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On her seventh and latest album, “Cavale,” the award-winning Quebecois artist Cœur de pirate explores her longest and most toxic relationship — with anxiety. She sits down with Tom Power to talk about the record, the cost of fame, and how being “scared of everything” inspired her to write her first new song in two years.
There has been a murder! A murder in a small Quebecois village where everyone knows each other and most people seem to be either artists or café proprietors! Luckily Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and the Sûreté du Québec are on the case, there to be avuncular and reassuring and blur the line between friend and law enforcement professional.This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain.Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.Follow @overduepod on Instagram and BlueskyAdvertise on OverdueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
At this years Toronto International Film Festival I got to interview a bunch of sound people in town to support films screening at TIFF. This episode collects 3 of those interviews, covering some of the international films that I saw during the festival. First up I talk with Oscar winning sound supervisor, Sylvain Bellmare, about the Quebecois film Mille secrets mille dangers (Lovely Day). Then Therese Gylfe & Tove Lidman discuss their work on the Swedish/Spainish film Forestera, which won a major award at TIFF. The final interview of this episode is with María Alejandra Rojas & Arturo Salazar about the really cool Brazilian/Mexican film The Blue Trail. The is movie is a futuristic science fiction film covering the unique ways technology will affect third world countries. __________ Sponsors: This Black Friday, Sound Ideas is offering its biggest savings of the year! Enjoy 50% off all proprietary sound libraries and memberships: our best deal yet on world-class audio collections. But that's just the beginning. Each week, we'll spotlight one of our most popular libraries with an exclusive, limited-time discount. Visit https://www.sound-ideas.com/ regularly to discover which library is featured and grab these weekly sound specials before they're gone!_______ Have you been using Subquake by The Cargo Cult? Get the low end to cut through in your mixes, in ways you were never able to achieve before. We have all used many different low frequency generator plugins over the years, but Subquake is an entirely different beast. Don't fall into the trap of delivering boring, ho hum sub. Add character and shape to your mixes by having more impact from less signal. Get Subquake, and shake the plaster right off the walls. Head to https://www.thecargocult.nz/ to learn more _______ If you are interested in field recording, you should know about the O-Mini P48 and the brand new O-Mini PIP miniature omni-directional electret microphones. Each one is hand made by Chris Trevino, a practicing field recordist, and a really engaged member of the sound community. He puts a lot of work into making and testing each mic to ensure they live up to his high standards. They are ultra-sonic capable, which makes manipulating your recordings with them a lot of fun. They are also extremely affordable. At $150us for the P48 & $130 for the PIP, they offer a lot of value for a stereo matched pair. Go to https://www.chrisatrevino.com/store to get more information.________ Episode Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/336-tonebenders-at-tiff-2025/ Podcast Homepage: https://tonebenderspodcast.com This episode is hosted by Timothy Muirhead
Allison Raskin has a pretty diverse array of interests. She's a former Buzzfeed video creator, co-host of the podcast Just Between Us, and the author of numerous best-selling books, including Please Send Help, Overthinking About You, and the new Save the Date. How does she unwind from this busy life? By being obsessed with Inspector Gamache, the Quebecois crime solver found in novels by Louise Penny and on television, played by Alfred Molina. Join us for a meandering conversation about Gamache's brilliance, maple taffy, and the Quebec lunchtime experience of the “trio”, where you get a half sandwich, a cup of soup, AND a small salad. You don't have to choose in Quebec. You can have it all. Drift off to sleep with that happy contented thought in your head.Get your copy of Allison Raskin's novel Save the Date wherever books are sold. Follow Allison's mental health account @emotionalsupportlady on Instagram. To find out more about Allison or to subscribe to Allison's Substack, visit her website, www.AllisonRaskin.com.Hey Sleepy Heads, is there anyone whose voice you'd like to drift off to, or do you have suggestions on things we could do to aid your slumber?Email us at: sleepwithcelebs@maximumfun.org.Follow the Show on:Instagram @sleepwcelebsBluesky @sleepwithcelebsTikTok @SleepWithCelebsJohn is on Bluesky @JohnMoeJohn's acclaimed, best-selling memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is now available in paperback._________________________________________________________________________Join | Maximum FunIf you like one or more shows on MaxFun, and you value independent artists being able to do their thing, you're the perfect person to become a MaxFun monthly member.
Anya chats with Chez Celine co-founders and former St. Lawrence luminaries Margaux Herder and David Lawson about casse-croute, Quebecois fare, opening in the Fraserhood, childhood favourites, pork chops and snails, and so much more.
What do you do after you've left the biggest metal band there is, ever was, and likely ever will be?Well, when it was Jason Newsted, he apparently decided to work with kids his own age.He joined Voivod.Nik and Duncan dig in to check out his last record with the Quebecois metal band.
Calice tabernac! Marty and Scott receive a much-needed refresher in Quebecois cursing in this, their second ep dedicated to Canadian film, in all its weird and wonderful forms. This week, they are "drivin' the 'bone" straight into the following four films:Bon Cop Bad Cop (2006, Dir. Eric Canuel) at 2:07The Grand Seduction (2013, Dir. Don McKellar) at 17:56Drinkwater (2021, Dir. Stephen S. Campanelli) at 29:35Women Talking (2022, Dir. Sarah Polley) at 43:10Plus, raise your cricket bats in honour of:Continuity Boulevard at 1:01:57Lightning Round at 1:09:14Follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Amazon Music.Visit us at slackandslashpod.comEmail us at slackandslash@gmail.com
Before they defined Canada's political landscape - and became adversaries on the question of Quebecois independence - Pierre Trudeau and René Lévesque were allies on the road to the Quiet Revolution. We discuss Donald Brittain's documentary THE CHAMPIONS, PART 1: UNLIKELY WARRIORS (1978) and the growing pains of Canada in its postwar era. PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/652-cite-libre-138171420
Trudie Mason welcomes in Victor Henriquez, Public affairs and crisis management specialist at Public Strategy and Conseil, and Jonathan Kalles, Vice President at McMillan Vantage, a national public affairs firm, and former advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Ottawa is open to negotiate with Quebec about judge nominations come September. Are we slowly but surely becoming independent from Canada in everything but name? Sources tell LaPresse that UPAC investigators have identified four suspects, including one bureaucrat, in the SAAQclic scandal Parti Quebecois is taking the topic of praying in public to the membership to see if they want to advocate for a ban
Guillaume Rousseau, Law professor at Université de Sherbrooke and attorney for the Mouvement Laïque Quebecois
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Our exit today has us stopping an international counterfeit money scheme. This week, we are talking about Rush Hour 2, written by Ross LaManna and Jeff Nathanson and directed by Brett Ratner.In preparation, Tripp watched Rush Hour, so there is a lot of comparing between the two movies. There is also discussion about bloopers (of course), Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Zhang Ziyi, Ocean's Eleven, some cultural insensitivity, 90s action films, Quebecois cinema, Hong Kong, Jeremy Piven, Billy Crystal, erotic Antonio Banderas films, and a surprisingly long conversation comparing the different cuts of Apocalypse Now!Thememusic by Jonworthymusic.Powered by RiversideFM.CFF Films with Ross and friends.Movies We've Covered on the Show on Letterboxd.Movies Recommended on the Show on Letterboxd.
This week, Kim Masters speaks to Severance director and cinematographer, Jessica Lee Gagné. The Quebecois filmmaker reflects on her collaboration with Severance executive producer Ben Stiller, which began on the Showtime limited series Escape at Dannemora. She discusses becoming the first woman to be Emmy-nominated in the same year for both cinematography and directing in a drama series, and the major leap of faith it took to transition from a successful career as a DP into the world of directing. Plus, Disney is reshaping its sports strategy, launching a standalone ESPN app, and making billion-dollar deals with WWE and the NFL. Will the NFL's new stake in ESPN bring scrutiny from the Trump-led DOJ? Also, the Skydance-Paramount deal is done, and the Ellisons may have their sights set on Warner Bros. Kim Masters and Matt Belloni break it all down.
Science communicator and bat expert Dan Riskin talks to Andrew Carter every Wednesday at 8:20.
Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 5 Lab work. Based on a post by Break The Bar. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels. Time went quickly, but also seemed to go nowhere at all; only three days after the final demise of the house we'd moved the RVs four times and I decided we needed to figure out something at least semi-permanent. Even a week in the same spot would be preferable to constant movement. The space where my house had stood was now full of stacks and pallets of supplies, and Vanessa had a crew of almost two dozen of her 'gorillas' working to erect what would become the first of a dozen temporary bunkhouses for the incoming construction workers. She still seemed to be the only foreman on site, so I went looking for Vanessa. I found her at the water truck, splashing some water onto the back of her neck as she took a quick break. It had turned even hotter over the week, spring slipping fully into summer, and we were all starting to boil when we were outside. I'd quickly abandoned the feeling of needing to 'dress up' for everyone and I was down to athletic shorts and one of my sleeveless workout shirts; one of the few that were still 'mine' considering both Erica and Ivy had taken to wearing them as well. Vanessa was the boss however and had to set the example for the rest of the crew, so she was still wearing the jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt and her reflective vest of a dutiful construction foreman. "Hey, got a second?" I asked. "Oh, hey Harrison," she said, looking up as she continued splashing water onto the back of her neck. "Sorry I haven't come to check with you and the girls today, we had three more loads this morning of barracks pilings I had to get sorted, and the fucking surveyors are still bitching about not knowing where the sewage lines are going to come onto the property, as if I can fucking answer that question for them or something." "When's your Dad supposed to finally get on site?" I asked. Her father was supposed to be the General Manager of the entire construction project, but so far I had yet to have seen him. "Fuck, a few days still at least," Vanessa sighed. "I'm getting tired as shit of the phone tag." "Well, sorry if this is a big ask and causes you more headaches; any chance we could project ahead a bit and figure out where we can stash the RVs and everything where we're not going to need to move them for a while? Moving everything around is annoying by itself, but I've also noticed some of your guys are spending a lot of time wandering by the RVs whenever the girls are outside." "Fucking gorillas," Vanessa grunted and grimaced. "I mean, on the one hand, I get it; they are either cooped up in the motel or here working. I'm not exactly thrilled with the situation either. But they could keep it in their fucking pants too, ya know?" "Look, if we can find a spot, the way I see it we can use the RVs and Containers to set up a yard for us that's blocked from view. Then we can have some privacy and not feel cooped up in the RVs, and your guys aren't tempted to let their eyes wander," I said. "I figure it's a win-win." Vanessa smiled and patted my arm. "Harri, as long as you keep the fucking indoors, I'll see what I can do about getting you guys some more privacy." "What do you mean?" I asked, suddenly a little worried that Erica and I might have gotten caught at the Willow tree after all, or that maybe a surveyor had wandered up near the Spring without us hearing. "Nothing, nothing," Vanessa said. "I just; you know we can see the RVs rocking a bit, right? And I don't know who it is, but someone over in your camp is a screamer. We can hear her when she really gets going. Once the guys even gave you a standing ovation." "Fuck," I coughed, shaking my head. "I'm sorry. I think it's something to do with the vaccine. I've had more sex in the last four days than I have in the last four years. Honestly, I don't even know how I'm doing it; I ain't old, but I'm not a teenager either." "Well, god bless the vaccine I guess," Vanessa smirked. "And good for you. Just do me a favor and keep it inside the RVs 'till we can get you that privacy. We don't need the entire site shutting down to listen to you fucking your girlfriends." I shook my head again with a self-deprecating smirk. "Um, deal. I hope." That made Vanessa chuckle, and we parted ways for the afternoon. The next day, she came back in the morning and explained the plan she had worked out with the Surveyors and one of the tree-clearing crews. By mid-afternoon, a new swathe of the back end of the hill was bare of trees, and a bulldozer scooped dirt into the holes left by ripped-up stumps. By the time Vanessa left that evening, two of the storage containers had been shifted around by the 'gorillas' and positioned in an L-shape for us in the new location, and Leo and I moved the RVs to form the other two sides of a square. When Vanessa came by the next morning we'd hung up some old, heavy blankets at the corners to maximize our privacy, busted out the lawn chairs and barbecue, and were on our way to turning the space into an outdoor living room. Leo and I even went so far as to rig up an old bell we'd salvaged from the barn on a wooden post with a metal knocker on a string to serve as a doorbell. Erica was the one to answer Vanessa's ring of the bell, and she swept aside the blanket curtain. "Welcome to Casa de Black," she declared. "Jesus," Vanessa said, walking into our new home base. "You guys didn't want to wait, did you?" "Why would we?" Leo asked. "We don't know how long we're going to be living like this, so might as well make the most of it." Leo had decided to make one last addition to our current set-up, and had pulled a loose slab of wood from the container holding all his tools and was carving 'Speak Friend and Enter' into it the makeshift sign with his handheld angle grinder. He'd already been talking about using his torch to burn the wood before giving it a clear lacquer coat. "What can we do for you, Vanessa?" I asked. "Need some breakfast?" "Actually?" Vanessa chewed on the inside of her cheek for a second and peeked back outside the yard. "Breakfast would be fucking great. They're feeding us at the motel, but it's been the same instant oatmeal every fucking morning." "Well, we've yet to have our egg hookup dry out on us," I said. Old Mrs. Branston lived about fifteen minutes down the highway and had been selling eggs to three generations of my family; through the pandemic and quarantine we'd set up a system where I called ahead and she dropped off two dozen eggs at the end of her driveway, and I left a ten dollar bill in her mailbox. "How do you like them? I think I'm getting pretty good at using the grill with a frying pan." We hosted Vanessa for about fifteen minutes as I fried her up some over-easy eggs and some toast to go with it, and she started devouring the first two so quickly that I put another two in the pan for her immediately. While I cooked, she shared the most recent gossip running through the construction crews. "So the latest group to come in said they got tested four times before even leaving the airport," she said around a mouthful. "They were basically flown into Portland, put in little hygienic pods inside the terminals until they'd tested negative all four times, then escorted to military transports. I guess the army is our taxi service or something, and there are members of the national guard currently standing watch at all of the motels. It's kind of fucked up and feels like a prison, honestly. We're not even supposed to mingle outside with each other, despite the fact that we all work together here all day." "Who's feeding you all?" Danielle asked. "Just the people already working out there seems like a lot." "Some catering service is making these prepackaged meals," Vanessa said. "The breakfasts are shit, and the lunches are whatever. The dinners are Okay though; microwavable, and waiting for us when we get off shift." "Have you heard anything else out there about the vaccine?" I asked. "Hmm-Hmm," Vanessa shook her head. "But I mean, I spend my time working." "I'm still not seeing much online," Leo said. "Little whispers on social media, but then it disappears before it gets going." "That's kinda fucked up," Erica said. "We know it's real. The government must be censoring the information or something. "Well, whenever it happens, I don't know what I'll do," Vanessa sighed. "I like working too much, being my own woman. I bring in more cash in a year than almost every other person I graduated high school with, I've been doing it for years, and I don't have any debts. I can't just get tied down to some guy." "You would be surprised, Vanessa," Ivy spoke up. "I am this way too, no? I left home to make my way, and I am happy doing it. But now I am happy here, and am also safe from the sickness. It is not how I saw my life going, but c'est la vie, non?" Vanessa shrugged, and we moved on to some other topics until her radio squawked and she had to run off back to her work. By lunchtime I'd already done another two quick guides into the hills for the surveyors and Leo had gotten his nerd-sign carved out and torched, and he was spray lacquering it outside the yard with a facemask and safety goggles on to cut the strong fumes. He stopped the sprayer when he saw me approaching and stepped away from the sign. "Hey, you able to help me out with hanging this tonight?" he asked me. "Of course," I said. "I gotta help you fly your nerd flag somehow." "Yeah, says the guy with the Lord of the Rings concept art cycling as his desktop screen," Leo rolled his eyes. "It's for my work," I said. "Top-notch inspiration." And then I realized I hadn't opened my laptop in days; not since I'd finished the questionnaire that had led to Erica choosing me. And Ivy for that matter. I hadn't checked emails, I hadn't reached out to contacts. Fuck, I hadn't even sent in my last work-for-hire backgrounds. "Whatever," Leo laughed and punched me in the arm. "Look, when you go in there, just know it wasn't my idea, Okay? I only helped them move the stuff." "What does that mean?" I asked. "You'll see," Leo said cryptically. I ducked through the blanket door and immediately saw what Leo was talking about. Space had been cleared in the center of our sheltered yard for three of the heavy Adirondack deck chairs, and laying in those chairs were Danielle, Erica and Ivy. Each of them was wearing a bikini and were glistening with sunscreen and sweat from the sun as they tanned. They had a Bluetooth speaker playing songs from their phones; I suspected Erica was trying to convince the younger two women of the virtues of mid-2000s pop punk. "Oh, good," Erica said, grinning as she saw me coming into the yard. She lifted her glass. "Um, excuse me, waiter? We could use a top-up, please." I snorted and shook my head, walking over. All three of the women were in two-piece swimsuits, though I suspected Danielle and Ivy's were possibly part of their stripping gear rather than actual bikinis. Both of their suits were more string than fabric and left little to the imagination. Erica's was a bit more conservative, though really not by that much because of her swathe of cleavage. "What are we drinking today, ladies?" I asked. "I made up a pitcher of sangria," Erica said. "It's in the fridge in our place. You would be the absolute love of my life if you were to go get it for us, please?" "I thought I already was the love of your life?" I asked with a smile. "You are," Erica smiled back. "But this will get you to the front of the line for my next life, too. How about that?" "Does that go for all of you?" I asked. "Absolutely," Ivy grinned. "I think I could definitely do worse," Danielle grinned. "But I think Leo might have something to say about that." "Harri can take my brother," Erica chuckled. "Don't worry, Danni. Just sell your future soul to Harri, what's the worst that could happen?" "Fine. My future love life for a refill of sangria," Danielle giggled. I fetched the pitcher and poured for the three women, unable to wipe the grin from my lips as I watched and listened to them bantering back and forth happily. By mid-afternoon, the tanning was over and after a quick fuck in the RV Erica and I were lounging in the Adirondacks, each of us with a sketchbook in hand. "What are you working on?" I asked. "I know you've been as frustrated as I have over the last month." "A tattoo design for Ivy," Erica said, her brow creased as she tapped her pencil against her lips thoughtfully. "Now that I have a future canvas, I feel like I can concentrate again. Plus the sex helps a lot." You laughed and nodded. "Got your creative juices flowing, huh?" "Got all my juices flowing, baby," she grinned at me. "What about you? I've got Ivy, and Danielle wants me to design something for her now, too. What's got you drawing again?" I smiled a little and shrugged. "Just figured out my muse," I said. "And what's that?" she asked. "Come on, don't be shy." I turned my sketchbook around so that Erica could see the portrait I had been sketching of her. She looked at it and blushed, biting her lower lip. "Just the most beautiful thing in the world," I told her. "You know," Erica said. "It kinda looks like you're drawing me naked." "That's cause I'm drawing you from the shoulders up," I said. "Yeah, but would you?" she asked. "Would I what? Draw you naked?" "Or Ivy?" "Are you asking me to draw you like one of my French girls?" I asked. Erica barked out a laugh at the reference and threw her pencil at me. "Yes, maybe I am," she said. "Now give me back my pencil." "You threw it at me," I said, fetching it off the ground. "Come and get it." We ended up in each other's arms and making out, me halfway to taking her back into the RV for round two, when someone rang the doorbell. "Who is it?" I shouted over the wall. "It's me," Vanessa called and ducked through the blanket door without waiting for a response. "Sorry, but we've got a problem," she said. "I think I'm going to need you down at the road again." "Fuck," I said. "Is it Kara?" "It's a lot more than that bitch," Vanessa said. I changed and this time Vanessa drove us both down in her company-branded pickup truck. Erica, having already staked her claim on me in front of Kara in her eyes, decided to hang back and let Ivy finish what I'd started. I was sure sending me away with that picture in my mind was done on purpose. As we were nearing the bottom of the driveway, I could hear the noise of the protest through the closed windows and over the engine of the truck. "Fuck me," I said. "Yeah," Vanessa nodded. The end of the driveway was packed with people, shoulder to shoulder, blocking traffic. They were three rows deep and singing a protest chant. Every single one of them was dressed in bright colors, showing their allegiance to the Band and proudly shouting for all they were worth. Opposing them, about ten feet up the drive, was a slim, single row of burly construction workers just watching the protest happen. "Those guys really can't let themselves get baited," I said. "If something happens, it doesn't matter who said what or what can hold up in court. There'll be big, scary motherfuckers showing up wanting to do some damage and I don't think your boys are ready for that." "I know, I already told them," Vanessa said. "But I'll tell them again. You'd be surprised how much threatening someone's big, fat bonus checks can keep them calm and focused." We got out of the truck and I walked down to the line of workers, rubbing at the stubble on my chin as I considered the protestors. There were easily fifty of them blocking the driveway, and there was already a backup of two flatbed trucks on the highway, plus a half dozen cars that looked more like they just wanted to get by rather than come in. Another thirty or so protestors were strung out on either side of the highway in both directions, holding up signs and doing the organizational things to keep the protestors going. "Pretty good turnout," I said offhandedly. "A lot bigger than last time." "When was the last time?" Vanessa asked. "Five years ago," I said. "Kara tried to sue for an injunction on my father's Will, and about a dozen protestors showed up to the courthouse the day she got shot down." "Any chance they'll get tired and go home?" Vanessa asked. I scanned the crowd and the vehicles parked up and down the highway. I already knew there were about thirty military-age males in the protest, and I could see people opening the backs of vans where I spotted supply caches of water and food. I could also see the determination on the faces of the crowd, and hear the declarations of a couple of different women holding loudspeakers. The rhetoric, and emotions, were ramped up more than usual. The anti-government hate was high, and now that they knew they weren't fighting Me but rather the Government it seemed to steel their resolve. "Not a shot," I said. I stepped forward and the shouting got louder. Likely every single person in that crowd knew who I was, while I had no idea who most of them were. But with every step I took, they shouted louder. Finally, halfway between the lines, they seemed to be at a fever pitch and I just stopped and waited. They kept going for a good five minutes before Kara pushed her way through and walked up to me, masked behind those bandanas again. "I told you this would happen," Kara said over the shouting and chanting. "You didn't think I could do it, but look at us. Look at us, Harrison! We will not let this happen to our land." "Kara," I said loudly. "How do you think this ends?" "Only one way," Kara shouted. "The Feds surrender to our rightful claim, and stop their colonization efforts, and we take back what's ours." "This is dangerous, Kara," I said, gesturing at the crowd. "What?" she shouted back. "I said this is dangerous, Kara," I shouted. "Every person here is in danger." "Are you threatening us?" Kara shouted, playing it up for the crowd behind her. "Going to kill us, like your family has done for generations?" "Jesus fuck," I said, shaking my head. "Kara, this doesn't end the way you think it does. I'm going to pray for you, honest to God." Kara just held up her middle finger at me, pointed her other at Vanessa behind me, and turned and walked away to the cheers of her people. I shrugged and went back to Vanessa. "Yeah, they aren't leaving," I said. "I already called my Dad," Vanessa said. "He's coming down and will want to meet with you." "Sure," I nodded. "If they let him through." About thirty minutes later the protesters were still going strong, and another three flatbeds with either supplies or heavy machinery were backed up on the highway, along with dozens of cars. Vanessa was doing as much as she could to keep her workers at least a dozen yards away from the crowd of protestors; the last thing she wanted was for them to need to get quarantined waiting on a half dozen new tests. Or worse, actually catch something. I did my best to help her juggle phones, calling various General Foremen to get incoming trucks rerouted to staging areas and to keep those that were stuck in the traffic in their cabs or else they couldn't enter the site. Eventually she got a call, spoke quickly and then hung up. "Harri, this might be a big ask, but could you do me a favor?" she asked. "The government paid me a lot of money for my land and doing favors," I said. "But you've gone out of your way plenty for me and Leo and the girls. Favors come free to you, Vee." She rolled her eyes. "Who told you my brothers call me that?" "No one, just felt natural," I chuckled. "I call Erica 'E' sometimes, and I'm sure I'll end up calling Ivy 'I've' at some point." "Alright, well, 'H,'" she said. "My dad is parked down at the edge of the property on the highway and doesn't want to get too close to the traffic. Could you hike out to him and bring him back?" "Sure," I said. I looked up at the sun and then out at the woods. "Um, from here... it's probably faster if I grab an ATV. Would he be squeamish about riding double with me?" Vanessa snorted. "He probably wouldn't be, but he's also got a gut the size of your ATVs so it would be a tight fit." "Alright, guess we're hiking. I can rough it and reach him in about twenty minutes," I said. "I'll take a smoother way back for him, so we'll get here in under an hour." "Got it, I'll let him know you're on your way. Thanks," she said, patting my arm. "Try to take it easy on him, he growls like a bear but he's still my Dad." "Hey, he's the big man in charge. Gotta keep him happy or else I'll find myself with the worst workers for my house, right?" "Very true," she laughed. I started hiking back up the driveway a little ways, and then diverted into the woods, hoping that the protestors would miss that I was skirting away from them. I was very glad I had changed from my lounging around clothes; rough jeans and my hiking boots were a lot sturdier in the rocky bush than athletic shorts and sandals. The raucousness of the protestors was quickly muffled by the forest to a dull roar, and it felt good to get away from them. It was weird. After spending months in isolation with Leo and Erica, we'd been getting used to so many people around again with the workers and adding Ivy and Danielle to our weird little family dynamic. But a crowd like that, all packed together? That was exactly what the quarantine orders were warning against. "Harrison!" My name cut through the muffle of the trees and shrubs, and I turned and saw Kara quickly jogging through the woods to catch up with me. "Kara, what the fuck are you doing? You're trespassing," I said. "So throw me off your land," Kara said, coming to a stop about ten feet from me and putting her hands on her hips. "Oh wait, that's right, it's not your land anymore." I rolled my eyes. "You can take off the bandanas if you want. We're fine this far apart." She did so, pulling them down to hang around her neck. Kara was still as beautiful as the day we'd broken up, though she'd grown up a lot. Where I was such a mix that it was hard to tell I had any Native American in my bloodstream, she had that classic warm skin tone and thick black hair. She'd been taking care of herself well, fit and a little thinner than Erica was, but with a similar strong jawline to my girlfriend. Her lips were as full as I remembered though, and I could almost feel her kissing me again like all those years ago behind the corner of the biology classroom in high school, or laying out in the back of my old beater pickup under the stars. "What's going on, Harri?" she asked me. "I thought we'd at least hit a status quo or something." "Oh, the one where you file a lawsuit against me every couple of years, and the judge shuts you down, but I keep having to rack up legal fees?" "No," she said. "Well, sort of. I thought we were keeping things above board. No games, no gimmicks. Not getting historical." I grimaced. "Well, we did," I said. "So what the fuck?" she said, throwing her arms wide. "What the fuck is all of this?" "Kara, think about it for one fucking second without your prejudice. Imagine I'm not just doing this as a 'Fuck You' from my family tree to the Band," I said. "A week ago I wouldn't have thought any of this would be happening. A week ago I was happily living my life and would have stayed that way straight through the end of the world if I had to. Do you seriously think I've done this on some whim?" "Why, then? What are they doing? What are they offering you?" she demanded. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I said. "And even if you did, I think you're too far into this already to walk it back with your people." "Try me," she said. "If you ever cared about me,” "Stop," I interrupted her. "You've used that line twice on me before, Kara. You used it when you broke up with me, and you used it again right after my father died. That line didn't work when I was at some of the lowest points in my life; do you seriously think I'll respond well to that here?" She grimaced, and I saw the realization in her eyes that I was right. That she had used that line before, and it had been pretty fucked up for her to do that. "I'm sorry," she said, and only partially through gritted teeth. "I shouldn't have done that." "Thank you," I said. My heart was pounding in my chest and I felt like I was in combat, just having this verbal sparring contest with her. I fucking hated her, but I also still knew she was the first girl I'd ever loved. The one that had broken my heart. The one that 'got away.' "Just explain it to me," Kara said, trying to be more even about it. "Please." I took a moment to breathe deeply. I wasn't barred from telling her anything. I'd tried to warn her when she'd shown up at the driveway before, but the thought of all those protestors at risk for the virus pushed me over the edge of trying to warn her again. "Kara, the government gave me the choice of accepting a huge payout for the land, or them kicking me out and taking it by eminent domain. Either way, they were going to take it and take it fast. I could either ride it, or die fighting it." "So what are they doing with it?" she asked. "Building homes," I said. "A whole gated community, it sounds like. Part of my payout was housing for myself, Leo and Valerie." "What the fuck? Why do they want a gated community way out here?" she asked. "Worst-case scenario shit," I said. "You mean the pandemic?" she asked. "Are you for fucking serious?" "Serious enough that my house got bulldozed a couple days ago," I said. "Gone. Like it was never even there." "This can't be real," Kara said. "This is absurd." "I told you that you wouldn't believe me," I said. "Well, if you were too much of a cunt to stop them, we will," Kara said, steeling herself again. "We'll have the local news down here by tomorrow, and if the Feds show up we'll have national news coverage by the end of the week." I had to try one more time. "Kara, this doesn't end the way you want it to. You're a dreamer, and I loved that about you when we were teens, but you know the real world doesn't just work like that." Kara narrowed her eyes. "Where are you going right now?" "What does that matter?" I asked. "Because I just followed you out into the woods after your little construction girlfriend was talking to you," she said. "She's not my girlfriend," I rolled my eyes. "Tell her that. She's flirting with you hard enough," Kara said. "I can see her doing it." "Even if she was, what does that have to do with you?" I asked. I knew I'd landed a blow because she got angry again. "Nothing," she said. "But I still want to know what you're doing." "I don't have to tell you that, Kara," I said. "I don't answer to you, I don't owe you anything, and I don't worship the ground you walk on. All I've got to say now is that you should go send all those people home, and hope that you haven't organized some super-spreader event here. For all the shit you've given me and my family, I don't want to see them all dead. I don't want to see you dead." Kara raised her bandanas again. "We're fighting the good fight. We're on the right side of this, Harrison. You're not." She turned and started walking back towards the road. "Fuck me," I sighed, shaking my head. That woman could still push my buttons almost fifteen years later. I pressed through the forest, making for the edge of the property and then diverting towards the road. When I reached it, I found a white and brown heavy pickup identical to Vanessa's idling on the gravel shoulder. The big guy in the driver's seat rolled down his window a crack. "What's up?" "I'm Harrison Black," I said. Another guy got out of the passenger seat and came around, slapping the hood. "Head on back to the motel," he said to the man in the truck. "I'll catch a ride back with my daughter." The guy in the truck nodded and waited for us both to back away before pulling a U-Turn and taking off down the highway. "So, you're the land guy, eh?" the man said, turning and offering me his hand. He was exactly as Vanessa had described; portly to the point of obese, with a gruff exterior that spoke of years handling his business in a rough industry and getting shit done. "I am," I said, taking his hand and shaking it firmly. "Your daughter has been fantastic to work with. Helpful and on task, and she keeps her guys in line." "I have no doubt," he said. "She grew up bossing her older brothers around and got the best of her mother and me. I'm Brent Peters, by the way. I'm sure we'll be speaking every once in a while through this project." "Good to meet you, sir," I said. "And I'm sure we will." I led Brent into the brush and got us through the roughest part until I could get us to one of the more used trails. It got a lot easier for him there, and once he had a chance to catch his breath he seemed to actually enjoy the chance to stretch his legs. He didn't know, or at least wasn't forthcoming, with any more information than Vanessa had been able to give about what was going on, but he did enjoy hearing about the sordid history of the land, my family and the Band. It took a little longer than I'd thought it would to get back to the driveway, Brent needing a couple of breaks, but we made it eventually. Vanessa grinned when she saw her father in a way that made me think she was going to run to him and hug him, but she never made the move. I had to assume that was a hard-trained response from her years working with the man; hugging your pops on a job site would probably lead to taking a lot of shit from your coworkers. Brent quickly got updated on the last hour of developments from Vanessa, and I saw his managerial side take over. Soon the line of construction workers were twenty yards back from the protestors, and he was stride-waddling forward with a medical mask stretched over his face. Kara met him halfway, and whatever they said seemed to go about as well as the talks I'd had with her myself. Again, she ended it by showing off for the protestors by giving him the double-birds. "Well, that went well," Brent sighed as he came back. "You were right, Harrison. They're stuck in. Wouldn't even help us get those trucks room to move or get out of the way of traffic." "She feels like she's got leverage," I guessed. "And they haven't had that on us for years now." "Well, I've officially done what I can," Brent said. "Time to do what every good GM does when shit like this happens." He took out his phone and started walking up the driveway away from Vanessa and me. "What's that?" I asked. "Call the client and tell them to un-fuck the situation," Vanessa smirked. The rest of the afternoon and evening was a long fucking day. There was no good way to get the workers on site off of it, and no good way to get new ones on, so Leo and I ended up walking several groups through the trails to get to the road in places out of sight of the protestors. And since the big crew vans were parked on site, Brent ended up getting access to school buses to come and pick up his guys. The second to last bus dropped off a dozen men who would take over watching the driveway and the protestors overnight; we'd already seen them breaking out tents and lanterns to hold their vigil; and the last bus out had Brent and Vanessa on board. "Client will be by in the morning," Brent said, and winked at me. "Don't you worry, bucko. You hold down the home front tonight, and the cavalry will be here in no time." "You got it," I said. "But whoever is coming, I suggest you make sure they know to take this seriously. The Band is riled up, and now they smell blood in the water. This isn't going away easily." "I'll pass that on to the Lieutenant Colonel," Brent nodded. He shook my hand again and stepped onto the bus. "See you tomorrow, H," Vanessa grinned at me. "Not if I see you first, Vee," I chuckled. She stepped up into the bus and I heard her voice raise immediately. "Alright, you Gorillas. Grab your fuckin' seats and stay there. I swear to Christ if one of you pisses me off, I'll confiscate your fuckin' dinner, got it?" I laughed, and could see the construction workers grinning in their seats as the bus did a three-point turn and pulled away. The sun was getting low when I finally hiked out of the bush and back into view of our little compound. Erica was waiting for me with a smile and a plate of stir fry. "What's the word, Harri?" "They're still down there," I said. "There are some workers keeping an eye on the driveway. Could you throw on a big pot of coffee for me and dig one of the thermoses out of storage?" "Harri, if they've got some of their workers down there, it's not your job to supervise. I'm sure Vanessa and her Dad left someone in charge." "They did," I said. "And I'm not going down there. I'm staying up here." I shoveled the stir fry down, relishing in the spicy kick Erica liked to cook with. Inside our little compound I gave Ivy a kiss, apologizing that I wouldn't be seeing her in bed for the night. Then I went to the storage container closest to my RV. The one with my gun safe. "What's the word?" Leo asked me when he found me. I had a lantern flashlight on and was loading rounds into my father's Model 700. "Jesus, Harri. What the fuck?" I doubted he was commenting on me loading the Remington hunting rifle. We'd used it plenty when we were hunting during deer season; it was a solid, reliable tool. No, I knew he was reacting to the other firearms I had out. My M9 was already holstered on my hip, a copy of my service sidearm that had served me so well through my tour and as an MP, and my DDM4V1 was laid out, waiting for me to do a quick check it was still in good order. "Just taking precautions," I said. I was already trying to get into the right mindset. "What does that even mean? What are you doing?" "There's about a hundred protesters down there, last I counted. More keep arriving," I told Leo, loading the last round into the 700 and checking the safety before setting it down. I fished a handful more.308's out of the ammo box in the safe and fed them into the bandolier shoulder strap for the hunting rifle. "Problem is, they're pissed off. Not just about the construction, but at all the other shit going on right now. And pissed-off people do dumb shit." "So what, you're going to go all Alamo on us?" Leo asked. "For real, Harri. Nothing's going to happen. They're down there, we're up here." "Leo," I said. "I'm not asking you to do anything you don't want to. The Bear shotgun is in my RV. Do me a favor and keep it handy tonight. If I miss something, I'd rather you have it than not." "Harri,” "Dude, just stop," I said. I'd finished with the.308s and started taking apart the DDM4V1 and giving it a quick clean. It was a budget purchase that I'd made prioritizing reliability over flashy shit, and the 'scary one' in my collection when it came to civilians. Erica hadn't even liked the idea of me owning it when we gave her the tour of my firearms and taught her the safety protocols for them. Leo had only ever fired it once. Both of the siblings had said the same thing; 'If you have the rifles and shotguns and the handgun, why do you need a machine gun?' This sort of thing was why I needed it. And it wasn't a 'machine gun.' "I'm not planning, or hoping, to kill someone tonight. If I have to use the DDM4 or my sidearm, something has gotten really fucked," I said. "But I'm also not taking any chances. Sometime tonight, there's going to be people sneaking up into the construction yard to cause mischief, and they aren't going to know the difference between the construction yard and where we're living. Maybe they hear us and they stay clear, or maybe they don't. I'm not taking that chance." Leo watched me cleaning my rifle, and glanced out at the darkening sky, and then back to me. "What should I do?" he asked. A wave of relief washed over me; it had been years since I'd served, and every instinct I had was telling me to do what I was doing, but that civilian part of my brain was second-guessing everything. Leo agreeing told me I was being logical, even if he didn't like it or I turned out to be wrong. "Just be with the girls tonight," I said. "I can handle the yard, you stay with them. Think of it like a shitty tower defense game. If I do my job, you'll never have to do anything." He nodded and left me to my work. Surprisingly, it was Danielle who came to see me next. "What can I do to help?" she asked. Her Australian accent was sounding stronger, the California valley girl part of it dropping with her serious demeanor. "Nothing, I've got it," I said. She'd caught me as I was strapping on my ghillie suit; another item that Leo and Erica had found silly to own considering we didn't need it for hunting deer. It had honestly been more of a gag item in my collection than anything until tonight. "Harrison, I'll remind you that my Dad was military, yeah?" she said. "I grew up outside the city. I know how to work a firearm." I took a breath and looked at her. Even at night, by the light of a lantern, she looked like an elven beauty despite the cutoff denim shorts and zippered knit sweater. "Can you handle a handgun?" I asked. "I've shot the head of an Eastern Brown from ten paces away when it was threatening to bite my dog," she said. "I assume that's a snake?" "A fucking poisonous one," Danielle said. "Alright," I nodded. "Under the passenger seat of my truck is a gun case with my pop's old 1911 and a couple of magazines. Hang on to it for tonight. Try not to freak out Erica or Ivy, and if you hear shots tonight don't let Leo come looking for me, let alone Erica and Ivy. If they leave the RVs it'll just make things worse." "Okay," she said with a serious nod, then stepped towards me, hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks." "For what?" I asked as she stepped back. "For being the man I figured you were," she said. "Leo's all mine and I'm happy with that, but like I told you; you remind me of all the good parts of my Dad. I'm glad I have Leo and you around." She left to fetch the pistol, and I finished strapping on the ghillie suit and slung my two rifles over my shoulders and closed the gun safe. When I was finished slamming the storage container closed, I turned around to find Ivy and Erica both looking at me with their arms crossed. "Both of you, huh?" I asked. "Yes, both of us," Erica said. "United front," Ivy said. "Look,” "Shut up, Harrison," Erica said, and then they were both hugging me while being careful around the firearms. "Just be careful." "Extra careful," Ivy said, burying her face into the strings of the ghillie suit in my chest and then immediately pulling back with a wince. "Ugh, this smells terrible." "Yeah, well it's not exactly the sort of thing you clean very often," I shrugged. "Whatever," Erica said and kissed me. Ivy kissed me as well, looking at me with those big eyes of hers with concern. "So you're not going to try and convince me this isn't necessary?" I asked. "Wouldn't do anything except lead to a fight we couldn't win," Erica said. "You're too stubborn not to do it." "And too brave," Ivy added. "That too," Erica smiled sadly. Then she handed me the big thermos of coffee. "Come back to us in one piece." "I will," I said. "Don't worry. But if you two hear anything tonight, if there's any gunfire, don't come looking for me. Just stay in the RVs and hunker down from the windows. If you come looking for me, you'll add more danger and not take it away, alright?" They both agreed, though I could tell Erica didn't like it. I could only imagine her sprinting across the construction yard, bullets flying everywhere, screaming my name as she worried I'd been shot. Hell, she'd probably pick me up and carry me to safety if it were true, but she'd also likely never get to me in the first place if things were that bad. I kissed them both again, then stalked off into the night. I ended up settling into a nook on the side of the hill to the south of the construction yard, with a clear view of about two-thirds of the yard and most importantly the RV compound. I unslung my rifles and carefully positioned myself in a comfortable prone position I was going to be able to manage for a long time. I'd never gone through Sniper training, but I'd picked up enough from my Bootcamp, talking with other soldiers and from movies to know a thing or two; not to mention years of hunting. So I cracked the thermos and took a sip of the hot, strong coffee, and started my watch. I saw them moving through the trees at around 02:30 in the morning down on the east side of the yard near the driveway. They must have skirted around the construction worker picket line and followed the driveway up, but they were still in the shadows so I couldn't tell how many there were, or what they were carrying. The only reason I spotted them early at all was because someone was flicking a flashlight up occasionally. I had the 700 cradled in my arms, and I slowly rolled into position but didn't sight down the scope yet. I didn't have any night vision gear, and while the simple Leopold scope easily gave me the range to tag anything moving down there, I wouldn't know what I was hitting. They stopped at the edge of the tree line, and I could only imagine the nerves they were feeling looking out over the open area. There were seven portables set up holding various offices now, and half a dozen big crew vans that had been left behind for the night along with some of the company pickup trucks. The pilings and supplies to erect the bigger barracks were also looming in the big, open space. "Just take a look and leave," I muttered quietly to myself, willing whoever was down there to not make this worse than it could be. Five minutes went by before a figure began to creep out of the tree line, crossing the rise of the hill and slipping towards the yard. From the distance I was at, I couldn't see them clearly enough other than to tell they were probably wearing a backpack; not a big deal in and of itself, but my training was screaming at me. 'Anything' meant anything. That backpack could hold weapons, or communications equipment, or even an I E D. I sighted in on the figure. It was a man, military age but young. I couldn't see much of his face between the black bandana over his nose and mouth and a ball cap backwards on his head. My finger tightened just a fraction on the trigger when I saw the flash of metal in his hand, but my hesitation saved his life; he was carrying a can of spray paint. He reached what he thought was the shelter of the first building; and it was shelter if he thought a guard was patrolling inside the yard. But I wasn't inside the yard, and instead I was looking at him dead on along the length of the building as he took off his backpack and then turned, motioning back towards the tree line. A half dozen more figures began quickly creeping across the hillside. I had a choice; if that backpack was full of spray-paint and that was all they were there to do, it would be annoying vandalism at worst as long
Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 4 The House. Based on a post by Break The Bar. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels. The pounding on the front door echoed through the house again, and I literally fell out of the bed trying to disentangle my foot from the mess of the sheets. Erica and I had stumbled inside late as fuck, trying to be quiet and not wake up Leo and Dani, and now I could see we'd tracked in dirt and grass with us. The sheets were filthy. I got shorts on and stood, shaking Erica by the shoulder. "What?" she groaned. "Someone is at the door, and it's sun up. The worker might need to start working. I'll close the door and give you as much time as I can, but could you at least put on a top in case anyone pops in here by accident?" "Let 'em look," Erica grunted. "What happened to those being my tits, and mine alone?" I grinned. "..... Fine," she said and held up a hand in the air. I found her a shirt and put it in her hand, and she started trying to get it on without lifting her head from the pillow or opening her eyes. I shut the bedroom door behind me and met up with Leo in the hallway; he was only slightly more dressed than I was, with a single sock and an undershirt over his shorts. "Mornin'" he grunted. "Yep," I said, and we headed for the door. When I opened it I was expecting Vanessa and her big 'gorilla' work crew, but instead it was Agent Sourpuss. It was even earlier in the day than I had expected. "What took you two so long?" she said, sneering at the two of us. "Never mind, come with me." She started walking around the house, so Leo and I followed barefoot. Just as we were stepping out and shutting the front door, the crew vans started pulling in, ferrying the surveyors and workers. A few of them called and waved, taunting us for looking like we were getting called to the Principal's office. "We have solved the temporary housing issue for you two," Agent Sourpuss said as we rounded the corner, and she presented us with the new additions to the backyard. Hunkered up next to the two sea cans that all of our stuff was being loaded into for storage were two brand new, state-of-the-art, still gleaming chrome and white from the lot, RVs. The two fuckers were huge. I had no idea how anyone other than an 18-wheeler truck driver could pilot one of them. They had to be worth at least a couple hundred thousand dollars each. "God damn," I said, coming awake. "One for each of us?" Leo asked. "You and your partners," the Agent said. "Follow me." We did, crossing the backyard as the Agent told us that we would need to be ready to move them at a moment's notice; our presence couldn't be allowed to slow down the construction process. We were also in charge of maintaining them, and organizing with the construction general manager when they arrived on site to make sure they were getting properly emptied (the septic) and filled (the fuel). "Mr. Lacoste, you have the one on the left," the Agent said, handing a set of keys to Leo. He actually giggled with glee, taking the keys and darting to his new home. "Mr. Black, yours is clearly the right. As is your new partner waiting for you inside," she said. I blinked. "I'm sorry, what?" "Your second partner drove with us this morning. She's waiting inside for you and is ready for imprinting. I suggest not making her wait too long." Agent Sourpuss then began to walk away, back to her car at the front of the house. "Wait, wait, wait," I said, following her. "I already have a partner. Erica and I are bonded or whatever." "Not how it works, Mr. Black," the Agent said, still walking. "You're rated at Tier Four, and you must have been somewhat open to a non-monogamous relationship, as is Miss Lacoste. Your new partner is suited to the two of you. You shouldn't keep her waiting." There wasn't any stopping her, so I diverted and headed back into the house. "Erica!" I called, heading for the stairs. "What?" she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes but coming out of my room dressed in my shirt from last night, and a pair of her shorts. "The Agent just dropped off the big ass RVs we're living in," I said. "And a woman who I'm supposed to bond with." "Oh, shit. That was fast," she said. "What do you mean, that was fast?" I asked. "You knew about this?" "I mean, they said at the information seminar that it was possible people would begin getting partnered into existing relationships based on the matchmaking and available matches," Erica said. We were heading down the stairs again. "I assumed since I'm Bi, and you're a guy, it wouldn't be unlikely we'd get someone else eventually. I didn't think it would be day three, obviously. Why would this person pick us over a single guy?" We got outside and to the RV, and I knocked. "It's open," called a voice. It was light and feminine, but with a distinct accent. I opened the door and mounted the steps, stopping when I saw the woman within, only for Erica to push me the rest of the way up so she could see as well. She was dark blonde, almost brunette, and her hair hung in waves down just past her shoulders. The woman was slight, and obviously so because all she was wearing was lingerie made up of thin mesh through which I could see her rosy pink nipples on her smallish tits, and lots of buckles for straps. The right side of her body was fresh and clean, though down the center of her abdomen, from under her chin all the way to her pubic mound, was a thin black line of a tattoo splitting her in half. On the left side of that tattoo her body was designed with black ink in floral tribal patterns, fleur-de-lis motifs and other designs. She was smiling demurely despite her dress and the fact that she was lounging in the sitting area of the RV, her legs splayed as she absently rubbed her twat through her mesh thong. "Bonjour," she said, grinning even brighter as Erica followed me in. Her accent was distinctly French Canadian and she couldn't be older than twenty-three. "My name is Ivy Gauthier, and I was expecting just a cock, but I am more than happy to make Mommy happy too if she wants to sit on my face." "Fuck," Erica said, and looked at me. "Can we keep her?" Ivy Erica, as usual, took to the rapidly changing social situation a little faster than I did. "So you're sure about all of this?" she asked the girl, Ivy. We were sitting in the lounge area of the RV that the government had delivered to us that morning. "Well, it is too late for me to back out now," Ivy said. She was French Canadian, with that very specific Quebecois accent that extended vowels and clipped some consonants. I only really knew the difference between hers and a traditional French-from-France accent because I'd once drank with a unit of French soldiers while I was deployed in Germany. "I have already been poked with the needles. I chose Harrison because he reminded me of a sexy version of the boys I grew up with in the north of Quebec. Very sexy lumberjack, yes?" Erica smirked, glancing at me and patting my knee. "Yes, very sexy woodsman." "As I said, I was not expecting a sexy woman as well, but I am the bisexual," Ivy continued. "In fact, Erica, you are very much my type." "And what type is that?" Erica asked. Ivy grinned but blushed, biting her lip for a moment as if she were embarrassed, but I could see the hunger in her big, expressive eyes. "Most girls in my job, they have what you call the 'Daddy Issues', yes? Well, my father made many mistakes, but was always very good to my sister et moil. An ex I have, she said I have 'Mommy Issues' instead. I like strong women, older than me, with tits and ass like yours." The little minx actually reached out and caressed the side of Erica's tit when she said it. "What job is it you've been working?" I asked, though I had a feeling I knew the general field. "I am a dancer," Ivy said, turning back to me and looking all the world like a worried teenager, rather than the seductive woman clad in mesh lingerie that was sitting between Erica and me. "I hope that is not so bad to you, Harrison. I know some men, they think it means I am dirty or spoiled. But I am not." Then she got another little lascivious smirk as she tilted her chin down looking up at you through her lashes. "Well, I could also be a very dirty girl for the right man. Or woman." She touched Erica's leg without looking. "Okay, seriously Ivy," I said. "Unless this is really who you are, and who you want to be, you can tone down the seduction. Erica and I aren't going to turn you away, but you have got to be real with us." Ivy frowned, and it was like she went through a little transformation as she absorbed what I said and metabolized it. She bit the inside of her cheek for a moment, then nodded and stood up, crossed to the murphy table that was in the kitchenette and pulled a robe I hadn't even noticed from where it was hanging. She wrapped it around herself quickly and then sat back down. "I am sorry," she said. "I am; this vaccine is making me very horny. I did not know what to expect, yes? I thought it best to treat you like private clients." "Oh, sweetie," Erica sighed. "I know. The nervousness, that little itch all over?" Ivy nodded. "Maybe let's start from the beginning," I suggested. "Just be honest with us." "I was being honest," Ivy said. "My name is Ivy Gauthier, I was born in a little town in northern Quebec and raised by my father and grandmother, along with my sister. I am an exotic dancer. I started in Montreal, and decided to try and do a tour of the USA. My visa was running out when the Quarantine happened. They said it would not be a problem if I took the experimental vaccine." "Wait, hold on," I said. "Fuck. Would you have taken the vaccine if you weren't worried about your visa?" Ivy thought about it and then shrugged. "I don't know? Maybe? I never had to think about it without the visa on the table." "This is fucked up," I said. "And it's too late to change anything," Erica said. "Harri, you know it's too late." "I know," I grunted. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it." "And you know if it's not you, it'll be someone else." I took in a long breath and nodded. "Ivy, I assume you went through the whole set of meetings and videos that Erica did, but I just have to ask; are you absolutely sure you want this?" Ivy pursed her lips, looking between Erica and me. Her hands were in her lap, most of her tattoos covered by the worn, velvet red robe she was wearing. She looked younger and older at the same time. She ended up looking to Erica. "Is he a good man?" "The best," Erica said immediately. "And is she a good woman?" Ivy asked me. I took Erica's hand in mine. "Better than anyone could ever deserve." "Then I am fine with this," Ivy said. "It is the end of the world, oui? Why should I not be with two sexy people who love each other, and will share their bed with me?" Erica laughed. "Well, she's direct." "Alright. You know what the next steps are?" I asked Ivy. "You fuck me, and I will become your; how did they say.? Umm, bonded something?" "We haven't figured out the right word yet either," Erica said. "For now, it might be easiest if you're just our fuckbuddy." "I like this," Ivy said. "You two are a couple, and I will be your fuckbuddy." The way she said it made it sound a little sillier, a little naughtier. This girl would have been dangerous if Erica and I weren't in the current situation. "You have some time," I said. "Would you rather wait a bit, or do it now?" "Now," Ivy said. "I would very much like to taste you, Erica. While Harrison fucks my ass." "Wow, that's very hot and specific," Erica said. Ivy smiled. "I am what you would say is an 'Anal Queen.' My father, he had children with three different women. It made me afraid of pregnancy, so I learned as a girl to prefer it in my butt." "Well, I guess you're getting to crush some ass, babe," Erica said, smirking and then kissing me on the cheek. "Hey, you know what?" I asked. "However you want it, Ivy, I'm happy to provide. Is there anything else you'd like us to know before we go to the bed?" Ivy stood up, slipping the robe back off of her and hanging it back up. "I can be very loud," she said. "Just a warning. And I like many things, but this time, I think we keep it to a simple threesome, yes? I will suck cock and eat cunt, and I would very much like to be fingered, and fucked in the ass." "So simple," Erica chuckled. "Ivy, I think Harrison is still a little hesitant; he is a natural protector, so don't think he's timid. He's just worried and doesn't want to take advantage." "Oh," Ivy said, looking at me for a moment with a cocked head, taking my measure. "Now I; Okay, yes, I understand." She came forward and pushed me back by the shoulders until I was sitting fully upright on the cushioned bench seat instead of leaning forward. Then she crawled into my lap, on her knees with them outside my legs, and sat her perky bum on my legs. "Harrison, I have told you I think you are sexy, yes? Well here, I will prove it." She took my hand and brought my fingers to her lips, taking my pointer and middle fingers and sucking on them lewdly, then bringing them down between us to her crotch. She pulled the mesh panties aside and put my fingers against her hole and pivoted, taking my two thick fingers into her clenching cunt. "I want to fuck you. And I will tell you another thing about me; I like a man who takes me how he wants. Throw me on the bed, put my legs behind my head. Make me your little pretzel girl as you fuck my ass. I am sure I will love this 'big brother' you in time, too. But I need you first to be my man." Then she kissed me, grinding on my fingers. I breathed in through my nose, and she pressed her chest against mine, and I reached around her with the hand that wasn't busy at her cunt and grabbed her ass firmly. "Umm, yes," she mumbled into my mouth. "Like that." "God, I hope I didn't look that fucking horny when I kissed you that first time," Erica said. She was still sitting on the other end of the L-shaped bench from us, watching me get frenched by the little French minx who had just fallen into our lives. I pulled back from the kiss, and Ivy looked at me with concern, searching my face. "Go kiss Erica," I said. She grinned and slipped from my lap, my fingers leaving her cunt, and slid right onto Erica's lap and pulled my girlfriend into a hard kiss as their disproportionate tits pressed together. Erica was much bustier than Ivy, though the younger woman's figure was just as sexy. As they started to make out I stood up, walking to the back of the RV and surveying the space. The back of the vehicle was dominated by the bedroom, which had what looked like a bed that was too big for the space. I pulled the blanket and top sheet off of it, knowing how Erica had a tendency to leave wet spots after fucking, and then kicked off my boots and returned to the women. "Alright, come here," I said, and lifted Ivy off of Erica and tossed her over my shoulder so I was carrying her ass forward. She howled a laugh, kicking her legs, and I offered Erica my other hand up. "She is going to be a lot of fun," Erica said. "I know," I said. "But I need to ask you, too. Is this what you want?" Erica smiled, almost sadly, and shrugged. "I told you I'd introduce you to a lot of strippers. I just didn't know it would happen so fast. Like she said, it's the end of the world, at least as we know it. Why not?" I nodded, and then bounced Ivy on my shoulder and gave her a soft spank on the butt. "What are you giggling so hard for?" "Nothing," she said. "Everything." "Crazy French girl," I said, and carried her to the end of the RV and tossed her on the bed like she wanted. She landed and immediately twisted and turned, biting her lip as she positioned herself on her stomach, looking at me eagerly as she slowly kicked her legs and her little bum bounced, humping the air a little. "Oh, I think she wants to suck your cock," Erica said, coming up behind me and resting her cheek on my shoulder. She reached around my waist and started lowering my shorts. "Is that what you want, Ivy?" Ivy nodded, grinning. "Well, I've got a surprise for a naughty girl. You are very lucky, because you picked a man who happens to have a very nice, fat cock." Erica said, and dropped my shorts, letting my mostly-hard cock out. "Oh, fuck," Ivy said, her eyes going happily large. "It is a very good cock." She looked up at Erica. "May I please suck the very good cock?" "Good manners," Erica said. "Yes, Ivy, you may suck Harrison. But from now on you should call it his fat cock." "Yes, mo" the rest of what she was saying became garbled as she leaned forward and spoke with the head of my cock between her lips, and came. She hadn't been expecting it, and her legs started to kick as she tensed up and pulled away from my cock, lowering her face to the bed. Then her body released all its tension and she sucked in a deep, ragged breath. "Woah!" she exhaled, loud and wordless, as a second wave of the orgasm passed through her. Erica reached around and ran her fingers through Ivy's hair as the smaller, younger woman rode a third and final wave of the vaccine-induced orgasm. She was left panting, and rolled over onto her back and looked back up at us in confusion and what looked like drunken delight. "What was that? I have never come so fast," she said in wonder "Didn't they tell you to expect that?" Erica asked. Ivy shook her head. "Huh, that's weird. They told my group," Erica said. "That was the imprinting process starting. Can you feel that ache, down in your clit? That's the vaccine too. Soon you'll feel it on your tongue, aching to get Harri's come anywhere you can inside you." "I already wanted this," Ivy said, her grin not slipping. She rolled back over onto her stomach and opened her mouth, but then hesitated. "Does this,” "No," I said, "Not every time." "Too bad, but also good," Ivy said. "It would be very hard to suck your cock if this happened every time." Then she took me back into her mouth and began bobbing her head quickly. I had a feeling she was actually a brunette and dyed her hair up to the dirty blonde she wore it. The dark undertones were more real than the light ones. Erica came around me now and slipped out of her shorts, going down to her panties and my shirt she'd been wearing, and got on her knees on the bed next to Ivy. She sat tall, and I kissed her as Ivy suckled on my cock. "Enjoy yourself, babe," Erica assured me. "We both want this." I raised an eyebrow and reached around her, grabbing her meatier ass. "You don't need to keep reassuring me, E. Or does 'mommy' need a good seeing to as well?" "Oh, I always need a good seeing to," Erica grinned. She started to lower down slowly, maintaining eye contact with me. "But first I think I need to make sure our naughty girl here knows how to treat you properly. Let me see you suck his cock, Ivy." Ivy beamed up at me, eyes flicking between my face and Erica's as the older woman leaned close. "Good, really slobber on that cock," Erica said softly, stroking Ivy's hair. "It's going to be cracking that cute little ass of yours open soon, so it needs to be very hard and very slippery." Ivy mumbled something unintelligible. "But don't forget his balls," Erica said. Ivy immediately took my cock from her mouth and lifted it with a hand, trying to take my sack between her lips but only fitting one nut as she tongued and worked her mouth. Erica took Ivy's place at my cock, putting her lips around the head and starting to blow me. "Oh, fuck, that's new," I groaned, looking down at both women staring up at me with smiles in their eyes. I put a hand on each of their heads. Ivy didn't let up, switching from one ball to the other as my cock rubbed across her face, but Erica popped off of the end and grinned at me before sliding back on the bed and taking up a position behind Ivy. "Now, what do we have here?" Erica asked, wrapping her fingers into the elastic band of Ivy's mesh panties. "Someone is a very naughty girl, dressing so slutty. Look, I can see everything! So what could possibly be the point of this?" She started pulling the panties down over Ivy's ass, and the younger woman shifted her hips eagerly, letting her do it. "Back to my cock now," I grunted, and Ivy followed my orders. Once I was back in her mouth, I ran my fingers down the side of her face, just watching as she looked up at me with adoringly needy eyes. Erica had gotten Ivy's panties off, and she tossed them aside as she knelt next to the pale girl and started to massage her upturned butt. "Ivy, you have a very cute ass," she said, stroking the girl's smooth skin. Just like her front, Ivy had a thin black line running down the middle of her spine, bisecting her from her hairline all the way down to her ass crack. On one side of the line her pale, smooth skin was flawless. On the other, she sported a collection of black tattoos; most of them flowery and nicely designed, a few of them more 'witchy' like flying crows and a jagged, leafless tree. "M'ank 'oo," Ivy mumbled around my cock, and wiggled her butt. Erica quickly sucked two fingers into her mouth and, biting the inside of her lip as she grinned, slipped them down between Ivy's legs and began slowly, teasingly fingering the younger woman's cunt. Ivy immediately responded by shuddering and starting to blow me faster, bobbing her head as she moaned with my cock in her mouth, pressing against the inside of her cheeks. "For a girl who prefers it in the ass, our naughty little girl gets very wet," Erica said to me. "Is that right?" I asked, and looked down at Ivy and her big eyes. "Do you get wet and ready for a cock even if you don't want one in that hole?" "Umm hmm," she hummed and nodded, then pulled her lips from my cock. "When I am ready, the right man will have a very good time with my naughty cunt." Erica leaned forward, bringing her lips to Ivy's ear from behind. "And what about Harrison? Is he the right man?" I could see the conflict warring in Ivy. She didn't know; her instincts were to shy away. But the vaccine, that need and horniness it had put in Erica, was in Ivy as well. She wanted me, wanted my cum. Wanted it inside her, to match with the vaccine. Chemically, she wanted to say yes. "You don't need to answer that," I told her reassuringly, stroking the side of her face again. Then I glanced at Erica, who raised an eyebrow at me, but I just shook my head. Ivy, a thankful look in her eyes, quickly went back to blowing me while Erica played with her cunt. Eventually I pulled away, and in one move picked up and flipped Ivy over onto her back. She giggled, and I was glad that she'd been honest with me about wanting to be thrown around in bed; I would have likely asked, or maybe told, her to move. Instead she seemed to really enjoy the manhandling. "Get the rest of the lingerie off," I said. The mesh bra did nothing to hide her perky, small boobs from me, but I wanted her naked. There was a practical element; once the bonding process was completed, she was going to zonk out and having that strappy lingerie on for hours and hours wouldn't be good for her or it. But there was also a primal thing in me that just wanted this strangely innocent, strangely filthy girl naked for me. She stripped quickly, and Erica took that time to peel off my shirt that she was wearing as well, revealing her bigger, heavy tits. "Oh, my," Ivy said, and sat up, reaching for Erica's chest. "You are so beautiful, Erica." Erica grinned and leaned forward a bit, allowing Ivy to press her face into Erica's cleavage. "She's like a horny teenage boy," Erica laughed. Ivy was kissing and licking her cleavage all over. "So am I, when it comes to you," I said, and slipped off the bed to stand behind her, kissing her on the cheek and then down to her neck while I reached around and cupped her tits from below, lifting them for Ivy to feast on. "Oh, god, this is heaven," Erica moaned, leaning her head back on my shoulder. "Have you ever done a threesome before?" I asked her quietly. "Once. Three women," she mumbled. "Not that great, really." "Too much fake cock?" I asked. "That, and tribbing is stupid. Doesn't do anything for me, and they both loved it." "Hear that, Ivy? No tribbing," I said. "But can I eat her cunt?" Ivy asked, coming up for air from the bounty of tits she was enjoying. "I think my answer is 'whenever you want,'" Erica laughed. "First I want more of your mouth," I said to Ivy. "Lay back down. And Erica, I'd love to see you eat her out." Erica grinned. "Ever seen a lesbian act in person before?" "Nothing more explicit than two drunk girls kissing to rile up some guys at a party," I said. Ivy had lain back, spreading her legs, and Erica knelt between them and slowly brought her face down to Ivy's bare cunt. It was pretty, almost like the clean and clinical specimen you would see in a biology textbook. "Do you want me to lick your cunt, Ivy?" Erica asked teasingly. "Yes, please," Ivy said and grabbed the bedspread in her fingers in anticipation. Erica went to work, and Ivy moaned loudly and wordlessly as her body tensed and then relaxed into the sensations. "Is it good," I asked. "Uh-huh," Ivy nodded and moaned. I knelt down next to her head and turned her face sideways, tapping my cock against her lips. She immediately opened them, and I slid between her lips and she began suckling. Then, after looking down and seeing the smile in Erica's eyes as she watched me getting blown while she ate cunt, I began to thrust lightly into Ivy's mouth. The dirty blonde dropped her jaw, and worked her tongue, and soon I was pumping steadily, treating her lips just roughly enough to feel divine. I reached down and palmed her tit, which so far had been almost entirely ignored. I happened to grab the tattooed side of her, where the boob itself was still a blank canvas but was surrounded by them dark patterns. Her nipple was a firm little nub in my palm, and her moaning on my cock changed to a higher pitch when I grabbed her more firmly, and then began playing with her nipple between my fingers. Erica, seeing the change in Ivy, mimicked me and reached up for her other tit and grabbed it as well. "Muh," Ivy moaned, but didn't try to pull away from my thrusting. She whined on my cock, thrusting her hips up and down, grinding against Erica's face. Then, seeing her coming to a peak, I thrust in and held my cock deep in her mouth, but not to the point of gagging her. I pinched the nipple I was holding, and Erica focused on her clit, and Ivy went off with a long shudder and another muffled howl. I pulled my cock from her mouth when she was coming down. "Keep going," I told Erica. "Get her there again." Then I stepped off of the bed and behind Erica, whose panty-clad ass was up in the air at the edge of the bed. I pulled her panties down to her thighs, set my cock against her puffy cunt, and thrust inside firmly, claiming her as mine again. "Yes, babe," Erica gasped into Ivy's cunt. "Fuck, yes, my fucking stud." "Oh, fuck," Ivy groaned, eyes half-closed as she grabbed at her own tits harshly and watched me fucking Erica from behind. Within five thrusts I was burying deep into my girlfriend at a good, steady pace. "You two are so fucking hot," Ivy said breathily, her accent turning every croon into a delightful sentence instead of something that might have come across as crude. I fucked Erica steadily, one hand on her hip and the other keeping hold of her wonderful ass, and she thrust back at me while trying to keep her lips and tongue working. I wanted Erica to feel how desirable I found her, even in this threesome with a brand new woman between us. I wanted her to know she wasn't just forced on me; she was a choice. She chose me, and I chose her back. Leaning forward, I let go of her waist and ass and grabbed her tits hanging below her, palming them and lifting their weight as she remained ass up and face down in Ivy's cunt. "I fucking love you, E," I said. "I love your body, I love your personality, and I love your mind. And right now, I really love how fucking sexual you are." "Fuck," Ivy groaned. "Fuck, that is so hot." Erica was starting to falter in her fucking back at me, which I knew meant she was getting close but I wanted to push her farther. "Ivy," I said. "It's almost time. How much prep does your ass need?" Ivy licked her lips, that carnal need growing inside of her with every passing minute. "For most guys, two fingers would be enough. But for you, I think three, if Mommy will do it for me?" "What do you think, 'mommy,'" I grinned. "Are you up for prepping her?" Erica slurped off of Ivy's cunt and flipped the girl onto her stomach, then spread her ass cheeks and spit onto her asshole. "For her, and to watch you fuck this cute little ass, absolutely," Erica said. I really couldn't see all that much of the oral portion of the prep, since I continued to fuck Erica. I slowed, and thrust deep and firm instead of faster and harder, and gave her the chance to work. Soon enough, Erica had two fingers in Ivy's ass and was adding a third. "Oh, mommy, yes," Ivy moaned. "Finger my ass. Spread my asshole for our man. God, I want that fat cock up my ass so badly. Harrison, please don't make me wait. Please don't back out, I need it so badly." "Who does this ass belong to now, Ivy?" Erica asked her. "Fuck, fuck," Ivy gasped. Erica slapped the side of her ass cheek. "Who does this ass belong to now, dirty little girl?" "Harrison," Ivy moaned. "Oh, fuck, Harrison. Fuck my ass. Take my ass. Take it. Take it." I pulled out of Erica, watching for just a moment as her cunt was split by me and didn't want to let go, then hopped back up on the bed. Erica pulled her fingers out of Ivy's hole, and I spun the younger woman around on the bed and pulled her up onto her hands and knees. Ivy dropped her face to the mattress as she reached back and held her ass cheeks open, her butthole winking at me. "Fuck my ass. Please, Butt fuck me. Own my butt," she panted. I placed my cock to her asshole and pressed forward. "Oh, fuck yes," Ivy almost howled. "Oh, it is so good. Merci, merci, oh fuck yes." I was halfway in when she finally clenched and I stopped. Erica, meanwhile, had shifted her seating on the bed so she was on her ass, and she spread her legs in front of Ivy's face. "Hey, now it's time for you to lick my cunt, dirty girl," she said. Ivy lifted her head and groaned as she tasted Erica for the first time, and as she did Ivy's ass relaxed, and I pushed in the rest of the way. "Yes," she mumbled. "Yes, fuck, so good. So full." I slowly pulled back out, then pushed back in. I'd tried anal before, once with a German girl I met off base, but it had been tough going. With Ivy, it was like she was just built different. She squeezed back at me, pushed to get me deeper. "She really is an Anal Queen," I gasped to Erica, who opened her eyes and grinned savagely at me. "I can't believe you're fucking her in the ass right now," she said. "Neither can I," I said, and started to properly thrust into that tight but forgiving asshole. "She's fucking good with her tongue, too," Erica groaned. "I can feel myself getting soaked." "Careful," I snickered. "There are the only sheets we have right now." "Oh, fuck off," Erica laughed. I had just started fucking into Ivy harder still, and she was sucking in deep breaths and moaning like a pornstar, when there was a loud banging on the main door of the RV. There was absolutely no way they couldn't hear what was happening in here, let alone that I had to assume the RV was rocking a bit. "Don't stop," Ivy gasped, lifting her face from Erica's cunt and begging me over her shoulder. "Please, keep fucking my ass. You can't stop. I need you to keep going." "Fuck, I was so close," Erica groaned, and the knocking happened again, banging on the door. Erica rolled off the bed. "You can't stop now, you might break her mind. I'll deal with this." "Yes, Harri, fuck me. So good, fuck my ass. Fuck my ass!" Ivy moaned, even fucking louder now that she didn't have Erica's cunt to muffle her. Erica stalked naked out into the main area of the RV, and she slipped on the robe that Ivy had been using earlier. She pulled it closed in the front and opened the door. "Hey, so this is awkward,” I could hear Vanessa say, but then I was shocked when instead of going outside to talk to her, Erica reached out and pulled her inside the RV. "Fuck, E! You didn't shut the door," I said. "Oh, shit. Sorry!" Erica called, and I only half believed her. There was one long moment of chaos where Vanessa was inside, looking down the length of the RV right at me as I was thrusting away, my nuts slapping against Ivy's cunt as I fucked her ass at speed. "Fuck," I grunted, and I made to pull out. "No, please, merde. Don't stop fucking my ass. Don't stop. Fuck my little ass. Come inside, I need you to come inside. Rempli-moi, mon homme. Mon cher. Fuck, mon amour!" I couldn't stop. I was so fucking close to coming, but I also had to move. So I did the only thing I could do; I wrapped my arms around Ivy's torso, fucked my cock as deep into her ass as I could, and picked her up and lifted her off of the bed. "Fuck, mon amour. I love you fucking my ass. Own my ass, mon amour. Fill me, fuck me," she babbled. I got us out of direct line of sight, pressing Ivy against the wall of the RV just next to the door to the bedroom, and I fumbled with one hand and slammed it shut as I kept thrusting into her. "Fuck. Fuck! I want you, I want it inside. Je veux croquer la pomme. Je suis très mouillée pour toi, mon amour. Fuck me. I love you?" she gasped the last words, like she was unsure, but enlightened by the idea. And then I came, pressing her up against the wood paneling and carpet of the RV walls. I came deep inside her ass, and she leaned back into me as her entire body shook. Her jaw was clenched tight, a small whine coming through almost like one of those dog whistles. "Sorry about that, Vanessa," I heard Erica talking through the walls. "We got a new vaccine partner who moved in with the RV. We were just, um, going through the bonding process." "That is; I mean, I'm sorry?" Vanessa mumbled. "It was obvious what was... happening, but we kind of need to get to work again. I wasn't expecting you to..." "That's totally my fault," Erica said. "I was a little fuck drunk; Harrison is very capable, and our new partner Ivy has a very skilled tongue." ".....Okay," Vanessa exhaled. That was when it felt more like I was holding Ivy up, rather than her standing on her own, and I carefully pulled my cock from her still-clenching butt and scooped her up in my arms. "Imprinting. Imprinting," she was mumbling. "Still fucking creepy," I grumbled, shaking my head as I looked at her in my arms. She was all woman, but like this I couldn't help but feel protective of the young woman who'd been forced into making choices that led her to my bed. The whole experience was amazing, but it was still... ugh. I set Ivy down on the bed and lay the sheet over her, and she curled up around a pillow and continued to mumble. This let me find and pull my shorts back on and exit the room. Erica was sitting on the murphy table, which she'd folded down, and Vanessa was sitting on the L-bench. "Vanessa, I am so sorry you got an eyeful of me like that," I said. "No, it's fine," Vanessa said, raising a hand. "You guys explained some of it last night, and Erica was just telling me again about the whole vaccine process and stuff. I didn't realize that's what this was and you couldn't, ah, interrupt the process." I nodded, and during the following brief conversation I apologized a couple more times. We quickly went through the plan for the day; which included finishing up all the rest of the moving out of the house so that it could be demolished the next morning. "And that's it," Vanessa nodded. "Uh, before I go; could I see her?" "You mean Ivy?" Erica asked. "Yeah," Vanessa said. "I mean, not if she's in a compromising position or whatever. But last night you and Leo talked about the 'imprinting' thing, and I'm probably going to have to do that eventually. I'd like to see it beforehand." I sucked my teeth for a moment, then nodded. "Sure, I think she should be decent." I led Vanessa to the back of the RV and opened the bedroom door. Ivy was still where I'd left her. Vanessa scooted around the outside of the bed, leaning forward and watching Ivy's face as she smiled and mumbled 'Imprinting' over and over. "That's freaky," Vanessa whispered, standing back up and coming out of the room. "But she's also gorgeous." "Just wait until you see her tattoos," Erica said. "She has some really interesting work done." "Yeah?" Vanessa asked. "Cool. I'm looking forward to meeting her." Erica smiled. "So, uh, how long before you need us?" "Like, twenty minutes ago," Vanessa smirked. "No," Erica shook her head. "I mean, how long until you need us." "Oh!" Vanessa said again, her eyes going wide. "Um.. another... fifteen minutes?" Erica smiled and winked. "I'll make it work." Vanessa, blushing, left the RV and shut the door behind her, while Erica turned and dropped the robe, revealing her naked body to me again. "I need you to fuck my orgasm back to life, babe," she said, staring hotly. "Fuck me fast and hard." I pulled her into my arms, laughing along with her as I glanced around the RV, deciding which part of the big luxury vehicle we should christen first. With Ivy safely tucked away in the back of the RV, and Erica and I working the knots out of her system quickly, it really was time to get to work. While Erica and I had been busy, Leo had been equally busy, going to wake up Danielle and show her their new temporary home as well. "Come on, rabbits," Erica called, knocking on the back window of their RV. "You would have been so pissed if he did that to you," I said. Erica laughed and shrugged. "Yeah, so?" "You two have a very different relationship than me and my sister," I said. The curtain on the window pulled aside a little, Leo glancing out and glaring at Erica. "Fuck off," he said, flashing her the finger. "We need to get to work!" Erica called again. Leo looked like he was about to say something snarky, but was pulled away and Danielle was now in the open corner of the window. "Sorry," she said, barely audible through the glass and over the sounds of construction work happening nearby. "I'll make sure we're quick." Her angelic face flashed us both a smile, and then she dropped the curtain. "Did you see what I saw?" Erica asked, turning to me. "You mean her whole naked tit?" I asked. "God damn, it's like that girl was manufactured to be 'Sexiest Woman Alive," Erica chuckled. "I don't know about that," I said, taking her hand and leading her away. "You'd give her a run for her money." "Compliments will serve you well, boyfriend," Erica smiled, squeezing my hand and winking. It turned out that the surveyors didn't need major tours again yet, so I was more free to help with the packing and the moving. Once Leo and Danielle joined us; letting us know the water pressure in the RV showers was pitiful at best; the work went quickly. We moved our clothing and things we knew we'd need sooner than later into the RVs, everything else got moved into the storage containers. A third container was dropped off to help with housing Leo's woodworking equipment, which gave us more space to start organizing things as well. How long did a house take to build? How long until they even started on our houses? These were the sorts of questions we just didn't have answers to, so we had to guess we would probably be in the RVs at least through the fall and winter and into next year. It was around the middle of the afternoon, and I was busy securing my father's old gun safe in the storage container with the woodworking tools, when I heard the telltale sound of another vehicle pulling up the driveway. Not three days ago, that sort of commotion would have had me wondering who it could be, and why they were out here in the middle of nowhere. And that wasn't just because of the pandemic quarantine; it had been that way my whole childhood. There were three kinds of visitors to the Black family ranch; expected, in need, and unwanted. Now I heard vans and trucks moving almost constantly, and there must have been thirty or more people working just within fifty yards and I'd only met half of them. It was strange. "Excuse me, Mr. Black?" A man asked. I turned from the gun safe and found a scraggly-looking kid, maybe all of twenty and looking like he was all bones and unkempt facial hair. He was wearing a reflective construction vest and had a hard hat tucked under one arm. "Just Harrison is fine," I said, shutting the safe and spinning the dial to lock it. "What can I do for you? Is Vanessa looking for me?" "Who? No, I don't think so," the kid said. "I'm with the grading crew working on the highway? There's, uh, some people who showed up demanding to talk to you." I took a breath and nodded. It could have been a couple of different people. "What did they look like?" "Well," he hesitated. "There were two women and three men, and they pulled up in a green pickup truck and a white panel van." "Kid, are they all Natives?" I asked. "Um, yeah," he said, clearly uncomfortable. He'd likely grown up somewhere far from a reservation, and probably in a major city, so his experience was limited to a little bubble. "Alright, I know what this is," I sighed. Part of me considered opening the gun safe back up, but I ended up figuring it would just make things worse. Guns usually did. It was tempting, though. I followed the kid out to the front and waved down Erica and Vanessa as they were talking on the front stoop of the house. "Hey, I need to head down to t
This week on Web Tales, Marc and Batch dive deep into Spectacular Spider-Man #22!Spider-Man throws down with Moon Knight in their very first clash—but that's just the beginning. We're talking Kraven's own shady "Epstein-style" list, Marc's ongoing beef with Frenchie (who he insists is an offensive stereotype), and the chaos of the Great Poutine-Off, where none other than Celine Dion sits in judgment.It's web-slinging action, conspiracy theories, and greasy Quebecois cuisine—just another day in the multiverse of Web Tales.
The Fantasia International Film Festival returns for its 29th edition, running from July 17 to August 8, 2025, and promises another electrifying celebration of genre cinema from around the world. With its full slate now unveiled across three waves of programming, Fantasia 2025 continues its tradition of championing daring filmmakers and boundary-pushing storytelling.Among the major highlights this year is Yuji Shimomura's highly anticipated Crazy Musashi, penned by cult favorite Sion Sono. Also debuting is the world premiere of The Beast Within by genre auteur Gabriel Carrer, while Bertrand Mandico's surreal She Is Conan the Barbarian will receive its North American premiere following acclaim in Cannes. Other festival standouts include Kiah Roache-Turner's creature feature Beast of War, and Macoto Tezuka's live-action adaptation Barbara II, based on the manga by Osamu Tezuka.Fantasia 2025 will also spotlight a robust Quebecois lineup, particularly through the Fantastiques Week-ends du cinéma québécois, which includes 77 short and feature films from emerging and established local talent. This year's program emphasizes bold, original visions, including the premiere of David B. Ricard's mockumentary Alien Tribute, and Alexandre Prieur-Grenier's nightmarish Enfer en eau trouble.The festival continues its legacy of nurturing new voices with its Camera Lucida and Axis sections, while also welcoming back returning favorites such as Larry Fessenden (Blackout), Takashi Shimizu (Immersion), and Calvin Lee Reeder (Yummy Fur).With over 130 feature films, dozens of special events, and a strong presence of Asian, North American, and international genre cinema, Fantasia 2025 affirms itself as one of the world's premier showcases for fantastical film.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.
The Fantasia International Film Festival returns for its 29th edition, running from July 17 to August 8, 2025, and promises another electrifying celebration of genre cinema from around the world. With its full slate now unveiled across three waves of programming, Fantasia 2025 continues its tradition of championing daring filmmakers and boundary-pushing storytelling.Among the major highlights this year is Yuji Shimomura's highly anticipated Crazy Musashi, penned by cult favorite Sion Sono. Also debuting is the world premiere of The Beast Within by genre auteur Gabriel Carrer, while Bertrand Mandico's surreal She Is Conan the Barbarian will receive its North American premiere following acclaim in Cannes. Other festival standouts include Kiah Roache-Turner's creature feature Beast of War, and Macoto Tezuka's live-action adaptation Barbara II, based on the manga by Osamu Tezuka.Fantasia 2025 will also spotlight a robust Quebecois lineup, particularly through the Fantastiques Week-ends du cinéma québécois, which includes 77 short and feature films from emerging and established local talent. This year's program emphasizes bold, original visions, including the premiere of David B. Ricard's mockumentary Alien Tribute, and Alexandre Prieur-Grenier's nightmarish Enfer en eau trouble.The festival continues its legacy of nurturing new voices with its Camera Lucida and Axis sections, while also welcoming back returning favorites such as Larry Fessenden (Blackout), Takashi Shimizu (Immersion), and Calvin Lee Reeder (Yummy Fur).With over 130 feature films, dozens of special events, and a strong presence of Asian, North American, and international genre cinema, Fantasia 2025 affirms itself as one of the world's premier showcases for fantastical film.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.
Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History)
Patrice Dutil discusses the significance of the founding of the Parti québécois by René Lévesque on 11 October 1968 with Xavier Gélinas, a specialist on the Québec "Quiet Revolution" and curator of Politics at the Canadian Museum of History. This podcast is available in French on Témoins d'hier. This podcast was produced by Naomi Katz and Richard Anstey in the Allan Slaight Radio Institute at Ryerson University. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society's mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada's past.
Cette semaine aux Anti-Pods de la Lutte, Kevin et Pat discutent des nombreux nouveaux champions à la WWE, font un retour sur Night of Champions et parlent de la carte de MLP mettant en vedette PCO et plusieurs Québécois. Tout ça et bien plus dans un autre épisode à ne pas manquer. Pour de l'information concernant l'utilisation de vos données personnelles - https://omnystudio.com/policies/listener/fr
In this episode we answer questions from Mason, Brian, and Anonymous. We discuss portfolio transitions from a highly overlapped portfolio and related consideration, treasury strips funds and leveraged ETFs (twice), and the power of advice from the great Jim Rohn. UNLIMITED POWER.Just remember that "Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion."And we discuss our campaign for the Father McKenna Center and Quebecois updates to our website.Links:Father McKenna Center Donation Page: Donate - Father McKenna CenterThe Source of the "We Don't Know" Clip: Jim Rohn Join the 3% Club and Walk away from the 97%Breathless Unedited AI-Bot Summary:Transforming your portfolio into a risk parity approach doesn't have to be complicated, but it does require both strategy and courage. This episode dives deep into listener questions about making that transition while navigating tax implications and psychological barriers.When Mason asks about converting his advisor-built collection of funds into a risk parity portfolio, Frank reveals a crucial insight most investors miss: holding multiple similar funds creates "false diversification." Those four large-cap funds in your portfolio? They're basically the same investment with different names. True diversification comes from understanding what's inside each fund, not collecting different tickers.For those curious about leveraged ETFs like UPRO, Brian's question leads to fascinating observations about why some leveraged products perform better than others. The conversation reveals why Treasury strips funds like GOVZ/ZROZ make reasonable substitutions for standard Treasury allocations, while leveraged gold ETFs might be problematic for long-term investors. Frank shares his personal experience reducing his own UPRO allocation and explains why experimentation with small portions of your portfolio is the wisest approach to newer investment strategies.The philosophical foundation of the show emerges when a listener asks about the "Nobody Knows" sound clip. The attribution to motivational speaker Jim Rohn opens a window into the mindset that drives successful investing. Rohn's philosophy that "affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion" perfectly captures why just thinking about better investment outcomes isn't enough—you must take action to create them.Ready to reshape your investment approach? This episode provides both the practical steps and the motivational spark to move forward confidently. As Rohn reminds us, "If you think investing is risky, wait till you get the tab for not investing."Support the show
At the NATO summit, the Prime Minister promises to spend a lot more on defence; Cesar Jaramillo, the chair of a Canadian disarmament group says that if the aim is to make the world safer, the move is way off target.Chandra Pasma, a provincial parliamentarian, tells us about her efforts to get the Ontario government to do more to address extreme heat in schools and other workplaces across the province.An activist in Kenya tells us she thought things would be peaceful today, when protestors commemorated a deadly protest one year ago. Instead, history repeated itself.People have started to return to Denare Beach, Saskatchewan, after wildfires ripped through their village. One resident tells us going home isn't easy -- but it's therapeutic all the same.We remember ground-breaking Quebecois musician Serge Fiori, whose band Harmonium changed the music scene in the province by paving the way for homegrown talent.A poorly-timed wardrobe malfunction leads to an unfortunate photo finish -- in which an American hurdler wins the race while trying -- and failing -- to keep his shorts in place. As It Happens, the Wednesday Edition. Radio that always double-checks its equipment.
For years, Rachid Badouri has been one of Quebec's biggest comedy stars. His shows have sold millions of tickets around the world, he has a Netflix stand-up special called “Les fleurs du tapis,” and he's also a judge on “Quel talent!” (Quebec's version of “Canada's Got Talent”). But now, Rachid is ready to make a name for himself in the English-speaking world. He sits down with guest host Garvia Bailey to talk about his journey in comedy, what it's like translating his French jokes into English, and how stand-up has helped him embrace his Moroccan heritage. If you like this conversation, check out Tom Power's interview with Montreal comedian Sugar Sammy.
Curious about the biggest mistakes you might be making while learning French? In this episode of my Quebec French Podcast, I break down the top ten things you should absolutely avoid if you want to make real progress.From the pitfalls of memorizing vocabulary lists to the hidden downsides of language apps like Duolingo, I'll share practical insights based on years of teaching experience.If you're serious about improving your French—whether standard or Quebecois—this episode will help you refine your approach and save valuable time.To get the written version and fully formatted version of this podcast, go to www.frenchwithfrederic.comThis section is usually reserved for my paid members, but I've made it available to everyone this time. If you'd like to access our French classes, Book Club, and all the features of our French-learning community, upgrade your subscription today! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.frenchwithfrederic.com/subscribe
Are you looking for a movie about dark web child snuff films that you can show your Meemaw? Assuming she hasn't already watched it, we recommend the 2023 Quebecois feature “Les Chambres Rouges”, or “Red Rooms” if you don't speak French. Remember how we're doing a whole French language horror thing? The theme continues un petit peu.
Hell Rains Down.Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels. Would you choose ephemeral beauty, or rugged determination? Brief Segway :Senator Susan Collins of Maine, JIKIT's Congressional mentor, at our urging had proposed an amendment to the Taiwan Relations Act Affirmation and Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2014 which would allow 'Turkey' to purchase six 'Oliver Perry class frigates for $10 million each. The same act already proposed four such vessels to be sold to Taiwan for the same amount as well as giving two to Thailand (and two to Mexico) free of charge.Things had immediately bogged down in the 113th US Congress. It was too easy for Democrats in both Houses to take the President's position that any additional weapons into the South China Sea area would further destabilize the region. The pro-PRC lobby was equally opposed to the bill. Under normal conditions, that would have been good enough to send the measure off to the procedural graveyard.Except in the current contrary nature of the US's chief legislative body, this meant Republicans found themselves drawn to the anything the White House opposed. They could claim they found the anti-Communist, anti-Islamic Extremists stance of the Khanate to be attractive to them though none of them felt the need to actually talk to anyone in the Khanate to find out what they were really all about.We were happy with that policy because true congressional oversight was the last thing we needed. They might start asking uncomfortable questions like...'Who gave you the authority to do any of the crap you pulled?'(No one. We lied like big dogs, purloined resources and cloaked ourselves in 'National Security'. Plus we let our elite personnel have a crack at doing what they had so dedicatedly trained to do, wreck things.)'Wasn't that, that, and that an act of war against the People's Republic of China?'('No comment'. If that didn't work, we would try 'they will never find out'.)'Why are 90% of all the names on these documents redacted? We are the freaking Congress! You work for us.'(Work for them? Not to our way of thinking. We earned our paychecks without any slavish devotion to corporate campaign contributions. We were working so that the lives of Americans and Brits abroad would be that much safer, the world more orderly and for the US and UK to have an ally they could really rely on. We couldn't tell them that. They'd throw us in jail. We'd redacted the records because the names were for people that did not officially exist, or existed in a capacity that didn't imply they were elite warriors, spies and assassins.)Besides,('Those are private citizens not in the employ of this group, or any other government agency we are aware of'.)'We don't care if they are private citizens. We want to know.'('You don't want to know' followed by some major gobbledygook with the term 'deniable assets' interspersed relatively often.)'What do you mean ~ you don't want to know? We asked you a question.'(We meant you people leak information like a sieve and the people we are protecting aren't going to be afraid of getting revealed. They are going to murder people to ensure they are not ~ basically you don't know what is going on and we don't want to tell you, for both our safety's sake.)So,('Trust us. There are factors we are taking into account that you are unaware of because you don't know what's going on'.)'Of course we don't know what's going on. That's why we are asking you.'('You really don't want to know.' We are your highly trained and underpaid experts on this, we aren't raging assholes and we are telling you that bad shit will happen if you force this, thus 'you really don't want to know'.)'What do you mean ~ you really don't want to know?? Yes, we do. We are warning you,'(Okay. Execute Plan B. 'Excuse us for a moment, {create a plausible lie.}'.){Pregnant pause,}Congressman-type: 'It is rather odd that they all had to go into another room to take that phone call.'{Minutes pass}'Go see what is taking them so long.''What do you mean they are all gone? Find them!''What do you mean they seem have left the building? Find them!''Who do I call about this? The FBI, Homeland Security, or the CIA?And finally,'What do you mean they appear to have fled the country? Find them, damn it!'(Hey, I worked with some real shady characters.)Then would come the international manhunts, the flight to avoid prosecution and then resurrecting my life under a different ID in another country which hopefully had a dim view of handing me over to the FBI, or the Navy SEALs.Now back to our regularly scheduled diversion :'It has to do with giving something to the Khanate if you expect them to do anything for you.'Tony: 'You can't appreciate how that is going to look. Besides, that is a political decision, way above your pay-grade.'(Not a good time to remind him that he didn't pay me.)'What precisely do you want us to do? Please be specific.'Tony: 'How is the Khanate going to react to an intervention on the part of the United States?''They will ignore you.'Tony: 'What if the President makes public statement.''What is he going to say?'Tony: 'That the US is dedicated to a peaceful resolution of the unrest in Thailand.''They won't care. They truly believe that actions speak louder than words. If Thailand requested our intervention, or was a client state,'Tony: 'A what?''Client state, a country beholding to the US, or UK for their external security.'Tony: 'I know what client state is. That is 20th Century Imperialist thinking. No one does stuff like that anymore. Besides, the UN is responsible for the external security of its member states, which Thailand is.''The Khanate doesn't see it that way. We won't let them into the UN, so they see no reason to play by the UN's rules. The President can evoke the UN Charter all he wants. Unless he makes UN acceptance dependent on their cooperation, they will see no reason to cooperate.'Tony: 'That's not going to happen.''What part of that won't happen?'Tony: 'The President is not going on international television and endorsing the Khanate as a prospective UN member. What happens if we imply through back channels that the President will support such an action at a later date?''You want us to lie to them? Do you have any idea how badly that will compromise our working relationship with the Khanate?'Tony: 'We will deal with that later. Would they accept such a bargain?''So you are going to lie to them, Mr. Blinken, they will never forgive this act of treachery.'Tony: 'No, you are going to lie to them.'Addison: 'I will resign. I suspect that the rest of the team will quit as well.'Tony: 'What is wrong with your team, Ms. Stuart (Addison)? Can't anyone over there do their damn jobs?''We are doing our damn jobs, Mr. Blinken. We are telling you this is a diplomatically fatal move that will not only reduce this taskforce to uselessness, it will have long term consequences for all future Khanate-American relations.'Tony: 'That is a ridiculous assessment.''That is our experienced assessment. They believe treachery is only forgiven by death. They do believe in loyalty and keeping one's word. In our country, perjury is an unfortunate side effect of the judicial progress. To the Great Khan, it is reason enough to cut your head off.'Tony: 'Fine. I am ordering you to open back-channel talks with the Khanate concerning their admittance to the UN contingent on them taking a reasonable course of action.''Even if we were to do such a moronic thing, the Great Khan will ask Cáel directly to verify this. It is that important to him and his state.'Tony: 'Okay.''Perhaps you could suggest to me what form of coercion I should employ to make Cáel to commit such a blasphemous act?'Tony: 'Tell him to do it. That is what we pay him for.''Mr. Blinken, Mr. Nyilas is an unpaid consultant. At the job he is on sabbatical from, he makes more money than I do. He has an Irish diplomatic passport, been nominated to be the Prince of Albania, Georgia and Armenia, been proclaimed a warrior-prince of Transylvania and is a hero in both Hungary and Romania. He has no brothers, or sisters. His parents are both dead. His only surviving kin are people he is not particularly close to. Since economic and social blackmail are off the table, I am asking you if you are ordering me to use enhanced interrogation techniques to exacting his cooperation in this foolhardy endeavor.'Tony: 'You mean torture him?''I would never go on the record using that word. I don't advise you to use it either.'Tony: 'What kind of people are you?''The kind you engage to take on a mission of this delicate nature. You honestly don't want to know what we've done in the name of our constituent national bodies. You employ us so that you don't have to know. As you said, we 'get it done'. Until now, you have never asked us 'how' we got things done. You wanted the intelligence so we got it for you.'Tony: 'No member of this administration ever asked you to violate US, or International Law.''Which is precisely why the government employs me, so that you can keep your hands clean while mine are steeped in blood. Nothing our team has done will ever blow back on you, so don't worry about that. Why don't we get back to our current dilemma?'(I think until that moment Tony had convinced himself that Addison was another civil servant drone and people like her only existed in the 'black bag' fantasies of conspiracy theorists, hackneyed movie scripts and questionable 'true' spy novels. People like Addison and Lady Fathom weren't standard issue intelligence officers by any stretch of the imagination. They were almost unique in that they did what they did for the very beliefs they had sworn an oath to uphold, to serve their countries.There were no personal vendettas going on. No slush funds were vanishing into Cayman Island accounts. Neither had a God Complex. There was no desire for personal power, career advancement, or fame. I was beginning to think that was why Temujin used them, and me, because we could be counted on to do the right thing when required and only when required. Addison and Fathom had damned themselves forever because someone had to pay the price and get the job done. I imagined they really felt blessed for the opportunity. I worked with maniacs.)Tony: 'Thailand, yes. What if we put troops on the ground in Thailand?''How many?'Tony hummed and hawed so we had to guess.'A Marine Expeditionary Unit? If that is all, they better have an exit plan. Sir, if you want to impress the Khanate with the White House's resolve, you need to start landing troops from the Rapid Deployment Force starting tomorrow. Base aircraft out of Thai air bases. Threaten to ram any Indian Naval vessels that get in your way.'Tony: 'Is that what it would take?'('Yes. It would take the US to growing some balls, damn it!' was not the diplomatic reply though it desperately needed to be said. Hey, I could be a bit of a jingoist when I feel the lives of my loved ones are in danger.)'That is our current assessment of the situation. The Khanate has no reason to take any American threat of force seriously. They won't see anything short of a full-court press as nothing more than posturing for the home audience and what allies we have left.'Tony: 'What does that mean?''It means you are taking the cooperation of Taiwan and Philippines for granted. Our people tell us they see American influence in the region waning and we have been letting the Chinese push them around. Now the Khanate appears and knocks the Chinese back three decades on the World Stage. The Khanate is trying to create a ring of allies around the PRC and a few of them are curious why the US is dragging its heel about such a critical regional issue.'Tony: 'You don't dictate US foreign policy.'(No, we simply enacted foreign policy without your knowledge.)There were probably a large number of Special Forces operators who would be shaking their heads in bewilderment when they found out the US was trying to face down the Khanate over, of all places, Thailand. Hadn't they just busted their humps trying to make the Great Khan see their nations (the US and UK) as potential worthy allies?Working with the Khanate had been 'interesting'. If you asked them for anything, they got it for you, danger and consequences be damned. They'd try anything for the men they considered 'brothers in the struggle'. If you were pinned down by fire from a hillside and asked for fire support, they would napalm the whole damn mountain if that was what it took. The man/woman on the other end of that radio cared for your life, not the human rights of the scumbag shooting at you, or any of the people they might be hiding behind.You also know if they couldn't get it done, it was only because the resources didn't exist. The Khanate Special Forces hadn't acted like co-belligerents, or allies. They treated you like their own kin. They would and had died to make sure some of them got home to their families. If ordered to, they would definitely take the fight to the Khanate. I believed many of them would be asking what had it all been for.'We wouldn't dream of it,' Addison lied.'Good. You have your marching orders. Now get to it,' and Tony hung up on us. Everyone in the room was looking around. What exactly were our marching orders? Had I'd missed that part of our conversation?"Well," Fathom sighed, "there is only one thing we can do." I seriously prayed she would ask me to lie to Temujin."Understood," Mehmet nodded. "Somehow we get the Khanate to launch their offensive into Thailand in three days.""Can they do that?" I blurted out."They do it, or everyone in this room is in a shitload of trouble when they get around to it next week," Addison grinned. "The Khanate high command isn't going to back down just because we ask them to. I wouldn't if I were them.""What happens if they can't make the three day window?" I asked."Then you call up your blood-brother and ask him to fuck over his nation to save us from lengthy prison sentences, or outright assassination," Fathom smirked."If he says 'no'," I looked into her eyes."That's the real tragedy in all this, he won't," she gave me a comforting look. "He isn't going to leave you hanging in the wind. He'll call off his attack dogs because he isn't the kind of man to fuck you over because it is politically expedient. I'm staking all our lives on that. I always have."The Black Lotus? We'd explain to them the ugly reality that neither of us could afford to be painted into a corner over this Thailand issue. We were doing our best, but our political masters were dead set on making a colossal error and we had to follow through with those directives. The Khanate would do everything in their extensive power to support the Black Lotus and if they could invade in three days with some nebulous chance at success, they would go.The Black Lotus, the entire 9 Clans knew JIKIT had no power except what we finagled from the US and the UK. We had borrowed their resources to accomplish what we'd done. The Black Lotus had profited from some of those operations and both the Khanate and JIKIT would owe them big, but we were good for it. That truism was why they worked with us.My personal problem was that I knew the Great Khan would not forgive, or forget this interference by the US. It wasn't in his nature. Worse, the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington would see this as a victory and an expression that the US remained the globe's premier super power. Too few would remember the price of this sense of superiority would be born on the back of Thailand's masses. The revolution would fail after a short, brutal civil war. The tyrant would remain in power and the voice of the Thai people would be stilled.The end result of that late night phone call? We weren't told.What follows is pure conjecture on my part, fueled by intelligence information provided by other JIKIT resources and knowledge about how much the political landscape of Southeast Asia had been transformed by the PCR being driven back to their own coastline, leaving a power vacuum India, Vietnam and the Khanate were eager to fill.The Republic of China/Taiwan --'Aren't you the same people who said only a week ago that sending more weapons into the region would only escalate tensions? And now you want to use our airbases against our latest ally in the region? Do you understand how much internal political turmoil this will cause? Half of us are jumping for joy that someone big and fierce embraces our independence. The other half think it is time to retake China.Yes, we mean the territory currently under the oppressive yoke of the People's Republic of China. Yes, the China the Khanate just kicked the crap out of. The nation that might not be able to protect say, Zhusanjiao. That would be the Pearl River Delta to you Westerners, that huge area on the mainland adjacent to Hong Kong. Hainan is looking pretty ripe for conquest as well. That would be that big island off the coast of, yes, we have indeed suspected you could read a map.At the moment we are expecting the permission of the Khanate to use Woody Island as a forward staging area and logistic base to help us do just that. Take Hainan, yes, that large island currently, and temporarily, under the illegal occupation by those illegitimate bastards in Beijing.What do you mean 'don't declare war on them'? We've been at war with the People's Republic since 1945. No, we are pretty sure we would recall signing a Peace Treaty with them. No, we can't 'get over it' either. Why are you even asking us that? Don't you know our history?Anyway, if we help you, can we expect the same level of cooperation from you as we are getting from the Khanate? In case things go sour, Yes, a shooting war would qualify. See, your people at JIKIT have been helping the Khanate and us, your people, at JIKIT, we are pretty sure it is made up of Americans and British personnel. Why would we think that? Are you serious? Because that's what your governments told us, that's why. Besides, why are you asking us what your people have been doing? Don't they work for you?Speaking of the US government helping us out, what progress is there on the Taiwan Relations Act Affirmation and Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2014 ? We sure could use those vessels. While we are at it, how about sharing some of the technology used in the F-35. We'll build our own, or a model vaguely similar to it. We value your friendship and know you will help us out in a pinch.Right?'The Philippines --'Sigh. If you really think this will help. By the way, aren't your fighters going to need some in-air refueling? What are you going to do if the Khanate engages them over Philippine airspace? What are you going to do if you get into a shooting war with the Khanate? Will you defend us from their ballistic missile threat? We have a long history as your allies, but the Khanate is totally ruthless, and they scare us. Can you hold our hand, say for the next twenty years?'(The Philippines rolls out their Wish List)Maybe you could give us some advanced fighters?We are a poor country and can't afford to buy any before 2018.We are not greedy, 72 F-16s will do and you are upgrading to the F-35 anyway so we know you have some lying around. Could you also help us with the maintenance cost? We are a poor country, but very large.Some of your decommissioned naval vessels would go a long way in showing us some love. One of those Tarawa-class amphibious assault ships would be really nice and you've got the USS Peleliu decommissioned and about to be scrapped. We have hundreds of islands in our Republic so moving stuff around is pretty tough. Can you help us out?If you could toss in the ship's complement of 20 AV-8B Harrier 2 and 12 V-22 Ospreys with a fifteen year maintenance package that would be even better!We are a poor country. We could never afford to buy any of that stuff.Maybe a frigate, or three? You have a dozen Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates sitting around. We can finally retire some of our World War 2 relics and make one our new flagship.We know you aren't going to give us one of those powerful nuclear submarines, but maybe you could secure a few loans so we could buy some of those nifty German-made, diesel-powered Type 214's. We hear they are pretty cool, very silent and practically a steal at $330 million per boat! We love you guys! And, we are poor.Oh, and some helicopters!We were going to refurbish some Vietnam-era Iroquois, but since your Marine Corp is retiring the far superior Bell AH-1 SuperCobra, can we have a dozen of those instead?We were going to fix up some of our aging Sikorsky S-76s as air ambulances. Getting new ones would be far superior, don't you think?You also have those cool Blackhawks. You have so many. Could you spare us, say twenty? You're the best!And some guns. And artillery. And some APC's.Did we mention we are a poor country going through an expensive force modernization program?Got any amphibious vehicles lying around? We could use a few of more of those small unit riverine craft (SURC)'s we bought from you recently. They are excellent counter-insurgency tools. You want us doing well fighting the War on Terror, don't you?Did we mention that we are a poor country? And we love you guys!The Federation of Malaysia --We like this idea. Give us say a week to ten days and we can jump right in.You want to go in four days? With what precisely? Compared to the force projections you have been providing us, Who? JIKIT, of course. Who else would you send us to when we requested intelligence on Khanate activities from you? Did we believe them? Why wouldn't we? They are your people,When do you think Thailand will let us intervene? We've asked the Prime Minister if he needs our assistance and he politely declined. Apparently he thinks he's got things well in hand. He does retain command of over 200,000 troops and the opposition is much smaller. I hope you have better luck than we did in convincing him he's in serious trouble.Also, what do you plan to do about the Indian Navy's South China Sea taskforce? It is pretty big, not something we can tackle on our own.Yes, we kind of need to know what you are doing before we decide what we are doing. You do realize that the Gulf of Thailand is currently under the complete domination of the Indian/Khanate/Vietnamese Axis, right?48 combat aircraft? What gave you that idea? The Vietnamese have been refurbishing their Mig-21's like crazy, using Khanate stockpiles, plus there are nearly a 150 Su-22's. Sure, they are both older than manned flights to the Moon, but they can drop bombs, fire rockets and launch ground attack missiles with the best of them. They are still jet aircraft.Worried? You are aware that those antiquated pieces of crap can bomb the northern part of my country, aren't you? So 'yes', we are worried about those 300 flying deathtraps being more than a 'manageable' nuisance.What about our air force? I imagine it will be doing what we trained it to do, defend Federation air space because I doubt those relics will be coming at us unescorted. We can already tell you that the Mig-29's and Su-30's the Khanate and Vietnamese will be flying are excellent aircraft. We fly them too, just not as many.Of course you can base your F-22's out of Sultan Ismail Petra Airport as long as you supply the logistical support. How many? A lot? Could you please be more specific? Two squadrons? My, that's going to get pretty dicey. I believe you when you say the F-22 is a highly advanced stealthy fighter. I also believe that they are a lot less stealthy when they are sitting on the ground re-arming and refueling.Do we think they will really threaten us? They are threatening us, over our Spratly Island claims, are you sure you know what you are getting into? By the way, when this blows over, do you think you can pressure the Khanate into giving us their Spratly island airbase? It is rapidly approaching completion and is over 3000 meters long.How did they do that? They are dredging the ocean floor, it is a man-made island. Didn't your government protest the environmental damage they were causing?No, not the Khanate, the Chinese.Yes, the Khanate currently controls it. They stole it from the PRC hours before the ceasefire. So, can we have it?Yes, we know it belonged to the People's Republic, but it doesn't anymore. Besides, we both opposed it when the Chinese were dredging it up the island from the sea floor, so giving it to us isn't all that egregious, or unexpected, action. It would also go a long way in supporting our just and worthy claims to the Spratly Islands. We really don't want those greedy Chinese, yes, both the People's Republic and the 'Republic of', or, those incompetent Filipinos to steal them from us.Both of us knocking the Vietnamese back on their heels will be going a long way to getting those Communist knuckle draggers to back off as well. Hey, if they do get antsy, can we also take the Vietnamese base in the Spratly's? It isn't as big as the one the Khanate stole, but it is finished, and closer to us. We are sure that if we help you out, you will do the right thing when the time comes. Right?The President of the United States --'They want what? Have they lost their fucking minds?The Philippines is talking about a billion dollar aid package and guaranteed loans we doubt they can ever repay. We only want to use their air bases for a month, maybe two, not deflower their teenage daughters. It isn't as if we are really going to go to war with the Khanate over Thailand. Besides, the last time we 'got involved' like that, George Bush ran up a trillion dollar deficit, and his party was thrown out of office. Doesn't anyone care we are facing a difficult mid-term election in November?So, the Taiwanese think this is the appropriate moment to invade mainland China? And they want our help? Do they know how expensive that can get? Do they understand how much that will unbalance the already shake state of Asian affairs? It is another land war in Asia for the love of God!'And, the Malaysians are going to help us, but not actually help us and they want tens of billions square miles of ocean for the measly concessions they are making? What do they expect us to do with all the Filipinos, Chinese and Vietnamese who already live there?What do you mean none of those islands are actually inhabited? They are just military bases, some of them nothing more than rusting iron hulks on submerged reefs? OH, God damn it! Why don't we take the God damn Spratly Islands for ourselves if they are that fucking important? We have a Marine Corp. Aren't they good at taking islands? I read about it somewhere.No, I'm not changing the damn mission. I'm venting because the world seems to be inhabited with greedy assholes who can't appreciate peaceful discourse without trying to lift my wallet.Okay, okay, I've got this. We are going to form a new international commission to resolve this Spratly Island's nightmare. Have the French chair it. They love that kind of stuff. Makes sure the Germans are on the commission too. They need to look less like money-grubbing douchebags after that fiasco over the Greek economic collapse. Then invite Russia, India and Pakistan. That will pretty much guarantee nothing gets accomplished.That will allow us to keep our promises to those three leeches without having to deliver anything and, when it fails, it won't be seen as my fault. (Groan) What we really need is new videos of Khanate soldiers bayoneting babies, another ISIS atrocity, or more indisputable evidence the Russian Army's involvement in the Ukraine. The Great Khan really screwed us over Tibet (you know, by allowing them to become a free and democratic society), Putin is an evil cuck (who most likely laughs at me behind my back) and another round of Islamophobia-bashing to remind everyone how this is all Bush's fault.No wonder George spent so much time at Crawford Ranch. Navigating international relations is totally thankless and no matter how rosy we paint the latest economic numbers, someone still finds a way to make me look bad. Oh well, if this blows up in my face, I only have two more years in this shooting gallery. Maybe then I might change my mind and decided I really was born in Kenya, or Indonesia. I really wish Hawaii was an independent country. I'd like to retire there if there weren't so many of those damn contentious Americans.The US President wanted to run this operation on a shoestring, not engage in 'nation-building', much less backing an invasion of anybody. In fact, he was trying to stop an invasion.The Philippines was a poor country. So what? It wasn't his fault. He had poor people in the US too and they cast votes.Taiwan suddenly thought it could take on China? They were insane. Of course he would be ignoring a major stated political goal of the ROC for the past 65 years ~ reunification on their terms. Any high-level technological transfer wasn't going to happen because if the Republic ran off the reservation, the President would bloody well be sure no one could trace that decision back to anything he'd done.At least Malaysia was on board, sorta/kinda. They wouldn't actually be able to help until day ten, or fourteen and, unlike the Republic of China, they had a small air force that might not be able to protect forwardly deployed troops. If he ended getting of those National Guard yahoos killed his party would be murdered in November.For a split second, he wondered if he should attempt to make a personal call to the Great Khan, potentate to potentate, except he had this sinking feeling that a winning smile and a handshake would be worse than useless. The man would look him straight in his eyes and start making demands. He would demand action and when the Leader of the Free World prevaricated, he knew the Khanate would call his bluff.And they would fight. The alternative was a grand spectacle of public humiliation and that he could not accept. The US military machine would fight and they would win. They would win because he needed them to win, fast and clean and home for Christmas. Maybe he would authorize the mobilization of those California airmen. Just in case.In the end, Secretary Kerry gave POTUS what he asked for.The Philippines would let them use their country's bases for logistics and strategic assets (aka bombers).The ROC would extend their air umbrella out 200 km to the east, south and west, acting like a shield between the Khanate and US Pacific assets moving through the tight Formosan Straits.Malaysia gave them an airbase from which they could strike into Thailand, or Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The US Air Force would have the opportunity to be lethally effective.Had they known the sum total of the US commitment, they would have been appalled. The Khanate did not fuck around.One Carrier Strike Group,Forty (maybe sixty) Air Force fighters,Lumbering B-52's flying half way around the globe,Hadn't they been watching the dogfights over China for the past month? Maybe they would like to dive down and examine the wreckage of the PLAN carrier Liaoning and see just how it met its grisly fate?Apparently not.(I live, love and have loved)"What are you doing here?" she got the preliminary nonsense out of the way. With the way she was dressed, I was an expected visitor. She was expecting some make-up sex. I was thinking 'paying for my past mistakes' sex because I was already seeing way too many women who required me to do things outside the bedroom, non-sexual things. I had my dress jacket swung over my shoulder. It would only get in the way later."I brought you motorcycle over. You left it parked by my place," I kept any appearance of lust, or glee off my face."It is one o'clock in the morning," she glowered."I was called into work. I'm on call 24/7.""Let me guess, you can't talk about it.""You wouldn't believe me if I did, so suffice it to say I was doing things I didn't want to do instead of coming over here, waking you up from a sound sleep.""I wasn't asleep. I was angry," I pointed out."I apologize. Maybe I should have waited until morning." She didn't think I should have waited as long as I had. Keeping her waiting until morning would have left her volcanic."I wasn't asleep.""Your bike is in the parking lot across the street," I handed her the lot ticket."How did you find it?""There are only two places in my neighborhood that allows parking and the second one is poorly lit," I replied."And the attendant let you steal it?" she frowned."He knows me. I do a ton of business with him and it wasn't as if I was dressed like your average carjacker.""How did you start it?""Chaz showed me how to spoof the lock. He's got this spiffy lock-pick set on him.""That he carries with him for such contingencies?""Hey, he's the spycraft professional. I'm the amateur who tags along because karma is a bitch," I grinned."Did you ruin the ignition?""No. He's got this skeleton key thingy. I need to get me one of those," I added. See, I was drifting down the path to becoming a hardened criminal and she had to save me. Girls love saving bad boys from themselves. There is an entire literary genre devoted to the topic."Get in here," Anais barked. She emphasized that command by grabbing my tie and dragging me into her room. Now I could ogle her in her bra, panties and dress shirt left open. As I said moments ago, she was expecting me. Anais had thick, light-brown, just-past-the-shoulders hair with blonde highlights. Her dusky skin tone suggested some ancestral link to the South of France while her deep green eyes suggested Celtic ties.She was definitely someone I would describe as possessing an hourglass figure. She worked out just enough to stay fit, practiced judo (in and outside of the bedroom) and ate right. Her ass was the correct mix of firm and fleshy, her breasts were pleasant without too much bounce and she sported broad, but short, nipples that liked to get bitten.With her bare foot, she kicked the door shut, spun me around by my tie until I slammed, back first, into the wall in the short hallway that led to her bedroom."I repeat, what are you doing here?""I never actually apologized for how things ended up," I sodomized the truth. "Anais, I am truly sorry for how badly I fucked up our affair. I acted without a thought for the possible consequences, or thinking about how betrayed you would feel. Can you accept my apology?""You came here to have sex," she declared. She stepped up tightly against my body, her eyes boring into mine. I had around six inches on her so she had to tilt up her chin to do so."That too," I shrugged."I ought to throw you out the window," she growled. We were on the seventh floor. The window didn't open and the safety glass looked alright."I'll go then," I nodded. Now to make her beg for/demand sex."You are not going anywhere," she snarled. Then she kissed me, a tongue-grapple ensued and she finished things by biting my lower lip so much I tasted blood afterwards. I dropped my jacket. I was about to need both my hands."I think us having sex would be a mistake," I pushed her buttons. I wasn't some wimp acquiescing to her demands. I was a free-willed being; a strong man who needed to be wrestled down and forced to perform.She pulled me down into a second kiss. This was an 'I will leave you incapable of thinking about anything but me' kiss. Yes, I had names for kisses too. They were similar to naming the ingredients of a choice meal. I propelled her back until we slammed into the opposite wall. Anais was a tough chick and a bit of banging around was par for the course.I cupped each ass cheek and pulled her up. She responded by wrapping her legs around my hips. We were still kissing. Anais slipped her hands along my sides before linking them up at the small of my back. She pulled me hard against her while she ground her crotch against mine."Clothes," she rumbled from deep within. As in 'why was I still dressed?'"Been a while," I taunted her. Since she was glommed on to me, I used my freed up hands to rip off my tie."Yes. I bet it hasn't 'been a while' for you," she sizzled."Long as in 5:30 this morning," I teased back. At this point in the foreplay that revelation was akin to throwing gasoline on a fire. I was being an unrepentant dog and she was taking me to confessional, between her thighs."Bastard," she condemned me as well as the entire male side of the species."It doesn't mean I haven't missed you, this, us," I riposted. She retaliated by turning her humping motion into to more of a grind. Bad kitty. Bad kitty wanted to be spanked. Woot!"You are never going to change," she dug her fingernails into my flesh. I yanked my shirt off."If I hadn't changed, you wouldn't be here," I reminded her while nipping at her nose and lips."You are still an egocentric bastard," she growled."Hey, I always took care of your needs," I countered. I had. She knew I had and since she currently wanted me to take her to that higher erotic plane, she wasn't going to contest that fact. Instead, she began working her shirt off and in doing so, squishing her boobs against my chest.Holding her tight, my left hand under her right buttock and my right hand on her mid-back, pressing her torso into mine. We dance through two slow circles before crashing, side by side, on the bed. Anais rolled us over so that she was on top. I didn't let her get in a totally dominant pose, oh no. I had a kitty to take care off. I grabbed her firm ass and propelled her up until I was face first with her gusset.I might not remember to check my bank balance, or the atomic number of Technetium (I once had a girlfriend who would rate my performance on the periodic table in the midst of our fucking, I never made it higher than Copernicium before she passed out), but I can recall the precise taste, texture and topography of every cunt I've had face to face contact with. I knew right where to tongue-fuck Anais to twist her up inside.Control-orgasm, control-orgasm, Anais was pig-headed and wanted to keep dictating our reunion. She also wanted to return to the level of sexual bliss we had shared so often before. Her compromise was to hump my face; really grind it in. Black silk underwear is an excellent medium for transferring force and wetness between partners.She rubbed her love-nub against my upper lip/teeth while I did tongue-ups into her cunt. She was wetter than Bangladesh in the rainy season. That was an indicator of some serious masturbatory sessions stopping just short of orgasm before I arrived. I had some aching sensations to play with and I wasn't cruel. I maneuvered a hand between her thighs, underneath the band of her underwear and exposed her vaginal opening to my fingers and tongue while keeping that silky feel for her clitoris."Rurr," she began growling from the depths of her diaphragm. That was how she always was, thundering like a female grizzly bear in heat. It was an expression with deep subharmonic components that caused the heart to flutter and her flesh to shimmer with the vibrations mixed with her bodily sweat."Come on, Baby," I urged her on.That pissed her off. She was trying to hold off her orgasm for a few more seconds. My 'baby' crack shifted her resolve into anger allowing her climax to overwhelm her."Rah," she howled. It didn't sound like a female coming to fruition. It was more akin to the sound European soccer hooligans made when their team scored a goal. The muscles in Anais' thighs were strumming along like the cords of a piano, her belly was undulating in and out, and her head had rolled back so that she was screaming to the ceiling.The countdown was on. The people next door/across the hall/above or below us would be waking up, think that someone had unleashed a wild animal in the hotel, figure out they were not immediately on the menu, then call the front desk, stating their fears as justifiable fact. Anais and I had been down that road before.I gave Anais' flank a light smack to get her attention. Sure she looked back at me with simmering anger, yet she also knew the score. That had been round #1 in a nightlong bout of sexual conquest, rebellion and re-conquest. She drew her knees to her chest so she could pull off her damp panties in one swift motion. I worked off my shoes, pants, socks and underwear. While she soaked up my naked flesh (muscles, scars and all), she retrieved the phone from the side table and placed it beside her. She wouldn't want to break up our rhythm when the phone rang.No romantic small talk interrupted our shared lust. She wanted that cock and I wanted to give it to her. I moved between her inviting thighs while she examined me, her upper body uplifted by her arms resting on her elbows. Bite-kissing-biting resumed. I slowly pushed her head to the bed with the force of my kisses and strength of my upper body pushing down on her. Somewhere along the way, I slipped into her.Condom? Crap. I was slipping. I would have to pull out, because stopping to put a condom on would earn me some serious ferocity on her part. I plunged in. Anais placed her hands on my hips, claws beneath my kidneys, guiding my pace and power. I may have been on top, but she wasn't giving up on one ounce of control."Damn you," she hissed."Yes?" I leered."Fuck you.""I'm working on it. Is there anything," I teased."Bastard," she looked away, "You remember how I like it.""Whatever made you think I would forget?" I kept at it."Don't look so smug.""I'm working on it," I looked smug. Anais dug her fingernails in. I had to be punished, just ask her."When do you have to go back to work?" she huffed."Six a.m. When do you have to go back?""I have two days off.""Good to know," I stole a kiss from her lips painlessly. Good to know.(Painful dreams)I edged back into consciousness realizing that I was not alone. The muffled sense of my surroundings informed me that I wasn't really awake. She sat on my side of the bed, feet on the floor, side to me."Good evening, Dot," I yawned."Good morning, Cáel," the Goddess Ishara let her melodic voice float over me."Hold on," I interrupted her. I weaved as I leaned over, pawed at my pants (still trapped in the real world) and finally drew forth my offering."A fortune cookie," she chuckled. "I admire your dedication.""It is a simple enough request and I aim to please." I hesitated. "We don't have much time, do we?""You are dreaming, not concussed, so we will be alright if we tread carefully," she told me. "This time, I have no cryptic warnings, or specious pieces of information. I am giving you a gift. Take my hand."I did, not that I had much choice. We 'went', where to, I wasn't sure yet I suspected we were skirting the Weave itself where concepts like Time and Distance had little meaning.The Goddess released my hand and I stepped out of the fog brought about by the abrupt nature of our progress to see a woman sitting beside a pool, no, a sunken bath. She looked up at our approach. Oh shit, it was,"Cáel? You are Cáel, aren't you," she smiled. She stared at me with her blind eyes while waiting for my response with deaf ears."Yes, Tad fi, I'm Cáel. How did you know?""I bear our shared life inside me," she graced me with her serene presence."Ah, I was warned," I stopped myself. I was going to add 'this might happen'. That would be unfair as she appeared pleased with this alteration of her life path. "I was warned by the Goddess that she had something to show me. How are you feeling? Is there anything I can do for you?"She put her hand over her lower abdomen and rubbed the spot with her palm."Seeing you and giving you the news in person is enough," she glowed with happiness."Have you picked out a name yet?" seemed weak."I will leave that up to you.""Oh, come on," I relaxed slightly. "This is something we are doing together.""No, it is not, kind Cáel.""Just because she will most likely end up an Isharan doesn't,""No, Cáel. This birth will cost me my life. I am not destined to ever see my daughter draw her first breath," she confided in me."No!" I recoiled. "That's unfair." What else could I say? 'I take it back. I shouldn't have listened to my Goddess and screwed you out of what little life you had left.'"I am content with my fate, Cáel Nyilas Wakko Ishara. Our daughter will be the first female of the Isharan line in nearly 1600 years. Rejoice that we have been confronted by Destiny and triumphed. The light of the Peacemakers will shine once more among our sisters.""It is not worth the cost of your life," I responded bitterly. This was colossally unfair to all three of us."That you grieve for the short time I have left gives me strength, knowing our daughter will grow up with a strong, caring father. I,"I could sense Ishara close by my side."You must go, my Cáel. We will next see each other in the Halls of our Ancestors. Take our daughter and raise her well. I have faith in you," she sighed pleasantly, as if I had sheltered her from the rainstorm with my umbrella."We must go," Ishara whispered in my ear and then we left. I was back in the hotel room, looking down at the tears on my sleeping face and it hurt so much."You gave me that command knowing what it would cost her," I sounded so hollow, chin on my chest, eyes closed instead of looking at my feet."We are not an easy people to love, Cáel. We are harsh. Endless centuries of suffering, pain and mistrust have made us this way. Please understand that what you see as one life passing is really one life coming into being. It is a life Fate would have denied the line of Ishara. I took you to meet Tad fi because I wanted you to greet your daughter with understanding, not sorrow. I owed you.""Steal my anger why don't you?" I chuckled bitterly. "Can I even blame myself for this tragedy? It isn't like you made me do anything. I did it because I wanted to and never gave much thought to the frail health Tad fi was hanging on to. This is so wrong and I don't know what to do.""Wake up. Keep living. If this news turns your heart, or fills your mind with doubt, then both of us have failed you. Tad fi didn't have to tell you. I didn't have to bring you to her. I believed you were owed the chance to say good-bye.""I didn't say that," I exhaled sadly."You openly grieved and let her comfort you. That is more of a 'goodbye' than most people are able to convey. She knows your heart. You were honest in your sorrow. She saw that and that eased her suffering knowing that you are a person who is free with their heart. For a woman who expected nothing but wickedness from men for so long, that was the ultimate gift. You did help her. You truly did.""I," I woke up. Anais was looking down at me, concerned."You've been crying," she noted by touching my cheek with a finger then showing me the dampness."Do you believe a person's soul can fracture?" I murmured. That sort of talk was unlike the 'me' she once knew."Do you believe that another can help you put your soul back together if that happens?" I continued."You are not talking about us, are you?" she studied me."No. I'm thinking about being a parent, not just a father. Can I fuck that up as much as I've screwed up so many of the other women I've cared for, am I going to be worthy of being a Dad?""Oh, I don't know. You are not the man I knew two years ago. I think you have changed for the better. You are still far from perfect yet, you seem to be trying so much harder than previously.""You think I'm going to screw things up, don't you?""Yes. Yes, I do, but I also think you will only make the same mistake once. That is better than most men can hope for," she let her gaze soften."This is us breaking up,""Yes. I think if I stayed, you would break my heart; and I am starting to believe neither one of us wants that," she nodded. "One more time?""I'd love to," I smiled at her. I still hurt. I was using sex to bandage my pain. Anais knew that and was giving me this unlooked for piece of kindness. It was the best break up I'd ever had, or could ever hope for.{5:45 am, Saturday, August 30th ~ 9 Days to go}"You look like someone strangled your kitten," Pamela told me as I exited Anais' hotel room. She was leaning against the wall across the hall. I had the feeling she had been there a while. Of course I hadn't been allowed to wander off alone; most likely, Chaz had kept an eye on me until Pamela relieved him."I, I got Tadifi killed," I unloaded on her.Pamela immediately dropped her casual fa
This week we're excited to present a conversation from the 62nd New York Film Festival with Who by Fire director Philippe Lesage and actor Noah Parker. An NYFF62 Main Slate selection, Who by Fire is now playing at Film at Lincoln Center with in-person Q&As at select screenings opening weekend. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/fire A getaway at a secluded log cabin in the forest becomes the site of escalating, multigenerational tensions and anxieties in this disquieting, impeccably mounted coming-of-age drama from Quebecois filmmaker Philippe Lesage (Genesis, New Directors/New Films 2019). Ostensibly a merry reunion between well-known film director Blake Cadieux (Arieh Worthalter) and his longtime friend and former collaborator Albert Gary (Paul Ahmarani), the vacation gradually becomes something far more complex and less stable, especially with the combustible admixture of Albert's teen son's best friend, Jeff (Noah Parker), and Albert's self-asserting daughter Aliocha (Aurélia Arandi-Longpré). Long-simmering middle-aged resentments surface, set against the anxieties of the young, all captured sensitively by Lesage, who in recent years has proven unparalleled in evoking the psychological contours of teenagers finding their paths through treacherous emotional landscapes. Featuring thrillingly choreographed dinner sequences of mounting tension, Who by Fire confirms Lesage as a major contemporary filmmaker, with its assured tonal negotiation of the naturalistic and the oneiric, the joyous (especially an epic dance interlude to The B-52s) and the ominous. This conversation was moderated by NYFF selection committee member K. Austin Collins.
Curious about the biggest mistakes you might be making while learning French? In this episode of my Quebec French Podcast, I break down the top ten things you should absolutely avoid if you want to make real progress.From the pitfalls of memorizing vocabulary lists to the hidden downsides of language apps like Duolingo, I'll share practical insights based on years of teaching experience.If you're serious about improving your French—whether standard or Quebecois—this episode will help you refine your approach and save valuable time.To get the written version and fully formatted version of this podcast, go to www.frenchwithfrederic.comThis section is usually reserved for my paid members, but I've made it available to everyone this time. If you'd like to access our French classes, Book Club, and all the features of our French-learning community, upgrade your subscription today! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.frenchwithfrederic.com/subscribe
Denis Villeneuve's massive sci-fi epic “Dune: Part Two” is up for best picture at the Oscars this year. Last year, around the film's Canadian premiere, the Quebecois filmmaker joined Tom Power to discuss his vision for the second installment, the challenges of shooting in the intense heat of the desert, and how politics and religion in Quebec play into the film more than you might think.
Pat Mire, who founded Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival in 2006, joins Discover Lafayette, along with his wife, Rebecca Hudsmith, to discuss his career as a filmmaker celebrated for his authentic portrayals of Cajun culture. Since his early days as a filmmaker, Pat has been able to make a living solely by directing and producing films which resonate with audiences of all backgrounds and of various cultures. Cinema on the Bayou Festival was created in 2006 by chance, after the devastating damage wreaked by Hurricane Katrina upon New Orleans. "The National Film Board of Canada called me saying there was a US premiere of the documentary "Maroon," by famed Quebecois filmmaker Andre Gladu that was supposed to be playing at the New Orleans Film Festival. I was living in uptown New Orleans and we all had to leave. There was nobody living in New Orleans at that time in 2006.. And so I came here to Lafayette. There was no New Orleans. It was an opportunity. I decided we were going to pay for his hotel, fly him here, and pay a stipend. I said, I'm starting a film festival. That's how it started. I've worked with all the scholars here, including Barry Ancelet and Carl Brasseaux, to preserve our local culture." Since 2006, Cinema on the Bayou has presented hundreds of internationally acclaimed documentary, narrative fiction, animated and experimental films, with filmmakers in attendance from across the United States and around the world. The Festival is now unique among film festivals in the U.S. in that it also regularly screens a large number of French-language independent films and presents filmmakers from throughout the Francophone world. Pointe Noire, a film the couple co-wrote and produced together, will premier on January 22, 2025, at the St. Landry Cinema in Opelousas as a feature film of the Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival. Local talent, Andrew Morgan Smith, a veteran composer from Youngsville, was the composer for the movie's score. Cinema On the Bayou runs from Jan. 22 - 29, 2025. For Pointe Noire's premiere on Jan. 22, doors will open at 6 p.m. at St. Landry Cinema, 1234 Heather Dr., Opelousas, with a Red Carpet wine reception. The film will screen at 7 p.m. Following the film screening and Q&A, the after-screening reception for all attendees will be held at Cite des Arts, 109 Vine St., Lafayette. There will be a cash bar along with complimentary boudin and king cake. Tickets for the opening night film screening and reception are $20 per person and cna be purchased in advance at www.cinemaonthebayou.com. All-Access passes for the festival can be purchased at: https://cinemaonthebayou2025.eventive.org/passes/buy Pointe Noire, shot throughout the Acadiana area, stars Canadian film stars Roy Dupuis and Myriam Cyr, and features Michael Bienvenu and Zachary Richard. It tells the story of filmmaker and crawfisherman Louis Leger (Roy Dupuis) and criminal defense attorney Dolores Arceneaux (Myriam Cyr), who join forces in the Cajun prairie community of Pointe Noire in an effort to save the life of Joel Richard (Michael Bienvenu), a falsely accused man on Louisiana's Death Row. What follows is a search to find out what really happened 30 years ago when two people were killed on the night of the traditional courir de Mardi Gras. Along the way, Louis and Dolores uncover a hauntingly beautiful, isolated community suffering from secrecy and deceit, yet ultimately striving to achieve its own form of folk justice. Pat's documentaries have been broadcast nationally on PBS, the Discovery Channel, and many more platforms, and have earned prestigious awards including the American Anthropological Film Festival's Award of Excellence. "A film is told three ways. There are three films in one film. It's what you write, what you shoot and what you edit... post production That's, to me, the lace and embellishment. The negligee you put on the film at the end is so important." His first film, Dirty Rice,
Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Tuesday he won't be running to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Former B.C. premier Christy Clark also bowed out after previously hinting at a leadership bid. That leaves the Liberals with only three leadership hopefuls that have publicly announced their intentions to run. The CBC's Catherine Cullen and Radio-Canada's Louis Blouin have the latest on who we can soon expect to join the race. Plus, Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge weighs in on what it means to not have a major Quebecois or francophone contender running.
Narrator Jean Brassard joins AudioFile's Michele Cobb to discuss narrating Louise Penny's latest in the Three Pines series, THE GREY WOLF. It's a thrilling mystery and a new voice for a beloved series, and Brassard describes what it was like to step into the shoes of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. He discusses how his Quebecois background informed his performance and what he enjoyed the most about narrating this mystery named one of AudioFile's Best of 2024. Read AudioFile's review of THE GREY WOLF. Published by Macmillan Audio. AudioFile's 2024 Best Mystery & Suspense Audiobooks are: THE BRIAR CLUB by Kate Quinn, read by Saskia Maarleveld THE GREY WOLF by Louise Penny, read by Jean Brassard A NEST OF VIPERS by Harini Nagendra, read by Soneela Nankani THE SEQUEL by Jean Hanff Korelitz, read by Julia Whelan SHANGHAI by Joseph Kanon, read by Jonathan Davis YOU'LL NEVER FIND ME by Allison Brennan, read by Hillary Huber Find the full list of 2024 Best Audiobooks on our website. Today's episode is brought to you by Brilliance Publishing. The Sound of Storytelling. Discover your next great listen at https://www.brilliancepublishing.com/ Jean Brassard photo by Steve Vaccariello. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We're joined this week for an insidious hour of sneaky, underhand plotting and planning with returning friend of the pod Paul Duncan McGarrity. We discover bungling Quebecois terrorists and security guards, batshit crazy Japanese anarchists, a blow-by-blow account of everything wrong with the Gunpowder Plot and the stupidest double-agent of all-time. Follow us on Instagram: @worstfoot @vanderlaugh @barrymcstay Take a butcher's at Ben's Substack here: https://vanderlaugh.substack.com/ Join us on our Discord server! https://discord.gg/9buWKthgfx Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can donate to us on Patreon if you'd like to support the show! https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward
Bryan and Dave go north for a look at The Christmas Martian, an utterly deranged Quebecois children's movie about unsupervised children in a remote Quebec town and the adult man from Mars who in any other context would be understood to be grooming this brother and sister. It's a film that was intended to be whimsical and zany but being the product of Tales For All producer, Rock Demers, it all just comes off as creepy and unsettling. Though, not quite as upsetting as The Peanut Butter Solution, a film we covered in 2023, it's still off-putting in a way that begs the question: who was this movie for? Produced by prolific Canadian producer, a man on a mission to make the lives of children genuinely better, Rock Demers, directed by one of the National Film Board's most talented cinematographer, Bernard Gosselin, and written by an author so-treasured by his native Canada that one of his works of fiction is quoted on their money, Roch Carrier, The Christmas Martian is remarkably artless and weird and we're going to tell you all about it. Support Bring Me The Axe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/c/bringmetheaxepod Buy Bring Me The Axe merch here: https://www.bonfire.com/store/bring-me-the-axe-podcast/
The Beach Boys' original lyric, "I wish they all could be Quebecois girls" was rejected out of hand. Card #490 on Beckett SABR Bio by Norm King Card #490 on 88 Topps Blog Beard Larry retires from the Mud Hens Larry and Elvis Larry inducted into International League HOF
Jean Brassard, Louise Penny's choice to narrate her 19th Three Pines novel, proves an inspired selection. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile's Robin Whitten discuss how Brassard, a native Quebecois and an award-winning actor, gets each character right. Domestic terrorism takes Armand Gamache, Jean-Guy, and Isabelle from Montreal to the Vatican and to an isolated French monastery. Brasard's accents—whether French Canadian, Italian, or continental French—create indelible characters, and his pacing and storytelling skills are stunningly good. Listen to find out what awaits Gamache in this latest memorable mystery. Read our review of the audiobook at our website. Published by Macmillan Audio. Discover thousands of audiobook reviews and more at AudioFile's website. Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from HarperCollins Focus, and HarperCollins Christian Publishing, publishers of some of your favorite audiobooks and authors, including Reba McEntire, Max Lucado, Kathie Lee Gifford, Bob Goff, Lysa TerKeurst, and many more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Bathhouse is a live call-in show from the green room of The Stand one of New York City's best comedy clubs. Follow the guests: Lev Fer Instagram: levfercomedy Billy Hockman Instagram: bhockcomedy Andre Myrie Instagram: andremyriecomedy Music by @namelesswalaby and @ChadTurnUp Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 2:43 - Welcome! 6:26 - Sean calls question for Lev but he's too high 12:30 - Sami calls - Did Tony go too far? 25:45 - Slav is undecided 29:00 - Globe skeptics & the Arts 39:30 - Don't ask me about flat earth!! But definitely ask about the moon landing 50:00 - Sean from Pittsburg - Crackhead neighbor's car / Worst detail 56:36 - Stank / POLITICS 1:07:34 - Pablo practices negging on Lev 1:09:40 - Sami calls back 1:18:33 - My Dad worked for Boeing 1:21:10 - Getting smashed the Quebecois way 1:30:59 - As a car professional says it was the rubber seal that caused the stank. 1:33:44 - What are you doing?? 1:35:35 - Slav comes back undecided 1:40:45 - Last call 1:45:09 - Plugs
Ontario's Prince Edward County is a region we hype up on the pod regularly, so we were stoked to have the newest brewery in town hang out and crush some brews. Husband and wife team Colin and Steph VanderMeulen joined Cee and Nate to chat about the Dune Hopper story and Colin's history in craft beer, why they try not to fit in but offer something different to their neighbours, their approach to their impeccable branding and how that flows to their taproom and merch, why dogs and kids are encouraged, the importance of co-signs and working with other great breweries, why the County is such a great place for beer and wine tourism (and why Quebecois folks love it), and how they plan to slowly expand across the province. They got into some fantastic Dune Hopper brews - Tent Pitcher Craft Lager, Solo Trip (Simcoe) Single Hop IPA, Hatchet NEIPA, Adventure (Strawberry Passionfruit) Sour, and Hard Water (Banana Seltzer). Always fun to discover a phenomenal brewery - cheers! BAOS Podcast Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube | Website | Theme tune: Cee - BrewHeads
The Bathhouse is a live call-in show from the green room of The Stand one of New York City's best comedy clubs. Follow the guests: Che Durena Youtube: @Chedurena Lee Syatt Instagram: Leesyatt Bret Raybould Instagram: Bretraybould Music by @namelesswalaby and @ChadTurnUp Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 2:30 - Chaos! 4:24 - Rubestar first call 10:30 - Rube Juice 25:37 - Black Rainbows 29:19 - Mark calls - piss. More about black rainbows 41:07 - Quebecois caller 49:46 - Mohammad Lalin calls 50:30 - McDonalds e-coli madness 52:30 - Slav is going to be open minded 57:35 - It all comes back to piss 1:04:18 - Reindeer myths 1:09:20 - Friends coming in for a wedding, buddy from a weird foursome is coming, how to break the ice?? 1:27:00 - Plugs 1:27:52 - Pablo thinks the show was great - OF Phenomenon? 1:34:01 - Edibles 1:41:23 - Plugs
Brenna and Joe tackle one last Canadian text in 2024 and it's a doozy: Quebecois filmmaker Philippe Lesage's Genesis (2018). C/W: Sexual assaultThis is a challenging triptych, filled with difficult characters, as well as slow & methodical pacing. It also doesn't end in a conventional sense or with any catharsis, which means it's quite a polarizing text! What does Brenna make of this and does Joe still like it as much on a second watch?References:> Sophie Hacsek. "Exclusive Interview with Philippe Lesage: As Long As There's Movement, There Is Hope." Art Here Art Now> Eric Lavallée. "IONCINEPHILE of the Month: Philippe Lesage – Genèse (Genesis)" Ion Cinema> Justine Smith. "‘Creating characters that have inner lives': Philippe Lesage on Genèse" Seventh Row> Seventh Row Podcast. "Ep. 50: Canadian YA Films" (Behind Paywall)Wanna connect with the show? Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and BlueSky @HKHSPod or use the hashtag #HKHSPod:> Brenna: @brennacgray (BlueSky/Instagram)> Joe: @bstolemyremote (Twitter/Instagram) or @joelipsett (BlueSky)Have a mail bag question? Email us at hkhspod@gmail.com Theme music: Ben Fox "Think About the Lights" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
You didn't just fall out of a coconut tree!!! You exist in the context of carlpooling; the greatest show in the entire history of the human species. Do you want fweedum? Do you know that it's time to do the things that you already have been doing and that time is everyday? Then jump in the Honda. We're going Kamala bashing.This weeks inappropriate trout fly is a Quebecois classic - the Montral Whore - and no - we're not talking about Justin Trudeau's onlyfans. Learn to tie your own here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbZX8YxHmA8
[One last dip into the vault before a flood of new episodes beginning next week; from 2020, our revealing conversation with a pro hockey great - and Atlanta Flames original!} For 1970s-era NHL hockey fans who remember the eight-year adventure known as the Atlanta Flames, few are likely to forget Dan Bouchard. A tenacious, slightly eccentric and occasionally fight-prone French-Canadian goalie, “Bouch” was an immediate standout between the pipes for the NHL's first-ever Deep South franchise (platooning with fellow Quebecois & expansion draftee Phil Myre during the club's first five seasons) – and a survivor in a league where hard-nosed hockey was the norm and where good goalies were at a premium. Bouchard's big-league call-up to the Flames in 1972 came amidst a frantic period of NHL franchise expansion and relocation driven in large part by the arrival of the challenger World Hockey Association – which debuted alongside Atlanta (and the NY Islanders) that season. And while the collective memory of the original Flames remains muddied by a woeful post-season record (reliably exiting the playoffs in the first round, despite qualifying six out of their eight seasons), as well as a then (and still?) persistent narrative of Southerners' native distaste for ice hockey – Bouchard and Atlanta were actually more competitive and popular than many of the NHL's other 1970s forays in places like Kansas City, Oakland, Denver, and Cleveland. When Nelson Skalbania bought the Flames and moved them to Calgary in 1980, most in Atlanta and around the league assumed that the well-publicized financial struggles of the team and owner Tom Cousins (who also controlled the Omni arena and the NBA Hawks) were to blame. But as Bouchard outlines in this revealing conversation, an explosive league-wide issue was festering behind the scenes – of which he was uniquely aware and determined to address – regardless of the potential consequences to his playing career. Bouch walks us through an eye-opening story that wends its way through the defunct Quebec Nordiques (including the infamous “Good Friday Massacre” vs. the Montreal Canadiens in 1984), the original Winnipeg Jets, the scandalous downfall of a pro hockey Hall of Famer, and fighting for legendary player/coach Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion both on – and off – the ice. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable "Good Seats" Show & Defunct Team Merch: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY SPONSOR THANKS Royal Retros (promo code: SEATS): https://www.503-sports.com?aff=2 Old School Shirts.com (promo code: GOODSEATS) https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND & FOLLOW Website: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable
This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on July 7. It dropped for free subscribers on July 14. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoChip Chase, Founder and Owner of White Grass Ski Touring Center, West VirginiaRecorded onMay 16, 2024About White Grass Touring CenterClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Chip ChaseLocated in: Davis, West VirginiaYear founded: 1979 (at a different location)Pass affiliations: Indy Pass and Indy+ Pass: 2 days, no blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Canaan Valley (8 minutes), Timberline (11 minutes)Base elevation: 3,220 feet (below the lodge)Summit elevation: 4,463 feet (atop Weiss Knob)Vertical drop: 1,243 feetSkiable Acres: 2,500Average annual snowfall: 140 inchesTrail count: 42 (50 km of maintained trails)Lift count: NoneWhy I interviewed himOne habit I've borrowed from the mostly now-defunct U.S. ski magazines is their unapologetic focus always and only on Alpine skiing. This is not a snowsports newsletter or a wintertime recreation newsletter or a mountain lifestyle newsletter. I'm not interested in ice climbing or snowshoeing or even snowboarding, which I've never attempted and probably never will. I'm not chasing the hot fads like Norwegian goat fjording, which is where you paddle around glaciers in an ice canoe, with an assist tow from a swimming goat. And I've narrowed the focus much more than my traditionalist antecedents, avoiding even passing references to food, drink, lodging, gear, helicopters, snowcats, whacky characters, or competitions of any kind (one of the principal reasons I ski is that it is an unmeasured, individualistic sport).Which, way to squeeze all the fun out of it, Stu. But shearing off 90 percent of all possible subject matter allows me to cover the small spectrum of things that I do actually care about – the experience of traveling to and around a lift-served snowsportskiing facility, with a strange side obsession with urban planning and land-use policy – over the broadest possible geographic area (currently the entire United States and Canada, though mostly that's Western Canada right now because I haven't yet consumed quantities of ayahuasca sufficient to unlock the intellectual and spiritual depths where the names and statistical profiles of all 412* Quebecois ski areas could dwell).So that's why I don't write about cross-country skiing or cross-country ski centers. Sure, they're Alpine skiing-adjacent, but so is lift-served MTB and those crazy jungle gym swingy-bridge things and ziplining and, like, freaking ice skating. If I covered everything that existed around a lift-served ski area, I would quickly grow bored with this whole exercise. Because frankly the only thing I care about is skiing.Downhill skiing. The uphill part, much as it's fetishized by the ski media and the self-proclaimed hardcore, is a little bit confusing. Because you're going the wrong way, man. No one shows up at Six Flags and says oh actually I would prefer to walk to the top of Dr. Diabolical's Cliffhanger. Like do you not see the chairlift sitting right f*****g there?But here we are anyway: I'm featuring a cross-country skiing center on my podcast that's stubbornly devoted always and only to Alpine skiing. And not just a cross-country ski center, but one that, by the nature of its layout, requires some uphill travel to complete most loops. Why would I do this to myself, and to my readers/listeners?Well, several factors collided to interest me in White Grass, including:* The ski area sits on the site of an abandoned circa-1950s downhill ski area, Weiss Knob. White Grass has incorporated much of the left-over refuse – the lodge, the ropetow engines – into the functioning or aesthetic of the current business. The first thing you see upon arrival at White Grass is a mainline clearcut rising above a huddle of low-slung buildings – Weiss Knob's old maintrail.* White Grass sits between two active downhill ski areas: Timberline, a former podcast subject that is among the best-run operations in America, and state-owned Canaan Valley, a longtime Indy Pass partner. It's possible to ski across White Grass from either direction to connect all three ski areas into one giant odyssey.* White Grass is itself an Indy Pass partner, one of 43 Nordic ski areas on the pass last year (Indy has yet to finalize its 2024-25 roster).* White Grass averages 95 days of annual operation despite having no snowmaking. On the East Coast. In the Mid-Atlantic. They're able to do this because, yes, they sit at a 3,220-foot base elevation (higher than anything in New England; Saddleback, in Maine, is the highest in that region, at 2,460 feet), but also because they have perfected the art of snow-farming. Chase tells me they've never missed a season altogether, despite sitting at the same approximate latitude as Washington, D.C.* While I don't care about going uphill at a ski area that's equipped with mechanical lifts, I do find the notion of an uphill-only ski area rather compelling. Because it's a low-impact, high-vibe concept that may be the blueprint for future new-ski-area development in a U.S. America that's otherwise allergic to building things because oh that mud puddle over there is actually a fossilized brontosaurus footprint or something. That's why I covered the failed Bluebird Backcountry. Like what if we had a ski area without the avalanche danger of wandering into the mountains and without the tension with lift-ticket holders who resent the a.m. chewing-up of their cord and pow? While it does not market itself this way, White Grass is in fact such a center, an East Coast Bluebird Backcountry that allows and is seeing growing numbers of people who like to make skiing into work AT Bros.All of which, I'll admit, still makes White Grass lift-served-skiing adjacent, somewhere on the spectrum between snowboarding (basically the same experience as far as lifts and terrain are concerned) and ice canoeing (yes I'm just making crap up). But Chase reached out to me and I stopped in and skied around in January completely stupid to the fact that I was about to have a massive heart attack and die, and I just kind of fell in love with the place: its ambling, bucolic setting; its improvised, handcrafted feel; its improbable existence next door to and amid the Industrial Ski Machine.So here we are: something a little different. Don't worry, this will not become a cross-country ski podcast, but if I mix one in every 177 episodes or so, I hope you'll understand.*The actual number of operating ski areas in Quebec is 412,904.What we talked aboutWhite Grass' snow-blowing microclimate; why White Grass' customers tend to be “easy to please”; “we don't need a million skiers – we just need a couple hundred”; snow farming – what it is and how it works; White Grass' double life in the summer; a brief history of the abandoned/eventually repurposed Weiss Knob ski area; considering snowmaking; 280 inches of snow in West Virginia; why West Virginia; the state's ski culture; where and when Chase founded White Grass, and why he moved it to its current location; how an Alpine skier fell for the XC world; how a ski area electric bill is “about $5 per day”; preserving what remains of Weiss Knob; White Grass' growing AT community; the mountain's “incredible” glade skiing; whether Chase ever considered a chairlift at White Grass; is atmosphere made or does it happen?; “the last thing I want to do is retire”; Chip's favorite ski areas; an argument for slow downhill skiing; the neighboring Timberline and Canaan Valley; why Timberline is “bound for glory”; the Indy Pass; XC grooming; and White Grass' shelter system.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewI kind of hate the word “authentic,” at least in the context of skiing. It's a little bit reductive and way too limiting. It implies that nothing planned or designed or industrially scaled can ever achieve a greater cultural resonance than a TGI Friday's. By this definition, Vail Mountain – with its built-from-the-wilderness walkable base village, high-speed lift fleet, and corporate marquee – fails the banjo-strumming rubric set by the Authenticity Police, despite being one of our greatest ski centers. Real-ass skiers, don't you know, only ride chairlifts powered from windmills hand-built by 17th Century Dutch immigrants. Everything else is corporate b******t. (Unless those high-speed lifts are at Alta or Wolf Creek or Revelstoke – then they're real as f**k Brah; do you see how stupid this all is?)Still, I understand the impulses stoking that sentiment. Roughly one out of every four U.S. skier visits is at a Vail Resort. About one in four is in Colorado. That puts a lot of pressure on a relatively small number of ski centers to define the activity for an enormous percentage of the skiing population. “Authentic,” I think, has become a euphemism for “not standing in a Saturday powder-day liftline that extends down Interstate 70 to Topeka with a bunch of people from Manhattan who don't know how to ski powder.” Or, in other words, a place where you can ski without a lot of crowding and expense and the associated hassles.White Grass succeeds in offering that. Here are the prices:Here is the outside of the lodge:And the inside:Here is the rental counter:And here's the lost-and-found, in case you lose something (somehow they actually fit skis in there; it's like one of those magic tents from Harry Potter that looks like a commando bivouac from the outside but expands into King Tut's palace once you walk in):The whole operation is simple, approachable, affordable, and relaxed. This is an everyone-in-the-base-lodge-seems-to-know-one-another kind of spot, an improbable backwoods redoubt along those ever-winding West Virginia roads, a snow hole in the map where no snow makes sense, as though driving up the access road rips you through a wormhole to some different, less-complicated world.What I got wrongI said the base areas for Stowe, Sugarbush, and Killington sat “closer to 2,000 feet, or even below that.” The actual numbers are: Stowe (1,559 feet), Sugarbush (1,483 feet), Killington (1,165 feet).I accidentally referred to the old Weiss Knob ski area as “White Knob” one time.Why you should ski White GrassThere are not a lot of skiing options in the Southeast, which I consider the ski areas seated along the Appalachians running from Cloudmont in Alabama up through Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. There are only 18 ski areas in the entire region, and most would count even fewer, since Snowshoe Bro gets Very Mad at me when I count Silver Creek as a separate ski area (which it once was until Snowshoe purchased it in 1992, and still is physically until/unless Alterra ever develops this proposed interconnect from 1978):No one really agrees on what Southeast skiing is. The set of ski states I outline above is the same one that Ski Southeast covers. DC Ski includes Pennsylvania (home to another 20-plus ski areas), which from a cultural, travel, and demographic standpoint makes sense. Things start to feel very different in New York, though Open Snow's Mid-Atlantic updates include all of the state's ski areas south of the Adirondacks.Anyway, the region's terrain, from a fall line, pure-skiing point of view, is actually quite good, especially in good snow years. The lift infrastructure tends to be far more modern than what you'll find in, say, the Midwest. And the vertical drops and overall terrain footprints are respectable. Megapass penetration is deep, and you can visit a majority of the region with an Epic, Indy, or Ikon Pass:However. Pretty much everything from the Poconos on south tends to be mobbed at all times by novice skiers. The whole experience can be tainted by an unruly dynamic of people who don't understand how liftlines work and ski areas that make no effort to manage liftlines. It kind of sucks, frankly, during busy times. And if this is your drive-to region, you may be in search of an alternative. White Grass, with its absence of lifts and therefore liftlines, can at least deliver a different story for your weekend ski experience.It's also just kind of an amazing place to behold. I often describe West Virginia as the forgotten state. It's surrounded by Pennsylvania (sixth in population among the 50 U.S. states, with 13 million residents), Ohio (8th, 11.8 M), Kentucky (27th, 4.5 M), Virginia (13th, 8.7 M), and Maryland (20th, 6.2 M). And yet West Virginia ranks 40th among U.S. states in population, with just 1.8 million people. That fact – despite the state's size (it's twice as large as Maryland) and location at the crossroads of busy transcontinental corridors – is explained by the abrupt, fortress-like mountains that have made travel into and through the state slow and inconvenient for centuries. You can crisscross parts of West Virginia on interstate highways and the still-incomplete Corridor H, but much of the state's natural awe lies down narrow, never-straight roads that punch through a raw and forgotten wilderness, dotted, every so often, with industrial wreckage and towns wherever the flats open up for an acre or 10. Other than the tailgating pickup trucks, it doesn't feel anything like America. It doesn't really feel like anything else at all. It's just West Virginia, a place that's impossible to imagine until you see it.Podcast NotesOn Weiss Knob Ski Area (1959)I can't find any trailmaps for Weiss Knob, the legacy lift-served ski area that White Grass is built on top of. But Chip and his team have kept the main trail clear:It rises dramatically over the base area:Ski up and around, and you'll find remnants of the ropetows:West Virginia Snow Sports Museum hall-of-famers Bob and Anita Barton founded Weiss Knob in 1955. From the museum's website:While the Ski Club of Washington, DC was on a mission to find an elusive ski drift in West Virginia, Bob was on a parallel mission. By 1955, Bob had installed a 1,200-foot rope tow next door to the Ski Club's Driftland. The original Weiss Knob Ski Area was on what is now the "Meadows" at Canaan Valley Resort. By 1958, Weiss Knob featured two rope tows and a T-bar lift.In 1959, Bob moved Weiss Knob to the back of Bald Knob (out of the wind) on what is now White Grass Touring Center.According to Chase, the Bartons went on to have some involvement in a “ski area up at Alpine Lake.” This was, according to DC Ski, a 450-footer with a handful of surface lifts. Here's a circa 1980 trailmap:The place is still in business, though they dismantled the downhill ski operation decades ago.On the three side-by-side ski areasWhite Grass sits directly between two lift-served ski areas: state-owned Canaan Valley and newly renovated Timberline. Here's an overview of each:TimberlineBase elevation: 3,268 feetSummit elevation: 4,268 feetVertical drop: 1,000 feetSkiable Acres: 100Average annual snowfall: 150 inchesTrail count: 20 (2 double-black, 2 black, 6 intermediate, 10 beginner), plus two named glades and two terrain parksLift count: 4 (1 high-speed six-pack, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 carpets - view Lift Blog's inventory of Timberline's lift fleet)Canaan ValleyBase elevation: 3,430 feetSummit elevation: 4,280 feetVertical drop: 850 feetSkiable Acres: 95Average annual snowfall: 117 inchesTrail count: 47 (44% advanced/expert, 36% intermediate, 20% beginner)Lift count: 4 (1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 1 carpet - view Lift Blog's inventory of Canaan Valley's lift fleet)And here's what they all look like side-by-side IRL:On other podcast interviewsChip referenced a couple of previous Storm Skiing Podcasts: SMI Snow Makers President Joe VanderKelen and Snowbasin GM Davy Ratchford. You can view the full archive (as well as scheduled podcasts) here.On West Virginia statisticsChase cited a few statistical rankings for West Virginia that I couldn't quite verify:* On West Virginia being the only U.S. state that is “100 percent mountains” – I couldn't find affirmation of this exactly, though I certainly believe it's more mountainous than the big Western ski states, most of which are more plains than mountains. Vermont can feel like nothing but mountains, with just a handful of north-south routes cut through the state. Maybe Hawaii? I don't know. Some of these stats are harder to verify than I would have guessed.* On West Virginia as the “second-most forested U.S. state behind Maine” – sources were a bit more consistent on this: every one confirmed Maine as the most-forested state (with nearly 90 percent of its land covered), then listed New Hampshire as second (~84 percent), and West Virginia as third (79 percent).* On West Virginia being “the only state in the nation where the population is dropping” – U.S. Census Bureau data suggests that eight U.S. states lost residents last year: New York (-0.52), Louisiana (-0.31%), Hawaii (-0.3%), Illinois (-0.26%), West Virginia (-0.22%), California (-0.19%), Oregon (-0.14%), and Pennsylvania (-0.08%).On the White Grass documentaryThere are a bunch of videos on White Grass' website. This is the most recent:On other atmospheric ski areasChase mentions a number of ski areas that deliver the same sort of atmospheric charge as White Grass. I've featured a number of them on past podcasts, including Mad River Glen, Mount Bohemia, Palisades Tahoe, Snowbird, and Bolton Valley.On the Soul of Alta movieAlta also made Chase's list, and he calls out the recent Soul of Alta movie as being particularly resonant of the mountain's special vibe:On resentment and New York State-owned ski areasI refer briefly to the ongoing resentment between New York's privately owned, tax-paying ski areas and the trio of heavily subsidized state-owned operations: Gore, Whiteface, and Belleayre. I've detailed that conflict numerous times. This interview with the owners of Plattekill, which sits right down the road from Belle, crystalizes the main conflict points.On White Grass' little shelters all over the trailsThese are just so cool:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 46/100 in 2024, and number 546 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe
A new guest enters the TNO mix, and it's our newly appointed Designated Canadian, Genna Buck! Not only does she share her Canadian expertise to discuss these chapters, but she joins Mike to talk about the non-Canadian parts too! Hooray! Topics include: tube TVs, Quebecois, old slang, color theory, Baldur's Gate III, collecting, The Beastie Boys, thought processes, Le Château Frontenac, Quebec winters, call men fiesty, privately intense people, TMI, Celine Dion, Letterkenny, Arctic Monkeys, personal style, language diversity, suitcase collabs, FB pokes, Baldur's Gate, pizzagetti, Montreal bagels, and more! TNO Live: www.thenewestolympian.com/live TNO Bonus Eps: www.thenewestolympian.com/patreon Pages Past Podcast: Patreon, Spotify — Find The Newest Olympian Online — • Website: www.thenewestolympian.com • Patreon: www.thenewestolympian.com/patreon • Twitter: www.twitter.com/newestolympian • Instagram: www.instagram.com/newestolympian • Facebook: www.facebook.com/newestolympian • Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/thenewestolympian • Merch: www.thenewestolympian.com/merch — Production — • Creator, Host, Producer, Social Media, Web Design: Mike Schubert • Editor: Sherry Guo • Music: Bettina Campomanes and Brandon Grugle • Art: Jessica E. Boyd — About The Show — Has the Percy Jackson series been slept on by society? Join Mike Schubert as he reads through the books for the first time with the help of longtime PJO fans to cover the plot, take stabs at what happens next, and nerd out over Greek mythology. Whether you're looking for an excuse to finally read these books, or want to re-read an old favorite with a digital book club, grab your blue chocolate chip cookies and listen along. New episodes release on Mondays wherever you get your podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
CANADALAND host Jesse Brown introduces Dylan to a strange and decaying Quebecois fast food institution… housed inside a giant orange sphere. Today, the orange is a relic of a bygone era. But decades ago, this odd establishment was on track to become the McDonalds of Canada. We hear about the rise and fall of Montreal's Orange Julep, and how its eccentric founder envisioned a Canada scattered with glowing orange spheres. This week, we're celebrating Canada's strange, incredible, and wondrous places. This is the third story in our collaboration with CANADALAND. If you want to hear more stories from their great show, we recommend starting here: Crimes Against NatureThe True Story of SasquatchThis episode was produced by Kevin Sexton.
CANADALAND host Jesse Brown introduces Dylan to a strange and decaying Quebecois fast food institution… housed inside a giant orange sphere. Today, the orange is a relic of a bygone era. But decades ago, this odd establishment was on track to become the McDonalds of Canada. We hear about the rise and fall of Montreal's Orange Julep, and how its eccentric founder envisioned a Canada scattered with glowing orange spheres.This is the third story in our collaboration with the Atlas Obscura Podcast - a show that brings the listener mind-blowing stories from fascinating places every weekday. If you want to hear more stories from their great show, we recommend starting here: World's Oldest Edible HamUntil the end of May, become a Canadaland Supporter for just $2/month (78% off the regular price) and listen to all three episodes of Canada Obscura ad-free.You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music—included with Prime. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Évelyne Brochu is a French-Canadian actor who has starred in films and television shows both in and out of her home province of Quebec. Her new film “French Girl” is a romantic comedy that features both Hollywood and Quebecois film stars. Évelyne tells Tom why she sees the film as a love letter to Quebec, what it was like being a fan of, to working alongside Zach Braff, and how The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air helped her learn English.
The acclaimed Quebecois filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is back with “Dune: Part Two” — the highly anticipated sequel to his adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic sci-fi novel of the same name. Denis joins Tom to discuss his vision for the second installment, the challenges of shooting in the intense heat of the desert, and how politics and religion in Quebec play into the film more than you might think.
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