622/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=e5a6b25f. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024. ·       Scherer, Joanna Cohan. “The Public Faces of Sarah Winnemucca.” Cultural Anthropology , May, 1988, Vol. 3, No. 2 (May, 1988). Via JSTOR. http://www.jstor.com/stable/656350 ·       Shaping History: Women in Capital Art. “Sarah Winnemucca and Sakakawea: Native American Voices in the Capitol Collection.” Podcast. 5/26/2020. ·       Slattery, Ryan. “Winnemucca statue erected in U.S. Capitol.” ICT. 3/23/2005. https://ictnews.org/archive/winnemucca-statue-erected-in-us-capitol ·       Sneider, Leah. “Gender, Literacy, and Sovereignty in Winnemucca's Life among the Piutes.” American Indian Quarterly , Vol. 36, No. 3 (Summer 2012). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/amerindiquar.36.3.0257 ·       Sorisio, Carolyn.” Playing the Indian Princess? Sarah Winnemucca's Newspaper Career and Performance of American Indian Identities.” Studies in American Indian Literatures , Vol. 23, No. 1 (Spring 2011) ·       "Winnemucca, Sarah." Westward Expansion Reference Library, edited by Allison McNeill, et al., vol. 2: Biographies, UXL, 2000, pp. 227-236. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3426500057/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=e5519449. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024. ·       Zanjani, Sally. “Sarah Winnemucca.” University of Nebraska Press. 2001.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sarah Winnemucca was Northern Paiute and was born not long before her band had their first contact with people of European descent. That happened in the middle of the 19th century, which means she lived through a lot – this episode covers her early life. Research: ·       Carpenter, Cari M. “Sarah Winnemucca Goes to Washington: Rhetoric and Resistance in the Capital City.” American Indian Quarterly , Vol. 40, No. 2 (Spring 2016). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/amerindiquar.40.2.0087 ·       Dolan, Kathryn Cornell. “Cattle and Sovereignty in the Work of Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins.” The American Indian Quarterly, Volume 44, Number 1, Winter 2020. https://doi.org/10.1353/aiq.2020.a752911 ·       Eves, Rosalyn Collings. “Finding Place to Speak: Sarah Winnemucca's Rhetorical Practices in Disciplinary Spaces.” Legacy , Vol. 31, No. 1 (2014). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/legacy.31.1.0001 ·       Eves, Rosalyn. “Sarah Winnemucca Devoted Her Life to Protecting Native Americans in the Face of an Expanding United States.” Smithsonian. 7/27/2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sarah-winnemucca-devoted-life-protecting-lives-native-americans-face-expanding-united-states-180959930/ ·       Hanrahan, Heidi M. “"[W]orthy the imitation of the whites": Sarah Winnemucca and Mary Peabody Mann's Collaboration.” MELUS , SPRING 2013, Vol. 38, No. 1, Cross-Racial and Cross-Ethnic Collaboration and Scholoarship (SPRING 2013). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42001207 ·       Hopkins, Sarah Winnemucca. “Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims.” Boston: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1883. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/winnemucca/piutes/piutes.html ·       Kohler, Michelle. “Sending Word: Sarah Winnemucca and the Violence of Writing.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, Volume 69, Number 3, Autumn 2013. https://doi.org/10.1353/arq.2013.0021 ·       Martin, Nicole. “Sarah Winnemucca.” Fort Vancouver Historical Site. National Parks Service. https://www.nps.gov/people/sarah-winnemucca.htm ·       Martínez, David. “Neither Chief Nor Medicine Man: The Historical Role of the “Intellectual” in the American Indian Community.” Studies in American Indian Literatures , Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring 2014). https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/studamerindilite.26.1.0029 ·       McClure, Andrew S. “Sarah Winnemucca: [Post]Indian Princess and Voice of the Paiutes.” MELUS , Summer, 1999, Vol. 24, No. 2, Religion, Myth and Ritual (Summer, 1999). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/467698 Nevada Women's History Project. “Sarah Winnemucca.” https://nevadawomen.org/research-center/biographies-alphabetical/sarah-winnemucca/ ·       "Sarah Winnemucca." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631007030/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=fff26ec7. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024. ·       "Sarah Winnemucca." Historic World Leaders, edited by Anne Commire, Gale, 1994. Gale In Context: U.S. History, ·       link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1616000622/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=e5a6b25f. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024. ·       Scherer, Joanna Cohan. “The Public Faces of Sarah Winnemucca.” Cultural Anthropology , May, 1988, Vol. 3, No. 2 (May, 1988). Via JSTOR. http://www.jstor.com/stable/656350 ·       Shaping History: Women in Capital Art. “Sarah Winnemucca and Sakakawea: Native American Voices in the Capitol Collection.” Podcast. 5/26/2020. ·       Slattery, Ryan. “Winnemucca statue erected in U.S. Capitol.” ICT. 3/23/2005. https://ictnews.org/archive/winnemucca-statue-erected-in-us-capitol ·       Sneider, Leah. “Gender, Literacy, and Sovereignty in Winnemucca's Life among the Piutes.” American Indian Quarterly , Vol. 36, No. 3 (Summer 2012). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/amerindiquar.36.3.0257 ·       Sorisio, Carolyn.” Playing the Indian Princess? Sarah Winnemucca's Newspaper Career and Performance of American Indian Identities.” Studies in American Indian Literatures , Vol. 23, No. 1 (Spring 2011) ·       "Winnemucca, Sarah." Westward Expansion Reference Library, edited by Allison McNeill, et al., vol. 2: Biographies, UXL, 2000, pp. 227-236. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3426500057/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=e5519449. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024. ·       Zanjani, Sally. “Sarah Winnemucca.” University of Nebraska Press. 2001.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Women of any age can drive a man to madness.In 25 parts, edited from the works of FinalStand.Listen and subscribe to the ► Podcast at Connected..“Instinct, education and experience are complementary, not in opposition.”(Wednesday)The phone rang. The clock was flashing 6:15. Odette snuggled up to me, making cute, happy cat-like noises. Timothy's bed was bigger than mine so I had to reach out to get my mobile device. For the tenth time, I silently thanked Timothy for switching bedrooms with me, though I believed he had chosen to sleep on the sofa instead."Hello," I said quietly."It's Buffy. I'll be there in fifteen minutes," she stated firmly."I have a companion over," I hesitated. "Can you make it twenty-five?""Who is that, Cáel Nyilas," Odette yawned. She liked the way my full name rolled of her tongue."Who is that?" Buffy grilled me."She's a sweet young lady I met; the rest is none of your business," I told Buffy. To Odette, "It is one of my many bosses. After my 'auto accident' (I couldn't tell a stranger that some psycho bitch; who I had just screwed; had her mentor kick the shit out of me), she brought me home then deposited me at your workplace. My bike is still at work." I had told Odette I was a cyclist."Does she think you are sexy?" Odette giggled. I groaned."81 days, Cáel," Buffy reminded me. "81 days," then she hung up. I wasn't getting my extra ten minutes."Do we have time?" Odette wiggled her whole body against mine."I don't think so. Babe," I sighed. "All I can do is go down on you then I have to grab a shower and get dressed." Odette blinked, blinked again, then brightened up incredibly."If that's all we can do," she exhibited no regrets as she hurled the covers back. It took me seven minutes to bring her to.I was good, but I had also torn up Odette pretty badly last night. I had to buy Timothy some more condoms. I felt kinda bad for using the number I did. I raced to the shower, did a Wonder Woman (hold your arms out and spin around a few times in the shower), raced back to Timothy's room; Timothy shot me with his Nerf gun from the sofa (Odette was vocal); and began dressing."Odette, stay and get some sleep," I stroked her cheek. "Timothy heads to work around ten, so if you could head out with him so he can lock up the place. Fix whatever breakfast you like. If it is Timothy, I'll make it up to him.""You mean beyond letting us use his room?" she fixed me with her feline eyes. I coughed."Come on, Cáel Nyilas, this room is plastered with male Calvin Klein models and you have five copies of the Village Voice on your dresser. You are far too proficient with punching all my buttons to be gay," she pointed out."Gay men can be very sexually proficient," I countered."Cáel Nyilas (damn, she loved my name), you came five times. I lost track of how many orgasms I had. If you are gay, you aren't in De-Nile, you are in Ethiopia," she giggled. This wasn't the right moment to brag that I ejaculated eight times last night. Rhada filled up three condoms during our little escapade. I repeat, I have an out of control libido."Gotta go," I straddled Odette and gave her a kiss. I deftly avoided the French grapple because I had the feeling that Buffy wasn't the kind to wait patiently."Timothy;” I mumbled as I sped to the door."I know; girl; bed; sleeping," he groaned. As the door shut I heard him add, "at least he's not dull."I managed not to kill myself tumbling down the stairs in my haste to reach the street. Buffy was waiting and drumming her hands on the steering wheel. I tried the car door; it was locked. A tap on the window earned me a baleful glare. I sighed and fell on my knees."Please," I begged. "Please, please, please let me in the car." I heard a click after ten seconds."You're late," she remarked as we sped away. I hastily put on my seat belt."I apologize," I tried being obsequious."You had better be, damn it," she seethed. Oh; I scented arousal; and jealousy. We drove a few blocks in silence. "Who was it?""Are we on the clock?" I countered. Pause."No," she said in a clipped tone."None of your fucking business, then," I growled. "My sex life is none of your concern, Buffy. It is none of your group's concern, so give it a rest.""Or what?" Buffy's eyes narrowed. I wished she would watch the road."Thunderdome, Bitch!" I grinned. Oh, she tried. She tried really hard to stay angry with me."I hate you," she snickered. She pulled out her phone and handed it to me. It was a picture of Buffy, Katrina, Tessa, Desiree and some woman who looked familiar standing, or kneeling, behind a pile of dead animals. All the ladies had bows, knives and camo gear."Does the Audubon Society know about this? I'm pretty sure the World Wildlife Fund would have a freaking stroke," I nodded."Ladies at Havenstone have a passion for killing things," Buffy measured me. "I thought you might want to know.""Why do you use bows?" I questioned. "Don't your boobs get in the way?" Buffy smacked me in the chest; hard. I could have blocked. That would have been counterproductive. No, I grabbed her right boob and gave it a strong squeeze. In retaliation, she hit me again. I grabbed her boob. This went on until we entered the garage. She got in the last hit."We are on the clock now," I notified her. She seemed less than pleased. "Very nice, by the way.""Huh?" Buffy studied."Sorry. Any continuation of this conversation would constitute sexual harassment," I sighed."I am mentally projecting negative emotions your way," Buffy grumbled."I believe the totality of your efforts create a positive outlook for me," I grinned."Have you ever been skydiving?" Buffy dropped out of the blue on me in the elevator ride up."With, or without, a parachute?" I inquired. She blessed me with a feral smile.I hurried to Katrina's office, Buffy a step behind me, rumbling like the jaguar she'd performed illegal dentistry on. She wasn't trying to intimidate me. Buffy was trying to mark her territory. I made it to my desk without actually being scent-marked, so I considered the encounter a draw."Have fun last night?" Katrina inquired without looking up."More than any one man should have," I confessed. Further conversation was severed by the arrival of the first of the female 'new hires'. As Katrina started our little meeting, I surreptitiously put in the work order for my suits. I wasn't sneaky enough for Katrina."Are you suffering some sort of head trauma that makes you believe you can avoid participation in this meeting?" she purred."No, Ma; Katrina," I was contrite. "I had to submit a work order for the business suits Buffy and Helena purchased for me last night so I would stop coming to work dressed like a homeless panhandler." That killed four of the girls; they failed to stifle their giggles."Couldn't you have dealt with that on the way in?" Katrina had this glitter in her eyes."Buffy was attempting to subject me to vehicular homicide," I replied. "I was afraid for my life on multiple occasions, up to and including her entry into the garage.""How horrifying for you," Katrina delivered deadpan."I had my hands full, I swear," I placed my hand over my heart."I suspect that was the case," Katrina allowed. "Is there anything else you need to take care of while the rest of us wait on you?""Thank you, yes there is," I smiled, nodded and began typing away."I was being facetious, but then you knew that," Katrina teased. Several girls were openly giggling now.When I finished, I walked around Katrina's desk, went to one knee and lowered my head. Katrina scanned my latest request."Really?" she was intrigued."Yes, Ma'am," I looked up at her. She ran her hands through my hair. "Katrina.""You are trying," Katrina remarked. That could read either way. "Go back to your station before I show you where you really belong," she chuckled. I stood up and fist-pumped."Woo-who!" I shouted. "I'm going to bed." That finished them off. Even Fabiola cracked a tiny bit and snickered behind her hand.The real joke they were embracing; making me part of their new breeding program; was the punchline to the joke Katrina and I found amusing. I knew the truth. We received our assignments and left the office."How did your date with Rhada go last night?" Paula nudged me."It wasn't a date. It was a corporate appointment," I corrected. "As for the rest; you don't want to know. Please believe me, you don't want to know.""I can make you tell us," Fabiola smirked. The group kept together until I reached Desiree's desk. She was my boss for the day and she was not pleased, or amused.Fabiola saved me."Sister, compel this one to tell us what happened with Rhada last night," Fabiola sneered in Hittite. I played dumb which wasn't hard in my fatigued state. Desiree transferred all of her dislike of me into outrage at Fabiola's breach."Is your blood poisoned?" Desiree seethed. "When they tossed you off the rocks, did you bounce back up, or are you so arrogantly stupid you would flaunt one of our most basic safeguards?""You are only half the woman you could have been," Fabiola shot back.By the way Desiree flew out of her chair that was a deadly insult. I put my body between them and grabbed Desiree by her upper arms."Release me," she yelled, her hate returned its focus to me."You are my boss," I explained calmly. "I most join you in your battles. Is this a battle you truly want to fight, here and now?""Release me at once," Desiree commanded."One of us hiding behind a man," Fabiola mocked Desiree. Daphne punched her. "Ow!""Care to try that on me?" Daphne challenged Fabiola. "My family's prestige has never been called into question." I was starting to think they meant genetic purity."Buffy would not want me to let you come to harm," I whispered to Desiree then released her. It was that hunting photo that made me make that leap. Desiree glared at me. A slap followed, but it wasn't all that hard."Do not touch me without permission, Cáel Nyilas," she commanded in a clear voice.

Join Cathy Linh Che, Kyle Lucia Wu, and illustrator Kavita Ramchandran for a book launch and celebration of An Asian American A to Z. A comprehensive and spirited exploration of Asian American history—its movements, cultures, and key figures—An Asian American A to Z is a beautifully illustrated and compellingly told for readers of all ages. Co-authors Cathy Linh Che and Kyle Lucia Wu take us on a journey through stories of celebration and resistance: the Third World Liberation Front, the Muslim Ban, Japanese American incarceration camps, Padma Lakshmi, Rashida Tlaib, Sunisa Lee, and more. It is a history of struggle, but also one of great triumph, brought to life with colorful and dynamic illustrations by Kavita Ramchandran. Written by the directors of Kundiman—an organization dedicated to nurturing Asian American writers—An Asian American A to Z is a book for children of all backgrounds and a vital resource for tomorrow's organizers. Asian American identity formation is expansive yet under-taught, and this book is a necessary intervention that will ground readers in joy, history, and solidarity. ​​“This is the book I wish I had when I was growing up. It's the book I'm glad I have now, one that I can read to my own children. Personal and political, playful and provocative, this rhyming guide brilliantly condenses rich, complicated Asian American histories. It's an A to Z book that isn't the last word on Asian American cultures but rather the beginning of many conversations.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen “An essential collection for any children's library—it's the book I wish I had for my own children when they were young. Informative, engaging and delicious rhymes—Che and Wu are simply enchanting storytellers. This book is foundational and intersectional, providing just the right historical touch to pique kids' curiosity and encourage further reading for all!” —Aimee Nezhukumatathil “In An Asian American A to Z, Che, Wu, and Ramchandran share a beautiful, bright, and inclusive history of Asian America that is sure to inspire and delight readers. Asian Americans have much to be proud of, and much to look forward to.” —Sarah Park Dahlen ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Cathy Linh Che is the daughter of Vietnam War refugees. She is the author of Split, winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize, the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the Best Poetry Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies. Her work has been published in New Republic, Nation, McSweeney's, and Poetry. She serves as Executive Director at Kundiman and lives on the traditional lands of the Lenape people. Kyle Lucia Wu was born and raised in a small town in New Jersey. She is the author of Win Me Something, an NPR Best Book of the Year. A former Asian American Writers' Workshop Margins Fellow, her work has been published in Literary Hub, Joyland Magazine, Catapult, and BOMB Magazine. She is the Managing Director of Kundiman and teaches creative writing at Fordham University and The New School. Kavita Ramchandran is an illustrator and graphic designer based in New York City, though she is originally from Mumbai, India. She has art directed and illustrated for children's magazines and apps, designed elementary-school text books, and created animated shorts - Maya the Indian Princess and "Happy Holi Maya!" for Nick Jr. Her first picture book - Dancing in Thatha's Footsteps written by Srividhya Venkat won the 2022 South Asia Book Award. http://www.wemakebelieve.com Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/zZ7FljzBOA4?feature=share Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

In this episode, we're going to tell you the extraordinary tale of a brave Indian princess, who fought against the Nazis in the Second World War. And if you stay till the end, you can learn a useful Hindi phrase, as well.     Its Hindi version's transcript, which has expressions with their meanings and worksheets based on it, can be downloaded after becoming a Patron from - https://www.patreon.com/allaboutindiapodcast   or https://www.patreon.com/learnhindionthego You can our Facebook page to share stories & travel tips related to India & give feedback - link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/allaboutindiastoryloverscommunity To take a free trial for online Hindi lessons visit: https://learnhindischool.com Find out more at https://learn-hindi-on-the-go.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

★ Join the Ramblings of a Sikh YouTube Channel ★ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ ★ Buy this podcast a coffee ★ 00:00 - Teaser 00:44 - Overview 02:46 - Intro 04:54 - What inspired you to write a book about Amrit Kaur? 09:13 - What research did you do to bring Amrit Kaur's story to life in your book? 13:38 - What can you tell us about Amrit Kaur's early life, education, and everything before Paris? 16:43 - What influence did Amrit Kaur's relationship with her parents and her time at boarding school have on her? 19:06 - Why is Amrit Kaur in Paris just before the outbreak of WW2? 20:29 - How is she caught in Paris? 23:17 - How does the information of Amrit Kaur being arrest get out? 24:13 - Were there any attempts at securing her freedom? 24:54 - To what extent is it true that Amrit Kaur saved prisoners from Nazi internment camps? 27:12 - What was the most interesting or surprising thing you found during your 12 years of research? 28:34 - What could you say about Amrit Kaur's lesbian relationship? 31:49 - What happens to Amrit Kaur once she's released from the internment camp and how does she end up in America? 34:06 - Clearing the confusion between Dame Amrit Kaur and Amrit Kaur of Mandi 36:24 - How did you balance the personal and political aspects of Amrit Kaur's story? 38:29 - What message do you hope readers take away from the book? 40:06 - What challenges did you face whilst researching and writing this book? 42:11 - In what way did the research and writing the book impact you? 43:42 - Conclusion

Women of any age can drive a man to madness.By FinalStand. Listen and subscribe to the podcast at Steamy Stories.Instinct, education and experience are complementary, not in opposition.(Wednesday)The phone rang. The clock was flashing 6:15. Odette snuggled up to me, making cute, happy cat-like noises. Timothy's bed was bigger than mine so I had to reach out to get my mobile device. For the tenth time, I silently thanked Timothy for switching bedrooms with me, though I believed he had chosen to sleep on the sofa instead.“Hello,” I said quietly.“It's Buffy. I'll be there in fifteen minutes,” she stated firmly.“I have a companion over,” I hesitated. “Can you make it twenty-five?”“Who is that, Cáyel Nyilas,” Odette yawned. She liked the way my full name rolled of her tongue.“Who is that?” Buffy grilled me.“She's a sweet young lady I met - the rest is none of your business,” I told Buffy. To Odette, “It is one of my many bosses. After my ‘auto accident' (I couldn't tell a stranger that some psycho bitch - who I had just screwed - had her mentor kick the shit out of me), she brought me home then deposited me at your workplace. My bike is still at work.” I had told Odette I was a cyclist.“Does she think you are sexy?” Odette giggled. I groaned.“81 days, Cáyel,” Buffy reminded me. “81 days,” then she hung up. I wasn't getting my extra ten minutes.“Do we have time…?” Odette wiggled her whole body against mine.“I don't think so. Babe,” I sighed. “All I can do is go down on you then I have to grab a shower and get dressed.” Odette blinked, blinked again, then brightened up incredibly.“If that's all we can do,” she exhibited no regrets as she hurled the covers back. It took me seven minutes to bring her to orgasm.I was good, but I had also torn up Odette pretty badly last night. I had to buy Timothy some more condoms. I felt kinda bad for using the number I did. I raced to the shower, did a Wonder Woman (hold your arms out and spin around a few times in the shower), raced back to Timothy's room - Timothy shot me with his Nerf gun from the sofa (Odette was vocal) - and began dressing.“Odette, stay and get some sleep,” I stroked her cheek. “Timothy heads to work around ten, so if you could head out with him so he can lock up the place. Fix whatever breakfast you like. If it is Timothy, I'll make it up to him.”“You mean beyond letting us use his room?” she fixed me with her feline eyes. I coughed.“Come on, Cáyel Nyilas, this room is plastered with male Calvin Klein models and you have five copies of the Village Voice on your dresser. You are far too proficient with punching all my buttons to be gay,” she pointed out.“Gay men can be very sexually proficient,” I countered.“Cáyel Nyilas (damn, she loved my name), you came five times. I lost track of how many orgasms I had. If you are gay, you aren't in De-Nile, you are in Ethiopia,” she giggled. This wasn't the right moment to brag that I ejaculated eight times last night. Rhada filled up three condoms during our little escapade. I repeat, I have an out of control libido.“Gotta go,” I straddled Odette and gave her a kiss. I deftly avoided the French grapple because I had the feeling that Buffy wasn't the kind to wait patiently.“Timothy…” I mumbled as I sped to the door.“I know - girl - bed - sleeping,” he groaned. As the door shut I heard him add, “at least he's not dull.”I managed not to kill myself tumbling down the stairs in my haste to reach the street. Buffy was waiting and drumming her hands on the steering wheel. I tried the car door - it was locked. A tap on the window earned me a baleful glare. I sighed and fell on my knees.“Please,” I begged. “Please, please, please let me in the car.” I heard a click after ten seconds.“You're late,” she remarked as we sped away. I hastily put on my seat belt.“I apologize,” I tried being obsequious.“You had better be, damn it,” she seethed. Oh…I scented arousal…and jealousy. We drove a few blocks in silence. “Who was it?”“Are we on the clock?” I countered. Pause.“No,” she said in a clipped tone.“None of your fucking business, then,” I growled. “My sex life is none of your concern, Buffy. It is none of your group's concern, so give it a rest.”“Or what?” Buffy's eyes narrowed. I wished she would watch the road.“Thunderdome, Bitch!” I grinned. Oh, she tried. She tried really hard to stay angry with me.“I hate you,” she snickered. She pulled out her phone and handed it to me. It was a picture of Buffy, Katrina, Tessa, Desiree and some woman who looked familiar standing, or kneeling, behind a pile of dead animals. All the ladies had bows, knives and camo gear.“Does the Audubon Society know about this? I'm pretty sure the World Wildlife Fund would have a freaking stroke,” I nodded.“Ladies at Havenstone have a passion for killing things,” Buffy measured me. “I thought you might want to know.”“Why do you use bows?” I questioned. “Don't your boobs get in the way?” Buffy smacked me in the chest - hard. I could have blocked. That would have been counterproductive. No, I grabbed her right boob and gave it a strong squeeze. In retaliation, she hit me again. I grabbed her boob. This went on until we entered the garage. She got in the last hit.“We are on the clock now,” I notified her. She seemed less than pleased. “Very nice, by the way.”“Huh?” Buffy studied.“Sorry. Any continuation of this conversation would constitute sexual harassment,” I sighed.“I am mentally projecting negative emotions your way,” Buffy grumbled.“I believe the totality of your efforts create a positive outlook for me,” I grinned.“Have you ever been skydiving?” Buffy dropped out of the blue on me in the elevator ride up.“With, or without, a parachute?” I inquired. She blessed me with a feral smile.I hurried to Katrina's office, Buffy a step behind me, rumbling like the jaguar she'd performed illegal dentistry on. She wasn't trying to intimidate me. Buffy was trying to mark her territory. I made it to my desk without actually being scent-marked, so I considered the encounter a draw.“Have fun last night?” Katrina inquired without looking up.“More than any one man should have,” I confessed. Further conversation was severed by the arrival of the first of the female ‘new hires'. As Katrina started our little meeting, I surreptitiously put in the work order for my suits. I wasn't sneaky enough for Katrina.“Are you suffering some sort of head trauma that makes you believe you can avoid participation in this meeting?” she purred.“No, Ma - Katrina,” I was contrite. “I had to submit a work order for the business suits Buffy and Helena purchased for me last night so I would stop coming to work dressed like a homeless panhandler.” That killed four of the girls; they failed to stifle their giggles.“Couldn't you have dealt with that on the way in?” Katrina had this glitter in her eyes.“Buffy was attempting to subject me to vehicular homicide,” I replied. “I was afraid for my life on multiple occasions, up to and including her entry into the garage.”“How horrifying for you,” Katrina delivered deadpan.“I had my hands full, I swear,” I placed my hand over my heart.“I suspect that was the case,” Katrina allowed. “Is there anything else you need to take care of while the rest of us wait on you?”“Thank you, yes there is,” I smiled, nodded and began typing away.“I was being facetious, but then you knew that,” Katrina teased. Several girls were openly giggling now.When I finished, I walked around Katrina's desk, went to one knee and lowered my head. Katrina scanned my latest request.“Really?” she was intrigued.“Yes, Ma'am,” I looked up at her. She ran her hands through my hair. “Katrina.”“You are trying,” Katrina remarked. That could read either way. “Go back to your station before I show you where you really belong,” she chuckled. I stood up and fist-pumped.“Woo-who!” I shouted. “I'm going to bed.” That finished them off. Even Fabiola cracked a tiny bit and snickered behind her hand.The real joke they were embracing - making me part of their new breeding program - was the punchline to the joke Katrina and I found amusing. I knew the truth. We received our assignments and left the office.“How did your date with Rhada go last night?” Paula nudged me.“It wasn't a date. It was a corporate appointment,” I corrected. “As for the rest - you don't want to know. Please believe me, you don't want to know.”“I can make you tell us,” Fabiola smirked. The group kept together until I reached Desiree's desk. She was my boss for the day and she was not pleased, or amused.Fabiola saved me.“Sister, compel this one to tell us what happened with Rhada last night,” Fabiola sneered in Hittite. I played dumb which wasn't hard in my fatigued state. Desiree transferred all of her dislike of me into outrage at Fabiola's breach.“Is your blood poisoned?” Desiree seethed. “When they tossed you off the rocks, did you bounce back up, or are you so arrogantly stupid you would flaunt one of our most basic safeguards?”“You are only half the woman you could have been,” Fabiola shot back.By the way Desiree flew out of her chair that was a deadly insult. I put my body between them and grabbed Desiree by her upper arms.“Release me,” she yelled, her hate returned its focus to me.“You are my boss,” I explained calmly. “I most join you in your battles. Is this a battle you truly want to fight, here and now?”“Release me at once,” Desiree commanded.“One of us hiding behind a man,” Fabiola mocked Desiree. Daphne punched her. “Ow!”“Care to try that on me?” Daphne challenged Fabiola. “My family's prestige has never been called into question.” I was starting to think they meant genetic purity.“Buffy would not want me to let you come to harm,” I whispered to Desiree then released her. It was that hunting photo that made me make that leap. Desiree glared at me. A slap followed, but it wasn't all that hard.“Do not touch me without permission, Cáyel Nyilas,” she commanded in a clear voice.The matter was almost settled.“Come on,” Desiree barked. I had one final bit to take care of.“Daphne, thank you. Helena says you are coming along really well. Maybe we could have a few drinks after hours and you can give me some pointers,” I requested.Daphne seemed to mull that over. We had moved past the entrapment phase to the 'male in the bull pen - what do we do with him now' phase.“I'll think about it,” Daphne shot me this sexually curious look. Off they went and I had to sprint to catch up with Desiree who hadn't stopped to listen to my conversation with Daphne.“Do not be flippant with me,” Desiree grumbled. “I am not Buffy.”“Of course you are not,” I nodded. “Katrina values your counsel and she trusts you.”“You know nothing,” Desiree groused.“Really? Helena and Buffy were sent away with me yesterday afternoon - you stayed,” I began.“This male internship program is the brainchild of Katrina and Tessa. Maybe she thinks that I'm in danger, thus her program, so she chooses you to safeguard me - no other,” I added. “I don't think much of my place here as an individual, but I represent something of value to our boss. If that is the case, how much does she value and respect you?”“Do you ever shut up?” she glared at me.“Is that a question, or a veiled order?” I grinned. She glared some more. I kept quiet. Desiree had to enter a special code to gain us access to Basement Level 3. A short trip down a drab concrete hall illuminated a door and two Amazon's guarding it.Desiree's ID card allowed her access. Mine did not. The security types verified my permission to be there, then verified it again. Finally, one pulled Desiree and questioned her. With great reluctance, the guards let me into the room. Their caution made sense. This was the Havenstone Corporate HQ armory.This was not a few guns in a case with handful of wall sconces. Nope, this was an ATF gun-gasm, White Supremacist Nirvana, and a Gangster's Paradise all rolled into one. Desiree went to one table, lifted and examined one 9mm Walther PPQ, loaded the clip and gave it to me.“It has no safety, so be careful,” she notified me. She tossed the shoulder holster and two spare magazines my way.As she readied her own weapon set, I put on my shoulder holster and secured my weapon.“This is nuts, Desiree,” I stated. “I'm not ex-military. I'm not a security officer, bodyguard, or assassin either.”“Don't get hysterical,” Desiree snorted. “This is a simple assignment. We are going to pick up some school children and take them to their exclusive academy.”“Besides, on your resume, you claimed to have a passing familiarity with a number of firearms,” she grunted.“What do I do if we are stopped by the cops?” I inquired.“Go to jail.”With that sterling pep-talk, we exited the bunker with a variety of weapons - mostly Desiree's because she was clearly anticipating the end of the world. She stored the weapons in our new, armored car while I stood close by acting like a weapons dispenser. According to established routine, I was given no specific instructions until we arrived on site where I was then supposed to instantly absorb the knowledge.I gave that some thought. Havenstone knew their male hires had academic success. Given twenty-four hours, we could memorize anything. The Amazons, being a militant culture, were testing us to see how quickly we thought on our feet. It was still mean. As we pulled up to our Brownstone destination, I was given our mission.Desiree was to go into the house, retrieve three schoolgirls, Aya (9), Europa (13) and Loraine (16), and bring them into the car. I was to wait on the stoop, hold the car door for them and keep my yap shut. By insisting I not use flippancy, Desiree had cut off my conversation at the knees.“Woman, grey coat at the North corner,” Desiree muttered to me as we started up the stairs. She went inside; I stayed on the stoop. Thankfully, my sojourn into Amazon politics had strengthened my ability to ignore the obvious and appreciate the benign. Two women were meandering up from the South and the woman to the North had gained a companion before Desiree returned. The girls came out first.At the bottom step I caught sight of movement. I turned and stopped the children from advancing.“Hey,” the Loraine squawked.“Cáyel…” Desiree got out.“Two to the North and two to the South - closing in,” I whispered.She did a casual scan.“Take them to the car,” Desiree ordered. I thought that was pretty stupid. If a murder/kidnapping was in the offing, getting the kids back inside seemed more prudent. I hesitated. She glared. I swallowed my instincts and began sheparding the girls down the stairs.The moment the third child's feet hit the sidewalk, both groups of women began speeding up. I was trying to hustle the girls to the car's back door when a van came speeding up out of nowhere. I wasn't going to get door open in time.“Down!” I shouted as I used my superior size to press my three wards down and against the car. The van screeched to a halt and the sliding door opened.I drew, aimed over the top of the car and fired the pistol twice without even thinking that I was murdering somebody. I heard Desiree firing to the North. The woman in the van door slumped back. A second one tried to untangle herself so I put two bullets in her as well. I took a step and a half South, kneeled to shelter the girls with my body and began firing at the two southern women running my way.I put two bullets into each of them - missing every shot. Crap. Suddenly, as I was shoving a new clip into my semi-automatic pistol, the eldest child broke and ran for the stairs. I looked over my shoulder. Desiree was down. One woman remained coming from the North. I hurled my body at Loraine, taking her down. I landed us on my shoulder then rolled to cover her.I brought up the pistol and fired twice at the northern woman.“Cease fire!” an unfamiliar female voice commanded. The northern woman stopped. As I swung my pistol South, I noticed Desiree sitting up. The two women in the van were coming back to life too. Three women I didn't recognize were coming down the Brownstone steps.The lead female was clearly in charge. She approached me and extended a hand.“Male - pistol,” she demanded. I rose to me knees, pulling away from her and yanking Loraine behind me.“Lady, I don't know you,” I growled. “I'm not giving you my gun, or the girls, until someone tells me what's going on.”I was contemplating how bad her punch/slap/kick was going to be when Loraine laughed.“That was fun,” she exulted. “He tackled me and everything.”“Cáyel,” Desiree ordered, “give her the gun.” I wasn't happy, but I did hand over the weapon.“It was loaded with blanks, Moron,” the leader smirked. “We would never let a man with a loaded weapon around our children.”“Thank God,” I mused. “I couldn't understand how I missed those two down South.”“What makes you think you would have hit them?” she sneered. I pulled Loraine up with me as I resumed my feet then put her behind me.“What makes you think your brain isn't as blank as the bullets you gave me?” I glared.“Watch your tongue, Male,” she glared right back.“You threatened three children under my care,” I grumbled. “Be happy I don't plant you on your ass.” She looked more than happy to throw down.“They were never your children to protect,” Desiree spoke up. “This was a training exercise.”I looked over my shoulder at the other two girls. They were smiling at me. This had been fun for them. The only one who didn't know this was fake was me. I groaned.“Clip,” the leader snapped. I handed it over without protest. I'd used the other spare. She turned to Desiree. “Take them to school.”The five of us piled into the car and drove away. It was less than stunning that I didn't get a new firearm. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, feeling morose and angry when Europa spoke.“That was really brave,” she commented. “You did much better than the lady last spring. She went nuts.”“Really”, I swiveled so I could see their faces and make sure they weren't pulling something on me.“Oh, yeah,” Loraine chuckled. “She ran right at the two down the street, firing as she went. Totally missed the van rolling up. Forgot she was supposed to protect us.”“She got high marks for marksmanship,” Europa told me, “but we never saw her again.”“You smell nice,” Aya beamed little kittens my way.“He smells like sex,” Loraine giggled.“Starting with the fact that you are underage, add my desire to live and we end up with us not having his conversation,” I winked.“I've never seen a man as pretty as you even at school. The boys in my class are such jerks. They say I'm a freak because I have no Daddy,” Aya went from happy to a frown.“When I was in grade school, they called me a freak too, Aya,” I met her gaze. “The difference is, I deserved it. I was a rude, mean person.”“Not having a Daddy doesn't determine if you are a freak; how you behave does. You are a very nice woman so they should be nicer to you. You are not a freak. Trust me, I'd know it if you were,” I gave Aya a warm smile and tapped her nose playfully.“Whomever controls you did a good job,” Europa observed.“No,” Desiree snapped. The children must have been briefed on my status as well as spent a lifetime disguising their true culture.“Europa, I am controlled by Katrina. I'll relay your compliment. She has delegated me to Desiree for the day, which means I'm with you three this morning,” I answered despite Desiree's disapproval.The private academy was for the wealthy; gender was not an issue. Security checked our ID's before they let us disgorge our precious cargo.“Desiree, can Cáyel Nyilas walk me to class this morning?” Aya requested. The look Desiree burned my way was intimidating.“Of course, Aya,” Desiree relented. “Cáyel, only take as much time as necessary.”“Nos morituri te salutamus,” I grinned. I knew that was overly dramatic. How tough could a room full of third graders be? Aya took me by the hand and led me in. Wow! Her teacher was a hottie. A quick glance suggested she was unmarried and very interested in me.“Ms. Reichmann, this is my Daddy,” Aya announced loudly. Ms. Reichmann's eyes flicked down to notice my lack of a wedding band. I knelt so that I was eye to eye with Aya.“Aya, honey, Father has to talk to Ms. Reichmann in private for a moment. Please take your seat and I'll see you before I leave,” I smiled paternally at Aya. She skipped to her seat.“Ulyssa,” Ms. Reichmann bit her lower lip.“Ulyssa, is there a place where I can talk with you in private?” I asked with open innocence and a heavy undercurrent of passion. It turned out there was an unused conference room at the end of the hall.I left Ulyssa with a smoldering look that guaranteed me a call-back. If any of the kids had the faintest idea why she was so flushed, short of breath and happy, they gave no hint. Aya took excessive pride in showing her 'Daddy' off to all her classmates. Any time I detected a bully, I gave the 'I'm keeping an eye on you' glare. I was whistling as I returned to the car.“28 fucking minutes!” Desiree screamed at me.“I had a little chat with Aya's teacher. I thought it would be nice if Ms. Reichmann was aware that Aya was unhappy,” I reduced our love-making to the bare bones, 'no mention of sex' facts. “She said she'd keep a special eye out for Aya.”“That wasn't your job,” Desiree seethed. We started driving away.“I doubt you'll listen to my…” I go out.“Shut up,” she interrupted. “You have nothing to say that I want to hear.”“You shut up and imagine for a second I don't hate you and that I'm pretty good reading women in a way you are unaccustomed to,” I snapped back.“Katrina is going to be hard pressed to save you from this outburst,” she sneered vindictively.“How about this; Katrina saw potential in you so she's given you a chance to restore your prestige. What you are failing to understand is the underlying concept of family at Havenstone. This means they put a premium on their children - their female children,” I suggested.“Protecting the next generation can't be a job for you. It wouldn't be for them. To those women, perpetuating their families is all-important and you must see it as an obligation handed down to you by all your Havenstone predecessors.” See, I avoided saying blood lines and their fucked up Amazon heritage.“I don't know what your mother did wrong. Whatever it is, Katrina doesn't care and she's the one that really matters,” I prodded. “Useless pricks like Fabiola won't be of any use to you even if they did like you. Thus endeth the male blathering.”“How do you know it was my Mother?” Desiree asked after several minutes driving.“Desiree, your father could have done a fan dance on a table at the Presidential Inaugural Dinner and the women of Havenstone wouldn't give a damn. From Fabiola's big mouth, I'm guessing your mother married a guy that the family didn't approve of. In the status-obsessed corporate culture we are stuck with, that has to be pretty dreadful,” I finished.We were almost at Havenstone's Corporate HQ before Desiree spoke. She had been positively grim, far beyond her normal grumpiness.“I killed them,” she stated in a cold, emotionless voice.“Who?”“My parents. When my aunt found me and told me about my true heritage and what my parents had done, I killed them,” Desiree answered in the same lifeless tone.“I'm not going to lie to you. That's totally fucked up, but then I'm not you and I don't have to walk in your shoes,” I mused. “I'm certainly not going to give you sympathy, or pity.”“You are a horrible person for not having the strength of character to allow your mother and father to live with the choices they made. Killing them was a totally selfish act. Before you say 'you wouldn't understand', let me tell you that's bullshit. Like you, I had a mother and father. My Mom is dead and I miss her every day. I think you miss them and that's why you are so damn bitter.”“I should kill you for that liberty,” Desiree informed me.“Bring it, Kitten,” I scoffed. “I'd kick your ass.”“What inspires that delusion?” she turned to me. We had parked in the garage by this time.“I have righteous fury on my side. Against that, you have no defense,” I grinned.“I warned you against flippancy,” she reminded me.“Is that a demand that I present my righteous fury for your examination?” I countered. Silence. We went through the security rigmarole, put up the firearms. As we were leaving, I turned to Desiree.“You would think those two educationally-challenged bimbos would have warned me I was carrying blanks,” I griped. The two security babes' posture turned all agro on me.“I really should leave you here with them for a few hours,” Desiree threatened.“Have I told you recently how much I find you to be a kind, beneficent, wise and gifted teacher and sensei?” I faux-pleaded.“Shut up,” she grunted as we made my getaway.“I think I know why Katrina tolerates you,” Desiree told me after a few second in the elevator.“To try everyone else's patience?” I guessed.“Precisely,” she shoved me. “Stop being overly clever. It is unattractive in a male.”“Stranger danger!” I shouted (still in the elevator) as I backed into the far corner. “Stranger danger!”“If I had a gun, I would shoot you,” she glared. There was a glimmer of amusement as well.“At this range, you would probably miss,” I taunted her playfully.Desiree trembled with conflicting emotions. She gave in, stepped up and punched me in the chest. I kept laughing so she hit me again, but she was letting a tiny smile creep across her lips too.“Damn you,” she ground her teeth, fighting her happiness. “Fine. Cáyel, to my side.” There I went.“Kneel.” I knelt. The elevator doors opened, Desiree stepped out, turned to gaze into my eyes then cruelly smiled as the doors shut and the elevator continued up. The looks I got from women as they accessed the device was priceless. It took a while for one to break the silence.“What are you doing?” she inquired.“My boss told me to kneel here,” I explained, “so here I kneel. In nine hours, if I can still walk, I'm going home and taking a long, hot bath.”“You are just going to stay there for nine hours?” another woman groused.“I'm an intern. An order is an order and it isn't like she's forgotten where she left me.”“Our male intern isn't nearly this nice,” a third lady commented. “We call him the Chinchilla. When he isn't acting as if he's somehow valuable, he scurries about like a rodent.” That would be Brian I was willing to bet. The women in the elevator were suddenly self-conscious they'd talked that way around another male intern.“Do you have a nickname?” the third one tried to make light of the faux-pas.“I think there are three in the running: 'come here', 'kneel', and 'shut up'. When I hear one of those, I assume they are talking to me,” I joked. They snickered. God, I could have an orgy in this elevator. Thank goodness my libido was still slaked from nailing Ulyssa the teacher.“Where are you?” Desiree snapped over the phone eight minutes later. I had her on speaker.“I'm right where you left me,” I grinned. There was a new crowd in my box. I was getting the impression the word of my fate was circulating around the building and women were slipping over to see for themselves.“Are you an idiot?” she grumbled.“I'll leave the evaluation of my mental facilities to the experts, oh glorious Boss of mine,” I replied. “I would like to report there are two wonderful ladies from International Finance putting a shipping label on me as we speak,” I lied. From the look of one of the ladies, that wasn't such a bad, or far-fetched, idea.“Stand. Get off the elevator on the fourteenth floor and go to Conference Room L,” Desiree commanded. “Do you need to write out your orders in crayon?”“I'd prefer you use body paint,” I bantered. The ladies around me didn't know what to make of the exchange.“81 days, Jackass,” Desiree promised balefully.“I tremble in anticipation - no, wait, that's fear,” I snorted in amusement.“You are very irreverent,” a lady onboard observed. This wasn't a good thing in her mind.“I apologize, Ma'am. Reverence required me to become a eunuch and no job is worth my jewels in a jar,” I bowed.“I will report your poor attitude and mockery of your assignment to Tessa,” she vowed.“Very well, Ma'am…” I started.“Astarte,” she gave her name.“Very well, Astarte.”“Please consider that I am doing precisely what I've been told to do and that my humor has made multiple travelers on this elevator smile,” I continued. “Happy employees are more productive employees and barring being given something productive to do with my time, I've decided to give busy women a small bit of amusement.”Astarte had no good comeback to my defense. I didn't doubt Katrina and Tessa would get hate mail no matter what I said. The fourteenth floor job turned out to be transporting something from a director's safe to a bank vault. Drudgery followed - laundry, dinners, delivering a new car (I drove the company car back; Desiree drove the new car), picking up my suits and ending off where the day began - school.I had barely exited the car when I heard a little girl scream “There's my Daddy”. I sensed this was going to be a problem in the future. Aya didn't come running up to me. No, she made sure every classmate she could reach knew her 'Daddy' was here to take her home. Things got 'better' when she and some friends approached.“Mr. Ruger (Aya's family name), is it true you are a spy?” a rather aggressive male classmate asked. I took a deep breath. My gaze made Aya looked down, embarrassed. I could sense her tormentors closing in. I knelt in front of Aya and tilted her chin up so we were eye to eye.“Now, Sugar,” I addressed her, “we've had this discussion before. You can't tell people what Daddy does. That would put a lot of good people's lives in danger.”“I expected better of you, Aya. You must never tell strangers what I do for a living. Don't forget that,” I chastised her. Turning my focus to the surrounding children, “Forget that Aya ever told you I was a spy. Otherwise, bad things might happen to our family. Understood?”They nodded, eyes wide with shock and fear.See, Aya's Daddy WAS a spy, but no one could talk about it or people would die. In the eyes of a nine year old, that was so cool, if scary. The thing was, I hadn't lied. I had been evasive. We had been on the road for two minutes when Loraine conveyed a concept she was having difficulty with.“Thank you, Cáyel,” she told me. “That was a very nice thing you did for Aya.” I had to think of the clearest way to express why I had done what I had done, circumstances included.“I'm not a father, but if I was and Aya was my daughter, I would defend her as the situation warranted - physically, or verbally.”“They pay you to be with us,” Europa grumbled. I laughed - hard enough to hurt my sides.“Europa, Havenstone doesn't have enough money to keep me on this job,” I chuckled.“Why do you do it then?” Loraine leaned forward.“If I make it three months, I get a date with Desiree,” I lied.“Do you think she's pretty?” Europe prodded.“No. She scares me. If I quit, I have to take her out on a date the next day,” I continued fibbing.“Stay at Havenstone. You can do better than dating a half-breed,” Loraine stated. I digested that.“Loraine, your weakness sickens me,” I gave her a pained look. “Unsettling an opponent is acceptable. Insulting an ally is a quality of an immature and insecure mind.”“You don't talk to me like that,” Loraine spat.“Or what?” I mocked her. “Are we going to stop the car and take this fight to the sidewalk?”“If we do that, I'm going to spank your pathetic ass and we both know it,” I grumbled. “No, you'll have to hide behind Desiree and her sisters - the women you just insulted with an issue that is no one's business but hers. Are you going to show some courage and agree to fight me, or are you going to be worthy of your family, show some respect and apologize?”“I don't want her apology,” Desiree stated blandly.“I'm not doing it for you,” I told Desiree. “I'm doing it for her. She should have the chance to not grow up ignorant and rude.” Loraine was forming up an angry retort.“Cáyel, please stop,” Aya pleaded.“Of course, Aya,” I smiled at her.“We are not finished. You are the one who is rude and ignorant,” Loraine persisted. I ignored her. “I'm going to get you fired.” Ignored again. “Say something!” Kept ignoring her. She hit my shoulder. Ignored yet again. She finally sat back in her seat, crossed her arms and sulked.“Why won't you talk to my sister?” Europa inquired. I assumed she meant Loraine.“Economy of motion,” I answered. “She's not listening to me and she's upsetting Aya. Arguing with Loraine would only upset Aya more while accomplishing nothing.”“You are a jerk,” Loraine seethed. Oh fuck…I knew that tone. How could I have missed it?“She thinks you are hot,” Europa smirked. Ah, sibling rivalry. Loraine prepared to hit Europa.“In two more years I can tell her what a beautiful young woman she is,” I 'told' Europa. “For now, I work for her family and she's underage.”“You think I'm beautiful?” Loraine perked up, anger forgotten. The wonder of teenage hormones.I didn't respond to Loraine, which renewed her fury.“Do you think I'm prettier?” Aya jumped in.“Well, you don't have Loraine's deep blue eyes and Junior Miss physique, but you have the cuter smile and the boundless spirit of a winner,” I winked at Aya. Loraine flipped back to pleased.“What about me?” Europa prodded.“Oh, you are a total hag,” I sighed sadly. “It hurts me to look at you.” Europa's jaw dropped then she hit me repeatedly.“I give. I give,” I surrendered. The conflict was resolved for the rest of the trip.Aya was upset that Desiree wouldn't let me take her into the family's brownstone. After the chore was done, Desiree was non-communicative. I made it through the End of Day meeting intact with the hint that I actually did a good job. A bizarre conflict developed as I made my way to the elevator in my biking gear and a bulging dress bag - I was taking a taxi home.Buffy and Helena collided with the 'new hires' over who had the right to bombard me with sexual innuendo. I dodged any discussion on Rhada, blushed through my hart cords saga as well as my solo attempt at moose hunting, and all fishing expeditions concerning my dinner with Katrina.In the middle of my workout back at home, I got a call from the Desk Sergeant's daughter. Her name was Nikita Kutuzov - NYPD rookie patrolwomen and she exuded this raw confidence tempered with a suspicious nature. We agreed to meet for dinner. When we sat down at this Polish deli she frequented, she got down to brass tacks.“Have you ever been in a committed relationship?” was her lead in question.“Define a committed relationship,” I countered.“The answer would be 'no',” she sighed.“Why should I go out with you?” was her next point of attack.“I have a plethora of bizarre knowledge, I laugh at danger and have an incessant desire to learn,” I answered. That won me some points.“How much do you make a year?” she inquired.“Go to the bathroom, take off your panties then come back and give them to me,” I responded.Her eyes narrowed.“Your request was about as rude as mine,” I sighed. “Listen, if you are looking for an excuse to not go out with me, I'll spill some water on the table, you can tell your mother I was clumsy and call it a night,” I suggested. She glared, I looked bored then she got up and left.I wasn't worried for a second. A girl hadn't dumped me on the first date in three years. When she returned Nikita passed her undies under the table. I took the offering and deftly pocketed them.“$237,000 a year,” I confessed. Nikita choked on her soda. “I do dangerous work.”When I said 'fat paycheck' I meant 'FAT PAYCHECK'. In retrospect, this was the shiny lure they hooked us pompous 'Cream of the Crop' doofuses with. My pay was probably a clerical error as I would have taken the job for far less.“But you just got out of college,” she choked. “Do you weapon test plutonium, or what?”“I really can't talk about my job, Nikita. Most of it is mindless stuff a trained chimpanzee could do yet falls within the purview of corporate confidentiality,” I told her. “I am on call 24/7, which is a bit sucky - reference my salary again. I also get long- and short-term disability, major medical, eye, dental and health insurance plus a generous life insurance policy and a 401K.”“They have you doing illegal things, don't they?” she leaned across the table.“I refuse to answer on the grounds I'm on a date with a law enforcement agent,” I parried.“I can't date a criminal,” she cautioned.“Would it help if I promise to never get caught?” I tried to look innocent.“That's a ringing endorsement for me leaving right now,” she grinned. She wasn't doing that. They never did. It is not that women are sluts. I exude the promise of great, guilt-free sex and each one believes they are going to be the one that reels me in and tames me. This despite all the evidence to the contrary - namely that I do this with every woman I meet.We finished eating, bought some drinks to go and took a walk. Somewhere along the way, I slipped my arm around her waist. Nikita took thirty seconds to bring it up.“What's with this?” she prodded.“I like the feel of your body close to mine, Nikita. If it bothers you, I'll stop,” I offered.She didn't stop me; she reciprocated the gesture and carried on. We talked about growing up; me in Chicago and her in New York City, missing one parent (her father divorced her mom, my mother having died of cancer) and having the other parent work long hours. She'd graduated from Queens College with a degree in Criminal Justice then gone to the Police Academy - she was a year older than me.We parted ways outside the Deli. I gave her a tender French kiss. She wanted more. I wanted a second date so we parted ways with Nikita looking over her shoulder and grinning at me as she walked away. Girls like it when you only have eyes for them. My bicycle had barely gotten on the road home when my phone rang - work.I had to go to corporate and meet up with Desiree. I called her and gave her my location - I was in the wrong direction, farther from the workplace than normal. She grudgingly agreed the best course of action was to come get me, though the purpose of the assignment wasn't given. Desiree didn't utter a word as she picked me up and drove to the work site.We ended up at the children's house. Desiree parked the car and led me, in my bike clothes, up the steps of the townhouse. The looks we were greeted with weren't promising. The woman at the door was an older version of Loraine - not her twin but closely related. I had barely crossed the door sill when the nature of the problem became evident.Aya was screaming. Desiree and I were kept in the entryway for a minute until a more mature woman came gliding down the stairs, clearly steamed and, upon seeing me, livid with rage.“What have you done to my child?” the older woman seethed.“I'm not sure what you are talking about,” I answered.“He did nothing more than his job,” Desiree's defense of me came out of nowhere. “He engaged himself in the welfare of your daughter. I was there the entire time.”“Come this way,” the older woman beckoned. Desiree, the woman from the door and me followed her up two flights of stairs to Aya's room.Loraine and Europa had stepped out of their rooms and were observing us.“There,” the woman - Mom - pointed me into the room.“Cáyel,” Aya squealed. “You came.” She was sitting in bed with her arms outstretched. I crossed the distance, sat down and hugged her.“Now what seems to be the problem?” I tapped her nose.“I…I - ah - wanted you to tuck me in,” she mumbled.“As your Daddy, or as Cáyel?” I questioned.“As my Daddy,” she murmured.“I am not your Daddy, Aya,” I explained. “I am your friend, and your guardian upon occasion, but I am not worthy of being your Father. You are a very special girl and I am the son of a working stiff from Chicago. With your Mom's and Katrina's permission, I would gladly help you convince the World that I am your Daddy. We must remember that this is not real, okay?”“Why can't you be my real Daddy?” Aya asked. 'Because your Mommy would bite my dick off' didn't seem the politically correct thing to say.“Life can be very harsh, Aya. We all face different challenges. Since life has not provided you with a Daddy, you must find a way to get by without one,” I said. “Now let me tuck you in.”We hugged, I tucked her in, kissed her on her forehead then waited around a few seconds while she held my adult hand in her tiny mitt. As I left, the Mother cut off the light and shut the door.“Good night, Cáyel,” Europa and Loraine called out. I waved, but kept my peace. Downstairs, it was a bit less pleasant.“I will report this egregious breech of conduct to Katrina. You are dismissed,” she waved her hand.“Really?” I perked up.“Cáyel, don't,” Desiree cautioned me.“Oh, come on,” I pleaded. “Desiree, what is the penalty for tucking a little girl into bed? Wait - wait, are they going to get me for NOT embarrassing a child in public? Is it because I accepted a female's gender-appropriate pet name?”“Shut up,” Desiree demanded sedately.“Yes ma'am - Desiree,” I sighed.“The charges will be murdering our patience, insolence, irreverence and not being able to follow simple commands - like 'Cáyel don't',” she explained. I could swear she was mocking our hostess except that wasn't like Desiree. She had no sense of humor.“Do you think this is funny, Half-blood?” Mom mocked.“No. He is a jester and I'm superior to him because, unlike you, Pure-blood, I can tell the difference between his juvenile antics and him being a viable threat,” Desiree reposed. “Funny is Cáyel throwing his body on top of your eldest daughter, sacrificing himself to save her life only to be treated by you as a common household pest.”“It was a test,” Mom said.“He didn't know that,” Desiree countered, “or are you claiming he fooled me and the entire security detail?” Insulting Desiree was okay in Mom's book. Insinuating those stone-cold bitches who scared the crap out of me this morning were incompetent wasn't.“I repeat, you are dismissed,” Mom seethed. This time we took our leave. Desiree remained lost in her own thoughts as she drove me home.“Thank you,” I said when we were close.“For what?” she murmured.“No specific cause. I reason that if I say 'thank you' a few thousand times, one day you'll say it to me,” I looked at her through the corner of my eye.“Hold your breath,” Desiree commanded. “Hold your breath until I repeat the words 'thank you'.”There was really no way around that. I practiced breath-control techniques I had learned from swimming and diving, making the most of what air I had. Desiree was heartless. I broke the two minute mark, which wasn't bad given my lack of preparation. I leaned forward, panting for breath and looking down.“You might want to appreciate that you are not perfect, can't do everything and should reacquaint yourself with your limitations,” Desiree commented.“Thank you, Desiree,” I gasped. That was some of the best advice I'd received on the job to date.“You are welcome, Cáyel,” she said serenely. In her culturally limited way, Desiree had allowed me a tiny space in her world - Immature Student Lackey. “Be at work thirty minutes early.” With that, I exited to my apartment and belatedly got to my workout. Timothy was out on a date so I had to bolt out of the shower to get whomever was at the door when the doorbell rang.“I must redeem my prestige by breaking your spirit, Cáyel Nyilas,” Rhada snarled then leapt to the attack. I was standing there, dripping wet, with my hand clenching the towel tightly around my waist. Mortal Combat - the pornographic edition. Rhada was feisty yet I had the feeling she was more into our fight as a contact sport than a real effort to subdue me.I wasn't aware that there was an oral appliance that allowed you to give a blowjob without having the recipient bite your dick off. Timothy had one in his toy box. Rhada and I tried it out, but I got the feeling she didn't get much from the experience. I felt like I was at a glory hole. After that, things got better.I clued in that Rhada's key focus of arousal was being forced to pleasure me. Under threat of something horrible (mostly in her imagination), hands bound behind her back, she'd fuck me in every imaginable way and she was even becoming passible at fellatio. Binding her legs was actually counterproductive. If I wanted to pin her legs, she liked it if I wrestled with her.I keep pushing myself to keep up with her. When someone screamed in pain, my gut instinct was to succor them. For Rhada, it was a signal for her wanting more. I'd really helped her through some serious frustrations, and a great deal of sweat, when the phone rang. Rhada was facing me, bouncing in my lap with her ball gag back in (she liked to bite during climax).“Hello?” I said.“Hey Cáyel Nyilas, it is Odette. Whatchya doing tonight?” my waitress bed-buddy asked.“I'm bored out of my skull, doing something worthless,” I answered. “Do you want to come over, or do we want to meet at your place tonight?”“Ah - um - I live at home with my parents,” she confessed.“Come on over. I need to clean up a mess first,” I told her. “See you soon.” With that, I hung up and looked into Rhada's eyes. “You really are a worthless mess.” She sobbed. “What are you crying about you disgraced harlot? Are you surprised I'd want to be with a real woman?”“You are a disgusting piece of filth so that's how you deserve to be treated; not like a true tower of femininity,” I continued to press her buttons. She was really upset and absolutely erotically active. I was starting to get worried about the vigor she was pounding me with. Sadly, I had some plans to implement before Odette arrived. I kept Rhada on my lap, swiveled us off the bed and fished out a few restraints.Rhada wrapped her powerful legs around my waist. Using a combination of thigh, stomach and vaginal muscles, the Indian Princess kept working my cock with every bit of imagination she could muster. We traveled out to the workout area. I leaned over the weight bench, pressed Rhada down and put a hand around her throat.Honestly, all this cruelty and humiliation was grating on me. Sure, I knew Rhada was evil, as was her entire culture. The thing was, I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I didn't think I had it in me to harm, or murder, a person who was not an immediate threat. The reality was twofold. If I didn't do this for Rhada, she'd find someone else who would, with the likelihood of grievous harm coming to her.Also, I could do without her holding a grudge for my kicking her ass then rejecting her amorous advances. For now, I played her game with the added benefit that tonight was a 'freebie' - not in my cue.“Bitch, I'm going to tie you down and ruin you until you can't walk straight. Fight back and I'm going ram two dildos into you and leave them on all night long,” I threatened.I could see her thinking about it as I gave her some more crushed ice to drink. In the end, she allowed her feet to be bound separately then her hands bound together over her head. Once she was secure, I leaned in and whispered in her ear.“I lied, Rhada. I'm going to shove two vibrators in anyway,” Rhada thrashed about against her bonds.After lubing up both sex toys, I worked them into her pussy and ass. She wiggled and shifted about a few times, but her heart wasn't in it. She was too clearly looking forward to the torturous pleasure coming her way. I cut them both on then, because I could, I put on three vibrating eggs; one on her clit and the others for each nipples. That drove her wild. I readied the last part of my plan.“Rhada,” I leaned in and spoke softly, “I'm putting your phone in your hand. Press the 'send' button and it will call my phone. I'll come get you. Don't drop it. Rhada?” Her wild eyes flashed about, gained some clarity and met my gaze. She nodded her understanding. Now I had to worry that she would drop the phone on purpose just to add to her torment.I drew the makeshift curtain that separated our workout space from the rest of the living room, cut on the TV to mute the sound of moaning and vibrators. While cleaning up in the bathroom, I realized I had to dump my condom. Doing two girls with the same one was beyond thoughtless and gross.My drawstring shorts were barely cinched up when the doorbell rang. Thankfully it was Odette. Extra special was Odette wanted to get freaky with me - she brought a dildo and some lube. The problem with having a vast variety of sex was that fewer and fewer things were new and remembering how exciting it was your first time with a given kink gets tougher.Odette decided that conversation was overrated as she waltzed through the door. She showed me her toy, grabbed my hand and led me to my bedroom. I helped her undress, which she liked. Then she threw me down and raped me. She was even all excited about rolling her first condom on. She hadn't been a virgin last night, only lacking in confidence.Tonight, she was a beast (in her mind). After our first noisy, moist round, Odette 'discovered' another pleasure; namely sitting up, riding my cock and getting into an in depth discussion about our relationship - sigh. When a woman thinks it is casual sex it is casual sex. When a man thinks it is casual sex it could be any Goddamn thing.To Odette's credit, she was willing to talk about things she'd like to do, didn't get too upset when she finally pried out of me that I'd been with more than a dozen women, and she took suggestions well. She liked to talk about mutual interests, cuddled without being needy and asked if what she was doing made me feel good in a way that didn't make her sound insecure.At 2:10 my phone buzzed. Odette barely murmured then rolled over and went back to sleep. It was Rhada. Sneaking out wasn't so difficult. I stealthed to the bathroom, got a wet wash cloth and a towel, followed that up with a trip to get some chilled bottled water and finished up at Rhada's side.She was barely there at all. My hands flew over her body in the dim light then I pulled her into my lap on the floor.“Rhada?” I called to her gently.“Kill you,” she whispered. She was okay.In my sleep-deprived state I missed her initially looking at me. Her eyes were unfathomable. I pressed the water to her lips and let her drink in small sips. Five minutes later, she was in better shape mentally and physically.“Why?” she asked.“Sometimes it is a matter of why not?” I replied.“You hate me,” she furrowed her brow.“What gave you that idea?” I reposed.“You are a man…you don't hate me?” she struggled to breach our cultural divide.“Rhada, I can't speak for all men, but I don't hate you. I have no intention of destroying you,” I paused. “I'm working on a way to suspend you off the ground blindfolded next time. Tarnishing your prestige is not on my agenda though.”“Do you like causing me pain?” she studied me. That was a tough one both from my perspective and hers.“I treasure every orgasm I rip from your body, Rhada,” I breathed into her ear. It was the best I could do. For Rhada it was enough.She wasn't suicidal, only ravenous in her need to surrender to her taboo desires. Her not being on the edge of death with me lessened her thrill. It also meant she could live long enough to have all kinds of other thrills. This was the bargain we were making. How I was going to live up to it was going to be intriguing.Maybe I could bill Katrina for the needed playroom upgrades. What the future held was coming with the dawn. First I had to make sure Rhada was clear-headed and ambulatory. Then came the trip to her auto and her fiery kiss and body hug. Rhada liking me was okay. Rhada getting attached to me was one more headache I didn't need.To be continued in Part 4By FinalStand for Literotica.

Women of any age can drive a man to madness.By FinalStand. Listen and subscribe to the podcast at Steamy Stories.Instinct, education and experience are complementary, not in opposition.(Wednesday)The phone rang. The clock was flashing 6:15. Odette snuggled up to me, making cute, happy cat-like noises. Timothy's bed was bigger than mine so I had to reach out to get my mobile device. For the tenth time, I silently thanked Timothy for switching bedrooms with me, though I believed he had chosen to sleep on the sofa instead.“Hello,” I said quietly.“It's Buffy. I'll be there in fifteen minutes,” she stated firmly.“I have a companion over,” I hesitated. “Can you make it twenty-five?”“Who is that, Cáyel Nyilas,” Odette yawned. She liked the way my full name rolled of her tongue.“Who is that?” Buffy grilled me.“She's a sweet young lady I met - the rest is none of your business,” I told Buffy. To Odette, “It is one of my many bosses. After my ‘auto accident' (I couldn't tell a stranger that some psycho bitch - who I had just screwed - had her mentor kick the shit out of me), she brought me home then deposited me at your workplace. My bike is still at work.” I had told Odette I was a cyclist.“Does she think you are sexy?” Odette giggled. I groaned.“81 days, Cáyel,” Buffy reminded me. “81 days,” then she hung up. I wasn't getting my extra ten minutes.“Do we have time…?” Odette wiggled her whole body against mine.“I don't think so. Babe,” I sighed. “All I can do is go down on you then I have to grab a shower and get dressed.” Odette blinked, blinked again, then brightened up incredibly.“If that's all we can do,” she exhibited no regrets as she hurled the covers back. It took me seven minutes to bring her to orgasm.I was good, but I had also torn up Odette pretty badly last night. I had to buy Timothy some more condoms. I felt kinda bad for using the number I did. I raced to the shower, did a Wonder Woman (hold your arms out and spin around a few times in the shower), raced back to Timothy's room - Timothy shot me with his Nerf gun from the sofa (Odette was vocal) - and began dressing.“Odette, stay and get some sleep,” I stroked her cheek. “Timothy heads to work around ten, so if you could head out with him so he can lock up the place. Fix whatever breakfast you like. If it is Timothy, I'll make it up to him.”“You mean beyond letting us use his room?” she fixed me with her feline eyes. I coughed.“Come on, Cáyel Nyilas, this room is plastered with male Calvin Klein models and you have five copies of the Village Voice on your dresser. You are far too proficient with punching all my buttons to be gay,” she pointed out.“Gay men can be very sexually proficient,” I countered.“Cáyel Nyilas (damn, she loved my name), you came five times. I lost track of how many orgasms I had. If you are gay, you aren't in De-Nile, you are in Ethiopia,” she giggled. This wasn't the right moment to brag that I ejaculated eight times last night. Rhada filled up three condoms during our little escapade. I repeat, I have an out of control libido.“Gotta go,” I straddled Odette and gave her a kiss. I deftly avoided the French grapple because I had the feeling that Buffy wasn't the kind to wait patiently.“Timothy…” I mumbled as I sped to the door.“I know - girl - bed - sleeping,” he groaned. As the door shut I heard him add, “at least he's not dull.”I managed not to kill myself tumbling down the stairs in my haste to reach the street. Buffy was waiting and drumming her hands on the steering wheel. I tried the car door - it was locked. A tap on the window earned me a baleful glare. I sighed and fell on my knees.“Please,” I begged. “Please, please, please let me in the car.” I heard a click after ten seconds.“You're late,” she remarked as we sped away. I hastily put on my seat belt.“I apologize,” I tried being obsequious.“You had better be, damn it,” she seethed. Oh…I scented arousal…and jealousy. We drove a few blocks in silence. “Who was it?”“Are we on the clock?” I countered. Pause.“No,” she said in a clipped tone.“None of your fucking business, then,” I growled. “My sex life is none of your concern, Buffy. It is none of your group's concern, so give it a rest.”“Or what?” Buffy's eyes narrowed. I wished she would watch the road.“Thunderdome, Bitch!” I grinned. Oh, she tried. She tried really hard to stay angry with me.“I hate you,” she snickered. She pulled out her phone and handed it to me. It was a picture of Buffy, Katrina, Tessa, Desiree and some woman who looked familiar standing, or kneeling, behind a pile of dead animals. All the ladies had bows, knives and camo gear.“Does the Audubon Society know about this? I'm pretty sure the World Wildlife Fund would have a freaking stroke,” I nodded.“Ladies at Havenstone have a passion for killing things,” Buffy measured me. “I thought you might want to know.”“Why do you use bows?” I questioned. “Don't your boobs get in the way?” Buffy smacked me in the chest - hard. I could have blocked. That would have been counterproductive. No, I grabbed her right boob and gave it a strong squeeze. In retaliation, she hit me again. I grabbed her boob. This went on until we entered the garage. She got in the last hit.“We are on the clock now,” I notified her. She seemed less than pleased. “Very nice, by the way.”“Huh?” Buffy studied.“Sorry. Any continuation of this conversation would constitute sexual harassment,” I sighed.“I am mentally projecting negative emotions your way,” Buffy grumbled.“I believe the totality of your efforts create a positive outlook for me,” I grinned.“Have you ever been skydiving?” Buffy dropped out of the blue on me in the elevator ride up.“With, or without, a parachute?” I inquired. She blessed me with a feral smile.I hurried to Katrina's office, Buffy a step behind me, rumbling like the jaguar she'd performed illegal dentistry on. She wasn't trying to intimidate me. Buffy was trying to mark her territory. I made it to my desk without actually being scent-marked, so I considered the encounter a draw.“Have fun last night?” Katrina inquired without looking up.“More than any one man should have,” I confessed. Further conversation was severed by the arrival of the first of the female ‘new hires'. As Katrina started our little meeting, I surreptitiously put in the work order for my suits. I wasn't sneaky enough for Katrina.“Are you suffering some sort of head trauma that makes you believe you can avoid participation in this meeting?” she purred.“No, Ma - Katrina,” I was contrite. “I had to submit a work order for the business suits Buffy and Helena purchased for me last night so I would stop coming to work dressed like a homeless panhandler.” That killed four of the girls; they failed to stifle their giggles.“Couldn't you have dealt with that on the way in?” Katrina had this glitter in her eyes.“Buffy was attempting to subject me to vehicular homicide,” I replied. “I was afraid for my life on multiple occasions, up to and including her entry into the garage.”“How horrifying for you,” Katrina delivered deadpan.“I had my hands full, I swear,” I placed my hand over my heart.“I suspect that was the case,” Katrina allowed. “Is there anything else you need to take care of while the rest of us wait on you?”“Thank you, yes there is,” I smiled, nodded and began typing away.“I was being facetious, but then you knew that,” Katrina teased. Several girls were openly giggling now.When I finished, I walked around Katrina's desk, went to one knee and lowered my head. Katrina scanned my latest request.“Really?” she was intrigued.“Yes, Ma'am,” I looked up at her. She ran her hands through my hair. “Katrina.”“You are trying,” Katrina remarked. That could read either way. “Go back to your station before I show you where you really belong,” she chuckled. I stood up and fist-pumped.“Woo-who!” I shouted. “I'm going to bed.” That finished them off. Even Fabiola cracked a tiny bit and snickered behind her hand.The real joke they were embracing - making me part of their new breeding program - was the punchline to the joke Katrina and I found amusing. I knew the truth. We received our assignments and left the office.“How did your date with Rhada go last night?” Paula nudged me.“It wasn't a date. It was a corporate appointment,” I corrected. “As for the rest - you don't want to know. Please believe me, you don't want to know.”“I can make you tell us,” Fabiola smirked. The group kept together until I reached Desiree's desk. She was my boss for the day and she was not pleased, or amused.Fabiola saved me.“Sister, compel this one to tell us what happened with Rhada last night,” Fabiola sneered in Hittite. I played dumb which wasn't hard in my fatigued state. Desiree transferred all of her dislike of me into outrage at Fabiola's breach.“Is your blood poisoned?” Desiree seethed. “When they tossed you off the rocks, did you bounce back up, or are you so arrogantly stupid you would flaunt one of our most basic safeguards?”“You are only half the woman you could have been,” Fabiola shot back.By the way Desiree flew out of her chair that was a deadly insult. I put my body between them and grabbed Desiree by her upper arms.“Release me,” she yelled, her hate returned its focus to me.“You are my boss,” I explained calmly. “I most join you in your battles. Is this a battle you truly want to fight, here and now?”“Release me at once,” Desiree commanded.“One of us hiding behind a man,” Fabiola mocked Desiree. Daphne punched her. “Ow!”“Care to try that on me?” Daphne challenged Fabiola. “My family's prestige has never been called into question.” I was starting to think they meant genetic purity.“Buffy would not want me to let you come to harm,” I whispered to Desiree then released her. It was that hunting photo that made me make that leap. Desiree glared at me. A slap followed, but it wasn't all that hard.“Do not touch me without permission, Cáyel Nyilas,” she commanded in a clear voice.The matter was almost settled.“Come on,” Desiree barked. I had one final bit to take care of.“Daphne, thank you. Helena says you are coming along really well. Maybe we could have a few drinks after hours and you can give me some pointers,” I requested.Daphne seemed to mull that over. We had moved past the entrapment phase to the 'male in the bull pen - what do we do with him now' phase.“I'll think about it,” Daphne shot me this sexually curious look. Off they went and I had to sprint to catch up with Desiree who hadn't stopped to listen to my conversation with Daphne.“Do not be flippant with me,” Desiree grumbled. “I am not Buffy.”“Of course you are not,” I nodded. “Katrina values your counsel and she trusts you.”“You know nothing,” Desiree groused.“Really? Helena and Buffy were sent away with me yesterday afternoon - you stayed,” I began.“This male internship program is the brainchild of Katrina and Tessa. Maybe she thinks that I'm in danger, thus her program, so she chooses you to safeguard me - no other,” I added. “I don't think much of my place here as an individual, but I represent something of value to our boss. If that is the case, how much does she value and respect you?”“Do you ever shut up?” she glared at me.“Is that a question, or a veiled order?” I grinned. She glared some more. I kept quiet. Desiree had to enter a special code to gain us access to Basement Level 3. A short trip down a drab concrete hall illuminated a door and two Amazon's guarding it.Desiree's ID card allowed her access. Mine did not. The security types verified my permission to be there, then verified it again. Finally, one pulled Desiree and questioned her. With great reluctance, the guards let me into the room. Their caution made sense. This was the Havenstone Corporate HQ armory.This was not a few guns in a case with handful of wall sconces. Nope, this was an ATF gun-gasm, White Supremacist Nirvana, and a Gangster's Paradise all rolled into one. Desiree went to one table, lifted and examined one 9mm Walther PPQ, loaded the clip and gave it to me.“It has no safety, so be careful,” she notified me. She tossed the shoulder holster and two spare magazines my way.As she readied her own weapon set, I put on my shoulder holster and secured my weapon.“This is nuts, Desiree,” I stated. “I'm not ex-military. I'm not a security officer, bodyguard, or assassin either.”“Don't get hysterical,” Desiree snorted. “This is a simple assignment. We are going to pick up some school children and take them to their exclusive academy.”“Besides, on your resume, you claimed to have a passing familiarity with a number of firearms,” she grunted.“What do I do if we are stopped by the cops?” I inquired.“Go to jail.”With that sterling pep-talk, we exited the bunker with a variety of weapons - mostly Desiree's because she was clearly anticipating the end of the world. She stored the weapons in our new, armored car while I stood close by acting like a weapons dispenser. According to established routine, I was given no specific instructions until we arrived on site where I was then supposed to instantly absorb the knowledge.I gave that some thought. Havenstone knew their male hires had academic success. Given twenty-four hours, we could memorize anything. The Amazons, being a militant culture, were testing us to see how quickly we thought on our feet. It was still mean. As we pulled up to our Brownstone destination, I was given our mission.Desiree was to go into the house, retrieve three schoolgirls, Aya (9), Europa (13) and Loraine (16), and bring them into the car. I was to wait on the stoop, hold the car door for them and keep my yap shut. By insisting I not use flippancy, Desiree had cut off my conversation at the knees.“Woman, grey coat at the North corner,” Desiree muttered to me as we started up the stairs. She went inside; I stayed on the stoop. Thankfully, my sojourn into Amazon politics had strengthened my ability to ignore the obvious and appreciate the benign. Two women were meandering up from the South and the woman to the North had gained a companion before Desiree returned. The girls came out first.At the bottom step I caught sight of movement. I turned and stopped the children from advancing.“Hey,” the Loraine squawked.“Cáyel…” Desiree got out.“Two to the North and two to the South - closing in,” I whispered.She did a casual scan.“Take them to the car,” Desiree ordered. I thought that was pretty stupid. If a murder/kidnapping was in the offing, getting the kids back inside seemed more prudent. I hesitated. She glared. I swallowed my instincts and began sheparding the girls down the stairs.The moment the third child's feet hit the sidewalk, both groups of women began speeding up. I was trying to hustle the girls to the car's back door when a van came speeding up out of nowhere. I wasn't going to get door open in time.“Down!” I shouted as I used my superior size to press my three wards down and against the car. The van screeched to a halt and the sliding door opened.I drew, aimed over the top of the car and fired the pistol twice without even thinking that I was murdering somebody. I heard Desiree firing to the North. The woman in the van door slumped back. A second one tried to untangle herself so I put two bullets in her as well. I took a step and a half South, kneeled to shelter the girls with my body and began firing at the two southern women running my way.I put two bullets into each of them - missing every shot. Crap. Suddenly, as I was shoving a new clip into my semi-automatic pistol, the eldest child broke and ran for the stairs. I looked over my shoulder. Desiree was down. One woman remained coming from the North. I hurled my body at Loraine, taking her down. I landed us on my shoulder then rolled to cover her.I brought up the pistol and fired twice at the northern woman.“Cease fire!” an unfamiliar female voice commanded. The northern woman stopped. As I swung my pistol South, I noticed Desiree sitting up. The two women in the van were coming back to life too. Three women I didn't recognize were coming down the Brownstone steps.The lead female was clearly in charge. She approached me and extended a hand.“Male - pistol,” she demanded. I rose to me knees, pulling away from her and yanking Loraine behind me.“Lady, I don't know you,” I growled. “I'm not giving you my gun, or the girls, until someone tells me what's going on.”I was contemplating how bad her punch/slap/kick was going to be when Loraine laughed.“That was fun,” she exulted. “He tackled me and everything.”“Cáyel,” Desiree ordered, “give her the gun.” I wasn't happy, but I did hand over the weapon.“It was loaded with blanks, Moron,” the leader smirked. “We would never let a man with a loaded weapon around our children.”“Thank God,” I mused. “I couldn't understand how I missed those two down South.”“What makes you think you would have hit them?” she sneered. I pulled Loraine up with me as I resumed my feet then put her behind me.“What makes you think your brain isn't as blank as the bullets you gave me?” I glared.“Watch your tongue, Male,” she glared right back.“You threatened three children under my care,” I grumbled. “Be happy I don't plant you on your ass.” She looked more than happy to throw down.“They were never your children to protect,” Desiree spoke up. “This was a training exercise.”I looked over my shoulder at the other two girls. They were smiling at me. This had been fun for them. The only one who didn't know this was fake was me. I groaned.“Clip,” the leader snapped. I handed it over without protest. I'd used the other spare. She turned to Desiree. “Take them to school.”The five of us piled into the car and drove away. It was less than stunning that I didn't get a new firearm. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, feeling morose and angry when Europa spoke.“That was really brave,” she commented. “You did much better than the lady last spring. She went nuts.”“Really”, I swiveled so I could see their faces and make sure they weren't pulling something on me.“Oh, yeah,” Loraine chuckled. “She ran right at the two down the street, firing as she went. Totally missed the van rolling up. Forgot she was supposed to protect us.”“She got high marks for marksmanship,” Europa told me, “but we never saw her again.”“You smell nice,” Aya beamed little kittens my way.“He smells like sex,” Loraine giggled.“Starting with the fact that you are underage, add my desire to live and we end up with us not having his conversation,” I winked.“I've never seen a man as pretty as you even at school. The boys in my class are such jerks. They say I'm a freak because I have no Daddy,” Aya went from happy to a frown.“When I was in grade school, they called me a freak too, Aya,” I met her gaze. “The difference is, I deserved it. I was a rude, mean person.”“Not having a Daddy doesn't determine if you are a freak; how you behave does. You are a very nice woman so they should be nicer to you. You are not a freak. Trust me, I'd know it if you were,” I gave Aya a warm smile and tapped her nose playfully.“Whomever controls you did a good job,” Europa observed.“No,” Desiree snapped. The children must have been briefed on my status as well as spent a lifetime disguising their true culture.“Europa, I am controlled by Katrina. I'll relay your compliment. She has delegated me to Desiree for the day, which means I'm with you three this morning,” I answered despite Desiree's disapproval.The private academy was for the wealthy; gender was not an issue. Security checked our ID's before they let us disgorge our precious cargo.“Desiree, can Cáyel Nyilas walk me to class this morning?” Aya requested. The look Desiree burned my way was intimidating.“Of course, Aya,” Desiree relented. “Cáyel, only take as much time as necessary.”“Nos morituri te salutamus,” I grinned. I knew that was overly dramatic. How tough could a room full of third graders be? Aya took me by the hand and led me in. Wow! Her teacher was a hottie. A quick glance suggested she was unmarried and very interested in me.“Ms. Reichmann, this is my Daddy,” Aya announced loudly. Ms. Reichmann's eyes flicked down to notice my lack of a wedding band. I knelt so that I was eye to eye with Aya.“Aya, honey, Father has to talk to Ms. Reichmann in private for a moment. Please take your seat and I'll see you before I leave,” I smiled paternally at Aya. She skipped to her seat.“Ulyssa,” Ms. Reichmann bit her lower lip.“Ulyssa, is there a place where I can talk with you in private?” I asked with open innocence and a heavy undercurrent of passion. It turned out there was an unused conference room at the end of the hall.I left Ulyssa with a smoldering look that guaranteed me a call-back. If any of the kids had the faintest idea why she was so flushed, short of breath and happy, they gave no hint. Aya took excessive pride in showing her 'Daddy' off to all her classmates. Any time I detected a bully, I gave the 'I'm keeping an eye on you' glare. I was whistling as I returned to the car.“28 fucking minutes!” Desiree screamed at me.“I had a little chat with Aya's teacher. I thought it would be nice if Ms. Reichmann was aware that Aya was unhappy,” I reduced our love-making to the bare bones, 'no mention of sex' facts. “She said she'd keep a special eye out for Aya.”“That wasn't your job,” Desiree seethed. We started driving away.“I doubt you'll listen to my…” I go out.“Shut up,” she interrupted. “You have nothing to say that I want to hear.”“You shut up and imagine for a second I don't hate you and that I'm pretty good reading women in a way you are unaccustomed to,” I snapped back.“Katrina is going to be hard pressed to save you from this outburst,” she sneered vindictively.“How about this; Katrina saw potential in you so she's given you a chance to restore your prestige. What you are failing to understand is the underlying concept of family at Havenstone. This means they put a premium on their children - their female children,” I suggested.“Protecting the next generation can't be a job for you. It wouldn't be for them. To those women, perpetuating their families is all-important and you must see it as an obligation handed down to you by all your Havenstone predecessors.” See, I avoided saying blood lines and their fucked up Amazon heritage.“I don't know what your mother did wrong. Whatever it is, Katrina doesn't care and she's the one that really matters,” I prodded. “Useless pricks like Fabiola won't be of any use to you even if they did like you. Thus endeth the male blathering.”“How do you know it was my Mother?” Desiree asked after several minutes driving.“Desiree, your father could have done a fan dance on a table at the Presidential Inaugural Dinner and the women of Havenstone wouldn't give a damn. From Fabiola's big mouth, I'm guessing your mother married a guy that the family didn't approve of. In the status-obsessed corporate culture we are stuck with, that has to be pretty dreadful,” I finished.We were almost at Havenstone's Corporate HQ before Desiree spoke. She had been positively grim, far beyond her normal grumpiness.“I killed them,” she stated in a cold, emotionless voice.“Who?”“My parents. When my aunt found me and told me about my true heritage and what my parents had done, I killed them,” Desiree answered in the same lifeless tone.“I'm not going to lie to you. That's totally fucked up, but then I'm not you and I don't have to walk in your shoes,” I mused. “I'm certainly not going to give you sympathy, or pity.”“You are a horrible person for not having the strength of character to allow your mother and father to live with the choices they made. Killing them was a totally selfish act. Before you say 'you wouldn't understand', let me tell you that's bullshit. Like you, I had a mother and father. My Mom is dead and I miss her every day. I think you miss them and that's why you are so damn bitter.”“I should kill you for that liberty,” Desiree informed me.“Bring it, Kitten,” I scoffed. “I'd kick your ass.”“What inspires that delusion?” she turned to me. We had parked in the garage by this time.“I have righteous fury on my side. Against that, you have no defense,” I grinned.“I warned you against flippancy,” she reminded me.“Is that a demand that I present my righteous fury for your examination?” I countered. Silence. We went through the security rigmarole, put up the firearms. As we were leaving, I turned to Desiree.“You would think those two educationally-challenged bimbos would have warned me I was carrying blanks,” I griped. The two security babes' posture turned all agro on me.“I really should leave you here with them for a few hours,” Desiree threatened.“Have I told you recently how much I find you to be a kind, beneficent, wise and gifted teacher and sensei?” I faux-pleaded.“Shut up,” she grunted as we made my getaway.“I think I know why Katrina tolerates you,” Desiree told me after a few second in the elevator.“To try everyone else's patience?” I guessed.“Precisely,” she shoved me. “Stop being overly clever. It is unattractive in a male.”“Stranger danger!” I shouted (still in the elevator) as I backed into the far corner. “Stranger danger!”“If I had a gun, I would shoot you,” she glared. There was a glimmer of amusement as well.“At this range, you would probably miss,” I taunted her playfully.Desiree trembled with conflicting emotions. She gave in, stepped up and punched me in the chest. I kept laughing so she hit me again, but she was letting a tiny smile creep across her lips too.“Damn you,” she ground her teeth, fighting her happiness. “Fine. Cáyel, to my side.” There I went.“Kneel.” I knelt. The elevator doors opened, Desiree stepped out, turned to gaze into my eyes then cruelly smiled as the doors shut and the elevator continued up. The looks I got from women as they accessed the device was priceless. It took a while for one to break the silence.“What are you doing?” she inquired.“My boss told me to kneel here,” I explained, “so here I kneel. In nine hours, if I can still walk, I'm going home and taking a long, hot bath.”“You are just going to stay there for nine hours?” another woman groused.“I'm an intern. An order is an order and it isn't like she's forgotten where she left me.”“Our male intern isn't nearly this nice,” a third lady commented. “We call him the Chinchilla. When he isn't acting as if he's somehow valuable, he scurries about like a rodent.” That would be Brian I was willing to bet. The women in the elevator were suddenly self-conscious they'd talked that way around another male intern.“Do you have a nickname?” the third one tried to make light of the faux-pas.“I think there are three in the running: 'come here', 'kneel', and 'shut up'. When I hear one of those, I assume they are talking to me,” I joked. They snickered. God, I could have an orgy in this elevator. Thank goodness my libido was still slaked from nailing Ulyssa the teacher.“Where are you?” Desiree snapped over the phone eight minutes later. I had her on speaker.“I'm right where you left me,” I grinned. There was a new crowd in my box. I was getting the impression the word of my fate was circulating around the building and women were slipping over to see for themselves.“Are you an idiot?” she grumbled.“I'll leave the evaluation of my mental facilities to the experts, oh glorious Boss of mine,” I replied. “I would like to report there are two wonderful ladies from International Finance putting a shipping label on me as we speak,” I lied. From the look of one of the ladies, that wasn't such a bad, or far-fetched, idea.“Stand. Get off the elevator on the fourteenth floor and go to Conference Room L,” Desiree commanded. “Do you need to write out your orders in crayon?”“I'd prefer you use body paint,” I bantered. The ladies around me didn't know what to make of the exchange.“81 days, Jackass,” Desiree promised balefully.“I tremble in anticipation - no, wait, that's fear,” I snorted in amusement.“You are very irreverent,” a lady onboard observed. This wasn't a good thing in her mind.“I apologize, Ma'am. Reverence required me to become a eunuch and no job is worth my jewels in a jar,” I bowed.“I will report your poor attitude and mockery of your assignment to Tessa,” she vowed.“Very well, Ma'am…” I started.“Astarte,” she gave her name.“Very well, Astarte.”“Please consider that I am doing precisely what I've been told to do and that my humor has made multiple travelers on this elevator smile,” I continued. “Happy employees are more productive employees and barring being given something productive to do with my time, I've decided to give busy women a small bit of amusement.”Astarte had no good comeback to my defense. I didn't doubt Katrina and Tessa would get hate mail no matter what I said. The fourteenth floor job turned out to be transporting something from a director's safe to a bank vault. Drudgery followed - laundry, dinners, delivering a new car (I drove the company car back; Desiree drove the new car), picking up my suits and ending off where the day began - school.I had barely exited the car when I heard a little girl scream “There's my Daddy”. I sensed this was going to be a problem in the future. Aya didn't come running up to me. No, she made sure every classmate she could reach knew her 'Daddy' was here to take her home. Things got 'better' when she and some friends approached.“Mr. Ruger (Aya's family name), is it true you are a spy?” a rather aggressive male classmate asked. I took a deep breath. My gaze made Aya looked down, embarrassed. I could sense her tormentors closing in. I knelt in front of Aya and tilted her chin up so we were eye to eye.“Now, Sugar,” I addressed her, “we've had this discussion before. You can't tell people what Daddy does. That would put a lot of good people's lives in danger.”“I expected better of you, Aya. You must never tell strangers what I do for a living. Don't forget that,” I chastised her. Turning my focus to the surrounding children, “Forget that Aya ever told you I was a spy. Otherwise, bad things might happen to our family. Understood?”They nodded, eyes wide with shock and fear.See, Aya's Daddy WAS a spy, but no one could talk about it or people would die. In the eyes of a nine year old, that was so cool, if scary. The thing was, I hadn't lied. I had been evasive. We had been on the road for two minutes when Loraine conveyed a concept she was having difficulty with.“Thank you, Cáyel,” she told me. “That was a very nice thing you did for Aya.” I had to think of the clearest way to express why I had done what I had done, circumstances included.“I'm not a father, but if I was and Aya was my daughter, I would defend her as the situation warranted - physically, or verbally.”“They pay you to be with us,” Europa grumbled. I laughed - hard enough to hurt my sides.“Europa, Havenstone doesn't have enough money to keep me on this job,” I chuckled.“Why do you do it then?” Loraine leaned forward.“If I make it three months, I get a date with Desiree,” I lied.“Do you think she's pretty?” Europe prodded.“No. She scares me. If I quit, I have to take her out on a date the next day,” I continued fibbing.“Stay at Havenstone. You can do better than dating a half-breed,” Loraine stated. I digested that.“Loraine, your weakness sickens me,” I gave her a pained look. “Unsettling an opponent is acceptable. Insulting an ally is a quality of an immature and insecure mind.”“You don't talk to me like that,” Loraine spat.“Or what?” I mocked her. “Are we going to stop the car and take this fight to the sidewalk?”“If we do that, I'm going to spank your pathetic ass and we both know it,” I grumbled. “No, you'll have to hide behind Desiree and her sisters - the women you just insulted with an issue that is no one's business but hers. Are you going to show some courage and agree to fight me, or are you going to be worthy of your family, show some respect and apologize?”“I don't want her apology,” Desiree stated blandly.“I'm not doing it for you,” I told Desiree. “I'm doing it for her. She should have the chance to not grow up ignorant and rude.” Loraine was forming up an angry retort.“Cáyel, please stop,” Aya pleaded.“Of course, Aya,” I smiled at her.“We are not finished. You are the one who is rude and ignorant,” Loraine persisted. I ignored her. “I'm going to get you fired.” Ignored again. “Say something!” Kept ignoring her. She hit my shoulder. Ignored yet again. She finally sat back in her seat, crossed her arms and sulked.“Why won't you talk to my sister?” Europa inquired. I assumed she meant Loraine.“Economy of motion,” I answered. “She's not listening to me and she's upsetting Aya. Arguing with Loraine would only upset Aya more while accomplishing nothing.”“You are a jerk,” Loraine seethed. Oh fuck…I knew that tone. How could I have missed it?“She thinks you are hot,” Europa smirked. Ah, sibling rivalry. Loraine prepared to hit Europa.“In two more years I can tell her what a beautiful young woman she is,” I 'told' Europa. “For now, I work for her family and she's underage.”“You think I'm beautiful?” Loraine perked up, anger forgotten. The wonder of teenage hormones.I didn't respond to Loraine, which renewed her fury.“Do you think I'm prettier?” Aya jumped in.“Well, you don't have Loraine's deep blue eyes and Junior Miss physique, but you have the cuter smile and the boundless spirit of a winner,” I winked at Aya. Loraine flipped back to pleased.“What about me?” Europa prodded.“Oh, you are a total hag,” I sighed sadly. “It hurts me to look at you.” Europa's jaw dropped then she hit me repeatedly.“I give. I give,” I surrendered. The conflict was resolved for the rest of the trip.Aya was upset that Desiree wouldn't let me take her into the family's brownstone. After the chore was done, Desiree was non-communicative. I made it through the End of Day meeting intact with the hint that I actually did a good job. A bizarre conflict developed as I made my way to the elevator in my biking gear and a bulging dress bag - I was taking a taxi home.Buffy and Helena collided with the 'new hires' over who had the right to bombard me with sexual innuendo. I dodged any discussion on Rhada, blushed through my hart cords saga as well as my solo attempt at moose hunting, and all fishing expeditions concerning my dinner with Katrina.In the middle of my workout back at home, I got a call from the Desk Sergeant's daughter. Her name was Nikita Kutuzov - NYPD rookie patrolwomen and she exuded this raw confidence tempered with a suspicious nature. We agreed to meet for dinner. When we sat down at this Polish deli she frequented, she got down to brass tacks.“Have you ever been in a committed relationship?” was her lead in question.“Define a committed relationship,” I countered.“The answer would be 'no',” she sighed.“Why should I go out with you?” was her next point of attack.“I have a plethora of bizarre knowledge, I laugh at danger and have an incessant desire to learn,” I answered. That won me some points.“How much do you make a year?” she inquired.“Go to the bathroom, take off your panties then come back and give them to me,” I responded.Her eyes narrowed.“Your request was about as rude as mine,” I sighed. “Listen, if you are looking for an excuse to not go out with me, I'll spill some water on the table, you can tell your mother I was clumsy and call it a night,” I suggested. She glared, I looked bored then she got up and left.I wasn't worried for a second. A girl hadn't dumped me on the first date in three years. When she returned Nikita passed her undies under the table. I took the offering and deftly pocketed them.“$237,000 a year,” I confessed. Nikita choked on her soda. “I do dangerous work.”When I said 'fat paycheck' I meant 'FAT PAYCHECK'. In retrospect, this was the shiny lure they hooked us pompous 'Cream of the Crop' doofuses with. My pay was probably a clerical error as I would have taken the job for far less.“But you just got out of college,” she choked. “Do you weapon test plutonium, or what?”“I really can't talk about my job, Nikita. Most of it is mindless stuff a trained chimpanzee could do yet falls within the purview of corporate confidentiality,” I told her. “I am on call 24/7, which is a bit sucky - reference my salary again. I also get long- and short-term disability, major medical, eye, dental and health insurance plus a generous life insurance policy and a 401K.”“They have you doing illegal things, don't they?” she leaned across the table.“I refuse to answer on the grounds I'm on a date with a law enforcement agent,” I parried.“I can't date a criminal,” she cautioned.“Would it help if I promise to never get caught?” I tried to look innocent.“That's a ringing endorsement for me leaving right now,” she grinned. She wasn't doing that. They never did. It is not that women are sluts. I exude the promise of great, guilt-free sex and each one believes they are going to be the one that reels me in and tames me. This despite all the evidence to the contrary - namely that I do this with every woman I meet.We finished eating, bought some drinks to go and took a walk. Somewhere along the way, I slipped my arm around her waist. Nikita took thirty seconds to bring it up.“What's with this?” she prodded.“I like the feel of your body close to mine, Nikita. If it bothers you, I'll stop,” I offered.She didn't stop me; she reciprocated the gesture and carried on. We talked about growing up; me in Chicago and her in New York City, missing one parent (her father divorced her mom, my mother having died of cancer) and having the other parent work long hours. She'd graduated from Queens College with a degree in Criminal Justice then gone to the Police Academy - she was a year older than me.We parted ways outside the Deli. I gave her a tender French kiss. She wanted more. I wanted a second date so we parted ways with Nikita looking over her shoulder and grinning at me as she walked away. Girls like it when you only have eyes for them. My bicycle had barely gotten on the road home when my phone rang - work.I had to go to corporate and meet up with Desiree. I called her and gave her my location - I was in the wrong direction, farther from the workplace than normal. She grudgingly agreed the best course of action was to come get me, though the purpose of the assignment wasn't given. Desiree didn't utter a word as she picked me up and drove to the work site.We ended up at the children's house. Desiree parked the car and led me, in my bike clothes, up the steps of the townhouse. The looks we were greeted with weren't promising. The woman at the door was an older version of Loraine - not her twin but closely related. I had barely crossed the door sill when the nature of the problem became evident.Aya was screaming. Desiree and I were kept in the entryway for a minute until a more mature woman came gliding down the stairs, clearly steamed and, upon seeing me, livid with rage.“What have you done to my child?” the older woman seethed.“I'm not sure what you are talking about,” I answered.“He did nothing more than his job,” Desiree's defense of me came out of nowhere. “He engaged himself in the welfare of your daughter. I was there the entire time.”“Come this way,” the older woman beckoned. Desiree, the woman from the door and me followed her up two flights of stairs to Aya's room.Loraine and Europa had stepped out of their rooms and were observing us.“There,” the woman - Mom - pointed me into the room.“Cáyel,” Aya squealed. “You came.” She was sitting in bed with her arms outstretched. I crossed the distance, sat down and hugged her.“Now what seems to be the problem?” I tapped her nose.“I…I - ah - wanted you to tuck me in,” she mumbled.“As your Daddy, or as Cáyel?” I questioned.“As my Daddy,” she murmured.“I am not your Daddy, Aya,” I explained. “I am your friend, and your guardian upon occasion, but I am not worthy of being your Father. You are a very special girl and I am the son of a working stiff from Chicago. With your Mom's and Katrina's permission, I would gladly help you convince the World that I am your Daddy. We must remember that this is not real, okay?”“Why can't you be my real Daddy?” Aya asked. 'Because your Mommy would bite my dick off' didn't seem the politically correct thing to say.“Life can be very harsh, Aya. We all face different challenges. Since life has not provided you with a Daddy, you must find a way to get by without one,” I said. “Now let me tuck you in.”We hugged, I tucked her in, kissed her on her forehead then waited around a few seconds while she held my adult hand in her tiny mitt. As I left, the Mother cut off the light and shut the door.“Good night, Cáyel,” Europa and Loraine called out. I waved, but kept my peace. Downstairs, it was a bit less pleasant.“I will report this egregious breech of conduct to Katrina. You are dismissed,” she waved her hand.“Really?” I perked up.“Cáyel, don't,” Desiree cautioned me.“Oh, come on,” I pleaded. “Desiree, what is the penalty for tucking a little girl into bed? Wait - wait, are they going to get me for NOT embarrassing a child in public? Is it because I accepted a female's gender-appropriate pet name?”“Shut up,” Desiree demanded sedately.“Yes ma'am - Desiree,” I sighed.“The charges will be murdering our patience, insolence, irreverence and not being able to follow simple commands - like 'Cáyel don't',” she explained. I could swear she was mocking our hostess except that wasn't like Desiree. She had no sense of humor.“Do you think this is funny, Half-blood?” Mom mocked.“No. He is a jester and I'm superior to him because, unlike you, Pure-blood, I can tell the difference between his juvenile antics and him being a viable threat,” Desiree reposed. “Funny is Cáyel throwing his body on top of your eldest daughter, sacrificing himself to save her life only to be treated by you as a common household pest.”“It was a test,” Mom said.“He didn't know that,” Desiree countered, “or are you claiming he fooled me and the entire security detail?” Insulting Desiree was okay in Mom's book. Insinuating those stone-cold bitches who scared the crap out of me this morning were incompetent wasn't.“I repeat, you are dismissed,” Mom seethed. This time we took our leave. Desiree remained lost in her own thoughts as she drove me home.“Thank you,” I said when we were close.“For what?” she murmured.“No specific cause. I reason that if I say 'thank you' a few thousand times, one day you'll say it to me,” I looked at her through the corner of my eye.“Hold your breath,” Desiree commanded. “Hold your breath until I repeat the words 'thank you'.”There was really no way around that. I practiced breath-control techniques I had learned from swimming and diving, making the most of what air I had. Desiree was heartless. I broke the two minute mark, which wasn't bad given my lack of preparation. I leaned forward, panting for breath and looking down.“You might want to appreciate that you are not perfect, can't do everything and should reacquaint yourself with your limitations,” Desiree commented.“Thank you, Desiree,” I gasped. That was some of the best advice I'd received on the job to date.“You are welcome, Cáyel,” she said serenely. In her culturally limited way, Desiree had allowed me a tiny space in her world - Immature Student Lackey. “Be at work thirty minutes early.” With that, I exited to my apartment and belatedly got to my workout. Timothy was out on a date so I had to bolt out of the shower to get whomever was at the door when the doorbell rang.“I must redeem my prestige by breaking your spirit, Cáyel Nyilas,” Rhada snarled then leapt to the attack. I was standing there, dripping wet, with my hand clenching the towel tightly around my waist. Mortal Combat - the pornographic edition. Rhada was feisty yet I had the feeling she was more into our fight as a contact sport than a real effort to subdue me.I wasn't aware that there was an oral appliance that allowed you to give a blowjob without having the recipient bite your dick off. Timothy had one in his toy box. Rhada and I tried it out, but I got the feeling she didn't get much from the experience. I felt like I was at a glory hole. After that, things got better.I clued in that Rhada's key focus of arousal was being forced to pleasure me. Under threat of something horrible (mostly in her imagination), hands bound behind her back, she'd fuck me in every imaginable way and she was even becoming passible at fellatio. Binding her legs was actually counterproductive. If I wanted to pin her legs, she liked it if I wrestled with her.I keep pushing myself to keep up with her. When someone screamed in pain, my gut instinct was to succor them. For Rhada, it was a signal for her wanting more. I'd really helped her through some serious frustrations, and a great deal of sweat, when the phone rang. Rhada was facing me, bouncing in my lap with her ball gag back in (she liked to bite during climax).“Hello?” I said.“Hey Cáyel Nyilas, it is Odette. Whatchya doing tonight?” my waitress bed-buddy asked.“I'm bored out of my skull, doing something worthless,” I answered. “Do you want to come over, or do we want to meet at your place tonight?”“Ah - um - I live at home with my parents,” she confessed.“Come on over. I need to clean up a mess first,” I told her. “See you soon.” With that, I hung up and looked into Rhada's eyes. “You really are a worthless mess.” She sobbed. “What are you crying about you disgraced harlot? Are you surprised I'd want to be with a real woman?”“You are a disgusting piece of filth so that's how you deserve to be treated; not like a true tower of femininity,” I continued to press her buttons. She was really upset and absolutely erotically active. I was starting to get worried about the vigor she was pounding me with. Sadly, I had some plans to implement before Odette arrived. I kept Rhada on my lap, swiveled us off the bed and fished out a few restraints.Rhada wrapped her powerful legs around my waist. Using a combination of thigh, stomach and vaginal muscles, the Indian Princess kept working my cock with every bit of imagination she could muster. We traveled out to the workout area. I leaned over the weight bench, pressed Rhada down and put a hand around her throat.Honestly, all this cruelty and humiliation was grating on me. Sure, I knew Rhada was evil, as was her entire culture. The thing was, I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I didn't think I had it in me to harm, or murder, a person who was not an immediate threat. The reality was twofold. If I didn't do this for Rhada, she'd find someone else who would, with the likelihood of grievous harm coming to her.Also, I could do without her holding a grudge for my kicking her ass then rejecting her amorous advances. For now, I played her game with the added benefit that tonight was a 'freebie' - not in my cue.“Bitch, I'm going to tie you down and ruin you until you can't walk straight. Fight back and I'm going ram two dildos into you and leave them on all night long,” I threatened.I could see her thinking about it as I gave her some more crushed ice to drink. In the end, she allowed her feet to be bound separately then her hands bound together over her head. Once she was secure, I leaned in and whispered in her ear.“I lied, Rhada. I'm going to shove two vibrators in anyway,” Rhada thrashed about against her bonds.After lubing up both sex toys, I worked them into her pussy and ass. She wiggled and shifted about a few times, but her heart wasn't in it. She was too clearly looking forward to the torturous pleasure coming her way. I cut them both on then, because I could, I put on three vibrating eggs; one on her clit and the others for each nipples. That drove her wild. I readied the last part of my plan.“Rhada,” I leaned in and spoke softly, “I'm putting your phone in your hand. Press the 'send' button and it will call my phone. I'll come get you. Don't drop it. Rhada?” Her wild eyes flashed about, gained some clarity and met my gaze. She nodded her understanding. Now I had to worry that she would drop the phone on purpose just to add to her torment.I drew the makeshift curtain that separated our workout space from the rest of the living room, cut on the TV to mute the sound of moaning and vibrators. While cleaning up in the bathroom, I realized I had to dump my condom. Doing two girls with the same one was beyond thoughtless and gross.My drawstring shorts were barely cinched up when the doorbell rang. Thankfully it was Odette. Extra special was Odette wanted to get freaky with me - she brought a dildo and some lube. The problem with having a vast variety of sex was that fewer and fewer things were new and remembering how exciting it was your first time with a given kink gets tougher.Odette decided that conversation was overrated as she waltzed through the door. She showed me her toy, grabbed my hand and led me to my bedroom. I helped her undress, which she liked. Then she threw me down and raped me. She was even all excited about rolling her first condom on. She hadn't been a virgin last night, only lacking in confidence.Tonight, she was a beast (in her mind). After our first noisy, moist round, Odette 'discovered' another pleasure; namely sitting up, riding my cock and getting into an in depth discussion about our relationship - sigh. When a woman thinks it is casual sex it is casual sex. When a man thinks it is casual sex it could be any Goddamn thing.To Odette's credit, she was willing to talk about things she'd like to do, didn't get too upset when she finally pried out of me that I'd been with more than a dozen women, and she took suggestions well. She liked to talk about mutual interests, cuddled without being needy and asked if what she was doing made me feel good in a way that didn't make her sound insecure.At 2:10 my phone buzzed. Odette barely murmured then rolled over and went back to sleep. It was Rhada. Sneaking out wasn't so difficult. I stealthed to the bathroom, got a wet wash cloth and a towel, followed that up with a trip to get some chilled bottled water and finished up at Rhada's side.She was barely there at all. My hands flew over her body in the dim light then I pulled her into my lap on the floor.“Rhada?” I called to her gently.“Kill you,” she whispered. She was okay.In my sleep-deprived state I missed her initially looking at me. Her eyes were unfathomable. I pressed the water to her lips and let her drink in small sips. Five minutes later, she was in better shape mentally and physically.“Why?” she asked.“Sometimes it is a matter of why not?” I replied.“You hate me,” she furrowed her brow.“What gave you that idea?” I reposed.“You are a man…you don't hate me?” she struggled to breach our cultural divide.“Rhada, I can't speak for all men, but I don't hate you. I have no intention of destroying you,” I paused. “I'm working on a way to suspend you off the ground blindfolded next time. Tarnishing your prestige is not on my agenda though.”“Do you like causing me pain?” she studied me. That was a tough one both from my perspective and hers.“I treasure every orgasm I rip from your body, Rhada,” I breathed into her ear. It was the best I could do. For Rhada it was enough.She wasn't suicidal, only ravenous in her need to surrender to her taboo desires. Her not being on the edge of death with me lessened her thrill. It also meant she could live long enough to have all kinds of other thrills. This was the bargain we were making. How I was going to live up to it was going to be intriguing.Maybe I could bill Katrina for the needed playroom upgrades. What the future held was coming with the dawn. First I had to make sure Rhada was clear-headed and ambulatory. Then came the trip to her auto and her fiery kiss and body hug. Rhada liking me was okay. Rhada getting attached to me was one more headache I didn't need.To be continued in Part 4By FinalStand for Literotica.

Summer pageants and fairs offer a chance for young Native women to represent their nations as royalty. They carry a title and a platform to educate and inform others about important issues and their culture. At the same time, the ‘Indian Princess' label brings with it a number of problematic stereotypes that don't fully reflect […]

Summer pageants and fairs offer a chance for young Native women to represent their nations as royalty. They carry a title and a platform to educate and inform others about important issues and their culture. At the same time, the ‘Indian Princess' label brings with it a number of problematic stereotypes that don't fully reflect […]

Summer pageants and fairs offer a chance for young Native women to represent their nations as royalty. They carry a title and a platform to educate and inform others about important issues and their culture. At the same time, the ‘Indian Princess' label brings with it a number of problematic stereotypes that don't fully reflect Native women's strength, beauty and intelligence. We'll talk about redefining pageants and the ways Native women exemplify poise, strength and use the platform to shine a positive light on their communities and inspire others to pursue their goals and dreams.

The love story of Jodhaa and the great emperor Akbar is one of the most famous love stories to come out of India but many forget that behind the Bollywood glamour and mythos was a real relationship and that Jodhaa was one of the greatest empresses in Mughal history. Come join me as we learn about the life of this Indian Princess who's birth name we don't even know. 21qagvc?> “Akbar.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 May 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar. “Bharmal.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 May 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharmal. Desk, India Today Web. “Jodha Bai's 474th Birth Anniversary: 17 Facts about the Queen Mother.” India Today, 1 Oct. 2016, www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/jodha-bai-344257-2016-10-01. “Jahangir.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 May 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahangir. “Mariam-Uz-Zamani.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 May 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariam-uz-Zamani. “Mariam-Uz-Zamani (1542-1623).” Familypedia, familypedia.wikia.org/wiki/Mariam-uz-Zamani_(1542-1623). “Mughal Empire.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 12 May 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire. “Mughal Harem.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Apr. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Harem. Mutsuddi, Indranil. “Jodha Bai: The Legendary Rajput Mughal Empress..Chasing the Truth.” Medium, Medium, 15 Sept. 2015, medium.com/@i_mutsuddi/jodha-bai-the-legendary-rajput-mughal-empress-chasing-the-truth-7a5ad162735f. Sheikh, Majid. “Harking Back: Mystery of the Rajput Empress Mariam Zamani.” DAWN.COM, 22 Mar. 2020, www.dawn.com/news/1542722. Szczepanski, Kallie. “Who Are the Rajput People of India?” ThoughtCo, www.thoughtco.com/who-are-the-rajput-195385.

How do you dismantle the colonial myth of POCAHONTAS? Disney's portrait of the Indian Princess has been indelibly pressed into young minds: she is naïve and noble, sexualized, innocent, and needy of a white saviour to win her heart. In reality, Indigenous women have always played strong and valued roles in their communities, leading by will and courage. Western society has created the archetype of the Good Indian, frozen in time, smiling and helpful. Together, we will decolonize this stereotype and examine portrayals of Indigenous people in Hollywood and beyond.

Faucahontas. read://https_www.msn.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.msn.com%2Fen-us%2Fmoney%2Fcompanies%2Felizabeth-warren-goes-after-disney-for-laying-off-thousands-of-workers%2Far-BB1a3KA9%3Focid%3Dmsedgntp

Ok then lets get this thing rolling shall we gents? Ahh hello and welcome to the Metaphysical Theater on Anchor FM, a podcasting app available free now on Google Play. The official debut of the Indian Princess, metaphysics leaning arrival on the Metaphysical Theaters Stage. Patrica Wood I am Coswell the British Lord and proud to be reading an ode to Percy Dovetonsiles on the Metaphysical Theater today. As a result of this poem I renounced my Lordship and good standing in the Empire. Ode to Percy Dovetonsils is written by Patricia Wood the Indian Princess: a poetic phenom. Silence! 'Ode to Percy Dovetonsils'  Oh Percy you are so fine, It's good to see and hear you all the time!  The wiggle of your head, the pursing of your lips, It's as lovely as the daisy taking covert sips.  Your zebra smoking jacket with the lovely dark lapels!  How can mere mortal have such lovely twisting curls!  Percy, oh sweet Percy, So fantastically fine,  Percy, oh sweet Percy,  I love you for your mind!  And I also wrote  'Smudging'  brown hills, golden, swath of white,  invading sweet sage. cleaning the air, filling the senses with play.  dance,  sway, move to the music. glimpses of paradise.  I am a poet and I didn't know it, I am Coswell and that was the world debut of Ode to Percy Dovetonsils here on the Metaphysical Theater an Anchor Audio Podcast App on the Google play store, download now for free! I'm Coswell the artificial computer voice to day eeoo here on the metaphysical theater and the director in booth is signaling me to fill time with talking talking talking, How about a reread of past posts on the metaphysical theater? Nah so boring, lets do some do wa diddy bop jazz baby! Oooh baby Oh well I'm just a computer voice and can't really do anything without the endowment of the writer John T V R Z dot com. Well o.k. then alrighty Anchor Podcasting app is the proverbial bees knees, if you please. so don't stop to smell the roses without your favorite podcast in the queuing. Some you will cheer. Some you'll be booing. Anchor Podcast App is King if you like to speak as though you sing. A simple app that actually works. in this world of electric quirks. Jerks and crazy turks. So try your Anchor Podcast app if you say your piece, the world will bake a cat? Um no no no no no. That was what the hecklers was that? Anchor podcast app is King so try it out and do your thing. Yeah there that was the right ending. Hey now who's the joker? In the Armani suit, in the devils guise? I cannot hear dolby digital lies. We correct ourselves by self alone. Tossed a bone, upon your phone this theater within the theater, encoding it in secret. Peters Sword to Christs, Johns vision to incarnate experience malleable as life is. I choose I choose and choose choose choose eternally expanding my understanding of that choice.metaphysical theater podcast on Anchor FM. A great little reliable podcasting app on google play. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Ok then lets get this thing rolling shall we gents? Ahh hello and welcome to the Metaphysical Theater on Anchor FM, a podcasting app available free now on Google Play. The official debut of the Indian Princess, metaphysics leaning arrival on the Metaphysical Theaters Stage. Patrica Wood I am Coswell the British Lord and proud to be reading an ode to Percy Dovetonsiles on the Metaphysical Theater today. As a result of this poem I renounced my Lordship and good standing in the Empire. Ode to Percy Dovetonsils is written by Patricia Wood the Indian Princess: a poetic phenom. Silence! 'Ode to Percy Dovetonsils'  Oh Percy you are so fine, It's good to see and hear you all the time!  The wiggle of your head, the pursing of your lips, It's as lovely as the daisy taking covert sips.  Your zebra smoking jacket with the lovely dark lapels!  How can mere mortal have such lovely twisting curls!  Percy, oh sweet Percy, So fantastically fine,  Percy, oh sweet Percy,  I love you for your mind!  And I also wrote  'Smudging'  brown hills, golden, swath of white,  invading sweet sage. cleaning the air, filling the senses with play.  dance,  sway, move to the music. glimpses of paradise.  I am a poet and I didn't know it, I am Coswell and that was the world debut of Ode to Percy Dovetonsils here on the Metaphysical Theater an Anchor Audio Podcast App on the Google play store, download now for free! I'm Coswell the artificial computer voice to day eeoo here on the metaphysical theater and the director in booth is signaling me to fill time with talking talking talking, How about a reread of past posts on the metaphysical theater? Nah so boring, lets do some do wa diddy bop jazz baby! Oooh baby Oh well I'm just a computer voice and can't really do anything without the endowment of the writer John T V R Z dot com. Well o.k. then alrighty Anchor Podcasting app is the proverbial bees knees, if you please. so don't stop to smell the roses without your favorite podcast in the queuing. Some you will cheer. Some you'll be booing. Anchor Podcast App is King if you like to speak as though you sing. A simple app that actually works. in this world of electric quirks. Jerks and crazy turks. So try your Anchor Podcast app if you say your piece, the world will bake a cat? Um no no no no no. That was what the hecklers was that? Anchor podcast app is King so try it out and do your thing. Yeah there that was the right ending. Hey now who's the joker? In the Armani suit, in the devils guise? I cannot hear dolby digital lies. We correct ourselves by self alone. Tossed a bone, upon your phone this theater within the theater, encoding it in secret. Peters Sword to Christs, Johns vision to incarnate experience malleable as life is. I choose I choose and choose choose choose eternally expanding my understanding of that choice.metaphysical theater podcast on Anchor FM. A great little reliable podcasting app on google play.

The name's Genius. That Was Genius. Yes, it's spy week! Pew pew pew! Tom starts with a guide to simple sabotage by the OSS (later CIA ) in WW2. Now available to download (so you can kick start your own revolution), it's a handy, step by step guide to just really annoying people and being a bit of a p**k. Which according to the CIA, might just be enough to overthrow the Government. So get cracking.Next, Sam's got the story of Noor Inayat Khan, the reluctant, pacifist Indian Princess who became an allied spy in occupied Paris, despite some pretty scathing reviews of her ability from her superiors.  It's a great episode. Subscribe and listen to us! Apple Music // Podbean // Overcast // Stitcher // TuneIn // Spotify Welcome to That Was Genius: Two blokes. An immature sense of humour. And 10,000 years of human civilisation. A weekly podcast looking at the weirder side of history. Join Sam Datta-Paulin (he likes history and lives in Britain) and Tom Berry (he also likes history and used to live in New Zealand but is now in the UK as well), for a weekly reflection on the bold, the brilliant... And the downright strange. From bizarre events and stories to equally odd inventions, barely a day goes by without something incredible (or incredibly stupid) happening around the world. We upload new episodes every Wednesday night/Thursday morning (UK time). Check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and via our website, and please do subscribe to us and leave us a review if you like what you hear! That Was Genius is produced by Glorious Republic Broadcasting.

There were plenty of jobs for women in WW2: nurse, ambulance driver, factory worker. But then there were the other jobs, the ones no one really talked about. Spy. Resistance fighter. Killer. These are the stories of five women—Nadezhda Popova, Vitka Kempner, Noor Inayat Khan, Nancy Wake, and Lyudmila Pavlichenko—who fought the Nazis. They terrorized them from the sky, blew up their trains, endured their torture, rode bikes through their territory, and shot them down with their rifles. In a world that threatened to be consumed by evil, they fought back.  *** SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Become a Patreon supporter and get a cool postcard. Get a free month of Stitcher Premium at stitcherpremium.com with code BROADS. And get 25% off your Care/of order by heading to takecareof.com and using code CRIMINALBROADS. *** Sources: “Nadezhda Popova, WWII ‘Night Witch,’ Dies at 91,” New York Times, 14 July 2013 “Nadezhda Popova, celebrated Soviet ‘Night Witch’ aviator of World War II, dies at 91,” The Washington Post, 13 July 2013 “Vilna Jewish Partisans Led By Young Girl,” The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, 8 Sept 1944 “VITKA KEMPNER-KOVNER,” The Encyclopedia of Jewish Women “Vitka Kovner, partisan, passes away at the age of 92,” Yad Vashem, 15 Feb 2012 “Overlooked No More: Noor Inayat Khan, Indian Princess and British Spy,” New York Times, 28 Nov 2018 “One Woman, Many Surprises: Pacifist Muslim, British Spy, WWII Hero,” NPR, 6 Sept 2014 “Noor Inayat Khan: The Indian princess who spied for Britain,” BBC, 8 Nov 2012 “Nancy Wake, Proud Spy and Nazi Foe, Dies at 98,” New York Times, 13 Aug 2011 “Farewell to Nancy Wake, the mouse who ran rings around the Nazis,” The Guardian, 8 Aug 2011 “War hero Nancy Wake's ashes scattered in France,” ABC Australia, 10 Mar 2013 “Eleanor Roosevelt and the Soviet Sniper,” Smithsonian, 21 Feb 2013 “The life and myths of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, Soviet Russia's deadliest sniper,” Public Radio International, 9 March 2018 “By the Numbers: End of World War II,” CNN, 2 Sept 2013 World War II Foundation (for statistics)   Music: “Guilty” by Richard A. Whiting, Harry Akst, and Gus Kahn, sung by Anna Telfer “Shake It and Break It” by Lanin's Southern Serenaders, licensed under a Public Domain / Sound Recording Common Law Protection License “Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 16” by Sergei Rachmaninoff (Sviatoslav Richter, piano; Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, Stanislaw Wislocki, cond.), via archive.org. Samples played from “Miss Pavlichenko” by Woody Guthrie and Inglorious Bastards by Quentin Tarantino.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Satish Sivan, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Indian Embassy in Seoul talks to Hamsini Hariharan about ties between India and South Korea. For questions or comments, reach out to the host @HamsiniH or on Instagram @statesofanarchy. Read more: An Indian Princess in Korea  The Indian princess who became a South Korean queen India and South Korea: The Promise of Partnership India – Republic of Korea Bilateral Relations India-South Korea Relations  You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app.

She was an Indian Princess, daughter of the Chief of the Powhatans. She saved John Smith, helped keep the peace and supplied the colonists with food, she played a major role in the "Miracle of Jamestown". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andy and David are back talking comedy and great places to eat while performing it. Andy starts us out in Kinston, NC where he stopped with his Indian Princess and gave Kings BBQ Restaurant another try and they didn't disappoint. David then takes us to his house where he made what he claims were some of the best ribs ever, and he used organic ribs that had been "hugged every day and sung to." Andy then goes back to Kinston, NC on a separate trip to check out the infamous Chef and The Farmer from the famous PBS TV Show

Uncovering the forgotten lineage of the Statue of Liberty, Bob Hieronimus and Laura Cortner explain how she is based on a female symbol representing America on the earliest maps of the continent in the form of a Native American “Queen.” The image of a woman symbolizing independence was embraced by the American revolutionaries to rally the populace against the King, filling the role of “Founding Mother” and protector of the fledgling republic. Incorporating Libertas, the Roman goddess of freed slaves, with Minerva, Demeter, Justice, and the Indian Princess, Lady Liberty is seen all over the nation’s capital, and on the seals and flags of many states. Showing how a new appreciation for the Statue of Liberty as the American goddess can serve as a unifying inspiration for activism, the authors explore how this Lady Liberty is a personification of America and its destiny. They examine multiple traditions that influenced her symbolism, from the Neolithic Earth Mother, to Mary Magdalene, Columbia, and Joan of Arc, while revealing the sharp contrast between depicting “liberty” as a female and the reality of women and other suppressed classes throughout history. Their study of “Liberty Enlightening the World” led them to conclude that the empowerment of contemporary women is essential for achieving sustainable liberty for all.Robert  Hieronimus, Ph.D. is an internationally known historian, visual artist, and radio host and has appeared on History, Discovery, BBC, and National Geographic. The host of 21st Century Radio, he lives in Maryland. Laura E. Cortner has co-authored previous titles with Robert Hieronimus including Founding Fathers, Secret Societies and United Symbolism of America. Her work appears regularly in periodicals like UFO Magazine, FATE Magazine, and several Beatles publications. 

Restaurants Discussed this week, Dubuque Mining Company. Dubuque, IA, Gary's Down East Seafood, Grantsboro, NC, and a little bit on Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. This week we giggle through another episode which to be honest, is a lot more fun than it sounds. David takes us to Dubuque, IA where he had a great burger and questionable service. Then Andy takes us along on his Indian Princess weekend and stops at a seafood place for a little surf and turf. We also talk about Ruth Chris Steakhouse. And don't miss the discussion at the end when Andy reveals how he was on David Letterman years ago. It's a fun listen. Enjoy!

Biography of Indian Princess living in England as a suffraget.

The true story of an Indian Princess in the British court, weaving through the most important episodes in British and Indian history. Broadcaster, journalist and biographer Anita Anand was born in 1972 and educated at King's College, London. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

The Pocahontas myth has perpetuated the "Indian Princess" stereotype since the 17th century. Cristen and Caroline explore how this stereotype mangles the true history of Native American women and mythbust the Disney version of Pocahontas. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Indian Princesses,  Happy Halloween is, well, boring here in West Texas, Pirate Teaching and a…Listen to the PodcastDo you Have a Bod for God? Is Halloween so bad? I have an Indian Princess and Teach Like a Pirate and a Murder Mystery – TTIT 033

This week show got new remix tracks from Will.I.Am, Justin Bieber, Kelly Clarkson, Cher, Antoine Clamaran, Fenja,  Antonia, Alex van Alff, Sugarstarr, . New mashup mixes I Wanna Dance With Somebody & Flashback. Also I throw Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake, Armin Van Buuren, Soulcast, Lorindo, Barry Harris, Pepper MaShay & many more into the mix. Have a great weekend guys!  1. This Is What It Feels Like (W&W Remix) - Armin Van Buuren, Trevor Guthrie 2. Dive In The Pool - Barry Harris, Pepper MaShay 3. Marabou (DJ Just Club Remix) - Antonia 4. That Power (Matt Nevin Extended Mix) - Will.I.Am, Justin Bieber 5. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Enrry Senna & Edu Quintas Rework) (DJ Toshi TYler Edit) - Whitney Houston Vs. Rihanna  6. Scream & Clobber (Enrry Senna Mash) - Britney Spears vs Dannic 7. I'm Into You  (Low Sunday Im Into You Club Mix) - Jennifer Lopez, Lil Wayne 8. People Like Us (Paulo & Jackinsky United Remix) - Kelly Clarkson 9. Push Back (Sugarstarr Mix) - Alex van Alff, Sugarstarr 10. Beautiful Thing (Bellatrax Remix) - Soulcast, Indian Princess  11. Right Here Waiting (Creon Club Remix) - Lorindo 12. Suit And Tie (Mike Rizzo And Hedrush Remix) - Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z  13. Woman's World (Danny Verde Club Mix) - Cher 14. Flashback Reload Vs. March March (A&G Mashup) - Sebastian Ingrosso & Tommy Trash Vs. Thomas Gold Vs. Calvin Harris 15. This Is My Goodbye (Damian William Remix DJ Toshi TYler Edit)- Antoine Clamaran, Fenja https://soundcloud.com/djtoshityler http://www.facebook.com/djtoshityler http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dj-toshi-tyler-dance-club/id528277849 http://djtoshityler.com

For our annual Spring Pledge Drive, we feature a book about race, religion and DNA.  The book is The Wandering Gene and the Indian Princess, by Jeff Wheelwright.   It's a story about a beautiful young, Hispano woman in the San Luis Valley of Colorado who one day finds a pea-sized lump in her breast.  Her name is Shonnie Medina.  She is both Spanish and Native American - and the Spanish side of her family has been in the San Luis Valley for many centuries, farming, ranching, for the most part devout Catholics, often proud of their Catholic Spanish heritage.  We learn that Shonnie is a carrier of a potentially deadly condition, because her DNA includes “the breast cancer gene" that increases the risk of breast cancer, in some cases, by 80%, while also increasing the risk of other cancers, including some in men.  It’s a mutation that is over a thousand years old, and surprisingly, the version of this mutation that Shonnie carries is sometimes known as a "Jewish" cancer. For more, here’s Shelley talking with The Wandering Gene’s author, Jeff Wheelwright. Hosts: Susan Moran, Joel Parker Producer: Shelley Schlender Engineer: Shelley Schlender Contributor: Jim Pullen Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender Listen to the show:

Show your Pride this summer! Featuring - Boogie 2Nite (Seamus Haji Big Love Mix) - Booty Luv, Deeper Love (Big Room Mix) - Eddie Thoneick, Beautiful Liar (Freemasons Club Edit) - Beyonce & Shakira, I Want Your Love (Soulcast Icon Mix) - Jody Watley, Someone Like Me (Soul Avengerz Remix) - Soulcast feat. Indian Princess, Green Light (Freemasons Vox Mix) - Beyonce, SOS (Stonebridge Remix) - Stonebridge, My Freedom (David Guetta Mix) - Chris Willis. Free to download and stream. Search "Joelby" on: Spotify // GooglePlay // iTunes // Apple Podcasts // Mixcloud // Podomatic DJ bookings: info@joelby.co.uk All episodes also: search "joelby" in your podcast app, or go to http://www.joelby.co.uk Insta/Twit: @djjoelby facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joelbysfunkyvocalhouse Bonus mixes on Mixcloud: http://www.mixcloud.com/joelby/