THFWS & TTM’s: The Ancient Ones Speak

At this point, the Sephirot was pulsating as the flow of the patterns of light ran from one point to another in waves that lent an other-worldly illumination to the room.

The Ancient Ones were with them now and from one instant to another would seem to jump inside each of them, causing them to emanate an aura of internal illumination which would pulsate and then suddenly discharge to another point or person in the room.

At one point, Sobe and Sharma who previously had always appeared to be relatively benign giant iguanas suddenly morphed into ferocious dragons, barring entrance to the Sanctuary by several malevolent spirits who were clearly unwelcome gate-crashers that the Ancient Ones did not wish to be present.

This may smack of dualism, but it is one thing to acknowledge Evil and another thing to embrace it.

By this point, Ash, Kali, Merle, Darcy, Mark, Charles, Suki, and Frederick were starting to “peak” (hit maximum serum levels) on the Knowledge. In previous experiences they usually stayed at a steady-state for hours, but as with LSD, the altered mental state achieved may still increase for several more hours, since once the brain is sufficiently stimulated, it may produce a sort of feedback effect as far as mentation, euphoric states and revelations are concerned.

Two main questions seemed to arise from between the members of the group. As scientifically oriented individuals, regardless of their subjective involvement in the experiment, they tried to maintain some sort of objectivity.

This is not really helpful if you are a shaman or sorcerer, or any other practitioner of the ways of majic, but for people such as these, it is a necessary hurdle to be overcome long enough to allow them to just kick back and joyously participate, once those reservations have been alleviated.

The first question was how was it that these animals (no offense, Frederick) are still aware of a legend that man has long ago forgotten?

“(Hello!…I’m still here, and understand what you are saying, remember?) It took a while for Frederick to allow his ruffled feathers to be smoothed, but even he realized that his level of comprehension of their conversations (even telepathically) was far beyond what he had ever experienced before.

The next question was what they have been receiving from Frederick was not consistent with animal intelligence…how is it that he speaks telepathically in ways that are beyond what is believed to be his level of comprehension?

On this point even Frederick had to concede some curiosity, since prior to this evening, much of what humans had to say was more or less like listening to a series of buzzes and humming, and his own capacity for eloquence thus far was equally impressive to him as well.

The first and second questions were somewhat related insofar as their answers arose from several similar root concepts.

Each of them ,in turn seemed to almost spontaneously transfer, or transmit a new idea to the rest of the group, although it was almost instantaneous in terms of their mutual understanding and comprehension.

As each one “spoke” they seemed to glow from an internal illumination and throughout each experience of Satsang that each transmitted, the Ancient ones seemed to pass into and out of them freely.

Charles was the first to respond. His ideas flowed as easily as they were understood by all.

“(When man traded instinct for reason and developed language based on words and ideations, he quickly started making differences in the languages that were based on different perceptions of what the words meant and what they believed.)”

Ash was the next to offer suggestions.

“(Also, it was about that time that man invented religions for various reasons and purposes that we don’t need to go into all that deeply here, but suffice it to say that the trappings of those religions not only disguised man’s true origin and nature, but the events as they actually happened (if in fact what Frederick has stated is true) would preclude the purpose or even usefulness of most religions as they exist now in the first place, so it would only be natural for religions to suppress the story of them)”

Kali then suggested “(As far as eloquence and complexity of thought, consider how man strains at the limitations language places on everything abstract, transcendental and ethereal.)”

Merle then added “(The knowledge of Good and Evil is such a thing…spiritual knowledge is independent of intelligence…you either know or you don’t…you either hear the sound or you don’t. You do not have to be intelligent to understand love. You only need to be intelligent to intellectualize about Love, which is not really a very smart thing to do.)”

Even Suki, the least verbal of the group was quick to point out “(This is a fundamental concept of Zen…”In your mind…before words…before thought…you already know….)”

Mark further postulated that “(Then God did not kick man out of the Garden of Eden. His consumption of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a matter of self-banishment, by virtue of the Poison Thought. He started making differences between things, like Good  vs. Evil…Good vs. Bad…Better vs. Worse…Man vs. Woman…Normal vs. Perverse…Full vs. Empty…Black vs. White…Light vs. Darkness…God vs. the Devil…Life vs. Death.)”

Frederick was next to contribute “(His belief that he was not only different than the animals, but somehow Better and Smarter closed the door on his complete sentience.)”

Darcy ventured that “(He then decided which things were desirable and which were undesirable, as if they could be separated from each other. Soon he began to believe that these opposites were at odds with each other, rather than in balance, and foolishly tried to wage war on the one vs. the other. His so-called intellect had blinded him to what is obvious to any sentient being that is not imprisoned by intellectualization.)”

Merle was also quick to point out how “(This bred an almost preternatural, primal sort of fearfulness, which led to Xenophobia. Out of this fear grew a perception of a need to be protected by someone or something outside of you from something else that is different from you. This perception of weakness and fear empowered selfish and cruel tendencies in those who saw the potential to harness this power of fear and in so doing manipulate and usurp the weak and fearful to make themselves rich and powerful.)”

Ash concluded “(The enigma of it all is that although we are complete in and of ourselves on one level, it is in our interconnection with all things living and inanimate that our ability to see and feel and know becomes complete. This is true sentience; the ability to be full and empty at the same time; to be complete in the understanding of your connection with everything, and in so doing to be one with all of it. To see your immortality in your temporal state of being here and now, is to understand that everything, including Time, is an illusion created by your mind.)”

With that, an overwhelming feeling of sexual desire began to well up in all of them almost simultaneously in an unspoken common consciousness.

 

 

THFWS & TTM’s: Graduation Day: Adam Becomes the Serpent

WARNING!: EXTREMELY IRREVERANT, ICONOCLASTIC AND SACRELIGIOUS CONCEPTS PRESENTED HEREIN. NOT FOR THE WEAK-MINDED OR SIMPLISTIC. EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU ARE BROAD-MINDED, THIS WILL TEST THE LIMITS OF THAT DEFINITION. ALMOST CERTAIN TO OFFEND RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISTS…SO JUST STAY OUT, OK? OTHERWISE, DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU.

THFWS & TTM’s: Graduation Day: Adam Becomes the Serpent

By the next Saturday, everyone was so excited about Frederick’s impending reception of sentience that Charles and Suki arrived early in the morning to prepare the sanctuary and help Kali make sure everything was in order. After several group sessions, they thought they knew what to expect, and wanted to be prepared for even the most unlikely or unanticipated events.

Kali had been accustomed to being the perfect hostess, and certainly identified with what she perceived as her duties and responsibilities as a minister’s wife, but she too, would be a central player in the impending experiment and everyone wanted to be sure that no one wanted for anything, and that all responsibilities would be shared so as to be kept to a minimum for anyone.

Food and drinks, towels, comfortable seating and lounging, blankets, sheets, pillows, music, visual accompaniment, changes of clothing…virtually nothing was left to the imagination.

Charles had also been working with Mark to attempt to build very small radio transmitters that would allow for group bio-feedback interfaces monitoring even alpha wave production so as to control the progression of lights produced by the Sephirot. Each of them would wear one, even Frederick.

They were smaller than a wristwatch, and Frederick even seemed amused by it, and signed “Monkey see, monkey do” when Darcy had asked him to put it on when they tested it in his natural environment at the Habitat. He was spending so much time on weekends at The Sanctuary that it was soon becoming his second home.

Lilith and Malkira were quite comfortable with his “Aunt Darcy” taking Frederick away for most of the weekends, when he wasn’t “working” as a test-subject/trainer. Darcy was a little disarmed however, when Lilith grabbed her arm and pulled her close to give her a kiss, and then winked at her in what seemed to be a very knowing way….

The research center was surprisingly lax about security regarding Frederick’s whereabouts, but then again, it was doubtful they anticipated any of what was transpiring.

Charles had an old analog two-inch twenty-four track tape recorder that he had used when he built a recording studio years ago. He hardly used it anymore since everything went digital, but it was perfect for documenting vital signs and bio-feedback data for everyone in the group, Digital video cameras were everywhere and all images were stored on a central computer that recorded everything.

Merle had additionally provided for special tranquilizers in case Frederick had a bad reaction to The Knowledge; some were mild, in case he just got a little too excited for his own good, and just in case…there was a very powerful fast-acting but nonetheless relatively safe sedative that was loaded into two dart pistols in case Frederick became a danger to himself or anyone else.

This was not just a lark; everyone took all of this quite seriously despite the fact that they knew that everything they were doing pretty much broke all the rules…of science, religion…or the politics of business.

Ash knew that his mind would not be on his show that night, so he prepped his band to take over the main responsibilities, using a predominantly musical theme and a panel of guest hosts and hostesses who were buddies of his from the music industry. The theme was aligned around the place modern music played in new-age religion, but Ashe’s program standards and practices were so broad as far as his definition of religion that pretty much everyone was welcome, as long as they had some sort of philosophical premise or belief system.

He worked the ArchAngels overtime Friday getting everything ready, and by late afternoon Saturday, he was helping everyone else prepare. Darcy arrived with Frederick a little past six o’clock to a round of applause by the group, prompting him to bow deeply at the waist and tip his cap. It was an old boonie hat that Charles had given him that looked quite comical; he loved to wear it whenever he went off the Habitat’s premises.

He appeared to understand that he was clearly the star of the show, and loved the attention, but more than that, he had told Mark that he wanted to be ‘like them” while they were trying to ensure that he was giving his informed consent as to receiving The Knowledge.

The group took their time getting comfortable. They ate a little, had a bit to drink, mostly fruit juice and water and then assembled in a large circle in the living room with the mirrors and other elements arranged as had been done previously. They also tied to see if they could raise some group alpha-wave generation in order to attempt to affect changes in the sequencing of the lights in the Sephirot.

Then they meditated and did some group breathing exercises, which Frederick adjusted to quite effortlessly to the surprise of most of the group except Mark and Darcy.

It was well past eight o’clock by the time Merle handed out the capsules.

The rest of the group was now well-accustomed to the effects and the gradual onset of the drug, and they had taken great care to prepare their minds for the anticipated union of consciousnesses of all of them with Frederick, and Darcy and Mark had their hands full initially keeping up with Frederick’s excited attempts to communicate, until suddenly, they became aware of a new voice amongst their collective mental conversations.

Kali was the first to mentally blurt out “(what a beautiful, sonorous voice he has…and it sounds so human…)”

To which Frederick replied “(…are you surprised? Remember, I listen to humans prattle on day and night…but seriously, what you are hearing is more a projection of your own patterns of what you think a thought sounds like…so you create my voice in your own image…after all, Darcy and Mark already told you that all the other primates have been communicating this way since the beginning of time…you humans lost your intuitive and non-verbal skills shortly after The Visitors arrived, many eons ago, when you traded your intuition for what you call reasoning…their actions were what lead to your ascension…despite what you think about evolution.)”

The entire group was stunned. The resulting mental pandemonium of thoughts flying around the room at that moment almost defies description. No one even bothered to try to speak out loud, as Frederick continued.

“(Mankind’s so-called Great leap of Ascension was a created effect that was engineered by The Visitors that came to earth long, long ago. We have told that story to each other, handing it down from generation to generation ever since. You were the result of a very capricious experimental lark by a small group of space travelers who gave you a drug much like what you have given me, which might account for a great deal of what you refer to as your sentience…The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil…the forbidden fruit that your biblical legend claimed caused your God to toss you from the Garden of Eden…)”

At this point, the cacophony of mental babbling was so severe that Frederick howled in laughter, sitting down and grabbing the soles of his feet as he rocked back and forth, clearly amused by their astounded bewilderment, but what he told them next made his first revelation pale by comparison.

“(…but the real deal-breaker was that those ancient visitors mated with several of your females from your tribe…and that was how the Mankind Tribe was established…hate to burst your bubble about eons of evolution, but there was a whole lot more to it than that. We all have hoped ever since that someday they would come back to give us the same kind of helping hand that they gave you, but the reality of it is that they probably realized that judging on how badly you have wasted your so-called sentience with greed, hubris, violence, breed-prejudice, even racism among your own kind, that they probably decided they had done enough harm already…they were a very advanced species…it must have seemed disgusting to even contemplate sexual congress with any of you, but they somehow managed to transcend their revulsion…or maybe it was a fascination for them…to reunite with a primal form of primate such as yourselves…or maybe they were just a bunch of space-perverts…intergalactic hillbilly sheepherders with an aberrant  sex drive…who knows? I’m sure they could have artificially inseminated your females if it had all just been a purely scientific experiment…)”

The group remained mesmerized as Frederick continued.

“(Now right about now you would be remiss to not consider that we have all taken a very powerful drug that has already proven to have profound effects on the human consciousness…but nonetheless, how is it that a mute primate can express himself in such an eloquent and complex fashion?…and you would be correct in asking that.)”

“(First of all, the whole relationship between sentience and intelligence is a very slippery slope that has been subject to so many prejudices that you as speaking primates have imposed on every aspect of your perceptions. Also, this being the kind of drug that it is, it has facilitated a kind of translation of your consciousness to mine, and vice-versa…believe me…this blows my mind beyond all my previous expectations of what it might be to be human.)”

“(I was a hybrid of a chimpanzee and a bonobo…as a Bonanzee, as I like to think of myself, I have no peers, no kindred spirits with whom to relate…humans were my heroes, my gods if you will, much like The Visitors were perceived as Gods by your tribe.)”

“(I know how I feel right now…the elation and euphoria of this experience is indescribable…You have to decide whether this whole experience is real, or imaginary, or something else altogether. You wonder if you are not projecting your own unconscious mental processes into what you believe you are perceiving…the fact that we are all having the same simultaneous hallucination, or ideation would tend to dispel your own personal skepticism, but that’s not crap in scientific terms, so yo have to ask yourself what is real? What can you trust yourself to believe?)”

With that, Frederick excused himself using sign language and got up to get himself a plate of fresh melon and strawberries after first asking permission.

And this was only the beginning of what was going to prove to be a very long and interesting evening.

 

How to Breathe Underwater

How to Breathe Underwater

You were perched on your rock

when I came upon you,

ready to dive

into the water,

skinny-dipping

in the late mid-morning.

The sun had evaporated the morning dew

and the air was heavy with the vapor.

You tried to cover your nakedness

at first

but I was not the kind of gentleman to look away

once I had already recognized you first.

You seemed to sense that it was I

and your shoulders drooped

as your hands fell away

from your tender parts

with a soft, sweet sigh

and you smiled that smile

I hadn’t seen

in too many lifetimes to recall.

We later named that rock Reality.

I hadn’t planned on seeing anyone there

that day.

I thought it was my special place

alone.

You blushed and giggled

as you looked over your shoulder,

then winked

and dove right under.

I stripped and followed you right in.

I found you waiting for me there

very deep in the pond,

halfway to the bottom

where the water was still clear

and the sun shone down

illuminating us both,

our eyes open wide and

your smile so broad…

When we touched,

we kissed for so long

that you started to gasp

and struggle

to reach the surface,

clearly panicked…

afraid for your life.

I smiled and said

“What’s your hurry, my dear?”

“This is our dream you know…”

“Only a dream?”

you asked, almost tearfully.

“It’s all a dream of a dream

within a dream…

Now breathe in

and realize your true power.

After this we can fly

like Peter and Wendy

as naked as jaybirds

until we are dry…”

“…But only a dream?”

you repeated again,

and this time I really thought you would cry.

“What do you mean

only a dream?

Reality is for people who can’t handle

Romance.”

“You can live in fear

of what might happen

and chances are

nothing will.”

“Nothing at all…”

“Ever.”

Swim with me.

Dream we are dolphins

until you learn to dream

of breathing underwater.

Fly with me.

Do not be afraid.

It isn’t the fall that hurts

it’s the sudden stop

at the end of the dream

we never want to end.

Stand on the edge of the volcano,

or swing on the swing

 at the end of the world

with me.

We can jump

or fly away as we choose.

We can do the Ghost Dance together in Dreamland

until the detonation

sweeps us all away.

THFWS and TTM’s: A Few Observations about Healthcare Insurance in America

THFWS and TTM’s: A Few Observations about Healthcare Insurance in America

Insurance is one of the most insidious fear-based institutions enslaving America today. The power with which insurance companies hold all of us is evidenced by the fact that insurance companies own many of the industries of America.

For more than fifty years it has become increasingly apparent that an axis of evil represented by attorneys, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers has held us in a crossfire from which there appears to be no escape.

Seeing opportunity amongst the glut of avarice and profiteering, healthcare insurance administrative companies have now established and ingratiated themselves so insidiously that it would appear that few people have even noticed their presence.

A Remora is a small fish that attaches itself to the belly of a shark. It is considered to be a symbiotic relationship because the shark benefits from the cleaning that the Remora provides and the Remora benefits from the free food, transportation, and the protection.

Healthcare insurance administrative companies began much like the Remora, as they were initially relatively small and benign. They did not provide the insurance; they simply managed the plan for the companies. It was symbiosis, and both parties benefitted, at no great threat to the public.

This is where the analogy falls apart, however. In recent years healthcare insurance administrative companies now steer the shark, tell it when and whom to eat, and if sufficiently provoked will represent a serious and grave threat in and of themselves. Their appetites are also now as rapacious as that of the shark itself.

At least one of them was allegedly spawned from the belly of a pharmaceutical manufacturer itself, and although the courts eventually ruled that they had to divest themselves of each other due to the potential monopoly they represented, what grew out of that entity may prove far more dangerous. Congress approved it, and no one seems to have even noticed.

Family coverage for most healthcare insurance plans costs between $300-$400 dollars per month, depending upon your insurance benefits, if you have a job that provides group coverage.

Most plans have deductibles ranging from between $1600 to $3000 per family. That amounts to almost eight thousand dollars a year just to actually receive any benefits from your healthcare insurance.

After the deductible is met, most plans pay 80 percent of allowed claims for network providers and allowed medications, excluding chiropractic and acupuncture services; (if allowed at all; almost none of them pay more than 50 percent.) Non-network providers similarly are almost never paid at a rate greater than 50 percent.

These so-called cost-sharing measures do not so much represent the necessity of providing the monies the insurance company needs to defray costs as it represents deterrents designed to discourage members from using their insurance, seeing their doctors, going to the hospital, or even taking medications at all.

Some plans provide for pre-tax flexible spending accounts, healthcare spending benefits plans or other provisions to help hedge against the deductibles and other costs. If all goes well, good for you.

If not, you may find your account frozen with thousands of dollars unavailable until you send them a check or money order for as little as ten cents’ expenses that they have decided to contest for reasons that defy description. If it is not handled in a timely manner, you may even loose the remaining frozen assets allocated for that year.

Network vs. non-network as well as preferred vs. non-preferred are terms fraught with suspicious definitions that smack of collusion and impropriety to those of us who might be inclined in our “ignorance” to question the criteria for such labels, regarding them in the same manner as one might view competition for turf by rival gangs.

Physicians who charge more than the “usual and customary fees” have to be paid by the insured “out of pocket”. Those “usual and customary” fees are so notoriously low that almost no physician falls within the criteria, leaving one to wonder how those fees can be considered “usual and customary”.

Walk-in clinics (aka “Doc-in-a-Box”) usually charge the uninsured about the same amount of money as what the insured pay in co-payments. I do not personally recommend their services, based on my own experiences; it is just mentioned as a point of reference.

Allowed vs. non-covered medications, as well as terms such as preferred vs. non-preferred medications either eliminate certain types of therapy completely, or make them prohibitively expensive.

Prior Authorization is often required for many medications to be covered, based on a process called coverage review which requires the physician to take the time to make a phone call (thirty-minute wait times are not uncommon, btw) to plead your case in order to have the claim allowed, only to find out that once it is considered “authorized” you may still be required to pay one hundred percent of the total cost of the medication as if you had no insurance at all.

Just to add to the confusion, prior authorization is a term that can be used to describe completely different processes and procedures required by the insurance administrators. Imagine if a doctor used the same term to describe a hemorrhoidectomy, brain surgery, and breast augmentation.

This newspeak of medical healthcare insurance has created a state of confusion similar to that which was evidenced by the multiple meanings of “Aladeen” in Sacha Baron Cohens’ The Dictator.

It is no accident. Confusion creates delays in pay-outs, and time is money when the insurance administrators earn interest by virtue of the delays.

All insurance companies rely on a paradigm of “attrition of claims based on successive denials”. In other words, if a calculated percentage of the claimants will give up after each stage that their claim is denied, escalated, reviewed, re-submitted, processed, denied again, adjudicated, litigated, etc. eventually only the most die-hard petitioners will ever realize any satisfaction at all, and for even for those that do, your delay is their money.

This not only reduces the amount of money that the insurance companies pay, but the interest generated on the money unpaid on delayed claims makes even more money. These denials are regarded as “damage control” and have consistently made incremental erosions into what is considered a legal basis for denials of coverage.

Another feature of pharmaceutical healthcare insurance is to bamboozle the insured with a barrage of initializations that stand for premises that in and of themselves are arbitrary attempts to make the insured believe that they have no choice. In some cases, that is an actual point in fact.

Some plans use a term to disguise your inability to refill your prescription more than a pre-specified number of times at your local retail pharmacy. There is an initialization for it.

Some plans require you to call the program administrator (not the provider) to register your choice to stay with your local pharmacy. If you don’t, you pay full retail price. Others require that if you don’t make a choice by a certain date, you lose your opportunity to make any choice at all.

Whatever happened to being able to make your own choices without having to beg for permission?

January 1^st of 2014 ushered in the proclamation of a list of forty-eight of the most commonly prescribed medications that were suddenly denied and no longer covered.

Almost all of these medications had previously been approved for coverage for several years and were part of well-established treatment modalities and accepted courses of action by the medical community. No good reason has been forthcoming as to the rationale for this capricious edict, as issued by healthcare insurance administrators.

Since 2012 almost all competition between healthcare insurance administrators has been eliminated.

All pharmaceutical manufacturers keep entire law firms on retainer to challenge the seventeen-year limit imposed on exclusive rights to their patents as brand-name medications, claiming excessive costs for research and development, including the costs of their failures to produce drugs that the FDA will eventually approve after several years of clinical trials, including marketing the medication in third-world countries and “voluntary” trials in prisons and on people who are willing to be paid to be used as test subjects.

Additional extensions of the seventeen-years of exclusive rights may be allowed for another four or more years.

No other type of patent is routinely granted these kinds of exclusivity.

Keep in mind that few industries other than oil and insurance realize the kind of windfall profits that are routinely made by pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Once generic licenses are issued to manufacture a medication, it is not unusual for the original brand-name manufacturer to withhold what is considered “proprietary” information (i.e. secrets) about how to manufacture that medication so as to make it a true generic equivalent of the original.

Once the FDA approves the generic medication, the insurance companies (by way of insurance administrators) will make it increasingly difficult (expensive) to purchase the original brand name medication, regardless of how many patients report decreased effectiveness, allergic reactions and undesirable side effects.

Although in theory, the FDA requires adherence to certain quality standards for those generic medications if they were manufactured in the US, this country is being flooded with a plethora of “Dr. Bombay’s Bathtub Batch” manufacturers from overseas third-world countries where safety, sanitation, and other concerns are much lower than in the United States. These medications are also allegedly subject to the same standards, but the actual products themselves seem to indicate otherwise.

How some of these medications ever pass the allegedly rigorous standards we have been taught to believe we are guaranteed in this country defies imagination.

Many of these medications are so poorly produced and pressed that they disintegrate before they are received by the patients, especially if they are then “mail-order” shipped to their victim/recipients.

Some of those medications taste and/or smell so bad as to be almost impossible to ingest, despite the fact that the original brand-name medication did not possess those same undesirable characteristics.

I was recently shipped a generic medication that I had taken for more than two years that previously had no discernable odor at all and had a slight coating to it that made it easy to swallow. The new generic version of this medication had a rough finish, was poorly pressed and possessed an odor of what smelled like plasticizers that reminded me of cat urine on a small children’s toy. I now no longer take the medication. They won.

Nausea, vomiting, dysphagia, dyspepsia, diarrhea, horrific flatulence, possibly accompanied by “unexpected oily discharges”, rashes and even anaphylactic reactions are among the laundry list of complaints registered by users of these generic medications allegedly declared safe, assuming that the medication works at all, or doesn’t need to be increased by two hundred percent to achieve desired or even consistent results.

Even the quality and durability of the containers themselves and their labeling, (including poor print quality or legibility) has deteriorated rapidly over the last two years to the point that the pill containers themselves do not always survive mail-order shipment.

The new containers are so thin and flimsy that I could easily crush them between my thumb and forefinger. The old containers could have resisted hammer-blows, had I been so inclined, and apparently some post-office workers are….

Increasingly, insurance companies are often relying on “administrators” acting as management services to accomplish their avaricious schemes. Insurance companies are required to have their policies approved by each state’s Bureau of Management Services under the board of Financial Management of that state. In theory, this insures that the policy that the insurance company alleges to provide their policyholders matches certain state standards.

Ironically, at least one state’s office of financial management uses insurance that utilizes a healthcare insurance administrator to regulate (diminish) the claims of their employees.

If you regard the administrators of the insurance in the same light that one might view some of the private sub-contractors of the defense department or other government contractors who essentially do the dirty work that even the CIA won’t touch by providing deniability of responsibility for actions tacitly condoned, but publicly disavowed, you may get a feeling for exactly how it is that America is becoming enslaved by them.

Imagine that the administrator of your insurance also provides home delivery of your medications, if you so desire, for several years, but then with increasing regularity starts to require you to get home delivery after the second or third refill, or pay the full price of the medication.

For the first few years, it is for generics only, but eventually all “maintenance medications,” (brand name or generic) can only be filled by mail-order. Once again, it is the incremental erosions of your benefits that continue until you begin to question what benefits you have at all.

Now you no longer have control over who fills your prescriptions. Now you no longer have a choice as to which manufacturer you use, if it is generic.

Next, they sell you on automatic delivery, since they do not consider themselves responsible if you forget to order them until it is too late and you run out, so you agree to have them decide when to ship them.

The law states that once seventy-five percent of what your scheduled dosage is estimated to have been used, they can now send you another order. This also helps make sure that you don’t get your doctor to prescribe your medications so that you can break them in half, and make the supply last twice as long.

This should ensure that you get them anywhere from two and a half weeks to ten days early…in theory…although it is not uncommon for patients to receive their prescriptions so early that they have six weeks supply or more on hand when their new prescriptions arrive (unbudgeted and unexpected), while other patients report their medications are so late that they have to go to their local pharmacy to pay out of pocket to avoid doing without medications upon which their life may depend.

Whether this is the result of some kind of collusion or just plain incompetence is essentially a moot point. It does, however smack of arrogance as regards quality of services rendered.

Once you are on their auto-refill list, even though you may call them to inform them that your doctor has taken you off that prescription before the medication has even been shipped, they may nonetheless claim that it is still too late to cancel the order because it is already “in process”… (whatever the f*ck that means), which now means you are stuck paying for a ninety-day’s supply of something you are no longer taking, even though you told them so before they shipped it. No refunds…tough shit for you, even if you don’t open the container or accept delivery.

If you don’t use auto-refill and you don’t order the medications when they call you to tell you it is time to order more, they will cancel your prescription, forcing you to go back to the doctor to get it re-written.

If somebody steals the prescription from your mailbox, and you notify the postmaster and the police in a timely enough manner that even they can’t weasel their way out of acknowledging that a crime was committed (they will initially, by the way try to intimidate you by implying that the criminal is you until proven otherwise) they will still charge you for that medication and keep the money for (in theory) sixty days “to ensure that it has actually been lost or stolen before you got it” (as if it is reasonable to expect your prescriptions to take two months to reach you by mail-order).

(No matter how convenient it may seem, never, EVER agree to let them autocharge your credit or debit card.)

Then, (again, in theory) they will credit your account against future charges (maybe) if you hound them relentlessly until they do, all the while claiming that it is “in process” in the Accounts Receivable Department (somewhere), and you get no interest on the money they have extorted from you in the meantime.

If you can’t afford to pay for it twice and your account is too far overdue waiting for the credit, they will suspend your prescription delivery and even cancel your prescription.

After that, they will require your signature to deliver the medications so as to further inconvenience you for having asserted yourself. If you are not home at the time that delivery is attempted, you have to go to the post office to pick it up.

In years gone by, the members who suffered these practices would simply cancel home delivery and not pay the unfair charges or suffer such poor service or unreasonable demands.

They once had a choice, but after the healthcare providers began to realize that they could significantly cut the cost of their benefits to their employees, all the while denying responsibility for the actions of those who acted on their behalf, the popularity of requiring the members to accept this kind of shabby treatment has increasingly become the norm.

In this way, it is the healthcare insurance administrators who are responsible for effectively preventing you from receiving the benefits for which you pay so dearly.

One might be inclined to think that no right-thinking public official or healthcare provider would allow, let alone encourage this sort of action, or utilize the services of such deplorable characters, but like the character “Deepthroat” said in “All the President’s Men”: “…follow the money”.

One such company paid millions in fines for illegal use of influence several years ago, and lost over two hundred million dollars in state-subsidized medical insurance contracts and still had the colossal gall to issue a statement that neither the fines or the loss of the state contract would significantly affect their profits for the year.

Protection from monopolization of industries such as the media, and the management of insurance or the vending of pharmaceuticals has become a thing of the past, a mere anecdotal reference on the timeline of the rape and pillage of the rights and civil liberties of all Americans by the rich and privileged who live above the law and have the same respect and regard for the quality of your lives as the strip mining companies had for the state of West Virginia.

We have Congress to blame for allowing this. Although it might be argued that because we voted them into office, it is somehow our fault, if you consider the fact that all the above-mentioned entities contribute heavily to both political parties, it makes no difference. The only difference between bullshit and horse shit is the smell.

America has the best government that money can buy.

Then again, maybe that’s just me speaking…just another random, unfocused rant by some alienated, disgruntled ne’er-do well.

If you think that this piece lacks specific examples, you would be right; there are plenty of examples which I have purposely withheld because I don’t have the money to defend myself against the lawsuits to which I would reasonably expect to be subject, regardless of their validity.

Civil law, like civil war is an oxymoron devoid of any connection to justice, truth, or civility. It’s all a matter of Trial by Money.

I can only hope to point you toward the truth…after that, it’s up to you to recognize these examples. They are full of terms like “Choice”, “Allowance”, “Select”, and other words whose meanings are frequently the opposite of what any normal person would infer. All of it is ripe with the “Newspeak” of George Orwell’s “1984”.

If you have never experienced any of these injustices and outrages, I am happy for you, and hope you never are forced to ever wake up to the reality of what is being done to so many others all around you. You are probably in reasonably good health and are currently well enough to not even need healthcare insurance, if you weren’t forced to live in fear. I wish you continued good fortune.

…Hey, who wants some pie?

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming….

 

 

 

 

THFWS & TTM’s: The Son of Man Receives Sentience

…And now back to our regularly scheduled story about The Home for Wayward Souls and The Talking Monkeys…(all that hot sexy stuff about Charles and Suki was very nice adult entertainment and did provide a backstory for the main theme of the work at hand, and may have even gotten the attentions of a few more readers…) but when we last saw our heroes and heroines, they had just realized that Frederick had been decreed to be the “Missing Link” in their search for higher consciousness while partaking of their newly-discovered sacrament which they had dubbed “The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”, an analog isomer of a drug that Merle was developing as a third-generation anti-depressant for PharmaCorp that possessed properties so unique and marvelous as to make psychedelic drugs look like Flintstone Vitamins…

THFWS: The Son of Man Receives Sentience

The rest of the next week was preoccupied with one thought, which was essentially a question. And out of the one question, many others were to follow.

And that first question was “Where do we draw the line?”

Next came “Are we even the ones to draw it? When man first branched off into a separate species, just what was it that suddenly made him so special? Now that we possess the essence of true sentience, (or at least another portion of it via The Knowledge) who are we to withhold it from other species? Is that line not simply drawn in sand? What’s the harm? Of what are we so afraid?”

The expression “Child is father to the man” came to mind. What Mark and Darcy had discovered, and learned from Frederick in terms of telepathic abilities hinted at potentials for great advances in human consciousness, and indeed, it would appear that in order to learn from Frederick it would suggest that they had an obligation to give as much as they got. Were they really so afraid of losing our presumed advantage as the apex of primate development that they were are willing to ignore the quantum leap that man could gain from extending his boundaries of sentience beyond mere words?

Man has lorded his use of language over other life forms so jealously that he has imprisoned himself in a cage of words that are constantly straining against their own limitations. There are all kinds of sentience. The fact that Man has chosen to define intelligence in the most self-serving sort of insecurity that precludes recognition of other forms of intelligence is evidenced by the fact that every time another primate exhibits some supposedly unique human characteristic, (like tool-making, or bargaining, or even trying to hide evidence of one’s own guilt) someone else will reinterpret that definition so as to in some way or another exclude the other primates from our special club.

In truth, our use of language and words has if anything obscured our ability to recognize Understanding unless it is defined by the very words that limit it.

It was unanimously agreed that the next session would involve giving The Knowledge to Frederick. In the case of some kind of meltdown or psychotic episode, tranquilizers would be available to be administered. Chimpanzees possess incredible strength, and on several occasions have savagely attacked, disfigured and even killed humans. As much as Mark and Darcy were inclined to trust Frederick, even they acknowledged that the risks should not be ignored.

It was Darcy that pointed out, for instance that ethically, they should obtain Frederick’s informed consent to take the drug by choice, rather than make the assumption that he even wanted to be subjected to what was admittedly an experimental procedure.

She and Mark agreed to interview Frederick in a way that would allow him to express himself as freely and completely as possible without simply injecting their own prejudices into their interpretations of his answers. It did not represent an easy task, and they realized that from a strictly scientific standpoint their interpretations would be considered highly suspect.

Then again, if you really want to learn to think outside the box you have to be willing to act outside the box…”First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain…then there is…”

And so it is with boxes as well.

In so doing, it could be argued that Man had chosen to become The Serpent. Then again, Man has been the one who has despoiled The Garden ever since he was ejected from it.

俳句…(Valentine Haiku for Suki)

俳句…(Valentine Haiku for Suki) ,

Others come and go

but here and now we remain

I love you always.

Swimming against tides,

Tsukimono-suji please

“Nāsu Witchi” heal.

A mere foolish man,

I stand before you loving

all you are and do.

Winter storms be gone

Better comes as bitter goes

Spring brings warm soft breeze.

Many seasons pass

bamboo and pine grow in Spring

Love grows every day.

When I Read Your Words I Feel So Naked

When I Read Your Words I Feel So Naked

Breathlessly,

In my mind

I imagine you are there beside me

Naked too,

and on my right

sitting behind me

whispering each word

into my ear as I read you

silently.

I hear each sibilance

as it passes your teeth

each plosive syllable

 as it pops from between

your moistened lips,

every affricative

formed between tooth and lip,

the F’s escaping

like some intoxicating vapor,

the V’s buzzing

and waving their stingers.

I feel you breathing in my ear.

I feel your hair

against my neck and shoulders

as your nipples brush

against my arms and back.

You turn a phrase as if each word

is your own tongue

licking and flicking

inside my ear.

A tongue so long it slithers and slides

all the way

inside my brain,

and coils up like a snake,

(if only snakes could wink

and smile)…

A soft metaphor

lays a gentle hand

upon my thigh

as similes

slowly drag

their nails upwards

while you tickle

my fancy

with innuendos

that hint at promises

unspoken

almost too good

to be true

anywhere but here.

This thing we do with words…

And yet I do not even know

the color of your hair,

be it blonde

or brown,

chestnut,

red,

or even black

as raven’s wing.

I try to picture you in my mind.

Full of figure,

slender,

tall

or short,

dark

or pale

or

something in between…

It matters not,

I realize,

just now

because it

is not

the way you look

that seduces me

so boldly

and provocatively

with subtlety

and grace

as you coyly undress my mind

with words

that conjure

feelings,

passion,

and desire

as yet untasted,

so rigid

and yet so flexible

and willing to be led,

or rather

pulled

the way the moon

will raise the tides

time after time.

Forever.

Now.

You draw me

to a bed

of words

both soft and firm

and lay me down

to wallow in your

imagery,

impaled upon

my imagination…

This thing we do with words…

I wonder how your voice will sound

if ever you should speak to me.

Will it be soft?

or

with an edge

as keen

as the arrows

of a huntress

who shoots straight through the heart,

but only takes what she consumes?

Perhaps a husky whiskey voice

deep,

yet darkly feminine,

or maybe

high and clear

like a fairy’s song

as wood nymph

or siren

might use to call

and conjure

spells

like those that you have cast

on me.

These things we do with words,

my friend

and lover

of confidences

together,

implied

as well as

inferred.

A union of souls and spirits

incapable of jealousies

or possessiveness,

giving freely and taking gratefully

in this world we’ve made

of our own

where writer and reader

alike

slake our cravings, lusts

and passions…

to be heard and understood.

To lead each other

to a place beyond mere words alone,

where there is only knowing.

This thing we do with words….

Like a reciprocated Kiss,

…the only kind of Snowball

that has a chance in Hell,

we pass our words

and images

and idea(l)s

back and forth

between us now,

The Union of the Woman and the Man.

The Union of the Writer and the Reader.

The Union of Truth and Wisdom.

The Union of the Word and the Idea.

The Union of the Idea and the Understanding.

The Union of the Understanding and the Enlightenment.

The Union of Giving and Receiving

freely without conditions or reservation.

What is Love?

You already know…

This is Love.

Pass it on

wherever you go.

The more you give

The more you will have.

Wear it like Sunshine

on your face

so I will know you

instantly

if we should ever meet,

even

if it takes a thousand lifetimes.

Adversity

Adversity

I sit here in an aluminum shack with no electricity. I charge my computer each day on borrowed power long enough to be able to write. Ironically, I still have telephone service, but up until today I had to go to a café near my work to use their internet to make my postings.

I have learned to be grateful for a job that I despise working for an Evil Empire that is a big part of the machinery that is enslaving America.

So I sit here in the dark. My only light is the screen of my computer, which I turn down to extend the battery time left. I cook my meals over a fire in my barbeque. I keep my food in a cooler and add new ice each morning.

It is only a temporary setback. (That is what I keep telling myself.) I enjoyed a fair share of privilege and culture, a good education and lovingly misguided parents who did their best to provide me a good home. Much of my life has been a balance of comfort, culture, music, means, and adventure. I have loved freely with a reckless abandon that has been reciprocated far beyond my dreams. I wish I had been more appreciative of it at the time.

However, several convergent financial catastrophes and personal losses beyond my control have aligned themselves like planets in some astrological perfect storm that threatens to reduce me to my lowest common denominator.

Most of it was due to factors beyond my control, but some of it could have been avoided by better judgment. (And before you ask…no, I am not a drug addict.) Such is the nature of hindsight…although we wish so much that it could make us wiser, or provide us with foresight, in truth if adversity really does build character, I would be the Buddha by now, and I am not….

I know. I met the Buddha once, while traveling along the road, and I killed him and fed his body to a hungry dog. I will probably meet him again.

In my Cabin in the Woods I live amongst other Fallen Angels and Lost Souls, most of whom are united by bad luck, bad judgment, unfortunate circumstances or bad timing. Most of them would rather be anywhere else but here, but there is no escaping that we are all here for good reason.

I have a couple of neighbors who are here by choice. This is not their real home, but they enjoy the same quiet and serenity that I love about the place.

We have become fast friends already, and their generosity and kindness has helped me to not just endure my present hardships, but to be able to survive them in a way that gives me hope and inspires me on a daily basis. I am slowly learning to flourish within my adversity. Each day I surprise myself with my ingenuity and determination.

I thought that I was looking forward to being able to return the favor when my circumstances improved until today….

Today, just now, I realized that I do not have to wait for anything to improve to simply extend kindness and compassion to whomever I meet that needs it, and that simple realization has given me something I did not possess before just now, and that understanding will give me what I need to prevail.

It is also the only way I will ever be able to pay it back…by paying it forward.

My new friends are people of means. They do not need my repayment or my charity. They suffered their own setbacks and losses long before I met them, but managed to prevail, and even prosper.

They drive vehicles much nicer than anyone else does here, including the owners of the park, and I have seen pictures of their other home…they are here by choice, and they are here for good reason…and so am I.

They already know how much compassion enhances their existence, and I was sent here to learn it from them…not later, after my circumstances improve…but here and now, in the ever-present, never present, present moment.

This is something indestructible, which cannot be taken from me no matter how far I have yet to fall or fail.

This is something that no amount of financial or social privilege or good fortune can give you. I have known people who were born into wealth, as well as people who worked hard and smart(ly) to acquire considerable means, only to lose it, who never recovered from the loss, because material wealth was all they had.

They were so focused on what they acquired, and what they needed to do to acquire it, or what they possessed that when they lost it, they lost everything, as well as themselves…in so doing, they became possessed by their possessions.

We all so much want to have fun that most of us have no clue as to what to do when the fun stops, and one way or another, it WILL…for ALL of us….

I already know now how to keep dancing after the music stops…after the band goes home…after the flames consume the roof, and it is only you and I, dancing the Apocalypso.

If there is a divine order to the universe it would seem to be that within an infinite existence, everything will happen eventually, and some things will succeed and prevail, and other things will not.

There is order even in chaos. Our impatience makes us prisoners of desperation so consumed by fear of our own mortality that we fail to see the beauty of our Dharma as it surrounds us every day.

I will no longer be a prisoner of my own adversity once I learn to embrace it. I am filled with gratitude for all things, and it is my wish to share that with all of you in your own times of need.

Baraka Bashad.

The Ballad of Charles and Suki IX: Who Knew?

The Ballad of Charles and Suki IX: Who Knew?

It was during those early-morning canoodlings that the weekend turned a corner into a neighborhood no one anticipated, and it happened almost simultaneously in two separate rooms.

First Suki awoke to the sensation of Gerard tenderly nuzzling her neck as he softly whispered to her in French. They had been spooning for several hours as they passed out together, and the feel of his breath, lips and tongue caressing the nape of her neck was especially pleasurable, and although she spoke only a little French, the sheer romance of these unknown words only added to the deliciously languid pleasure of indulgence as she lay there, enjoying being pleasured and pampered this way.

She was still quite exhausted, and felt slightly lazy and perhaps even a bit selfish, although not at all guilty as he caressed her breasts from behind as she lay there, passive, but by no means inert.

Slowly, she felt his tongue start to run further and further down her spine as he lightly rubbed her belly, which almost tickled in a most delicious and sensual way. By this point, the moist folds of her labia were so swollen and distended that she could feel her quickening heartbeat starting to throb between her loins. As good as it all felt, she was not sure she was ready to resume the delicious stretching and punishment she anticipated from Gerard’s swollen Gallic member as she felt it grow while she trapped it between her thighs.

Soon his tongue was lightly tickling the small of her back and licking the top of the cleavage of her buttocks, as he began to roll her over onto her belly, nuzzling the soft generous mounds of flesh, parting them with first his nose, and then his tongue.

Gerard’s technique was as smooth as rémoulade, and Suki was disinclined to discourage his efforts as he pleasured her derriere with his tongue and mouth. She was most appreciative of the dark kiss, and found herself especially aroused in her passive role as he worshipped her from behind.

She was neither surprised nor adverse to the feel of the wet tip of his cock-head as it pressed against her thoroughly moistened anus, which she began to push back against very seductively, feeling his foreskin begin to slide backwards as he rubbed against the cleft between her buttocks. Charles was “cut” (circumcised) as were most of her other lovers and the novelty of this extra flesh was intriguing to her.

When she began to realize that he was being even more patient than she anticipated, she started to push harder against his cock as she felt it start to dilate her brown eye as she shivered with pleasure and anticipation. She was quite fond of anal penetration and realized that she was a little surprised they had never gotten around to it when she had been in LA with him before, but she was as ripe for a good ass-fucking as she had ever been, and was somewhat grateful to give her swollen pussy a brief vacation, even though she knew she would be clamoring for more before noon.

She secretly thanked the genius who decided to market Astra-Glide, as well as her lucky stars that Gerard had the good sense to use it as he deftly began to drizzle it onto the length of his member, allowing it to slowly bathe and drip between her cheeks as he gently stroked and poked her bottom while she raised her buttocks to meet and match his prodding.

The slower he went, the more she wanted him to just plow into her, forcing her open, stretching her so pleasurably apart in wanton lust as she buried her face into the pillow, reaching behind herself and spreading her ass as wide apart as she could, grunting “Fuck me…fuck me hard…fuck my ass and make me scream…fuck me like a drunken whore…split me in half, you beautiful French Fuck!”

The fact that her face was in the pillow, or that she was speaking a mixture of Yugoslavian and Japanese made no difference. Such is the beauty and mystery of the international language of passion.

She began to feel a rumbling warmth and a tingling deep in her bowels. She began to feel her rectum dilating even further as she pushed upward to meet his increasingly vigorous thrusts. With each stroke, he pulled out completely just long enough to allow her asshole to gape, then clench, only to force it even further open as he plowed his throbbing cock even harder into her as she began bearing down to greet his now violent assault. Then, he suddenly stopped, just so she could feel his corona pass her sphincter, pushing back his foreskin as it piled up against itself, and pausing to slowly roll and fold back as he pushed the rest of the length of his meaty girth deep into her.

She felt a clenching kind of spasm begin to wrack her belly uncontrollably. For a brief second, she was afraid she was going to shit all over both of them, and yet somehow she didn’t even care. She did not however, even though it felt like her entire abdomen was about to have a seizure, but it was overwhelmingly pleasurable. She was hyperventilating so much that she got dizzy, and thought she was going to pass out, as her vision went black, right before she began to feel wave after wave of warm pleasure fill her, his throbbing cock exploding deep, and far up her ass.

The warm flood of semen felt like it would never stop, and that would have been fine with her if it hadn’t. The hot tingling sensation of millions of frantically swimming sperm invading her body, spilling into her grew, as a river of cum became a lake, and then an ocean, squishing past his throbbing cock between her gaping and clenching glory hole, pouring out of her and squirting and making that smacking, snapping, slurping sound from continuing to fuck and thrust and soak each other until she lost consciousness completely; he collapsed on top of her and she thought he would crush the life from her.

At that moment, she didn’t care, but as luck would have it, he didn’t.

When she awoke a few moments later, he was babbling like a madman.

“I want you forever…let me treat you like a queen…like you deserve…come back with me to Los Angeles…I want us to live together…you can have anything your heart desires. Be my love forever.”

“Gerard, mon chere, as much as I love you, I am married to Charles. We are fortunate enough to be allowed a kind of passion and love most people never know, but (my) true heart belongs to him, and (it) always will.”

“But what can he give you that I can’t?” he implored.

“History…Years of it… (His) blessing to be with you as I choose. You could even say he gave me you…I am not (a) cheater. As beautiful and masterful a lover as you are, I would not have slept with you (that) first night if (I) didn’t already know (that) it was like he was there on (my) shoulder, encouraging (me) to explore, to be adventurous, (and to) follow (my) heart, (and) that always leads (me) back to him.” There were tears in her eyes as she spoke.

“I can give you that…not the history all at once, but you could come and go as you please…I can even pay the transportation both ways whenever you want, no strings attached.”

“But would you really be happy with (that) arrangement? Charles and I have built (a) life together…I have (a) career of my own, (that) I love, too. You are like (a) gloriously indulgent vacation…I can let myself fall in love with you because I know (that) I already have (a) life to go back to that is always waiting for me.”

Suki continued “We are not equals in many ways. Although I do not possess (the) means and financial privilege (that) you do, I do not envy (it). You do not have (a) primary love like I (do), and (I) fear you (will) end up feeling envious and bitter for that. You already want(ed) (to) try (to) take me away from Charles…that is not (a) good sign for me.”

“Will you still want to be with me if I come to visit you?”

“Of course…I have already very strong feelings for you. You excite me, and you (are) charming and fun…and (a) wonderful lover…”

“Better than Charles?”

“Better not to ask… (a) little mystery is good….keep (you) both on (your) best behavior.”

Meanwhile, in the other room…

Around dawn, Charles awoke to the sensation of Jennifer gently licking his cock and balls like it was an ice-cream cone, giggling like a school-girl with a crush, and winking provocatively, blowing a kiss from the palm of her hand as he opened his eyes.

“Good morning, my love…hope you don’t mind if I started eating without you…I’d offer you a bite, but I thought you might prefer a little sushi for breakfast…if you’re hungry for some fresh South Carolina snapper, or maybe a salty clam on the half-shell…what’cha say, Big Guy…think you might like to wake up like this every morning?

Charles was always amused by the way Jenny called him “Big Guy” considering she was more than a half-foot taller than his somewhat diminutive five-foot-five stature. She was slightly over six feet tall and usually did it as she was looking down at him, and she usually did it when someone else was watching in the hope that they would question the incongruity, to which she would wink and say “Don’t ask if you don’t want an honest answer.”

In truth, Charles was not all that well-endowed length-wise…a little over seven inches or so (nice enough, nonetheless), but the girth was a real jaw dropper for most women…easily as wide as his thick, meaty wrists.

His forearms were unusually well-developed, and his biceps swelled enough to slightly stretch most short-sleeves. He was barrel-chested and generally very well-muscled, but a little overweight, by maybe twenty pounds or so.

But truth be told, it was his mind and his heart that really captivated her, long before he ever bedded her.

He was also more than twenty-five years older than she, but had the kind of rugged good looks that seemed to exude testosterone like rosin from a pine tree despite a sort of boyish charm, beautiful hazel eyes and a smile that could melt the heart of any woman from eight to eighty-eight. Yet he looked worldly and dangerous in a way that Jenny was unaccustomed to encountering in most of the men she had known previously.

There was none of the bravado or swagger so characteristic of younger men who would rather flaunt their ignorant false courage and quick temper in arrogance than allow anyone to see their fear, weakness or vulnerability. He acted like a man who had nothing to prove.

She was tall, thin, blonde, and simply beautiful. She carried herself well despite a sort of lankiness that reminded one of what Uma Thurman must have looked like in her late teens. She had firm, perky looking breasts and you would never have guessed she had already borne two children before having her tubes tied. She was a little self-conscious about her somewhat broad, squared shoulders, but it is doubtful that anyone else noticed it if she didn’t mention it. They made a striking couple together, and they never failed to turn heads everywhere they went.

Oddly enough, it was she who seemed to beam the most, as if she was just so proud to be seen with him. When he was with her, he exuded this self-assured unassuming confidence that seemed to say “Why don’t you just ask her?”

He liked to call it their “Sweet Majic”.

So as to not sound as if he was completely avoiding the question, he said “I’ll have the sushi platter…everything that’s on the menu, my darlin’…”

“But you didn’t answer my question sweetheart…” he felt her grip around his cock tighten very slightly.

He knew the question she wanted him to answer, but tried to dodge it, at least for a moment while he tried to think his way out. This was not the first time this question had arisen.

“You asked me sushi or clam…I said ‘sushi’…what’s the problem?…Red Tide or something?”

He sensed a very slight tenseness in her voice…one that he was not used to hearing except occasionally when she spoke to her husband Kyle.

“No dearest…the other question…about waking up together every morning…don’t try to be a fart smeller…I mean smart feller…(she tried to giggle just to take the edge off, but it didn’t convince either one of them…they were definitely headed for a showdown if he didn’t think up something very good, very quickly.)

“What’s to stop us? Do we need to find us a bed for three…or four? I’d love nothing better than a big house by the sea…are you sure Kyle would be down with that?”

“Fuck Kyle, Goddammit!”

“OK, now don’t get me wrong…I think he’s a great guy and everything, and all things considered, I’d say he has a very generous and open heart…we’ve shared a few winks and a high five or two while we were having some ‘Dutch Door’ action with you in the middle, but man-ass is just not my kind of cup of tea, babycakes…why?…did he say something?”

Charles should have known better…he was over-playing the duck-and dodge humor card, and he could have sworn he was starting to feel just a touch of fingernails in her ever-so-slightly tightening grip on his prick.

“Kyle and I are not the question! The question is you and me. I got two young kids, and I’m about to become a single parent at the rate things are going…”

“Well, I think the kids should really sleep in their own beds…and I’ll have to run that by Suki…but you two seemed to get along pretty well last night…and there are few things more beautifully touching and poignant than the sight of two women pleasuring each other…I think she is really starting to become very fond of you, in fact…hmmmm…so a California King-size bed for the three of us and separate beds and rooms for the kids…I sure do love the way you think, my statuesque Southern Belle…maybe get a house with a guest room, or even a mother-in-law cottage for when Gerard comes to visit…unless we all decide to do a big ‘dog-pile’…I get the impression you might like that too, just for variety…I saw the way your eyes rolled back in your head when he shoved that big French ‘Franc-Footer’ in you…but I’m not the jealous type, you know…I just love to see you being pleasured…usually it’s the things a magician pulls out of their majic hat that impresses everyone, although I thought he was going to turn yours inside-out…”

Charles was on a roll, all right, but he did not have the good sense to realize it was straight downhill, and he was just babbling out of nervousness. His imagination for improv had long outstripped his good judgment. Jenny’s loss of patience was about to turn into what she called a “South Carolina Mad-On.”

She relinquished her grip on his pull-toy (which now more resembled cooked linguine, or maybe lasagna, considering the width) and began to weep softly.

“OK…I get it…you can’t blame a girl for tryin’…you make one hell of a catch, Mr. Charles, and if I was Suki, I don’t know if I’d be so quick to share you with another woman, but I guess she knows your heart well enough to know she’s got nothing to worry about…from where I see, that makes her about the luckiest gal alive…”

Charles eyes glistened a bit and he blinked a few too many times to hide the sadness he felt as he watched her pour her heart out to him.

Charles added “Look, what we have together is amazing. What we miss by not having the chance to wake up together on a regular basis is offset by not having to argue about money, or how to raise our children, PMS, who does what chores or one or the other being too tired or bored…all that everyday shit that just gets to be too much for most couples…overwhelms them like a dark cloud of toxic gas and chokes the life out of the love they knew.”

He went on.

“It came damn close to happening to Suki and I…and you were the one who helped encourage Suki to be open to both you and me, as well as to Gerard…you saved our marriage, and you could say you saved my life…you resuscitated the Paramedic…breathed life back into an emotional corpse…”

Jenny interjected “But why can’t I just be good enough all by myself?”

“So you’re saying you wouldn’t want to be in Suki’s shoes?”

“I wish to hell I was!”

“Then just try to imagine her as the “other woman”…pretend I’m a traveling salesman…I don’t know…because if you were in Suki’s shoes, I wonder if you would be so understanding about the likes of you…think about it, honey….”

Between the sobs, she blurted out “It’s just that Kyle and I are about done…I’ve been leaving him for years now…I tried a couple times already, but then I let him back, even though really doesn’t make me happy like you do.”

“You have to learn to make yourself happy…I know you don’t want to hear that kind of shit right now, but it’s true…I can’t help wondering how long it will take before you grow bored with me…maybe it’s the attraction of wanting something you can’t have that you really love.”

He went on. “Many times when I listened to you bitch about one thing or another about your husband, I couldn’t help thinking that could be me you were talking about to somebody else…don’t look so surprised…I’ve thought about it too…we’ve been in love with each other for almost a year now…I don’t need to change anything in my life…right now, I wouldn’t change a thing if I could…I like being your escape, your getaway…your moment of bliss, as well as mine.”

He softened his tone as he reached out to touch her cheek. “I know you remember that night after work, before we even acknowledged what was going through both our minds…and hearts. I said to you that I think I needed to find a woman who was just as interested in keeping what she already had as I was…it wasn’t until that moment that it hit me that you were that woman, ‘cause you sighed just a little and put your arm around me and kissed me on the top of the head as we were walking out of the building to our cars.”

“We didn’t even kiss for almost a week after that” she added. “I thought I was going to burst waiting for you to seal the deal…”

“I like to take my time to savor each passing moment” he said.

Then she blurted out “You do know I only intended for you to be a fling, a flirt…Kyle was OK with all that, and always has been. You were just supposed to be a blowjob or two in the parking lot, maybe have you finger me while I sucked your cock…Not what I’d call a sympathy fuck or anything like that…I admit I got a pretty bad case of you awfully quick, but I think the longer you made me wait, the more I wanted you in a different kind of way…and when I finally got what I thought I wanted, I just ran completely off the rails.”

“Me too, baby…me too…I love that feeling I get when I don’t see you for a couple days…feeling infatuated, and preoccupied…wondering what you’re doing, knowing I can’t get you out of my head or my heart.” Charles started to choke up a bit at that point, and took a long deep breath.

“So why not have me all the time? “I’m yours for the asking”, she blurted out as he paused, and then it hit her…”Because then you would be thinking about her instead of me?”

“Well, not exactly. Suki and I had a damn near perfect relationship for years that just went south for no good reason we could really put our fingers on…the same reasons most couples grow apart, I guess, but when you came along, I found myself full of hope and optimism…I dared to dream about things…ideas and ideals I’d had since I was very young…that I had long forgotten or given up on. I thought maybe it really was possible to live the dream, because it was like I was falling in love with the both of you at the same time…I owe you my life for giving me back my love affair with Suki, and sometimes I fear she never would have fallen back in love with me if it weren’t for you…when she had to choose the Lady or the Tiger, she sent me to you…are you sure you could do the same? Would you?”

As he paused to smile at her, they both started to weep openly as they embraced and kissed each other like it was their last moment on earth.

They gasped and sobbed as they fucked each other with a ferocity and frenzy that could have passed for hatred to the uninitiated, but as they lay there gasping in each other’s arms, Jenny pushed a few locks of hair away out of Charles’ eyes and sighed.

She said “I don’t know…I really just don’t know…I just know that right here and now in this very moment that I love you in a way that I’ve never known before…and right now that is all I know in this whole world. Maybe that is all I need to know.”

Charles said “I wish I could remember who it was that said we already have everything we need and we already are everything we need to be, if we can just learn to recognize what that is.”

“I think you just did…” she whispered. “…except you just said it a little different from any way I ever heard it before…but then again, maybe I just wasn’t listening with the same ears.”

That night, they all partied and sucked, and fucked and snorted and dropped and rolled and tripped and smoked and burned and vaporized with a passion that deserved to become legendary, if only by the telling here. Dionysius and Bacchus were probably watching, or even lending spiritual support that night, for all they could tell…

…And it was good, like the way God said each day after he was finished.

The next day, Charles and Suki woke up alone as room service was knocking at their door. At first, they were grateful it wasn’t the police…they had gotten pretty wild and loud the night before, and even rich people in Monroe county occasionally have to answer for their sins or indiscretions if they get too far out of hand, and there were a few moments for which they could not have accounted at all, had they been pressed for answers or explanations.

After room service left, they began to wonder where the fuck Gerard and Jennifer had gotten. The cart was filled with every sort of indulgence that could be contrived for breakfast, brunch, luncfast or pagan sacrifice, including champagne, caviar, a red rose, and a yellow one as well. There was also a note inside an envelope that read:

Dear Charles and Suki,

I am writing this for the both of us; partly because Gerard says my handwriting is prettier. (lol). Anyway, we had a long talk early this morning after you two passed out.

What you two said yesterday morning was not what either one of us wanted to hear, but both collectively and individually, what you two said made a lot of sense, especially when we started to compare notes this morning. Neither one of us could sleep. It was the most amazing night of my life. (Oh yeah, and Gerard says it was for him too, btw. lol).

Anyway, although we both love you very much, the other thing Gerard and I have in common is that we don’t have a primary person like you two do. If you two didn’t have each other, we know this whole thing would be a lot easier for all of us ‘cause we would all be on common ground already and we could all come and go as we pleased. (No pun intended, lol).

Gerard and I both need a primary person, and somehow in all the wonderful madness of this weekend, we realized that although we don’t have all that much in common, we did have a lot of fun together, and we both find each other attractive in many ways (I know you know what I mean, Suki, lol). We both also acknowledged that there is a part of us that still wants to be with each of you (actually both of you, I guess).

Sooooo, to make a long story just a little longer (lol), we figured we could satisfy each other’s needs pretty well. (I have to confess we both fucked like a couple of bunnies this morning without you, and it was pretty special in its own way.) It’s kind of crazy, but somehow it felt like we were cheating, but it just happened as we were talking. Maybe we are just helping each other out while we try to get over you two, but I hope not, and neither does Gerard.

We have already left to go back to my house to pick up my kids. We left a limo for you two. Gerard leased a small jet for us to fly back. Kyle and I were never actually legally married, so he has no claim, although I don’t want to keep him away from the kids, so we will be coming back to Florida on a very regular basis.

Maybe you can see where this is headed already, but we thought if we came back as a couple, we could get together with the both of you when we do, I don’t know how we will be feeling about any of this for a couple of months. Who knows? Wouldn’t that be a hoot? Us as a couple, hanging out with you two? It’s kind of strange that we’re not really in love with each other the way we are both in love with both of you, but somehow it seems to make sense right now. (I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit I hope you both feel a little jealous, though, lol.)

We’ll get in touch after we get back to LA.

PS:

Charles, you said something yesterday morning that made me think. You said I saved your life and your marriage, and yet I couldn’t help feeling like you broke my heart in the process, but then you said “we already have everything we need and we already are everything we need to be, if we can just learn to recognize what that is” and I thought, Jenny, follow your heart. It lead you here, and maybe you just need to recognize that you have the answer right here in front of you all along.

Maybe my grandma was wrong. Maybe you can have your cake and eat it too. (I never really understood exactly what she meant by that, because what else would you do with a piece of cake? Put it under your pillow? lol). But maybe there is a way to have it all, or at least to have it both ways. (lol) I suppose if I was going to go both ways, I’d rather do it with you, Suki. (btw, I never did anything like that with another woman before and didn’t really think I ever would, so you should feel very flattered (lol), and you are very welcome. 😉

Love Always,

Jenny and Gerard

And so, my friends that is the story of how Charles and Suki came to embrace The Home for Wayward Souls, and Polyamory, and how they became such an integral part of the lives of Ash and Lilith, Merle, and Darcy and Mark. This is what they brought to the picnic….