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This is a work of creativity. As such, you may see words, concepts, scenes, actions, behaviors, pictures, implements, and people that may or may not be socially acceptable and/or offensive. If you are sensitive to adverse and alternative subject matter of any kind, please do not proceed, because I guarantee you'll find it here. You have been warned. Read at your own risk.
I do not own Fifty Shades Trilogy, or the characters. They belong to E. L. James. I am only exercising my right to exploit, abuse, and mangle the characters to MY discretion in MY story in MY interpretation as a fan. If something that I say displeases you, please, just leave. If you don't like this story or me, please don't spoil this experience for everyone. Just go away. For the rest of you, the saga continues…
Chapter 30—It's A Wrap
"There was a baby?" Oh, good Lord. She was pregnant? With the child of her rapist?
"Yes, there was," she says softly.
"What happened to the child? Did you give it up for adoption?" I ask.
"No, I…" Did she abort it? I wouldn't have blamed her. "… I lost it… in the beating." Oh, God.
"Ana, I'm so sorry," I say, pulling her into my arms.
"It's okay. Really. I didn't know that I was pregnant… until after I had lost the baby. Even then, I couldn't feel sad. I mean, I feel bad for a poor, innocent child that was caught up in this, but I was only 15. I sure wasn't ready for a baby much less the child of the guy who raped me."
"That must have been so terrible for you… the whole ordeal. It must have been just awful." I embrace her.
"It was," she says. "Thank goodness for Ray or I probably would have been a basket case. At least the guardians did one thing right by letting me stay the summer with him. Anyway, shortly after that, I got on birth control… just in case…"
"… It ever happened again." I finish her sentence. She nods.
"I just wanted you to know. I wasn't on birth control waiting for the next lucky guy to… well, you know."
"I never thought that about you, Butterfly. Not once," I say. She leans in and kisses me softly, her hand gently stroking my cheek. I love the feel of her delicate skin on mine. She's breathtaking, and I'm a lucky bastard. I hear someone clear their throat and I look up to see Carrick standing over us.
"Hi, Dad," I say.
"Son," he greets, puffing on his pipe. "Everything's okay, I assume?"
"Yeah. Everything's fine." I smile at Butterfly.
"Good. Well, your mother has said that the two of you are not leaving until you get a full meal in you and since we have all missed lunch for a crazy woman's theatrics—her words, not mine—you are to march yourselves to the dining room right now for dinner," he says.
"Yes, Father," I reply in the mock obedient son's voice. I stand and extend my hand to Butterfly, helping her get to her feet.
"Good, I'll meet you back at the house." Carrick turns and walks ahead of us.
"Do you know why I call you Butterfly?" I ask, as I tuck her body under my arm.
"You already told me," she answers.
"Well, that's only part of it. That's not all of it." I clear my throat. "When Welch tied Anastasia Lambert to Anastasia Steele, there were pictures that came with the information."
"Pictures of what?"
"Not what… who. Pictures of you, after the attack." She freezes.
"I've… never seen them," she says, looking at me.
"I don't think you want to." She drops her head. "You were unrecognizable. I only knew it was you because of your hair." Her expression changes. I have to finish quickly, "You were black and blue… badly beaten. I didn't think anybody would be able to recover from that." I take her face in my hands. "But here you are. I remember holding up the picture for Welch to see, asking him if he knew that kid became a psychiatrist. I remember thinking that you took a huge negative and turned it into a positive. You took a terrible situation and used it as a reason to help others. Few people come out of something like that with at least enough insight to move on with their lives. You came out of it with so much more." I kiss her gently on her lips. She looks up at me through her lashes. "You were terribly brutalized and except for the cruel scar on your back, you came out of it physically perfect. And the person inside is spectacular. The caterpillar became a butterfly." She stares at me.
"Christian," she breathes, "That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."
"I want you to know that I understand your pain, and that I love you—not in spite of it, but because of it. Because you persevered through it, I was given my Butterfly."
I can tell that she wants to cry, but instead, she kisses me—very deeply—such that I feel all the love inside of her. I gather her into my arms and devour her searing kisses. I pull myself away from her before I reach the point of no return. "Carrick is going to come back out here any minute and I'm going to have the world's largest boner if we don't stop." She laughs at me and slaps my arm, running in front of me back to the house. I chase her playfully and catch her when we get to the French doors. We enter the house giggling and both stop in our tracks when we're greeted by a sneering Katherine Kavanaugh standing alone in the foyer near the great room. Butterfly stands face-to-face with her.
"If you have anything to say to me, you say it now—woman to woman, while we're looking one another in the eye—because if you can't say it now, don't you dare say anything to me later. You keep all your little snide, underhanded, under-your-breath, catty, childish remarks to yourself! For God only knows what reason, you don't like me and make no mistake—I sure as hell don't like you. So, since we understand one another, why don't we just agree to ignore and stay the fuck away from each other?" She barks at Kavanaugh, still matching her glare.
There's enough animosity between these two to keep them standing here all night. I take Butterfly's hand and lead her into the great room towards the kitchen and away from the dragon lady. "Come, my love. We'll send Elliot back for that." She's still glaring at Kavanaugh, who matches her stare as I lead Butterfly away.
"I swear, I'm going to slap her again if she says anything to me, Christian." Hold up… what was that?
"You slapped her?" I ask, pausing at the kitchen door.
"Slapped the damn taste out of her mouth," she says flatly.
"When? Where was I?" I ask, nearly dumbfounded.
"I think you were in the tree-house—or maybe headed in that direction."
"Damn, I hate that I missed that." I open the door for Butterfly and we proceed through the kitchen to the dining room where the rest of the family is waiting.
"Christian, dear. Are you okay?" My mom comes rushing to my side. I don't know how she can even stand to look at me right now. She takes my hand and presses it hard against her cheek. This is the only affection I could stand from my mother—my savior—for many years, but now Butterfly has opened the floodgates… and I really need my mom. I open my arms and gently gather her close to me, smelling her hair and feeling a real mommy hug.
"I'm so sorry, Mom." I say, trying to hide my shame-filled face in her hair.
"No, son, it's not your fault." I can hear the tears in her voice. "We're going to get through this just fine, okay?" I pull her back to see her eyes smiling at me.
"Okay, Mom," I say, my voice betraying me just a bit.
"What did you do to him?" Elliot says softly while we watch Christian and Grace's exchange. I shrug,
"What do you mean?" I ask, bewildered.
"Well, you saw what happened when Morcreeptia touched him last night. He freaked out. He's been that way his whole life. And now…" He gestures towards his mother and his brother.
"Um… well… I don't know really. We understand each other, I guess, and that's making it a little easier for him to open up… on his own terms, of course. I'm sure even though the rest of us may not understand it, you have some kind of similar connection with Kate." His shoulders fall when I say that. Uh oh, wrong move, Steele.
"We used to," he says. "When I first met Kate, she was a wonderful girl. Vibrant, friendly, and tenacious as hell." He laughs in nostalgia. "I don't know what happened. I don't know what changed. Just out of nowhere, she started to become… bitchy! I keep hoping that this will pass and I'll get my Kate back, but it's just getting worse and worse."
"Is that why she's standing out in the foyer by herself?" I ask.
"Pretty much," Elliot responds, putting his hand on the back of his neck. "I told her that I was coming in here to have dinner with my family and that if she could not apologize to my mother and to you for the way she's been behaving that she couldn't come in here." I can see the conflict in his face. "My family nearly self-destructed today, and all she could do was throw snarky remarks about kinky sex. My sister attacked Madam LaCreep, my mother slapped her… hell, even you knocked on her ass last night! What did Kate do? What has she done the entire time that she's been here?" He rubs his neck again. "Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life? Because if it is, I don't think I can do it." He drops his head. I look up to see Christian spying us curiously. I subtly gesture for him to come over to us as it appears that his brother may have an emotional breakdown in any second. He raises his eyebrows and comes over to join us.
"Elliot? You okay, man?" Christian says to his brother. Elliot straightens up.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. I just need some air," Elliot says, brushing off his sleeves. "You got a good one here, man. Don't let her go," he says, smiling at Christian, then he turns to me. "Ana Montana… don't ever change." I can see the pain in his eyes before he excuses himself and escapes to the patio. I feel horrible for him. I look up at Christian's questioning eyes.
"He's in love with her," I say, sadly.
"I know," Christian responds. "But there's something else going on there, too, I think."
"I think so, too, but he's hurting. He can't take her behavior much longer. I think you're seeing the end of this engagement if Ms. Kavanaugh doesn't get her act together…" I fold my arms and lean up against the wall. "… And no doubt that will be my fault, too!" I snap.
"What do you mean your fault, too?" he asks.
"Well, that crazy pedophile is convinced that all of this is because of me! She's totally delusional! She can't see her wrongs if her life depended on it… and she never will. Now I've got this vicious, fire-breathing dragon standing out in the foyer, and no doubt when her life falls apart, it'll have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that she's a vapid narcissist. It will all be because I showed up at your parents' house last night and turned everybody against her!" I throw my hands up in the air.
"And if that's what she thinks, then that's her problem!" Grace says coming over to me and putting her arm around me to lead me to a chair at the table. "At some point, people have to take responsibility for their own actions. And if Katherine is unable to do that, then it'll cost her dearly and she'll have no one to blame but herself." I sit in the seat nearest to Grace where Mia normally sits.
"Mia…?" I say as she surrenders her seat to me.
"It's okay, Anakins. We're all at the same table, right?" she says with an exuberance that shows no indication whatsoever that she was just in a huge catfight a few hours earlier with the stank-ass, slutty, nasty, filthy, slimy, Pedo-Bitch She-Thing demon from hell.
"I'll go get Elliot," Carrick says as he heads towards the patio.
A few minutes later, dinner is served and Elliot manages to pull himself together and join us. I feel terrible for him and what he's going through with Kate. It's not my place to say that she doesn't deserve him… but hell, she doesn't deserve him! He's funny, attractive, and he has a kind heart. She's vicious, malicious, and snobby. Two people couldn't be more opposite.
"So, what do we plan to do about Mrs. Lincoln?" Carrick says, as bitter-pill-swallowing Liona serves after-dinner coffee. "You know as well as I do that woman won't go down quietly. Remember the divorce?" He whistles. "She didn't have a leg to stand on and she was still kicking and screaming."
"I don't know, Cary," Grace says. "How many other children have been victimized by this woman? There's absolutely no way to tell unless they are willing to come forth."
"That's not likely to happen," Christian says. "Don't hate me, Mom, but you never would have known if I didn't think someone else would have told you first." Kate immediately comes to mind, standing in the foyer like an idiot, waiting for Elliot to change his mind and go rescue her. "If I had my way, this would have been my own dirty little secret to take to my grave and you never would have been exposed to it," he adds.
"… And mine," I add meekly. He squeezes my hand.
"And yours," he says, kissing my hand. "In fact, you can thank Ana for convincing me to tell you," he says with a smile that Grace mirrors.
"And Kate," Elliot spits under his breath. Grace turns to him.
"Katherine knew about this!?" Grace asks in horror.
"No, but Kate knew something was up, she just didn't know what," Elliot clarifies. Grace still looks a bit confused.
"She heard Christian and me talking on the patio earlier this morning after breakfast about telling you the whole story. Since she obviously loves me so much," I add sarcastically, "she warned me about the dangers of a Grey family scandal being released into the media."
"So, in other words, she threatened you," Grace says, distastefully.
"Yes, precisely, but not really. She had threatened me earlier in the conversation. When that attempt failed miserably, she took to threatening Christian. That's what the media comment was—a threat against Christian." Grace face becomes stony as she turns to Elliot.
"Elliot…" she says in a warning tone.
"I know, Mom," he says, defeated. I can tell by his tone that the deed is already done even though he has not yet spoken to Ms. Kavanaugh. I take Christian's hand. I can't imagine us having been together for so long and then having to break up for an obvious personality flaw. He squeezes my hand in return.
"Is there anything we can do, Elliot?" I say, knowing the answer but feeling completely helpless. Elliot looks up at me.
"She's smart, too, huh, Bro?" he says with a pained smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "No offense, Chris, but I wish I had met someone like her instead of…" and he trails off. How can you possibly say that you wish you had never met the woman with whom you have fallen in love? Elliot rises from the table without a word this time and disappears through the kitchen—no doubt in search of the absent Katherine Kavanaugh. I shake my head once he's out of the room.
"It's amazing to me that she would rather stay out there in exile than to come in here and apologize," I say before taking a sip of my coffee.
"He's right, though," Mia says. "Kate used to be really nice. We used to go shopping together—clubbing occasionally. We were friends before she and Elliot even started dating, because of Ethan. I wanted her to meet my brothers so badly. I actually thought she'd be better for Cwis…"
"Oh, no you didn't!" Christian states sternly. We all laugh.
"Well, Elliot was taken right away when she came to dinner that night. Remember, Mom? Dad kept singing 'Another One Bites the Dust.'" Grace and Mia laugh this time.
"Well, we all know that our boy Elliot did get around… before Kate, that is," Carrick defends.
"And after…" Christian says under his breath. Nobody hears him, but I do. I turn to Christian and he just shakes his head. I turn back to Grace.
"So, this is going to be his first real heartbreak," I point out. Grace exhales.
"I'm afraid so, dear," she says. I sigh.
"I wouldn't want to be him right now," I say.
"I don't know," Christian says. "I know it's going to be hard on him, but I don't think it's going to be as hard as everybody thinks it is. Last Thursday, Elliot was already eying up the daughters. I knew there was 'trouble in paradise' so to speak a long time ago."
"What do you mean?" Grace asks.
"I bought into this club downtown, the McElvoy. I went to check it out a few weeks ago, to see what the crowd was like—see if it was a worthy investment. Elliot went with me. Let's just say that he didn't lack company and I didn't see him for most of the night. He even found another way home, if you know what I mean," Christian says.
"Well, then why is he still with Katherine?" Carrick says. "The relationship is obviously in the crapper, and they haven't even set a date yet!"
"Your guess is as good as mine, Dad," Christian says before finishing his coffee.
"Well, I say good riddance to old rubbish!" Mia says.
"Mia!" Grace scolds.
"I'm sorry, Mom, but I don't like her. She's obviously putting Elliot through the ringer and she's rude to everybody she meets," Mia defends.
"She's clearly unhappy, dear, and her bad example is no reason for you to follow suit," Grace states. Mia shrugs.
"Well, she's not justified in taking her unhappiness out on everyone else, but you're right. I won't act like her. Heaven forbid!" She stands and walks over and kisses her mother. "I'm going to call Ethan. We're going apartment hunting tomorrow. Love you, Mom."
"I love you, too, darling," Grace says.
"We should probably be going, Christian. I do have patients in the morning," I say, rising from my seat. Christian reaches for Mia's hand to signal her to wait a moment.
"Yes, and I have a company to run," he says. I walk over to Grace, while he has a chat with Mia.
"I was interrupted earlier, Grace, but I was serious about wanting to do something with Helping Hands. I could work with some of the families or I could volunteer in whatever capacity you may need me. This is exactly the reason why I got my education. Will you please let me know?" I say to her. She embraces me warmly.
"I'm certain that we can use someone with your attitude, expertise, and enthusiasm. I'll give you a call this week?" she says.
"By all means, and thank you, Grace."
"No, dear," she says with tears in her eyes. "Thank you." She looks lovingly at Christian. I completely get the thrust of her statement. I squeeze her hand before letting go and walk over to Carrick.
"Thank you for having me, Carrick." I smile. He embraces me.
"It was wonderful meeting you, Ana. Maybe our next encounter won't be so tumultuous," he says facetiously.
"Here's hoping." I laugh. I turn and smile at Mia, who returns the gesture.
"I'll go get our things, baby." I call to Christian and he nods, still talking to his sister.
I go to his bedroom to gather our things. As I'm coming out of the room, Elliot meets me at the top of the stairs.
"I guess she's walking around the grounds somewhere. I can't find her," he says, sort of maudlin. I take his hand.
"Elliot, what do you want?" I ask.
"What do you mean?" He frowns.
"Do you want Kate?" I ask. His answer is too slow.
"I want to be happy," he replies.
"We all want to be happy, but when you see your happiness, do you see Kate?"
"I used to," he sighs, leaning against the banister, "but now… I don't know."
"Is this something that might be able to be saved?" He looks at me strangely.
"Are you her cheerleader now?" he says with a chuckle. "Team Katherine all of a sudden?"
"No," I say with a smile, "but I am Team Elliot," I reply. "You have to do what makes you happy, Elliot. No matter what your mom thinks, or your family, or your friends… or Katherine. You have to live with your decisions for as long as they affect you, and marriage affects you for the rest of your life… even if you get divorced."
"My brother has really found a great girl." He laughs. "Please don't hurt him, Ana Montana. He's had a rough time of it, and I've never seen him take to someone like he has taken to you. He's a different guy, and I can't stand to see him go back to who he was," Elliot says, his eyes pleading.
"There's no hope of that, Elliot," I say resting my hand on his shoulder. "I'm just as much of a goner as he is. I think we've both reached the point of no return." He smiles and pulls me into an embrace.
"Just be good to him, okay? I know he'll be good to you," he says in my ear before he releases me.
"He already is," I say with a shy smile. I reach into my purse and pull out my business card. I hand it to Elliot. "Will you call me if you need to talk? My office and cell numbers are there." He takes my card.
"Thanks, Ana. I will."
"Now I better go find my beloved before he comes looking for me." I giggle.
"Too late." I hear Christian's voice from somewhere at the bottom of the stairs. Christian rises to meet us. He immediately notices the look on Elliot's face.
"I'm going to go put these things in the car. Is it open?" I ask, trying to give him a moment with his brother.
"Yes, Butterfly. It's open." I smile at the use of my nickname in front of his brother and descend the stairs.
"Butterfly?" I hear Elliot ask.
"It's a long story… are you okay?" Christian asks as I walk through the foyer and out the front door.
I put our things in the trunk except for my purse and I hear a woman's voice off to the right of me near the other cars.
"I know, Roger, but there's nothing that I can do about it." The voice is full of longing and regret. "Yes, I do, too… I'll try to talk to you as soon as I can… I love you, too." I look up to see Katherine Kavanaugh ending a call with some mystery gentleman and walking towards the front of the house, still looking at her phone. I slam the trunk to make my presence known. She jumps from the sound and a look of utter terror comes over her.
"That's not what it sounded like," she says, terrified.
"Oh? What did it sound like?" I ask, impassively. She frantically searches for an explanation, confirming for me that it was exactly what it sounded like. "You know, Kate, I don't really care what it was," I say, throwing my hands up. She stops me with a desperation in her voice that I haven't heard from her before.
"You're not going to tell Elliot, are you?"
"It's not for me to tell Elliot. It's not my secret to tell. But I'm going to tell you something that I recently told someone very dear to me. Everything that you do in the dark will one day be brought to the light. Are you in love with someone else? Is that why you're so bitter with everybody?" I ask. She glares at me, then her gaze softens.
"You don't understand," she says, softly.
"You're right, I don't. You're miserable and you're making everyone else around you miserable. Is this why?" I ask fervently. I see her choking back tears.
Oh, shit. She's human and she's got feelings. Fuck!
I roll my eyes and snatch Katherine by the arm, dragging her away from the front door and surprise listeners.
"Kate, are you in love with someone else?" I whisper harshly. She nods and the tears start to fall. "Then why are you engaged to Elliot!?"
"I don't know how it happened. I love Elliot, too. I really do!" she protests.
"I believe you, but you can't have them both! Elliot deserves better than this, and quite frankly, so do you!" She glares at me disbelieving. "Yeah, I know. I hate to admit it, too!" I spit. She chuckles a bit through her tears.
Oh, hell, a sense of humor, too. Good grief. I sigh heavily.
"You're looking for perfection here with Elliot—the perfect guy, the perfect family, the perfect name—you're not going to find it, because it's not going to be the perfect life. You've got everybody thinking you're a bitch when really, you're just miserable, and you're making everyone around you miserable." She's weeping now. I ask her the same question that I asked Elliot. "What do you want, Kate?"
"I…I…" She stutters, but continues to cry. "What do I doooooo?" she keens.
"I don't know," I say truthfully. "You need to take some time for yourself and decide what you want. Because if it's Elliot, you're about to lose him." She looks up at me, horrified.
"What?" she says, surprised.
"Did you pay any attention whatsoever to what happened today?" I ask incredulously. "I mean I completely understand that you were distracted by all of the hoopla and whatnot, but this family went into thermonuclear meltdown today! Christian's been molested, Elliot was propositioned, Mia went ninja and attacked a crazy pedophile who had groomed them both, Grace went postal on you and the pedophile, and I'm sure Carrick has no fucking idea what to think right now. Here's where I fit in. I attacked the same pedophile last night for touching my man, obliterated her again today, brought Grace back from the cliff when she found out that her youngest son had been molested, was the catalyst for the first hug she had gotten from her son in 25 years, and slapped 'the bitch,'" I do the quotes with my fingers, "who had been antagonizing everybody for the last two days. Where do you fit in? You're 'the bitch!' How well do you think this fares for you?"
"I really fucked up, didn't I?" she says, still weeping.
"Uh… yeah!" I say, illustrating the obvious truth.
"Ana?" she says, her voice squeaking and heavy with pain. "I want Roger." She breaks down in completely uncontrolled sobs. I dig in my purse and locate tissue, which I hand to Kate.
"Are you absolutely sure about that?" I say, cautiously. She nods vigorously.
"I love Elliot, Ana. I really do. But I'm not in love with him. I'm in love with Roger," she confesses, trying to control her crying.
"Then why did you get engaged to Elliot?" I ask.
"For all the reasons you said, perfect family, perfect guy… he's wonderful! He's the total package, but everything had to be perfect. They had to like me, I had to be the favorite. I knew about the daughters. Elliot warned me almost right after we met."
"I wish Christian had warned me," I say almost as an afterthought. She chuckles as she wipes her tears.
Why couldn't I have met this Katherine? She's almost… pleasant.
"You were competition. That's how I saw you, too," she confesses. I look confused.
"I didn't want Elliot," I protest. "This is the first time I've ever met Elliot."
"It wasn't Elliot that I was concerned about. It was Grace, and Carrick, and even Mia… and yes, Elliot to a degree, but not like that." She shakes her head. "'The bitch,'" she mimics the quotes like I did, "managed to scare away all of the daughters. As far as I was concerned, you were another one of the daughters trying to weasel in where I was trying to get on Grace's good side." I hate to tell her that I from where I stand, she never had a chance of getting on Grace's good side even before today's episode.
"Why don't you like Christian?" I ask.
"He's too aloof. I couldn't break through his defenses no matter how hard I tried. The more I tried, the more he resented me. I just took it as he had a heart of stone and left him alone. We shared a mutual dislike and that was fine with me." She leaned against one of the parked cars. "And then you showed up on his arm, and that only meant one of two things—either he was trying to bring in some competition for Mommy's attention, or someone was able to melt the cold heart of Christian Grey. Either way, that was bad news for me." I'm surprised that she's being this candid with me. A few hours earlier, she wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire!
"You speak French, you're a doctor, everybody liked you immediately… at first, I just chalked it up to them being happy that Christian had brought a girl home. I quickly realized that it was much more than that and I quickly put operation 'scare the daughter away' into full effect… but you weren't one of the daughters." She has finally managed to pull herself together. "In another time, we may have been friends," she adds, sadly.
"Anastasia?" I hear Christian's voice calling me from the front of the house.
"He's going to turn into a bear if I don't show up soon," I say, and we start walking around to Christian's car.
"Listen," she stops me, "Girl to girl—and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to—it's easy to see that he's a dominant personality…" That's an understatement. "They say dominant personalities are fierce in bed. I don't want him, I've just been so curious—especially since he's so cold." Yesterday, I might have said, "Bitch, fuck you." But in light of her story and explanation, she's right… we could have been friends.
"There are no words," is all I say. Her mouth falls open.
"You're kidding!" she says incredulously. I immediately become flushed and hot thinking of my various trysts with Christian… the playroom, orgasm denial, Mistress…
"No, I'm not," I say, trying to control my breathing. I need to get this man home. I feel the need to be fucked!
"Well, well, well, who would've thought?" she says.
"I sure didn't. When I first met him, I thought he was deplorable. Gorgeous, but deplorable. He was cocky and haughty and condescending… it was awful!" I say, "But after a few weeks, he got under my skin… literally…" We laugh. "… And here we are."
"Do you think you'll marry him?" she asks. I never thought that far in advance. We're just starting out and still trying to work out our demons and our relationship.
"Well, we haven't gotten that far, yet," I say looking at my feet, "but I can't see myself without him," I add. She starts to play with her fingers.
"Yeah, that's how I feel about Roger," she says quietly, a little ashamed.
"But not Elliot?" I ask. She shakes her head without looking at me. "You have to tell him, Kate. You both deserve to have what you want in life, and he deserves to go and find the woman for him, even if it's not you."
"I know," she sighs. "I just really hate to hurt him."
"The lie will hurt him more. It'll hurt you both more," I say.
"Anastasia!?" He's getting more flustered.
"Here I come, baby!" I yell. "You need to talk to him, Kate." She nods. The tears starting anew in her eyes. I hand her another tissue just as Christian comes around the cars to our location.
"I've been calling you and calling you. Wher…" He stops cold at the sight of me standing there comforting a crying Katherine Kavanaugh. "Ana…?" I'm sure he doesn't know what to make of this. I look back over to Kate.
"You'll be okay?" I ask. She nods.
"I'll be fine," she says through her sniffles. "I need to go find Elliot." She gives me a tight smile, which I return. She turns to Christian and they face off for a moment.
"Kavanaugh," he says impassively.
"Christian," she says with a little warmth that seems to shock Christian a bit. She walks past him towards the front of the house.
"What was that all about?" he asks incredulously once Kate is out of sight.
"I have a feeling that you may find out in a couple of days." I say walking towards Christian.
"There's an old saying: Everything happens for a reason. My whole family came apart at the seams this weekend—including a harpy that I wouldn't consider my family just yet—and you were there holding everybody together… putting out fires, beating up pedophiles, taming harpies… How do you do it?" He asks. I shrug.
"I don't know, Christian. Half of the fires wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been here…" I say. Kind of self-deprecating, I know, but it is the truth. He tucks me under his arm and after we say additional goodbyes to his family, we head for home.
"You turned into a wildcat today," I say, hugging Mia close to me. It was one thing to see Ana fighting for me. It's quite another to see my normally-overly-bubbly little sister with a handful of flaxen blond hair in her fist.
"What she did to you was inexcusable, Cwis, and if I ever see her again, I'm going to fuck her up!" she spits. I kiss her on her forehead.
"Thank you, Meelo. I love you." I hear a sharp intake of air and her eyes fill with tears.
"I love you, too, Cwissy," she says as she hugs me around my waist and buries her head in my chest. This has never been new for me and Mia. She's the only one who has ever been able to touch me this way.
"Why are you crying?" I ask.
"You've never told me you loved me before. I always knew, but you never told me." She sniffs. I kiss her hair.
"Well, I do, and I'm sorry I've never said it before." She squeezes me tighter and we both watch as Butterfly leaves the room.
"She's good for you, Cwis," Mia says.
"Yes, she is."
"How did you meet her?"
"I have group therapy as part of my sentence… you remember, when that drunk driver hit my car?" She nods. "Ana was the facilitator."
"Isn't that unethical or something?" Mia asks.
"It would be if she was still the facilitator, or if she had any impact on the outcome. It turns out that I'm such an asshole that she quit." Mia gasps.
"You made her quit?" she says horrified.
"No," I defend. "I didn't make her quit… directly. She was tired of it anyway. If you think I'm a lost cause, you should see some of the people that go to community group therapy. Ugh!" I roll my eyes as we walk out to the great room. "Anyway, she wasn't happy with it, and Asshole Grey was just the last straw."
"So, you harassed her and then she left," Mia deduces.
"Yeah, kind of…" I say, ashamed. "But before she left, she publicly gave me a real piece of her mind. That's one woman you don't want to mess with. Let's just say you're not the first person to beat Elena's ass." Her mouth is agape.
"Little Ana?" she says in shock. I look around for signs of Butterfly.
"I've got video!" I whisper, and we both laugh aloud.
"I've got to see that!" she laughs.
"I'll show it to you one day, but it has to be a secret. She doesn't want anybody to see it."
"Okay," she nods. We embrace again and I go off to find my Butterfly.
As I approach the bottom of the stairs, I hear her having a conversation with Elliot. A small pang of jealousy runs through me as I think of how much of a man-whore Elliot is, but I know that he wouldn't stand a chance with my Butterfly. Plus, in his current state of mind, I doubt that he's even thinking that way.
"Do you want Kate?" I hear her ask him. The million-dollar question. Why all the gallivanting if you're supposed to be in love with la salope? After a long pause, he answers,
"I want to be happy."
"We all want to be happy, but when you see your happiness, do you see Kate?" Good question, Butterfly.
"I used to, but now… I don't know."
"Is this something that might be able to be saved?" What the hell? Let him get rid of La Méchante Sorcière de l'Ouest. I'd much rather he be a player than deal with her ass!
"Are you her cheerleader now? Team Katherine all of a sudden?"
"No, but I am Team Elliot. You have to do what makes you happy, Elliot. No matter what your mom thinks, or your family, or your friends… or Katherine. You have to live with your decisions for as long as they affect you, and marriage affects you for the rest of your life… even if you get divorced." Wow, she's good. Elliot is laughing. Why is Elliot laughing?
"My brother has really found a great girl." Damn straight. "Please don't hurt him, Ana Montana. He's had a rough time of it, and I've never seen him take to someone like he has taken to you. He's a different guy, and I can't stand to see him go back to who he was." Oh, good God, Elliot!
"There's no hope of that, Elliot. I'm just as much of a goner as he is. I think we've both reached the point of no return." As if I could love her any more than I already do…
"Just be good to him, okay? I know he'll be good to you." My brother says.
"He already is. Will you call me if you need to talk? My office and cell numbers are there." I'm assuming she gave him a business card. My Butterfly, always the professional—except when she's kicking somebody's ass.
"Thanks, Ana. I will."
"Now I better go find my beloved before he comes looking for me." I love her little giggle. Time to make my appearance.
"Too late," I say as I continue climbing the stairs. Elliot looks like he's been run over by a freight train.
"I'm going to go put these things in the car. Is it open?" Butterfly asks.
"Yes, Butterfly. It's open." She smiles and leaves me to talk to Elliot.
"Butterfly?" Elliot asks.
"It's a long story… are you okay?" I say. He sits down on the top stair.
"No, I'm not," he says, flatly. "I'm trying to figure out how to break my engagement with Kate." Oh, shit, this is serious.
"You know, Ana's right. No matter what any of us think, you have to do what makes you happy."
"That's just it! She doesn't make me happy anymore. We were fine until we got engaged. It was like the minute I put that ring on her finger a year ago, she changed! She was delighted, jumping out of her skin the night that I asked her to marry me. And then the next day, she turned into this bitter bitch! I don't know what happened. My Kate was gone and I haven't seen her since, and no matter how long I wait, I don't think she's coming back." His voice cracks on the last word. I sit down next to him.
"I'm sorry, Lelliot." I say. "I wish there was something I could say. You know I've never been particularly fond of her, but she made you happy and that's why I tolerated her," I say.
"Well, those days are gone, Chris," he says and I watch him quickly wipe a tear from his eye. "Maybe this is payback for all of those broken hearts I've left behind in my day."
"Oh, please don't say that. If that's true, I'm doomed!" I say shaking my head. Elliot looks at me questioning. "You know that lifestyle I just told you guys about?"
"A lot of women? They're into that kind of thing?" he asks incredulously.
"More than you know!" I respond. "But I couldn't very well bring them home to meet the folks now, could I?"
"Nope, I don't think that would've gone over very well with Grace and Carrick Grey," Elliot admits.
"I should say not," I rise from the stairs. "Listen, Ana has a whole slew of friends and they get together every weekend. Friday night, we had this thing called 'Food and Libations.' It's a dinner party that Ana throws for her friends where she cooks and they bring the drinks. Except for one particularly flirty slut I had to throw out of my apartment, they're a pretty laid-back group of people. I'm sure Ana wouldn't mind you joining us for our next get-together." Now he really looks at me like I'm an extra-terrestrial being.
"This from a guy who dragged me to a nightclub that he was planning to buy so that he wouldn't have to go by himself?" he asks, disbelieving.
"Elliot, I've lived in a cave for too long—mostly because of that sick ass pedophile. Ana's bringing me out, and I like it. I like it a lot. Plus… I love her, man."
"You love her!?" His mouth falls open.
"Yes, I do. So that's why I refuse to believe that your shit is coming back to bite you in the ass, because if it is, I'm done for." Elliot laughs at me.
"Man, I never thought the love bug would ever bite you!" he teases.
"That makes two of us," I concur.
"Is she high maintenance? She likes style, I see."
"If she is, I haven't seen it. She takes care of herself."
"Well, I like her. I know Mom and Dad likes her. Mia would steal her from you if she had a tendency towards women. I think Liona would like to see her on a slab, though." He laughs.
"Oh, you picked up on that, too, huh?" I say.
"Everybody did… loud and clear." He stands with me. "Don't worry about me, Bro. I'll be fine. I just have to do what I gotta do and take it like a man."
"Well, just keep this weekend open. I'll let you know what the plan is and you can decide if you want in, okay?" I reach out to shake his hand.
"Deal." He gives me a half-shake, half-embrace. "Now I better go find Kate before I discover that Ana Montana has her somewhere in a headlock." I laugh.
"Well, I know where 'Ana Montana' is. Good luck on finding Kate." I pat him on the back and go, once again, in search of my Butterfly.
What I find was enough to make the world shift on its axis. Ana is out by the parked cars comforting Kavanaugh, who is weeping quietly.
Am I in an alternate universe!?
"Kavanaugh," I say as she and Butterfly approach me. Tears or not, I'll rip you apart if you say the wrong thing.
"Christian," she replies softly as she walks away. Christian? What the fuck…?
"What was that all about?" I ask Butterfly. Has Kavanaugh had some sort of out-of-body experience?
"I have a feeling that you may find out in a couple of days," she says. Oh, you have no idea. I tell her how in awe of her I am for basically handling my entire family during this crisis, including Kavanaugh. She feels like most of it could have been averted if she hadn't been here. I beg to differ. Postponed, maybe, but not averted. Everything happens for a reason.
Butterfly is asleep before we get back to Escala. I didn't ask if we were coming back here or going to her place. I guess we had better get some kind of schedule going so that we know in advance what we plan to do. "Butterfly, we're here." I gently rouse her from her sleep. She stretches as much as the car will allow.
"What time is it?" she says, sleepily.
"It's only about 8 o'clock." She opens the door and steps out of the car.
"I need to call and check on Gary," she says, going towards the truck. I open the release and she begins to remove our clothing from last night.
"Here, I've got it, babe," I say taking the items from her. We walk to the elevator and she sleepily punches in the code to my penthouse. It gives me a strange feeling of warmth to watch her do that. The only other person outside of my staff to have my code before now was The Pedophile. I'm very happy to be done with her now. Seriously done with her ass!
"I'm going to go check some emails, make sure my business hasn't burned down in 24 hours," I tell Butterfly.
"Of course, you are," she says, with a smile. "I'm going to call Gary, then Al."
She goes off into my bedroom and I head into the study. As I suspected, there are several emails that mean nothing, including a few from The Pedophile before the blowup and nothing after. I delete those immediately and block her email address. I want absolutely nothing else to do with her. I regret signing the new contract with her now. Although I'm not a cruel, heartless bastard, what she did to my family today was completely inexcusable. Now, I want to pull my backing from her like I should have done in the first place. I'll talk to legal tomorrow to see if there's still something that I can do.
The email from Andrea makes me happy.
To: Christian Grey
Subject: Whitmore Phone Call
Date: Sunday, July 8, 2012, 09:32
From: Andrea Fairchild
I'm sorry to bother you on the weekend, Mr. Grey. Amber Whitmore's assistant has scheduled you for a phone interview tomorrow at 11:00am EST (8:00am PST). She has apparently done her homework and knows who you are. She tried to ascertain the reason for the phone call. I think curiosity is killing them, so you have carte blanche for subject matter.
Andrea Fairchild, Personal Assistant to Christian Grey, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc
Outstanding! We can finally get this ball rolling a bit and maybe eliminate some of this damn speculation. I don't need an appointment to speak to Landon, so I'll call him after I get some information from his sister. That'll be two birds down tomorrow. I'll make a visit to Noticon on Tuesday to intimidate… I mean interrogate Mr. Billings.
Another email from Welch catches my eye. The subject simply says, "Got her." I open the attachment to see that Welch—or somebody—stopped only just short of climbing the tree outside of the Pedophile's bedroom window to get the goods on her. There are pictures of her in her Ashton Martin in the same clothes that she was wearing today with a teenage boy. They're shopping and subsequently end up at her Kirkland estate. The boy looks familiar, but I can't really place him. It's Sunday night, and although I'm anxious, this is not an emergency. So, I respond to Welch to have a full report ready for me on the matter tomorrow morning. Fuck pulling my support. If she's still fucking young boys, I'm taking her down.
I fire off a few emails to legal to see if the new agreement has been filed with the proper agencies. I also forward a few to Ros concerning some business ventures we've been pursuing. I've also decided that I'm going to make a trip to Green Valley next week. I'll need to talk to Cynthia Crestwood, this cop George Sullivan, Stephen Morton if I can get to him—or maybe Carla, whichever one is more easily accessible. I fire off another email to Welch. I need one of our people down there tomorrow checking things out before I go down there myself. I need to know the Mortons' habits as well as Cynthia Crestwood's. I need information on Whitmore's business and the one junior Whitmore still in Green Valley—Cody. I inform Welch to get me any information on this Carly Madison that was supposed to marry young Mr. Whitmore. I also want a copy of the yearbook from 2001 for Green Valley High School. I'll harass those snobby stuck up bastards one by one if it means I'll get to the bottom of what happened to Butterfly. Once I have this information in tow, I'll be able to determine how many days it takes to question the suspects. Some things, your security staff can handle. Other things are more delicate and you have to handle them on your own.
I can think of one of those things right now.
Two hours after disappearing into my study, I emerge in search of the one thing that can quench this hunger inside me. I find her lying on my bed talking to Allen wearing a black satin sleep shirt. I stand there in the doorway watching her as she lays across my bed, her legs bent like a teenager talking on the phone to one of her girlfriends. I can hear that she's about to end the call with Allen and I creep silently into the bedroom and grab her feet. She yelps and drops her iPhone just after hanging up from Allen.
"Christian! What are you doing?" she squeals in surprise. No time for talking, baby. I'm on a mission. I suck her toes into my mouth one by one as she protests momentarily, then gives in to my whim when I graze them with my teeth. I flip her over so that she is now face up on my bed. Her hair is messy and lying on the bed, a few locks across her face in a sexy, fuck-me-within-an-inch-of-my-life kind of way, but that's not what I want now. I hunger, and I need to taste her… everywhere.
I start at her feet again and move up to her calves, savoring the flavor of her skin as I go. I move to that tender spot behind the knees, licking lavishly. "Christian!" she exclaims again as she squirms from my mouth. I say nothing, but look at her in a way that demands she keep still. Reading my look, she settles as I return to the sensitive flesh behind her knees and she mewls while gripping the duvet. I move up to her thighs, the tops and then the soft meat in the creases. I know how this drives her crazy and I'm enjoying the taste of her, smelling her arousal, so close to the promised land yet so far away. I look up at the valley between her gorgeous legs.
No panties—oh, joy!
I torment her creases a few moments more, then blow gently on her delicious fruit, beckoning me to feast on its delicacy… not yet. Soon, but not yet. Though she tries not to, she writhes under the titillating burst of air that teases her core.
"Christian…" she whimpers, weakening due to the slowness of the feast I'm enjoying. I move up to her pelvic bone, licking and kissing the skin where she has a light dusting of pubic hair. I like it. It's soft and rough against my tongue at the same time. I push her nightshirt up to expose her hips… her stomach… just below her beautiful breasts. I kiss each destination reverently, nipping the roundness of her hips, licking her navel, and tasting mouthfuls of her abdomen. The sheen of sweat has formed on her body and I know that my oral bath is enough to almost send her over the edge.
Almost… but not yet.
I grab her breasts with both hands on top of the nightshirt, massaging her perfect mounds through the satin. She pushes her bosom into my hands as my mouth tastes the delicious meat just at the base of her breasts. Her nipples harden in my palms as her chest rises and falls faster in anticipation. I allow her to grasp my hair for a few moments before I grab her wrists and pin them to the sides of her. Using my teeth, I move the satin nightshirt further up exposing her tantalizing breasts—her nipples standing straight up and begging for attention. We both moan contentedly as I take one in my mouth, sucking, biting, and licking hungrily. She struggles to get free; I know that the manipulation of her nipples is almost as sensual as the manipulation of her core.
"Oh, Christian…" she whines, when she realizes that escape is impossible. I shift to her neglected breast, showing her left nipple the same attention as the right. When she is writhing uncontrollably, I stop my torment long enough to gently kiss the palms of her hands and then remove her nightshirt completely. She looks glorious lying beneath me, completely naked and panting for me. I take her mouth with mine, again relishing the irresistible flavor of her lips and tongue. She moans in my mouth, her now uninhibited hands fisting in my hair.
I'm not done tasting you yet, my delicious Butterfly.
I lift her slightly off the bed so that her head and hair fall back, giving me unhindered access to her earlobes, neck, and shoulders. She fights for air as I continue to devour her decadent skin. I lay her back on the bed as I remove my T-shirt and begin my journey back down her body to the wonderful prize waiting for me in the southern regions.
Not too fast, Grey.
I lick and nip the valley between her breasts and the meat on the side of each mound. I want to taste as much of her as I possibly can. I can't get enough of her. I travel down again past her abdomen, her pubic bone, torturing the skin in the crease of her thighs once more until at last I'm staring at her beautiful clitoris, visually pulsating between her folds. I lick gently and her whole body jumps. I lick again, watching the pulsating center throb with excitement. When I finally take her in my mouth, she cries out in ecstasy and I moan in utter satisfaction—finally able to taste her tender mound and erotic juices on my tongue.
"Oh my God, Christian!" she cries and I relentlessly devour her delicious center. Oh, she tastes so good, her smell is intoxicating—the perfect drug. I can't get enough. I insert my fingers into her core and her hips rise off the bed. "Aaahhh!" Her cries echo off the walls and fuel my hunger. I push my fingers in deep and bend them forward, massaging that magic place inside her vaginal walls and causing her juices to release and drip down my hands. I move my tongue just enough to lap up the escaping juices so that the flavor lingers on my tongue and in the back of my mouth. Mmmmm… essence of Anastasia.
"Christian! Fuck!" she screams.
She shamelessly grabs my hair and pushes my mouth down into her. She's primal now. I look up at her and her head is jolted back on the bed, her beautiful breast sitting high as a result of her arched back. She looks like a priceless work of art, molded by me. I throw her legs over my shoulders and I lick her folds one more time to savor her juices and elicit a long delightful moan from my delicious Butterfly. Finally, I slurp her tasty, throbbing clit into mouth, moaning my pleasure as I feel the most sensitive part of her pulsating in my mouth as I suck gently but deeply, pulling every bit of pleasure out of her that I can.
"Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!" she gasps between breaths, grinding salaciously against my tongue, lips, and fingers. Oh, yes, baby, fuck my mouth! That's right, baby. Give it to me.
My cock is throbbing painfully in my pants as this goddess rides my face with passion and vigor. I want her to come so hard that she sees stars. I want her pussy throbbing mercilessly when I slam my dick into her and fuck her until she comes all over again. I want her delicious juices dripping all over my fucking arm when I'm done with her.
"Oh God! Christian—stop!" she cries. She knows this is going to be huge and she's begging for mercy. No, baby. You have to give it to me. Come on, give me what I want.
"Christian, please!" she wails, her hips still hanging in the air. I put my free hand under her back to help support her weight, and to let her know that I have no intention of stopping.
Her cry is visceral. Her orgasm is cosmic. I almost lose my hold on her as she bucks violently against my mouth. I thought I was hurting her with the sounds that she's making, her head thrashing wildly and her hair flying in every direction until finally she collapses on the bed, her body convulsing almost violently and her legs shaking impulsively.
I can't get out of my clothes fast enough. I snatch this beautiful work of art, this exquisite, priceless sculpture off the bed and into my arms. I turn her around to face the head of the bed, both of us on our knees, her back to my front. I spread her legs wide and position myself at her still pulsating opening. I put my arms around her to hold her up and slam into her.
"Aaaaaaaaarghh!" she screams as I bury myself inside her. Fuck! She feels so good that she almost burns! The heat is so intense and my balls feel like they're going to explode. I hold her in place and bury my face in her hair, stroking her deeply over and over again. Her knees finally find strength and she matches my rhythm. Fucking hell—it's extreme! I reach up her body and take her breasts in my hands, her perfect breasts.
"Oh, baby," I moan. It's the first thing I've said since I came into the room. Her body needed silent worshiping, concentration, and reverence. Now, all of the words I have to tell her how much I want her are burning in my throat—too much to say but too heavy to contain.
"My God, you're so beautiful!" I proclaim. Her head has fallen back on my shoulder and she has given herself to me. "You're exquisite. Your body is perfect. Delicious, incredible, divine…"
She moves with sensuality, like my words are spurring her on. She feels so good. I don't want to come yet, but I can't stop.
"Oh, baby, you feel so good. You're irresistible… I can't get enough of you…" She moans passionately at my words and I can feel my release hiding just beyond my reach.
Not before her. Not before my Butterfly.
I run my hands up her beautiful, flawless body. I'm trying to touch her everywhere… her breasts, her stomach, her clit, her beautiful neck… I don't have enough hands to touch all the places on her body that I need to reach to bring her the unmatched pleasure that she brings to me. I close my eyes and pull her close to me, laying my head on her back as I try to climb into her—become one with her. "Oh, God, baby, you're too much for me. I don't think I can take it!"
Suddenly she grabs the headboard and pushes her hips back into me—hard! She is coming fantastically, squeezing my erection with her pussy and her thighs. Her walls feel like a vacuum pulling me mercilessly. Oh, Father in Heaven, I think I'm dying! I'm holding on to her viciously, afraid that I'll fall off into helpless oblivion if I let go.
My cry is loud and sorrowful—expressing the glorious explosive feeling she's eliciting from me as well as the anguish that it'll soon come to an end. My seed squirts heavily into her and I can feel each vein throbbing and emptying into her core, helplessly milked by her glorious quivering insides until my balls hang uselessly in my scrotum… empty.
Thank God she's on birth control, or something in this room would be pregnant tonight!
A/N: FYI – refresher: Ana told Maxie in chapter 9 that she lost the baby as a result of the beating.
La salope – the bitch
La Méchante Sorcière de l'Ouest—The Wicked Witch of the West
Queen – Another One Bites The Dust
There are a couple of pictures on Pinterest at http://www.pinterest.com/ladeeceo/paging-dr-steele/
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The internet was ablaze last week with the news that health authorities in Western Australia have given approval for IVF clinics to 'screen' embryos to reduce the chances of a couple having a child with autism. The Reproductive Technology Council will now allow certain women undergoing IVF treatment to be selectively implanted with female embryos only.
A former child protection worker in Victoria told ABC Radio Statewide Drive Victoria juvenile offenders convicted of violent sexual assaults have been housed in the same accommodation as children with severe intellectual disabilities.
The ACT Education Minister has admitted she made a mistake by re-tweeting a highly offensive message aimed at her federal counterpart during a row over schools funding.
With her grey hair and floral blouse she may look like a typical grandmother, but this elderly woman is a convicted drug dealer, guilty of selling cannabis from her eastern suburbs home.
I began my career at the age of 20, and as a young journalist I worked on countless stories about Aussie youth's battle with booze and drugs. Over the past decade this has ranged from injecting room trials to the alcopop tax and most recently the court cases for drunken king-hit killers.
A coalition of Quebec doctors has issued a warning that the Quebec government's proposed "medical aid in dying" legislation, known as Bill 52, opens the door for euthanizing children. "Québec's controversial bill on euthanasia does not limit its reach to the terminally ill," says Dr. Paul Saba, President of the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice. "If the bill is adopted, in addition to opening the door to offering euthanasia as an option for those not in the terminal phase of an illness, the door will be wide open to euthanize children and persons who are not able to give consent."
Police across Australia have contacted euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke over recent deaths involving items for sale at his new Adelaide-based clinic.Dr Nitschke, who founded voluntary euthanasia advocacy group Exit International, set up the clinic in suburban Adelaide last month.
The Greens are urging Labor to block Abbott government plans to repeal the Gillard government's poker machine reforms, warning that no future federal government will have the courage to tackle problem gambling.
Controversial punter Steve Fletcher received inside information from a former tennis professional to wager on a "rort in tennis" and a Victorian stablehand told him about an injury to a horse, explosive phone taps have revealed. A series of intercepted phone calls have been aired at the Police Integrity Commission, which is examining how Mr Fletcher, one of the nation's biggest gamblers, used the accounts of NSW police officers to disguise his betting activities.
Australian women are still being prescribed a contraceptive pill temporarily banned in France earlier this year, in breach of the advice of the medicines regulator.
A free speech reform backed by The Christian Institute is to become law on 1 February next year. From that date police will no longer be able to use Section 5 of the Public Order Act to arrest people just because others might find their words or behaviour "insulting".
The man charged with leading Tony Abbott's indigenous affairs shake up hopes to help reverse the trend of prime ministers leaving office regretting they didn't do enough for Australia's first people.
There are concerns in Tasmania about a growing number of indigenous women in the prison system. The Aboriginal community believes the cost of living is forcing more women to commit crimes, leaving their children vulnerable.
At the end of the High Court's hearing on the ACT's same sex marriage laws, a woman was looking for confirmation. "So that means it's still on?" "It" was the ceremony she had planned with her partner for this weekend in Canberra. The Chief Justice, Robert French, had just announced the court would hand down its ruling next Thursday, so the answer was yes. Whether their union will last more than five days is another question entirely. The hearing didn't even go the distance - it was slated for two days, but they were all done by 4.25 on Tuesday.
In 2008, Lauren Beth Czekala-Chatham and Dana Ann Melancon traveled from Mississippi to San Francisco for their dream wedding. A few short years later the dream dissolved and now Czekala-Chatham wants Mississippi to grant her a divorce. Small problem. Her home state doesn't recognize female marriage. No marriage, no divorce.
The Reverend Roger Munson sees nothing incompatible between the teachings of Jesus Christ and same-sex marriages. Christian church leaders remain at the forefront of organised opposition to the legalisation of same-sex marriage. But Mr Munson, a Canberra Uniting Church minister, is a registered celebrant under the ACT's marriage equality law and will preside at the wedding of a male couple this weekend.
The debt ceiling union between the Greens and the Coalition might make things awkward now, writes Annabel Crabb, but wait until July next year when the marital prospects in the Upper House get much, much broader.
Explosive allegations about former MP Craig Thomson's appetite for porn and prostitutes have been aired publicly for the first time including claims he spent almost $2500 on escorts in one night. Prosecutors finally started outlining their fraud case against Mr Thomson yesterday, detailing in court for the first time allegations he used $28,449 of union funds to pay for sexual services, R-Rated movies, cigarettes, and flights across the country.
The stream of Syrian refugees to neighboring countries shows no sign of abating. So far 200,000 have fled to Iraq alone. Aid agencies are working hard to help, but fear that a harsh winter will compound their problems.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, has told the ASSIST News Service that it is concerned for the welfare of twelve nuns and three young women who were taken away from their convent in a village 60 kilometers (about 37 miles) north of the Syrian capital Damascus by Islamist rebels on Monday, 2 December 2013.
Throughout the Middle East, notable individuals are converting to Christianity from Islam, but their stories, for obvious reasons, are seldom told. They actually face dramatic consequences and even death if they were to talk about their conversion. In Africa, to the consternation of some Muslim leaders, millions of Muslims are becoming Christians each year. In Europe, we tend to think only in terms of Christians becoming Muslims, but there is a strong movement in reverse as well. That is a story that does not make the headlines.
"Are you ready to die as a Christian?" asked Habila Adamu's AK-47-armed assailants from Nigeria's Boko Haram (BH) Islamist terrorist organization. During a recent visit to Washington, D.C., Adamu recounted surviving a massacre of Christians, in an effort to focus American attention on the bloody turmoil BH poses for Nigeria.
The Butterfly Foundation aims to bring to the forefront in a new competition called 'The Body Con'. Rather than just speaking out about the awfulness of body dissatisfaction and deadly conditions like anorexia sometimes associated with it, the Foundation wants help from society to turn the notion of an 'ideal body' on its head. They're calling for anyone - from university students to advertising agencies - to create a 30 second advertisement in any medium exposing the media's fraudulent representation of beauty. They want help challenging misguided beliefs regarding how we are 'supposed' to look and be.
We all know what the basic premise of plastic surgery is: to change your face. To look better, and to look more beautiful. Or, at last, to look more like whatever the definitions of those words are in your eyes. But for some people, looking 'better' and 'more beautiful' also means fulfilling a Westernised beauty ideal. For some, plastic surgery isn't just about changing your face – it's about changing your race.
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Today is the first day of the PageOne warehouse sales. I happily made my way there with a few friends to see if we can grab some good deals. Was so glad I did.
The first thing I saw when I arrived at the venue was a long line of people queueing to get in. But then again, with a discount of up to 90% off retail price, who isn't excited about it? While waiting for my turn to get in, I spotted something interesting.
Just as many people were busy fanning themselves with whatever they can find to fence off the heat, along comes help riding on a scooter. It's Ah Gong and Ah Ma to the rescue. Wohoo! I think I can faintly see a pair of wings flapping behind their back. Or am I just imagining things? That was such a timely arrival. They saved me from dehydration.
Was planning to grab some handicraft and computer books, but sadly did not manage to find any there. Maybe it was sold out before I arrived. Instead, I bought a lot of cookery books. Am so going to give them all to Jade. Think she know what I'm trying to hint from them. I'm such a gluttony. Not forgetting, I paid less than S$30 for all these babes.
There are still lots of good books round when I left. And I heard from the staffs that they will be constantly topping up the stocks. Do drop by to check out the deal if you are free. However, please take note that the last day of the warehouse sale is 02rd Jan 2012 and its ends at 6pm. Should I go again on the last day too?


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The book must have been close to publication, when it was cancelled, as there is a Warcraft III Player's Guide (D&D Campaign) page on Amazon, that states it was due to be published in February 2004. According to Amazon the authors were by James Jacobs and Paul Peterson.
Wowpedia has a bit more information on it's Warcraft III Player's Guide:
They do not have a picture of the proposed cover, but they do have this information:Wowpedia wrote:Warcraft III Player's Guide is the title of a cancelled D&D campaign book set in the Warcraft universe.
Product Description
Everything a D&D player needs to campaign in the Warcraft® III universe, contained in one comprehensive volume.
Warcraft III is a popular computer game that has now been adapted to the D&D experience. Since the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans computer game was released in 1994, the series has sold nearly 5 million copies worldwide. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness™ won multiple Game of the Year awards in the computer game industry, and combined with its expansion, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, has sold over 3 million units.
Has anyone ever seen any mention of this book before? Did any previews come out, or any sort of press releases to explain what was going to be in the book?Wowpedia wrote:Author(s): James Jacobs and Paul Peterson
Pages: 160
Publisher: Wizards of the West Coast
Published: March 28, 2002
Binding: Paperback
Retail price: US: $26.95
Has anyone ever spoken to James Jacobs and Paul Peterson about how much of the book they finished before it got scrapped?
Does anyone know if Wizards of the Coast sold on the D&D World of Warcraft licence to Sword & Sorcery Studios, as a result of not being able to finish this book, or if there is a different story to that product line?


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The Nation: November 21, 2009
KARACHI – Regular physical activity is part and parcel of a child's growth and development, and there are simple, low-cost ways to keep children active and fit at home, even indoors.
This was stated by Dr Maqbool Qadir, Consultant Paediatrician and Neonatologist, Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), while speaking during an awareness programme held on World Children Day 2009.
Dispelling the claim that involving children in indoor activities is challenging, Dr Qadir said that simple games, such as hide and seek, crawling through a home-made tunnel or an obstacle course, tag and skipping, all involve physical exercise that helps in keeping children fit.
"Exercises like `hopscotch' involve jumping and landing besides improving balance and hand-eye coordination," said Dr Qadir. Active children are more likely to become active adults who follow a healthy lifestyle. "The best way to encourage healthy eating is to set a good example yourself. If your child sees you eating a variety of healthy foods, he or she will be more likely to give them a try also," said Dr Rehan Ali, Consultant Paediatrician and Neonatologist, AKUH addressing the most common problem mothers face, of children not wanting to eat food.
He said it is important to let a child choose what to eat, as long as it is nutritious. Sometimes a child may want to eat a particular food again and again for a while, and then not want to eat it at all.
Just as teaching a child how to eat right is important, teaching them when to stop eating, when they no longer feel hungry, is essential to a healthy lifestyle today, he stated.
Dr Aisha Yousafzai, Child Development Specialist, AKUH spoke about early childhood, from birth to three years of age, as the most important period for a child development, as this is when the brain develops rapidly.
She stressed on the importance of family support during these years, since this is the time when the foundation for future learning, language ability and social-emotional behaviours is laid.
"Infants learn from birth, by exploring the world around them, by seeing, copying, hearing and practising new skills. The more stimulation for learning we provide, the greater the development benefits," said Dr Yousafzai.
A child's health is dependent on the mother's health, according to Dr Shazia Masheer, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist. From the time before pregnancy till delivery and after birth, maternal health and nutrition are essential cornerstones of safe motherhood and child survival, she said and added that care should start before pregnancy with family planning and good maternal nutrition, said Dr Masheer.
According to her women who enter their reproductive years well nourished and free of any infection, have a much better chance of being healthy throughout pregnancy and delivery, and of passing the good health along to their child.
source – The Nation


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Meet and Greet: 9/10/16
Reblogged on WordPress.com Source: Meet and Greet: 9/10/16 Continue reading Meet and Greet: 9/10/16
Reblogged on WordPress.com Source: Meet and Greet: 9/10/16 Continue reading Meet and Greet: 9/10/16
This post is about art and therefore requires a poncy title. George Shaw is the National Gallery's current painter-in-residence, and we wandered into his exhibition the other day while trying to find some Klimt. The Telegraph was lukewarm (even though the guy was nominated for the Turner Prize), but I really liked it! In a short video played on loop in one of the exhibition … Continue reading Sylvanian decadence @ National Gallery
A horse has won a horse race. — Boring Tweeter (@b0ringtweets) 9 avril 2016 This is how I read most sports news: as a set of non-events that hardly merit a daily supplement in the papers. I'll make allowances, however, for things like the #Rio2016 Olympics; this kind of event feels like an exception, perhaps because we love a multi-billion-pound TV spectacle, or because it's … Continue reading Sport & moral life
What a year of thought-provoking reflections, hilarity, and insightful commentary it's been. I've enjoyed thinking about interesting stuff, being a tiny bit controversial, arguing with other writers, researching history, failing at social media marketing, and cultivating a nice-looking patch of internet with which to express myself. In honour of the occasion, here are my top 10 click-generators, top 5 undervalued articles, and a sneak preview … Continue reading [1-year Blogiversary]
This post has been a long time coming and I have been hinting at it for a while. Last month, I left my very decent job to become a Philosophy student. To some people, perhaps this will seem crazy. Quitting a job with good prospects, a salary, the opportunity to travel, throwing away the social capital of liking and trust I'd made efforts to build, … Continue reading [Life updates from me]


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Virtual Appliance: Is It a Virtual Machine or an Application?
With the growth of virtualization, a new term "virtual appliance" has been coined for a special type of virtual machines that are used like applications. What does it really mean?
First, a virtual appliance is still a virtual machine. When seen in vSphere Client, the virtual appliance does not look much different from other typical virtual machines. Secondly, the functionality of the virtual machine is limited to that of an application. More often than not, the virtual machine is installed with one application. Because of this, the underlying OS is stripped down only to the minimum required to support that application. This type of OS is also called Just Enough OS (JEOS). All the existence of the JEOS is to support the application in the virtual appliance.
Time to learn how to "Google" and manage your VMware and clouds in a fast and secureHTML5 App
Now, is it a VM or an application? It could be either, depending how you look at it. For ESX/vCenter, a virtual appliance is a virtual machine. You can manage it just like any other virtual machine. For application users, it's an application, a special one that is different from a normal application.
Users' expectations for an application include:
- Lifecycle management. Users can install an application and delete it with full control. It's of course within the limitation of the system resources like the size of hard disks. They can also start and stop it.
- A user interface that allows interaction. The user interface could be command line interface, graphical user interface, or web interface that can be rendered in a browser.
- Configuration management. The application should be customizable so that it addresses the uniqueness of different user's requirement.
- Get a particular type of work done. The nature of the work could vary dramatically, from productivity tools to the scalable server applications. Most applications persist data either to file system or database.
- Interoperability with other applications. One very simple one is the clipboard on almost all the OS that allows pass information between different applications easily.
- Patch and upgrade. When there is a hot fix or new version, it should be easy to upgrade the application.
Given what it is today, the virtual appliance normally has limitation on the user interaction. To save space, the appliance does not include a window system, making interactions not that straight forward. Interoperability wise, there is no simple, standardized way. For patch and upgrade, it's mostly done within the OS, therefore not as easy as normal applications. Still the appliance is good for server type of applications, for example, a MySQL server, Tomcat server, etc.
In general, a virtual appliance is used like an application but managed like a virtual machine. This hurts usability. To make the virtual appliance widely adopted, we need a better way to manage the virtual appliance in a way closer to the traditional way we manage the applications. It means we need an application centric workspace for users that list all of his virtual appliances, let's called it AppCenter, as well as a standardized way to manage and the virtual appliances.


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Bloomberg needs to be locked up himself. Not in jail but in a mental institution. He has proven that he is a sociopath over and over. Put him on meds or do some good ole fashioned EST-sorry that's barbaric but I am thinking of it in terms of burning out this guys brain so he can't continue to hurt anyone else. Fortunately he leaves office soon, hopefully he will disappear from the political landscape for good. (E)
Related articles
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- Next iPhone 'will' have fingerprint sensor, says NYC Mayor's office – Digital Trends (newestgadgetsinfo.com)
- Bloomberg's Public Housing Fingerprinting Idea Stuns, Infuriates Residents (newyork.cbslocal.com)


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Posted on October 29, 2011, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.


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"The only thing that will give us a shot at building a democracy in an Islamic land is a mass conversion of its people to biblical Christianity."
If you just watched the video above, I hope it genuinely shocked and saddened you.
Extreme rightism is a very scary thing and these days the US also seems to also be a scary place, speaking from a liberal European perspective. A radicalization of Islam has undeniably happened over the past few decades, but the ongoing radicalizing Christian conservative fear-mongering in the US is to me just as unnerving, expressions of it ranging from popular phenomena like the Tea Party and the "Birther movement" to the assassination-attempt on senator Gabrielle Giffords in January. Another sad thing is, if Bryan Fischer was a Muslim instead of a Christian we would probably be using his comments to justify society's paranoia of Islam instead of giving him money and equipping him with his own radio show. Christian and Muslim extremism are supposedly two opposites, yet the rhetoric and the hate is all the same.
I understand that the vast majority of Americans also distance themselves from extremism, just as only a very small minority among Muslims are extremists. But when I consider that there are in fact people who see the views expressed by Bryan Fischer as being just and blameless, I feel ashamed on their behalf.
When it comes to Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, the conservative Christian group classified as a hate group by the SPLC, all you can do is brace yourself for the next time he spews out something offensive. He is certainly no stranger to criticism. No wonder, when you consider he has previously stated that "Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler … and 6 million dead Jews". Fischer has also claimed that the clause in the First Amendment of the US Constitution providing free exercise of religion only applies to Christians, making it a mystery why there is such a clause in the first place. In February he stated that the "savagery and sexual immorality of Native Americans" made them "morally disqualified from sovereign control of American soil" as if the European colonizers were on a moral high ground, and only a month ago he made this ridiculously racial bomb comment:
"Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete … Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it's no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits."
But let's get back to the video at hand and the claim that Muslims must be converted to Christianity before democratization is possible. I have said before that I very much distrust the notion of Islam somehow being less compatible with democracy than Christianity. I simply see no fundamental difference between the two religions that can justify this view (you are welcome to argue against me). For some mysterious reason however, Fischer seems to take for granted that Islam and democracy are wholly incompatible. He seems to ignore the fact that there are several democracies, and successful ones, in Muslim majority countries. Did he decide to just skip Turkey, Bosnia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Lebanon and Mali? Notice he at the same time failed to mention that there are Christian countries that have authoritarian or hybrid regimes as well, such as Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, Cuba, Ethiopia and the Congos, just to mention a few examples.
Perhaps someone should inform Fischer that with the successful revolution in Egypt in February 72 million Egyptian Muslims were cheering a new political order – not a new state religion.


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The Health Benefits of Chili Peppers
By: Dr. Jean Antoine Boodhoo
The benefits of chili peppers as a condiment in cuisines worldwide have been known for several millennia. Likely to have been introduced to the rest of the world from South America, chili peppers are now grown in all corners of the world, with more than 200 varieties described.
The active ingredients in chili peppers are a group of chemical compounds known as capsaicinoids, with capsaicin being the main and most studied compound. Capsaicin gives chili peppers it's hot taste by binding to heat and pain receptors in the mouth and throat (1). Stimulation of these receptors leads to heat and pain sensation being experienced by the brain. These in turn produce physiological changes such as increased heart rate, sweating and release of the feel good hormones endorphins (2). The intensity of the heat/pain sensation is measured by the Scoville Heat Scale, with the hottest pepper measuring 16, 000, 000 (16x106 Scoville units). Currently the two hottest peppers in the world by the Scoville units are the Carolina Reaper (2.2 x 106 SHU) and the Trinidad Scorpion Moruga Blend (2.009 x 106 SHU) (3).
The health benefits of chili peppers have been known since the 15th century, being first highlighted by Dr. Diego Alvarez Chancu, a physician on Christopher Columbus' voyage to the West Indies in 1490's. It has been stated that chili peppers have been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine since 5000 BC.
Among the actual and potential health benefits descried so far include:
- Diabetes
- The ability of chili peppers to reduce the amount of insulin required to lower blood sugar after a meal(4). Chili peppers can potentially lower the risk of type II diabetes.
- Chili peppers may also have a preventative effect on stomach ulcers (4,6).
- Anti-inflammatory
- It has been shown that capsaicin is an inhibitor of substance P, which is associated with the inflammatory process (4).
- Chili peppers also contain antioxidants including vitamin C and a complex mixture of carotenoids which may also improve insulin regulation as well as having analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects (5).
- Prevention
- May have an effect as a booster of metabolism and weight management (4,5).
- Analgesic
- Has the ability to assist in the management of several painful conditions applied topically including arthritis pain, pain associated with herpes zoster (shingles), diabetic neuropathy, headaches and trigeminal neuralgia (7).
- Cancer
- In vitro studies show a potential role of capsaicin in causing cancer cell death including gastric carcinoma (8), human breast and leukemia cancer cells (9), prostate cancer cells (10), pancreatic cells in mice (3), human nasopharyngeal carcinoma (12).
- Psoriasis
- Topically applied capsaicin has also been shown to be effective for moderate and severe psoriasis (14).
While there are numerous health and culinary benefits associated with chili peppers, there are also some noticeable warning in their liberal use.
In particular, topical application of capsaicin has been associated with an increase in the risk of skin cancer (12). Reference is also made to population studies in Mexico and India, which have shown an increased risk of stomach cancer when food is loaded with hot chilies (4). Further, there is at least once reported case of a possible association between ingestion of hot chili peppers and death (13).
In conclusion, chili peppers have been in use for centuries while their mode of action is gradually being unraveled. While there are health and culinary benefits that have been described to be associated with their use, there are also words of caution about their use. The goal ultimately is to be able to enjoy these benefits while ongoing research is needed to clarify the concerns highlighted about their possible risk in increasing certain forms of cancer, and their potential in treating and preventing various cancers in humans.
So please enjoy, in moderation.
(1) The Effects of Capsaicin and Capsiate on Energy Balance: Critical Review and Meta-analyses of Studies in Humans. Mary-Jon Ludy, George E. Moore, and Richard D. Mattes. Chem Senses. Feb 2012; 37(2): 103– 121. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257466/
(2) Endorphins: Natural Pain and Stress Fighters http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=55001
(3) http://www.crazyhotseeds.com/top-10-worlds-hottest-peppers/
(4) http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=29
(5) Antioxidant, Antinociceptive, and Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Carotenoids Extracted from Dried Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) Marcela Hernández-Ortega, Alicia Ortiz-Moreno, María Dolores Hernández-Navarro, Germán Chamorro-Cevallos, Lidia Dorantes-Alvarez, and Hugo Necoechea-Mondragón Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 524019, 10 pages http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2012/524019/
(6) Do Chili Peppers Cause Ulcers? - A Burning Question Ayad, Michael http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6j68g6dh
(7) [Chili for therapy of trigeminus neuralgia: a case report]. Loeser J, Pilgram B, Dagtekin O. Schmerz. 2012 Aug;26(4):435-7. doi: 10.1007/s00482-012-1180-2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22740349
(8) Effects of foods and beverages on the symptoms of chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome. Herati AS1, Shorter B, Srinivasan AK, Tai J, Seideman C, Lesser M, Moldwin RM Urology. 2013 Dec;82(6):1376-80. doi: 10.1016/j.urology.2013.07.015. Epub 2013 Aug 23. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23978369
(9) Tumor Cell Growth Inhibition Is Correlated With Levels of Capsaicin Present in Hot Peppers Dan Dou, Aamir Ahmad, Huanjie Yang, Fazlul H. Sarkar Nutrition and Cancer Vol. 63, Iss. 2, 2011 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01635581.2011.523497?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3dpubmed#.U58bVBbF_1o
(10) Capsaicin, a Component of Red Peppers, Inhibits the Growth of Androgen-Independent, p53 Mutant Prostate Cancer Cells Akio Mori, Sören Lehmann, James O'Kelly, Takashi Kumagai, Julian C. Desmond, Milena Pervan, William H. McBride, Masahiro Kizaki, and H. Phillip Koeffler Cancer Res 2006;66:3222-3229 http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/66/6/3222.long
(11) Capsaicin mediates apoptosis in human nasopharyngeal carcinoma NPC-TW 039 cells through mitochondrial depolarization and endoplasmic reticulum stress S-W Ip, S-H Lan, H-F Lu2, A-C Huang, J-S Yang, J-P Lin, H-Y Huang, J-C Lien, C-C Ho, C-F Chiu, WG Wood and J-G Chung Human and Experimental Toxicology 31(6) 539–549 http://het.sagepub.com/content/31/6/539.short
(12) Capsaicin can act as co-carcinogen, study finds; Chili pepper component linked to skin cancer http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100902121057.htm
(13) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1063598/Aspiring-chef-dies-hours-making-ultra-hot-sauce-chilli-eating-contest.html
(14) Effects of topically applied capsaicin on moderate and severe psoriasis vulgaris. Bernstein JE, Parish LC, Rapaport M, Rosenbaum MM, Roenigk HH Jr. J Am Acad Dermatol. 1986 Sep;15(3):504-7 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3760276


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Do you want to hear what happened when bad weather forced me into the grimmest of layovers in Chicago? Okay, here we go…
So, this is the same holiday back in the mid-nineties, where the Yellow Cab affair had taken place. I was travelling alone. I'd flown into New York from the UK to visit with a relative, flown on to Atlanta to see friends, thence to New Orleans to attend a wedding. It was a great trip, but I was on my way home at last.
I was to fly from New Orleans to London via Chicago O'Hare with a four hour layover between flights (I remember the details so painfully well). The evening transatlantic flight from Chicago would have brought me home at 7:00am or thereabouts the following day.
Heading northwards from New Orleans the weather went from bad to atrocious. Rain lashed the plane and the pilot climbed and dipped trying to find gaps in the turbulence, to little avail. By the time we got to the outer reaches of Chicago O'Hare it had become – apparently – unsafe to land.
You already know I watch too many movies, don't you? Well, the perils of Airport and Die Hard 2 and any number of other airborne disaster movies were already rattling around in my nervous-traveller's skull by this point.
We circled Chicago several times waiting for the storm to abate. We rattled and bounced as granite thunder clouds gave way to rain-swept twilight and stormy darkness, as the minutes turned into hours and my four hour layover dwindled.
Eventually it was decided we would be unable to land at Chicago – it was just too dangerous. I hate to imagine the fuel status by this point, but we took off to a regional airport at Rockford, some 80 miles north west of Chicago, in the expectation that it would be less perilous to get the aircraft down on the ground there. We made it in one piece courtesy of the skill of the pilot and I choose not to speculate how close we might have come to the end of the regional runway, or the expiration of what vapours remained in the fuel tanks.
Now, I'm not very technical when it comes to planes, but we were in a big one. Rockford, as anyone from rural Illinois will know, is a small airport – or at least, it was a small airport in 1996. I see from Google that it is today known as Chicago Rockford International Airport, but I suspect this may be in the same spirit as a baseball tournament played by teams from all over America is known as the World Series.
Being on the small side, Rockford was unable to provide exit facilities adequate to a jumbo jet. The best they could do was a flight of wheel-along steps that, when brought as close as it could get to the main exit, platformed some 3-feet below the door. After some debate in the driving rain, passengers were invited to climb down out of the plane, aided by a team of airport workers. It wasn't fun and I suspect it might have been easier had they let down one of the emergency slides and pushed us all out. It took a while, we all got very wet, it was extremely undignified – and that was that.
After that though, nobody seemed to know what to do with us.
Eventually it was determined that we and our luggage would be put on a coach back to Chicago O'Hare. By then, my four hour stopover having dwindled to minutes, I'd gone from frustrated and anxious to a state of pathetic do-whatever-you-want resignation. I'd missed my flight – someone, somewhere, would have to sort me out another one. We all identified our baggage and eventually a coach materialised and drove us the couple of hours back to Chicago. I'd like to say my unscheduled bus journey provided me with an opportunity to take in the delights of northern Illinois, but it was pitch dark, still raining and I was beyond exhausted.
But that wasn't even the half of it.
We arrived at O'Hare and were disembarked at the entrance to be met, not by an apologetic airline representative, but instead by a sea of camp beds – and the conspicuous absence of anyone – anyone at all – in airline livery. I guess they'd all gone home to their nice, comfy real beds by then.
If you're an American business traveller you might be familiar with this practice, but I was not. Flights had been suspended for the night and that meant the camp beds came out. I can only imagine that Chicago O'Hare, being beset by weather which warrants it, keeps a stock of camp beds in a very big cupboard, ready for stranded travellers. There were hundreds of the things, they covered the halls – and they were all occupied.
So I'm stranded at Chicago O'Hare Airport at midnight on a stormy night. There's nowhere to sleep and every available seat is occupied. There was hardly a square foot of floor to be seen. I was manhandling an enormous suitcase and my homeward journey for the time being, was in hiatus.
I was directed to a giant electronic noticeboard which seemed to offer some hope. It contained the names of dozens and dozens of hotels and some push-button contraption which would automatically dial any selected hotel, so weary travellers like me could – in a more comforting world – book a room. I pushed every darned button on that board and every darned hotel was, not surprisingly, full. As I pushed button after button a man in airline pilot's uniform stood beside me, performing the same fruitless process as me. "If I get one, you can come and share it with me, sweetie," he said. The leer which accompanied this offer told me all I needed to know. "Thanks, but no thanks," I said, although by then certain parts of my weary body were going… oh, go on, it'll be ok, he's a pilot isn't he, what could possibly go wrong? Common sense, propriety and self-preservation prevailed – I'm a sensible girl.
I was on my third run around the board when I dialled a motel which had, perhaps a half-hour earlier, been fully booked. Miraculously they had a room available. They asked would I like them to send a minibus for me? I was amazed at this courtesy and accepted – only afterwards wondering what I might have let myself in for. Faculties weakened, I'd evaded the clutches of a lecherous pilot only to allow myself to fall into the hands of a psychopathic night porter and his mad, axe-wielding cab driver. Those movies I watch – they get me every time.
It was 2:00am by this time, yet the driver who collected me from the airport was polite and courteous and his minibus branded with the motel's name. I confess I couldn't help being unsettled even then, as I rattled along in total darkness towards an unknown destination, escorted by a stranger.
We arrived and I was given my room key. It turned out to be one of those places where the carpet is sticky and refreshments come in the form of plastic-wrapped unidentifiables located in massive machines in the corridor. An ice machine clattered away somewhere.
When I entered my allocated room, I understood immediately why it had been unavailable only an hour previously. The bed was rumpled and the pillows bore evidence of heads. By the bedside a cigarette butt glistening with fuchsia lipstick nestled in an ashtray. In the bathroom, the towels were damp. I felt a little sick. But in all honesty, I was grateful to have a room where I could lock the door and rest for a few hours. It wasn't the time or the place to be picky.
I didn't use the bed – I slept on top of it in my clothes. It seemed wise.
In the morning I telephoned the airline and explained my situation. They were clearly aware they'd fallen short the previous evening and booked me on the same flight back to London, one day late. I held on to my room until the last possible minute then removed to the airport where I found my resilience had been rewarded by an upgrade to business class. This, at least, was some consolation, and I was grateful for it.
I've travelled a lot on business and for vacations but I don't enjoy flying and, necessary though it may be, I loathe the airport experience that has evolved over these post 9/11 years. It's a big deal, to get me on a plane today. For the first time since my Chicago experience, I'm planning a trip to the USA which involves a connecting flight – and it's brought back all these memories. My fingers and toes are firmly crossed for a better experience this time around.


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stubbs20 june 21 2009
*This rating was given before reviews were required*
Istvan6 may 24 2009
*This rating was given before reviews were required*
thefaneditrcritic may 24 2009
*This rating was given before reviews were required*
Aug 2 2010
I really wanted to love this one. I REALLY, REALLY wanted. And I almost did. The theatrical release was an abomination that insulted both the previous film and the audience, and this fanedit does fix a lot of that and improves the narrative a great deal. However, a lot of the audio cuts are resolved through the fadeout-fadein route (instead of crossfades or just plain cuts), which is totally distracting, clearly marks the places where material is missing, and took me out of the movie every single time.
I can't rate it higher than a 6/10, but I encourage Leonenut to make a 2.0 version. This can be very good, it just needs to be polished.
june 12, 2010
The actual editing is good. But, sorry, I still didn't like it.
This edit takes out a lot of the campy humor that plagued the sequel to the terrific Conan The Barbarian. Sadly, doing that alone still doesn't make the film feel like a good follow-up. What it does is make it sequel watchable, so that's always a plus. But, I think taking out the humor is just the first step to fully polishing this movie up. A couple things that I think would help work would be to trim Arnold's dialogue. In Conan the Barbarian, he hardly speaks. Here, he speaks much more frequently. He doesn't feel like the stone cold bad ass barbarian anymore. Secondly, any successful attempt to integrate the music from Conan the Barbarian would be tremendous. That film had such a identifiable and great soundtrack, that adding some of it in here would make leaps and bounds to making Conan the Destroyer "feel" like the first.
editing 9/10
film 6.5/10 (original is 4/10)


text:
Rich parents prefer to buy their kids designer toys. From limited edition collectible items, that will be worth more money well into the future to functional luxury toy items to cultivate their minds rich parents are going all out when it comes to purchasing toys! Just as farmers work hard to cultivate their crops. The …
Designer Toys
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