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2 episodes with janissaries
2 episodes with janissaries
2 episodes with janissaries
2 episodes with janissaries
2 episodes with janissaries
2 episodes with janissaries
2 episodes with janissaries
3 episodes with janissaries
3 episodes with janissaries
Does food have the power to send messages when words aren't enough? This week Ruth Alexander finds out how food can sometimes speak much louder than words. Lecturer in Chinese Cultural Studies Dr Zhaokun Xi explains why gifting a pear in China can quietly suggest separation — and how it still carries weight today. Chef Beejhy Barhany reflects on the role of Ethiopian food in expressing care and welcome through gursha, the act of feeding people with your hands. We find out how food can be used as a signal of protest from historian and food researcher Aylin Oney Tan. From the Janissaries tipping their cauldrons of soup to signal unrest, to black pepper in a wedding dish to symbolise the role of the mother in law. And we learn about the power of food in mourning; Greek food writer Aglaia Kremezi tell us about koliva, a sweet dish served at funerals in Greece — and how it attempts to soften the bitterness of loss. If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Ruth Alexander Producer: Izzy Greenfield
Join us for another exciting episode of Spoilers! Tristan, Jordan and Nick take you through the newly revealed rules, equipment and profiles that have come out in the last week and add some spicy takes, and relish in the predictions we got right! Thanks for listening! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LossofLieutenant Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lossoflieutenant Discord: https://discord.gg/MBG4hesQZt 0:00 Intro/Challenges/Events 5:00 TAGCom + Taguraida, JSA TAG Pilots 15:39 Jump + Super Jump 23:34 Seraph 37:53 Transmutation (Escape System -X) + Maximus 50:30 Decoy + Barsuk 56:35 Deployable Cover + Sophotects 1:10:40 Albedo Reword + Deployable Turrets + Fireflies 1:28:30 Janissaries 1:35:28 Qiang Gao 1:46:13 Drummers, Mobile Support 1:58:13 Agent Dukash 2:12:55 Maghariba Guard 2:23:00 Metsuke Officers + Hatamoto Imperial Guard 2:23:20 Final Thoughts
Islam, Abbasid slave armies, the role of slave armies in Islamic conquest, Sufism, Far West Ltd., the role of Sufism in militaries and intelligence services, Hermeticism, Janissaries, Ottoman Empire, dehumanization of women in militaries, Hussite Wars, early Protestantism, Islamic support for Protestantism, Bohemia, the Moravian Church, the spread of the Abbasid system to Europe after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic influence on Elizabethan England, the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell, Cromwell's New Model Army, the revolution in European military affairs, Unitarianism, Universalism, Quakerism, how the Janissary system influenced Quakerism's interest in public education, Colonial America, how the "pacifistic" Quakers embraced war profiteering, the fragmentation of Quakerism following the American Revolution, Monroe, Wisconsin, the Twining family, the Society of Cincinnati, the Twining family link to the Cincinnati, Royal Arcanum, Freemasonry, Nathan Crooks Twining, Twining's role in spreading militarism in Green County, General Nathan F. Twining, Ufology, Project Blue Book, the Twining memo, American Security Council, American Legion, American Protective League, the military's role in civilian affairs, the American Legion as strikebreakers/labor spiesMusic by: Keith Allen Dennishttps://keithallendennis.bandcamp.com/ Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This week we delve into the transformative period of the Ottomans from Osman to the Battle of Nicopolis. It highlights how Osman, the son of an Anatolian warlord, laid the foundations for what would become one of the world's greatest empires, despite starting as just one of many Turkic beys in a tumultuous landscape. The narrative explores the cultural and military strategies that enabled the Ottomans to expand, emphasizing their approach of gradual assimilation and religious tolerance as they conquered predominantly Christian lands. The episode also recounts the dramatic Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, where a coalition of European knights faced the formidable Ottoman forces, leading to a catastrophic defeat for the crusaders. As the episode unfolds, it illustrates the lasting impact of these events on the geopolitical landscape of Europe and the Ottoman Empire's rise as a dominant power in the centuries to follow.Takeaways: The Ottomans emerged from a small confederation led by Osman, who successfully united various Turkic tribes. Unlike many conquests in history, the Ottomans employed a model of tolerance and integration with conquered populations. The downfall of the Byzantine Empire was marked by its inability to respond effectively to nomadic incursions. Osman's victory at the Battle of Baphis established his reputation and attracted more followers to his cause. Janissaries, elite soldiers of the Ottoman army, were originally recruited from captured Christian boys. The catastrophic defeat of the crusading army at Nikopol in 1396 reshaped the power dynamics in Eastern Europe. The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.As always:Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.comFacebook: @HOTGPod Twitter: @germanshistoryInstagram: history_of_the_germansReddit: u/historyofthegermansPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/HistoryofthegermansTo make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season. So far I have:The Ottonians Salian Emperors and Investiture ControversyFredrick Barbarossa and Early HohenstaufenFrederick II Stupor MundiSaxony and Eastward Expansion
Sandwiches?In 30 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the podcast at Explicit Novels. “Some masks hide who we are. Others show who we want to be” I could bowl Mercy over with a feather. Rio and I are doing the same social mechanics and come to the same conclusion. There are three reasons to marry a gay guy;1. money,2. social pressure and3. camouflage.Felicity doesn't need the money, so we simply assumed it to be number two. We totally missed the other reason; Felicity is a lesbian. Rio takes it in her slow and easy style. She walks up and puts Felicity in a gentle Mercy, Felicity, Rio sandwich."I am going to have so much fun breaking you in," Rio whispers affectionately to Felicity. "When you get good at it, I'll let you play with Mercy, she likes to be played with but you have to be firm. Do you like it firm and hard, my most favorite and annoying little Ass-Tramp?" Subtle like a freaking tsunami. Mercy recovers from her shock to nod her head vigorously."What about Barbie Lynn?" Felicity inquires with velvet hunger."She's Zane's," Rio informs her. Felicity looks a bit disappointed. "Zane shares her though, so don't expect her to fall in love with you," then leans in and up, "but you'll find out her lips, titties and ass are to die for. Now let's go back to my room and let me show you some things," Rio grins, looks over her shoulder and gives me a wink. Who's room?Barbie Lynn pats my ass then skips after the trio."We are going to lube up Mercy and try out some of the basics," Rio instructs Felicity. "We'll see what intrigues you then I'll send you home with some toys to practice with and, well, loosen you up a bit. Mercy didn't become fantastic overnight. I had to work on her a lot. See,” and the conversation is drowned out by the rest of the students on the floor.No one has batted an eye about Mercy, Rio, and/or Felicity either. Maybe I really am the downfall of the Judeo-Christian tradition after all. Rio is taking responsibility for Mercy. Mercy just stepped out to the World as her true self, a tiny, tiny step anyway. Barbie Lynn is playing Dorm Mother in spades and in a manner way beyond the Handbook's job description.Valarie, Vivian and Iona have gathered together then when Vivian finger-beckons me over. I saunter over to see what's going to go wrong with my life next, and if they have any Tribbles hiding there I'm going to burn the little bastards in the sink. That's not what brings me over."All the Advocate-candidates have been approached and agreed to serve," Vivian seems amused to inform me. "They want what little ceremony exists to be performed and the Advocates sworn in at 9pm.""Has someone worked on an Oath of Office," I groan. 'To one's self be true', what else can I say?"It seems some of the prelaw students actually had a little contest and they've put something together," Vivian smiles warmly. "It has been downloaded to your phone, it is under Advocate Oath of Office.""Why are you being such a smart ass?" I look her over. "Hasn't my day been bad enough?""Zane, have you seen your phone log for the past twelve hours?" Vivian asks me. I have been ignoring my phone, in fact. I check it now and I bless those hard working Taiwanese and the huge memory capacity they've put in my global lifeline; otherwise my phone would have melted down hours ago.Fuck, I have phone calls from people I don't even know, who live in, France, Germany, Brazil and Belarus? I rack my mind to remember where Belarus is, blonde-haired, blue eyed Slavic ladies, now I know! The viewing of Star Trek humiliations seem to be universal but at least they don't know my name or face. There is some serious Time Lord Mafia paddling over this one. They've used my damn private phone number."When do you think you'll talk to Rio," Iona asks cautiously."I'll take care of that right now, while she's feeling happy and playful," I comfort Iona. "Besides, it could be worse; everyone is looking for a pudgy Sasquatch, not me." The three ladies all stare at me. "Oh fuck," I groan."Well," Vivian looks away (oh hell), "the footage sort of shows you taking a shower plus your name and phone number.""But your transformation into is a fur-ball is truly precious," Valarie comforts/mocks me. "All my gal-pals out West think you are so cute; Phoenix, one of my Mom's jailbird friends, even used the 'too cute' emoticon and I didn't even think she knew what emoticons were. She sent it to all her buds still in lock-up too.""Great, I'm popular in a women's correctional facility, at least it is in another state," I sigh upward. I pray to God that never becomes relevant. "Hell, I have a housewife in Belarus she wants me as a house pet.""What does she look like?" Valarie seems curious."How would I know?" I am somewhat offended. Valarie takes my phone but I don't resist too much. She scrolls a bit then hits the number. "Don't call her," I bark. Valarie laughs then hands me my phone back.She shows me the 'entirety' of the girl's message. Nice bikini, or what there is of it and I can't imagine it being too practical that far north. She is divorced, with a one year old son, 22 years old and fresh out of college with a job as a PR specialist for a real estate development firm. She also speaks seven freaking languages, I feel like such an underachiever right now, or male underwear model.Maybe I'll make her a pen pal ~ she's a half a world away. I should be safe. Right now I can't play it safe though; I have to go play with Rio and I know that violates my health insurance under the 'feeding dangerous animals' clause."Zane," Iona offers to take my phone so I give it to her (why should I distrust her right?). Her delicate little fingers fly across it then she hands it back. "You now have a fifteen minute warning," she is trying to be helpful."Paige seems to have vanished," I request, "so when you see her, tell her to give us some peace please." The three of the saner women I know give me a nod.I round the final screen and there is my sleeping platform. Barbie Lynn and Felicity are examining a stunning large collection of sexual aids (that my credit card must have paid for), which Rio is sedately explaining to them, sort of what you would expect from a Mary Kay or Avon saleswomen. Mercy is bent over the bed, pushing up her ass by standing on her toes, skirt and panties gone and surreptitiously undoing her blouse buttons when she thinks Rio isn't looking.Mercy even flashes a precious grin my way when she sees me. It is the 'Weeee! I'm about to get fucked' look. While amiably chatting away, Rio puts her hand over one of Felicity's hands and leads it over to Mercy's flank. Felicity puts up a token resistance."Do that again and it will cost you," Rio purrs. Felicity stares at Rio's feral nature, seeing her truly for the first time then obeys. "Good girl," Rio coos in Felicity's ear.That reminds me what I've forgotten to do today, the air filters. I look around the various wardrobes for some sort of precision tool like a baseball bat, crowbar, sledgehammer, fire axe or chainsaw, I have a cricket bat? What the hell am I doing with a cricket bat? Isn't that the National sport of India; is it even played on this continent? It may be one of a kind; I'll spare it."Zane!" Rio snaps. Apparently she's been calling my name for a second or two."Yeah Bro, what do you need?" I answer. I'm not being attacked by someone so she must need something from me."Felicity is self-conscious about being naked in front of us girls," Rio grins. "Could you pick out a swimsuit for her that is conservative and demur?" In Rio-speak that means three small circle Band-Aids and some dental floss."What color would you like Felicity?" I ask. She says white; I groan because when you sweat/drip on white it becomes translucent. Maybe she's teasing me.I pick out a Rio-approved set (she has a whole drawer labeled 'Slut Wear' after all), hides it from her until I walk around and hand the 'suit' to Rio.Top lesson:1. Rio is in charge.Rio approved approves the look suit then hands it to Felicity."You expect me to wear this?" Felicity gasps."That's going to cost you Sweet-cheeks," Rio grins wickedly."I can't wear this," Felicity stammers. Rio puts a finger to her lips to stop Felicity from saying anything else."I apologize, Ms. Tolliver," Rio nods, "I think you are in the wrong place. Thank you for the books; good-bye now." Felicity is looking back and forth between Rio, Barbie Lynn, Mercy and me. Barbie Lynn gives Felicity a friendly shrug; I mirror that gesture while Rio takes up a medium lavender dildo, a bottle of lube and pours an expertly delivered thin stream on the tool and Mercy's asshole as if they are one. She's pointedly ignoring Felicity.Felicity is a 'Prom Queen' type and now some jumped-up freshman has dismissed her like she is nothing; I doubt that has ever happened before. On the other hand, Rio is brazenly open with her sexuality and sexual desires; a freedom Felicity has always felt denied her. Felicity almost makes a crucial mistake but I catch her starting to form the words 'I'm sorry' to me but I redirect her with a tilt of my head."I apologize," Felicity whispers."Zane, could you take over for me please," Rio says. I step around to her far side and start working my dildo slowly into Mercy's rectum. She wiggles her ass playfully to the intrusion. Rio steps up to Felicity, rises up on her tiptoes and grips Felicity's head firmly but gently. Rio tries to kiss Felicity but I can tell the taller blonde's jaws clench and her body stiffens."One last chance," Rio insists. She lets the implications sink in then kisses her again. It is a close thing but Felicity finally breaks down and let's Rio's tongue master her tongue, mouth and lips. Felicity moan eradicates a decade of repression and denial and it is with some reluctance that the taller blonde lets the short, darker Rio settle down. Rio presses a finger to Felicity's lips again."This is going to be the last time I'm nice to you for some time," Rio begins. She stops Felicity from speaking once more. "Zane and I are closer than family, he's number 1 in my book; there is no other. I will call you whatever I want to call you and you will not talk back. My safe words are 'That fucking hurts' or clapping your ankles together if you can't speak.""Mercy is mine; hurt her and I will bury you, my hand to God. Outside of that, I will use you like I want to. I will show you things you've only read about, make you dress in clothes that terrify you, and press you as hard as I can because I care about you Felicity. Are you a virgin?" Rio inquires."Yes," Felicity moans somewhat frightened."Your vaginal virginity is yours, your oral and anal virginity are mine," she explains. "When I say come over, don't make excuses, bring your ass to wherever I am. I am going to be hard on you and give you to my friends to play with because it amuses me, clear? Are you okay with this; if you aren't, this is your last chance to back out because I will hunt your ass down after tonight.""I can, I'm okay with this," Felicity says with less trepidation."Okay Bitch," Rio growls, "Take off your shoes, panties and skirt; pick out the paddle you think you deserve to be spanked with and bed over the bed. That shirt better not be in the way. Oh, you are leaving your bra with me tonight, go home without it. You only wear panties if you have my permission as well.""Yes,” Felicity falters."Call me Rio," she clarifies. "I'm not afraid of who the fuck I am. You've looked down at people like me all your life and now you are going to be as degraded as what you wanted me to go through. Payback is a bitch.""Yes Rio," Felicity confirms softly."Well, get to it," Rio snaps and swats Felicity's ass. "I want to waste some time on my beautiful, wonderful, annoying slut here," she moved to Mercy, "and her tricky little self has been taking off her clothes without my permission." The slap Rio plants leaves a red handprint on Mercy who exhales contentedly at Rio's attention. "Oh, you've been a naughty little fuck-slut, and you are wetter than the damn river," Rio whispers in Mercy's ear as one hand pumps the vibrator in her ass and the other strokes her wet cunt.Yeah Rio, that's putting the fear of God in Mercy, right. Felicity takes the most-wicked looking paddle available and I've never even seen Rio consider using."Bro, we have a meeting at 9pm so we need to break it up in about an hour," I give the bad news."Zane, damn, take over Mercy once more; I trust you with her but I want tears and if you could get her to bite up a ball gag, I'd appreciate it," Rio asks. Mercy has been placated and her position with Rio affirmed. She's a happy little Bottom once more because Rio finds her annoying, which means 'love' when translated into sane people-speak."Barbie Lynn, warm her up for me," Rio requests of the blonde bombshell as she falls on Felicity's behind's like a Bedouin dying of thirst. I can see Felicity about to turn and plead for Barbie Lynn's attention because she mistakenly believes BLT will be hesitant. Boy, she's in for a surprise. Barbie Lynn's thumbs push the base of Felicity's softly resistant ass up and apart.Barbie Lynn is lapping like a dog at Felicity's cunny alternating flicks of the tongue along the labia and short, rapid intrusions."What kind of sick masochist are you?" Rio snarls, waving Felicity's chosen paddle before her eyes. "I use this to crush the skulls of rogue water buffaloes; where was I supposed to hit you; on the asses of your ancestors cause that was where you were headed? What the hell was this even doing in my collection anyway?""Also, what are you doing with your bra still on? I'm going to want those bad boys milked before you escape tonight," Rio grumbled."You didn't,” Felicity starts to protest even as Barbie Lynn twirls her toward orgasm."Shut up!" Rio hisses. "Barbie Lynn, teach her a lesson." Barbie Lynn frees up one hand long enough to give her one 'moderate' spank. "Where is Paige; I need her nimble, spider-like finger of Evil."I can't seem to spot her so Paige is forced to clear her throat, she has carefully hidden herself behind my, pillow; she's hiding by the simple expedients of being in semi-darkness and being very still. It is so eerie I almost love her, love her."Jesus H. Christ," Rio jumps. "I'd put bells on you but I'd probably end up with them in my cunt, now that actually, focus Rio!" she chastises herself."Paige, help me strip my latest toy down and give her nipples a stress test," Rio requests."Deal, but you need to do me one favor," Paige starts crawling over toward Felicity."Sure, now get snappy," Rio urges her on as starts to pull Felicity's shirt over the girl's head."Forgive me for forcing Iona to help me and the Time Lord Mafia," Paige cashes in her favor immediately. It is all the more self-sacrificial in that I suspect Cordelia kept Paige out of the whole plot."Bitch," Rio seethes at Paige, "if you messed up Iona I'll still find a way to make you pay, I promise you.""You granted me a favor," Paige reminds Rio cautiously."Zane, do something," Rio pleads."I've already sworn not to make the responsible parties pay, beyond what Cordelia has already granted me," I grin. "I get Paige's ass whenever I want, how often I want, until the end of October," I add.Paige lowers her head and trembles with fear and anticipation; the 'threat' of anal sex is something Paige and I are working through plus, since Paige fears it, Rio will love the fantasy vision of Paige squirming on my 'meaty pole', see Barbie Lynn's thesaurus. Rio can't get away from Paige fast enough, falling into the narcotic pleasures of Mercy's treasures.Rio is often misunderstood; pain is a daily part of her life brought about by her blatantly aggressive lifestyle and the wraiths of her past. Mercy isn't in any danger; she could hardly be safer at the moment, figuratively speaking. Mercy's ass and cunt are getting a workout to the point I'm afraid that Rio is going to shove that dildo all the way into Mercy's colon and Rio's tongue might end Mercy's 'pesky' virginity by tongue-muscle action alone.
Being Subversive Isn't As Much Fun As It LooksIn 30 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the podcast at Explicit Novels. “Friends stand by you through the struggles your enemies create” "You are depraved and despicable," Mhain seethed."I get that a lot; now get out," I growled back, "because I have a thousand other bitches who are, scratch that, 999 other bitches, Doctor Kennedy is growing on me; the rest I'm not so sure about, who are making my life miserable.""Don't get your hopes up, Mr. Braxton," Doctor Kennedy warned me. "I'm happily married.""Cool," I responded. "I hope to be like that one day.""Happily married?" Virginia inquired."No; a female law professor at an all-girls school," I grinned. "It sounds like a real cool job.""Feel free to hit him," Dana interrupted. "I swear that is the only way to get him to learn anything; or the only way we will discuss at this moment." Ah, sex. I thought my life had gone on a bit too long without the mention of sex. "It is also a fun form of stress relief."A painful blow rocked my shoulder and nearly sent me sprawling."You are right," Gabrielle noted clinically. "I feel better." Fuck, she hits hard. I look at her and try not to get pissed off and say something stupid. She makes my life difficult but my existence at FFU makes her life far too interesting as well. Whack! Someone hit me with a briefcase."I have to agree," Doctor Kennedy confirmed. "It has a therapeutic quality to it.""Bloody hell," I blurt out."Everyone, please stop physically abusing Zane," Ms. Goodswell snapped. "He's a student, for Pete's sake. He's not subject to corporal punishment.""Virginia, have you ever punched or slapped Zane?" Dana teased. "Give it a try before dismissing it out of hand.""He likes spanking," Barbie Lynn beamed happiness as she skipped by on her way to my/our bedroom. Technically, it is mine, Vivian's, Barbie Lynn's, Rio's, and Mercy's, plus whoever is feeling lonely on a given night. As for the spanking, I'm more of a giver than a receiver, but I doubt explaining that right now would be appropriate."Uhmm, okay, I think that is my cue to leave," Virginia piped up."I have rounds to make," Gabrielle added."I'm going home to my family," Doctor Kennedy headed out."I'm going to stay here, kick back, and watch some Pay-per-view," Dana grinned."What are you going to watch?" Hudson inquired."BBC America has this show called Copper that I've been meaning to catch," Dana informed her."Mind if I watch an episode with you?" Hudson asked."Sure, knock yourself out. You can pick the second show," Dana yawned. "It's only Zane's money after all." The rest of my guests filed out and I retired to the showers and then to my room. The day's stress revealed itself as the women curled into bed calmly and soon were cuddled together, including the odd ones out.On the far side we had the rather unusual appearance of Valarie. Next to her was Rio, who had her arms wrapped around Mercy. Mercy was snuggled against Barbie Lynn who held the middle spot. I was on my side, face-to-face with Barbie Lynn. After a few minutes, Vivian came to bed, wedged up against my back, and put an arm over me. I was in close proximity to several beautiful women but as long as no one doused the room with an aphrodisiac, we'd do just fine."Zane," Barbie Lynn whispered, "my vibrator burned out this morning, and I'm terribly horny."Oh, fuck! Barbie Lynn gazing down at me, I'm not sure another guy should ever see this because it could break one's heart to see it once and never again. She's built a faint sheen of sweat on her body already and she's looking at me with a definite Zen to fuck. My cock is cocooned deep inside her rectum, rubbing inside as she rotates forward on her hips.The distant, dreamy look in her eyes flashes to alertness as she catches me looking at her; 'hi' she whispers. I nod and smile so she inclines into me so that we can start kissing. She leads in with her tongue along my lips. I touch the tip of her tongue with my own, snaking inside her mouth before we are done. She starts murmuring, deepens our kiss, and begins rubbing my nipples."Vivian?" Valarie says softly. She snuck around the bed to settle behind my guardian."Yes?" Vivian replies. She is on her side watching Barbie Lynn and I."I, umm,” Valarie moans.Out of the corner of my eye I catch it as Val's hand brushes Vivian's hair off her neck and her lips start suckling on the exposed flesh. Vivian closes her eyes briefly but doesn't move Valarie away."Oh, Baby," Barbie pants with barely an inch separating our lips, "I know I say this often but I so love this. You tear me up inside and I want it so bad all the time, it scares me.""Vaginal sex with you scares me," I tease back."Will it be even better?" she draws in an even deeper, breast flaunting breath."You never know, but you are so damn good at everything else, I can't imagine you doing anything but haunting my dreams forever," I say, as I coax her movements with my hands on her hips, flanks, and thighs. Barbie shows her appreciation by running her hand through my bangs and pushing my hair back so that she can cover my forehead, eyes and nose with kisses."You like that romantic shit, don't you, Mercy-slut?" Rio grumbles playfully from the other side."Yes," Mercy whispers. I know Rio well enough to know that when a spiteful reply isn't immediately forthcoming, she's dusting off (and unchaining) her Better Angel. Mercy is looking at Barbie Lynn and me, her head facing sideways as she lies on her back. Rio crawls on top of Mercy, prompting Mercy to open her legs, and locks her hands over her head to gaze down on her."Your skin is so pure, your hair so black, and your eyes so full of passion, it breaks my heart to look at you, My Little Whore," Rio begins. She leans in and bites Mercy's earlobe, causing her victim to moan and buck up slightly. "Mercy, you give and give, making me so hot inside that I want to grab you and never let go.""Really?" Mercy gasps. "I, ""Don't get used to this," Rio growls with famished sexual enticement. "But, well, I want you to know that I hope all our children look just like you." Poor Rio was running out of material. It was terribly uncomfortable for me to show her where to go. I ran my hands over Barbie's body, which is an absolute torture I am forced to struggle through repeatedly.I start by massaging Barbie Lynn's tits, rotating three fingers over the nipples before rolling up the whole meaty breast in my palms. Barbie Lynn starts pushing back on my cock harder and grunting to the rhythm."Damn, Mercy," Rio teases, "I love these titties." She accentuates by sucking the top third of one breast into her mouth and twirling her tongue around it.Vivian gives a visible shiver from her side of the bed; Valarie has done something to her beneath the sheets to turn her on. In the interim while I have been watching Rio and Mercy, Valarie has been working over Vivian, temple to shoulder, with her lips. Now I see Vivian pulling up her left (upper) leg until it is resting snugly against my upper ribs, giving someone easier access to her snatch.She's also put her left arm behind her back between herself and Valarie. I'm starting to wonder if there is something in the air filters of my place, some undiscovered aphrodisiac mold, fungi, or spores that turns nice, virtuous girls into promiscuous bi-sexual vixens. To the best of my knowledge and belief, neither Valarie nor Vivian had the slightest lesbian tendencies before they started coming to my room.I give Barbie Lynn's luscious orbs one final squeeze before migrating my hold down to her ass, giving each cheek a double-slap. Barbie Lynn exhales a huff of ecstatic relief as the impact travels through her. Rio smirks and follows suit, her hand reaching between their thighs, prying Mercy's leg up, up and up until Mercy's knee is nearly at her breast."Your body is the first female form that I've ever lusted after," Rio murmurs as she rubs and pats Mercy's buttocks. "I think I've always wanted you, to taste you on my tongue, your scent strong in my mind and your sweet, sweet ass under my hand." Mercy brings one hand up to stroke Rio's cheek as she gives a strangled sob. No matter how much Mercy fears loving a woman, Rio can chisel that away and get her to love openly and freely.Barbie Lynn bounces up and slams down on me repeatedly as she is coming to the end of her fuse."Zane, Zane, oh yeah," she pants. Vivian chooses this moment to sneak her climax in on the rest of us. I am vaguely aware of her biting her lip, rocking her hips under the sheets, and perspiration beginning to bead on her lower lip."Holy God, Christ, and, my, hot damn, Val, ugh, Oh, God!" Vivian squeals as Valarie vigorously whips her hand in a tight pattern, cloaked from sight but obvious to the knowledgeable. Vivian's clit, lips, and the gateway to her cunt are all supers-stimulated. Valarie cools her down and holds her with enough strength to stop Vivian from rolling face-first into the sheets."Jesus Loves Me!" Barbie Lynn screams one last time. Her body bows, her breasts thrust forward and up, bouncing so deliciously while her thighs tremble in climax. Her anal muscles rippling from sphincter toward my cockhead are grinding me toward orgasm. Finally, she collapses against me, still twitching and fighting for breath.With my arms wrapped around her, I roll us over toward Mercy and Rio, placing Barbie Lynn on her back. Barbie Lynn has her legs pulling back before I can even move to push them back. While I had never fully pulled out, I was nearly there. I shove my hips forward, forcing my cock back in hard, causing Barbie Lynn to grunt, her mouth to gape open, nostril flaring, as her eyes squeeze shut."Oh, hell, yeah," Barbie Lynn gasps, "hammer me!""Oh, fuck," Valarie moans, "I am so lonely." Vivian is still roaming her hands over Valarie's special place, picking up the pace as she's inspired by Barbie Lynn's passion. Rio expresses her perverse nature by going at Mercy slow while the rest of us are going gangbusters."Here is my baby-smooth, tasty friend," Rio says as she kisses Mercy's bald twat. Rio pushes her thighs apart, her leg muscles taught while laying on the bed. Rio's restraint could only last so long. Every lick became more insistent, every nibble elicited a greater yelp, and every hip-thrust by Mercy into Rio's hungry mouth was more desperate.Valarie gives off one long, cavernous growl, then screams in between Vivian's shoulder blades."Damn," Vivian whispers, as a sympathetic orgasmic shiver coasts through her body. I'm pushing up on my knuckles, Barbie Lynn's legs between them as I rise up until my bulbous head is fixed in her sphincter; then I slam down once more. She's rocking her hips up to maximize the depths I reach as she cries out, again and again and again.When I finally let go, I feel a volcano of lust, frustration, and fulfillment exploding out all at once. Barbie Lynn's head sways rapidly side to side as she comes unglued."Zane, Jesus loves me, Jesus Loves Me!" she howls loud enough to shake the glass panels overhead. Those words ringing in my ears are going to haunt me in whatever church I go to."Ugh, ugh, ugh, Love, right there, feels so good," Mercy drags out with shallow breathes."Umm,” Rio gurgles. Mercy has gotten quite wet and visibly aroused. I'm sure Rio has worked a finger or two into the action and in Mercy's ass. Mercy starts bouncing off the sheets as she hisses out the last of her restraint."Mother-fucker-god-damn!" Mercy cries out. Rio growls, slurps, and sucks up Mercy's cunt juice while lapping up and down her slit."That's my baby," Rio's fluid-marked face looks up from between Mercy's legs and smiles. "Was that good for you?" Rio asks? Mercy nods dreamily. "Are you a happy little whore?" Rio teases. Again, Mercy nods with pleasure. "Did you use the 'L' word, Ass-fuck slut?" Rio hardens.This time Mercy realizes her mistake and shudders. She raises her head and looks into Rio's eyes."Yes. I'm sorry, Rio," Mercy mumbles."Sorry isn't going to cut it this time, Bitch," Rio sneers. "Tomorrow morning you are going to get it coming and going, all day long." I am actually aware of what that threat means."Okay," Vivian sighed, with more contentment than annoyance, "we've all cum so let's try and get some sleep.""I haven't gotten off yet," Rio chuckled. I knew what I had to do before someone else volunteered my services."Come here, Rio." I smile to her and extend a hand. "Let me get another taste of my best bro.""I'll clean you up," Barbie Lynn grins up at me, as she wiggles her body around my own so she's on top again. She slithers down my torso, waggles my still mostly hard cock against her lips, then begins to take it into her mouth. Barbie Lynn's tongue licks along my shaft as she gobbles up more of my rod.I expect Rio to come over but Mercy, following along and lying on her belly, her head propped up on her hands and elbows as she watches my blonde angel's skilled fellatio, is a bonus. Rio ends up near my pillow, one hand on my chest and the other resting between Mercy's ass cheeks. Her fingers are definitely sliding in and out of Mercy's cunt. If Mercy is a bit sore, she's smart enough not to complain to her Mistress about it."What do you have in mind, Zane?" Rio catches my gaze."I want your teeth tearing up the mattress with your ass up in the air as I plow you through the headboard," I inform her. I make a focus group assessment of the situation by slipping a finger into her cunt, she's creaming already.For Rio, the greater physicality of the sex, the better it is for her. She'll let me have my foreplay and some good loving, but she goes wild over the raw, brutal act of sex itself."I think you are ready to put that smile on her face," Barbie Lynn taunts Rio as she informs me she's finished. "Come with me," Barbie Lynn turns to Mercy. "My nipples need some attention. Can you do that for me?"After checking with Rio, Mercy gives a hungry look and lick of the lips at Barbie Lynn. Barbie crawls over Mercy to land on her back on the far side. Mercy twirls around and latches on to Barbie Lynn's left breast with such rapidity, it momentarily causes my visage to blur."I want some of that," Valarie suddenly blurts out.She makes her own quick trek around Rio and me as we are still positioning ourselves to come swooping down on Barbie Lynn's right side. The right nipple disappears into our school biker girl's mouth with a decidedly audible smacking of the lips. Val's hand starts to stroke the inside of Barbie Lynn's thigh but Mercy's free hand reaches over and starts tweaking Valarie's closest nipple. Yes, I definitely must check the air filters.Rio resumes her sensually crawl my way and I give her a beguiling look to lure her in. I'm on her in a flash once she's close enough for me to make my move. She screeches like an alley cat but I've got a hand on the back of her head and the other on her hip as I slam her face first into the pillow."Bastard," she screams through the fabric, but she's not following through with the anger."Give it up, Bitch," I snarl back. My cock slides full-throttle all the way into her cunt on the first pass. Her cunt feels like slick, melted butter as I bottom out in her hole. At the same time, I let up on her head a bit."Oh, fucking-A," Rio gasps. "Did someone sneak a gerbil up behind me or is it Needle-cock pretending he's a man?" I give her another powerful slam. "Oh, fuck, stop that.""What? Too much for the bitch whose had it all?" I tease Rio.
*) Israel's attacks in Lebanon clear effort to spread war: Erdogan Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Israel's recent attacks on Lebanon could spread war across the region. Speaking at an event in New York, Erdogan has said Israel's actions and statements show clear intent to escalate the conflict. He also condemned Israel's actions in Gaza, calling them genocide and a threat to regional peace. *) Iraqi group targets Israeli base in occupied Golan Heights An Iraqi armed group has said they targeted the Israeli observation base in the "occupied Palestinian territories". The Israeli army has also confirmed it intercepted two cruise missiles and a drone launched from Iraq towards the occupied Golan Heights. *) UNSC no longer apt, does not represent all countries: South Africa South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has called for UN reform, stating before the General Assembly that the Security Council is "clearly no longer fit" to address contemporary challenges. Speaking at the UN's Summit of the Future, Ramaphosa has said it's unjust and unsustainable for a few to control global security while the majority face its consequences. Highlighting ongoing wars, conflicts, and the climate crisis, he stressed that the Security Council's structure “does not represent all countries” and fails to consider diverse viewpoints. *) Exit polls show Germany's Social Democrats leading over far-right AfD German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) narrowly defeated the far-right AfD in Brandenburg's state election, according to exit polls. The SPD, which has governed the state since 1990, secured 32 percent of the vote, with AfD close behind at 29 percent, according to one exit poll. Another poll projected the SPD with 31 percent and AfD with 10 percent of the votes. *) Ottoman shipwreck near Datca offers glimpse of 17th century naval history Archaeologists have uncovered important artefacts from the Ottoman Empire in the Kizlan shipwreck off Datca, Türkiye. The excavation, led by Dokuz Eylül University as part of the Blue Heritage Project, is helping reveal more about the ship and the time it sank. Among the discoveries are 14 muskets belonging to the Janissaries, around 2,500 lead bullets, and exploded cannonballs, indicating that the ship was involved in a battle.
After the death of Selim II, the Ottoman Empire goes into a period of decline. Successive Sultans seem far more interested in doling out favors to their friends and family than expanding the borders of the empire. The Janissaries, never easy to deal with under the best of circumstances, become an increasing drain on the treasury and a problem for the government. It is not over yet for the Ottomans. Not by a long shot. But the days of endless expansion are seemingly over.WebsiteAd Free Shows
The Muslims called him Skanderbeg, which means, "Lord Alexander." Born George Kastrioti, the Albanian born prince was captured by the Muslims, became a Janissary, and yet returned to defend his people and Christendom. We'll also talk about the Arab and Ottoman slave trade, which dwarfed the Atlantic slave trade in terms of numbers of slaves and duration. Why don't we hear about this in schools today? Be sure to sign up at the King's Hall Patreon to get exclusive access to interviews with historians like Glenn Sunshine and to access the Deus Vault, a Patreon-exclusive podcast that goes deeper into the histories, mysteries, and heroes of Christendom.Alpine Gold Exchange Website: alpinegoldogden.comSet Up a Meeting: https://calendly.com/alpinegold/alpine-gold-consultationCheck out Livingstones Studio, your Reformed design partner.10 Ways to Make Money with Your MAXX-D Trailer.Buy your beef or pork box today from Salt and Strings Butchery.Talk to Joe Garrisi about managing your wealth with Backwards Planning Financial.Squirrelly Joe's Coffee. Visit their website here to purchase your first bag! Share Coffee. Serve Humbly. Live faithfully.Visit Ekklesia Design today: Land planning & landscape architecture, for master planning with truth, beauty, and goodness. Contact Private Family Banking Partner at banking@privatefamilybanking.com to set up a free private consultation and get started building wealth now and unto future generations. "For a free copy of a new book "Protect Your Money Now! How to Build Multi-Generational Wealth Outside of Wall Street and Avoid the Coming Banking Meltdown" by Private Family Banking Partner, Chuck DeLadurantey, go to www.protectyourmoneynow.net
The Dawn of the New Order, like it or not.By Final Stand. Listen to the full episode at Explicit Novels.This is a recounting of the new dean's attempt to destroy Zane by Zane's own abusive nature.“Earned leadership is a blessing; assigned leadership is a burden”THIS IS HOW IT IS GOING TO BEIt started at 6:45 as we began filing out of the dorm toward the dining hall and breakfast. We received texts, or our dorm mothers received them if we didn’t have that function, assigning us a tribe we belonged to. What was a tribe? No one seemed to have a clue what this entailed for us.“So,” Iona was the first to ask me, “What tribe are you part of?”“My tribe’s called the Mediator tribe,” I responded. “What lame-ass name does your tribe have?” Iona blinked at me, took my phone from my hands, and looked at it while we walked.“Mercy and I are in 17,” Rio sneered. “Why did your group merit a name and ours didn’t?”“Because Zane doesn’t have a tribe,” Iona figured. “He is not of the mediator tribe; he’s a mediator. The real question is, how many mediators are there and what is their responsibility?”“I’m in tribe three,” Vivian volunteered. “I do have a notation but no indication who to see about it.” The conversations around us were going in the same general direction, the girls trying to figure what sort of disruptions this would cause. The teachers put a kibosh on students walking around and finding out where their friends were placed so the text and phone messages being tossed around were obscene.The surprise going to breakfast had saved virtually all of the freshmen from Handmaiden’s Duty but they snapped us up heading for Assembly. I had Frederica Nicholas who decided to make a game of her giving me a word and me having to create a poetic verse. I rapidly learned the more risqué my verse, the more touchy-feely she became. (And she is a Rhaine supporter, huh?) I am a glutton for sexual foreplay no matter where it comes from.Entry into the Assembly Hall brought its own special form of confusion. All the seats had numbers for the tribes that could sit there. I didn’t find my group anywhere but I did catch the fact that Christina’s group had been broken up. I stopped by Heaven to put a comforting hand on her shoulder because she looked terribly unsettled before I approached Ms. Goodswell on the stage.My spiritual advisor stood up, walked to the edge of the stage, and knelt down so we could talk privately.“Hi, Teach. I can’t seem to find my groups/tribe’s area,” I said pleasantly. “Can you help me out? Hell, can you tell me what’s going on?”“Zane, your seat is right over there,” she said, pointing to a chair on the front row – aisle seat. She smiled sadly. “All I can tell you about this program right now is that I trust you.” Oh crap, that didn’t sound good. Sitting on the front row – the region normally reserved for seniors – was just as disturbing. I sensed an epic boning in my future and I was sure I knew who the chick with the strap-on was.Chancellor Bass came to the podium and led us through the first ten minutes of the session. I could tell she was simmering with anger and resentment over whatever the upcoming fiasco was, and she showed it. She introduced Vice Chancellor Scarlett, then sat down abruptly. Her enthusiasm wasn’t muted; it was buried in the core of the earth.“Greetings, students of Freedom Fellowship University; I believe we stand at the first step to a great, glorious, and blessed experiment,” Vice Chancellor Dr. Victoria Scarlett began. Her plan did sound grandiose, was certainly going to be famous (or infamous), and whichever supernatural powers put their mark on this train wreck, I was sure we’d discover the Arch-angel Morningstar also had his sulfuric fingerprints on it when the CSI’s were finally brought in.The basics of the scheme: There would be eighteen tribes of fifty or more members. Each tribe had all four grades in it but was focused on declared majors so that the girls could support one another. Each tribe would internally determine how they would regulate themselves as well. Externally, relations would be overseen by the Mediator – yes, that was in the singular – as in one: me.At this point, I was wondering if jumping up, shooting Scarlett in the heart, and crying ‘Sic semper tyrannis’ was appropriate. I didn’t have a gun and realistically, Victoria didn’t deserve death for what she was putting all of us through. A few days in a pillory would suffice. No, she was making me be the 'Man’ of our academic community, our judge and arbitrator.As for my job qualifications, or lack thereof; I am considered morally loose, if not downright deviant. I’m an eighteen-year-old boy telling twenty-one-year-old women what to do, I have no legal experience – oh, yes, and half the campus hates my guts. I almost missed it when Dr. Scarlett added that Vivian would remain my guardian.Maybe Vivian would throw herself in the path of a sharpened pencil, pen, or stylus aimed at my heart by any number of the young ladies that wanted me dead, just like a Secret Service Agent.“You will be informed of the location of your first meetings. Each tribe will meet at eight o'clock tonight and tomorrow night to create the foundations of your group,” Dr. Scarlett informed us.“Tribes five and seventeen will be meeting in the Solarium of Alan Smithee dorm, if that is okay with Mr. Braxton.” Victoria looked my way. I stood up in case anyone missed my discomfort for being called out and actually asked by a lead educator for anything resembling permission on this campus.“Eight o'clock tonight?” I questioned. “I don’t know if that works for me. I have a Brazilian body wax at eight and have scheduled my eyebrows to be plucked at 8:45, plus there is a new episode of NCIS: Los Angeles at nine.”“How about they promise to keep the noise level down?” Victoria volleyed right back at me without missing a beat.“Very well, Dr. Scarlett, if you personally guarantee their behavior, I’m okay with them using my room,” I allowed. I couldn’t provoke Scarlett and I couldn’t embarrass her, so I was back to facing her rear-bound artificial cock catching up with my behind. I sat back down. Victoria quickly exited center stage and a bitter Chancellor ushered us through the last of the service.I waited outside the Assembly Hall for my friends and my Handmaiden for the moment, Theresa Yates. Christina and Chastity caught up with me first, both giving me a curious look.“Bro,” Rio sneered as she and Mercy joined us, “we need to discuss your future abuse of power, bribes and kick-backs you are going to get. Nice banter with ol’ Scarlett too.”“Yes,” Christina said sarcastically, “being flippant with the Vice Chancellor backfired so spectacularly the first time, it definitely needed repeating.” Her criticism really sucked because I always secretly wanted her to think well of me.“What’s your plan?” Chastity prodded me. She was always helping me out when she got the chance. As she finished, Iona, Hope, Faith, and Heaven showed up.“They split us up,” growled Heaven. “Do something, Zane.”“He just found out about this,” Iona responded before I could. “Give it time and combined, we will come up with a solution together.” I sighed with some relief at her assistance and then I blinked. The powerful kiss I planted on Iona’s lips caught everyone off-guard.“Freaking brilliant!” I complimented her gaily, giddy with glee. I didn’t have an actual plan yet but I had a direction to propel my thought toward. With my mind awhirl, I caught sight of Theresa moving past me on her way to class.“Hey, Theresa,” I called out. “What are you having me do today?” She looked a bit shocked.“Zane, we are no longer allowed to call on you for Handmaiden’s Duty,” she informed me.“Oh, He…ck no,” I choked out. “Who says?”“The Vice-Chancellor declared you to be outside the tradition,” she stated sadly. I wasn’t going to stand for this. Victoria was building a wedge between me and the rest of the student body.“Iona, do that tech-thing that you do and inform the ladies that by the authority vested in me as mediator, I am reinstating myself as part of the Handmaiden’s duty until…over half of the tribal leaders petition that I do otherwise,” I announced.“By tech-thing, do you mean send a text message with an accompanying e-mail to all the students on the school registry?” Iona regarded me quizzically.“Zane,” Chastity worried, “are you sure you have the authority?”“Of course he has the authority,” Rio declared. “He’s the freaking mediator.” Sometimes I would really like to get a word in before the conversation runs away from me.I swatted Iona on the butt – she squawked.“Chastity, this is clearly a game of chicken, so why not see how far Scarlett is willing to go,” I replied. The look Christina gave me restored my faith in me; her eyes beamed at me, alight with an intellectual fire. I had one last thing to do while the chaos boiled one last time before the ebb: I hugged Rio.“I want you to break into Gabrielle’s place,” I whispered in her ear, “wait for her to come get you, and tell her this: There is no Cordelia Dresden.”“Back off, Joker,” Rio punched me. Rio trusted me not to put her in harm’s way if I had another choice and Gabrielle knew that Rio would be the last person any sane individual would trust to do this.She gave no hint of a reply to my request. The assumption was, if Cordelia didn’t know what we were up to, she couldn’t figure out a way to stop us, and right now I wanted a way for us out of her little game here at FFU. My current theory was that the girl I knew as Cordelia didn’t exist before she came here, she was an invented personality, and I wanted to know who the inventor was.Oh yeah, back to my actual life where my academic and social lives were in upheaval because my current nemesis (or one of them anyway) was a crusading idealist. I swear to God, if I survive this place, I will never forgive Aunt Jill for not sending me to the University of Hawaii, which was my first choice for college. All I had to worry about there was hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and the wrath of the island spirits for despoiling virgins – simple shit.“Zane, you will discuss the merits and sins of the concubines of King Solomon with me,” Theresa said, as she passed me her backpack to carry. Life rolled back to semi-normal and we separated to make our way to our first classes of the day. That illusion took another ill turn when I entered English class with Ms. Goodswell. She gestured for me to come to her desk before the lesson began.“Zane,” she informed me softly, “none of the female teachers or administrators at this school can give you orders, only suggestions. Only Dr. Jennings may truly compel you to do anything.”This bombshell was the reason she said she trusted me back in Assembly. The only one making me do the right thing was me. I had never considered me Mr. Responsibility before so I was in for a crash course in having authority over 900 students and 100 teachers. I told Virginia Goodswell about my decision concerning my Handmaiden’s Duty to get her input, then compelled her to treat me as any other student – because apparently, I’m in charge of students now.“There are old soldiers and there are bold soldiers, but there are very few old, bold soldiers,” she reminded me. “Never forget, no matter how dark it may seem, Zane, you are never alone.”“I could always use a picture of you in a white, low-cut bikini to inspire me,” I hinted.“Mr. Braxton, by the authority vested in me by the mediator, I order you to take your seat so we can begin classes,” she smirked. Oh, the irony: stymied by my own hubris.Celia Wanamaker snapped me up coming out of English class. Vivian was waiting for me and Raven was in tow – right up until Paige snapped her up. Celia had me name a biblical character for each letter of the alphabet. Paige had Raven quote bible verses – backwards. As if there was any doubt my day could get worse, it did so immediately.“Oh, the great Priest-King approaches!” screeched Rio on seeing me. “We all must genuflect – that’s kneel down until your head touches the ground for you stupid bitches – until the Mediator passes.” The horrible, horrible thing was that dozens of confused girls started doing just that.“Hold on,” I held up my hands for attention, “Hold on. Rio is mistaken. Genuflecting is only done during the Holy Days of Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter.”Okay, I made that up off the fly and I figured that I wouldn’t be at school for Christmas, and Good Friday and Easter were next year and I’d worry about that then. For now:“Emily, Rebecca, Henrietta, and Magdalena, please carry Rio to her next class – by the legs and arms,” I instructed some of the closest students. “If a door or other object gets in the way, don’t hesitate to use her head as a battering ram.”“Damn, Bro, that’s harsh,” Rio giggled from the floor. I knelt beside her.“Yeah,” I whispered, “like being man-handled by four girls isn’t going to turn you on.”“Don’t tell them that,” she whispered back. I rose and continued on to class. A wiggling, squirming, cursing, and fighting Rio followed us.I went through the same rigmarole in Biblical Archeology. I told the teacher that using my authority over students, I was instructing her to instruct me as if I was any other student…because I was a student and this was the area of my authority; right? She bought into my reasoning with some relief.“How was it?” I mouthed to Rio once class was well on the way.“Two hands all the way up the thigh – one knows I forgot my undies and was thoroughly soaked – two titties grabbed,” Rio described what she’d been subjected to, “and I got to bite Magdalena’s butt. I love those soccer player asses. You are most likely the best friend I will ever know; thank you.”“Always willing to help a fellow pervert out,” I grinned back. Rio winked, then returned to work. I needed all the humor I could get because it was going to be a long damn day. By the time I made Marksmanship at three o'clock, I was damn happy to shoot something. I got some relief by having my best day ever, scoring a 53 (out of a possible 100) at the range. When I finished, I noticed a large number of my club mates standing close by.WOMEN AND THE WORLD AT LARGE“Yes?” I questioned the ladies clustered behind me at the firing line.“Oh, we are huddling behind your manliness,” Daphne, one of the better shooters, joked.“Manliness? Daphne, you just shot an 87. Hell, if you ladies want to be safe, stand in front of me, because apparently that’s the one place my bullets don’t go,” I chided her.That was a slight exaggeration. I was a pretty good shot out to 50 meters, but when I have to use binoculars to even see the target some of these girls are nailing, I know I have a long way to go.“Zane, police your station,” Hope instructed me. “Everyone, it is time for field training.” This was the other part of marksmanship…sneaking around and spotting targets in the woods. We didn’t use live rounds but it was still fun stuff.“Gung-ho!” I responded to Hope. I’d heard that this was the battle cry of an Asian-American unit in World War II; Japanese I think.“I’m Korean, Zane,” Hope tried not to chuckle. “We are not exactly friends with the Japanese.”“If I stop saying it will you ask your Daddy not to come?” I inquired hopefully.“If you keep saying it, I’ll stop telling my Father I can’t live without you,” she countered.“You can’t live without me?” I questioned.“Of course I can live without you, but I had to think of something to stop him from parachuting here in the dead of night and slitting your throat,” she confided.“You are joking; right?” I worried. Hope was nonresponsive as we got our gear together for the hike. “Hope, tell me that was a joke.” Once we passed into the forest, Hope was quiet, business-like and nothing but. We were a mile into our trek when Hope settled down to study the environs. Per procedure, Hope watched to her front and left; I crouched at her back, facing away, and watched to our rear and Hope’s right.We would stay this way until Hope set up on the target, which was when I became her spotter. Since we weren’t there yet, I scanned my area one more time, then cupped my right hand and reached behind me until I touched Hope’s ass. I waited for a reaction of any kind but none came. Three seconds later I began to gently coast along her posterior, lightly squeezing her buttocks and rubbing along her cleft.With a careful ear, I caught Hope’s breath gaining in intensity. A few seconds later, she reached back and tapped my arm lightly so I stopped. Hope then rose carefully and we continued on our way. During the entire encounter, neither one of us had deviated from our watchfulness, which gave the whole situation a greater erotic appeal for me.“Zane,” Hope caught my attention as the last rifle and bullet was secured away, “I really wasn’t sure how you would deal with me…being better than you. How do you do it?”“All the training and skill in the world isn’t worth a damn if you won’t fight,” I tried to explain. “A willingness to fight without talent is a waste. Hope, you didn’t defeat me; you beat me.”She seemed to be searching for my definition of those two terms.“Let’s walk over to Orienteering before Heaven pops,” I suggested. “We can both pin Heaven down but short of killing her, I’m not sure how to stop her.” Hope chuckled at that assessment and nodded. “Hope, you put me on the mat and made me tap out – you beat me. You haven’t discouraged me from coming at you when I feel I’m more capable – you haven’t defeated me.”“Beating implies physical dominance but defeat is a state of mind,” Hope replied as she stripped my definitions bare. I swung back my hand to spank her ass. Hope flinched slightly as instinct recognized the incoming blow and dictated a menu of responses, most of which involved causing me pain. I spanked her left ass cheek; Hope yelped and glared over her shoulder at me in feigned annoyance.“You are a very verbose wench,” I shook my finger at her.“Do you want them to perform an extensive autopsy to figure out where I stuck that finger or are you going to remove it from my face right now?” she challenged me mirthfully. I stepped to her side, draped an arm around her waist; a second later she hesitantly echoed the gesture.When we got to Orienteering, Hope and I parted company and I joined my fellow students as Heaven stood before us. The silence dragged on…and on until I finally felt compelled to raise my hand.“Yes, Zane?” Heaven asked sweetly. You know; that 'sweetly’ that says, I have an iron skillet to the head in my immediate future.“Class? Are we going to have class today? Please?” I mumbled.“I don’t know, Zane,” Heaven glared at me with a vicious smile stitched to her face. “Do we have your permission to have class today? Apparently we need to.” Oh, fuck-buckets; Hope had probably had the same instructions and blown them off; Heaven was going a different way.“I understand,” I announced with dignity as I stood and walked up beside Heaven before facing the rest of the class. “As your appointed mediator, I think we should come forth and pray on the matter. All of you come to the front and kneel in a semi-circle; you too Heaven.” I put a hand on her shoulder and put pressure on her to kneel beside me – right beside me.The girls gathered around, Heaven was on her knees only inches from my crotch with her eyes flickering from my hard cock (I’m giving strong consideration to slamming that bastard in the middle of the US Tax Code to make it calm down) to my eyes. Soon I was in the center of a waist-level sea of slightly swaying female heads.“Let us pray,” I intoned. “Lord, guide us and give us strength to be true to ourselves, have faith in the gifts of insight, determination, and self-worth you have given us. Also, give us the vision to see what is wrong, the knowledge to understand when we hear things that are nonsense, and the will to forge past those words so that we find our own voice. In Jesus Christ’s name we pray; Amen.”“Amen,” the girls said, at varying volumes and with varying conviction. They were all there, on their knees, staring at me. I swear to God, if one of them had 'Baaa'ed, I’d have died on the spot.“Okay, who believes I’m more qualified to teach this class than Heaven?” I began. Two girls started to raise their hands then self-consciously reversed direction.“You are all correct; I am totally unqualified to teach this class. I am totally unqualified to tell any of you to do virtually anything. I don’t know more about life than any of the rest of you do. At eighteen, I’m younger than most of you. I’m a guy, nothing more. You ladies don’t need me. Really, do any of you have any need of me whatsoever?”“Sex,” blurted out of the mouth of Ruth, one of the senior club members. No one said anything for a few seconds. Okay, I could deal with this.“Fine, sex. With the Purity Pledge here, do any of you think you would need me for sex?” Twelve of the fourteen girls raised their hands; counting Heaven made it thirteen. I wanted to be anywhere else but in the deathtrap of my own creation. Screw that; I wanted to crawl into a deep, dark hole and pull the dirt in behind me.“We hear you are really good at it,” Benios tried to explain things to me.“Brandi told us all about blowjobs. Those seem safe enough with the Pledge,” Michelle added. Heaven started snickering at my expense.“All right, everyone,” Heaven raised her voice as she stood up, accidentally squeezing my dick through my pants as she did so, “let’s get started, and if no one screws up today, we can have Thursday’s class in Zane’s bedroom.”We finished the last class for the day and started leaving our outdoor classroom when Ruth put her hand on my lower arm.“Zane, does a blowjob violate the Purity Pledge?” she asked. That wasn’t really what she was asking. Why would I know the specifics of a pledge that everyone knew I hadn’t taken? No, what she was asking was if she could experiment with oral sex with me.The other girls were not so surreptitiously hanging around for the answer.“Honestly, I don’t believe that fellatio is an acceptable alternative to vaginal sex unless it includes cunnilingus,” I bullshitted. I believed that, but I was hoping the lingo would buy me an exit.“What?” Ruth stammered.“Oh, I know that,” Michelle giggled. “Fellatio is when you take a man’s phallus and put it in your mouth, and cunnilingus is when a man puts his mouth…down there,” she pointed at her crotch.“Zane, do you do that too? Put your mouth – ” Ruth hounded me.“Sure,” I confessed. “Every man should, but in reality, it is more than tongue work” – I wiggled my tongue – “but finger work too. All you have to do is think how your fingers feel down there, except this time they are under someone else’s control and you have a strong, flexible muscle added to the mix.” I instantly knew I was missing something with this audience.“You touch yourself; right?” I questioned. By many of the guilty looks, I could tell that most of the class had, but a surprising number hadn’t, Ruth included.“I never have,” Ruth replied. “I was afraid I’d stop being a virgin.” I nodded, walked over to the closest tree, and banged my head against it.“That’s enough for today,” Heaven intervened. “We can pick up this wonderful, non-orienteering discussion next time.” She ushered me away. I was rather thankful to get away and into the company of someone I trusted. “Are you ready for tonight?”“You mean am I waiting to pack your tight ass and drag my fingernails over your back until I draw blood? Yes,” I grinned down at her.“Evil!” she giggled. “You are sinister, vile, and an aberration to all that is pure in the world.”“Well, you are purely wonderful,” I countered. “So is this a case of opposites attract?”“Do you like to see me that way?” my transvestite lover teased.“Your legs on my shoulders as I drive into you; on your hands and knees; you looking down at me as you slide down that first time, your ass cheeks bouncing, with my hands kneading them as you face away, but most of all…with your head on my chest, asleep, your hair spilling over your eyes as you lay there – that’s the best,” I related.“How can you be lusty and sweet at the same time?” she murmured.“It’s how you make me feel, Heaven,” I explained. “It is no mystery – you are that good to me.”“Best boyfriend ever,” she whispered, as she hugged my arm tight. On the final approach to Heaven’s dorm, she gave me a nudge.“So, how did you beat the ten-second rule?” Heaven prodded me.“We have a ten-second rule?” I questioned.“We don’t, silly; it’s Hope’s rule,” Heaven grinned. “No one holds her for more than ten seconds. She has – had proximity issues.”“We were intimate,” I pointed out. “That probably helps.”“I hope so,” Heaven laughed. “The first time Christina and I barged into her room, we found ourselves staring down the barrel of a gun. Chastity was her roommate and she nearly freaked because she didn’t know Hope had an automatic, much less slept with one under her pillow.”“Note to self: never climb in Hope’s window looking for a midnight hook-up,” I sighed.“Hey,” Heaven playfully grumbled, “if you are crawling in anyone’s window for some late-night booty, it had better be my window and my booty you are after, Mister.”“Or what?” I teased. “Are we back to me being in a deep, dark hole, you with the only key, dressed up for me in black strips of leather?”That description dated back to our first day on campus together when she hated my very existence.“Bitch,” Heaven growled with frustrated desire.“I’ll see you at the car in ten minutes, then.” I gave a double pump of the eyebrows and left. We had been invited by Officer Danica Campbell of the Lancaster PD for a barbeque so we could get reacquainted. It was something Heaven was really looking forward to (not that I minded).Danica’s house needed a little yard work but was otherwise an unremarkable ranch style house with an attached carport. Heaven’s hands kept fluttering at her sides and straightening out her skirt. Me; I was in a long-sleeved pull-over and jeans and was having a much easier time of it emotionally. My only problem was our timetable; I had to be back before nine.We could smell the burning charcoal from the front yard but I indicated to Heaven that we weren’t friends enough to simply walk around back unannounced. We rang the doorbell, then rang it again. Heaven was going for a third, nervous try when Danica opened the door.“Hey, you two, come on in,” she greeted us, and stepped aside so we could enter.The first aura I detected in Danica’s home was of benign neglect; the house was inhabited but no one actually lived here. Everything looked old but not worn, except for one chair and the cabinet around the TV which had VHS tapes (?) and scores of DVDs from the past ten years. Danica was in a lumberjack shirt, jeans, and deck shoes with a noticeable lack of bra, panties, and socks.“I’m glad you two showed up,” Danica said, talking to us as we followed her through the living room to the kitchen. We could see the grill cooking away on a concrete patio through a sliding glass door.“I almost showed up last night,” Heaven blurted out, then looked mortified.“You would have had to wait a while,” Danica joked. “I worked last night.”“I would have put her to sleep on the doorstep, covered her in a blanket, and given her a garden gnome to use as a pillow,” I joked. Heaven blushed furiously and punched me in the arm.“Be careful, Mister Braxton,” Danica threatened me with a wink, “I have handcuffs, pepper spray, and a taser – behave.”I was hoping that comical exchange would have reduced the tension. It almost worked. As Danica opened the sliding glass door, she turned to say something. I have no idea what it was that got into her but at that point, Heaven threw herself at our hostess, wrapped her arms around Danica’s neck, and kissed the lady cop. Danica staggered out the door onto the patio, grabbed the doorsill before they toppled over, and after her obvious moment of panic, put her other arm around Heaven’s waist.Third Wheel Syndrome was kicking in for a while as the two kept tickling each other’s tonsils and rubbing their bodies together.“I, ah…wanted to kiss you since I talked to you on the phone,” Heaven finally said. Danica stroked a finger along Heaven’s left earlobe, wiggling it back and forth.“Mission accomplished,” Danica smiled. “You don’t date much, do you? That’s not a condemnation; it’s just, you have a raw intensity I haven’t seen in a while. I like it.” Heaven looked ready to dive into another lip frenzy when our hostess held her up. “Let’s check on the grill, unless you like your pork chops and chicken burnt as hard as the coals that made 'em.”Heaven gave Danica enough lead to make it to the grill and open it up. My friend coughed and choked as the smoke billowed out; it was Heaven’s first outdoor barbeque, or at least the first that didn’t involve a professional pit master and a whole steer.“Give her some room,” I cautioned Heaven. “I hear those things are hot.” It was my first time too, but they had similar things in Thailand so I wasn’t totally lost.Eventually, I was forced to wrap my arms around Heaven from behind to keep her from bouncing all over the place. Her enthusiasm didn’t bother me; she was fun and felt she had a lot of catching up to do. We chatted about her work and our school machinations. Danica made a crack about me and women putting me on my back – funny like a crutch.We gathered in her living room; it was the only room that had the seats to meet our needs with the meat, coleslaw, hush puppies, and lima beans to eat. There was the promise of sherbet if dinner didn’t fill us up. Things were going so smoothly that I almost missed Danica’s little ploy.“Heaven, since you are getting a beer, would you get me one too,” Danica off-handedly mentioned. We were finishing up the meal and washing it down with the appropriate beverage – lemonade in my case and beer in theirs.“Sure,” Heaven smiled warmly, and off she went. She didn’t hear Danica get up and follow her into the kitchen, though Danica did give me a wink.The moment Heaven pulled the two lagers out of the refrigerator, Danica slipped up behind her and pressed her body into Heaven’s. For a second, Heaven thought it was me and was looking over her shoulder to chastise me. I was following but was hanging back.“Zane – ” then she noticed it was Danica, “Huh?”“Hey, Precious,” Danica purred to her, “it seems your hands are occupied;” gesturing to the beer in each. Danica stretched her arms around and cupped Heaven’s breasts and began massaging them. Heaven tried to twist around but Danica didn’t let her. She bit into Heaven’s neck instead, sucking up and down from ear to shoulder.“The last time you snuck up on me; now it is my turn. How does it feel?” Danica continued. She pressed Heaven up against the refrigerator door, grinding her there for a while before letting Heaven turn and faced her.“It feels good,” Heaven gulped, “but I know some other things I want to do to you that are better.”Danica answered that by sensually sliding down Heaven’s body until she was kneeling. From there she lifted Heaven’s skirt, pulled down her double panties and started making kissing/slurping noises that made Heaven shudder in anticipation. Danica was bobbing in a slow, languid style that was pushing the tranny toward her own internal blaze. I saw the opportunity to come up and relieve Heaven of her beers before she dropped them.Heaven’s hands dropped immediately to Danica’s head and trembled with the desire to push Danica farther and farther down her cock. Danica held her off, having more blowjob experience than Heaven and I combined. I took the time offered to remove all our shirts and Heaven’s bra before alternating kissing Danica’s neck and back while playing with her tits, and going to Heaven and kissing her and teasing her nipples with my teeth.She was over-eager and was tapping Danica’s crown inside a minute, indicating the shortness of her fuse. Heaven gave a muted squeak followed by,“Oh, God, that’s so fucking good – take it – oh, God – take it!” Danica did a masterful job of soaking up everything Heaven had to give and draining her dry afterwards.Danica had to hold Heaven’s hips to stop my lover from sliding to the ground on her ass.“I think we will all be passing on the sherbet,” Danica grinned while licking her lips. Heaven nodded, first shakily but soon with much more assurance. I kicked off my shoes in my own endorsement of this plan and we were soon all migrating to Danica’s bedroom.Heaven, new to the romantic aspects of sexuality, dove straight onto the bed and shimmied out of her skirt. Danica and I stopped at the foot of said bed and shed our pants (and underwear for me). As Heaven looked at us, I pulled Danica’s hair aside and began kissing her from right beneath her ear down to the nape of her neck. Danica responded by pressing her backside into me and gyrating her ass on my crotch.Danica ran her left hand behind her back and began moving it sensually along my stomach to the base of my cock and up again. Her right hand stroked my thigh and hip on the other side. I countered by moving my left to her left breast, mauling it but leaving the nipple unmolested for now. My right hand went in a serpentine fashion to her crotch and hovered right above her clitoris.We played tag with our intimate parts long enough for Danica to start sweating and moaning against me.“Why aren’t you married, again?” she snickered. “Oh, yeah, you being eighteen and all.”“Are you too much woman for one man?” I countered.“Actually, I’ve been looking for someone special,” she confessed, but she wasn’t looking at me when she said it. That wasn’t lost on Heaven either; her jaw dropped. “Don’t freak,” Danica reassured her. “I know we don’t have much in common – I’m a townie and you’re a rich girl from somewhere else – but we have until spring if you want to hang out.”It took Heaven a few moments to digest that.“I’d like that, Danica; I’d like that a lot,” she smiled.“Well, I’d like it if you came over here and kissed me before your boyfriend drives me totally nuts,” Danica teased her. Heaven got on her knees and waddled to the end of the bed to join us.“Wait,” Heaven said at the last second, eyes wide with surprise. “I have a boyfriend and a girlfriend – I rock!” and then she dove into Danica’s lips. Danica was propelled into me by Heaven’s passionate embrace. She reciprocated by moving her hand off my hip and onto Heaven’s semi-rigid cock.Heaven’s phallus hardened quickly enough and she upped the tempo by buoying up her breasts and initiating a nipple fight between her tits and Danica’s – wow, a freaking advantage I hadn’t thought of.“Lets – ” Danica gulped for air “– get on…the bed. I want some…of this…in me,” she pulled on Heaven’s cock.Oh, yeah, this was the Heaven-Danica show and I was second fiddle…and I felt it was glorious. 'You are known not by what you do but by what you leave behind,’ or so yet another saying goes. Danica and Heaven were happy with one another, even if only for a little while. That 'while’ included Heaven retreating up the bed as Danica followed and I pursued her.“Have you been a good girl?” Danica quizzed Heaven. “Do we need a condom?” clarified the issue.“No, no, I’ve only been with Zane,” Heaven answered.“That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for safe sex,” Danica chuckled.“Damn, that’s just cold,” I groaned. “For your information, if my partner wasn’t a virgin, she was someone I know intimately.”“So you are not doing it with that Warlord chick living in your house now?” Danica persisted.“How do you even know about that? It happened Sunday,” I wondered.“Zane,” Danica sighed patiently, “I’m a cop and your house is like two miles away.”“Can we get back to concentrating on the sex?” Heaven grumbled. “I’ll wear a condom if you want. I’ll wear a harem girl outfit if you want, as long as it leads to sex with you.”“That won’t be…necessary,” Danica murmured as she positioned Heaven’s cock between her labia then began to push down.I was working out what my place in this could be when I spotted the bottle of lubricant (generic) boldly sitting on Danica’s nightstand – not very subtle at all. I shifted over, got the bottle, then got around behind them once more.“Can I join in?” I asked.“I trust you,” Danica purred. Silly her; I’m behind her with a source of lube and a passion to use it. I poured some out on Danica’s cleft and let it ooze down toward her pussy. I let it cascade over three fingers before sealing it up again. With my left hand, I began working a finger into Danica’s anus, and with my right, I worked another into Heaven’s.“Oh,” Danica grunted, as I slipped past her sphincter. Heaven’s response was to moan sensually. It took me a little while to not only work a finger in but a second one in as well; then the fun began. With Heaven, I began both pumping and making a series of circular motions; with Danica, though, I pressed down until I was counter-massaging Heaven’s cock through the walls of her rectum and vagina.“Oh, my fucking God!” shouted Danica. “That feels great; she’s really grinding against me.”“Keep that up,” gasped Heaven. “I – I can feel your fingers.” Okay, I got this one right. I could also feel the sympathetic impulses growing between Danica’s vaginal walls and Heaven’s penis; they weren’t going to last long. Drilling Heaven’s butthole in rapid-fire fashion sent her crashing ahead of the wave.“Dan – Dan – Danica – Hell, yeah!” Heaven screamed as she slammed upward into the lady cop. Danica’s back bowed and a low growling noise reverberated through her body. Both tried to use their anal muscles to grind my finger bones together; for the orgasms they were riding through, it was worth it.Danica shivered through one last orgasmic burst then settled gently down on Heaven. Heaven reached around with her arms and ran them up and down Danica’s back. Our hostess pushed off her lover’s body with her elbows on the mattress and kissed her nose.“That felt wonderful,” she smiled down at Heaven. Heaven didn’t immediately respond. “Is something wrong?” Danica worried.“I – um – it was really nice, Danica, but –” Heaven worked through the words.“But?” Danica asked.“But I think I’m into guys,” Heaven gave her worried confession. “I’m sorry; what we did felt good but what sent me over the top was –”“Oh,” Danica seemed to deflate.“Hold on,” I intervened, even as my fingers were still slowly working them both. “Heaven, you liked Danica’s blowjob; right?”“Yes. It was wonderful,” Heaven brightened up. “She’s – you are –” she looked into Danica’s eyes “– the best I’ve ever had.”“Still, you like it up your ass, don’t you?” I prodded. Heaven bit her lip and rolled her head to the side. Danica pushed herself onto all fours and sighed.“Well, damn,” she sighed, “I was sort of hoping –”“Danica, would you consider screwing Heaven’s butt? Giving it a chance?” I hazarded.“I’d give it a shot,” Danica replied after a moment’s hesitation. Being with a girl was new; being with a transgender was new; and now being the driving force in anal sex was going to be new too.“I’ll get dressed and go out to the car,” I winked. “Surprise, surprise; I worried something like this would happen so I brought a few things along.”I was afraid that when I got back from the car with my backpack holding the strap-on, that a chill would have set in. I shouldn’t have worried; Danica was surprisingly passionate and Heaven was sheer surprise itself. They were cuddled face to face exchanging small kisses and stroking each other’s hair.“I just want you both to know,” Danica held up a warding hand, “if that thing is longer than my arm, I’m calling this off.” I presented the device for her approval and while it could be intimidating, it wasn’t scarier than Heaven’s normal equipment. “I’m glad that’s going into you and not me,” Danica ended up teasing Heaven. Not to be outdone, Heaven rolled onto her stomach and wiggled her upraised butt in the air.“Oh, she’s begging for it,” Danica laughed.“Yes, she does, and if you think that’s sweet, imagine how nice it is to wake up with her ramming that pole in while riding you,” I painted the picture.“Is there any position she doesn’t like?” Danica inquired.“I’m right here, my butt up in the air. Please, somebody do something,” Heaven whined.“Not that I know of,” I ignored Heaven’s plea. “You could try it in the shower, bent over the sofa, heels up in the La-Z-boy, or hanging from the pull-up bar – she’s quite strong.”“Oh – mmm, thanks, Zane; I’ll explore those opportunities,” Danica grinned.“Hello – butt here…needs stuffing,” Heaven became more insistent.“She’s shameless,” Danica teased happily.“Absolutely,” I laughed, “but if one of us doesn’t fulfill her needs real soon, violence will ensue.”“Zane, you warm her up and I’ll figure out how to put this thing on,” Danica instructed me as she took hold of her sexual toy.“About damn time,” Heaven panted as I worked my first finger in again. I’d oiled up several fingers before handing the lube to Danica to prepare her artificial cock with. Heaven’s anus was already pliable from our activity so it took only two minutes to work the second and third finger in. By that time, both Danica and Heaven were ready.“This is weird,” Danica mumbled, as she placed her phallic head against Heaven’s sphincter. “Let me know if this – ” she got out before Heaven pushed back and gasped. “Doesn’t that hurt?”“Makes me feel full,” Heaven gasped. “Push.” Danica did indeed push, and spanked Heaven for good measure.Now that I was freed up again, I elected to recline beside Heaven and watch her get fucked by Danica. Heaven and I made eye contact; that totally free, blissful look was exceptionally special for me. I’d seen Heaven afraid far too often. I’d seen her furious far too often as well.“Zane,” Heaven perked up, “get over here. I want your cock. I want it coming and going.”“Revenge,” taunted Danica. Heaven and I had given Officer Campbell simultaneous oral and anal sex, and now Heaven was getting the same treatment. I sat my ass on the pillow in front of Heaven’s face, legs spread wide. She grabbed my cock in both hands (my penis is so massive, its ability to block out the Sun often cows primitive tribes – or maybe Heaven has small hands) and yanked it forward somewhat painfully until she could lick the tip.“Come on, Zane,” Danica egged me on, “take hold of her head and fuck her like a cheap slut.” A shudder passed head to foot through Heaven’s body and she gave out a small sob.“Heaven,” I asked cautiously, “do you want to stop?”“I’m being fucked like a slut, Zane,” she replied tearfully. “I’m being fucked like a slut.”You never know with some people. Danica gave me a worried look so I gave her a quick smile and a nod. Heaven wanted to be a woman, but almost as important was that she wanted to be seen and treated like a woman. It may have played out in Heaven’s imagination that she had gone to some seedy bar looking all hot and sexy, then a couple had picked her up so they could treat her like a bad little girl.I raised my hips, feeding more of my cock into Heaven’s mouth.“Spank your bitch’s ass,” I teased Danica. She responded by alternating noisy but not very painful slaps to our tranny’s buttocks. Heaven wanted the tease, not the real pain, and Danica was right there for her.Once we had a good rhythm going, I could feel Danica’s cock slamming at its deepest impact, Heaven squirming and squealing with the pleasure and her tongue and throat swirling around my oral intrusion. She slurped and sucked desperately while a small amount of drool marked her cheek and jaw. Heaven began making whimpering noises along with the grunts when Danica drove in deeper.All the sizzling sex I’d been forced (yeah, right) to watch sent me over the edge first.“Heaven…babe, here it comes,” I chanted several times before I finally did shoot gobs and gobs – so much it shot out her nose and mouth. Okay, not really that much, but I certainly felt some relief.Heaven swallowed with some degree of urgency because she was at her tipping point as well.“Oh, God; oh, God; oh, God, Danica…FUCK!” she cried out, then bucked up hard against Danica. On the second buck, Danica took hold of Heaven by her elbows. Heaven rocked a few more feeble times onto the strap-on but her energy was temporarily spent.Danica wrapped her right and then her left arm around Heaven, pulling her into an upright, kneeling embrace, her breasts squished against Heaven’s back.“Are you okay, Precious?” Danica panted next to her lover’s ear.“I – oh, yeah – I feel great,” Heaven wheezed. “I also…seem to have…made a mess…on the bed.”“I planned for that,” Danica answered with a kiss to Heaven’s neck. “I was hoping we’d end up here. By the way, do you want me to pull this out now?”“Yeah, my ass is getting a bit sore – muscles stretched,” Heaven shivered. I wiggled forward so that Danica could push Heaven against me as she withdrew the artificial phallus from its resting place up Heaven’s back door.When the last of it slipped free, Heaven gave a brief little hiccup, then melted into my arms.“Damn, I’m so glad I met you,” she murmured.“Thanks,” Danica and I said together, then laughed at the confusion. Heaven gingerly curled into my lap while Danica sat back and worked off the sexual aid that had brought so much pleasure.“Well, that was different,” Danica mused. “I’m not sure how much I enjoyed it but I can’t say it turned me off.”“Mmmm…that was good sex,” Heaven smiled at us both. “I like good sex.” I gave her a little nudge and communicated as best I could by eye contact alone. “Thank you, Danica,” she added. “I really liked that – what you did for me.”“In that case, we really should do it again,” Danica said nonchalantly. Heaven perked up right away.“Right now?” she hoped.“No,” I cut that conversation right off. “I need to get back to campus, and that means you have to get back as well.”“But – ” Heaven sounded hurt “– Danica…that means we can’t…”“I know,” Danica interrupted. “Zane has church work tomorrow and then I’m at work for the next five nights, so…maybe next Tuesday?”“I’d like that,” Heaven became excited once more. She crawled over to Danica and began kissing the cop and running her hands all over her body.“Bathroom, clothes, kisses goodbye, and then we have to go,” I prodded Heaven. She looked over her shoulder at me with deep disappointment. Finally, she sighed and nodded. The rest of our visit passed quickly enough. Heaven behaved, I cleaned up the strap-on and myself, and we left Danica with some thank-you’s and a bemused look on her face. I knew that expression; people had described me as having it after my second date with Heaven too.THE BIRTH OF THE JANISSARIESWhen we returned to campus, I felt my stress level rise once more. This time I was reasonably sure I had a plan but I needed some help. I sent out some messages for people to gather, and for a special few, I sent people to get the girls I wasn’t sure would come otherwise. I barely got back to my dorm room before the fire tribal meetings that had taken place there broke up.I wasn’t there to say much but I did impress upon the students that this was my turf and I wasn’t ceding one inch to Ms. Scarlett’s scheme or to any one tribe.The group that I’d assembled was very eclectic – some by force and a few of them I barely knew at all. Of the staff, I brought in Dana Gorman – because she was the prior Head of Security and our current Physical Education Coach – and Gabrielle Black, because she was the current Head of Security and I didn’t want to build an internal police force without her advice and consent.On the justice side of things, I brought in Dr. Bryce Kennedy [FYI: she is a woman], the head of the Pre-Law program, Ms. Hudson Lane, our school lawyer, and Ms. Virginia Goodswell, because I trusted her judgment where teachers and teaching were involved. Despite the oddity of the situation, they all answered my summons and didn’t look frighteningly pissed at my request.Student-wise, there was a sea of familiar faces, if not friendly ones. Only Mhain Reynard had been brought here under threat of force by Hope and Chastity. When most of the two visiting tribes had cleared out, I began my meeting.“What I have to say may ramble a bit but please be patient; we are creating something new here,” I began. “Has anyone heard of the janissaries?”Iona raised her hand, as did Hope, Christina, and Simone Brady (former Junior Class President).“For the rest of you, there was a Muslim empire of Turks who ruled much of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. They would levy a tax against their Christian subjects of young sons, and they would take these boys, force their conversion to Islam, and then use them as elite soldiers and palace guards for the Sultans.”“No, I’m not asking anyone to convert,” I warded off some of the more hateful looks, “but the principle elements of what I say will make sense, I promise. These Janissaries soon rose up to become the chief officials of the Turkish government, the most loyal and trusted of all the Sultan’s men. They were both the military and the civil authority of the Empire.” I let that sink into the crowd of bright young women I’d assembled.“So you want us as your personal guard?” Kylie Frik, a sophomore candidate for Class President, sneered. Clearly, she was thinking harem, not what I had planned. Hannah Cartwright, her opposite in the sophomore camp, figured it out.“You want us to be a police force and, I’m guessing by the presence of a few Law types, to be judges as well. You want a shield between you and direct involvement of things you might do.”“Close, but no cigar,” I grinned to Hannah. She liked me well enough but she didn’t really know me or the twisted way my mind worked. “You wouldn’t be my shield; I would be yours. The Janissaries get together and decide policy and how to best enact it; I give
And the Lord Gave Daniel 1:1-21 by William Klock We like to say that actions often speak louder than words. When things are hard, it's one thing for someone to promise they'll be there for you, but it's something else entirely when they actually are. And we know from experience, some people are all talk. They say they'll be there, but they may or may not show up. But we all know people who say they'll be there and we know from our past experience with them that we really can count on them being there. Some people just prove themselves to be imminently dependable. When it comes to God, we should know that he is imminently more dependable than even the most imminently dependable human being, but sometimes we doubt—especially when the dark seems so utterly overwhelming. Israel was no different in that way. God had spoken. They had his word through the Law and the Prophets, but still, some day it was just so hard not to doubt. Think of those awful days for Second Century Judah that we read about last week in 1 Maccabees. Pagans defiled the Lord's temple. Pagans were killing Jews for obeying the Lord's law. A lot of Jews were giving in and apostatising. Their children were being enticed into a pagan way of life. The faithful cried out to the Lord with pleas like that of Psalm 68, “Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered!” They prayed and prayed. They were faithful and they watched as their friends and family were murdered for their faithfulness. Where was God? Did he really care for his people? And so the author of Daniel looked back to the last time this happened, to the days of the Babylonian exile. The purpose of Daniel was to remind the people of the Lord's past faithfulness. It was an exhortation to stand firm in faith, trusting in the Lord. And so he begins in Daniel 1 and writes: In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god. Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. In the third year of King Jehoiakim of Judah. Assuming that number isn't being used symbolically—which it might—these opening events of Daniel took place in 605 or 604 BC. Jehoiakim was put on the throne as a puppet king of the Egyptians, but when Nebuchadnezzar defeated Egypt, Jehoiakim a puppet of the Babylonians. Jehoiakim was an evil king. The rabbis described him as a godless tyrant who engaged in incest and murder. Through the Prophet Jeremiah, the Lord repeated rebuked him and warned him of coming judgement. And here we see the beginnings of it. What's described here in Daniel 1 sounds very much like the siege that Nebuchadnezzar laid against Jerusalem in 598 BC—which would mean we need to do more work to sort out the date given—but it's possible that the Babylonians began applying some of this sort of pressure earlier—a warning, letting Jehoiakim and his people know who was in control. So Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest of the Neo-Babylonian emperors, came to Jerusalem and showed the city and the people who was boss. He took sacred vessels from the temple. The text isn't specific, but it implies that these were vessels and tools associated with the altar and with sacrifices. The point wasn't their monetary value. The point was that Nebuchadnezzar wanted to demonstrate the defeat of the God of Israel. Taking the city showed the people that they were now the subjects of the Babylonian king, but taking the consecrated vessels of the Lord from his temple showed that Israel's God was now subject to the gods of Babylon. And along with those temple vessels, Nebuchadnezzar took with him a group of young men—the first of the exiles—so that they could be taught the ways of the Babylonians. They were hostages. Nebuchadnezzar probably expected some of them to be sent back to serve a Babylonian administration in Jerusalem once they'd been convinced of Babylon's superiority. But, I think, taking these men from the royal and noble families, more than anything else, was meant to show the rulers of Judah that Nebuchadnezzar was now sovereign over them. Even their children belonged to him and to his gods. But notice that little note slipped into verse 2. You might even have missed it. Verse 1 tells us that Nebuchadnezzar came and laid siege to Jerusalem, but verse 2 tells us that it was the Lord who gave him King Jehoiakim and the temple vessels. The Lord not only allowed this, he orchestrated it. The Lord is the one who is sovereign, not Nebuchadnezzar…not Antiochus Epiphanes…not Ceasar…not Charles III or Justin Trudeau…the Lord, the God of Israel is sovereign over kings and nations—and, maybe most important, over his own people. And in those few words in verse 2, we're reminded of the Lord's faithfulness—not just to rescue his people as he promised, not just to prosper his people as he promised, but also to discipline them when they were unfaithful, just as he promised he would. And there's something else that might slip by us. In the biblical literature most closely related to Daniel, it's usually “God gave”. In fact, we'll see that later on. But here it's “the Lord gave”. This is not merely the God of Israel, but the God who is Lord over all—over every nation and over every king, even mighty Nebuchadnezzar. Brothers and Sisters, whatever is happening today, remember that God is sovereign and in control. That someone living through the terrors of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes would point his people back to Daniel to remind them that the Lord is in control, ought to cause us to do the same sort of thing: to look back not only to the history of God and his dealings with his people, but to do that while hearing his words and his promises to them through the prophets. Why would God allow Christendom to fall after two-thousand years? Why is God allowing the church in the West to wither and die? I think we need to look back to the story of God and his people. In Israel he established an earthly kingdom to represent his rule in the world, to witness his light in the midst of the darkness. He didn't expect perfection, but he did expect faithfulness. And when Israel refused to be faithful, the Lord disciplined her—as a witness to the nations. He preferred to be known through his blessing, but if that wasn't going to work out, his sovereign holiness would be shown through cursing and, eventually, through his restoration of his people in fulfilment of his promises. Christendom, I think, has befallen much the same fate. The gospel went out and it conquered an empire. Christendom was born and, a lot like Israel, it represented Jesus' rule on earth—prefiguring that day when the gospel and the church have finally accomplished their mission to usher in God's new creation. Christendom wasn't perfect—not by any means—but it did represent a people and nations that lived the gospel—people who were faithful. And the dramatic transformation that took place in the conversion of those pagan empires and nations into Christendom are profound witness to the power of the gospel—a witness I think we're often unaware of, because we now live in a world transformed by that gospel. But as the centuries passed, our gospel light began to waver and dim. The gospel had once put an end to slavery in the Roman world, but then slavery was restored—to our shame. Christian kings began to colonise and exploit less developed peoples. And, yes, the Lord used those efforts to carry the gospel to new corners of the world and often to judge wicked peoples, but then those Christian kings plundered those nations and mistreated their people. Wars broke out and Christian nation rose up against Christian nation. I don't think it should be any surprise that the Church in Europe began its rapid decline and godless philosophies and secularism quickly replaced it in the years following World War I—a war in which ostensibly Christian countries brutally fought each other for regional hegemony. In the years after that war, Karl Barth wrote that his seminary student had lost the ability to smile. The gospel light was all but stamped out. The joy of Jesus was all but gone. In the century since, Europe has become almost entirely secular. And now here, across the Atlantic, the trend marches on. And it shouldn't be any surprise. As a people we worship the gods of money and self, of materialism and sex and all of that. We murder our children before they're even born. We here in North America were once Christian nations, but—as with Israel in the Old Testament—the Lord will not allow a wicked nation to represent him. Discipline will come to both the nation and its church and I think that's precisely what we're seeing. But how often do we hear Christians acknowledge that it is the Lord who has given us into the hands of our enemies? If there's something we can learn from Daniel—and from the bigger biblical story—it's to recognise how the Lord works and, more importantly, that he is at work. Brothers and Sisters, the Lord was as present with his people in Babylon as he had been in Jerusalem. And while it's a terrible thought to think that we might be living under the disciplining hand of the Lord, we can take comfort in knowing that we are, nevertheless, in his hand. Let us pray that we will learn the lessons he wants us to learn and that he will restore his blessings. Now, let's continue with Daniel 1, picking up at verse 5 with those young men exiled to Babylon. The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate, and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king. Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego. (Daniel 1:5-7) Again, it looks like Nebuchadnezzar has won. These four men's Hebrew names all reflected their faith in the God of Israel. Daniel means “God is my judge”, Azariah “Yah is my help”, Hananiah “Yah has been gracious”, and Mishael “Who is what God is”. They are all renamed. It's not clear exactly what all four of their new names mean, but they're all intended to express that these four young men now belong to the gods of Babylon. And the King of Babylon will now take care of them. They will eat from his table as they're trained in the superior wisdom of Babylon. But, the story goes on: Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs, and the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, “I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and your drink; for why should he see that you were in worse condition than the youths who are of your own age? So you would endanger my head with the king.” Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, “Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king's food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.” So he listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king's food. So the steward took away their food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables. (Daniel 1:8-16) Why did Daniel and his friends reject the rich food of the king? Our first guess might be that they insisted on keeping the dietary laws of the torah, but they refused the king's wine and wine wasn't part of those dietary laws. We might guess that it was because the king's food was first offered to idols, but the vegetables they ate would have been offered to idols like everything else. Or maybe it was because to eat from the king's table meant making a public display of accepting his lordship over them. I don't think it was any of these things. First, this was temporary. Daniel didn't have any problem eating rich foods later in life. And, second, they did this in private. No one but the four of them and the steward knew about this arrangement. I think the context of the story gives us the reason. Nebuchadnezzar had taken them to Babylon; had renamed them, effectively submitting them to his gods; and he'd engaged them in this rigorous programme of reeducation for service to his court. As I read this I remember learning about the Janissaries when I studied Islamic Civ. The Janissaries were the elite corps of Ottoman troops, serving the sultan's own household. They were known for their discipline and, above all, for their loyalty to the sultan. The creepy thing about the Janissaries was that the corps was made up entirely of men who had been stolen as young boys from the Christian families of the Ottoman Empire, a tax on those who refused to convert. These Christian boys were converted to Islam to serve the sultan. It sent a message: “You can refuse Islam, but at any time we can take your children and make them ours.” I felt queasy the first time I read about that. I think there's more than a little of that same idea going on here—and in our present culture, too. Maybe there was some doubt of the God of Israel in the minds of these four. They knew the scriptures. They knew the promises of God and they knew his faithfulness. But here they were in Babylon, given the names of pagan gods, forced to learn the ways of Babylonian wisdom, and fed from this foreign king's table. I think we can forgive them for having faith, but still wanting some kind of confirmation. If they were going to be the elite of the Babylonian court, would it be because of Nebuchadnezzar or because of the Lord. And so they worked out a deal with the steward in charge of their food. The chief eunuch wasn't going to cooperate. He was part of the programme, after all, but the steward—well, he could have all that food for himself. And these four young men would know that if they prospered despite a meagre diet of vegetables and water, that the Lord was truly with them. Nebuchadnezzar had no idea what had happened, but this was not for his benefit. This was for the four young men, that they would know with absolute certainty that their God was with them in Babylon. Continuing with the text at verse 17 we see what happened. As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. At the end of the time, when the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king spoke with them, and among all of them none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore they stood before the king. And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom. And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus. There it is again: “God gave”. Just as he gave over Jehoiakim and Jerusalem, and his own sacred vessels from the temple into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, he gave to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. When they stood before the king on exam day, they had ten times the wisdom and understanding, not just of the other young men in this programme, but of the experienced magicians and enchanters of the court. And then that final note that anticipates the whole book of Daniel. “Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus.” That's sixty-six years. The Lord would be with Daniel and the Lord would preserve Daniel and he would outlast and outlive Nebuchadnezzar and all of his successors. He would see the fall of the kings of Babylon and their conquest by the Persians. This last statement makes the point that kings and kingdoms rise and fall, but the Lord is sovereign over all. In closing I want us to think about these statements that it was God who gave. First, that he gave his people over to Nebuchadnezzar in discipline. We've looked at what that means. But here we see God giving to these four faithful young men wisdom that they might persevere in faithfulness in those difficult times. They were thoroughly steeped in the wisdom of Babylon, but it was wisdom the Lord gave them by which they persevered and that gave them favour in the eyes of the pagans. What are we to do in the midst of trials? What are we to do in a world in which the Lord has sovereignly allowed Christendom to collapse and his church to dwindle and fall into disfavour? Brothers and Sisters, ask the Lord for wisdom. Learn from the world, but listen to the Lord and pursue his wisdom. That's not an easy thing to do. Torah, the law, that was black and white. Do this and don't do that. Wisdom is harder. Wisdom is knowing what to do in situations where things the answer may not be a matter of black and white. Wisdom is knowing where to draw the line in those times when there's no law to make it obvious. Sometimes walking in wisdom is to walk a tightrope. The church today is struggling to walk that rope. Some Christians fall off one side into Progressivism or Wokeness or whatever you want to call it. Other Christians fall off to the other side into and culture waring or Christian nationalism. Some of us capitulate to our Babylonian conquerors, taking the path of least resistance, and end up in apostasy. Others of us fail to recognise that the Babylonians are the agents of the Lord's discipline and instead of listening for the Lord's rebuke, instead of listening to hear what he would have us learn, we go to war with Babylon—a fight we cannot and will not win until we've first learned the lesson the Lord is teaching us. What we need instead is the godly wisdom to remain faithful in our exile, while allowing the Lord to do a work of repentance and reform in the heart of his church. Again, it's not easy. I guess you could say that's why it's called “wisdom” and why the scriptures call us so earnestly to seek after it. Wisdom doesn't fall in your lap. The great sages of Israel tell us that the beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord—again, to pursue him, to pursue his plans, to pursue his ways, to pursue holiness and to cast off all worldliness. And to pursue the Lord, Brothers and Sisters, that means to steep ourselves in his word, in the very place where he reveals himself and his ways, where he speaks to us. If you are not steeped in his word, you have no hope of obtaining godly wisdom. But to pursue the Lord also means to speak to him. Pray! When was the last time you prayed for wisdom? Let God speak to you through his word and then speak to him and while you're speaking to him, while you're worshipping him, ask for wisdom. This is what we see of Daniel and his friends. They were steeped in the law and the prophets, in the psalms and in the story of their people. And they prayed. And they worshipped the Lord. Second, we need the fellowship of the church. You can't pursue the Lord on your own; you need his people. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, none of them went into this alone. They stood firm and in doing so they stood together. They strengthened and exhorted each other. So should we. We need not only the support of fellow believers in order to stand firm, but in the pursuit of godly wisdom, we need the witness and discernment of the Church—of all those who have gone before us and of those who stand with us today. Brothers and Sisters, it's hard. I fully expect things will get harder. And yet you and I have something far greater than Daniel and his friends had or that those faithful Jews living under Antiochus Epiphanes had. They had the promises of the Lord to their people. They had his promises in the Exodus and in Deuteronomy. They had his exhortations and his promises and his warnings given through the prophets. They had his words. And they knew their story. They could look back to the Exodus—and they did every year at Passover—and they were reminded of the Lord's faithfulness. Those men and women living in the days of Antiochus could look back to the faithfulness of God to Daniel and know that he would be just as faithful to them. But Friends, consider that you and I not only look back on all of that, but we also look back to Jesus. When we come to his Table, when we eat the bread and drink the wine, we participate in the events of that greater exodus by which the Lord fulfilled his promises to Israel. We can look back to the cross and see the love and the grace and the mercy and the faithfulness of the Lord on display as it had never been before. The Lord of glory humbled himself to become one of us and to shed his blood on a cross for our sake, to shed his blood that we might live with him and know his new creation. And, too, he has poured out his own Spirit on us and made us his temple. Brothers and Sisters, in Jesus and the Spirit we have the sure and certain assurance that God is with us, that we are in his hands, and that he will see us through the valley of the shadow of death to know green pastures and still waters. He will see us through, as the Psalmist sang, for his name's sake—for he has not only given us his promise, but he has sealed that promise with his own name, with his own reputation, and with his own blood. In response, Brothers and Sisters, let us be faithful—faithful stewards of his word, faithful stewards of his gospel, and let us pray for and seek his wisdom that we might fear him and walk as a gospel people—light in the darkness. Let's pray: Almighty and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities and our trials; and in all our dangers and necessities stretch out your right hand to help and defend us; give us humility to know your chastisement; and pour out your wisdom on us that we might discern your will and walk in your way; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Building on our discussion last year about Janissaries and Kipo, herein we discuss two other properties - both from book series - that could be used for new settings, campaigns, or short story arcs. We also discuss which existing game systems we think would be the best fits for each. Check out the links below to find out more about these two properties. 1632 on Amazon: https://a.co/d/euSSko7 1632 Homepage: https://1632.org/ Codex Alera on Amazon: https://a.co/d/3zVea04 Jannisaries and Kipo Episode: https://youtu.be/7CNV2IDyX78 Join our friendly Discord: https://discord.gg/5AtydRUDjX Subscribe on to our podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fluffncrunch Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fluffncrunchpod --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fluffncrunch/message
We explore two fiction IPs as potential fodder for game settings and/or adventures. We discuss which existing systems we might use, and why we think these non-gaming properties would be a good fit for the tabletop world. We'd love to hear from you with your suggestions along these same lines. Janissaries on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087GX9HNS?binding=hardcover&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_thcv Join our friendly Discord: https://discord.gg/5AtydRUDjX Subscribe on to our podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fluffncrunch Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fluffncrunchpod --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fluffncrunch/message
Dr. Yakoob Ahmed is a PhD graduate of the Department of Languages and Cultures, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He also graduated from the same institution with a Masters degree in Near and Middle East Studies with a focus on Ottoman history and Turkish politics. His research focuses are Late Ottoman History, Muslim intellectual thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Islamic constitutionalism, nation-state construction, ulema history of the Late Ottoman state, identity and collective memory construction. Earthquake Relief Links: Heroic Hearts: HCHearts.org Syria Needs You: SyriaNeedsYou.com 0:00 - Start 1:58 - Why he's in the United States? 5:25 - Why did he become a historian? 7:23 - SOAS 11:00 - What part of UK he's from? 12:25 - Why Ottoman History? 13:54 - What is Empire? 15:55 - Were the Ottomans a Caliphate? 21:00 - Questions on the legitimacy 26:00 - When did it start to decline? 28:13 - Periodization 28:54 - What CHATGPT thinks caused the collapse? 39:30 - What could have prevented collapse? 49:45 - Lessons learned 57:22 - The Janissaries 1:04:03 - Periods on Consolidation 1:07:30 - Attitude towards Arabs 1:15:30 - Armenia 1:18:00 - Crimea 1:21:15 - Fratricide 1:23:49 - The Harem 1:29:25 - Jizyah 1:32:50 - Relationship with the Mughals 1:38:50 - Academic Freedom 1:48:50 - Was there spiritual corruption? 1:49:50 - What kind of Caliphate should Muslims have? Please support us: Patreon.com/themadmamluks or via PayPal themadmamluks.com/donate ============== E-mail us your feedback and questions at: info@themadmamluks.com Follow us on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook @TheMadMamluks Follow SIM on Twitter: @ImranMuneerTMM
Mihail leaned forward. The red light of the candle bled up over both our faces. “Well then I'll keep speaking your language, if you'll survive. Have you ever heard of the ‘Devshirme System'?” “It sounds electrifying.” “Also sometimes called the ‘Ottoman Blood Tax?'” --The Wrong Station contains explicit content and mature themes. Episode-specific warnings can be found at www.wrongstation.com/c-w Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week returning guest Mesut Uyar is back to talk about The Ottoman Elite Corps infamously known as "The Jannisaries". In the episode we talk about how the Jannisaries worked, from their recruitment to training, how they became an elite corps to the end of The Jannisaries. This week on "Well That Aged Well", With "Erlend Hedegart".You can find professor Uyar on twitter here: @mesutuyar10Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/well-that-aged-well. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
War A to Z▪️Abbas I The Great▪️Born - January 27 1571, IranDied - January 19 1629, Iran▪️Wars/Battles of Note - Uzbek-Persian Wars, Turko-Persian Wars, Mogul-Persian Wars, Tabriz 1603,Sis 1606, Siege of Baghdad 1624-1626▪️Through a combination of guile, patience, and determination, Abbas the Great ruled a powerful Persian state for over forty years. Upon taking the throne he faced threats from every direction including the vaunted Janissaries of the Turks and the mighty Mogul Empire to the south. Understanding that he could only deal with one enemy at a time, Abbas prioritized each opponent and then in turn dealt with the Uzbeks, Ottomans, Moguls, and even the Portuguese. His was court of culture and when not campaigning he was a powerful patron of the arts and builder of beautiful cities. On his death the Persian Empire ran from the Indus River to the Tigris River.▪️Rate/Review/Subscribe
Mehmet II's death leads to a brief power struggle between his two sons: Bayezid and Cem. In the end, the Janissaries pick Bayezid and Cem finds himself packed off to Rome. Bayezid enlarges the Ottoman Empire picking up new territory in northern Syria. His death leads to his son, Selim I, taking the throne. Selim I expands the Ottoman Empire even further than his grandfather, ending the Mamluk Empire and extending Ottoman control to the Holy Land.Website: www.westerncivpodcast.comAd-Free Shows: www.patreon.com/westernicivpodcastWestern Civ 2.0 Free Trial: www.glow.fm/westernciv
The Dawn of the New Order, like it or not.By FinalStand. Subscribe & Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” - Abraham Lincoln*Earned leadership is a blessing; assigned leadership is a burden*Editor's Note: This episode is a tale of the new vice chancellor's attempt to destroy Zane by empowering him. So this is how it's going to be.It started at 6:45 as we began filing out of the dorm toward the dining hall and breakfast. We received texts, or our dorm mothers received them if we didn’t have that function, assigning us a tribe we belonged to. What was a tribe? No one seemed to have a clue what this entailed for us.“So,” Iona was the first to ask me, “Which tribe are you part of?”“My tribe’s called the Mediator tribe,” I responded. “What lame-ass name does your tribe have?” Iona blinked at me, took my phone from my hands, and looked at it while we walked.“Mercy and I are in 17,” Rio sneered. “Why did your group merit a name and ours didn’t?”“Because Zane doesn’t have a tribe,” Iona figured. “He is not of the mediator tribe; he’s a mediator. The real question is, how many mediators are there and what is their responsibility?”“I’m in tribe three,” Vivian volunteered. “I do have a notation but no indication who to see about it.” The conversations around us were going in the same general direction, the girls trying to figure what sort of disruptions this would cause. The teachers put a kibosh on students walking around and finding out where their friends were placed so the text and phone messages being tossed around were obscene.The surprise going to breakfast had saved virtually all of the freshmen from Handmaiden’s Duty but they snapped us up heading for Assembly. I had Frederica Nicholas who decided to make a game of her giving me a word and me having to create a poetic verse. I rapidly learned the more risqué my verse, the more touchy-feely she became. (And she is a Rhaine supporter, huh?) I am a glutton for sexual foreplay no matter where it comes from.Entry into the Assembly Hall brought its own special form of confusion. All the seats had numbers for the tribes that could sit there. I didn’t find my group anywhere but I did catch the fact that Christina’s group had been broken up. I stopped by Heaven to put a comforting hand on her shoulder because she looked terribly unsettled before I approached Ms. Goodswell on the stage.My spiritual advisor stood up, walked to the edge of the stage, and knelt down so we could talk privately.“Hi, Teach. I can’t seem to find my groups/tribe’s area,” I said pleasantly. “Can you help me out? Hell, can you tell me what’s going on?”“Zane, your seat is right over there,” she said, pointing to a chair on the front row aisle seat. She smiled sadly. “All I can tell you about this program right now is that I trust you.” Oh crap, that didn’t sound good. Sitting on the front row, the region normally reserved for seniors, was just as disturbing. I sensed an epic boning in my future and I was sure I knew who the chick with the strap-on was.Chancellor Bass came to the podium and led us through the first ten minutes of the session. I could tell she was simmering with anger and resentment over whatever the upcoming fiasco was, and she showed it. She introduced Vice Chancellor Scarlett, then sat down abruptly. Her enthusiasm wasn’t muted; it was buried in the core of the earth.“Greetings, students of Freedom Fellowship University; I believe we stand at the first step to a great, glorious, and blessed experiment,” Vice Chancellor Dr. Victoria Scarlett began. Her plan did sound grandiose, was certainly going to be famous (or infamous), and whichever supernatural powers put their mark on this train wreck, I was sure we’d discover the Arch-angel Morningstar also had his sulfuric fingerprints on it when the CSI’s were finally brought in.The basics of the scheme: There would be eighteen tribes of fifty or more members. Each tribe had all four grades in it but was focused on declared majors so that the girls could support one another. Each tribe would internally determine how they would regulate themselves as well. Externally, relations would be overseen by the Mediator, yes, that was in the singular, as in one: me.At this point, I was wondering if jumping up, shooting Scarlett in the heart, and crying ‘Sic semper tyrannies’ was appropriate. I didn’t have a gun and realistically, Victoria didn’t deserve death for what she was putting all of us through. A few days in a pillory would suffice. No, she was making me be the 'Man’ of our academic community, our judge and arbitrator.As for my job qualifications, or lack thereof; I am considered morally loose, if not downright deviant. I’m an eighteen-year-old boy telling twenty-one-year-old women what to do, I have no legal experience, oh, yes, and half the campus hates my guts. I almost missed it when Dr. Scarlett added that Vivian would remain my guardian.Maybe Vivian would throw herself in the path of a sharpened pencil, pen, or stylus aimed at my heart by any number of the young ladies that wanted me dead, just like a Secret Service Agent.“You will be informed of the location of your first meetings. Each tribe will meet at eight o'clock tonight and tomorrow night to create the foundations of your group,” Dr. Scarlett informed us.“Tribes five and seventeen will be meeting in the Solarium of Alan Smithee dorm, if that is okay with Mr. Braxton.” Victoria looked my way. I stood up in case anyone missed my discomfort for being called out and actually asked by a lead educator for anything resembling permission on this campus.“Eight o'clock tonight?” I questioned. “I don’t know if that works for me. I have a Brazilian body wax at eight and have scheduled my eyebrows to be plucked at 8:45, plus there is a new episode of NCIS: Los Angeles at nine.”“How about they promise to keep the noise level down?” Victoria volleyed right back at me without missing a beat.“Very well, Dr. Scarlett, if you personally guarantee their behavior, I’m okay with them using my room,” I allowed. I couldn’t provoke Scarlett and I couldn’t embarrass her, so I was back to facing her rear-bound artificial cock catching up with my behind. I sat back down. Victoria quickly exited center stage and a bitter Chancellor ushered us through the last of the service.I waited outside the Assembly Hall for my friends and my Handmaiden for the moment, Theresa Yates. Christina and Chastity caught up with me first, both giving me a curious look.“Bro,” Rio sneered as she and Mercy joined us, “we need to discuss your future abuse of power, bribes and kick-backs you are going to get. Nice banter with ol’ Scarlett too.”“Yes,” Christina said sarcastically, “being flippant with the Vice Chancellor backfired so spectacularly the first time, it definitely needed repeating.” Her criticism really sucked because I always secretly wanted her to think well of me.“What’s your plan?” Chastity prodded me. She was always helping me out when she got the chance. As she finished, Iona, Hope, Faith, and Heaven showed up.“They split us up,” growled Heaven. “Do something, Zane.”“He just found out about this,” Iona responded before I could. “Give it time and combined, we will come up with a solution together.” I sighed with some relief at her assistance and then I blinked. The powerful kiss I planted on Iona’s lips caught everyone off-guard.“Freaking brilliant!” I complimented her gaily, giddy with glee. I didn’t have an actual plan yet but I had a direction to propel my thought toward. With my mind awhirl, I caught sight of Theresa moving past me on her way to class.“Hey, Theresa,” I called out. “What are you having me do today?” She looked a bit shocked.“Zane, we are no longer allowed to call on you for Handmaiden’s Duty,” she informed me.“Oh, Heck no,” I choked out. “Who says?”“The Vice-Chancellor declared you to be outside the tradition,” she stated sadly. I wasn’t going to stand for this. Victoria was building a wedge between me and the rest of the student body.“Iona, do that tech-thing that you do and inform the ladies that by the authority vested in me as mediator, I am reinstating myself as part of the Handmaiden’s duty until…over half of the tribal leaders petition that I do otherwise,” I announced.“By tech-thing, do you mean send a text message with an accompanying e-mail to all the students on the school registry?” Iona regarded me quizzically.“Zane,” Chastity worried, “are you sure you have the authority?”“Of course he has the authority,” Rio declared. “He’s the freaking mediator.” Sometimes I would really like to get a word in before the conversation runs away from me.I swatted Iona on the ass, she squawked.“Chastity, this is clearly a game of chicken, so why not see how far Scarlett is willing to go,” I replied. The look Christina gave me restored my faith in me; her eyes beamed at me, alight with an intellectual fire. I had one last thing to do while the chaos boiled one last time before the ebb: I hugged Rio.“I want you to break into Gabrielle’s place,” I whispered in her ear, “wait for her to come get you, and tell her this: There is no Cordelia Dresden.”“Back off, Joker,” Rio punched me. Rio trusted me not to put her in harm’s way if I had another choice and Gabrielle knew that Rio would be the last person any sane individual would trust to do this.She gave no hint of a reply to my request. The assumption was, if Cordelia didn’t know what we were up to, she couldn’t figure out a way to stop us, and right now I wanted a way for us out of her little game here at FFU. My current theory was that the girl I knew as Cordelia didn’t exist before she came here, she was an invented personality, and I wanted to know who the inventor was.Oh yeah, back to my actual life where my academic and social lives were in upheaval because my current nemesis (or one of them anyway) was a crusading idealist. I swear to God, if I survive this place, I will never forgive Aunt Jill for not sending me to the University of Hawaii, which was my first choice for college. All I had to worry about there was hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and the wrath of the island spirits for despoiling virgins, simple shit.“Zane, you will discuss the merits and sins of the concubines of King Solomon with me,” Theresa said, as she passed me her backpack to carry. Life rolled back to semi-normal and we separated to make our way to our first classes of the day. That illusion took another ill turn when I entered English class with Ms. Goodswell. She gestured for me to come to her desk before the lesson began.“Zane,” she informed me softly, “none of the female teachers or administrators at this school can give you orders, only suggestions. Only Dr. Jennings may truly compel you to do anything.”This bombshell was the reason she said she trusted me back in Assembly. The only one making me do the right thing was me. I had never considered me Mr. Responsibility before so I was in for a crash course in having authority over 900 students and 100 teachers. I told Virginia Goodswell about my decision concerning my Handmaiden’s Duty to get her input, then compelled her to treat me as any other student, because apparently, I’m in charge of students now.“There are old soldiers and there are bold soldiers, but there are very few old, bold soldiers,” she reminded me. “Never forget, no matter how dark it may seem, Zane, you are never alone.”“I could always use a picture of you in a white, low-cut bikini to inspire me,” I hinted.“Mr. Braxton, by the authority vested in me by the mediator, I order you to take your seat so we can begin classes,” she smirked. Oh, the irony: stymied by my own hubris.Celia Wanamaker snapped me up coming out of English class. Vivian was waiting for me and Raven was in tow, right up until Paige snapped her up. Celia had me name a biblical character for each letter of the alphabet. Paige had Raven quote bible verses, backwards. As if there was any doubt my day could get worse, it did so immediately.“Oh, the great Priest-King approaches!” screeched Rio on seeing me. “We all must genuflect, that’s kneel down until your head touches the ground for you stupid bitches, until the Mediator passes.” The horrible, horrible thing was that dozens of confused girls started doing just that.“Hold on,” I held up my hands for attention, “Hold on. Rio is mistaken. Genuflecting is only done during the Holy Days of Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter.”Okay, I made that up off the fly and I figured that I wouldn’t be at school for Christmas, and Good Friday and Easter were next year and I’d worry about that then. For now:“Emily, Rebecca, Henrietta, and Magdalena, please carry Rio to her next class, by the legs and arms,” I instructed some of the closest students. “If a door or other object gets in the way, don’t hesitate to use her head as a battering ram.”“Damn, Bro, that’s harsh,” Rio giggled from the floor. I knelt beside her.“Yeah,” I whispered, “like being man-handled by four girls isn’t going to turn you on.”“Don’t tell them that,” she whispered back. I rose and continued on to class. A wiggling, squirming, cursing, and fighting Rio followed us.I went through the same rigmarole in Biblical Archeology. I told the teacher that using my authority over students, I was instructing her to instruct me as if I was any other student…because I was a student and this was the area of my authority; right? She bought into my reasoning with some relief.“How was it?” I mouthed to Rio once class was well on the way.“Two hands all the way up the thigh, one knows I forgot my undies and was thoroughly soaked, two titties grabbed,” Rio described what she’d been subjected to, “and I got to bite Magdalena’s ass. I love those soccer player asses. You are most likely the best friend I will ever know; thank you.”“Always willing to help a fellow pervert out,” I grinned back. Rio winked, then returned to work. I needed all the humor I could get because it was going to be a long damn day. By the time I made Marksmanship at three o'clock, I was damn happy to shoot something. I got some relief by having my best day ever, scoring a 53 (out of a possible 100) at the range. When I finished, I noticed a large number of my club mates standing close by.Women and the World At Large“Yes?” I questioned the ladies clustered behind me at the firing line.“Oh, we are huddling behind your manliness,” Daphne, one of the better shooters, joked.“Manliness? Daphne, you just shot an 87. Hell, if you ladies want to be safe, stand in front of me, because apparently that’s the one place my bullets don’t go,” I chided her.That was a slight exaggeration. I was a pretty good shot out to 50 meters, but when I have to use binoculars to even see the target some of these girls are nailing, I know I have a long way to go.“Zane, police your station,” Hope instructed me. “Everyone, it is time for field training.” This was the other part of marksmanship…sneaking around and spotting targets in the woods. We didn’t use live rounds but it was still fun stuff.“Gung-ho!” I responded to Hope. I’d heard that this was the battle cry of an Asian-American unit in World War II; Japanese I think.“I’m Korean, Zane,” Hope tried not to chuckle. “We are not exactly friends with the Japanese.”“If I stop saying it will you ask your Daddy not to come?” I inquired hopefully.“If you keep saying it, I’ll stop telling my Father I can’t live without you,” she countered.“You can’t live without me?” I questioned.“Of course I can live without you, but I had to think of something to stop him from parachuting here in the dead of night and slitting your throat,” she confided.“You are joking; right?” I worried. Hope was nonresponsive as we got our gear together for the hike. “Hope, tell me that was a joke.” Once we passed into the forest, Hope was quiet, business-like and nothing but. We were a mile into our trek when Hope settled down to study the environs. Per procedure, Hope watched to her front and left; I crouched at her back, facing away, and watched to our rear and Hope’s right.We would stay this way until Hope set up on the target, which was when I became her spotter. Since we weren’t there yet, I scanned my area one more time, then cupped my right hand and reached behind me until I touched Hope’s ass. I waited for a reaction of any kind but none came. Three seconds later I began to gently coast along her posterior, lightly squeezing her buttocks and rubbing along her cleft.With a careful ear, I caught Hope’s breath gaining in intensity. A few seconds later, she reached back and tapped my arm lightly so I stopped. Hope then rose carefully and we continued on our way. During the entire encounter, neither one of us had deviated from our watchfulness, which gave the whole situation a greater erotic appeal for me.“Zane,” Hope caught my attention as the last rifle and bullet was secured away, “I really wasn’t sure how you would deal with me…being better than you. How do you do it?”“All the training and skill in the world isn’t worth a damn if you won’t fight,” I tried to explain. “A willingness to fight without talent is a waste. Hope, you didn’t defeat me; you beat me.”She seemed to be searching for my definition of those two terms.“Let’s walk over to Orienteering before Heaven pops,” I suggested. “We can both pin Heaven down but short of killing her, I’m not sure how to stop her.” Hope chuckled at that assessment and nodded. “Hope, you put me on the mat and made me tap out, you beat me. You haven’t discouraged me from coming at you when I feel I’m more capable, you haven’t defeated me.”“Beating implies physical dominance but defeat is a state of mind,” Hope replied as she stripped my definitions bare. I swung back my hand to spank her ass. Hope flinched slightly as instinct recognized the incoming blow and dictated a menu of responses, most of which involved causing me pain. I spanked her left ass cheek; Hope yelped and glared over her shoulder at me in feigned annoyance.“You are a very verbose wench,” I shook my finger at her.“Do you want them to perform an extensive autopsy to figure out where I stuck that finger or are you going to remove it from my face right now?” she challenged me mirthfully. I stepped to her side, draped an arm around her waist; a second later she hesitantly echoed the gesture.When we got to Orienteering, Hope and I parted company and I joined my fellow students as Heaven stood before us. The silence dragged on…and on until I finally felt compelled to raise my hand.“Yes, Zane?” Heaven asked sweetly. You know; that 'sweetly’ that says, I have an iron skillet to the head in my immediate future.“Class? Are we going to have class today? Please?” I mumbled.“I don’t know, Zane,” Heaven glared at me with a vicious smile stitched to her face. “Do we have your permission to have class today? Apparently we need to.” Oh, fuck-buckets; Hope had probably had the same instructions and blown them off; Heaven was going a different way.“I understand,” I announced with dignity as I stood and walked up beside Heaven before facing the rest of the class. “As your appointed mediator, I think we should come forth and pray on the matter. All of you come to the front and kneel in a semi-circle; you too Heaven.” I put a hand on her shoulder and put pressure on her to kneel beside me, right beside me.The girls gathered around, Heaven was on her knees only inches from my crotch with her eyes flickering from my hard cock (I’m giving strong consideration to slamming that bastard in the middle of the US Tax Code to make it calm down) to my eyes. Soon I was in the center of a waist-level sea of slightly swaying female heads.“Let us pray,” I intoned. “Lord, guide us and give us strength to be true to ourselves, have faith in the gifts of insight, determination, and self-worth you have given us. Also, give us the vision to see what is wrong, the knowledge to understand when we hear things that are nonsense, and the will to forge past those words so that we find our own voice. In Jesus Christ’s name we pray; Amen.”“Amen,” the girls said, at varying volumes and with varying conviction. They were all there, on their knees, staring at me. I swear to God, if one of them had 'Baaa'ed, I’d have died on the spot.“Okay, who believes I’m more qualified to teach this class than Heaven?” I began. Two girls started to raise their hands then self-consciously reversed direction.“You are all correct; I am totally unqualified to teach this class. I am totally unqualified to tell any of you to do virtually anything. I don’t know more about life than any of the rest of you do. At eighteen, I’m younger than most of you. I’m a guy, nothing more. You ladies don’t need me. Really, do any of you have any need of me whatsoever?”“Sex,” blurted out of the mouth of Ruth, one of the senior club members. No one said anything for a few seconds. Okay, I could deal with this.“Fine, sex. With the Purity Pledge here, do any of you think you would need me for sex?” Twelve of the fourteen girls raised their hands; counting Heaven made it thirteen. I wanted to be anywhere else but in the deathtrap of my own creation. Screw that; I wanted to crawl into a deep, dark hole and pull the dirt in behind me.“We hear you are really good at it,” Benios tried to explain things to me.“Brandi told us all about blowjobs. Those seem safe enough with the Pledge,” Michelle added. Heaven started snickering at my expense.“All right, everyone,” Heaven raised her voice as she stood up, accidentally squeezing my dick through my pants as she did so, “let’s get started, and if no one screws up today, we can have Thursday’s class in Zane’s bedroom.”We finished the last class for the day and started leaving our outdoor classroom when Ruth put her hand on my lower arm.“Zane, does a blowjob violate the Purity Pledge?” she asked. That wasn’t really what she was asking. Why would I know the specifics of a pledge that everyone knew I hadn’t taken? No, what she was asking was if she could experiment with oral sex with me.The other girls were not so surreptitiously hanging around for the answer.“Honestly, I don’t believe that fellatio is an acceptable alternative to vaginal sex unless it includes cunnilingus,” I bullshitted. I believed that, but I was hoping the lingo would buy me an exit.“What?” Ruth stammered.“Oh, I know that,” Michelle giggled. “Fellatio is when you take a man’s phallus and put it in your mouth, and cunnilingus is when a man puts his mouth…down there,” she pointed at her crotch.“Zane, do you do that too? Put your mouth, ” Ruth hounded me.“Sure,” I confessed. “Every man should, but in reality, it is more than tongue work”, I wiggled my tongue, “but finger work too. All you have to do is think how your fingers feel down there, except this time they are under someone else’s control and you have a strong, flexible muscle added to the mix.” I instantly knew I was missing something with this audience.“You touch yourself; right?” I questioned. By many of the guilty looks, I could tell that most of the class had, but a surprising number hadn’t, Ruth included.“I never have,” Ruth replied. “I was afraid I’d stop being a virgin.” I nodded, walked over to the closest tree, and banged my head against it.“That’s enough for today,” Heaven intervened. “We can pick up this wonderful, non-orienteering discussion next time.” She ushered me away. I was rather thankful to get away and into the company of someone I trusted. “Are you ready for tonight?”“You mean am I waiting to pack your tight ass and drag my fingernails over your back until I draw blood? Yes,” I grinned down at her.“Evil!” she giggled. “You are sinister, vile, and an aberration to all that is pure in the world.”“Well, you are purely wonderful,” I countered. “So is this a case of opposites attract?”“Do you like to see me that way?” my transvestite lover teased.“Your legs on my shoulders as I drive into you; on your hands and knees; you looking down at me as you slide down that first time, your ass cheeks bouncing, with my hands kneading them as you face away, but most of all…with your head on my chest, asleep, your hair spilling over your eyes as you lay there, that’s the best,” I related.“How can you be lusty and sweet at the same time?” she murmured.“It’s how you make me feel, Heaven,” I explained. “It is no mystery, you are that good to me.”“Best boyfriend ever,” she whispered, as she hugged my arm tight. On the final approach to Heaven’s dorm, she gave me a nudge.“So, how did you beat the ten-second rule?” Heaven prodded me.“We have a ten-second rule?” I questioned.“We don’t, silly; it’s Hope’s rule,” Heaven grinned. “No one holds her for more than ten seconds. She has, had proximity issues.”“We were intimate,” I pointed out. “That probably helps.”“I hope so,” Heaven laughed. “The first time Christina and I barged into her room, we found ourselves staring down the barrel of a gun. Chastity was her roommate and she nearly freaked because she didn’t know Hope had an automatic, much less slept with one under her pillow.”“Note to self: never climb in Hope’s window looking for a midnight hook-up,” I sighed.“Hey,” Heaven playfully grumbled, “if you are crawling in anyone’s window for some late-night booty, it had better be my window and my booty you are after, Mister.”“Or what?” I teased. “Are we back to me being in a deep, dark hole, you with the only key, dressed up for me in black strips of leather?”That description dated back to our first day on campus together when she hated my very existence.“Bitch,” Heaven growled with frustrated desire.“I’ll see you at the car in ten minutes, then.” I gave a double pump of the eyebrows and left. We had been invited by Officer Danica Campbell of the Lancaster PD for a barbeque so we could get reacquainted. It was something Heaven was really looking forward to (not that I minded).Danica’s house needed a little yard work but was otherwise an unremarkable ranch style house with an attached carport. Heaven’s hands kept fluttering at her sides and straightening out her skirt. Me; I was in a long-sleeved pull-over and jeans and was having a much easier time of it emotionally. My only problem was our timetable; I had to be back before nine.We could smell the burning charcoal from the front yard but I indicated to Heaven that we weren’t friends enough to simply walk around back unannounced. We rang the doorbell, then rang it again. Heaven was going for a third, nervous try when Danica opened the door.“Hey, you two, come on in,” she greeted us, and stepped aside so we could enter.The first aura I detected in Danica’s home was of benign neglect; the house was inhabited but no one actually lived here. Everything looked old but not worn, except for one chair and the cabinet around the TV which had VHS tapes (?) and scores of DVDs from the past ten years. Danica was in a lumberjack shirt, jeans, and deck shoes with a noticeable lack of bra, panties, and socks.“I’m glad you two showed up,” Danica said, talking to us as we followed her through the living room to the kitchen. We could see the grill cooking away on a concrete patio through a sliding glass door.“I almost showed up last night,” Heaven blurted out, then looked mortified.“You would have had to wait a while,” Danica joked. “I worked last night.”“I would have put her to sleep on the doorstep, covered her in a blanket, and given her a garden gnome to use as a pillow,” I joked. Heaven blushed furiously and punched me in the arm.“Be careful, Mister Braxton,” Danica threatened me with a wink, “I have handcuffs, pepper spray, and a taser, behave.”I was hoping that comical exchange would have reduced the tension. It almost worked. As Danica opened the sliding glass door, she turned to say something. I have no idea what it was that got into her but at that point, Heaven threw herself at our hostess, wrapped her arms around Danica’s neck, and kissed the lady cop. Danica staggered out the door onto the patio, grabbed the doorsill before they toppled over, and after her obvious moment of panic, put her other arm around Heaven’s waist.Third Wheel Syndrome was kicking in for a while as the two kept tickling each other’s tonsils and rubbing their bodies together.“I, ah…wanted to kiss you since I talked to you on the phone,” Heaven finally said. Danica stroked a finger along Heaven’s left earlobe, wiggling it back and forth.“Mission accomplished,” Danica smiled. “You don’t date much, do you? That’s not a condemnation; it’s just, you have a raw intensity I haven’t seen in a while. I like it.” Heaven looked ready to dive into another lip frenzy when our hostess held her up. “Let’s check on the grill, unless you like your pork chops and chicken burnt as hard as the coals that made 'em.”Heaven gave Danica enough lead to make it to the grill and open it up. My friend coughed and choked as the smoke billowed out; it was Heaven’s first outdoor barbeque, or at least the first that didn’t involve a professional pit master and a whole steer.“Give her some room,” I cautioned Heaven. “I hear those things are hot.” It was my first time too, but they had similar things in Thailand so I wasn’t totally lost.Eventually, I was forced to wrap my arms around Heaven from behind to keep her from bouncing all over the place. Her enthusiasm didn’t bother me; she was fun and felt she had a lot of catching up to do. We chatted about her work and our school machinations. Danica made a crack about me and women putting me on my back, funny like a crutch.We gathered in her living room; it was the only room that had the seats to meet our needs with the meat, coleslaw, hush puppies, and lima beans to eat. There was the promise of sherbet if dinner didn’t fill us up. Things were going so smoothly that I almost missed Danica’s little ploy.“Heaven, since you are getting a beer, would you get me one too,” Danica off-handedly mentioned. We were finishing up the meal and washing it down with the appropriate beverage, lemonade in my case and beer in theirs.“Sure,” Heaven smiled warmly, and off she went. She didn’t hear Danica get up and follow her into the kitchen, though Danica did give me a wink.The moment Heaven pulled the two lagers out of the refrigerator, Danica slipped up behind her and pressed her body into Heaven’s. For a second, Heaven thought it was me and was looking over her shoulder to chastise me. I was following but was hanging back.“Zane, ” then she noticed it was Danica, “Huh?”“Hey, Precious,” Danica purred to her, “it seems your hands are occupied;” gesturing to the beer in each. Danica stretched her arms around and cupped Heaven’s breasts and began massaging them. Heaven tried to twist around but Danica didn’t let her. She bit into Heaven’s neck instead, sucking up and down from ear to shoulder.“The last time you snuck up on me; now it is my turn. How does it feel?” Danica continued. She pressed Heaven up against the refrigerator door, grinding her there for a while before letting Heaven turn and faced her.“It feels good,” Heaven gulped, “but I know some other things I want to do to you that are better.”Danica answered that by sensually sliding down Heaven’s body until she was kneeling. From there she lifted Heaven’s skirt, pulled down her double panties and started making kissing/slurping noises that made Heaven shudder in anticipation. Danica was bobbing in a slow, languid style that was pushing the tranny toward her own internal blaze. I saw the opportunity to come up and relieve Heaven of her beers before she dropped them.Heaven’s hands dropped immediately to Danica’s head and trembled with the desire to push Danica farther and farther down her cock. Danica held her off, having more blowjob experience than Heaven and I combined. I took the time offered to remove all our shirts and Heaven’s bra before alternating kissing Danica’s neck and back while playing with her tits, and going to Heaven and kissing her and teasing her nipples with my teeth.She was over-eager and was tapping Danica’s crown inside a minute, indicating the shortness of her fuse. Heaven gave a muted squeak followed by,“Oh, God, that’s so fucking good, take it, oh, God, take it!” Danica did a masterful job of soaking up everything Heaven had to give and draining her dry afterwards.Danica had to hold Heaven’s hips to stop my lover from sliding to the ground on her ass.“I think we will all be passing on the sherbet,” Danica grinned while licking her lips. Heaven nodded, first shakily but soon with much more assurance. I kicked off my shoes in my own endorsement of this plan and we were soon all migrating to Danica’s bedroom.Heaven, new to the romantic aspects of sexuality, dove straight onto the bed and shimmied out of her skirt. Danica and I stopped at the foot of said bed and shed our pants (and underwear for me). As Heaven looked at us, I pulled Danica’s hair aside and began kissing her from right beneath her ear down to the nape of her neck. Danica responded by pressing her backside into me and gyrating her ass on my crotch.Danica ran her left hand behind her back and began moving it sensually along my stomach to the base of my cock and up again. Her right hand stroked my thigh and hip on the other side. I countered by moving my left to her left breast, mauling it but leaving the nipple unmolested for now. My right hand went in a serpentine fashion to her crotch and hovered right above her clitoris.We played tag with our intimate parts long enough for Danica to start sweating and moaning against me.“Why aren’t you married, again?” she snickered. “Oh, yeah, you being eighteen and all.”“Are you too much woman for one man?” I countered.“Actually, I’ve been looking for someone special,” she confessed, but she wasn’t looking at me when she said it. That wasn’t lost on Heaven either; her jaw dropped. “Don’t freak,” Danica reassured her. “I know we don’t have much in common, I’m a townie and you’re a rich girl from somewhere else, but we have until spring if you want to hang out.”It took Heaven a few moments to digest that.“I’d like that, Danica; I’d like that a lot,” she smiled.“Well, I’d like it if you came over here and kissed me before your boyfriend drives me totally nuts,” Danica teased her. Heaven got on her knees and waddled to the end of the bed to join us.“Wait,” Heaven said at the last second, eyes wide with surprise. “I have a boyfriend and a girlfriend, I rock!” and then she dove into Danica’s lips. Danica was propelled into me by Heaven’s passionate embrace. She reciprocated by moving her hand off my hip and onto Heaven’s semi-rigid cock.Heaven’s phallus hardened quickly enough and she upped the tempo by buoying up her breasts and initiating a nipple fight between her tits and Danica’s, wow, a freaking advantage I hadn’t thought of.“Lets, ” Danica gulped for air “– get on…the bed. I want some…of this…in me,” she pulled on Heaven’s cock.Oh, yeah, this was the Heaven-Danica show and I was second fiddle…and I felt it was glorious. 'You are known not by what you do but by what you leave behind,’ or so yet another saying goes. Danica and Heaven were happy with one another, even if only for a little while. That 'while’ included Heaven retreating up the bed as Danica followed and I pursued her.“Have you been a good girl?” Danica quizzed Heaven. “Do we need a condom?” clarified the issue.“No, no, I’ve only been with Zane,” Heaven answered.“That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for safe sex,” Danica chuckled.“Damn, that’s just cold,” I groaned. “For your information, if my partner wasn’t a virgin, she was someone I know intimately.”“So you are not doing it with that Warlord chick living in your house now?” Danica persisted.“How do you even know about that? It happened Sunday,” I wondered.“Zane,” Danica sighed patiently, “I’m a cop and your house is like two miles away.”“Can we get back to concentrating on the sex?” Heaven grumbled. “I’ll wear a condom if you want. I’ll wear a harem girl outfit if you want, as long as it leads to sex with you.”“That won’t be…necessary,” Danica murmured as she positioned Heaven’s cock between her labia then began to push down.I was working out what my place in this could be when I spotted the bottle of lubricant (generic) boldly sitting on Danica’s nightstand, not very subtle at all. I shifted over, got the bottle, then got around behind them once more.“Can I join in?” I asked.“I trust you,” Danica purred. Silly her; I’m behind her with a source of lube and a passion to use it. I poured some out on Danica’s cleft and let it ooze down toward her pussy. I let it cascade over three fingers before sealing it up again. With my left hand, I began working a finger into Danica’s anus, and with my right, I worked another into Heaven’s.“Oh,” Danica grunted, as I slipped past her sphincter. Heaven’s response was to moan sensually. It took me a little while to not only work a finger in but a second one in as well; then the fun began. With Heaven, I began both pumping and making a series of circular motions; with Danica, though, I pressed down until I was counter-massaging Heaven’s cock through the walls of her rectum and vagina.“Oh, my fucking God!” shouted Danica. “That feels great; she’s really grinding against me.”“Keep that up,” gasped Heaven. “I, I can feel your fingers.” Okay, I got this one right. I could also feel the sympathetic impulses growing between Danica’s vaginal walls and Heaven’s penis; they weren’t going to last long. Drilling Heaven’s butthole in rapid-fire fashion sent her crashing ahead of the wave.“Dan, Dan, Danica, Hell, yeah!” Heaven screamed as she slammed upward into the lady cop. Danica’s back bowed and a low growling noise reverberated through her body. Both tried to use their anal muscles to grind my finger bones together; for the orgasms they were riding through, it was worth it.Danica shivered through one last orgasmic burst then settled gently down on Heaven. Heaven reached around with her arms and ran them up and down Danica’s back. Our hostess pushed off her lover’s body with her elbows on the mattress and kissed her nose.“That felt wonderful,” she smiled down at Heaven. Heaven didn’t immediately respond. “Is something wrong?” Danica worried.“I, um, it was really nice, Danica, but –” Heaven worked through the words.“But?” Danica asked.“But I think I’m into guys,” Heaven gave her worried confession. “I’m sorry; what we did felt good but what sent me over the top was –”“Oh,” Danica seemed to deflate.“Hold on,” I intervened, even as my fingers were still slowly working them both. “Heaven, you liked Danica’s blowjob; right?”“Yes. It was wonderful,” Heaven brightened up. “She’s, you are –” she looked into Danica’s eyes “– the best I’ve ever had.”“Still, you like it up your ass, don’t you?” I prodded. Heaven bit her lip and rolled her head to the side. Danica pushed herself onto all fours and sighed.“Well, damn,” she sighed, “I was sort of hoping –”“Danica, would you consider screwing Heaven’s ass? Giving it a chance?” I hazarded.“I’d give it a shot,” Danica replied after a moment’s hesitation. Being with a girl was new; being with a transgender was new; and now being the driving force in anal sex was going to be new too.“I’ll get dressed and go out to the car,” I winked. “Surprise, surprise; I worried something like this would happen so I brought a few things along.”I was afraid that when I got back from the car with my backpack holding the strap-on, that a chill would have set in. I shouldn’t have worried; Danica was surprisingly passionate and Heaven was sheer surprise itself. They were cuddled face to face exchanging small kisses and stroking each other’s hair.“I just want you both to know,” Danica held up a warding hand, “if that thing is longer than my arm, I’m calling this off.” I presented the device for her approval and while it could be intimidating, it wasn’t scarier than Heaven’s normal equipment. “I’m glad that’s going into you and not me,” Danica ended up teasing Heaven. Not to be outdone, Heaven rolled onto her stomach and wiggled her upraised ass in the air.“Oh, she’s begging for it,” Danica laughed.“Yes, she does, and if you think that’s sweet, imagine how nice it is to wake up with her ramming that pole in while riding you,” I painted the picture.“Is there any position she doesn’t like?” Danica inquired.“I’m right here, my ass up in the air. Please, somebody do something,” Heaven whined.“Not that I know of,” I ignored Heaven’s plea. “You could try it in the shower, bent over the sofa, heels up in the La-Z-boy, or hanging from the pull-up bar, she’s quite strong.”“Oh, um, thanks, Zane; I’ll explore those opportunities,” Danica grinned.“Hello, ass here…needs stuffing,” Heaven became more insistent.“She’s shameless,” Danica teased happily.“Absolutely,” I laughed, “but if one of us doesn’t fulfill her needs real soon, violence will ensue.”“Zane, you warm her up and I’ll figure out how to put this thing on,” Danica instructed me as she took hold of her sexual toy.“About damn time,” Heaven panted as I worked my first finger in again. I’d oiled up several fingers before handing the lube to Danica to prepare her artificial cock with. Heaven’s anus was already pliable from our activity so it took only two minutes to work the second and third finger in. By that time, both Danica and Heaven were ready.“This is weird,” Danica mumbled, as she placed her phallic head against Heaven’s sphincter. “Let me know if this, ” she got out before Heaven pushed back and gasped. “Doesn’t that hurt?”“Makes me feel full,” Heaven gasped. “Push.” Danica did indeed push, and spanked Heaven for good measure.Now that I was freed up again, I elected to recline beside Heaven and watch her get fucked by Danica. Heaven and I made eye contact; that totally free, blissful look was exceptionally special for me. I’d seen Heaven afraid far too often. I’d seen her furious far too often as well.“Zane,” Heaven perked up, “get over here. I want your cock. I want it coming and going.”“Revenge,” taunted Danica. Heaven and I had given Officer Campbell simultaneous oral and anal sex, and now Heaven was getting the same treatment. I sat my ass on the pillow in front of Heaven’s face, legs spread wide. She grabbed my cock in both hands (my penis is so massive, its ability to block out the Sun often cows primitive tribes, or maybe Heaven has small hands) and yanked it forward somewhat painfully until she could lick the tip.“Come on, Zane,” Danica egged me on, “take hold of her head and fuck her like a cheap slut.” A shudder passed head to foot through Heaven’s body and she gave out a small sob.“Heaven,” I asked cautiously, “do you want to stop?”“I’m being fucked like a slut, Zane,” she replied tearfully. “I’m being fucked like a slut.”You never know with some people. Danica gave me a worried look so I gave her a quick smile and a nod. Heaven wanted to be a woman, but almost as important was that she wanted to be seen and treated like a woman. It may have played out in Heaven’s imagination that she had gone to some seedy bar looking all hot and sexy, then a couple had picked her up so they could treat her like a bad little girl.I raised my hips, feeding more of my cock into Heaven’s mouth.“Spank your bitch’s ass,” I teased Danica. She responded by alternating noisy but not very painful slaps to our tranny’s buttocks. Heaven wanted the tease, not the real pain, and Danica was right there for her.Once we had a good rhythm going, I could feel Danica’s cock slamming at its deepest impact, Heaven squirming and squealing with the pleasure and her tongue and throat swirling around my oral intrusion. She slurped and sucked desperately while a small amount of drool marked her cheek and jaw. Heaven began making whimpering noises along with the grunts when Danica drove in deeper.All the sizzling sex I’d been forced (yeah, right) to watch sent me over the edge first.“Heaven…babe, here it comes,” I chanted several times before I finally did shoot gobs and gobs, so much it shot out her nose and mouth. Okay, not really that much, but I certainly felt some relief.Heaven swallowed with some degree of urgency because she was at her tipping point as well.“Oh, God; oh, God; oh, God, Danica…FUCK!” she cried out, then bucked up hard against Danica. On the second buck, Danica took hold of Heaven by her elbows. Heaven rocked a few more feeble times onto the strap-on but her energy was temporarily spent.Danica wrapped her right and then her left arm around Heaven, pulling her into an upright, kneeling embrace, her breasts squished against Heaven’s back.“Are you okay, Precious?” Danica panted next to her lover’s ear.“I, oh, yeah, I feel great,” Heaven wheezed. “I also…seem to have…made a mess…on the bed.”“I planned for that,” Danica answered with a kiss to Heaven’s neck. “I was hoping we’d end up here. By the way, do you want me to pull this out now?”“Yeah, my ass is getting a bit sore, muscles stretched,” Heaven shivered. I wiggled forward so that Danica could push Heaven against me as she withdrew the artificial phallus from its resting place up Heaven’s back door.When the last of it slipped free, Heaven gave a brief little hiccup, then melted into my arms.“Damn, I’m so glad I met you,” she murmured.“Thanks,” Danica and I said together, then laughed at the confusion. Heaven gingerly curled into my lap while Danica sat back and worked off the sexual aid that had brought so much pleasure.“Well, that was different,” Danica mused. “I’m not sure how much I enjoyed it but I can’t say it turned me off.”“Um…that was good sex,” Heaven smiled at us both. “I like good sex.” I gave her a little nudge and communicated as best I could by eye contact alone. “Thank you, Danica,” she added. “I really liked that, what you did for me.”“In that case, we really should do it again,” Danica said nonchalantly. Heaven perked up right away.“Right now?” she hoped.“No,” I cut that conversation right off. “I need to get back to campus, and that means you have to get back as well.”“But, ” Heaven sounded hurt,“ Danica…that means we can’t…”“I know,” Danica interrupted. “Zane has church work tomorrow and then I’m at work for the next five nights, so…maybe next Tuesday?”“I’d like that,” Heaven became excited once more. She crawled over to Danica and began kissing the cop and running her hands all over her body.“Bathroom, clothes, kisses goodbye, and then we have to go,” I prodded Heaven. She looked over her shoulder at me with deep disappointment. Finally, she sighed and nodded. The rest of our visit passed quickly enough. Heaven behaved, I cleaned up the strap-on and myself, and we left Danica with some thank-you’s and a bemused look on her face. I knew that expression; people had described me as having it after my second date with Heaven too.The Birth of the JanissariesWhen we returned to campus, I felt my stress level rise once more. This time I was reasonably sure I had a plan but I needed some help. I sent out some messages for people to gather, and for a special few, I sent people to get the girls I wasn’t sure would come otherwise. I barely got back to my dorm room before the fire tribal meetings that had taken place there broke up.I wasn’t there to say much but I did impress upon the students that this was my turf and I wasn’t ceding one inch to Ms. Scarlett’s scheme or to any one tribe.The group that I’d assembled was very eclectic, some by force and a few of them I barely knew at all. Of the staff, I brought in Dana Gorman, because she was the prior Head of Security and our current Physical Education Coach, and Gabrielle Black, because she was the current Head of Security and I didn’t want to build an internal police force without her advice and consent.On the justice side of things, I brought in Dr. Bryce Kennedy [FYI: she is a woman], the head of the Pre-Law program, Ms. Hudson Lane, our school lawyer, and Ms. Virginia Goodswell, because I trusted her judgment where teachers and teaching were involved. Despite the oddity of the situation, they all answered my summons and didn’t look frighteningly pissed at my request.Student-wise, there was a sea of familiar faces, if not friendly ones. Only Mhain Reynard had been brought here under threat of force by Hope and Chastity. When most of the two visiting tribes had cleared out, I began my meeting.“What I have to say may ramble a bit but please be patient; we are creating something new here,” I began. “Has anyone heard of the janissaries?”Iona raised her hand, as did Hope, Christina, and Simone Brady (former Junior Class President).“For the rest of you, there was a Muslim empire of Turks who ruled much of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. They would levy a tax against their Christian subjects of young sons, and they would take these boys, force their conversion to Islam, and then use them as elite soldiers and palace guards for the Sultans.”“No, I’m not asking anyone to convert,” I warded off some of the more hateful looks, “but the principle elements of what I say will make sense, I promise. These Janissaries soon rose up to become the chief officials of the Turkish government, the most loyal and trusted of all the Sultan’s men. They were both the military and the civil authority of the Empire.” I let that sink into the crowd of bright young women I’d assembled.“So you want us as your personal guard?” Kylie Frik, a sophomore candidate for Class President, sneered. Clearly, she was thinking harem, not what I had planned. Hannah Cartwright, her opposite in the sophomore camp, figured it out.“You want us to be a police force and, I’m guessing by the presence of a few Law types, to be judges as well. You want a shield between you and direct involvement of things you might do.”“Close, but no cigar,” I grinned to Hannah. She liked me well enough but she didn’t really know me or the twisted way my mind worked. “You wouldn’t be my shield; I would be yours. The Janissaries get together and decide policy and how to best enact it; I give it my blessing; and you go do what you want to do while I take the heat for things when they go wrong.”Temperance(Note: introduced in Chapter 7) and Dana both laughed. Christina and company knew better than to judge my madness before hearing the whole story.“The Janissaries ended up ruling the Ottoman Turk Empire in the name of their Sultan, who they kept as a virtual prisoner in his own palace –” Simone Brady insightfully pointed out “– for almost 200 years.”“Wait. Are we going to imprison Zane?” Millicent interrupted. “That’s more than a little odd.”“No. I’m going to select ten Advocates an
The Dawn of the New Order, like it or not.By FinalStand. Subscribe & Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” - Abraham Lincoln*Earned leadership is a blessing; assigned leadership is a burden*Editor's Note: This episode is a tale of the new vice chancellor's attempt to destroy Zane by empowering him. So this is how it's going to be.It started at 6:45 as we began filing out of the dorm toward the dining hall and breakfast. We received texts, or our dorm mothers received them if we didn’t have that function, assigning us a tribe we belonged to. What was a tribe? No one seemed to have a clue what this entailed for us.“So,” Iona was the first to ask me, “Which tribe are you part of?”“My tribe’s called the Mediator tribe,” I responded. “What lame-ass name does your tribe have?” Iona blinked at me, took my phone from my hands, and looked at it while we walked.“Mercy and I are in 17,” Rio sneered. “Why did your group merit a name and ours didn’t?”“Because Zane doesn’t have a tribe,” Iona figured. “He is not of the mediator tribe; he’s a mediator. The real question is, how many mediators are there and what is their responsibility?”“I’m in tribe three,” Vivian volunteered. “I do have a notation but no indication who to see about it.” The conversations around us were going in the same general direction, the girls trying to figure what sort of disruptions this would cause. The teachers put a kibosh on students walking around and finding out where their friends were placed so the text and phone messages being tossed around were obscene.The surprise going to breakfast had saved virtually all of the freshmen from Handmaiden’s Duty but they snapped us up heading for Assembly. I had Frederica Nicholas who decided to make a game of her giving me a word and me having to create a poetic verse. I rapidly learned the more risqué my verse, the more touchy-feely she became. (And she is a Rhaine supporter, huh?) I am a glutton for sexual foreplay no matter where it comes from.Entry into the Assembly Hall brought its own special form of confusion. All the seats had numbers for the tribes that could sit there. I didn’t find my group anywhere but I did catch the fact that Christina’s group had been broken up. I stopped by Heaven to put a comforting hand on her shoulder because she looked terribly unsettled before I approached Ms. Goodswell on the stage.My spiritual advisor stood up, walked to the edge of the stage, and knelt down so we could talk privately.“Hi, Teach. I can’t seem to find my groups/tribe’s area,” I said pleasantly. “Can you help me out? Hell, can you tell me what’s going on?”“Zane, your seat is right over there,” she said, pointing to a chair on the front row aisle seat. She smiled sadly. “All I can tell you about this program right now is that I trust you.” Oh crap, that didn’t sound good. Sitting on the front row, the region normally reserved for seniors, was just as disturbing. I sensed an epic boning in my future and I was sure I knew who the chick with the strap-on was.Chancellor Bass came to the podium and led us through the first ten minutes of the session. I could tell she was simmering with anger and resentment over whatever the upcoming fiasco was, and she showed it. She introduced Vice Chancellor Scarlett, then sat down abruptly. Her enthusiasm wasn’t muted; it was buried in the core of the earth.“Greetings, students of Freedom Fellowship University; I believe we stand at the first step to a great, glorious, and blessed experiment,” Vice Chancellor Dr. Victoria Scarlett began. Her plan did sound grandiose, was certainly going to be famous (or infamous), and whichever supernatural powers put their mark on this train wreck, I was sure we’d discover the Arch-angel Morningstar also had his sulfuric fingerprints on it when the CSI’s were finally brought in.The basics of the scheme: There would be eighteen tribes of fifty or more members. Each tribe had all four grades in it but was focused on declared majors so that the girls could support one another. Each tribe would internally determine how they would regulate themselves as well. Externally, relations would be overseen by the Mediator, yes, that was in the singular, as in one: me.At this point, I was wondering if jumping up, shooting Scarlett in the heart, and crying ‘Sic semper tyrannies’ was appropriate. I didn’t have a gun and realistically, Victoria didn’t deserve death for what she was putting all of us through. A few days in a pillory would suffice. No, she was making me be the 'Man’ of our academic community, our judge and arbitrator.As for my job qualifications, or lack thereof; I am considered morally loose, if not downright deviant. I’m an eighteen-year-old boy telling twenty-one-year-old women what to do, I have no legal experience, oh, yes, and half the campus hates my guts. I almost missed it when Dr. Scarlett added that Vivian would remain my guardian.Maybe Vivian would throw herself in the path of a sharpened pencil, pen, or stylus aimed at my heart by any number of the young ladies that wanted me dead, just like a Secret Service Agent.“You will be informed of the location of your first meetings. Each tribe will meet at eight o'clock tonight and tomorrow night to create the foundations of your group,” Dr. Scarlett informed us.“Tribes five and seventeen will be meeting in the Solarium of Alan Smithee dorm, if that is okay with Mr. Braxton.” Victoria looked my way. I stood up in case anyone missed my discomfort for being called out and actually asked by a lead educator for anything resembling permission on this campus.“Eight o'clock tonight?” I questioned. “I don’t know if that works for me. I have a Brazilian body wax at eight and have scheduled my eyebrows to be plucked at 8:45, plus there is a new episode of NCIS: Los Angeles at nine.”“How about they promise to keep the noise level down?” Victoria volleyed right back at me without missing a beat.“Very well, Dr. Scarlett, if you personally guarantee their behavior, I’m okay with them using my room,” I allowed. I couldn’t provoke Scarlett and I couldn’t embarrass her, so I was back to facing her rear-bound artificial cock catching up with my behind. I sat back down. Victoria quickly exited center stage and a bitter Chancellor ushered us through the last of the service.I waited outside the Assembly Hall for my friends and my Handmaiden for the moment, Theresa Yates. Christina and Chastity caught up with me first, both giving me a curious look.“Bro,” Rio sneered as she and Mercy joined us, “we need to discuss your future abuse of power, bribes and kick-backs you are going to get. Nice banter with ol’ Scarlett too.”“Yes,” Christina said sarcastically, “being flippant with the Vice Chancellor backfired so spectacularly the first time, it definitely needed repeating.” Her criticism really sucked because I always secretly wanted her to think well of me.“What’s your plan?” Chastity prodded me. She was always helping me out when she got the chance. As she finished, Iona, Hope, Faith, and Heaven showed up.“They split us up,” growled Heaven. “Do something, Zane.”“He just found out about this,” Iona responded before I could. “Give it time and combined, we will come up with a solution together.” I sighed with some relief at her assistance and then I blinked. The powerful kiss I planted on Iona’s lips caught everyone off-guard.“Freaking brilliant!” I complimented her gaily, giddy with glee. I didn’t have an actual plan yet but I had a direction to propel my thought toward. With my mind awhirl, I caught sight of Theresa moving past me on her way to class.“Hey, Theresa,” I called out. “What are you having me do today?” She looked a bit shocked.“Zane, we are no longer allowed to call on you for Handmaiden’s Duty,” she informed me.“Oh, Heck no,” I choked out. “Who says?”“The Vice-Chancellor declared you to be outside the tradition,” she stated sadly. I wasn’t going to stand for this. Victoria was building a wedge between me and the rest of the student body.“Iona, do that tech-thing that you do and inform the ladies that by the authority vested in me as mediator, I am reinstating myself as part of the Handmaiden’s duty until…over half of the tribal leaders petition that I do otherwise,” I announced.“By tech-thing, do you mean send a text message with an accompanying e-mail to all the students on the school registry?” Iona regarded me quizzically.“Zane,” Chastity worried, “are you sure you have the authority?”“Of course he has the authority,” Rio declared. “He’s the freaking mediator.” Sometimes I would really like to get a word in before the conversation runs away from me.I swatted Iona on the ass, she squawked.“Chastity, this is clearly a game of chicken, so why not see how far Scarlett is willing to go,” I replied. The look Christina gave me restored my faith in me; her eyes beamed at me, alight with an intellectual fire. I had one last thing to do while the chaos boiled one last time before the ebb: I hugged Rio.“I want you to break into Gabrielle’s place,” I whispered in her ear, “wait for her to come get you, and tell her this: There is no Cordelia Dresden.”“Back off, Joker,” Rio punched me. Rio trusted me not to put her in harm’s way if I had another choice and Gabrielle knew that Rio would be the last person any sane individual would trust to do this.She gave no hint of a reply to my request. The assumption was, if Cordelia didn’t know what we were up to, she couldn’t figure out a way to stop us, and right now I wanted a way for us out of her little game here at FFU. My current theory was that the girl I knew as Cordelia didn’t exist before she came here, she was an invented personality, and I wanted to know who the inventor was.Oh yeah, back to my actual life where my academic and social lives were in upheaval because my current nemesis (or one of them anyway) was a crusading idealist. I swear to God, if I survive this place, I will never forgive Aunt Jill for not sending me to the University of Hawaii, which was my first choice for college. All I had to worry about there was hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and the wrath of the island spirits for despoiling virgins, simple shit.“Zane, you will discuss the merits and sins of the concubines of King Solomon with me,” Theresa said, as she passed me her backpack to carry. Life rolled back to semi-normal and we separated to make our way to our first classes of the day. That illusion took another ill turn when I entered English class with Ms. Goodswell. She gestured for me to come to her desk before the lesson began.“Zane,” she informed me softly, “none of the female teachers or administrators at this school can give you orders, only suggestions. Only Dr. Jennings may truly compel you to do anything.”This bombshell was the reason she said she trusted me back in Assembly. The only one making me do the right thing was me. I had never considered me Mr. Responsibility before so I was in for a crash course in having authority over 900 students and 100 teachers. I told Virginia Goodswell about my decision concerning my Handmaiden’s Duty to get her input, then compelled her to treat me as any other student, because apparently, I’m in charge of students now.“There are old soldiers and there are bold soldiers, but there are very few old, bold soldiers,” she reminded me. “Never forget, no matter how dark it may seem, Zane, you are never alone.”“I could always use a picture of you in a white, low-cut bikini to inspire me,” I hinted.“Mr. Braxton, by the authority vested in me by the mediator, I order you to take your seat so we can begin classes,” she smirked. Oh, the irony: stymied by my own hubris.Celia Wanamaker snapped me up coming out of English class. Vivian was waiting for me and Raven was in tow, right up until Paige snapped her up. Celia had me name a biblical character for each letter of the alphabet. Paige had Raven quote bible verses, backwards. As if there was any doubt my day could get worse, it did so immediately.“Oh, the great Priest-King approaches!” screeched Rio on seeing me. “We all must genuflect, that’s kneel down until your head touches the ground for you stupid bitches, until the Mediator passes.” The horrible, horrible thing was that dozens of confused girls started doing just that.“Hold on,” I held up my hands for attention, “Hold on. Rio is mistaken. Genuflecting is only done during the Holy Days of Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter.”Okay, I made that up off the fly and I figured that I wouldn’t be at school for Christmas, and Good Friday and Easter were next year and I’d worry about that then. For now:“Emily, Rebecca, Henrietta, and Magdalena, please carry Rio to her next class, by the legs and arms,” I instructed some of the closest students. “If a door or other object gets in the way, don’t hesitate to use her head as a battering ram.”“Damn, Bro, that’s harsh,” Rio giggled from the floor. I knelt beside her.“Yeah,” I whispered, “like being man-handled by four girls isn’t going to turn you on.”“Don’t tell them that,” she whispered back. I rose and continued on to class. A wiggling, squirming, cursing, and fighting Rio followed us.I went through the same rigmarole in Biblical Archeology. I told the teacher that using my authority over students, I was instructing her to instruct me as if I was any other student…because I was a student and this was the area of my authority; right? She bought into my reasoning with some relief.“How was it?” I mouthed to Rio once class was well on the way.“Two hands all the way up the thigh, one knows I forgot my undies and was thoroughly soaked, two titties grabbed,” Rio described what she’d been subjected to, “and I got to bite Magdalena’s ass. I love those soccer player asses. You are most likely the best friend I will ever know; thank you.”“Always willing to help a fellow pervert out,” I grinned back. Rio winked, then returned to work. I needed all the humor I could get because it was going to be a long damn day. By the time I made Marksmanship at three o'clock, I was damn happy to shoot something. I got some relief by having my best day ever, scoring a 53 (out of a possible 100) at the range. When I finished, I noticed a large number of my club mates standing close by.Women and the World At Large“Yes?” I questioned the ladies clustered behind me at the firing line.“Oh, we are huddling behind your manliness,” Daphne, one of the better shooters, joked.“Manliness? Daphne, you just shot an 87. Hell, if you ladies want to be safe, stand in front of me, because apparently that’s the one place my bullets don’t go,” I chided her.That was a slight exaggeration. I was a pretty good shot out to 50 meters, but when I have to use binoculars to even see the target some of these girls are nailing, I know I have a long way to go.“Zane, police your station,” Hope instructed me. “Everyone, it is time for field training.” This was the other part of marksmanship…sneaking around and spotting targets in the woods. We didn’t use live rounds but it was still fun stuff.“Gung-ho!” I responded to Hope. I’d heard that this was the battle cry of an Asian-American unit in World War II; Japanese I think.“I’m Korean, Zane,” Hope tried not to chuckle. “We are not exactly friends with the Japanese.”“If I stop saying it will you ask your Daddy not to come?” I inquired hopefully.“If you keep saying it, I’ll stop telling my Father I can’t live without you,” she countered.“You can’t live without me?” I questioned.“Of course I can live without you, but I had to think of something to stop him from parachuting here in the dead of night and slitting your throat,” she confided.“You are joking; right?” I worried. Hope was nonresponsive as we got our gear together for the hike. “Hope, tell me that was a joke.” Once we passed into the forest, Hope was quiet, business-like and nothing but. We were a mile into our trek when Hope settled down to study the environs. Per procedure, Hope watched to her front and left; I crouched at her back, facing away, and watched to our rear and Hope’s right.We would stay this way until Hope set up on the target, which was when I became her spotter. Since we weren’t there yet, I scanned my area one more time, then cupped my right hand and reached behind me until I touched Hope’s ass. I waited for a reaction of any kind but none came. Three seconds later I began to gently coast along her posterior, lightly squeezing her buttocks and rubbing along her cleft.With a careful ear, I caught Hope’s breath gaining in intensity. A few seconds later, she reached back and tapped my arm lightly so I stopped. Hope then rose carefully and we continued on our way. During the entire encounter, neither one of us had deviated from our watchfulness, which gave the whole situation a greater erotic appeal for me.“Zane,” Hope caught my attention as the last rifle and bullet was secured away, “I really wasn’t sure how you would deal with me…being better than you. How do you do it?”“All the training and skill in the world isn’t worth a damn if you won’t fight,” I tried to explain. “A willingness to fight without talent is a waste. Hope, you didn’t defeat me; you beat me.”She seemed to be searching for my definition of those two terms.“Let’s walk over to Orienteering before Heaven pops,” I suggested. “We can both pin Heaven down but short of killing her, I’m not sure how to stop her.” Hope chuckled at that assessment and nodded. “Hope, you put me on the mat and made me tap out, you beat me. You haven’t discouraged me from coming at you when I feel I’m more capable, you haven’t defeated me.”“Beating implies physical dominance but defeat is a state of mind,” Hope replied as she stripped my definitions bare. I swung back my hand to spank her ass. Hope flinched slightly as instinct recognized the incoming blow and dictated a menu of responses, most of which involved causing me pain. I spanked her left ass cheek; Hope yelped and glared over her shoulder at me in feigned annoyance.“You are a very verbose wench,” I shook my finger at her.“Do you want them to perform an extensive autopsy to figure out where I stuck that finger or are you going to remove it from my face right now?” she challenged me mirthfully. I stepped to her side, draped an arm around her waist; a second later she hesitantly echoed the gesture.When we got to Orienteering, Hope and I parted company and I joined my fellow students as Heaven stood before us. The silence dragged on…and on until I finally felt compelled to raise my hand.“Yes, Zane?” Heaven asked sweetly. You know; that 'sweetly’ that says, I have an iron skillet to the head in my immediate future.“Class? Are we going to have class today? Please?” I mumbled.“I don’t know, Zane,” Heaven glared at me with a vicious smile stitched to her face. “Do we have your permission to have class today? Apparently we need to.” Oh, fuck-buckets; Hope had probably had the same instructions and blown them off; Heaven was going a different way.“I understand,” I announced with dignity as I stood and walked up beside Heaven before facing the rest of the class. “As your appointed mediator, I think we should come forth and pray on the matter. All of you come to the front and kneel in a semi-circle; you too Heaven.” I put a hand on her shoulder and put pressure on her to kneel beside me, right beside me.The girls gathered around, Heaven was on her knees only inches from my crotch with her eyes flickering from my hard cock (I’m giving strong consideration to slamming that bastard in the middle of the US Tax Code to make it calm down) to my eyes. Soon I was in the center of a waist-level sea of slightly swaying female heads.“Let us pray,” I intoned. “Lord, guide us and give us strength to be true to ourselves, have faith in the gifts of insight, determination, and self-worth you have given us. Also, give us the vision to see what is wrong, the knowledge to understand when we hear things that are nonsense, and the will to forge past those words so that we find our own voice. In Jesus Christ’s name we pray; Amen.”“Amen,” the girls said, at varying volumes and with varying conviction. They were all there, on their knees, staring at me. I swear to God, if one of them had 'Baaa'ed, I’d have died on the spot.“Okay, who believes I’m more qualified to teach this class than Heaven?” I began. Two girls started to raise their hands then self-consciously reversed direction.“You are all correct; I am totally unqualified to teach this class. I am totally unqualified to tell any of you to do virtually anything. I don’t know more about life than any of the rest of you do. At eighteen, I’m younger than most of you. I’m a guy, nothing more. You ladies don’t need me. Really, do any of you have any need of me whatsoever?”“Sex,” blurted out of the mouth of Ruth, one of the senior club members. No one said anything for a few seconds. Okay, I could deal with this.“Fine, sex. With the Purity Pledge here, do any of you think you would need me for sex?” Twelve of the fourteen girls raised their hands; counting Heaven made it thirteen. I wanted to be anywhere else but in the deathtrap of my own creation. Screw that; I wanted to crawl into a deep, dark hole and pull the dirt in behind me.“We hear you are really good at it,” Benios tried to explain things to me.“Brandi told us all about blowjobs. Those seem safe enough with the Pledge,” Michelle added. Heaven started snickering at my expense.“All right, everyone,” Heaven raised her voice as she stood up, accidentally squeezing my dick through my pants as she did so, “let’s get started, and if no one screws up today, we can have Thursday’s class in Zane’s bedroom.”We finished the last class for the day and started leaving our outdoor classroom when Ruth put her hand on my lower arm.“Zane, does a blowjob violate the Purity Pledge?” she asked. That wasn’t really what she was asking. Why would I know the specifics of a pledge that everyone knew I hadn’t taken? No, what she was asking was if she could experiment with oral sex with me.The other girls were not so surreptitiously hanging around for the answer.“Honestly, I don’t believe that fellatio is an acceptable alternative to vaginal sex unless it includes cunnilingus,” I bullshitted. I believed that, but I was hoping the lingo would buy me an exit.“What?” Ruth stammered.“Oh, I know that,” Michelle giggled. “Fellatio is when you take a man’s phallus and put it in your mouth, and cunnilingus is when a man puts his mouth…down there,” she pointed at her crotch.“Zane, do you do that too? Put your mouth, ” Ruth hounded me.“Sure,” I confessed. “Every man should, but in reality, it is more than tongue work”, I wiggled my tongue, “but finger work too. All you have to do is think how your fingers feel down there, except this time they are under someone else’s control and you have a strong, flexible muscle added to the mix.” I instantly knew I was missing something with this audience.“You touch yourself; right?” I questioned. By many of the guilty looks, I could tell that most of the class had, but a surprising number hadn’t, Ruth included.“I never have,” Ruth replied. “I was afraid I’d stop being a virgin.” I nodded, walked over to the closest tree, and banged my head against it.“That’s enough for today,” Heaven intervened. “We can pick up this wonderful, non-orienteering discussion next time.” She ushered me away. I was rather thankful to get away and into the company of someone I trusted. “Are you ready for tonight?”“You mean am I waiting to pack your tight ass and drag my fingernails over your back until I draw blood? Yes,” I grinned down at her.“Evil!” she giggled. “You are sinister, vile, and an aberration to all that is pure in the world.”“Well, you are purely wonderful,” I countered. “So is this a case of opposites attract?”“Do you like to see me that way?” my transvestite lover teased.“Your legs on my shoulders as I drive into you; on your hands and knees; you looking down at me as you slide down that first time, your ass cheeks bouncing, with my hands kneading them as you face away, but most of all…with your head on my chest, asleep, your hair spilling over your eyes as you lay there, that’s the best,” I related.“How can you be lusty and sweet at the same time?” she murmured.“It’s how you make me feel, Heaven,” I explained. “It is no mystery, you are that good to me.”“Best boyfriend ever,” she whispered, as she hugged my arm tight. On the final approach to Heaven’s dorm, she gave me a nudge.“So, how did you beat the ten-second rule?” Heaven prodded me.“We have a ten-second rule?” I questioned.“We don’t, silly; it’s Hope’s rule,” Heaven grinned. “No one holds her for more than ten seconds. She has, had proximity issues.”“We were intimate,” I pointed out. “That probably helps.”“I hope so,” Heaven laughed. “The first time Christina and I barged into her room, we found ourselves staring down the barrel of a gun. Chastity was her roommate and she nearly freaked because she didn’t know Hope had an automatic, much less slept with one under her pillow.”“Note to self: never climb in Hope’s window looking for a midnight hook-up,” I sighed.“Hey,” Heaven playfully grumbled, “if you are crawling in anyone’s window for some late-night booty, it had better be my window and my booty you are after, Mister.”“Or what?” I teased. “Are we back to me being in a deep, dark hole, you with the only key, dressed up for me in black strips of leather?”That description dated back to our first day on campus together when she hated my very existence.“Bitch,” Heaven growled with frustrated desire.“I’ll see you at the car in ten minutes, then.” I gave a double pump of the eyebrows and left. We had been invited by Officer Danica Campbell of the Lancaster PD for a barbeque so we could get reacquainted. It was something Heaven was really looking forward to (not that I minded).Danica’s house needed a little yard work but was otherwise an unremarkable ranch style house with an attached carport. Heaven’s hands kept fluttering at her sides and straightening out her skirt. Me; I was in a long-sleeved pull-over and jeans and was having a much easier time of it emotionally. My only problem was our timetable; I had to be back before nine.We could smell the burning charcoal from the front yard but I indicated to Heaven that we weren’t friends enough to simply walk around back unannounced. We rang the doorbell, then rang it again. Heaven was going for a third, nervous try when Danica opened the door.“Hey, you two, come on in,” she greeted us, and stepped aside so we could enter.The first aura I detected in Danica’s home was of benign neglect; the house was inhabited but no one actually lived here. Everything looked old but not worn, except for one chair and the cabinet around the TV which had VHS tapes (?) and scores of DVDs from the past ten years. Danica was in a lumberjack shirt, jeans, and deck shoes with a noticeable lack of bra, panties, and socks.“I’m glad you two showed up,” Danica said, talking to us as we followed her through the living room to the kitchen. We could see the grill cooking away on a concrete patio through a sliding glass door.“I almost showed up last night,” Heaven blurted out, then looked mortified.“You would have had to wait a while,” Danica joked. “I worked last night.”“I would have put her to sleep on the doorstep, covered her in a blanket, and given her a garden gnome to use as a pillow,” I joked. Heaven blushed furiously and punched me in the arm.“Be careful, Mister Braxton,” Danica threatened me with a wink, “I have handcuffs, pepper spray, and a taser, behave.”I was hoping that comical exchange would have reduced the tension. It almost worked. As Danica opened the sliding glass door, she turned to say something. I have no idea what it was that got into her but at that point, Heaven threw herself at our hostess, wrapped her arms around Danica’s neck, and kissed the lady cop. Danica staggered out the door onto the patio, grabbed the doorsill before they toppled over, and after her obvious moment of panic, put her other arm around Heaven’s waist.Third Wheel Syndrome was kicking in for a while as the two kept tickling each other’s tonsils and rubbing their bodies together.“I, ah…wanted to kiss you since I talked to you on the phone,” Heaven finally said. Danica stroked a finger along Heaven’s left earlobe, wiggling it back and forth.“Mission accomplished,” Danica smiled. “You don’t date much, do you? That’s not a condemnation; it’s just, you have a raw intensity I haven’t seen in a while. I like it.” Heaven looked ready to dive into another lip frenzy when our hostess held her up. “Let’s check on the grill, unless you like your pork chops and chicken burnt as hard as the coals that made 'em.”Heaven gave Danica enough lead to make it to the grill and open it up. My friend coughed and choked as the smoke billowed out; it was Heaven’s first outdoor barbeque, or at least the first that didn’t involve a professional pit master and a whole steer.“Give her some room,” I cautioned Heaven. “I hear those things are hot.” It was my first time too, but they had similar things in Thailand so I wasn’t totally lost.Eventually, I was forced to wrap my arms around Heaven from behind to keep her from bouncing all over the place. Her enthusiasm didn’t bother me; she was fun and felt she had a lot of catching up to do. We chatted about her work and our school machinations. Danica made a crack about me and women putting me on my back, funny like a crutch.We gathered in her living room; it was the only room that had the seats to meet our needs with the meat, coleslaw, hush puppies, and lima beans to eat. There was the promise of sherbet if dinner didn’t fill us up. Things were going so smoothly that I almost missed Danica’s little ploy.“Heaven, since you are getting a beer, would you get me one too,” Danica off-handedly mentioned. We were finishing up the meal and washing it down with the appropriate beverage, lemonade in my case and beer in theirs.“Sure,” Heaven smiled warmly, and off she went. She didn’t hear Danica get up and follow her into the kitchen, though Danica did give me a wink.The moment Heaven pulled the two lagers out of the refrigerator, Danica slipped up behind her and pressed her body into Heaven’s. For a second, Heaven thought it was me and was looking over her shoulder to chastise me. I was following but was hanging back.“Zane, ” then she noticed it was Danica, “Huh?”“Hey, Precious,” Danica purred to her, “it seems your hands are occupied;” gesturing to the beer in each. Danica stretched her arms around and cupped Heaven’s breasts and began massaging them. Heaven tried to twist around but Danica didn’t let her. She bit into Heaven’s neck instead, sucking up and down from ear to shoulder.“The last time you snuck up on me; now it is my turn. How does it feel?” Danica continued. She pressed Heaven up against the refrigerator door, grinding her there for a while before letting Heaven turn and faced her.“It feels good,” Heaven gulped, “but I know some other things I want to do to you that are better.”Danica answered that by sensually sliding down Heaven’s body until she was kneeling. From there she lifted Heaven’s skirt, pulled down her double panties and started making kissing/slurping noises that made Heaven shudder in anticipation. Danica was bobbing in a slow, languid style that was pushing the tranny toward her own internal blaze. I saw the opportunity to come up and relieve Heaven of her beers before she dropped them.Heaven’s hands dropped immediately to Danica’s head and trembled with the desire to push Danica farther and farther down her cock. Danica held her off, having more blowjob experience than Heaven and I combined. I took the time offered to remove all our shirts and Heaven’s bra before alternating kissing Danica’s neck and back while playing with her tits, and going to Heaven and kissing her and teasing her nipples with my teeth.She was over-eager and was tapping Danica’s crown inside a minute, indicating the shortness of her fuse. Heaven gave a muted squeak followed by,“Oh, God, that’s so fucking good, take it, oh, God, take it!” Danica did a masterful job of soaking up everything Heaven had to give and draining her dry afterwards.Danica had to hold Heaven’s hips to stop my lover from sliding to the ground on her ass.“I think we will all be passing on the sherbet,” Danica grinned while licking her lips. Heaven nodded, first shakily but soon with much more assurance. I kicked off my shoes in my own endorsement of this plan and we were soon all migrating to Danica’s bedroom.Heaven, new to the romantic aspects of sexuality, dove straight onto the bed and shimmied out of her skirt. Danica and I stopped at the foot of said bed and shed our pants (and underwear for me). As Heaven looked at us, I pulled Danica’s hair aside and began kissing her from right beneath her ear down to the nape of her neck. Danica responded by pressing her backside into me and gyrating her ass on my crotch.Danica ran her left hand behind her back and began moving it sensually along my stomach to the base of my cock and up again. Her right hand stroked my thigh and hip on the other side. I countered by moving my left to her left breast, mauling it but leaving the nipple unmolested for now. My right hand went in a serpentine fashion to her crotch and hovered right above her clitoris.We played tag with our intimate parts long enough for Danica to start sweating and moaning against me.“Why aren’t you married, again?” she snickered. “Oh, yeah, you being eighteen and all.”“Are you too much woman for one man?” I countered.“Actually, I’ve been looking for someone special,” she confessed, but she wasn’t looking at me when she said it. That wasn’t lost on Heaven either; her jaw dropped. “Don’t freak,” Danica reassured her. “I know we don’t have much in common, I’m a townie and you’re a rich girl from somewhere else, but we have until spring if you want to hang out.”It took Heaven a few moments to digest that.“I’d like that, Danica; I’d like that a lot,” she smiled.“Well, I’d like it if you came over here and kissed me before your boyfriend drives me totally nuts,” Danica teased her. Heaven got on her knees and waddled to the end of the bed to join us.“Wait,” Heaven said at the last second, eyes wide with surprise. “I have a boyfriend and a girlfriend, I rock!” and then she dove into Danica’s lips. Danica was propelled into me by Heaven’s passionate embrace. She reciprocated by moving her hand off my hip and onto Heaven’s semi-rigid cock.Heaven’s phallus hardened quickly enough and she upped the tempo by buoying up her breasts and initiating a nipple fight between her tits and Danica’s, wow, a freaking advantage I hadn’t thought of.“Lets, ” Danica gulped for air “– get on…the bed. I want some…of this…in me,” she pulled on Heaven’s cock.Oh, yeah, this was the Heaven-Danica show and I was second fiddle…and I felt it was glorious. 'You are known not by what you do but by what you leave behind,’ or so yet another saying goes. Danica and Heaven were happy with one another, even if only for a little while. That 'while’ included Heaven retreating up the bed as Danica followed and I pursued her.“Have you been a good girl?” Danica quizzed Heaven. “Do we need a condom?” clarified the issue.“No, no, I’ve only been with Zane,” Heaven answered.“That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for safe sex,” Danica chuckled.“Damn, that’s just cold,” I groaned. “For your information, if my partner wasn’t a virgin, she was someone I know intimately.”“So you are not doing it with that Warlord chick living in your house now?” Danica persisted.“How do you even know about that? It happened Sunday,” I wondered.“Zane,” Danica sighed patiently, “I’m a cop and your house is like two miles away.”“Can we get back to concentrating on the sex?” Heaven grumbled. “I’ll wear a condom if you want. I’ll wear a harem girl outfit if you want, as long as it leads to sex with you.”“That won’t be…necessary,” Danica murmured as she positioned Heaven’s cock between her labia then began to push down.I was working out what my place in this could be when I spotted the bottle of lubricant (generic) boldly sitting on Danica’s nightstand, not very subtle at all. I shifted over, got the bottle, then got around behind them once more.“Can I join in?” I asked.“I trust you,” Danica purred. Silly her; I’m behind her with a source of lube and a passion to use it. I poured some out on Danica’s cleft and let it ooze down toward her pussy. I let it cascade over three fingers before sealing it up again. With my left hand, I began working a finger into Danica’s anus, and with my right, I worked another into Heaven’s.“Oh,” Danica grunted, as I slipped past her sphincter. Heaven’s response was to moan sensually. It took me a little while to not only work a finger in but a second one in as well; then the fun began. With Heaven, I began both pumping and making a series of circular motions; with Danica, though, I pressed down until I was counter-massaging Heaven’s cock through the walls of her rectum and vagina.“Oh, my fucking God!” shouted Danica. “That feels great; she’s really grinding against me.”“Keep that up,” gasped Heaven. “I, I can feel your fingers.” Okay, I got this one right. I could also feel the sympathetic impulses growing between Danica’s vaginal walls and Heaven’s penis; they weren’t going to last long. Drilling Heaven’s butthole in rapid-fire fashion sent her crashing ahead of the wave.“Dan, Dan, Danica, Hell, yeah!” Heaven screamed as she slammed upward into the lady cop. Danica’s back bowed and a low growling noise reverberated through her body. Both tried to use their anal muscles to grind my finger bones together; for the orgasms they were riding through, it was worth it.Danica shivered through one last orgasmic burst then settled gently down on Heaven. Heaven reached around with her arms and ran them up and down Danica’s back. Our hostess pushed off her lover’s body with her elbows on the mattress and kissed her nose.“That felt wonderful,” she smiled down at Heaven. Heaven didn’t immediately respond. “Is something wrong?” Danica worried.“I, um, it was really nice, Danica, but –” Heaven worked through the words.“But?” Danica asked.“But I think I’m into guys,” Heaven gave her worried confession. “I’m sorry; what we did felt good but what sent me over the top was –”“Oh,” Danica seemed to deflate.“Hold on,” I intervened, even as my fingers were still slowly working them both. “Heaven, you liked Danica’s blowjob; right?”“Yes. It was wonderful,” Heaven brightened up. “She’s, you are –” she looked into Danica’s eyes “– the best I’ve ever had.”“Still, you like it up your ass, don’t you?” I prodded. Heaven bit her lip and rolled her head to the side. Danica pushed herself onto all fours and sighed.“Well, damn,” she sighed, “I was sort of hoping –”“Danica, would you consider screwing Heaven’s ass? Giving it a chance?” I hazarded.“I’d give it a shot,” Danica replied after a moment’s hesitation. Being with a girl was new; being with a transgender was new; and now being the driving force in anal sex was going to be new too.“I’ll get dressed and go out to the car,” I winked. “Surprise, surprise; I worried something like this would happen so I brought a few things along.”I was afraid that when I got back from the car with my backpack holding the strap-on, that a chill would have set in. I shouldn’t have worried; Danica was surprisingly passionate and Heaven was sheer surprise itself. They were cuddled face to face exchanging small kisses and stroking each other’s hair.“I just want you both to know,” Danica held up a warding hand, “if that thing is longer than my arm, I’m calling this off.” I presented the device for her approval and while it could be intimidating, it wasn’t scarier than Heaven’s normal equipment. “I’m glad that’s going into you and not me,” Danica ended up teasing Heaven. Not to be outdone, Heaven rolled onto her stomach and wiggled her upraised ass in the air.“Oh, she’s begging for it,” Danica laughed.“Yes, she does, and if you think that’s sweet, imagine how nice it is to wake up with her ramming that pole in while riding you,” I painted the picture.“Is there any position she doesn’t like?” Danica inquired.“I’m right here, my ass up in the air. Please, somebody do something,” Heaven whined.“Not that I know of,” I ignored Heaven’s plea. “You could try it in the shower, bent over the sofa, heels up in the La-Z-boy, or hanging from the pull-up bar, she’s quite strong.”“Oh, um, thanks, Zane; I’ll explore those opportunities,” Danica grinned.“Hello, ass here…needs stuffing,” Heaven became more insistent.“She’s shameless,” Danica teased happily.“Absolutely,” I laughed, “but if one of us doesn’t fulfill her needs real soon, violence will ensue.”“Zane, you warm her up and I’ll figure out how to put this thing on,” Danica instructed me as she took hold of her sexual toy.“About damn time,” Heaven panted as I worked my first finger in again. I’d oiled up several fingers before handing the lube to Danica to prepare her artificial cock with. Heaven’s anus was already pliable from our activity so it took only two minutes to work the second and third finger in. By that time, both Danica and Heaven were ready.“This is weird,” Danica mumbled, as she placed her phallic head against Heaven’s sphincter. “Let me know if this, ” she got out before Heaven pushed back and gasped. “Doesn’t that hurt?”“Makes me feel full,” Heaven gasped. “Push.” Danica did indeed push, and spanked Heaven for good measure.Now that I was freed up again, I elected to recline beside Heaven and watch her get fucked by Danica. Heaven and I made eye contact; that totally free, blissful look was exceptionally special for me. I’d seen Heaven afraid far too often. I’d seen her furious far too often as well.“Zane,” Heaven perked up, “get over here. I want your cock. I want it coming and going.”“Revenge,” taunted Danica. Heaven and I had given Officer Campbell simultaneous oral and anal sex, and now Heaven was getting the same treatment. I sat my ass on the pillow in front of Heaven’s face, legs spread wide. She grabbed my cock in both hands (my penis is so massive, its ability to block out the Sun often cows primitive tribes, or maybe Heaven has small hands) and yanked it forward somewhat painfully until she could lick the tip.“Come on, Zane,” Danica egged me on, “take hold of her head and fuck her like a cheap slut.” A shudder passed head to foot through Heaven’s body and she gave out a small sob.“Heaven,” I asked cautiously, “do you want to stop?”“I’m being fucked like a slut, Zane,” she replied tearfully. “I’m being fucked like a slut.”You never know with some people. Danica gave me a worried look so I gave her a quick smile and a nod. Heaven wanted to be a woman, but almost as important was that she wanted to be seen and treated like a woman. It may have played out in Heaven’s imagination that she had gone to some seedy bar looking all hot and sexy, then a couple had picked her up so they could treat her like a bad little girl.I raised my hips, feeding more of my cock into Heaven’s mouth.“Spank your bitch’s ass,” I teased Danica. She responded by alternating noisy but not very painful slaps to our tranny’s buttocks. Heaven wanted the tease, not the real pain, and Danica was right there for her.Once we had a good rhythm going, I could feel Danica’s cock slamming at its deepest impact, Heaven squirming and squealing with the pleasure and her tongue and throat swirling around my oral intrusion. She slurped and sucked desperately while a small amount of drool marked her cheek and jaw. Heaven began making whimpering noises along with the grunts when Danica drove in deeper.All the sizzling sex I’d been forced (yeah, right) to watch sent me over the edge first.“Heaven…babe, here it comes,” I chanted several times before I finally did shoot gobs and gobs, so much it shot out her nose and mouth. Okay, not really that much, but I certainly felt some relief.Heaven swallowed with some degree of urgency because she was at her tipping point as well.“Oh, God; oh, God; oh, God, Danica…FUCK!” she cried out, then bucked up hard against Danica. On the second buck, Danica took hold of Heaven by her elbows. Heaven rocked a few more feeble times onto the strap-on but her energy was temporarily spent.Danica wrapped her right and then her left arm around Heaven, pulling her into an upright, kneeling embrace, her breasts squished against Heaven’s back.“Are you okay, Precious?” Danica panted next to her lover’s ear.“I, oh, yeah, I feel great,” Heaven wheezed. “I also…seem to have…made a mess…on the bed.”“I planned for that,” Danica answered with a kiss to Heaven’s neck. “I was hoping we’d end up here. By the way, do you want me to pull this out now?”“Yeah, my ass is getting a bit sore, muscles stretched,” Heaven shivered. I wiggled forward so that Danica could push Heaven against me as she withdrew the artificial phallus from its resting place up Heaven’s back door.When the last of it slipped free, Heaven gave a brief little hiccup, then melted into my arms.“Damn, I’m so glad I met you,” she murmured.“Thanks,” Danica and I said together, then laughed at the confusion. Heaven gingerly curled into my lap while Danica sat back and worked off the sexual aid that had brought so much pleasure.“Well, that was different,” Danica mused. “I’m not sure how much I enjoyed it but I can’t say it turned me off.”“Um…that was good sex,” Heaven smiled at us both. “I like good sex.” I gave her a little nudge and communicated as best I could by eye contact alone. “Thank you, Danica,” she added. “I really liked that, what you did for me.”“In that case, we really should do it again,” Danica said nonchalantly. Heaven perked up right away.“Right now?” she hoped.“No,” I cut that conversation right off. “I need to get back to campus, and that means you have to get back as well.”“But, ” Heaven sounded hurt,“ Danica…that means we can’t…”“I know,” Danica interrupted. “Zane has church work tomorrow and then I’m at work for the next five nights, so…maybe next Tuesday?”“I’d like that,” Heaven became excited once more. She crawled over to Danica and began kissing the cop and running her hands all over her body.“Bathroom, clothes, kisses goodbye, and then we have to go,” I prodded Heaven. She looked over her shoulder at me with deep disappointment. Finally, she sighed and nodded. The rest of our visit passed quickly enough. Heaven behaved, I cleaned up the strap-on and myself, and we left Danica with some thank-you’s and a bemused look on her face. I knew that expression; people had described me as having it after my second date with Heaven too.The Birth of the JanissariesWhen we returned to campus, I felt my stress level rise once more. This time I was reasonably sure I had a plan but I needed some help. I sent out some messages for people to gather, and for a special few, I sent people to get the girls I wasn’t sure would come otherwise. I barely got back to my dorm room before the fire tribal meetings that had taken place there broke up.I wasn’t there to say much but I did impress upon the students that this was my turf and I wasn’t ceding one inch to Ms. Scarlett’s scheme or to any one tribe.The group that I’d assembled was very eclectic, some by force and a few of them I barely knew at all. Of the staff, I brought in Dana Gorman, because she was the prior Head of Security and our current Physical Education Coach, and Gabrielle Black, because she was the current Head of Security and I didn’t want to build an internal police force without her advice and consent.On the justice side of things, I brought in Dr. Bryce Kennedy [FYI: she is a woman], the head of the Pre-Law program, Ms. Hudson Lane, our school lawyer, and Ms. Virginia Goodswell, because I trusted her judgment where teachers and teaching were involved. Despite the oddity of the situation, they all answered my summons and didn’t look frighteningly pissed at my request.Student-wise, there was a sea of familiar faces, if not friendly ones. Only Mhain Reynard had been brought here under threat of force by Hope and Chastity. When most of the two visiting tribes had cleared out, I began my meeting.“What I have to say may ramble a bit but please be patient; we are creating something new here,” I began. “Has anyone heard of the janissaries?”Iona raised her hand, as did Hope, Christina, and Simone Brady (former Junior Class President).“For the rest of you, there was a Muslim empire of Turks who ruled much of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. They would levy a tax against their Christian subjects of young sons, and they would take these boys, force their conversion to Islam, and then use them as elite soldiers and palace guards for the Sultans.”“No, I’m not asking anyone to convert,” I warded off some of the more hateful looks, “but the principle elements of what I say will make sense, I promise. These Janissaries soon rose up to become the chief officials of the Turkish government, the most loyal and trusted of all the Sultan’s men. They were both the military and the civil authority of the Empire.” I let that sink into the crowd of bright young women I’d assembled.“So you want us as your personal guard?” Kylie Frik, a sophomore candidate for Class President, sneered. Clearly, she was thinking harem, not what I had planned. Hannah Cartwright, her opposite in the sophomore camp, figured it out.“You want us to be a police force and, I’m guessing by the presence of a few Law types, to be judges as well. You want a shield between you and direct involvement of things you might do.”“Close, but no cigar,” I grinned to Hannah. She liked me well enough but she didn’t really know me or the twisted way my mind worked. “You wouldn’t be my shield; I would be yours. The Janissaries get together and decide policy and how to best enact it; I give it my blessing; and you go do what you want to do while I take the heat for things when they go wrong.”Temperance(Note: introduced in Chapter 7) and Dana both laughed. Christina and company knew better than to judge my madness before hearing the whole story.“The Janissaries ended up ruling the Ottoman Turk Empire in the name of their Sultan, who they kept as a virtual prisoner in his own palace –” Simone Brady insightfully pointed out “– for almost 200 years.”“Wait. Are we going to imprison Zane?” Millicent interrupted. “That’s more than a little odd.”“No. I’m going to select ten Advocates an
Perched where East meets West, Turkey was once a stopover on the Silk Road, connecting the cultures of Europe and the Balkans to exotic Eastern locales. That explains why its history has as many layers as a piece of baklava. The invaders are a greatest hits list of big names: the Greeks, the Byzantine Empire, the Fourth Crusade, and the Ottoman Empire (and its Janissaries). Then WWI and the birth of a new nation: The Republic of Turkey, with westward-gazing Atatürk at the helm. Now, this stunningly beautiful country is a dreamy holiday destination. There are beaches on the Black, Aegean, and Mediterranean Seas to immerse you in soothing waters. Enjoy colorful Turkish cuisine with strong tea and coffee to fuel your adventures. Listen to slinky, rhythmic folk music, have a soak at a hammam (Turkish bath), and meet friendly locals with a charming predilection for chit-chat. For centuries, travelers have been enchanted by the Istanbul skyline and the romantic Bosphorous Strait. But don't sleep on sights outside that fabled city, like the hot air balloons and otherworldly terrain of Cappadocia, the ancient ruins of the Library of Pergamum, and Gaziantep with the sweet scent of baklava bakeries floating in the air. In this episode, we romp through the Byzantine Empire, get gossipy about the Turkish language, and celebrate sweet words of devotion. Then we recommend five books that took us to Turkey on the page: Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Özge Samancı The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, Erda M. Göknar (translator) Black Amber by Phyllis A. Whitney As always, you can follow us at: Our web site at Strong Sense of Place Patreon Twitter Instagram Facebook
We are back for a new season, and this time, we kick it off with six trivia questions all about marching bands, because we actually met each other in our college marching band, like the big old nerds that we are. We also talk European history, movies, and of course, college football!1:59: Q1 (Sports & Games): One of the most legendary moments in college football history is “The Play”, in which announcer Joe Starkey famously exclaimed that “the band is out on the field!” What band was out on the field?9:47: Q2 (Arts & Literature): In 2015, the Michigan State Spartan Marching Band performed a field show inspired by what work by Sun Tzu?15:46: Q3 (Times & Places): The oldest formal military marching bands in the world were made up of Janissaries, the elite soldiers of what now-defunct empire?23:49: Q4 (Movies & TV): The most famous marching band reference in a raunchy comedy was probably the parade scene from Animal House, until Alyson Hannigan said something utterly filthy in what 1999 movie?31:39: Q5 (Everything Else): The first pictorial formation in the history of American marching bands was a block “P” formed by the All-American Marching Band, of what university located in West Lafayette, Indiana?35:46: Q6 (Music): What band's most successful song has a music video featuring Gerard Way and company in old-fashioned marching band uniforms?Theme music: "Thinking it Over" by Lee Rosevere, licensed under CC BY 2.0E-Mail: quizandhers@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quizandhers/Twitter: https://twitter.com/quizandhersInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/quizandhers/Docs That Rock Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/docs-that-rock-podcast/id1399865196Brain Ladle Podcast: http://www.brainladletrivia.com/
Turkish Odyssey, Discover Istanbul and Turkey with Serif Yenen
—Sections of the Topkapi Palace —What was the Divan? —Imperial Kitchens —Ascension to throne ceremony —Who ascended the throne when a sultan died? —Funeral services of the sultans —Difference between a sultan and a caliph —Ceremony of Janissaries' salaries —Palace school (Enderun) —Topkapi movie of Melina Mercouri and Peter Ustinov —What are Islamic Holy Relics? —Various skills of Ottoman sultans —Who were Tressed Halberdiers? —Forbidden section of the palace —Who were black eunuchs? —Were Concubines slave girls kept for the pleasure of the sultan?
Weird History: The Unexpected and Untold Chronicles of History
Discover the fascinating history of the Ottoman Empire's elite military units, the Janissaries, and their significant influence on the creation of the Unsullied in Game of Thrones. Despite their crucial role in shaping one of history's most influential empires, the Janissaries are often overlooked in western historical education. Join us as we delve into their unique and powerful legacy. #OttomanEmpire #Janissaries #GameofThrones #Unsullied #historicaleducation #elitemilitaryunits #Westernhistory Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jason gives you a quick overview of The Battle of Kosovo .Read the essay here: https://historywiththeszilagyis.org/hwts078 Find us on Twitter:The Network: @UFPEarth. The Show: @SzilagyiHistory.Chrissie: @TheGoddessLivia. Jason: @JasonDarkElf.Join us in the Federation Council Chambers on Facebook. Send topic suggestions via Twitter or to hwts@ufp.earth. History with the Szilagyis is supported by our patrons: Susan Capuzzi-De ClerckEd ChinevereLaura DullKris HillPlease visit patreon.com/historywiththeszilagyis United Federation of Podcasts is brought to you by our listeners. Special thanks to these patrons on Patreon whose generous contributions help to produce this podcast and the many others on our network! David WillettJustin OserTim CooperCasey PettittChrissie De Clerck-SzilagyiMahendran RadhakrishnanJim McMahonVictor GamboaVera BibleTom Van ScotterGreg MolumbyKevin ScharfAlexander GatesVanessa VaughanWilliam J. JacksonPeter HongLori KickingerJim StoffelTom ElliotThad HaitAnn MarieJoe MignoneJosh BrewingtonYou can join this illustrious list by becoming a patron here: https://www.patreon.com/ufpearth
Show Synopsis: Sultan Mehmed I initiates a massive overall of the Imperial Janissary Corps turning the ad hoc military formation into the fighting force of military legend. He then heads East with a mind to laying down some Ottoman law amongst the wayward Beys. He can count on two powerful friends to help him, the Anatolian Bey of Dulkadir, a man named Șaban Suli and the unwavering Karaside Beylic. Getting in his way is the rebellious Beylic of Aydin and their crafty leader, Cuneyd. After settling accounts in Izmir, Mehmed makes the risky move of promoting the erstwhile rebel Cuneyd to high office. Any further action in Anatolia is checked by the Timur Empire and Mehmed must deal with Christian opposition to his domains in Rumelia. We don't get to Sheikh Bedreddin's Rebellion (Revolution) yet.. but I promise next show we will. Listen in this episode for a SPECIAL sneaky announcement of a future spin off involving… you guessed it.. the Janissaries. Details available by listening. Also a special thanks to my listeners in Texas at the end of the show. Please stop by and give ‘Carthago Nova: Understanding Mythology' a listen here: Understanding Mythology on Apple Podcasts Supporting suggested podcasts helps this show grow and we can help a fellow content creator! Thanks for listening! Your host and creator Frank would be thrilled to hear from you the listener anytime. Email: empiresofhistorypodcast@gmail.com Follow Frank on Twitter: @EmpiresPodcast Listen and SHARE with a friend, subscribe and leave a review please :) Apple: Listen on Apple Podcasts Spotify: Listen on Spotify Anchor: Listen on Anchor Did you know that Frank is also the author of horror short stories? Interested in steady, simple, first person narratives? ‘I Can't Sleep Horror' Available on the following platforms: YouTube: I Can't Sleep Horror - YouTube Google: Google Podcast Apple: Apple Podcast Spotify: Spotify --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
The Janissaries were the elite soldiers of the Ottoman Empire, a powerful force on the battlefield. But this institution's fall from grace would threaten the very empire it created.Check the website: https://www.unknownsoldierspodcast.com/Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/unknownsoldierspodcast https://twitter.com/unksoldierspod
From one thing to another!
Welcome to our second arc of episodes! To inaugurate the 'Balkan' side of our 'Amerikanski-Balkan' podcast, we begin with the development of the 'nation state' in Serbia. From the uprising against a group of out-of-control Janissaries in 1804 lead by Karađorđe Petrović, through the rewriting of medieval history by a rising ruling class, to the regicides of the Black Hand, Rey narrates the story of the State as it developed in this corner of the world, and reminds us that "there are no ancient hatreds in the Balkans". The crew also discusses the Čukur Fountain war of the gendarmes in Belgrade in 1862, the Timok Rebellion of 1883 which spread to half the country, and the bloody State origins of anti-Albanian prejudice in Serbia. This is The Empire Never Ended, the Antifascist Amerikanski-Balkan podcast about (neo) fascist terror, the (deep) state and the alienation, nihilism and desperation produced by the capitalist system. And how to get rid of all that. Something like that... Subscribe to our Patreon for weekly premium episodes! And check out our social media for updates and whatnot: Twitter + Facebook + Instagram + YouTube
The Spider by Basil Copper@stuieburley on Twitter put me onto Basil Copper. He had recommended the Janissaries of Emilion. I'd never heard of Basil so I got a Kindle Edition of The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper which includes that story. However, it is long. I may do it another time, but for this week I selected a shorter story. But it's a good one. Basil Copper was born in 1924 and lived until 2013 when he died aged 89! He was born in London, England. His first story was published in March 1938, the Magazine of the Tonbridge Senior Boys School. Tonbridge is in Kent, and when I was a boy we went on an exchange visit to Kent. Most schools in England went to foreign countries but the trip from Cumberland to Kent, England's most northwesterly county to England most southeasterly county, was enough of a culture shock for us. He is most famous for his stories featuring the character Solar Pons. This character was created by August Derleth, H P Lovecraft's protege, and is very much in the Lovecraftian tradition of authors sharing worlds and characters between their stories. Copper was published by the Arkham House publishing house, run by August Derleth. Many of Copper's stories feature the Cthulhu Mythos. Despite his links with the Cthulhu Mythos, Copper admitted that his influences were M R James and Edgar Allan Poe and he was interested in Gothic literature. The Spider is a phobia story. It's very cleverly written, neat and effective. In that it reminds me of Marghatina Laski's The Tower where the phobia is vertigo. Here it is arachnophobia. Turns out that the landlord of the wayside auberge just south of Paris has a skin for picking up on a visitor's fears and killing the visitor via heart attack by inducing the phobia. The insect horror theme is of course featured in Boomerang by Oscar Cook. This story appears in the 1964 Pan Book of Horror Stories. He was paid £10 for the story. Copper lived at Sevenoaks in Kent and founded the Tunbridge Wells Vintage Film Society. He was a movie buff and a member of several societies related to films. His wife was French and he is clearly familiar with the county in which The Spider is set. Apparently the story idea came from a spider that was in a room in a hotel he and his wife stayed in while on holiday in Paris. He met his wife and married in her in 1960 when she was in England learning English. His first novel was actually a detective story Copper was very prolific and in addition to his weird tales and novels he wrote 58 detective novels set in LA. When he wrote the first novels, he had never visited the city and used maps and films to provide background. He worked as a journalist, running a county paper at the age of 17. He served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War and took part in the D-Day landings. Music byhttps://bit.ly/somecomeback (The Heartwood Institute) The final tune is by Michael Romeo of https://bit.ly/dvoykinbandcamp (Dvoynik) Support the Podcast Any Way You Can!http://bit.ly/ghostiest (Buy the thirsty, hyperactive podcaster a cup of Java) Sign up For Exclusive Stuff and Early Bird Exposures on http://bit.ly/barcudpatreon (Patreon) Get the https://bit.ly/substacklanding (Substack Newsletter) with Exclusives My Ghost StoriesGet my free audiobook download, The Dalston Vampire https://bit.ly/dalstonvampire (here), and you may consider purchasing my https://bit.ly/HorrorStoriesForHalloween (Horror Stories For Halloween), which is now long past. Support this podcast
Join Karen and her guest Jem Duducu for a conversation about a unique element of the Ottoman Empire- a central but often misconstrued aspect of this traditional Muslim household - called the harem - and the sometimes surprising influence it had on Ottoman politics. The members of the harem - the sultan’s many wives, concubines, and servants - were enmeshed in a dizzying web of responsibilities and - for those savvy enough - unique opportunities for political maneuvering in a world where the alternative to being attached to the Ottoman ruling machinery was… well, pretty much, yikes. (recorded over zoom)You can listen to Jem's Condensed Histories @: https://shows.acast.com/condensed-histories
Jim and Austin discuss the on-going civil war in Libya and Turkey’s involvement there. They also examine the Turkish use of mercenaries in the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In the 18th century, Janissary music became all the rage in Europe. Janissaries were the men who guarded the sultan of Turkey. They had wonderful bands that included instruments that sounded very exotic to European ears: cymbals, triangles and bass drums.
David Weber and Phillip Pournelle discuss Mamelukes, by Jerry Pournelle. When the late, great Dr. Jerry Pournelle passed away, he left behind the nearly completed manuscript for science fiction novel Mamelukes. Now Pournelle's son, Phillip Pournelle, and Honor Harrington series creator David Weber have completed the book. This is an entry in Jerry Pournelle's legendary Janissaries series; and David Weber's Uncompromising Honor, Part 17.
David Weber and Phillip Pournelle discuss Mamelukes, by Jerry Pournelle. When the late, great Dr. Jerry Pournelle passed away, he left behind the nearly completed manuscript for science fiction novel Mamelukes. Now Pournelle's son, Phillip Pournelle, and Honor Harrington series creator David Weber have completed the book. This is an entry in Jerry Pournelle's legendary Janissaries series; and David Weber's Uncompromising Honor, Part 16.
This episode recaps the second half of Season 5, beginning with the 1683 Battle of Vienna and following how the 18th century fundamentally reshaped the Ottoman Empire as the central government lost power to the Janissaries and local Ayans as the Ottomans gradually lost territory. Supporters like you make this podcast happen! Check out www.patreon.com/bulgarianhistorypodcast to see the great perks you can get for supporting us. You can find images for this episode at: www.bghistorypodcast.com/post/105-ottoman-decline-part-2
This episode recaps the first half of Season 5, beginning from the death of Suleiman and covering the long Ottoman wars with the Habsburgs, Safavids, Russians, and Principalities. In the process, we see how the Empire weakens as the Sultans lose power and the Janissaries gain it. Supporters like you make this podcast happen! Check out www.patreon.com/bulgarianhistorypodcast to see the great perks you can get for supporting us. You can find images for this episode at: www.bghistorypodcast.com/post/104-ottoman-decline-part-1
Our heroes have made it to the semi-finals of The Blood Gala Tournament! But their foes going forward are a caliber above the rest! Get your DUNGEONCAST MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/the-dungeoncast Check out our D&D Liveplay, Superquest Saga: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ…j_zYgXV7avIxMEAWc Hang out with The Dungeoncast playing video games: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD0FkXqfXZbTxQg-kZPd6QA Support us on Patreon and help us keep the lights on: https://www.patreon.com/thedungeoncast Join our D&D community on Discord: https://discord.gg/W24kXJN Follow us on Twitter for Updates, D&D news, and polls for new episodes!! https://www.twitter.com/thedungeoncast Find us on Instagram: thedungeoncast
In this first episode we look at the person of the Janissary, who was part of the most elite fighting force in late medieval Europe and personal bodyguard to the Ottoman Sultan. They were technically slaves to the sultan who born as Christians, taken from their homes at early ages, converted to Islam, and went on to incredible military careers by conquering much of Southeast Europe and eventually Constantinople itself in 1453. Learn how this organization functioned, what it was like to be recruited in the Janissaries, and how they came to an end in the 1800s.
The Crusaders head out from Buda, Hungary and turn south into Ottoman territory. Along the way the army brutally sacks the Town of Oryahovo spreading terror and dread of the Crusader army in both Muslim and Orthodox Christian hearts alike. Meanwhile the Thunderbolt Sultan is gathering his army in Bulgaria readying for a quick march to catch the invaders by surprise. Dogan Bey the wily Ottoman governor of Nicopolis settles down for a siege as the Crusaders encamp outside the city gates. The Crusader War Council is divided against itself with King Sigismund arguing for a rational plan of attack vs the obstinate and arrogant French Knights full of pride and folly. Sultan Bayezid closes in with the well disciplined Sipahi and iron Janissaries for the kill. You can visit the show’s website at http://www.empiresofhistorypodcast.blubrry.net subscribe for updates. Please consider a donation on the Patreon Page to help keep Empires of History Podcast: The Ottoman Series alive and well. Follow the show on Twitter: @EmpiresPodcast You can find this episode and more: Have an Android? Subscribe here: https://subscribeonandroid.com/empiresofhistorypodcast.blubrry.net/feed/podcast/ Click here to subscribe/leave review Apple Podcasts(iTunes) Click here to subscribe/leave review Stitcher Click here to subscribe/leave review Spotify If you wish to support Empires of History Podcast please consider a donation. Click for our Patreon Page You can visit the show’s website at http://www.empiresofhistorypodcast.blubrry.net subscribe for updates.
Orhan is dead. Murad ascends the throne to be girded with the sword of Osman. While away handling his business in Anatolia, Serbian lords get the notion they can cause trouble. Along the way Murad establishes the Imperial Janissary Corp. An elite fighting force recruited as children and raised in the strict discipline and arts of war to serve later Sultans as the Shock Troops of the Empire. The stage is rapidly being set for epic battles in the future between the Ottomans and their soon-to-be Balkan subjects. You can visit the show's website at http://www.empiresofhistorypodcast.blubrry.net subscribe for updates. Please consider a donation on the Patreon Page to help keep Empires of History Podcast: The Ottoman Series alive and well. Follow the show on Twitter:@EmpiresPodcast You can find this episode and more: Click here to subscribe/leave review Apple Podcasts(iTunes) Click here to subscribe/leave review Stitcher Click here to subscribe/leave review Spotify If you wish to support Empires of History Podcast please consider a donation. Click for our Patreon Page You can visit the show's website at http://www.empiresofhistorypodcast.blubrry.net subscribe for updates.
From nationally syndicated radio host Buck Sexton, a new podcast that looks at the epic struggles that- had they gone the other way- could have extinguished the western world as we know it. From the Persians of Xerxes to the Janissaries of the Ottoman Sultan, on many occasions vast and powerful forces nearly conquered the Western world before it ever could be realized. It was only through the valiant last stands of armies led by champions from Charles Martel to Don Juan of Austria that the West- the greatest force for human freedom, liberty, and knowledge in history-fought back and won. This series will explore those heroes and the momentous battles that reverberate from ancient times to present. Follow Shields High on iHeartRadio or Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
From nationally syndicated radio host Buck Sexton, a new podcast that looks at the epic struggles that- had they gone the other way- could have extinguished the western world as we know it. From the Persians of Xerxes to the Janissaries of the Ottoman Sultan, on many occasions vast and powerful forces nearly conquered the Western world before it ever could be realized. It was only through the valiant last stands of armies led by champions from Charles Martel to Don Juan of Austria that the West- the greatest force for human freedom, liberty, and knowledge in history-fought back and won. This series will explore those heroes and the momentous battles that reverberate from ancient times to present. Follow Shields High on iHeartRadio or Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
In the 18th century, Janissary music became all the rage in Europe. Janissaries were the men who guarded the sultan of Turkey. They had wonderful bands that included instruments that sounded very exotic to European ears: cymbals, triangles and bass drums. When Janissary music caught on in Europe, many composers, including Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, started using those instruments in their music.
Download Episode! Finally, time to get the first of the countries that will become Yugoslavia on the board, as a bunch of disgruntled Janissaries inadvertently provoke the creation of modern Serbia.
Get Your Book Out of Your Head with Chris Kennedy Chris is a bestselling Science Fiction/Fantasy author that has been ranked as high as #30 on Amazon's Top 100 Science Fiction Authors List, with 40,000 copies sold in the last year. He used the experience in self-publishing to write his non-fiction book, "Self-Publishing for Profit: How to Get Your Book Out of Your Head and Into the Stores," to help aspiring authors enter the self-publishing process. Chris is passionate about writing and self-publishing; it saved him from bankruptcy and is something that is possible for anyone to do. His most recent works include: "Janissaries," which has more that 17,000 copies sold, "When the Gods Aren't Gods," with 11,000 copies sold, "Terra Stands Alone," with 7,000 copies sold, "Red Tide: The Chinese Invasion of Seattle," over 5,000 copies sold. For more information visit: http://chriskennedypublishing.com/
Guest Barbara Petzen helps to shed some light on the origins and rise of the empire that rivaled Europe for centuries.
David Grubbs moderates a conversation with Michial Farmer and Nathan Gilmour about some of the Federalist Papers dealing with the presidency. At the heart of the discussion is the gradual evolution of the office in response to technological and other social changes, most notably the rise in the twentieth century of the standing army. Among the writers, texts, and other realities we take on are Alexander Hamilton, Janissaries, standing militaries, the presidential pardon, and Barbary Pirates.
David Grubbs moderates a conversation with Michial Farmer and Nathan Gilmour about some of the Federalist Papers dealing with the presidency. At the heart of the discussion is the gradual evolution of the office in response to technological and other social changes, most notably the rise in the twentieth century of the standing army. Among the writers, texts, and other realities we take on are Alexander Hamilton, Janissaries, standing militaries, the presidential pardon, and Barbary Pirates.
This 131st, episode is titled, Behind Enemy Lines.Following up their conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Turks conquered most of the Balkans. They now controlled the former Byzantine Empire and the substantial region of Armenia. They required the Eastern Orthodox patriarchs in Constantinople to obey their rules and policies. Ottoman Turks employed their Christians subjects in key positions in the military and government. Bureaucrats who'd served the labyrinthine Byzantine system made excellent court officials in the new realm. And thousands of young Christian boys were inducted into the Janissaries; elite fighting units renowned for their ferocity and loyalty to the Sultan. If you want to read some fascinating history, dig into the story of the Janissaries.Throughout Turkish lands, Christians and Jews were given a measure of autonomy in running their own affairs. Note I said “a measure.” They weren't free to live however they pleased. While there was a general, persistent low-grade animosity between Christians and their Turkish masters, there were periods of intense oppression and outright persecution.Western Europeans were indifferent to the plight of Eastern Christians. They were anxious to maintain a favorable posture toward the Ottomans so as to have access to the rich trade that flowed between East and West. The conspiracies and conniving that went on between the competing nations of Europe for this rich trade was a thing of legend. Sadly, it was a prime example of how the desire for wealth trumped a deeper and more pressing humanitarian directive.Thank God we've moved past that today, huh?Keeping our historical perspective, the lack of concern on the part of Western Europeans for their Oriental brothers and sister living under the Ottoman yoke isn't so hard to understand. After all, how many years had it been since the rift broke East from West? It had been almost exactly 400 years. And the LAST time West met East was in the brutality of the Fourth Crusade that shattered Constantinople and ultimately left it vulnerable to the Turkish conquest.At the end of the 16th century, Jeremias II, patriarch of Constantinople, ordained Bishop Job as the first patriarch of Russia. That made Moscow a patriarchate on the same footing as the much older centers of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.In the final yrs of the 16th century, four bishops along with the metropolitan of Kiev, created what became known as the Uniate Church. These churches became an Eastern branch of the Catholic Church. They looked to the Roman Pope as their spiritual head and embraced Roman doctrine. But they kept the Byzantine liturgy and the right of their priests to marry. For three centuries, Uniate Christians were the target of fierce persecution by Cossacks. During the Cossack-Polish War of 1648–57, many Uniates were slaughtered.Eastern Orthodox or as they're sometimes called, Greek Orthodox, theologians rejected the Protestant Reformation's emphasis on the doctrine of justification by faith alone. But when Cyril Lucaris, patriarch of Constantinople, published a work in 1629 that seemed influenced by the theology of John Calvin, it sparked a firestorm of controversy and fierce opposition from other Orthodox theologians. One chapter said Scripture was infallible and inerrant, its authority superseding that of the Church. Another chapter said sinners are justified by faith rather than works and that it's Christ's righteousness applied by faith to repentant sinners that alone justifies.The Turk Sultan Murad IV conspired to assassinated Patriarch Cyril Lucaris, because he was regarded as a theological as well as a political troublemaker. The Janissaries were sent to kill him on June 27, 1638; his body was dumped over the side of a ship.The years 1598-1613 we labeled the “Time of Troubles” in Russia. It was a time of transition from the Rurik Dynasty to the Romanovs. The years saw a famine that killed some two million Russians, one-third of the populace. It also witnessed the Polish-Muscovite War when Russia was occupied by a Polish-Lithuanian Consortium and endured endless civil uprisings. The Romanovs went on to rule Russia for the next 300 years. During the period from Peter the Great thru Catherine the Great, Russia emerged as a military competitor to the French, Spanish, English, Prussians, and Hapsburgs. Her army and navy grew and she gained large tracts of land at the expense of Sweden, Poland, and Turkey.Russia's conquests brought many non-Orthodox Christians under her control; mostly Roman Catholics. It also brought in many Jews. East European rulers were wary of the new Russian bear and how it's aggression could unsettle the careful balance European diplomats had managed to secure. In 1763, King Louis XV of France declared, “Everything that may plunge Russia into chaos and make her return to obscurity is favorable to our interests.”The impact of the reign of Peter the Great on Russian society was profound. Fascinated by all things military, Peter was as ruthless with enemies as he was charming with those aimed to woo. He assumed the arduous task of transforming Russia from an agricultural backwater into a modern economic powerhouse. During a more than year-long tour of Germany, the Netherlands, England, and Austria in 1697–8, he gained a working knowledge of economics, farming, munitions, and ship-building. He visited schools, hospitals, and factories. He was warmly received by kings and queens.Once back in Russia, Peter used forced labor to build the port city of Petersburg as a “window on the West.” In 1713, it became the capital of Russia. He finally defeated the Swedes, gaining more territory. His trip to western European countries provided him with new insights into how to streamline Russia's military, government, and schools.His opponents came from the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as what was called the “Old Believers and Ritualists” drawn from the ancient Russian nobility and the Cossacks. The clergy said Peter was engaged in a blasphemous arrogance by moving the capital from Moscow, which they regarded as a “Third Rome” to Petersburg.Unlike the clergy, the Old Believers had a different beef with Peter. They were enraged by what they called his irreligious behavior. He failed to support their departure from the Russian Orthodox Church due to a bruhaha over how to make the sign of the cross. These Old Ritualists broke with the Russian Church in the 1650s when the Metropolitan Nikon revised the liturgy along a more Byzantine fashion. Nikon said the sign of the cross was to be made with the first 3 fingers of the right hand, not 2 fingers as was the usual practice. Those who refused to put up 3 fingers were deemed heretics.So à “Off with is head.”In 1682, a leader of the Old Believers was burned at the stake. Some of his followers living in their separate communities engaged in mass suicides.Peter's opponents among the clergy were worked up about his requiring them to adopt modern and Western clothes. Russian nobles were ordered to shave unless they paid a tax. Some Russian men assumed being bearless would bar them from heaven.Peter professed faith in Christ, but it's questionable if he did so for purely pragmatic reasons. He venerated icons, quoted Scripture at length, cited the Liturgy by heart, and sang on occasion in church choirs. But he had little patience with the Patriarch of Moscow who opposed his “Western” innovations.One critic claimed Peter the Great's actions toward the Church in Moscow “led to a cultural shock from which Russia never recovered.” When Patriarch Adrian died in 1700, Peter postponed the election of a new patriarch. That dealt a major blow to the traditions and the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1716, Peter declared that he alone ruled Russia, setting himself over the church.The reigns of the next several Romanovs were marked by intrigue and palace coups.For example, Peter III had a brief reign. He married the German-born and Lutheran-raised Catherine II, who converted to Orthodoxy so as to make entry into marriage smoother. Peter disbanded the secret police and favored religious toleration. He despised the Orthodox Church and was accused of leaning toward “Lutheranism.” A conspiracy headed by his wife's illicit lover forced Peter's abdication, then she had him murdered.Catherine became the ruler of Russia being assigned the title Catherine the Great. She built on the expansionist policies of Peter, adding 200,000 square miles to Russia. Her armies put down the Cossack Rebellion of 1773–5 and extended the borders of Russia in Crimea and Poland, Belarus, and western Ukraine. She centralized and streamlined the government, which was then run by civilians with skills like those of their counterparts in Western Europe. Russia, traditionally introspective and self-congratulatory, looked for a while to be opening to the outside world, willing to embrace the culture of its neighbors.Catherine has sometimes been portrayed as an “Enlightened Despot.” She was steeped in the literature of the French philosophes. Diderot and Grimm spent time at her court, as did other western thinkers. She mostly refrained from terror in dealing with her opponents in bringing reforms.In 1773, Catherine promoted a measure of religious toleration. She defended the Jesuits after the papacy dissolved their Order. Both Roman Catholics and Protestants enjoyed limited religious rights.But, Catherine's openness to Enlightenment ideas had limits. She took over monasteries and turned them into state property. She was hostile to the Masons and feared the spread of subversive republican ideas by partisans of the French Revolution. She made three decrees that forced Jews to settle in a region called “the Pale” stretching from the Black to the Baltic Sea. It encompassed present-day Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus. Jews lived in the Pale under harsh poverty and frequent pogroms.18th-century religious life in Europe and Asia is a harbinger of what lies ahead for us as we wrap up our narrative of church history over the next episodes.The concern expressed by Roman Catholic leaders in the face of the Reformation was that if the Protestants were allowed to break away to form their own churches and movements, the fracturing would never end and Mother Church would disintegrate into a bo-zillion daughters who looked nothing like their mother. That concern has largely proven true, as is evidenced by the literally tens of thousands of different denominations, movements, groups, and independent churches existing worldwide, all calling themselves faithful followers of Jesus and Home of the True Gospel.It's during the 18th C in Europe, Asia, and to a lesser extent in the New World that we see that splintering reaches an exponential rate.And that's why our review of the narrative of church history must necessarily come to a close soon. Because to carry one we'd need to track the growth and development of literally dozens of groups and that would be a royal pain in inflicted tedium. We could deprogram hardened terrorists by making them listen to that; or torture them.But, that might be a good place for burgeoning podcasters to start their own podcast. I know you're out there. You've listened to CS for a while and regularly say to yourself, “I could do a better job than this.” I'll bet you could. So--why don't you? Start your podcast where we'll leave off. Track the origins of your group to where we end and take it from there.As we end, I again say thanks to all you subscribers who write such glowing reviews on iTunes & Apple Podcasts, as well as those who check-in and give the CS FB page a like or leave comments.As you may or may not know, or care for that matter, I'm a pastor at an independent Evangelical Christian church in SoCal. If you like CS, don't find my voice too annoying, and would like to hear something a little different, check out the church podcast. I teach twice a week; one is a general expository survey of the Bible. The other is a sermon where we go in-depth in the same passage. You can find it in iTunes & Apple podcasts by searching for Calvary Chapel Oxnard or going to the calvaryoxnard.org website.And for those who are really interested, I'll soon be starting a YouTube channel where the first project with be a video version of CS.
This 84th Episode of CS is titled Lost & is a brief review of The Church in the East.I encourage you to go back and listen again to episode 72 – Meanwhile Back in the East, which conveyed a lot of detail about the Eastern Church & how it fared under the Mongols and Muslim Expansion in the Middle Ages.Until that time, Christianity was widespread across a good part of the Middle East, Mesopotamia, Persia, & across Central Asia – reaching all the way to China. The reaction of Muslim rulers to the incipient Mongol affiliation with Christianity meant a systemic persecution of believers in Muslim lands, especially in Egypt, where Christians were regarded as a 5th Column. Then, when the Mongols embraced Islam, entire regions of Christians were eradicated.Still, even with these deprivations, Christianity continued to live on in vast portions of across the East.Let me insert a verbal footnote at this point. Much of what follows comes form the work of Philip Jenkins, whose book The Lost History of Christianity is a stellar review of the Church of the East. I heartily recommend it to all you hardcore history fans.Consider this . . .The news recently reported the attacks by ISIS on Assyrian Christians in Northern Iraq. This is a reprise of 1933, when Muslim forces in the new nation of Iraq launched assaults on Nestorian & Assyrians, in what had once been the Christian heartland of northern Mesopotamia. But now, government-sponsored militias cleansed most of the area of its Assyrian population, killing thousands, and eliminating dozens of villages.Although the atrocities weren't new, the arrival of modern media meant they reached the attention of the world, raising demands for Western intervention.These anti-Christian purges were shocked many & elicited a new legal vocabulary. Within months, the Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin referred to the Assyrians & Christian Armenians before them, to argue for a new legal category called crimes of barbarity, meaning “acts of extermination directed against the ethnic, religious or social collectivities whatever the motive; be it political or religious.” In 1943, Lemkin expanded this idea and coined a new word for such abhorrent behavior—Genocide.Yes = The modern concept of genocide as a horror calling for international sanctions has its roots in successful movements to eradicate Middle Eastern Christians.I mention this less than century old genocidal campaign against Assyrian Christians because we may tend to assume the Middle East has ALWAYS been dominated by Islam, or at least, it has since the 7th C. What we ought to understand instead is that it was only in the last Century that the Middle East wasn't understood as a home to a significant popular of Christians. Take ANY Middle Eastern person out of the 18th C and plant them in the Middle East of today and they would be stunned by the paucity of Christian presence.Until a century ago, the Middle East was a bewildering quilt of religious diversity in which Christians were a familiar part of the social and cultural landscape. Particularly startling for our time traveler would be modern-day Turkey as a Muslim land.Historically speaking, until very recently, Christians were as familiar a part of the Middle Eastern scene as Jews are in the United States, or Muslims are in Western Europe. At the dawn of the 20th C, Christians of the Middle East were about 11% of the population while American Jews are only about 2%!The destruction of the Middle Eastern Christian community is an historic transformation of the region.The decline of Christianity in the Near East occurred in two distinct phases.The first occurred during the Middle Ages and largely as a result of the Crusades. But even then, Christians suffered more or less regionally. The Syriac Church was virtually annihilated while the Egyptian Copts held their own. Reduced to a minority status, they entrenched & proved durable.But the second phase of hostility against Christians began about a century ago with the advent of a new & virulent form of Islamism. Now Christians are being systematically eradicated; either by aggressive assimilation or outright persecution. The 20th C saw the emergence of a form of Islam intolerant of any other faith.The Ottoman Turks began as a rather small power in Asia Minor. After the Mongol invasions destroyed the Seljuks, the Ottomans used the wars that followed to create a power base in Asia Minor. They gradually spread over what had been the Christian Byzantine Empire. By the time they took Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire included the Balkans, and by 1500 they controlled the Black Sea. By 1520 they ruled most of the Muslim world west of Persia, as far as Algiers, and became the main enemy for European Christians. Their European conquests advanced rapidly through the 16th C under such Selim I & Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1526, the Turks conquered Hungary, destroying what was at that time a major European power. Turkish advances weren't reversed until the their loss at Vienna in 1683.Selim I took the title of caliph, and took his role as head of Islam seriously. He ordered the confiscation of all churches, many of which were razed, and Ottoman authorities forced thousands of conversions. A century later, the sultan Ibrahim planned the total extermination of Christians. From the 15th C onward, the pressure to convert to Islam was massive. Throughout Christian territories held vassal by the Turks was levied the “tribute of children” by which Christian families had to give a number of their sons to be raised by the state as slaves, or as elite soldiers, called Janissaries. These janissaries became some of the most feared warriors in the Sultan's army against the Europeans.Ottoman warfare was extremely destructive because it drew on methods stemming from the Turkish heritage of Central Asia. Ottoman forces massacred entire Christian populations, targeting clergy and leaders. In 1480, the Turks destroyed the Italian city of Otranto, killing 12,000 and executing priests by sawing them in half. The destruction of Nicosia in Cyprus in 1570 was a crucial loss to Europe. Accounts of Ottoman warfare and punishment include such gruesome techniques as impaling, crucifixion, and flaying. When a Christian leader in Wallachia, named Vlad decided to use these very same tactics against the Turks, it gave rise to the legend of Dracula.From the 15th thru the 19th Cs, the Turks ruled over a large Christian population on European soil. They called Christians rayah, “the herd,” and treated them as animals to be sheared and exploited. A Bosnian Muslim song says >> “The rayah is like the grass; Mow it as much as you will till it springs up anew.”Though pressure to convert was strong, Christianity survived, and managed to recover in a few places like Greece & Bulgaria. But the Eastern Orthodox Church now followed the way of their earlier cousins, the Nestorian and Jacobite Churches & passed under Muslim rule.As the Near East fell under the control of Islamic states, Western European nations had an ever-greater incentive to find alternative trade routes. This they did by exploiting the seas. Well into the 15th C, explorers dreamed of linking up with the fabled Prester John, and renewing the alliance against Islam. In the mid–15th C, the Portuguese explored the Atlantic & shores of Africa. By the 17th C, Europeans were well on their way to global domination. Rising economic power led to urbanization, and the share of the world's population living in Europe and in European overseas colonies grew dramatically. Demographic expansion vastly increased the relative power of European Christianity.Expanding commercial horizons brought Europe's churches into contact with the tattered shreds of the ancient Eastern Christian groups. Tensions between European and non-European churches were of ancient origin. As early as 1300, Catholic missions in China had met sharp opposition from Nestorians, who naturally saw the newcomers making inroads on their ancient territories. Now, however, the Latin powers were far stronger than before, and better able to enforce their will. During the great period of Spanish and Portuguese empire building from the mid-16th to 17th C, the leading edge of Christian expansion was the Roman Catholic Church, fortified by the militancy of the Counter-Reformation. As Catholic clergy and missionaries roamed the world, they found the remnants of many ancient churches, which they determined to bring under papal control.So long-standing was the separation of Western and Eastern churches that the 2 sides never stood much chance of an alliance. As Christianity fell to such dire straits outside Europe, Catholics dismissed foreign traditions as marginal or even unchristian. After the fall of Constantinople, Pope Pius II wrote to the victorious sultan, effectively denying that the non-Catholic churches were Christian in any worthwhile sense: they were “all tainted with error, despite their worship of Christ.” He more or less explicitly asserted the identity of Christianity with the Catholic tradition and, even more, with Europe itself.As Western Christians traveled the world, many were skeptical about the credentials of other churches. In 1723, a French Jesuit reported that “the Copts in Egypt are a strange people far removed from the kingdom of God…although they say they are Christians they are such only in name and appearance. Indeed many of them are so odd that outside of their physical form scarcely anything human can be detected in them.”Latins were troubled by the pretensions of these threadbare Christians, who nevertheless claimed such grand titles. In 1550, a Portuguese traveler reported that the 40,000 Christians along the Indian coast owed their allegiance to a head in “Babylon,” someone they called the “catholicos.” Bafflingly, they had not so much as heard of a pope at Rome. Some years later, envoys dispatched by the Vatican were appalled to discover India's Nestorians called “the Patriarch of Babylon the universal pastor and head of the Catholic Church,” a title that in their view belonged exclusively to the Roman pontiff.For the first time, many Asian and African churches now found themselves under a European-based regime, and were forced to adjust their patterns of organization and worship accordingly.Around the world, we see similar attempts at harmonization. From the 1550s, factions in the Nestorian church sought Roman support, and much of the church accepted Roman rule under a new patriarch of the Chaldeans. Like other Eastern churches, the Catholic Chaldeans retained many of their customs and their own liturgy, but this compromise was not enough to draw in other Nestorians who maintained their existence as a separate church. The Jacobites split on similar lines, with an independent church remaining apart from the Catholic Syrians.The most controversial moment in this process of assimilation occurred in 1599, when Catholic authorities in southern India sought to absorb the ancient Syriac-founded churches of the region, the Thomas Christians. The main activist was Aleixo de Menezes, archbishop of the Portuguese colony of Goa, who maneuvered the Indian church into a union with Rome at a Synod in Diamper. In Indian Christian memory, de Menezes remains a villainous symbol of European imperialism, who began the speedy Romanization of the church, enforced by Goa's notoriously active inquisition. The synod ordered the burning of books teaching Nestorian errors as well as texts teaching practices Europeans deemed superstitious. A substantial body of Syriac and Nestorian tradition perished. Many local Christians reacted against the new policy by forming separate churches, and in later years the Thomas Christians were deeply fragmented.Yet despite this double pressure from Muslims and Catholics, Eastern Christian communities survived. At its height, the Ottoman Empire encompassed the Middle East, the Balkans, and North Africa, & in Europe included millions of subject Christians. Even in 1900, Muslims made up a little less than half the empire's overall population.This survival seems amazing when we think of the accumulated military catastrophes and defeats between 1300 and 1600, and the tyranny of sultans like Selim I. Yet for all these horrors, the Ottomans also found it in their interest to maintain a stable imperial order. After Sultan Mehmet II took Constantinople, he formally invested the new patriarch with his cross and staff, just as the Christian emperors had done previously. Christian numbers stabilized as the Ottomans granted them official status under a system dating back to the ancient Persians. They had their own patriarch who was both religious and civil head. This system endured into the 1920s.Within limits, Christians often flourished, to the puzzlement of western Europeans, who could not understand the distinctive Ottoman mix of tolerance and persecution. Particularly baffling was the extensive use the empire made of non-Muslims, who were in so many other ways denied the most basic rights. Sultans regularly used Christians and former Christians as administrators, partly because such outsiders would be wholly dependent on the ruler's pleasure: eight of the nine grand viziers of Suleiman the Magnificent were of Christian origin.Making their life under the new order more acceptable, Christians actively proved their loyalty. Above all, Orthodox believers were not likely to work with foreign Catholic powers to subvert Turkish rule. The Orthodox found the Muslims no more obnoxious than the Catholic nations, whose activities in recent centuries had left horrendous memories. Apart from the Latin sack of Constantinople in 1204, later Catholic invaders like the Venetians had been almost as tyrannical to their Orthodox subjects as were the Turks. Even in the last days of the empire, a Byzantine official famously declared, “Better the Sultan's turban than the Cardinal's hat!” Matters deteriorated further when the Orthodox saw how Catholics treated members of their own church in eastern Europe.By far the worst sufferers from the carnage of the 14th C were the old Eastern Syriac churches, precisely because they had once been so powerful and had posed a real danger to Muslim supremacy. Neither Jacobites nor Nestorians ever recovered from the time of Timur. If we combine all the different branches of these churches, we find barely half a million faithful by the early 20th C, scattered from Cyprus and Syria to Persia. This implosion led to a steep decline in morale and ambition. Instead of trying to convert the whole of Asia as they had originally envisioned and seemed within their grasp, the Syrian churches survived as inward-looking quasi-tribal bodies. Succession to the Nestorian patriarchate became hereditary, passing from uncle to nephew. Intellectual activity declined to nothing, at least in comparison with its glorious past. Most clergy were illiterate, and the church texts that do survive are imbued with superstition and folk magic.Well …That brings us now back to Europe and the monumental shift the Western Church had been moving toward for some time, as we've tracked over 8 episodes in our series, The Long Road to Reform.We'll pick it up there in our next episode.
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