King: Cocksure

Chapter XI

> > > Totem

This novel include graphic sex scenes, some involving minors, rape and forced sex. It is purely a fantasy and is not depicting real people or events. It is intended as a satire and is meant to be both funny and stimulating. The stories have a political slant as you will see. I hope you enjoy them. New chapters will be published as they are finished.

(Mffffffffff)

I was never quite sure who told him or why but perhaps because of our refusal to go along with the Republican dirty tricks, I received a personal invitation from the president-elect to attend the post-election festivities in Chicago. Dez and her girls were more than pleased to accompany me.

“You know, I’ve been a Democrat for a long while,” Dez said while watching Barack Obama and his family on the stage along with thousands of other rabid supporters. “This is the first I’ve ever had the chance to attend a Democratic event like this. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy.”

She had tears in her eyes and did thousands of other Obama supporters that night. Despite all of the economic turmoil in the land, it was a night when anything seemed possible. The eight dark long years of night had suddenly lifted. No, I didn’t get a personal audience with the president-elect that night. Politicians don’t like to be seen in the open in the presence of pornographers, but several Obama supporters came over to thank me for our generous donations and for … Well, they couldn’t exactly say but I suspected someone must have told them about the Obama video we refused to do and the one we did in behalf of McCain.

“You know the likeness to Cindy McCain was amazing,” one top Obama staffer told me . “I kept thinking that can’t be her with the dog, can it?”

I left him still wondering, maybe because I wasn’t sure myself. After the video was released, the actress in the McCain video disappeared as did Loyola Marin and the whole cast of characters assembled around her. The Elizabeth Martin incident and her husband’s suicide caused a stir in the press for a time, but now even that had subsided.

I was sure we had not heard the last of them, however. My conversation with my mother about great grandpa Mortuse and his founding of the American wing of the family business convinced me we were just in the early skirmishes of what would soon become a hot war for world dominance. Tonight, however, I could afford to dispense with my worry and enjoy the moment.

“This is just too wonderful,” Dez said. “After all of the crap at the Republican convention in Minnesota with their tit-suspended women and sick, sick practices, this seems so hopeful and wholesome.”

She and the girls had flown in from Minnesota the night before to share this moment with me. As if I could have stopped them. Baby, still on her high-protein diet, was as lovely as ever and much more relaxed with anal sex. She and the other girls had returned to school in the fall and Dez informed me some had boyfriends their own age.

“You really loosened them up,” Dez told me. “But I doubt they’ll ever forget their experiences with you.”

“Only, too happy to be of service,” I told her.

I went back to my hotel room that night alone. The girls wanted to stay later and party so I left them at the park and walked the mile back to my luxury suite. Getting a cab was out of the question and it felt great to walk in the brisk Chicago night. I had walked about eight blocks and was on a quiet, nearly empty street when I heard a voice behind me.

“I thought that was you Totem,” the female voice said.

Only one person in my past called me by that name and I couldn’t believe she was here in Chicago.

“Sister Raphael?” I said.

“That’s what I used to be called,” said the grey haired woman stepping out of the shadows behind me. “I followed you from the park. I am happy you turned out to be an Obama supporter.”

“Sister, I am so happy to see you,” I said, genuinely elated. “What has it been? Eighteen years?”

When I first met Sister Raphael in middle school, she was a young, pretty nun who taught at the Catholic school in town . When my Mom and sisters had pimped me out to the Catholic girls school in town, Raphael was among the nuns who I really enjoyed having sex with. The other nuns at the school were older and fatter, but Raphael was attractive and had a toned body under those dark habits she wore. She actually enjoyed vaginal sex occasionally, too, and when the other nuns would whip the school girls’ ripe, red bottoms and instruct me to pound them anally using no lubricant, Raphael was at least nice and respectful about it. She nicked named me Totem, because she said, “You have one attached to you.”

I figure she must have just been barely out of her teens herself back in those days. Now that I could see her pure, handsome face, I could see she hadn’t changed much even though she must now in her mid-forties.

“I was too young back in those days to know what I wanted,” she told me later in my hotel room. “All I knew was that the hypocrisy of the older nuns and their wild sex practices with you and their students convinced me they didn’t have a path to heaven. In fact, the only path to heaven I knew was when you stuck that beautiful totem of yours inside me. That was positively heavenly. After that, I knew I could not live a sexless life as the church supposedly wanted me to and weary of the hypocrisy, I eventually left the convent and the church.”

“You seem to have done all right for yourself, sister,” I said.

“Please, don’t call me that,” she smiled. “I haven’t answered to that title for a long time. Call me Marlane, my birth name.”

“Okay, Marlane,” I said. “But you must have had some reason for seeking me out. “

“Well, when I saw you at the park tonight, I was determined to get your opinion on something. You see, I have followed your career path which you will be surprised to find somewhat parallels mine since I left the church. And I thought to myself, who better to guide us in our new venture.”

“New venture? What is that?”

“I can’t tell you,” the former sister Raphael said. “I must show you.”

Two hours later because of the heavy downtown traffic remaining from the Obama victory party, we were at a church in a quiet suburban neighborhood near Chicago. I had driven my rental through the celebrant mob until I got on the Interstate 55 headed south according to Marlane’s precise direction. During the drive, Marlane informed me that she was, like me, in the sex business. She became a prostitute after leaving the nunnery which seemed appropriate because in the early days of the church, that was among the main uses many convents served for weary travelers in Europe.

“My sex drive knew no bounds,” she said. “If I had no one who would pay me for sex, I would go to a bar and find a stranger to have sex with. I think I was always looking for my lost Totem. After awhile, I became convinced that sex was not just my passion. It also was my business. I organized several very successful escort services and made a lot of money. When I drew new competition, I always found a specialty I and my girls could use to gain an edge. At one point, we offered the ripest, youngest girls in the region here in Chicago. At one point, I had an escort service in New Orleans that specialized in girls who tongued mens’ asses. The girls I hired had to demonstrate they had that talent before we’d send them out.”

Recently, Marlane explained, she and her girls had come up with a specialty that combined both of her past lives, one that seemed destined to be a can’t-miss hit.

We stood in the sacristy of the church as she explained that she had invited several of her best escorts to meet us here. Standing before me were 15 very sexy girls dressed in short Catholic school girl jumpers and several other women dressed in nuns habits.

“We call it, the Catholic bad boy experience,” Marlane explained. “We open to the public next week but we thought we’d give you a chance to try it out first and tell us what you like and don’t like.”

She turned to the women she’d assembled on her command and introduce me as her friend, “Totem.”

“We’ve heard a lot about you Totem,” a wickedly cute brunette in a checkered jumper said.

She introduced herself as Patty Highsmith and looked not a day over 15. She turned around, lifted her short skirt and showed me her butt. She was wearing white cotton panties, knee white socks and oxford shoes. Victoria Secrets and other modern high-fashion houses may have expanded the sexual catalog but it is difficult to improve on a sexual classic.

“I am kinda hoping Mr. Cocksure, er.. Totem… that you’ll test my anal cavity with that huge hunk of meat you own,” she said.

A tiny Puerto Rican girl stepped forward and introduce herself as Esmeralda Perez.

“My buns are not so white as Patty’s,” she said. “But I’m sure you will find all my holes, tighter, wetter and warmer.”

“When I told the girls you were coming they were thrilled.” Marlane said. “They wanted to come over and welcome you personally. It’s an all-access, any-hole night. Try them all out if you want. The girls will compete to accommodate you. Let us know what you think when you are done.”

The girls all stepped up to me in unison. I had no idea where Marlane was recruiting but she certainly had rounded up some super hot vixens. Three girls stuck their tongues in my mouth. Others undid my belt and dropped my pants to the floor. I felt soft, moist tongues probing my dick and testicles. Others were licking my thighs and deep inside my ass.

A girl I later learned was named Evelyn grabbed me by my balls and pulled me toward the altar at the front of the church.

“Come on Totem,” she said, “ Want that super sausage of yours between the wafers of my white cheeks on the altar up there.”

Positioning herself on all fours on the altar, she hiked up the skirt of her religious costume (no easy feat) to reveal two round , white globes that seemed to glow in the flickering candlelight of the church. Two other girls stepped on either to pull her ass cheeks further apart and invited me to take a position behind Evelyn. The marble of the altar and the protruding tabernacle at its center made it a little uncomfortable, but soon I found myself slipping her the Eucharist in a place the church never intended. She seemed just as grateful and boisterous as if touched by heaven itself, however.

“Oh my sweet, sweet, Lord,” she mumbled, her face pressed hard into the white marble altar.

Later, two girls in school girl outfits made me pretend to be the priest in the confessional and behind screens in the church confessional booth came in to “confess” all their terrible sins.

“Bless me, father for I have sinned,” one girl said. “My last confession was a month ago, but since then, I have sinned, many, many times. For example, I pissed in the holy water font and let a boy watch while I did it. Then he came and fucked me and pissed on me while I was still sitting with my butt over the holy water font.”

“And which holy water font did you use, my dearest,” I asked in my best priestly voice.

“Why, father, the one near the front of the church, of course,” she whispered.

“Then go forth and sin no more until I get there,” I said. “I want to meet you there and re-enact the act you confessed to show you the wages of sin.”

“And my penance, father?”

“You’ll be saying many Our Fathers, Glory Bes and Hail Mary’s, dear,” I said.

The girl on the other side of the confessional booth had an unspeakable sin to confess.

“At choir practice, while I was singing the praises of the Lord, I let a boy stick his weenie in my mouth and ejaculate while my sweet, wet tongue massaged his balls and slobbered all over his weenie,” she said. “Then I gagged on his thingy and spit up on his thingy and on the floor and he made me lick it off of him and off the floor.”

“My dear, only a child of the Lord could so thoroughly devote herself to swallowing what the Lord gives in such abundance,” I intoned.

“But father, I had just eaten supper and it was so gross,” she said. “I felt so humiliated and so impure.”

“That supper will be your last for awhile,” I said. “Now go forth to the choir loft and wait until I get there to instruct you properly on the technique for ingesting the cumming of the Lord.”

“Yes, father, thank you,” she sighed.

“No, let me assure you that it is I who will be thankful,” I cautioned.

Later that night Patty Highsmith carried a large crucifix around the church and made me “nail” her to it at each of the 14 stops along the Way of the Cross. A mob of boisterous girls followed and cheered me on at each stop.

“Nail that bitches’ ass to the cross,” one girl cried. “Stick that spear of yours inside her to make her feel really alive.”

When Patty turned around so I could “nail” her anally, I said:

“I don’t recall anyone ever getting crucified with their face to the cross.”

“No, but I bet a lot of so-called Christians got spared because they let the Romans go Greek on their asses,” Patty cooed.

I was surprised by how creative Marlane and the girls had been in their planning. The chandeliers from the ceiling lowered so they could be used as sex swings. It was fun to swing a girl high into the air and then try to catch her in some orifice on my dick when she swung back toward me.

Every smaller crucifix in the church came to a vibrating phallus-shaped end at the bottom. The choir loft was slanted so it was easy for a girl to stick her buns in the air and “receive” a heavenly gift in her derriere. The “crying” room had been redesigned so that customers could “paddle” their favorite girl’s backside with a yardstick or actual paddle, Catholic style. Of course, the communion rail was perfect for Catholic-style sloppy blow jobs.

“Take this in memory of me,” I told four particularly sloppy schlong slurpers genuflecting in front me at the communion rail.

“Mumph,” said the cute red head nuzzling my balls.

“Double Mumph,” echoed Marlane, who’d stepped to the rail to assist.

Every pew in the church was cushioned and could be enclosed for privacy.

“How many young Catholic lads in their youth always dreamed of pounding the girl of their dreams in a church pew when they were younger,” Marlane said when the evening’s activities were over. “So what do you think, Totem? Can we be successful?”

Having tried every gimmick, device and situation the girls had come up with, I was spent.

“I guess every Catholic lad who wasn’t being buggered by his priest had such fantasies,” I said. “As you know, I got quite a bit church fantasy when I was younger and I wasn’t even raised Catholic. But I think this is a great concept. A lot of non-Catholic boys also shared the same fantasy.”

“We have so many more plans,” Marlane said. “Bingo nights where a winning card gets you free tail and every ‘O 69’ is rewarded with real ‘Omigod 69’. We want to have ‘All Fish Fridays’ where we offer all the pussy you can eat for $599. Then during Holy Week, we’ll offer “Wash Your Feet and Dog for Two Fifty” Thursdays and ‘Roll Back the Rock and Fuck Mary Magdalene in the Sepulcher Sundays’” and ‘Easter Egg Cunt’ where you can guess where you search for prize-winning eggs.

“And Christmas?” I asked.

“Oh, ‘Be a Beast at the Manger’” Mondays, ‘DeVirginize Mary Month’, ‘Joe the Carpenter Plumb the Pipes Tuesdays’, ‘Fuck a Star Three Wise Men Wednesdays’ where you and two buddies get to fuck the porn star of your dreams.”

“Wow, you’ve really thought this out, haven’t you?” I said.

“We’re always open to new ideas,” Patty Highsmith said. “And other things.”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” I said. “In fact, if you could use another investor…”

“I was hoping you’d ask, Totem.” Marlane said. “Gosh if we could get more money, we could buy the old Catholic School next door and offer ‘Fuck a Nun in the Urinal’ Days and ‘Raise Your Hand and Hold It ‘til You Pee Your Pants’ Days and we could offer ‘Poop on the Pope’ Days and…”

“Obliviously, I will leave the creative side to you,” I told Marlane as I pulled out my checkbook. This might be the most expensive night of debauchery I’d ever enjoyed. Marlane told me some of the girls had to get back to the real convent early the next morning so they could teach.

“You mean some are still real nuns?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes, but they’re mad nuns because none was exactly what they were getting,” she replied.

When I got back to the hotel, it was dawn. I had no difficulty getting through the Wednesday morning traffic. After the delirious celebration the night before, Chicago was in a sort of groggy back-to-work mood.

Dez met for breakfast in a cafeteria in the lobby.

“I guess you were out catting around all night from the look of you,” she said, sipping her coffee.

“It was an incredible experience,” I said. “Sometime, I will have to tell you all about it.”

“Well, fine, but I want to tell you who I saw last night,” she said.

“Who?”

“The girls and I were just leaving Lincoln Park when Loyola stepped out of the crowd and handed me this note,” she said, fingering an envelope in her purse. “She told me to give this to you.”

“What does it say?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she protested. “I’m not in the habit of opening your mail or notes from your multitudes of willing admirers.”

“Well, hold on,” I said. “I’ve got no secrets. I’ll read it to you.”

The letter read:

“Dearest Brad:

“I write you now in shame and in pride that you made me do the right thing . It was good what you did to foil the Republican dirty trick machine at last. I think that even with a worsening economy, Obama might not have won had Exeter’s plans succeeded.

“But you must now know that you have shaken the powers in Europe to their knees and re-opened old wounds. After eight years of incompetence foisted on the American public, the world now sees a resurgent nation rising from the ash heap to which they thought it consigned.

“They will not take this loss or trickery easily. Revenge is what motivates them. Now as you know from your mother, some are your own family from the old world and their memories are long. They still carry grudges inflicted by your great grandfather Mortuse and others in the new world wing of the family. Their history is eons deep and they have old and ancient allies, particularly within the church.

“Watch your back. Trust no one and be very careful. They are coming for you and unless you are very smart, they will have you.

“You are our Totem. We need you to be safe.

“Love, Loyola.”

Dez could tell I was puzzled by some aspects of Loyola’s note.

“Something wrong?” she inquired.

“Other than the fact that this letter seems calculated to make me extremely paranoid and cautious,” I said. “She used one word that only one other person has even used around me.”

“What word is that?” Dez asked.

“Totem,” I said. “She called me her Totem.”

“And?”

“Totem is what Sister Raphael—Marlane—used to call me when I was a kid,” I said. “I hadn’t seen her in years, until last night.”

“That’s no coincidence,” Dez said, a worried look crossing her face.

“Yes, I am beginning to think so,” I said.

“What does the word Totem mean to you?” Dez asked.

“As someone who grew up in the Northwest where I met Sister Raphael, I believed it always referred to Indian mythology and totem poles,” I said. “I figured it referred to my totem pole that she prized so much.”

“Leave it to poor Brad to believe that everything starts and stops with his cock,” Dez said.

“Well it usually does when it come to women,” I replied.

“In this case, I think the other meaning of totem has more importance,” Dez said. “It’s a animalistic spirit who watches over a clan or group of people. Even back in those days, Sister Raphael knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That one day you would be the totem for our clan, for all of us who love you.”

“I’m beginning to wonder who that is,” I said. “Loyola says to ‘trust’ no one.”

“Brad, I’ve known you a long time and I’ve never known you to give in to paranoia or fear.”

“That just what I was about to say,” I said, pounding the table. “I am not changing because of these bastards. Let them come after me. They’ll find me waiting for them at every turn. I am not about to stop trusting the people I care for now or ever. When I first got into this business, I swore I would go wherever it takes me.”

“So your plans are unchanged?”

“Yes, I leave tomorrow for the Middle East,” I said emphatically.

The story of how I managed to poop on the holiest shrine in Islam, earning me a personal jihad sworn to by thousands of mujahideen, ended up giving Madonna an enema at one of her Kabbalah meetings in England, and earned a personal condemnation from the Arch Bishop of Canterbury and a letter of commendation from then President Bush is a compelling one. But it is a story for another day.

You really wouldn’t understand any of it if you didn’t know more about how I got started in this business. I was 18 when my mother gave me some money and sent me to LA to make my mark upon the world. She had earned quite a bit of money from my “gift from God” as she called it by that time. I’d graduated from high school despite several threats from my teachers to hold me back at least another year just because they could not imagine a world where my “gift” was not easily available to them. Mom felt it wasn’t fair for her and my sisters to continue pimping me out for money and besides, I’d gotten old enough to manage my own bookings.

I arrived in Los Angeles a tall but still skinny kid with more than $50,000 in my pocket and promptly went to visit the man my mom sent me to see. She referred to him as a “family friend” and told me his name was Amhet al Zahir.

On Remmet Avenue in Canoga Park, I met Mr. Zahir at his office at a small fetish-themed porn studio he owned behind what had to be one of California’s sleaziest strip clubs, the Big Its. I never could figure out what effect Zahir was striving for in naming his club the Big Its. Was he making a comment about bigotry, or perhaps it was a play on words? If you weren’t careful, you found yourself calling the club the Big Tits and maybe that was what Zahir was striving for without incurring any real threat from the law back in those less porn friendly days.

But Zahir was not a great marketer and I refuse to bestow any more credit for business acumen on that idiot than necessary. Zahir’s fetish wasn’t tits in any case. He loved women’s feet. No, “worshipped “ is a better word. His film studio shot and distributed reel after reel of feet fetish videos to a small but devoted culture of fellow foot worshippers around the globe. Porn really hadn’t gone mainstream yet. This was before DVD’s. Videotapes were available but most Americans got their porn in adult theatres or in dark booths at a quarter a pop. Or they got it from HBO.

The multi-billion dollar porn business on the Internet and on DVD had yet to emerge. So I was arriving at a time of great uncertainty and opportunity. Of course, I didn’t know that then.

“Your mother tells me you have something great to offer us,” Zahir said, addressing me for the first time. He was seated behind his desk in his cluttered office and several fairly attractive young “actresses” were lounging around waiting for Zahir to inspect their feet for his next footus opus. Most looked bored beyond words sitting around barefoot and in short skirts and short pants waiting for Zahir to get rid of this stupid teenage kid and get back to picking feet.

“My mom says you can help me,” I said.

“That all depends on if what I have been told is true and if I like what I see,” Zahir said. “Can you drop your pants, please?”

“Here, in front of all these girls?” I said.

“What? You are too shy? Of course, in front of them. Believe me you don’t have anything they haven’t seen before.”

I unbuckled my belt and let my pants clatter to the floor. I wasn’t shy and I wasn’t wearing underwear. I just wasn’t sure that the same rules that applied to getting down to business applied in Los Angeles that applied in Oregon.

Suddenly, the bored looks were wiped from the girls’ faces like an eraser had suddenly swept around the room. Most sat forward intently to be sure they were seeing what they thought they were seeing.

“No way, Ahmet, I ever saw that before,” one of the girls said.

“Yessir, Ahmet, that man gives new meaning to the words ‘feet fetish’” another barefoot contessa offered.

“Girls, use your feet to stimulate Brad here to full height,” Zahir said.

Suddenly, I was surrounded by a dozen young tarts and aspiring actresses with some of the prettiest legs and feet I’d ever seen. They lay back on the floor, some hiking their skirts high so I could see their panties or lack thereof, and they began massaging me gently with bare feet.

Now as jaundiced as I would have liked to have appeared, this was a new sensation for me. I’d never had a foot massage of this type before and my “gift” was soon raging at full attention.

“Jesus in the morning with Peter and Paul,” a young vixen I later learned was named Cunny said.

“Allah be praised,” Zahir said. “It is a work of art.”

That day, each of the girls in Zahir’s office insisted on a more intimate experience with my “ gift.” Zahir has me come on their feet and then had the girls clean me and their feet with their tongues. It was fun watching them suck the “cream” from between one another’s toes. Later that day, I was staring in my first pornographic movie, “The Two-foot Long Feet Fella.” As I said, Zahir was not the greatest marketer, but he got the message across, and the film turned a modest, but clear profit. That led to my next foot fetish video, “Two-foot Long Dong Versus the Female Toe Jam Monster.” I was on my way.

Cunny insisted my talent far surpassed what Zahir’s Studio could offer and she was right. But it took time to get well known. She took me around to porn parties and introduced me to the real big wigs in the industry. Little by little I began to attract an audience and some powerful backers , much to Zahir’s chagrin. He took every opportunity to cheat me out of money I’d rightfully earned and I am convinced deliberately sabotaged my career in the latter part of the year I spent at his studio.

But I learned a lot and saved any money I got. Unlike a lot of my contemporaries, I didn’t burn what I earned on drugs and other vices. I had my head screwed on straight and I was determined to use my talents to make me unbelievably wealthy. Zahir fumed and fussed at me, but I never considered him a threat. His two sons, Balil and Pahata, were just as stupid but far more dangerous. I had some very interesting encounters with them but I couldn’t realize then the danger they’d pose to the entire country more than a decade and half later.

One day, the two bearded and turbaned brothers stopped me in the hall at the studio and insisted that I accompany them to the office they shared.

“Your dick is a gift from Allah and you should use it to promote Allah’s work here on earth in this fuckin’ Christian country,” Balil said when we were behind closed doors.

“I guess you are saying you want me to appear in the gay videos you two bozos make,” I laughed. “I have nothing against gays but I just don’t swing that way. Sorry.”

“How did you know we make gay videos?” Pahata said.

“Girls told me,” I answered, “and they warned me to stay away from you two.”

“You do not understand,” Balil said. “Your dick in our religiously theme gay movies would be worshipped as the gift it is intended from Allah. You must use it to please men. Women are of no consequence to Allah, mere chattel to be exploited and hidden from view. Our father has no appreciation of the finer points of a man’s ass. He focuses obscenely on women’s feet alone.”

“Well, his fantasy seems to be at least paying the bills around here,” I said.

“You do not understand,” Pahata said. “The time is coming when this country will be shaken to its core in Allah’s name and this free country will perish from the earth. Our foolish father will—praise Allah—not be around to witness this time. Even now the storm clouds gather in Afghanistan and our forces begin to position themselves here in this country.”

“Well, the position I don’t want to get caught in is behind a bare-assed man,” I said. “Thanks for the offer, but no thanks.”

I got up to leave. Balil positioned himself between me and the door.

“You could be forced to perform this service in Allah’s name,” he said.

The Zahir brothers were big, fat and powerful, but I towered above both of them. I was skinny but I was much fitter because I was working out religiously and could have wiped the floor with them. I gave both a warning glance.

“If you gentlemen will excuse me,” I said. I left without even a backward glance.

It would not be the last time the brothers would threaten me, but I never again took their threats seriously. You might ask how supposedly devout followers of Islam could be instrumental in producing gay-themed movies or for that matter, foot fetish movies. Some fundamentalist Islamic devotees have a saying: Allah can see only horizon to horizon. Out of Allah’s sight, they can justify any behavior and it’s well known, homosexuality has a long history in the Arab world as do, harems and--as I was to discover--goat fucking, apparently. The Zahirs felt they were undermining a corrupt, inferior culture in Allah’s name, so any action was justifiable.

You might also ask if I measured up to the two-foot dong rep I acquired during my year with Zahir. Let’s just say that was a slight exaggeration. Zahir did not mind stretching a point if he found it useful and a two-footer is something not even Subway offers. I mean, seriously, who could swallow a two-footer?

In many ways, good old Mom had sent me into the arms of the enemy. She could not have known that the Zahirs represented a side of the family, the American branch of the family hadn’t been on speaking terms with for more than a century. Mom was, shall we say, clueless when it came to family connections. Good old Ahmet Zahir. He’s in the porn business. His father knew great gramps. The boy has a huge penis. Hell, Zahir will help him get a start in life. And he did. I have to give him credit at least for that.

But it wasn’t long before I was eager to get out from under Zahir’s control, and not just because of Balil and Pahata. No matter how exciting I found it on the first few tries, you can come on only so many girls’ feet before boredom sets in. I mean, I could appreciate as Ahmet did so overwhelmingly, the exquisite architecture of the female foot, but my fixation was on—shall we say—the snugger, moister parts of the female anatomy.

Once, Ahmet and I had a lengthy discussion on the subject.

“You do not understand that the female foot is shaped in such a way to drive a man crazy,” he confided to me. “It is Allah’s perfect creation. No other form so beautifully captures a woman’s essence. And the scent is like a desert flower.”

I knew of which he spoke. In my misspent youth, I’d watched a movie which tracked a barefoot woman across a vast desert landscape focusing solely on her bare feet on sand and gravel culminating with her washing them in a small pool of water she finally encountered on her trek. It was among my most erotic memories of youth. Yet I did not share Ahmet’s sole devotion.

“Yes, Ahmet, I understand, but I want to come in women’s holes, not just their soles,” I said. “I mean, I heard a rumor the other day that I’m getting the nickname ‘Feet Fucker’ and “Toe Twatter” out there. Sean Connery couldn’t play Bond for a lifetime and I refuse to be typecast as a fucker of feet.”

“Think of it as a quest for women’s souls,” Ahmet said.

“Ahmet, you are not listening,” I insisted. “I have come on so many women’s feet, I am getting athlete’s dick. My cock needs vaginal healing, not toe, arch and heeling. “

“You are very young,” Ahmet said. “One day you will understand.”

Cunny understood.

“I want you coming in me, not on me,” she told me.

Her and her friends considered me their personal plaything when I wasn’t starring in one of Ahmet’s footers. (John Wayne had his “oaters”; I had my “footers”.) She introduced me to friends who were starring in popular XXX videos of the day produced by larger studios. They, in turn, introduced me to directors and producers who saw value in my skills beyond popping on high-heel, stocking bitches.

“Ever consider coming up women’s asses?” one director told me. “I’m telling you, Benjamin, plastics and anal fucking are the next big thing for big things like yours.”

“Brad,” I said.

“Brad what?”

“My name is Brad?”

“Oh, yes, of course, Brad,” the director said. “Anyway, specialize in anal and you’ll go—and come—far.”

“Does it hurt when I stick it up your ass?” I asked Cunny one night.

“No, but you are pretty darn big,” she said. “It is a stretch. But I get tired of Ahmet just making you come on our feet.”

“Exactly!”

So she arranged for me to get more anal practice with her and other girls at the studio and at parties we attended to build my career. One night at a party, I came in so many female asses, I swear my dick was shit-stained for awhile. Actually, I’d had plenty of female anal stretching exercise before this time in Hollywood, especially with nuns and my high-school teachers, including Mrs. McDaniel. But this was in the era of the initial HIV scare in Hollywood and butt-fucking was at that time considered especially risky behavior, even in the hetero porn world.

So I was getting plenty of nooky and ass in my private life but on camera, I was definitely exclusively a foot soldier in Ahmet’s battle for female feet. Cunny’s efforts led me to a different class of customer for my services. I was introduced to many B-list and eventually A-list actresses, models and recording stars, most of whom eventually succumbed to my charms.

“I hear you have a humongous one,” a brunette songstress whose name you’d recognize asked me one night. She was pretty and almost hungrily sexually aggressive.

“I am told it is satisfactory,” I responded.

“More than satisfactory,” she cooed after a vigorous anal workout.

“Thanks,” I said. “More than happy to serve.”

“I mean, it made me feel just like a virgin and quite obviously, I’m not, in case you hadn’t guessed.”

“That could be a song,” I said.

“Song?” she said.

“Like a virgin?”

“Oh yeh, I get it. Like a Virgin. Like you made me feel like.”

“Yeh, like that.”

She handed me a water bottle, a white tube and a bottle of popular enema solution.

“Ever do this to a girl?” she asked.

“No,” I answered truthfully.

“It will make me feel just like a bloated all-anal whore,” she said.

I tried it and frankly, she liked it more than I did. I guess the big advantage is you are sure your anal companion is clean back “there”. But I didn’t get much satisfaction pumping an enema solution up a non-virginal backside. For years afterward, whenever we met, however, that was our routine together. Even years later after she became internationally well known and had broken up with her husband, she invariably wanted an enema from me.

“Guy and A-Rod won’t do this for me,” she said to me once years later. “It makes me feel so fresh and clean and it’s our special ‘thing’.

She helped get me financing for one of my early movies and insisted I perform enemas on one of the porn stars in the film. Just like that I’d gone from feet to Fleet.

I learned and saved. The $50,000 nest egg Mom gave me when I went to Hollywood doubled, then tripled. Soon I was writing and directing my own movies. The Zahir’s were a dim memory, though they still called from time to threaten mayhem if I did not perform in one of their ridiculous foot fandangos, I mostly laughed them off.

“Ahmet,” I said. “I just screwed the most beautiful actress in Hollywood last night, and you want me to come over to your studio so you can film me dripping cum over one of your toe tarts,” I said. “Sorry, not going to happen.”

“Tell him one day,” I heard Balil say in the background, “Allah will make him pay for his insolence.”

I didn’t have to worry long about Ahmet or his sons. One day a few months later, they found him dead in his office under mysterious circumstances. The police investigated but never could get enough evidence to prosecute the obvious suspects. His two sons took over the studio and club and promptly ran the businesses into the ground. The line of homo videos they hoped to produce never attracted the market they thought they would and they ignored the feet fetish videos that made Ahmet famous. So they disappeared for a long time, until they resurfaced again in 2001.

Cunny and I remained friends for years thereafter. I helped promote her career as she helped me promote mine. Today, she is one of the most gifted and recognized actresses in Hollywood. I won’t tell you who she is but I will say that she always liked guys whose names started with the letter ‘B’. You know, names like Bruce, Brad, Billy Bob and… Well, you get the idea. We remain friends, but damn, them kids of hers are spoiled.

I stayed in the porn business despite many offers to go legit in mainstream films. In porn I controlled my own destiny and I eventually was in charge of what videos and films got made and what actresses appeared in them. Critics said that there was always a raw sexuality in my films that no other actor, director or producer could match. The girls always seemed legitimately turned on. That was because we spent a lot of time with them before filming began getting them worked up, exploring their fantasies.

I learned a valuable lesson from those days that women’s fantasies are every bit the equal of men’s. They don’t mind a humiliation factor in films as long as they control the intensity and dynamics and have agreed to it before filming initiates. They prefer the intense personal sexual experience over the mechanical, by-the-numbers sex porn too often delivers.

Of course, part of my sexcess probably had something to do with the kind of girls I worked with and recruited. I looked for beauty and horniness in the same unbridled package.

The film that kicked my career into high gear, however, was the 50 Female Man Slam, which was ahead of its time. The concept of a reverse gangbang had never really been tried before. Guys with two, three and even four girls had been tried previously, but no one thought a man could sustain himself with more women than that. It was a revolutionary thought that I could try all 50 women, 150 holes in all, and not shrivel to a dried prune.

Of course, in order to prevent a too-lengthy by far film shoot, I couldn’t stay in each hole for very long, but you what they say about guests that visit for longer than a few minutes. The women seemed to have a lot of fun during the filming, calling to me to get my attention one after the other.

“Over here,” a tight blonde called to me.

“No, me next, I want to taste Gloria’s ass on your dick,” a spectacular red head called out.

“Then me, ‘cause I haven’t had you in my cootchie yet,” another girl shouted.

I went from hole to hole like a rabbit seeking a warren, pumping vigorously wherever I landed. If anything ever captured for me the futility of the human condition, it was that day. We keep pumping and pumping trying to draw what happiness we can, from life but to what effect? I can’t say every girl came that day, but I left most with large satisfied smiles of their pretty faces.

Cunny was on the set that day watching, though she did not participate in the man slam.

“You are remarkably talented, Brad,” she said. She was amazed that I still had stamina for her after a day of hole hopping.

“At least I wasn’t sole popping,” I said.

“Yes, this picture will get you far beyond Ahmet’s toe jam,” she said.

“150 holes and who knows what the limit might be?”

“But to go further, you need a name that will stick in the public consciousness,” Cunny continued. “I’ve been thinking. How about Brad Cocksure?”

“How about him?”

“No, I mean that would be your stage name.”

“Isn’t there someone with that name?”

“There is a Surecock, I think, but no Cocksure.”

Cunny was young and pretty, but she had a head and on her shoulders even then and a talent for knowing the right people. It helped that she came from a show business family despite what she says about her father today.

“Well, let’s do some research to be sure and if the name is legally cleared, then I’ll call and have my name in the film changed tomorrow,” I said.

When the big red letters, “Brad Cocksure’s Fifty Female Man Slam” appear on screen for the first time, viewers were sure they were seeing a new, boner-fied porn epic, a Bone-Her of the new Nineties. The trailer for the film was especially effective, I thought. “In a world where every man has only one hole to slam, there emerged a man with a 150 ripe, waiting, quivering holes, each eagerly awaiting slamming,” the announcer intoned. My image suddenly appeared on the screen and I have to admit, I looked every bit the raw, untamed barbarian, “conqueror of hole continents”. My constant gym workouts had filled out my body and I was no longer the skinny kid who ‘d come to Los Angeles with a mere $50,000 in my pockets. I was a stone cold he-male muscle man.

After the film was released, I got a call from a future governor.

“Maria want me to ass how you got you body like dat,” he asked. “She say dat I could maybe I could use some tips from you.”

“Well, I work out at Gold’s gym down on Sepulvada,” I said. “Stop by and I can give you some pointers.”

“No you ediot,” the future guv said. “I don’t mean you body. I mean down there in you shorts.”

“Oh, well, you might have to give up steroids,” I suggested.

“Damn, I taught so,” he said. “She say dat I look so good until I take off my shorts. Den she saw dat movie you made and she says dat you are da real Terminator.”

At the movie’s premier, I saw Ahmet for the last time.

“Fifty women and not once on the feet,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “The world has become too weary for me to bear.”

Cunny was draped on my arm wearing a new mink coat and diamond necklace I’d bought her.

“Ahmet, you know where you can stick your feet,” she said with a giggle. She pulled me along to a waiting limo.

Inside, that sexy songstress was waiting for the two of us hungrily.

“I brought the Fleet’s,” she said. “My house or yours?”

I was never quite sure who told him or why but perhaps because of our refusal to go along with the Republican dirty tricks, I received a personal invitation from the president-elect to attend the post-election festivities in Chicago. Dez and her girls were more than pleased to accompany me.

“You know, I’ve been a Democrat for a long while,” Dez said while watching Barack Obama and his family on the stage along with thousands of other rabid supporters. “This is the first I’ve ever had the chance to attend a Democratic event like this. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy.”

She had tears in her eyes and did thousands of other Obama supporters that night. Despite all of the economic turmoil in the land, it was a night when anything seemed possible. The eight dark long years of night had suddenly lifted. No, I didn’t get a personal audience with the president-elect that night. Politicians don’t like to be seen in the open in the presence of pornographers, but several Obama supporters came over to thank me for our generous donations and for … Well, they couldn’t exactly say but I suspected someone must have told them about the Obama video we refused to do and the one we did in behalf of McCain.

“You know the likeness to Cindy McCain was amazing,” one top Obama staffer told me . “I kept thinking that can’t be her with the dog, can it?”

I left him still wondering, maybe because I wasn’t sure myself. After the video was released, the actress in the McCain video disappeared as did Loyola Marin and the whole cast of characters assembled around her. The Elizabeth Martin incident and her husband’s suicide caused a stir in the press for a time, but now even that had subsided.

I was sure we had not heard the last of them, however. My conversation with my mother about great grandpa Mortuse and his founding of the American wing of the family business convinced me we were just in the early skirmishes of what would soon become a hot war for world dominance. Tonight, however, I could afford to dispense with my worry and enjoy the moment.

“This is just too wonderful,” Dez said. “After all of the crap at the Republican convention in Minnesota with their tit-suspended women and sick, sick practices, this seems so hopeful and wholesome.”

She and the girls had flown in from Minnesota the night before to share this moment with me. As if I could have stopped them. Baby, still on her high-protein diet, was as lovely as ever and much more relaxed with anal sex. She and the other girls had returned to school in the fall and Dez informed me some had boyfriends their own age.

“You really loosened them up,” Dez told me. “But I doubt they’ll ever forget their experiences with you.”

“Only, too happy to be of service,” I told her.

I went back to my hotel room that night alone. The girls wanted to stay later and party so I left them at the park and walked the mile back to my luxury suite. Getting a cab was out of the question and it felt great to walk in the brisk Chicago night. I had walked about eight blocks and was on a quiet, nearly empty street when I heard a voice behind me.

“I thought that was you Totem,” the female voice said.

Only one person in my past called me by that name and I couldn’t believe she was here in Chicago.

“Sister Raphael?” I said.

“That’s what I used to be called,” said the grey haired woman stepping out of the shadows behind me. “I followed you from the park. I am happy you turned out to be an Obama supporter.”

“Sister, I am so happy to see you,” I said, genuinely elated. “What has it been? Eighteen years?”

When I first met Sister Raphael in middle school, she was a young, pretty nun who taught at the Catholic school in town . When my Mom and sisters had pimped me out to the Catholic girls school in town, Raphael was among the nuns who I really enjoyed having sex with. The other nuns at the school were older and fatter, but Raphael was attractive and had a toned body under those dark habits she wore. She actually enjoyed vaginal sex occasionally, too, and when the other nuns would whip the school girls’ ripe, red bottoms and instruct me to pound them anally using no lubricant, Raphael was at least nice and respectful about it. She nicked named me Totem, because she said, “You have one attached to you.”

I figure she must have just been barely out of her teens herself back in those days. Now that I could see her pure, handsome face, I could see she hadn’t changed much even though she must now in her mid-forties.

“I was too young back in those days to know what I wanted,” she told me later in my hotel room. “All I knew was that the hypocrisy of the older nuns and their wild sex practices with you and their students convinced me they didn’t have a path to heaven. In fact, the only path to heaven I knew was when you stuck that beautiful totem of yours inside me. That was positively heavenly. After that, I knew I could not live a sexless life as the church supposedly wanted me to and weary of the hypocrisy, I eventually left the convent and the church.”

“You seem to have done all right for yourself, sister,” I said.

“Please, don’t call me that,” she smiled. “I haven’t answered to that title for a long time. Call me Marlane, my birth name.”

“Okay, Marlane,” I said. “But you must have had some reason for seeking me out. “

“Well, when I saw you at the park tonight, I was determined to get your opinion on something. You see, I have followed your career path which you will be surprised to find somewhat parallels mine since I left the church. And I thought to myself, who better to guide us in our new venture.”

“New venture? What is that?”

“I can’t tell you,” the former sister Raphael said. “I must show you.”

Two hours later because of the heavy downtown traffic remaining from the Obama victory party, we were at a church in a quiet suburban neighborhood near Chicago. I had driven my rental through the celebrant mob until I got on the Interstate 55 headed south according to Marlane’s precise direction. During the drive, Marlane informed me that she was, like me, in the sex business. She became a prostitute after leaving the nunnery which seemed appropriate because in the early days of the church, that was among the main uses many convents served for weary travelers in Europe.

“My sex drive knew no bounds,” she said. “If I had no one who would pay me for sex, I would go to a bar and find a stranger to have sex with. I think I was always looking for my lost Totem. After awhile, I became convinced that sex was not just my passion. It also was my business. I organized several very successful escort services and made a lot of money. When I drew new competition, I always found a specialty I and my girls could use to gain an edge. At one point, we offered the ripest, youngest girls in the region here in Chicago. At one point, I had an escort service in New Orleans that specialized in girls who tongued mens’ asses. The girls I hired had to demonstrate they had that talent before we’d send them out.”

Recently, Marlane explained, she and her girls had come up with a specialty that combined both of her past lives, one that seemed destined to be a can’t-miss hit.

We stood in the sacristy of the church as she explained that she had invited several of her best escorts to meet us here. Standing before me were 15 very sexy girls dressed in short Catholic school girl jumpers and several other women dressed in nuns habits.

“We call it, the Catholic bad boy experience,” Marlane explained. “We open to the public next week but we thought we’d give you a chance to try it out first and tell us what you like and don’t like.”

She turned to the women she’d assembled on her command and introduce me as her friend, “Totem.”

“We’ve heard a lot about you Totem,” a wickedly cute brunette in a checkered jumper said.

She introduced herself as Patty Highsmith and looked not a day over 15. She turned around, lifted her short skirt and showed me her butt. She was wearing white cotton panties, knee white socks and oxford shoes. Victoria Secrets and other modern high-fashion houses may have expanded the sexual catalog but it is difficult to improve on a sexual classic.

“I am kinda hoping Mr. Cocksure, er.. Totem… that you’ll test my anal cavity with that huge hunk of meat you own,” she said.

A tiny Puerto Rican girl stepped forward and introduce herself as Esmeralda Perez.

“My buns are not so white as Patty’s,” she said. “But I’m sure you will find all my holes, tighter, wetter and warmer.”

“When I told the girls you were coming they were thrilled.” Marlane said. “They wanted to come over and welcome you personally. It’s an all-access, any-hole night. Try them all out if you want. The girls will compete to accommodate you. Let us know what you think when you are done.”

The girls all stepped up to me in unison. I had no idea where Marlane was recruiting but she certainly had rounded up some super hot vixens. Three girls stuck their tongues in my mouth. Others undid my belt and dropped my pants to the floor. I felt soft, moist tongues probing my dick and testicles. Others were licking my thighs and deep inside my ass.

A girl I later learned was named Evelyn grabbed me by my balls and pulled me toward the altar at the front of the church.

“Come on Totem,” she said, “ Want that super sausage of yours between the wafers of my white cheeks on the altar up there.”

Positioning herself on all fours on the altar, she hiked up the skirt of her religious costume (no easy feat) to reveal two round , white globes that seemed to glow in the flickering candlelight of the church. Two other girls stepped on either to pull her ass cheeks further apart and invited me to take a position behind Evelyn. The marble of the altar and the protruding tabernacle at its center made it a little uncomfortable, but soon I found myself slipping her the Eucharist in a place the church never intended. She seemed just as grateful and boisterous as if touched by heaven itself, however.

“Oh my sweet, sweet, Lord,” she mumbled, her face pressed hard into the white marble altar.

Later, two girls in school girl outfits made me pretend to be the priest in the confessional and behind screens in the church confessional booth came in to “confess” all their terrible sins.

“Bless me, father for I have sinned,” one girl said. “My last confession was a month ago, but since then, I have sinned, many, many times. For example, I pissed in the holy water font and let a boy watch while I did it. Then he came and fucked me and pissed on me while I was still sitting with my butt over the holy water font.”

“And which holy water font did you use, my dearest,” I asked in my best priestly voice.

“Why, father, the one near the front of the church, of course,” she whispered.

“Then go forth and sin no more until I get there,” I said. “I want to meet you there and re-enact the act you confessed to show you the wages of sin.”

“And my penance, father?”

“You’ll be saying many Our Fathers, Glory Bes and Hail Mary’s, dear,” I said.

The girl on the other side of the confessional booth had an unspeakable sin to confess.

“At choir practice, while I was singing the praises of the Lord, I let a boy stick his weenie in my mouth and ejaculate while my sweet, wet tongue massaged his balls and slobbered all over his weenie,” she said. “Then I gagged on his thingy and spit up on his thingy and on the floor and he made me lick it off of him and off the floor.”

“My dear, only a child of the Lord could so thoroughly devote herself to swallowing what the Lord gives in such abundance,” I intoned.

“But father, I had just eaten supper and it was so gross,” she said. “I felt so humiliated and so impure.”

“That supper will be your last for awhile,” I said. “Now go forth to the choir loft and wait until I get there to instruct you properly on the technique for ingesting the cumming of the Lord.”

“Yes, father, thank you,” she sighed.

“No, let me assure you that it is I who will be thankful,” I cautioned.

Later that night Patty Highsmith carried a large crucifix around the church and made me “nail” her to it at each of the 14 stops along the Way of the Cross. A mob of boisterous girls followed and cheered me on at each stop.

“Nail that bitches’ ass to the cross,” one girl cried. “Stick that spear of yours inside her to make her feel really alive.”

When Patty turned around so I could “nail” her anally, I said:

“I don’t recall anyone ever getting crucified with their face to the cross.”

“No, but I bet a lot of so-called Christians got spared because they let the Romans go Greek on their asses,” Patty cooed.

I was surprised by how creative Marlane and the girls had been in their planning. The chandeliers from the ceiling lowered so they could be used as sex swings. It was fun to swing a girl high into the air and then try to catch her in some orifice on my dick when she swung back toward me.

Every smaller crucifix in the church came to a vibrating phallus-shaped end at the bottom. The choir loft was slanted so it was easy for a girl to stick her buns in the air and “receive” a heavenly gift in her derriere. The “crying” room had been redesigned so that customers could “paddle” their favorite girl’s backside with a yardstick or actual paddle, Catholic style. Of course, the communion rail was perfect for Catholic-style sloppy blow jobs.

“Take this in memory of me,” I told four particularly sloppy schlong slurpers genuflecting in front me at the communion rail.

“Mumph,” said the cute red head nuzzling my balls.

“Double Mumph,” echoed Marlane, who’d stepped to the rail to assist.

Every pew in the church was cushioned and could be enclosed for privacy.

“How many young Catholic lads in their youth always dreamed of pounding the girl of their dreams in a church pew when they were younger,” Marlane said when the evening’s activities were over. “So what do you think, Totem? Can we be successful?”

Having tried every gimmick, device and situation the girls had come up with, I was spent.

“I guess every Catholic lad who wasn’t being buggered by his priest had such fantasies,” I said. “As you know, I got quite a bit church fantasy when I was younger and I wasn’t even raised Catholic. But I think this is a great concept. A lot of non-Catholic boys also shared the same fantasy.”

“We have so many more plans,” Marlane said. “Bingo nights where a winning card gets you free tail and every ‘O 69’ is rewarded with real ‘Omigod 69’. We want to have ‘All Fish Fridays’ where we offer all the pussy you can eat for $599. Then during Holy Week, we’ll offer “Wash Your Feet and Dog for Two Fifty” Thursdays and ‘Roll Back the Rock and Fuck Mary Magdalene in the Sepulcher Sundays’” and ‘Easter Egg Cunt’ where you can guess where you search for prize-winning eggs.

“And Christmas?” I asked.

“Oh, ‘Be a Beast at the Manger’” Mondays, ‘DeVirginize Mary Month’, ‘Joe the Carpenter Plumb the Pipes Tuesdays’, ‘Fuck a Star Three Wise Men Wednesdays’ where you and two buddies get to fuck the porn star of your dreams.”

“Wow, you’ve really thought this out, haven’t you?” I said.

“We’re always open to new ideas,” Patty Highsmith said. “And other things.”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” I said. “In fact, if you could use another investor…”

“I was hoping you’d ask, Totem.” Marlane said. “Gosh if we could get more money, we could buy the old Catholic School next door and offer ‘Fuck a Nun in the Urinal’ Days and ‘Raise Your Hand and Hold It ‘til You Pee Your Pants’ Days and we could offer ‘Poop on the Pope’ Days and…”

“Obliviously, I will leave the creative side to you,” I told Marlane as I pulled out my checkbook. This might be the most expensive night of debauchery I’d ever enjoyed. Marlane told me some of the girls had to get back to the real convent early the next morning so they could teach.

“You mean some are still real nuns?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes, but they’re mad nuns because none was exactly what they were getting,” she replied.

When I got back to the hotel, it was dawn. I had no difficulty getting through the Wednesday morning traffic. After the delirious celebration the night before, Chicago was in a sort of groggy back-to-work mood.

Dez met for breakfast in a cafeteria in the lobby.

“I guess you were out catting around all night from the look of you,” she said, sipping her coffee.

“It was an incredible experience,” I said. “Sometime, I will have to tell you all about it.”

“Well, fine, but I want to tell you who I saw last night,” she said.

“Who?”

“The girls and I were just leaving Lincoln Park when Loyola stepped out of the crowd and handed me this note,” she said, fingering an envelope in her purse. “She told me to give this to you.”

“What does it say?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she protested. “I’m not in the habit of opening your mail or notes from your multitudes of willing admirers.”

“Well, hold on,” I said. “I’ve got no secrets. I’ll read it to you.”

The letter read:

“Dearest Brad:

“I write you now in shame and in pride that you made me do the right thing . It was good what you did to foil the Republican dirty trick machine at last. I think that even with a worsening economy, Obama might not have won had Exeter’s plans succeeded.

“But you must now know that you have shaken the powers in Europe to their knees and re-opened old wounds. After eight years of incompetence foisted on the American public, the world now sees a resurgent nation rising from the ash heap to which they thought it consigned.

“They will not take this loss or trickery easily. Revenge is what motivates them. Now as you know from your mother, some are your own family from the old world and their memories are long. They still carry grudges inflicted by your great grandfather Mortuse and others in the new world wing of the family. Their history is eons deep and they have old and ancient allies, particularly within the church.

“Watch your back. Trust no one and be very careful. They are coming for you and unless you are very smart, they will have you.

“You are our Totem. We need you to be safe.

“Love, Loyola.”

Dez could tell I was puzzled by some aspects of Loyola’s note.

“Something wrong?” she inquired.

“Other than the fact that this letter seems calculated to make me extremely paranoid and cautious,” I said. “She used one word that only one other person has even used around me.”

“What word is that?” Dez asked.

“Totem,” I said. “She called me her Totem.”

“And?”

“Totem is what Sister Raphael—Marlane—used to call me when I was a kid,” I said. “I hadn’t seen her in years, until last night.”

“That’s no coincidence,” Dez said, a worried look crossing her face.

“Yes, I am beginning to think so,” I said.

“What does the word Totem mean to you?” Dez asked.

“As someone who grew up in the Northwest where I met Sister Raphael, I believed it always referred to Indian mythology and totem poles,” I said. “I figured it referred to my totem pole that she prized so much.”

“Leave it to poor Brad to believe that everything starts and stops with his cock,” Dez said.

“Well it usually does when it come to women,” I replied.

“In this case, I think the other meaning of totem has more importance,” Dez said. “It’s a animalistic spirit who watches over a clan or group of people. Even back in those days, Sister Raphael knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That one day you would be the totem for our clan, for all of us who love you.”

“I’m beginning to wonder who that is,” I said. “Loyola says to ‘trust’ no one.”

“Brad, I’ve known you a long time and I’ve never known you to give in to paranoia or fear.”

“That just what I was about to say,” I said, pounding the table. “I am not changing because of these bastards. Let them come after me. They’ll find me waiting for them at every turn. I am not about to stop trusting the people I care for now or ever. When I first got into this business, I swore I would go wherever it takes me.”

“So your plans are unchanged?”

“Yes, I leave tomorrow for the Middle East,” I said emphatically.