Napoleon's French Maid

[Banished to the tiny island of Elba just off the Tuscan coast, Napoleon Bonaparte found himself mockingly declared emperor of his miniscule domain. His resignation from the throne of France - ostensibly in the name of the greater good of French interests - marked the end of a lifelong pursuit of power. To him, that meant the end of life itself, attempting suicide via an aged poisoned pill kept on his person. By the pill's poison had eroded over time, Napoleon unable to cheat history of his Waterloo.

Cut off from his family, exhausted by decades of both physical and political swordplay, Napoleon's soul secretly begged surrender. He feared this surrender, for to do so meant to declare his entire life up until that point a complete fraud, a waste of time - and a waste of rivers of French blood. But in his moment of devastation, this surrender proved too sweet to ignore as he thirsted for cool waters in the desert of life. His pride libeled this indulgence a "weakness", but his spirit reveled in these steps towards courage.]

The Emperor of Elba called over Maria, his daily maid. A genius at espionage, he'd espied her for some time, feeling curious to use his previous tactics of life and death for picking out the one who'd save his soul. But he sensed her strength. Like all great leaders in history, Napoleon could read the human heart. But this time his goal stayed true to himself.

"Yes, your Highness, what is you wish?" asked a bowed and kneeling Maria.

"What I wish I wish to be keep secret. This is both to your benefit and mine. Keep the secret and you and your family shall know more money than you'd hope to see in your lifetime. I need to know if you'll accept such a deal or if carrying a secret is too much for you."

Maria was no fool - as Napoleon had suspected - and she knew to weigh her answer carefully and honestly. To answer out of personal greed could be a fatal mistake. She had to know before she answered.

"Yes, sire, I can carry such a burden. Neither my family nor any living soul shall know of this secret I take to my grave. This I am prepared to do, in peace with myself."

Well spoken! A cold, dead heart felt the first few hopeful beats not felt in years, charged by an electric excitement. Even now, after the disasters of a lifetime, can there be hope?

"Thank you, Maria. I've been observing you and find you to be a worthy person." What a change to speak openly and honestly! This is thrilling! No more probing for weaknesses, but letting loose with praise, to build her up, to let her know.

"You speak too well of me, sire, I'm sure." Maria was suspicious, now cursing herself to have agreed to anything with this desperate, lecherous old man down on himself as he faded humiliatingly into history like a bad dream. You fool, woman!

"What I beg of you is this: I wish you to teach me to clean. This will be done between nine and eleven AM in the morning, at which time the house will be cordoned off by all measures for just you and me."

"Cleaning, sire?"

He expected her disbelief. "Yes, and serving too." He lets his words take full effect as he watched her struggle with the surprise, distrusting of a fortune seemingly too good to be true. Her face registered a tentative acceptance but the would-be monarchial maid saw she kept yet a leering watch in the corner of her eye. Ah yes, he had picked well! A woman of strength.

The next morning the Emperor gave his new standing orders in no uncertain terms, upon pain of death was anyone to enter his villa but Maria between 9 and 11. A winking eye between the guards understood: the lusty old man meant to have his fling with this flower still in the beauty of her youth. Napoleon prayed the girl would be up to his expectations, that she too would take courageous steps. When he saw her with an almost concealed smirking smile on her lips as she approached with her usual instruments of cleaning, he knew he'd struck gold.

A look of destiny

[With his small stature and thick Corsican accent (Corsica having recently fallen into French domain just before Napoleon's birth), the other children teased the boy into feelings of inadequacy - the beginning of all human wars. He was so shattered that never did he learn to spell well except in rare moments of confidence he did not feel he could sustain. To prove himself, Napoleon got himself admitted to the elite École Militaire in Paris.

In the throes of revolution, having beheaded her king and queen, France was surrounded by angry royal enemies who aimed to set her straight. Governing at that time hung only by a shoestring and by all rights such weakness should have buried the fledgling revolution in its infancy. But the fates had a lesson to teach the ruling royalty of Europe as this smart young officer rose in his brilliance to the rank of general by the tender age of 24. Who was this boy who danced around the armies of Europe as a ballerina does a lead footed sloth?]

"I suppose you'll be needing these." Maria dare not laugh as her outstretched arms held forth her rags and cleaning bucket. Not until that moment had she realized how tormented she had been made by them. Taking the job had been a necessity of economics but on a pure planet free of falsity her intelligent mind would race to new frontiers. How many minds like hers had been buried in the stupidity of Man's reckless rule?

"Yes, I will. Thank you."

He took them! Mon Dieu, he wasn't joking after all. Careful, don't get too excited. He could turn on you like a domesticated wolf who suddenly snaps. God, what a feeling to be recognized! Liberté! Liberté!

Secretly, the lost Emperor feared the possible drudgery, that his mind would rebel. It did not. He found actual pleasure in his labors. How long since he'd done honest labor! Slowly, he scrubbed the floor as she in her uniform supervised this new training apart from his military rigors. Ah, what freedom to throw off those shackles of war! No man wishes to train for fighting! If training you must have, train to be a maid!

Growing into her role, Maria realized - and tested - her newfound power. Sitting comfortably in her viewing chair, she called across the room to her servant. Since this was to be a secret she knew she would still be held responsible for any dirtiness found in the house. She explained it to him. "You know you will have to do good work."

"Yes, ma'am." She didn't even give a reason, though the scrubbing king reasoned her logic in his excited loins. He had no choice! He must do his chores whether he liked them or not. And do them well! Would she punish him for a poor performance? In an army, discipline is everything! (But thank God no one here dies.)

["I have fought sixty battles and I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning. Look at Caesar; he fought the first like the last." Napoleon was as much a natural tactician as Mozart a musician. He was daring but rarely reckless, understanding the psychology of battle better than anyone in Europe. He knew no battle could be completely choreographed, that the true key was to remain open to opportunities, to be in a position to exploit them. His defeated enemies called him "lucky" but even luck was part of his plan.

His soldiers were his maids, glorying in their servitude. Do a good job or die! Napoleon's training and inspiration of his men made French fighting forces the most feared in the world. Like Maria the maid, they too wore uniforms denoting of their rank and position in life. And just as the present floor scrubber of Elba knew, theirs was not to question why, theirs was but to do or die.]

Maria, much to the delight of her new servant, began to assume control, not asking permission but because she wished it. "Since you are the maid now, shouldn't you be dressed like one?" The sheer humiliation delighted the king into secret ecstasy as he moved off into the next room to oblige her. "No, not there. Here. Put your new uniform on here. I wish to see you do it myself," commanded She Who Must Be Obeyed.

The former general knew anticipation and apprehension before battle, but this trembling he did not know. This was a new kind of risk, for he knew in the changing of his clothes he must reveal his erect Corsican penis. His nervous hands disrobed, never looking his mistress in the eye. Painfully aware of his erection, he blessed her silent acknowledgement in not chastising him. His fledgling strength may not have survived the guilt. And in a final release of long caged inadequacy, he was forced to realize her female outfit fit his short man's physique.

"My, don't you look pretty, servant boy!"

The Fighting French Maids

Oh, this could be addicting! How long have I hidden the insecurity of my size? She lets me reveal all and still be accepted. This is amazing! I'm beginning to think it's true. I have lived my life warring for nothing. I could have found a good woman and simply been myself. Surely my genius could have found better uses than an ill-fated grab for power. You knew it was doomed before the start and yet still you traveled down that path. You weak man, you!

He craved her approval in the quality of his chores and she knew it. His long corrupted soul riddled and drowned in guilt for so many years cheered this long awaited admittance of his sins. His soldiers' lives were not his to do with as he pleased. No family in France did not know the sorrow of a lost child or husband. This he carried like a bulging boulder.

Napoleon's 24/7 holding of the reins of power strangled him and choked him of his true wants. When that power was taken away, how then to justify his life? But the understanding Maria now held the reins of power, reversing his role of a lifetime. A thousand thrones and a thousand kingdoms he'd give her if he could. What is anything without freedom but a long march into hell - just as his long march into Russia, reducing an army of 400,000 to 40,000. Scrub that floor, you stupid bitch who can't even run his own life right.

[The story of Napoleon grabbing the crown from the Pope's hands at his coronation is a false one - in a physical sense. But the story rang true because it was true in spirit. Napoleon was a man on the run. No power could be enough, no amount of land enough - he must conquer for he was a conquered man. Napoleon ruled France in both clear sighted liberalism and a dark iron fist. But he was no master of himself, just a deeper and deeper prisoner of his pride.

He grew lax and lazy, retreating into long baths. His faltering image suffered great damage after the Russian debacle. How could he reveal to the world he wished to abdicate? But who would love him without his image? Worse yet, who could forgive him? His only salvation - and curse - was to be born into a world of equal fools, of men needing the favors and worship of women. An image could be made perfect - a mere man, not so much. As expected, Napoleon’s empire fell to pieces.]

"3, ma'am." Whack! "4, ma'am." Whack! "5, ma'am." The servant boy had not performed up to the required standards and must be taught a lesson like any good soldier. A walking cane provided the instrument of improvement. After it was over: "Thank you, ma'am, for helping me."

Maria's new found sense of self translated in ways she'd never expected. She came home one day to find her husband helping with the chores - gladly! This meekness she never knew existed shocked her but she knew not to make a big deal of it but give quiet thanks. She also recognized a new peace in her spouse. Naturally her husband did not suffer the torments of a power mad king but she realized fully now the gift she gave to Napoleon, to release him from a lifetime of lies. To a lesser degree, her husband had lived them too.

Maria too was released from her self-pity, from silently complaining of having to play the subservient wife, swallowing her better judgement, wallowing in the degrading feelings and even succumbing to them. Having faced herself, she could never go back to that. Her husband having sensed this and deciding he did not want to lose her, made his choice. She had picked well after all, two people of strength - the neighbors were starting to envy.

"Come now and rub your queen's feet. Be eager in your pleasuring me."

Napoleon was more than eager. He was nearly a functioning man again. The guilt of abandoning Josephine in his false pride ravaged him for years. Yes, tender and eager he was with his present queen's feet, apologizing to all women for hurting the one who meant the most. But the emperor had not passed all his hurdles. What if it were Josephine who made these demands as Maria did? Could he only admit his mistakes in private? Was he only to be free from nine to eleven each morning?

[To Maria the maid he could submit, but to Josephine - never! His well of feelings would never run dry for her. And the formerly most powerful man in the world feared more than God to appear happily in his maid uniform before his royal guards. No, we would not allow such ignominy! He longed for his genius to construct one last glorious idol to be worshipped by the masses - the fate of fearful nerds throughout history.

But in Napoleon's attempt to run from ignominy he created ignominy, equating the word "Waterloo" with final and absolute failure in the minds of every living being to follow. He'd never have met his Waterloo had he revealed his new born self on Elba. Yes, the royalty of Europe and soldiers around the globe would have had a riotous laugh at his expense. But afterwards, then what? Then they too must face "rulers make bad lovers" as they make themselves prisoners to their servants. The illusion of war a battle for love. Live free or die dumb - like Napoleon.]

The Magic Vacuum

Dallas skyline

The morning heartbreak is sheer devastation. As the sun rises also do the woes of the day. Above all, one must adhere to the almighty Routine (prison got nothin' on this boy's life). Shower, shave, eat, dress, dodge rush hour traffic to get to the "slavin' job to get my pay". It's like having a nail driven through your forehead, life like this can have no possible meaning - and you faced that a long time ago.

Still, part of me is irresistibly excited about the eternal purity of the morning light. I can only glimpse it in the corner of my eye. I want to glory in the sunshine, connecting with the universal Dream and realize we are one after all. The vision of a Crystallized Flower sparkling hope reaches me in that moment. But that's a star too far as I face the horror of my dark blue work pants and the mind numbing drudgery they imply.

But of my woes I can tell no one. The monsters and wolves wait for any complaint, seizing the opportunity to ensure the order, to proclaim I am in paradise. "How dare you complain when you have a TV! And running water too! Why you know etc. etc." It's their fear talking, I know. They know the seeds they have sown. But that doesn't lessen their viciousness. Too many fools really do believe it profits a man to gain the world but lose his soul. What is world peace compared to a Maserati? (Damn, that was tougher to write than I thought!)

So the trick is not to feel, to be socialized into the good army of the dead. But some mornings I let it slip, especially after a night of torrential dreams. It's like being warmly touched, and in the waking minutes you don't want to shake it off and part of you believes you'll be stepping into blessed light after all and not the dreaded work pants of doom. I'm trying to be good. I'm trying not to live - but I can only do so much. The dream remains.

Dream killing pants

Giving the Routine the bare minimum attention possible, the rest of me stayed in the Forbidden Dream we all must deny to get by. Then I start to hear vacuuming sounds. Damn, neighbors in apartment next door must be doing some early morning cleaning. Wish I had time for that! Lord knows my carpet was awful, not finding the time or energy to clean it in weeks. It had become a real eyesore to me but one can be spread only so thin.

But as I got dressed in my bedroom I noticed the sound was too loud to be the neighbors cleaning. Peeking around the doorway I see it's my own vacuum giving a much needed cleaning to the hallway. Thank God! Guess the angels had decided they'd had enough of my ungodly carpet and I could see the handle moving up and down just as if a real person were handling it. The pull of the almighty Routine continued as I finished dressing.

Must be my grandmother. She was always a safe refuge during my childhood trauma. She's getting that carpet cleaned. She'd never stand for such uncleanliness! But as I snapped the final button into place on my shirt, the spell broke. Jesus, that vacuum is running on its own! Look around the corner again and see if that was real or a dream. It was real. Real as the morning sun cutting through the blinds. Oh, my God! Oh, my God! How can I explain this? Now trembling with fear and doubt, I peered once more around the corner at the Magic Vacuum and it suddenly stopped. Shit, I think it stopped because I wished it to.

Think about it...

I was greatly disturbed by the morning's event on my drive into the slave labor pool. I was afraid I'd slip up and mention it without thinking, just as I had initially accepted it without thought. Damn, it sucks to feel out of control! The fury and lashings I'd receive for relating such an incident would be unrelenting. And from past experience, I knew since it would have the ring of truth the hatred and anger would be especially strong and vicious. I was in fear for my life the entire day.

By the morning break in the break room, I'd managed a good sense of denial. I was hallucinating, I assured myself. But no, the carpet in that area really was clean. I'd left it plugged in and some auto feature I don't know about kicked in. But the handled moved only as a person - or invisible angel - could do. I'm just too dumb to understand what happened so ignoring it is the best thing to do. People always accept an explanation where you tell them you're dumb.

Later in the morning I tried distracting myself as all the suited people walked by on their hurried ways to the elevators always absorbed in conversation or some mobile device, the fate of the world upon their shoulders. As a game I always try to pick out who is wearing their suit because they love it, because they have to or who absolutely hate it. The ones who hated it I trusted the most. I just don't want to feel alone in my prison. One thing I knew as I ran my floor buffer, I could never do the lying those jobs required.

By the afternoon, I'd fallen into a surreal state of being. Who knows what is real and what is not. The spirit world is the real one, this one an illusion created for our growth - a matrix if you wish. I was reminded of Einstein's theory of relativity, that others had gone down that road before him but stopped short. They had seen the Magic Vacuum and ran away. It was such a breakthrough in scientific thought, they did not have the courage to expose it and be risk being ostracized. Einstein’s breakthrough was as much a moral one as a scientific one. The truth is always like that.

As the work shift ended, I knew the only thing I wanted was to get back home before my secret slipped out. I thought of the Fatima girls and their ordeal and how the vision faded later in life. That could be me too! Denial here I come! But secretly, I wanted the Magic Vacuum to return. I wanted to see the whole house had been cleaned. Most of all, I wanted it to mean I was special after all.

But everything was as I left it. I'd lost faith, let the magic slip through my fingers. I was special for that brief time I accepted it without question, before the fear and insecurity told me "better". Dear God, what a mind fuck life is. I can't say anything, I can't not say anything. Even if I could show them the Magic Vacuum I'd be shot on sight the minute they believed it was no trick. All I know is it haunts me still and that moment of clarity bleeds through into my dreams the minute I let my guard down.

*****

CODA: This was over two years ago. I knew if I typed it up in the heat of the moment the ring of truth would have been too loud. Writing it now in a state disconnected from the event, I can still relate the facts but without the worry of seeming a threat to the all powerful witch burners. So I guess you could say this is my chickenshit way of relating the story without really relating it. The guilt has been fucking killing me for keeping it inside. This meager telling hasn't done me much good either, though.

Hi! I Love You! Can I Burn Your House Down?

"Hey! Hi! Heard you were feeling down! Time for me to get to fixing you!"

"Huh? What? Just let me sleep..."

"No problem. I need to do some investigating around here anyway!"

"Please, go away...I need rest."

"I know you don't mean that! I'll decide what you mean when you speak. Pretty damn helpful, huh?"

"I can't take this right now. Let me be."

"I wouldn't consider such a thing! I luuuv you! OK now, where are your private papers? I must see what's going on."

"This is like a nightmare. You don't listen to anyone or anything -"

" - because I already know what you really mean - "

"- and I can't get any peace and quiet even with my door locked - "

" - my picking the lock proves how much I care - "

" - now I can't even feel safe in my own home - "

" - I'm here to fix all that - "

" - because you have no sense of boundaries or no sense of anything."

"You're only saying that because you don't feel well. Oh, wow, look at this. Your diary entries here are fascinating. I'll mark down what I do and don't approve of."

"If only I had the strength to reach over and choke you. God, you're a freaking out-of-control maniac!"

"This is what I do: I fix people! I love you! I'd die for you!"

"Then, please, die already."

"Let, see. I'm just going to pin my ears back and get down to business. You know, your diary is very beautiful. I'm giving it much of my approval!"

"I could care less what you think. Just stay out of my business. You're a fucking menace. Christ, of all the times to pick. Right at my most weakest."

"That's what I'm here for: to invade you at your weakest moment! Some call it rape but I call it caretaking."

"Like when you let your boss buttfuck you in front of his friends so they could laugh?"

"Yes, wasn't that sweet of him?"

"Or the time he peed on your head and made you say it was raining."

"God, how I worship that man! It's a special love we have. His wife must be jealous of us!"

"Just leave me alone. I don't need some whore breaking into my house."

"Don't worry! I'll make sure no whores do!"

"You must be the most self-oblivious person in human history!"

"I wouldn't know."

"God help me."

"I'm going to fix that attitude of yours. But what you need is a better house. This simply won't do! I'm going to fix that too!"

"Hey, stop pouring that gasoline around my home! Lord, I don't have the energy for this. How do I fight this blind demon?"

"Be strong! Remember, I'll be fighting with you!"

"I just dialed 911."

"No need for that. Don't give up. You'll always have me!"

"You burned down your house now you think that's the answer to everything."

"Isn't it wonderful to find an answer! I'm so glad to give you hope."

"Just leave my house alone! I don't care if you love it or it hate it, you infuriating witch."

"You're lucky I know you so well and know what you do and don't mean. You know this place isn't worth saving! Hey, you got a match?"

"That's her over there, officer, pouring gas and trying to burn everything down."

"Get your hands off of me! Fool! Don't you understand I'm only trying to help? I'm a martyr like Jesus on the cross. Giving love but persecuted in return."

"Thank you, officer. She broke in like a lunatic and I'll never feel safe again. I never in my life thought anyone would be so insane as to act like this. Just boggles the mind!"

"Damn all you ingrates! Can't you see I'd die for you? You owe me! I should never be questioned! Pee on me, officer. Go ahead. I'll tell you it's raining just like you want. Tell me that isn't true love!"

"He's not a sicko who wants to lie and be lied to. You need to go fix your own home."

"I have NO interest in fixing that. I'm an unselfish, caring person. My only interest is in fixing others' homes. Just you wait and see how many people I can make believe that."

"Officer, take her away. There's no hope for her."

"I'll be back! You'll see! My love cannot be denied! I'll burn down the whole world if I have to! That's how much I care!"

Goupil: An Assassin's Prayers Are Never Answered

[Goupil is on the run - from everybody. Having given up his gun, he's defenseless and friendless and hunted (at the very least) by the government. Moving from cheap motel to cheap motel in a zigzag fashion he feels his world closing in on him. Every direction seems equally wrong, equally harmful. He'd hoped giving up his gun would show him the way out. Instead, confusion wreaks havoc on his mind and chaos in his heart.]

"Of course! Vargas does not drink. Does not smoke.

"Does not make love.

"What do you do, Vargas?"

Am I Vargas? Have I succumbed at last? ...am I Vargas?

Vargas had always been Goupil's bogeyman. The James Bond Thunderball killer had horrified him as a child. If nothing else he knew that to be Vargas was to be lost without redemption, the Ultimate Loser, a loathsome unlovable creature. Lying on his motel bed, attempting to drink because that's what one does to escape reality (Goupil's strength had always been not to escape reality), demons in the night and demons in the day plotted his demise. What unadmitted rock under his mattress robbed him of any possible comfort?

*****

Goupil learned early on there is no God, no justice on earth. Nobody, but yourself. The oldest child of an immigrant family living in the Jersey projects, he was routinely assaulted by both his mother and father. His mother beat him with a broom handle, with pots and pans, with anything she could find, determined to beat the sin out of him. His father, having failed to find the streets of America paved with the promised gold made his son pay for his own misery.

Desperately poor, Goupil's clothes as a newly aware teenager were two sizes too large to make them last as he grew. He was mocked and bullied at school. Tall but thin, Goupil stood no chance against one vicious gang in particular who gave him savage beatings for his loserdom. Each night Goupil prayed to God for help, to set right such obvious wrongs. To whom else did he have to turn? Even his parents wanted him dead.

God never came - or even showed the slightest interest. Slowly an icy resolve formed in the boy, anger his new god for redemption. "It's all on me. Everything. I can turn to no one, no god, no hope." Taking the instrument of hurt he knew best, Goupil grabbed a broomstick and waited in the darkness for the gang leader who tormented him so severely. Jumping out from behind a tree, he panicked and hit the thug on the head. After Goupil saw him drop, fear took over and he beat the thug determined never to be hurt again. He was successful: Goupil's prey was dead cold.

Hiding in his bedroom for a week, Goupil waited for God again. Only this time he feared the Lord's vengeance. The dead body had been thrown into the east river but surely somehow the voices of karma would point their fingers in his direction. But no policeman's knock ever came. No avenging angels descended from the sky. It really was true: there is no God. At 13, Goupil already had his first kill.

*****

What is left for me? How can a monster like me ever be a father? How could I answer for my past to a child? What mother would want me raising her child? I am Vargas, the creep!

I'm in so much trouble!...life is only trouble...he Goupil undeserving of hope...was there never meant to be anything more?...who am I...

In a fate worse than death, even in what looked to be his final days on earth, Goupil prayed to the eyeless and earless god who never helped. Life just could not be so hopeless! But the usual painful cycle inevitably and agonizingly ensued: fear, frustration, raging anger. No way out...

Thus spoke the demons in the night.

*****

It was in fact his dedication to hard work and honesty after killing the gang leader that drove Goupil into facing another truth of his world: he could never conform. Jobs suffocated him as much as his home and school lives had. "A ring of death!" surmised Goupil of this lost world. He saw the globe as nothing but one large criminal enterprise, he never falling for the veneer of life it so vainly presented. Sneering at the man thinking he was "doing good", Goupil already knew good deeds don't get you into heaven.

With his excellent hand-to-eye coordination, he hustled pool for money until he came across a scam at a film processing lab where he could illicitly copy porno films to sell on the side. To do it right he needed a large infusion of cash. For Goupil, that meant going to the "hard guys", the mob. This turned out to change his life forever.

Goupil's customers were slow to pay - which made him slow to pay the mob back. Three enforcers paid him a visit, brutally beating him. But Goupil was an old hand at taking a beating and knew better than to take on the entire syndicate. Within a week he collected the money owed him and paid back the loan. This so impressed the mob they offered him a job in collections.

*****

The motel room lay as wasted as its occupant. Goupil fell back into his favorite fantasy: that of killing his father. He'd make his paternal persecutor confess his crimes, begging for mercy he never gave. Maybe that's what Goupil wanted most: just to hear his father speak, to say one fucking honest word - one more than the monster ever spoke in life. Just to hear that one word would break the spell of an uncaring God.

Feeling vulnerable without his gun, Goupil reflected on how he could protect himself. But I don't want to return to the old ways. Cyanide had been a favorite "no mess" method of his, perfecting a spray he could blast on a victim's face to cause a seeming heart attack. Traces of the poison leave the body in hours. He especially loved using remote controlled cars with plastique attached. Sweep the car beforehand all you want, sucker!

But those were guns by any other name. There's no future in that. The Russian woman's intoxicating face reflected in his half filled bottle of vodka. Would there ever be a way he could spend the night with her? Her bite had infected him for life.

You're going to spend the rest of your life in these motel rooms running out of time. I can't get a job and just slip back into society. Maybe I was stupid to quit. What is the right answer if all roads lead to death! I wish I could make God feel lonely, let that fucker see how it feels. Make Him get a job and see how that fucking feels too. God - just another monster.

*****

Goupil was too enthusiastic in his collection methods and dead men don't pay back debts. So the mob made him an outright assassin and just as when he was a thirteen year old boy, killing seemed to be Goupil's salvation in a world gone mad. He loved the thrill of the hunt, of devising the logistics and engineering a solution. The final act merely proof he'd been correct in his calculations. Then on to the next project.

He also loved living the lie. Goupil bought the most respectable suits, claimed the most respectable occupations as his source of income and made the rounds as an intelligent man of means. Ah, what frauds they must be to believe my fraudulence! The killings, the polite public adulation, the beautiful free fall feeling that made him feel alive provided for the most glorious time of his life. One special killing stood out among the rest.

In a hotel room, Goupil had cornered his mark, standing over him with a pointed gun. The man dropped to his knees, begging for mercy, literally praying to God for help. At last, to see someone else pray for God's help! Maybe it could work for him as opposed to a rejected killer. Goupil told the groveling man he'd allow him thirty minutes of prayer. If God came to spare him in any way he'd let the man go.

On the thirty first minute Goupil put two bullets in the praying man's head.

*****

In a Federal building safely embedded in the mind of a willfully ignorant populace, men who'd rather die than be suitless rejoiced at the good news of having discovered a lost prey.

"We've got him! The bastard finally came up for air. A thousand dollars is being wired to him in a small city outside of Cincinnati. He must be running out of cash and thinks he can slip this under the radar."

"Excellent news. Call the local FBI office and have them sit on that Western Union store right away. I want no slip ups! Tell them it's a matter of national security and that's all they need to know."

"What should I tell them to do if they come across Goupil?"

"Shoot to kill."

"I can't tell them that!"

"OK, OK. Tell them the truth. He's an assassin, heavily armed, and not to take any chances. Maybe we'll get lucky. I obviously will have an operative on the way on the off chance we can finish this ourselves."

Thus spoke the demons in the day.

*****

Goupil had given up his gun, given up his "life" and just plain given up. He knew there was no way he could outrun the government forever and while he had a good amount of money it too was on a countdown. What drove him the most insane was the not knowing. Who exactly was after him and why?

I hope that young Mexican maid comes again. I'll pretend to be naked and asleep when she comes in the door. I'll stick my head under the pillow. I wonder what she'll do? Will she take advantage of me? Oh please, take advantage of me!

Setting it up like a job, Goupil arranged his nude body face down, his face hidden so she need not have fear of getting caught looking. When the knock and "Housekeeping" signal arrived at his door, his heart pounded as much as during any hit. He heard the door open. She came into the room. She started walking around. She couldn't miss seeing him! Goupil peeked to see if it was the maid he hoped for. Yes! Under the pretense of needing to do her duty, she emptied the trash and wordlessly touched up a few other items before leaving.

Success! Goupil grabbed hold of the most meager crumbs of acceptance. Hopefully she was giggling to her co-workers of the sleeping naked guy in room 189. He became aroused at the thought of them all coming to take a peek. It would be so fun - and so harmless, for once. Why did it feel so forbidden just doing what they wanted? Goupil worshipped that maid and thanked the heavens above she was without pretense or preaching.

*****

Bad news at the Cincinnati FBI office. "He never showed...No sir, we got there as quick as we could. There's no record of him picking up the money. Something must have happened...No, I can assure you we were not spotted. I made this a long range surveillance job only, using nothing but personal cars...Thank you. I'll send a full report." The agent flipped down the phone in disgust.

"Agent Johnson - no the other one - bring me the full report." It didn't take long to see the fatal flaw. "Goddamit, is this correct? The originating wire was from a Western Union in Cincinnati?"

"Yeah, so? He must have been laundering it or something."

"You idiots! He set us up! He had no intention of showing up."

A sweep was ordered of the cars used to stake out the Western Union. Two of them had GPS trackers attached under the bumper. Unfortunately for one agent, he'd stopped at his house on the way back in to the office.

"Sweet Jesus! That son-of-a-bitch knows where I live! What the fuck you going to do about that? I've got a family to protect!"

The cars passing below the seventeenth floor of the building housing the FBI never knew of the heated arguments raging above. Nothing riled the agency more than having its own tactics used on them or to have made a careless, irreversible mistake - the kind of mistake they counted on criminals to make. But to Goupil sitting on a bench a half a block away, the FBI were nothing more just another criminal organization, stopping thugs so they could be the thugs. Men who take orders are never better than their masters.

Nor did the self-recriminating agents on the seventeenth floor ever suspect their quarry sat half a block away drowning in suicidal thoughts. Although students of human behavior, these busy-busy men never stopped to think of the humans they pursued. They welcomed confessions without offering any in return. How could they? They too knew the world to be a criminal enterprise. For who trusts a world without love? To live in one is to sleep with a boulder under your mattress.

Witch Burning Still Alive In Texas!

Just imagine his sex life

As a nation grows more corrupt at its core, more violent in its nature through illegitimate warring and fraying acts of violence, more cut-throat and judgemental in dealing with its disadvantaged (though naturally it will have excuses for all this behavior!) that nation then becomes highly sensitive about its sexual practices, i.e. ashamed. Therefore, the greater the need to prove our sex pure and holy. And in order to prove oneself holy one must have a devil - or better yet, witches!

First, I will tell you I'm a liberal. That means I run my life and you run yours. An extremely unpopular position, I know. And I expect to hear much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the fake moralists of how I just don't understand how we just gotta run other people's lives. ("Food for free? No fucking way!") Of course, that overlooks one simple fact: anyone looking to run someone else's life is not competent to run his/her own.

But hell, who wants to be moral if it can't be faked, right??

So what we end up with here is putting people in jail for all sorts of fake reasons. Whether it's smoking a joint or mental illness or worst of all in these unholy times: SEX! It must be approved sex only as determined by the most hypocritical among us. The "sexual predator" is the modern witch for our times. Now ask yourself: is there anything more fun than labeling (libeling?) someone a sexual predator?? "I'm fine! You suck!" Problem is no one who's fine ever says that. Why bother?

So we arrest teenage girls as child molesters for sexting photos of themselves and remove men from their seats on airplanes if they end up sitting next to a child and best of all arrest our reviled teachers for having sex - even with other adults. (Let's admit our secret: we want teachers to raise our kids for us) People meet at work, they wanna fuck, so what? But I understand: we must keep up the pretense of holiness as we erstwhile throw families into the street, laugh about kill lists for "foreigners" and pollute the crap out of our world. Sick, sick, sick.

See the gods

In their sunglasses;

For with their sex

They are so classless.

Former Texas high school teacher sentenced to 5 years in prison for sleeping with 5 students

The teacher lives locally to DFW, the story went national. It has all the juicy ingredients! Faux outrage abounds!

A former North Texas high school teacher was convicted Friday and sentenced to five years in prison for having sex with five 18-year-old students at her home.

The Tarrant County jury decided on the sentence for Brittni Nicole Colleps, 28, of Arlington after nearly three hours of deliberation. It took jurors less than an hour to find her guilty earlier in the day of 16 counts of having an inappropriate relationship between a student and teacher. The second-degree felony is punishable by two to 20 years in prison per count.

Yup, we had to pass special laws here in Texas since everyone involved is an adult. Now if she had met these men at the Mesquite rodeo and fucked their brains out everything would be fine. Good, legal sex! But we have to protect the integrity of the student/teacher relationship (or whatever the horse shit line is) and that means if you meet these men as students you are bad, bad, bad! And this ain't no misdemeanor.

The former Kennedale High School English teacher had sex with the students at her home over two months in 2011, authorities said.

Colleps is married and has three children. She turned herself in after a cellphone video of one encounter that involved multiple students emerged. That video was shown a trial.

Three former students who testified Thursday said that they did not consider themselves victims and did not want to see their former English teacher prosecuted. The three were football and track athletes.

Arlington police Detective Jason Houston testified that charges were filed because “18 or not, it’s a crime” for a teacher to have sex with her students.

But what if a teacher has sex with someone who's a student somewhere else? Isn't that just as wrong? Or what if a teacher starts having sex with a student the day after graduation, thereby making him a former student? Is that one day truly the dividing line between moral and immoral sex? Shouldn't we be tracking all teachers having sex to ensure they never taught in a school where their sexual partner has attended?

Of course, it's really easy to get on your high horse in a case like this with marital infidelity, group sex and the phrase "teacher/student sex" thrown around. So much easier to stand on principle if "true love" could be claimed by the participants.

[The prosecuting attorney] described the amount of body fluids and possible diseases exchanged during the night as "staggering and it is disgusting. It's completely disgusting. [And why wasn't I invited, dammit?]"

Obviously, even the prosecution agrees with me on dogpiling. Does she plan on outlawing all group sex? And how holy is the sex of the prosecutor and the jury since they have set themselves as the arbiters of moral sex? Shouldn't they be on trial too? I know, I know. What this is really about is parents not trusting their kids and needing someone to blame when something like this comes to light. "I'm trusting my child with that teacher!" Hysterics ensue.

Everything is the opposite of what it is. Those who know, don't say. Those who say, don't know. We point fingers at the easy targets before they get pointed back at us. As far as I'm concerned what went on between these consenting adults is exactly nunya. No one unaffected by this directly need have any opinion. So let's all drink from the cup of STFU and preserve our dignity for once. Except, of course, to lament another unnecessary incarceration.

For years when he sings "Here I go..." I thought he said "Ergo".
I like "Ergo" better.

Freeway Blogging For Pussy!

Placed this on an overpass on I-30 near Dallas

I've heard the criticisms. "They went too far." "Not in a CHURCH!" "They should have done it in a non-offensive way." Maybe they should have done it in their own backyard where no one would be offended. Maybe Rosa Parks should have compromised and move halfway back. Let me tell you this, people who do things in half-measures never accomplish anything.

The entire Pussy Riot protest was perfect to a T. Delightful, hilarious, free-spirited and completely within the ideals of Christianity. I understand the Christians In Name Only (CHINOS) being "offended". Of course you are when you're mocked for your phoniness! Believe you me, anyone feigning outrage over the protest is no Christian, but rather simply a religious person. And nothing about religion is important.

Here are some excerpts from the girls' closing statements:

By and large, the three members of Pussy Riot are not the ones on trial here. If we were, this event would hardly be so significant. This is a trial of the entire political system of the Russian Federation, which, to its great misfortune, enjoys quoting its own cruelty toward the individual, its indifference toward human honor and dignity, repeating all of the worst moments of Russian history.

Passion, total honesty, and naïveté are superior to the hypocrisy, mendacity, and false modesty that are used to disguise crime. The so-called leading figures of our state stand in the Cathedral with righteous faces on, but, in their cunning, their sin is greater than our own.

Despite the fact that we find ourselves in an essentially authoritarian situation, living under authoritarian rule, I see this system crumbling in the face of three members of Pussy Riot. What the system anticipated did not occur; Russia does not condemn us, and with each passing day, more and more people believe in us and that we should be free, and not behind bars.

- Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

I'm sure my sign has some heads scratching!

But I find it even more astonishing that people don’t believe that they can have any influence on the regime. During the pickets and demonstrations [of the winter and spring], back when I was collecting signatures and organizing petitions, many people would ask me—and ask me with sincere bewilderment—why in the world they should care about, what business could they possibly have, with that little patch of forest in the Krasnodar region–even though it is perhaps unique in Russia, perhaps primeval? Why should they care if the wife of our Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wants to build an official residence there and destroy the only juniper preserve in Russia? These people . . . this is yet another confirmation that people in our country have lost the sense that this country belongs to us, its citizens. They no longer have a sense of themselves as citizens

And even though it hasn’t been very long, now people are acting as if there was never any Great Terror nor any attempts to resist it. I believe that we are being accused by people without memory. Many of them have said, “He is possessed by a demon and insane. Why do you listen to Him?” These words belong to the Jews who accused Jesus Christ of blasphemy. They said, “We are . . . stoning you . . . for blasphemy.” [John 10:33] Interestingly enough, it is precisely this verse that the Russian Orthodox Church uses to express its opinion about blasphemy.

Because all you can deprive me of is “so-called” freedom. This is the only kind that exists in Russia. But nobody can take away my inner freedom. It lives in the Word, it will go on living thanks to openness [glasnost], when this will be read and heard by thousands of people. This freedom goes on living with every person who is not indifferent, who hears us in this country.

-Maria Alyokhina



That Christ the Savior Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of the authorities was clear to many thinking people when Vladimir Putin’s former [KGB] colleague Kirill Gundyayev took over as leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. After this happened, Christ the Savior Cathedral began to be openly used as a flashy backdrop for the politics of the security forces, which are the main source of political power in Russia.

Our sudden musical appearance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior with the song “Mother of God, Drive Putin Out” violated the integrity of the media image that the authorities had spent such a long time generating and maintaining, and revealed its falsity. In our performance we dared, without the Patriarch’s blessing, to unite the visual imagery of Orthodox culture with that of protest culture, thus suggesting that Orthodox culture belongs not only to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch, and Putin, but that it could also ally itself with civic rebellion and the spirit of protest in Russia.

I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. The whole world now sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated. The system cannot conceal the repressive nature of this trial. Once again, the world sees Russia differently than the way Putin tries to present it at his daily international meetings.

- Yekaterina Samutsevich

40 seconds that changed Russia. Who among us has done as much? Let's stop thinking of what we can't do and start thinking of what we can do. Returning to my freeway blogging roots during the Bush regime, I mean to pay homage to an act of freedom, an act of humanity, an act of love. While many of us think we're "smart" playing it safe, we do in fact become helpless pawns and fools of those who would destroy us.

Americans too have a short memory. How quickly we forget we were founded by men who vowed, "Give me liberty or give me death." Now we are fat and lazy, jeering and chiding these souls. Unrealistic. Radical. Hooligans. But the true hooligans are the ones who keep quiet, refusing to shine their light. Where is the hope in that?

Blessed are those who are persecuted

because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

Two Men Chained Together Discuss Jumping Off A Cliff

Dude, we jump off this cliff we're going to die!

See, that's the sort of negative crap I don't need to hear. Tell me a funny story instead.

Love to - just as soon as you stop considering jumping off.

There you go again! Always harping about jumping off and we're all going to die and boo-hoo! You're just guessing, anyway.

Those are sharp, jagged rocks waiting to mangle us. Just look and see!

Why should I look when I can disparage you instead? Like you are the Decider Of Reality or something. Besides, there's a new Angry Birds version out.

Just look, that's all I'm asking! Don't take my word for it. Look and you'll see we'll die.

Oh, pooh-pooh. Like you know anything! How do you know we'll die? Are you a frickin' scientist?

I don't have to be a scientist to know this.

Oh, how convenient! Just make up facts. If you don't know everything then you don't know anything.

Do you want to win the argument or win your life?

The argument is my life! Besides, there's nothing we can't do if we set our minds to it. We'll be just fine jumping off.

Don't you have any more faith in life that that??

All I know is you're just trying to make me feel bad and distract me from my smart phone - something I care about. Your frickin' philosophy don't mean jack to me.

Look, we need to get down there but we're going to have to take the long rocky road back down. It's the only way!

More philosophy...

You're impossible!

I'm winning! I just read an online poll where 85% of people agree with me. Dude, you're in trouble now!

"Dear God, can I please chain You to this self-absorbed idiot detached from reality whom You've deemed to bind my life to? Can you please put my life in my own hands?"

There is no God, dummy.

Spare me your philosophy.

It's not philosophy! I'm a realist, you douche.

Oh, like you're the Decider Of Reality or something.

You know what, man, you live in fucking fantasy land! You just tell yourself whatever lies make you feel good regardless of the consequences to anyone else. You're a freaking nightmare to live with!

HAHAHAHAHA!

What's so damn funny?

I was holding up a mirror just then. It was yourself you were speaking to! Too funny! HAHAHAHA!

Then a shot rang out in the Memphis sky, one man dead, the other still vowing to jump.

After all, if I don't jump now after all I've said and done I'll look like an idiot. No way am I backing down so people can make fun of me for the rest of my life! I am a person of conviction, that's all that matters! Hallowed be my name!

And then there were none.

********************************************

Mankind's first banker

Economist Richard Duncan: Civilization May Not Survive 'Death Spiral'

Richard Duncan, formerly of the World Bank and chief economist at Blackhorse Asset Mgmt., says America's $16 trillion federal debt has escalated into a "death spiral," as he told CNBC.

And it could result in a depression so severe that he doesn't "think our civilization could survive it."

And Duncan is not alone in warning that the U.S. economy may go into a "death spiral."

Since the recession, noted economists including Laurence Kotlikoff, a former member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, have come to similar conclusions.

Kotlikoff estimates the true fiscal gap is $211 trillion when unfunded entitlements like Social Security and Medicare are included.

However, while the debt crisis numbers are well known to most Americans, the economy hasn't suffered a major correction for almost 4 years.

So the questions remain: Is the threat of collapse for real? And if so, when?

A team of scientists, economists, and geopolitical analysts believes they have proof that the threat is indeed real - and the danger imminent.

One member of this team, Chris Martenson, a pathologist and former VP of a Fortune 300 company, explains their findings:

"We found an identical pattern in our debt, total credit market, and money supply that guarantees they're going to fail. This pattern is nearly the same as in any pyramid scheme, one that escalates exponentially fast before it collapses. Governments around the globe are chiefly responsible.

Your average voter

"And what's really disturbing about these findings is that the pattern isn't limited to our economy. We found the same catastrophic pattern in our energy, food, and water systems as well."

According to Martenson: "These systems could all implode at the same time. Food, water, energy, money. Everything."

Another member of this team, Keith Fitz-Gerald, the president of The Fitz-Gerald Group, went on to explain their discoveries.

"What this pattern represents is a dangerous countdown clock that's quickly approaching zero. And when it does, the resulting chaos is going to crush Americans," Fitz-Gerald says.

Dr. Kent Moors, an adviser to 16 world governments on energy issues as well as a member of two U.S. State Department task forces on energy also voiced concerns over what he and his colleagues uncovered.

"Most frightening of all is how this exact same pattern keeps appearing in virtually every system critical to our society and way of life," Dr. Moors stated.

********************************************

You're going to miss this guy!

Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you.  For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.  You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.  At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,  and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.  Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,  but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel — let the reader understand —  then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.  Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house.  Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak.  How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!  Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.  For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.

“If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.  At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.  For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.  See, I have told you ahead of time.

“So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

“Immediately after the distress of those days

“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’

“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Turn it up! (uh, literally)

Goupil: Ex Assassin On The Run

[Disillusioned assassin Goupil has laid down his gun only to find himself now the target. Having escaped one close call, he wonders if a free life is still possible for him, or must he pay the ultimate price...]

The agency! It was the agency after me. No wonder they didn't shoot up the place. Fuckers are always too worried about hiding their tracks from the 'good American people'. But goddam, why are they after me?

Goupil put down his (unattached) long range scope and settled back into his hiding spot in the hedge, his head spinning a million miles per hour. The federal car he'd spotted with its telltale five inch antenna surveilling his (now blown) childhood home was as obvious a sign as neon in the night.

No wonder they found my house, it's the fucking government. I knew I hadn't blown this location! It's starting to make sense now. But why? Why?? Does this all lead back to the botched Russian job? The whole Viktor Bout thing has been resolved. It's a done deal...

International arms dealer Viktor Bout, aka the Merchant Of Death, had been arrested, properly vilified, and convicted for all the world to see. But what Goupil knew from his aborted job for the Russian mob was the secret dirty deeds Bout had done for the Western powers. When he found out his target was a visiting American Senator as part of a Russian cover-up, Goupil knew he'd be Oswald-ed after the fact. No wonder the scumbag Russians took him in when no one else would...

Is that it? Am I a loose end to be cleaned up? Just doesn't make any sense. True, the guilty mind sees danger where there is none...or maybe my former employers are getting the government to do their job for them...God knows what lies they told the Feds. I ended up sabotaging that Senator's deal so what proof could I even offer...or maybe that wasn't the only deal...shit! shit!

Russian gesture meaning, "In your dreams you're mine"

Goupil hated being in the dark. Proper intel is the key to any job, whether it's killing or staying alive. If only his pursuers knew Goupil's own reasons for wanting to deny any and all facts of his time in Russia. That cesspool of a nation had stained him, he barely getting out with his soul. Truth was, part of him was still back there, eating him alive and confronting that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Even now, hiding in the sunshine of his boyhood neighborhood, the Ukrainian Woman whispered in his hear. She who knew more than all the men in the world combined. She could start a war or stop one with her ancient, smoky eyes that pierced even the most unspoken of hidden dreams. She could turn husbands into adulterers, family men into orphans and lonely men into slaves. And God knows she did all three.

Goupil had survived her test - but not without lingering wounds that could kill him yet. That face! A face he'd always known but never seen, she a dormant fantasy awakened from his birth. Pure desire. Whatever secret cages keep you from living she holds the key. Her soul was penetrating, needing no explanations. She just knew. And you, you give your hand in helpless surrender to be pulled from the raging fires.

Goupil's keen sense of danger immediately alerted him in the techno light hell of the Russian bar. "She's reading my mind!" Like most lives, his was fantasy parched, rotting in denial. She was the chance to rectify that forever. Not caring if it was a trap, he followed when her siren voice simply commanded, "Come."

He followed her to a back room, metallic and graffiti'd, the music of the main room reduced to pounding bass beats. Following them both was a large, strapping young man matching her in age. Goupil pegged him as a sexual creature too - the pair an elite two of a kind. But he knew whatever he got to do with her he would do regardless of who was in the room. Chances to step out of hell are few and far between. By the time they had reached their rendezvous, Goupil was a heaving mound of desire.

Then she spoke.

"Alex, go ahead and take it out for him."

Her male friend undid his leather pants to reveal a thick, taut penis - an obvious, happy friend of hers. She looked back at Goupil.

"You want to please me, yes? This is what I want. Can you give me what I want?"

She wanted him on his knees, servicing that cock as she watched with approving eyes. Many men had not hesitated, eagerly performing for her - and the hidden camera. Some verbally refused only to later surrender, some stayed silent like Goupil. None had outright left. She picked her clients too well.

"Please, I wish it." And with the promise of her exquisite curves, she lifted up her leg on a chair to reveal that to touch her was to change your life. She ordered in a whisper, "Do this for me." And Goupil's loins stirred.

Back, way back, and backwards further his soul traveled. Before the Lockhart Plot (his previous time in Russia, as Reilly), the Napoleonic Wars, the centuries in rising Japan, the Dark Age nightmare forests of the Ardennes, the sunshine of the Christ, the magic of the prophets, the awakening of the Exodus, the unrestrained looseness of Sodom and Gomorrah or the finding of the Great Truth by Abraham, the first and greatest scientist. There was the time of Eden, when anything was possible. She too had rare consciousness of the timeless Inner Dream Of Man - and she used that power for her own ends.

Goupil shivered as she placed her hands upon his head, moving him closer. "Just lick it," she purred. All he had to do was give in just this once. He'd done such an awful job running his life, why not let her do it? To climb those legs to her mountain of joy! She knows I'm dying, I must be set free. Fuck her, fuck me, fuck life, fuck everything. He knew there had to be a better way of living. Maybe this was the alchemist's answer of lust into love.

But it wasn't. Abraham gave into Love, not to the world's most tempting seductress. So yes, give in, but not now, not like this. His continuing hesitation drew her ire.

"Awk, you are afraid man! I am too much woman for you. You think you won't be man anymore you don't suck that cock? Real man not care. He suck cock and still be a man. Why are you waiting?"

Instinctively, Goupil knew that to speak was to die. She'd wrap his words around him and he'd have no choice but to submit as she took the reins. Yes, she was an old soul. But Goupil was even older, here not just from this age but from times before, knowing the songs of the Spirit Beings. Only by that slim margin did he survive her. Later, when he found out her connection to the Russian mob, her spell lessened. They used her for blackmail mostly, but also to weaken the minds of those they did business with - like Goupil.

Still, she had shamed him in his hesitation. She knew the achings in the souls of the assassins, politicians (the most eager cocksuckers by far) and other low-lifes who paraded through that bar yearning for excitement. And sometimes still in his pain, he'd give in to her in his imagination, just for the chance to safely feel her. Yes, Goupil would dearly pay to rid himself of the memories of his time in Russia, a depraved country revealing his own depravity. How to start over? How far from home was he?

Boisterous voices startled Goupil deeper into the prickly hedge. Ah, only a pair of teenage girls rushing out into their backyard to play in the sprinkler. Through the fence he could see their barely worn bikinis on their lithe bodies, unaware of the power they held. The girls' innocent sexuality was too much for the pressurized man on the run. Goupil unbuckled himself in high fever, damning all consequences, silently pleading to the girls.

Help me. Please help me...help me...please help me...

After he climaxed his survival instincts kicked back in, berating himself as he slid his way back to his anonymous white car. If you'd been caught just then you'd be arrested and branded a sexual predator for life. They show no mercy when hiding their lies!! You know that! But Goupil had always had a need for danger and of exposing his sorrowful state. He sped away in blind fear never knowing the girls' father masturbated at night to hardcore porn and taught Sunday School to their classmates to make up for it - a true sexual predator.



Goupil questioned the wisdom of continuing on. Maybe he'd dug his hole too deep. With all the tracking resources of the Feds, that's a hard hand to beat. A home - in any sense of the word - he did not have. He'd failed in love before. What was left? Previously, he'd always had The Job to give him direction - or more accurately, to distract him. Now he didn't even have that. Just emptiness. Vast, endless swaths of emptiness stretching out for eternity.

What treasures in life had he refused now lost forever?