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poptod · 3 years

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A Special Kind of Attention (Ahkmenrah x Reader)

Description: The young Prince, who you are in the employ of, enjoys playing pranks and generally tormenting you.

Notes: pretty heavily implied male reader, but its still gender neutral! if you ever wanted to dom ahk, heres your chance to live vicariously through your imagination. ahk has some major bde in this fic WC: 3.6k

*- this is a reference to a wellknown myth at the time. basically, its saying he should stick cum up his ass (and thus label himself a bottom)

No matter how much sweat had gathered on the back of his sun-burned neck, he comforted himself with the fact that this would be, in the end, very much worth the work. Below his clinging hands, the bag sloshed with well water. He had passed by you earlier in the morning, as you stood guard outside the city gates, your attention unwavering from your duty. The sight of you followed by a well brought an idea into his head, and he decided seeing you drenched in water would be a fun activity.

He'd done worse before, to be fair––always to you, never to any of the other soldiers, and certainly not any civilians. By now you must've grown some deep seated resentment for him, but you never let it show. That was part of the fun––seeing just how far he could go before you lost it.

Keeping his back pressed to the wall of the entrance, he snuck up behind you, careful to keep slow so the swishing water didn't give him away. With one great heave, he moved to the tips of his toes and dunked the bag over your head, sprinting off with maniac laughter as you shouted, yanking the bag off just to see him disappear. From a distance he watched how your skin glistened, and how he could very nearly see through your clothes.

Unbeknownst to you but known to him, you would see each other later tonight––the soldiers were being rotated again, meaning the soldiers by the Nile were to protect the palace, and the palace soldiers would take over observation of the outer markets. Ahk grinned to himself, imagining you looking over dinner. It wasn't often that he got to see your behavior in front of the Pharaoh, but each time was such a treat, watching you keep perfect posture and composure as he teased you any way he could imagine.

That night, he eyed you from his seat at the long dining table. You were positioned in front of the entrance of the hall, opposite another soldier, whose name he didn't care to remember. As always you kept your chin high, eyes trained on a distant wall.

He stared for as long as he could, and when at last your own gaze wavered to meet his, he winked, biting his lip with a smile. You turned away immediately, flushed with warmth.

"You're quiet this evening," said the Pharaoh, his attention directed to Ahk, who turned with wide, surprised eyes.

"Apologies," Ahk said as he returned to his dinner. "I did a lot of studying today, so my mind is a little... flighty, right now."

"I didn't see you in the library," Kamun said, raising a single, accusatory brow.

"I went to Osiris' temple to practice my handwriting," Ahk returned curtly, a quick and succinct statement that was as effective as it was fake.

"Good man," his father said with a smile. "Taking initiative. Why don't you ever do that, Kamun?"

Kamun, the eldest brother, seethed in his spot but said nothing. He was the least charismatic of the four brothers and also the most dedicated, which was an unfortunate combination for a man as prideful as him. All the work he did was brushed away, always dulled out by his younger brothers' accomplishments, yet he very rarely mentioned his own anger in front of his parents. No, most of the time it came out when Ahk was alone.

That was how you found him after dinner; his face shoved against the coarse wall, arm twisted painfully high behind him. Kamun had a knee in his back, keeping him pinned there.

"Admit it was a lie, brother," the elder hissed, readjusting his grip on Ahk's head to bang it harder against the stone.

"Go stick a head of lettuce up your ass*," Ahk said, laughing at his own joke until Kamun knocked his head against the wall again, a hollow thud coming from his skull.

You cleared your throat and both their struggling ceased, the two parting from each other.

"Good evening, my Princes," you said quietly, stepping nearer till you faced them both. The muscles in the back of your hand rippled as you strengthened your hold on your spear.

"Hello," Ahk said dully as Kamun stormed off, his hands balled into fists even when he disappeared around the corner of the hall.

You watched as Ahk rubbed at his sore arm, massaging away the strain.

"You know, he wouldn't do that if you weren't such an asshole to him," you said offhand, looking down at his injury with an unimpressed expression.

"Why are you nice to me then?"

"If I wasn't, I would get my head chopped off," you reminded him.

"Oh," he grumbled. "Right."

"I'm sure you don't need an escort to your room. Good night," you said, turning to leave before a hand grasped your upper arm, whirling you back around.

"He knocked my head pretty hard," he said with a dazed, shit-eating grin you knew all too well. "Might need some help."

You very nearly groaned audibly, but you managed to keep it behind your lips. He was just trying to get a rise out of you, was all––besides, this wouldn't take long, and you would be able to retire to your quarters, which had recently been moved into the palace. You comforted yourself with that thought as you silently walked down the halls.

Ahk being shorter than you did little to make you feel less humiliated. Actually, it only worked to make you feel worse, being bossed around by someone both younger and smaller than you. You supposed that was how most people felt when children were made Pharaoh.

"So," Ahk began, his hands behind his back, "how's your day gone?"

"Someone threw a bag of water over my head that disturbed several of the market stalls, and many merchants got angry. So we had a tussle outside the city," you recounted blandly, your eyes straight ahead despite the wealth of expressions coming from the man beside you.

"Sounds like someone made your day interesting," he said along with a smile, neither of which you replied to in any way.

By the time you made it to the double doors of Ahk's bedroom, your grip on your spear was so tight you were surprised it hadn't snapped in half yet. You helped him open the doors, weapon still in hand, and kept the doors open as he stepped inside.

"Good night, m-"

"It's still early, why don't you join me?" He asked, tilting his chin upwards with a cocky look in his eye.

"I really should -"

"Come," he ordered, beckoning you over.

Again you bit the inside of your cheek, and followed him in, letting the door slowly swing shut behind you.

"You want to know something I admire about you?" Ahk said as he wandered into his room, leaving you in the middle while he searched his bookcase.

"What's that, sir?" You asked, despite not wanting to know in the slightest.

"You've got quite the resolve," he said, turning back to you with two chalices and one jug. "Haven't seen it break yet."

"Well, I was trained in Thebes, sir. They're thorough with their teachings."

The prince handed one of the cups to you, pouring red wine that sloshed and bubbled as it landed in the goblet. He filled his own glass before setting away the jug. With that he clinked his cup against yours, the empty tink ringing in the silence. He drew a long sip, his eyes trained on yours, and remaining so even as he lowered his cup.

"Tell me about your family," the Prince said.

"I'm not sure how that's relevant to anything."

"Come now, you know all about my family--"

Who doesn't, you thought.

"––and I think it's only fair I know something about yours."

"Do you ask this of all your soldiers?" You asked as you took another sip of red wine.

"Just the handsome ones," he replied, stepping closer with a cheeky, lopsided grin.

"I don't think I need to remind you that you shouldn't be fraternizing with your employees," you said flatly.

"Mm, you're good at deflecting questions, aren't you?"

"I'm good at staying focused."

"Still... what's going on with your family that you're ever so reluctant to share anything about them?" He asked, taking another step towards you, that you now combated by taking a step backwards.

"... my sister got deported recently," you said, breaking from his gaze to look to the floor beside you. "I don't have any family besides her."

"I thought you were an Egyptian citizen?"

"I am. She isn't. She was born down south, a few years before I was born here, in Memphis. Our parents died a little while back but they would've been deported too."

"She is older than you though, isn't she? I'm sure she can take care of herself," Ahk said as he swirled his cup.

"Yes. I know."

For politeness's sake you stayed a moment longer, took another swig from your cup, before setting it aside.

"If you don't need me, I should be getting back t––"

"Oh, but I do need you," he said, stepping closer, "if you don't mind."

You stumbled as your back hit the closed door behind you, feet fumbling to regain what balance you'd lost.

"Of course... sir," you said in a monotone voice, keeping your rushing adrenaline below the knot in your throat.

The younger prince had always been a bit eccentric––stories from your coworkers and various palace dwellers had told you so. He generally did whatever he wanted, but his parents doted on him dearly, and he got away with just about everything. While it seemed a little unfair to not do the same for the eldest child, you did notice that while both siblings were passionate, Kamun was passionate in a more violent way, while Ahkmen was passionate in an undeniably flirtatious way. In the short amount of time you'd spent guarding the corridor for Ahk's room, you'd seen three different people sneaking out of his room multiple times. You had a responsibility not to become one of them.

Ahkmen circled you, stopping in front of a floor-length mirror that casted his reflection perfectly.

"My manservant got sores from work yesterday, so I sent him home early. But," he met his own gaze, "these clothes are near impossible to take off without help from another. Do you mind?"

Though the expression on your face remained a mute, dull expression, you could feel the flame burning in your cheeks. Your heartbeat pounded even in the ends of your fingers, wrapped around your spear.

"... no. Of course, my prince," you said, your voice strikingly low and rough.

A pleased smile stretched across his lips as you approached, setting your spear aside against a wall. To be fair, he did genuinely need help––the beaded collar on his shoulders was latched far behind his back, and if he tried to reach it, he might tear the sleeves or break the collar. You reached for the tiny latch, pulling and releasing the two you found.

"There's one more, bit further down," he said, still watching his own reflection. You caught your own eyes peering over his shoulder, their dark sternness piercingly depressing beside the Prince's golden colors.

With a deep breath you pushed aside his long cape, calloused fingers reaching for the last latch. You accidentally brushed against the skin of his back, hot against your cold hands, which he certainly felt judging by the way his posture straightened and he sucked in a sharp breath.

"There," you said, stepping away. "Done."

"Thank you, dear," he said as he reached up, sliding the collar off his shoulders, his cape drifting off with it.

Sleeves soon followed and the whole of his chest was bared, graced by dark freckles and the golden bands still circling his thin wrists. You watched, unaware of your own staring, as he began to tug at his belt, pulling it off his hips. His skirt sagged, exposing his hips carelessly in front of you. Something as little as a deep breath had you shaking ever so slightly.

"Is that it, my Prince?"

"Here," he said, handing you his collar, and the attached cape and sleeves.

Golden fabric piled onto your arms, soon followed by his belt, golden wristbands, and the crown on his head. It was a good deal heavier than you would've imagined, and you wondered if it ever hurt.

Your thoughts on the crown were ripped away from you, leaving your mind a blank, empty expanse the moment his skirt fell to the floor. If he noticed your stupor, he didn't say anything. Instead he simply gathered up the cloth and handed it to you, padding nude to his desk, upon which he opened a box made especially for his gold wristbands. He pulled them off, leaving him blank of identification.

As he turned, he finally caught your eye, but couldn't keep it for long. Your eyes darted back to the ground, wide with the morbid feeling stewing in your head and chest. He chuckled.

"You can set those in my wardrobe," he said, stepping towards his bed and kneeling upon it.

You dutifully obeyed, trying to get a grasp on your shaky breathing before you had to turn and face him again. Folding and taking care of clothes was absolutely not one of your skills, but you tried your best, and eventually returned to stand in front of the kneeling Prince.

He wasn't terribly muscular, more lean, but you could still see thin muscles peeking through the dark skin. Along his clavicle were two freckles––similarly, long eyelashes led to the freckles lining his cheekbones, still dusted with an earlier blush. There was no denying he was a handsome man, though that was no excuse to give into such urges. You could hardly admit to your own desires, much less act on them, which kept you from moving at all.

"A little while ago you informed me that you have no partner," he said softly, still looking you directly in the eyes.

"Yes."

"Is that still so?"

"Yes," you said. "I like to keep to myself."

A touch against your exposed thigh had you jerking backwards, a strangled grunt coming halfway out your mouth.

"No one will have to know," he murmured, dragging his touch up your sensitive skin, long untouched for most of your waking years.

Your first instinct was to pull away, which you did do at first, but the flat expanse of his palm pressing on your thigh had you rooted to the spot. Most everything in you froze, shock and surprise filling your head. Still, you tried to keep a calm expression, and gave little away.

"Is this what you wanted?" You asked.

His grin just widened, teeth digging into his bottom lip and pulling till it released, soft and red.

"Why am I your victim in all your... hijinks?"

"Well," he chuckled, "you're awfully pretty, and you won't pay any attention to me if I don't."

Seeing as you weren't struggling, he took to pulling on your belt, shifting back on the bed to make space for you. Your lack of movement was no invitation, but he must've taken it as such. One harsh tug had you stumbling forward, balancing yourself with one knee on the mattress, your hands open to catch yourself.

"Sir, I am not permitted –"

"Shhhhh," he hummed, his hand moving lightning fast to catch you by your chin, pulling you closer yet till your noses nearly touched. "Your Prince asks this of you."

The slightest movement from him––eyes fluttering shut, neck craning forward––and he was kissing you, plump lips moving as soft as rose petals against you. Warmth gathered everywhere, growing in your breath, in your moving lips, building and building till the tension became nearly too much. You tried to move backwards, oversensitive and overstimulated. But the Prince wouldn't let you––he simply held you tighter, dug his hands into your hair, and pulled you forward so forcefully you landed on top of him, your weight meeting his heat.

That heat was recognizable even through the material of your skirt, pressing against your hip. As unfortunate as it was, you could feel your own excitement growing within you, sending warmth to your face and your thighs.

"Fuck," you mumbled, mostly to yourself, when Ahk finally let you breathe.

"What?" He asked softly, petting your hair as he did his best to keep you close to him. His legs wrapped around you, the hand on your cheek keeping you facing him.

"I told myself I wouldn't do this," you said, still quiet and gruff.

"So you expected this?"

"I knew it was a possibility," you said flatly.

"Good," he said with a smile you couldn't quite understand. "That means you're prepared for this."

Before you could ask what he meant, his feet were pushing your skirt down your hips, the white linen quickly dropping to the floor. You didn't do the knot as tight as you should've this morning.

"Ahkmen ––"

"Mm, I like that," he said, grinning sly as ever. Your expression contorted with confusion, so he continued with, "I like when you say my name."

Very rarely did you ever refer to any of the royal family by their first name. Technically you could call the Pharaoh by his Horus name, but simply calling them by their status had always been easier than remembering names.

Your shock once more worked to your demise, or at least the demise of your self respect. The young prince flipped you over while you were unaware of yourself, pinning you to the bed with his hips sat on yours, directing your hands to circle his waist as he kissed you deep once more. A muffled grunt came from you, fingers instinctively digging into him.

I'm being seduced by a Prince, you thought miserably. I feel like I should be happier about this.

"I want you to use your mouth on me," he mumbled between rough kisses, taking what pleasure he wanted from you. "Wanna see what that quiet tongue can do."

He reached down to stroke his own length pressed against your stomach, leaking and hard from the tension he'd grown. Your breath caught in your throat again, unable to dislodge itself as you stared, mesmerized by the pulse of his chest and hum of his soft moans.

"Can you do that for me?" He asked as he began to grind against you.

Holy fuck, you thought, wide eyes taking in his entirety. You could finish from his begging alone.

You gripped his hips, and in one, swift movement he was beneath you, his hand returning to touch himself. Before he could properly do so you batted his hand away, stalking down the bed till your face rested above his twitching hips. You kept his eye the whole time.

Wet already began to seep to the edge of your tongue, waiting for you to finally meet his cock. The arrogant young prince had you right where he wanted you, where you had tried so hard to avoid, and where he now kept you of your own free will.

The flat of your tongue ran a long stripe up him, drawing from him a long, relieved sigh. His head fell back, one of his knees kinking upwards. You watched his reactions carefully, kissing wet spots all up and down, catching whatever dripped down. On the prominent veins you sucked a little harder, making him hiss and his back arch upwards. Every movement he made you lapped up like you were starved.

Fingers soon dug into your hair, pulling and tugging whenever you graced his sensitive spots. Soon, ready for his lack of control, you wrapped your lips around the head, gently pulling and sucking with your tongue as you began to sink deeper.

"Fuck," he said emphatically, running his fingers through the locks of your hair before tugging hard.

Soon his cock nudged the back of your throat, stopping there as you tried to swallow him down. Twice you tried unsuccessfully, but as you calmed yourself, you could feel him thrust deeper yet into you, forcing into the back of your mouth and cutting of your breath. You moaned, albeit quite muffled, from the sensation. The hand on the back of your head kept you in place as he thrusted upwards, moans tumbling from his mouth as he used you.

Caught in his hold, you did your best not to gag, dutifully swallowing around him and breathing when you could. He grew steadily faster, with less rhythm and more force shoving into you. Your hands gripped his hips to hold yourself up better, but even as you tried to pull away, tears stinging your eyes, he kept you there, locked away in the throes of his own pleasure.

Your nose remained pressed to his hip as he came, a long, sweet trail of moans following what spurted into the back of your throat. With no give to pull yourself off and no possible way to open your mouth further, you swallowed what you were given.

The burning pull on your hair soon released as well, allowing you to sit up and away from the young Prince. He was still panting, his gaze cast lazily upwards, and hands gathering in his own messy hair.

"I got a little carried away there," he mumbled, his eyes slowly closing. "I apologize for that."

"Don't worry," you said as you grabbed his hips, pulling him close to you and flipping him over. By pulling him up on his knees, you shoved his head onto the mattress, the force of it drawing a gasp from him. "You'll make up for it."

#ahkmenrah x reader #Ahkmenrah #Night at the Museum #rami malek #rami malek character #ahkmenrah x male reader #ahkmenrah x female reader

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kabane52 · 5 years

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The War Within

This is an old article from Christianity Today from 1982

Driving through Wisconsin on vacation this summer, a Leadership staff member passed a huge sign in the middle of the bucolic countryside. "Naughty Things for Nice People," it proclaimed, and as if to prove it, a gigantic cuddly bear peered out from beside the words "Adult Novelties."

"What's that mean, Dad?" came the question from the ten-year-old boy in the back of the van. "Yeah," piped up the siblings, "what's that all about, Dad?"

Such questions abound these days, as media penetrate our homes and vehicles with not just sleazy sex but carefully packaged titillations. One report has it that a recent convention of youth pastors created the highest rental of X-rated movies in the hotel's history. More than 80 percent of all customers signing up for cable TV opt for the erotic films. The availability—the near-ubiquity of so much sexual enticement, the constant barrage of innuendoes, and the nonstop polemic for indulgence inevitably attracts.

Many rationales tempt the mind of the Christian leader: "I have to know what's going on. … Voyeurism is better than adultery. … I need moderation—total deprivation isn't necessary."

Admittedly, there are no easy answers. We cannot shut off either our brains or our glands. But consider the following article by a man in full-time ministry. The article is blunt. But we felt it important to be just this honest and realistic. Sexual temptations in many forms have always lured Christians, but today's opportunities and climate make this article especially relevant to all of us.

* * *

"Lust is the ape that gibbers in our loins. Tame him as we will by day, he rages all the wilder in our dreams by night. Just when we think we're safe from him, he raises up his ugly head and smirks, and there's no river in the world flows cold and strong enough to strike him down. Almighty God, why dost thou deck men out with such a loathsome toy?" Frederick Buechner Godric I am writing this article anonymously because I am embarrassed. Embarrassed for my wife and children, yes, but embarrassed most for myself. I will tell of my personal battle with lust, and if I believed I were the only one who fought in that war, I would not waste emotional energy dredging up stained and painful memories. But I believe my experience is not uncommon, is perhaps even typical of pastors, writers, and conference speakers. No one talks about it. No one writes about it. But it's there, like an unacknowledged cancer that metastasizes best when no one goes for x-rays or feels for lumps.

I know I am not alone, because the few times I have opened up and shared my struggles with Christian friends, they have replied with Doppelganger stories of exactly the same stages of awakening, obsession, possession. Years from now, when socio-historians sift through the documents describing our times, they will undoubtedly come up with elegant explanations of why men who grew up in church homes are oversexed and vulnerable to attacks of lust and obsession, and why women who grew up in those same environments emerged uptight and somewhat disinterested in sex. But I leave that to the future analysts.

I remember vividly the night I first experienced lust. Real lust—not the high school and college variety. Of course as an adolescent I had drooled through Playboy, sneaked off to my uncle's room for a heart-thumping first look at hard-core pornography, and done my share of grappling and fumbling with my fiancee's clothes. I date my lust awakening, though, to the adult onslaught of mature, willful commitment to lust.

It hit on one of my first trips away from home. My job required me to travel at that time, and as I sat in a dingy motel room near the airport and flipped through the city guide of what to do in Rochester, New York, I kept coming back to one haunting photo of an exotic dancer, a former Miss Peach Bowl winner, the ad said. She looked fresh and inviting: the enchanting kind of Southern girl you see on TV commercials for fried chicken—only this one had no clothes on.

Somehow, I had survived the sixties sheltered from strippers and Woodstock-type nudity. And when I first saw the ad, I instinctively ruled her show out of bounds for me. But as I settled down to watch an inane TV show, her body kept looming before my mind with the simple question, "Why not?"

I began to think. Indeed, why not? To be an effective Christian, I had to experience all of life, right? Didn't Jesus himself hang around with prostitutes and sinners? I could go simply as an observer, in the world but not of the world. Rationalizations leaped up like flying buttresses to support my desires, and within ten minutes I was bundled in the back seat of a taxi headed toward the seamy side of Rochester.

I got the driver to let me off a few blocks away, just for safety's sake, and I kept glancing over my shoulder expecting to see someone I knew. Or perhaps God would step in, efface my desires, and change my mind about the wisdom of the act. I even asked him about that, meekly. No answer.

I walked into the bar between acts and was then faced with the new experience of ordering a drink. My forehead sweating, I scanned my memory of Westerns for an appropriate drink to order. Finally I decided on whiskey. I tried to make it sound casual, but the waitress flummoxed me by asking another question.

"How do you want it?"

How do I want it? What did she mean? What could I say? It seemed everyone in the bar was staring at me.

"A double," I stammered.

Sensing my naiveté, she rolled her eyes slightly and asked, "Is on the rocks OK?"

Bolstered by my first fiery sips of whiskey, which I tried to stretch out so as not to have to order another, I sat with my eyes glued to the stage.

Miss Peach Bowl was everything the ad had promised. With a figure worthy of a Wonder Woman costume, she danced superbly and was something of an acrobat. She started fully clothed and teased us with slow removals of each sequined article of clothing. Toward the end, when she wore only a G— string, whooping men near the stage bade her lean over and stuffed folded bills under the tiny swatch of cloth. She grinned invitingly. I stared in disbelief. In one final strobe-lit routine she cartwheeled nude across the stage.

The flush of excitement created by my first whiskey, drunk too fast in spite of myself, the eyepopping spectacle of this gorgeous woman baring all and jiggling it in front of me, and the boisterous spirit of the all-male audience combined to overpower me. I walked out of the bar two hours later feeling strangely warmed, intensely excited, and surprised that nothing had actually happened to me. I suppose it's the same feeling that washes in after a big event like marriage, or graduation, or first intercourse for that matter. In just a few hours, you realize that although in one sense everything has changed, in another sense nothing has changed. You are the same person.

Lust shares with sins like envy and pride the distinction of being invisible, slippery, hard to pin down. Was what happened that night a sin? I denied it to myself on the way home. To really rate as lust, I told myself, you must look on a woman so as to desire sexual intercourse with her. Isn't that what Jesus said? Whatever happened that night, I certainly couldn't recall desiring intercourse with Miss Peach Bowl. It was more private and distant than that. What happened, happened quickly, was gone, and left no scars. Or so I thought at the time.

Ten years have passed since that awakening in wintry Rochester, ten years spent never far from the presence of lust. The guilt caught up with me, and back in my motel room that very evening, I was already praying slobbery prayers for forgiveness. For a while that guilt kept me out of live shows and limited my voyeurism to magazines and movies, but only for a while. For ten years I have fought unremitting guerrilla warfare.

Being the reflective sort, I have often pondered the phenomenon of lust. It is unlike anything else in my experience. Most thrills—scary roller coasters, trips in airplanes, visits to waterfalls—lose a certain edge of excitement once I have experienced them and figured them out. I enjoy them and will duplicate the experiences if given the chance, but after a few tries, they no longer hold such a powerful gravitational attraction.

Sex is utterly different. There is only so much to "figure out." Every person who endures high school biology, let alone a sniggering sex education class, knows the basic shapes, colors, and sizes of the sexual organs. Anyone who has been to an art museum knows about women's breasts. Anyone who has hauled down a gynecology book in a public library knows about genitalia. Somehow, no amount of knowledge reduces the appeal—the forces may, in fact, work concordantly. What strange power is it that allows a male gynecologist to clinically examine female sexual organs all day long—there is nothing left for him to "learn"—and yet return home and find himself quickly aroused by his wifely peekaboo blouse?

"An ape that gibbers in my loins," wrote novelist Frederick Buechner about lust, and no experience comes with such a feral force. And yet, maybe by labeling it an "animal drive" we have missed the main point of lust. No animal I have heard of spends its life fixating on sex. Females in most species invite attention only a few times a year or less; the rest of the time males obediently plod through the mundane routine of phylogeny, apparently never giving sex another thought.

Humans are different. We have the freedom to center our lives inordinately in this one drive, without the harmony enforced by nature. Our females are biologically receptive the vast majority of the time, and no instinct inhibits us from focusing all our thoughts, behavior, and energy on sex.

I have tried to analyze lust, to fractionate it down into its particulars. I take a Playboy centerfold and study it with a magnifying glass. It consists only of dots—dots of four primary colors laid down by a printing press in a certain order. There is no magic on that page, only stipples of ink, which under magnification, show flaws and blurs. But there is magic on that page. I can stare at it, burn the image in my mind, fondle it mentally for hours, even days. Blood steams up when I gaze on it.

Early Marxists, heady with revolution, added sex to their list of human foibles needing alteration. Lenin pronounced his famous Glass of Water Theory, legislating that the sexual act was of no more consequence than the quenching of thirst by a glass of water. Surely bourgeois morality would topple along with bourgeois banks and industries and religions. But in a few years, Lenin had to abjure the Glass of Water Theory. By all reductionist logic, sex was like a glass of water, but sex proved immune to reductionist logic. It resisted being made of no consequence. Lenin, a historian, should have known better. Kings had renounced their thrones, saints their God, and spouses their lifetime partners because of this strange demon of lust. Dialectical materialism hardly stood a chance.

Books often question God's wisdom or goodness in allowing so much pain and sorrow in the world, and yet I have read none that question his goodness and wisdom in allowing so much sex and lust in the world. But I think the two may be parallel questions. Whether through creation or marred creation or whatever (we can't get into that here), we ended up with sex drives that virtually impel us to break rules God laid down. Males reach their sexual peak at age eighteen, scientists tell us. In our culture, you can't even legally marry before then, so when a male marries, if he has remained chaste, he has already forfeited his time of greatest sexual prowess. Mark Twain railed against God for parceling out to each human a source of universal joy and pleasure, at its peak in teenage years, then forbidding it until marriage and restricting it to one partner. He has a point.

Couldn't our hormones or chromosomes have been arranged so that mates would more easily find sexual satisfaction with just one partner? Why weren't we made more like the animals, who, except for specified periods, go through their daily routine (nude to a beast) with hardly a thought of sex. I could handle lust better if I knew it would only strike me in October or May. It's the not knowing, the ceaseless vulnerability, that drives me crazy.

Lust, I read somewhere, is the craving for salt by a man who is dying of thirst. There's a touch of perversion there, isn't there? Why were we not made with merely a craving for water, thus removing the salt from every newsstand, television show, and movie?

I know what you are thinking, you readers of Leadership. You are protesting that God never makes me lust, that I choose it, that he probably allows it as an opportunity for me to exercise my virtue. Yes, yes, I understand all that. But some of you know firsthand, as I do, that those pious platitudes, albeit perfectly correct, have almost no relevance to what happens biologically inside me when I visit a local beach or pick up any of a hundred magazines.

Some of you know what it is like to walk with your eyes at breast level, to flip eagerly through every new issue of Time searching for a rare sexy picture, to yearn for chains on the outside of your motel room to keep you in—unless it comes with that most perverse of all modern inventions, the in-room porno movie. And you also know what it is like to wallow in the guilt of that obsession, and to cry and pray with whatever faith you can muster, to plead with God to release you, to mutate you, to castrate you like Origen—whatever it takes to deliver you. And even as you pray, luscious, bewitching images crowd into your mind.

You also know what it is like to preach on Sunday, in a strange city, to preach even on a topic like grace or obedience or the will of God, or the decline of our civilization, with the awful and wonderful memories of last night's lust still more real to you at that moment than the sea of expectant faces spread out before you. You know the self-hatred that comes with that intolerable dissonance. And you muddle through the sermon swearing never to let it get to you like that again, until after the service a shapely woman comes beaming and squeezes your hand and whispers praise to you, and all resolve melts, and as she explains how blessed she was by your message, you are mentally undressing her.

The night in Rochester was my first experience with adult lust, but by no means my last. Strip joints are too handy these days. The drug store down the street sells Hustler, High Society, Jugs, anything you want. I have been to maybe fifteen truly pornographic movies, including the few classics like Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door. They scare me, perhaps because it seems so deliberate and volitional to stand in line (always glancing around furtively), to pay out money and to sit in the dark for an hour or two. The crowd is unlike any other crowd I mix with—they remind me I don't belong. And the movies, technically, aesthetically, and even erotically, are vapid and boring. But still, when a local paper advertises one more Emmanuelle sequel, I drool.

I learned quickly that lust, like physical sex, points in only one direction. You cannot go back to a lower level and stay satisfied. Always you want more. A magazine excites, a movie thrills, a live show really makes the blood run. I never got as far as body tattooing, personal photograph sessions, and massages, let alone outright prostitution, but I've experienced enough of the unquenchable nature of sex to frighten me for good. Lust does not satisfy; it stirs up. I no longer wonder how deviants can get into child molesting, masochism, and other abnormalities. Although such acts are incomprehensible to me, I remember well that where I ended up was also incomprehensible to me when I started.

A cousin of mine subscribes to at least fifteen of the raunchiest magazines I have ever seen. Books I have peeked at for just a few seconds in airport newsstands litter his house. He has told me that, even surrounded by vivid depictions of every sex act, every size and shape of woman he can imagine, he still wants more. He still devours the new issues. He and his wife are experimenting with orgies now, and numerous other variations I won't mention. It is not enough. The thrill will fade before long, and he will want more.

Psychologists use the term obsession to label what I have been describing, and they may say that I have more innate obsession than the average male. They would trace its genesis back to my repressive upbringing, and they are undoubtedly right. That is why I am writing to others of you in the Christian world. If you have not fought such obsession yourself, every Sunday when you step to the pulpit you speak to many who have, although you could hardly read it in their blank, freshly scrubbed faces. Lust is indeed an invisible sin.

At times the obsession has felt to me more like possession. I remember one time especially that scared me. I was in Washington, D.C., one of the places in the United States where any kind of lust is easily attainable. At three o'clock in the afternoon, after touring the cherry blossoms, I sauntered into a dark bar that advertised nude dancing. I fended off the girls who came to my table and asked for drinks, and instead directed my attention to the dancers. There were only two, and maybe five customers at most. One black girl with an unspectacular figure weaved over to the part of the stage nearest my table.

This was somewhat different than the other strip shows I had seen. There was no teasing or "visual foreplay." She was already naked, unashamedly so, and she wiggled maybe a foot from my head. She stared right into my eyes. This was so close, so intimate, that it seemed for a terrifying moment to be nearer a relationship than a performance. What I felt could only be called possession.

I found myself—it seemed as though I had not made the decision, that someone else's hands inside mine were doing it—fumbling in my pocket, pulling out bills and stuffing them in a garter belt high up on her thigh. In appreciation she maneuvered herself to grant an even better view. She had no secrets.

I staggered out of that bar. I felt I had crossed a line and could never return to innocence. That weekend I had important business engagements, but throughout them indelible images of that anonymous girl filled my mind. I yearned to flee and go home to my wife, to demonstrate to her my fear so that she could shelter me and mother me and keep me from following where all this was leading.

Just a few years before, I had sat with a distant, reproachful view and watched men lose control and act like country-fair churls as they stuffed bills down the G-string of Miss Peach Bowl. I would never stoop to that—I was smugly confident in Rochester. After all, I was intelligent, happily married, sophisticated—a committed Christian known by friends for my self-control. It would never happen. But it did.

When I went home, I did not tell my wife. How could I? The story was too long, and she, who had hardly ever known lust and had never been unfaithful to me, would not comprehend it. It would likely rupture my marriage, and then I would be cast loose on a sea I could not navigate.

I made a vow then—one more in a series. I vowed I would only look at Playboy and other "respectable" erotic magazines. No more raunchiness. I had certain rationalizations about lust, and pained realism about my inability to stay pure. I simply needed some safe boundaries, I decided. Here are some of my rationalizations that supported my conclusion to contain, not destroy, my lust:

Nudity is art. Go to any art museum in the world, and you will see nudity openly displayed. The human form is beautiful, and it would be puritanical to cut off appreciation for it. Playboy is photographed well, with an aesthetic, not prurient tone. Playboy and its kin have great articles. There's the Jimmy Carter interview, for example, and Penthouse's conversation with Jerry Falwell. I must keep up with such material. An aesthetic, not prurient tone. Some stimulation will help my sex life. I have a problem approaching my wife and communicating my desire for sex to her. I need a sort of boost, a stimulant to push me to declare my intentions. An aesthetic, not prurient tone. Other people do far worse. I know many Christian leaders who still do all the things I toyed with, and worse. For that matter, look at Bible characters—as randy a bunch as you'll ever meet. There's probably no such thing as a pure person anyway; everybody has some outlet. An aesthetic, not prurient tone. What is lust anyhow, I kept asking myself. Is fantasizing wrong in itself? If so, then erotic dreams would count as sin, and how could I be responsible for my dreams? I reminded myself of the definition of lust I had started with long before: desiring intercourse with a specific sexual partner. I experienced a general sexual heightening, a raising of the voltage, not a specific desire for the act of intercourse. Some, perhaps all, of these rationalizations contain some truth. (Do they sound familiar?) I used them as an overlay of reason and common sense to help calm the cognitive dissonance that tormented me. Yet I knew inside that the lust I experienced was not subject to reason and common sense. To my dismay, on several occasions I had already felt it burst out of containment and take on a sinister power. At other times, I could analyze lust and put it in perspective, but at the moment when it was occurring I knew I would not stop and analyze. I would let it take its course. Secretly, I began to wonder what that course would be.

Don't let me give the wrong impression. My entire life did not revolve around lust. I would go days without fixating on sex, and sometimes a month or two without seeking out a pornographic magazine or movie. And many, many times I would cry out to God, imploring him to take away the desire. Why were my prayers not answered? Why did God continue to curse me with freedom, even when that freedom led me away from him?

I read numerous articles and books on temptation but found little help. If you boiled down all the verbiage and the ten-point lists of practical advice for coping with temptation, basically all they said was "Just stop doing it." That was easy to say. I knew some of those authors, and knew that they too struggled and failed, as I did. In fact, I too had preached many a sermon on handling temptation, but look at me. Practical "how-to" articles proved hopelessly inadequate, as if they said "Stop being hungry" to a starving man. Intellectually I might agree with their theology and their advice, but my glands would still secrete. What insight can change glands?

"Jesus was tempted in all points as you are," some of the articles and books would say, as if that would cheer me up. It did not help. In the first place, none of the authors could conceivably describe how Jesus experienced sexual temptation, because he never talked about it, and no one else has ever been perfect and lived to tell about it. Such well-meaning comments reminded me of telling a ghetto dweller in East Bronx, "Oh, President Reagan used to be poor too. He knows how you feel." Try telling that to a poor person, and prepare to duck.

I felt a similar reaction when I read accounts of people who had overcome lust. Usually, they wrote or talked in a condescending, unctuous tone. Or, like Jesus, they seemed too far removed from my own spiritual quagmire to comfort me. Augustine described his condition twelve years after conversion from his lusty state. In that advanced spiritual place he prayed to overcome these besetting sins: the temptation to enjoy his food instead of taking it as a necessary medicine "until the day when Thou wilt destroy both the belly and the meat"; the attraction of sweet scents; the pleasure of the ear provided by church music lest he be "more moved by the singing than by the thing that is sung"; the lure of the eye to "diverse forms of beauty, of brilliant and pleasing colors"; and last, the temptation of "knowing for knowing's sake." Sorry, Augustine, I respect you, but prayers like that led to the climate of repression and body-hatred that I have been vainly trying to escape all my life.

I got a perverse pleasure out of knowing that this same Augustine a few years earlier had prayed, "Give me chastity, but not yet." He delayed purity for a while also, to sample more delights than I would likely get around to. Why is it that I scoffed at accounts of saints who overcame temptation but loved hearing about those who gave in? There must be a name for that sin, too.

Most of this time I hated sex. I could not imagine it existing in any sort of balance in my life. Of course I knew its pleasure—that was the gravitational attraction—but those short bursts of pleasure were horribly counterbalanced by days of guilt and anguish. I could not reconcile my technicolor fantasy life with my more mundane experience of sex in marriage. I began to view sex as another of God's mistakes, like tornadoes and earthquakes. In the final analysis, it only caused misery. Without it, I could conceive of becoming pure and godly and all those other things the Bible exhorted me toward. With sex, any spiritual development seemed hopelessly unattainable. Maybe Origen had the right idea after all.

It is true there is difficulty in entering into godliness. But this difficulty does not arise from the religion which begins in us, but only from the irreligion which is still there. If our senses were not opposed to penitence, and if our corruption were not opposed to the purity of God, there would be nothing in this painful to us. We suffer only in proportion as the vice which is natural to us resists supernatural grace. Our heart feels torn asunder between these opposed efforts. But it would be very unfair to impute this violence to God, who is drawing us on, instead of to the world, which is holding us back. It is as a child, which a mother tears from the arms of robbers, in the pain it suffers, should love the loving and legitimate violence of her who procures its liberty, and detest only the impetuous and tyrannical violence of those who detain it unjustly. The most cruel war which God can make with men in this life is to leave them without that war which He came to bring. "I came to send war," He says, "and to teach them of this ware I came to bring fire and the sword." Before Him the world lived in this false peace. Blaise Pascal Pensees This article is divided into two parts. The first part, which you have just read, recounts the downward spiral of temptation, yielding, self-hatred, and despair. If I had read this article several years ago, I would have gleefully affirmed every thing. Then, when I got to the second part, which describes a process of healing, I would have turned cynical and sour, rejecting what follows. Such is the nature of self-deception.

I have described my slide in some detail not to feed any prurient interests in the reader (after all, how many racy articles have you read in Leadership?) and certainly not to nourish your own despair if you too are floundering—God forbid. I tell my struggles because they are real, but also to demonstrate that hope exists, that God is alive, and his grace can interrupt the terrible cycle of lust and despair. My primary message is one of hope, although until healing did occur, I had no faith that it ever would.

Scores, maybe hundreds of times I had prayed for deliverance, with no response. The theologians would find some fault in my prayers, or in the faith with which I prayed them. But can any person assume the awful right to judge the prayers of another who writhes in mental torment and an agony of helpless unspirituality? I would certainly never assume the right, not after a decade—long war against lust.

I have not mentioned the effect of lust on my marriage. It did not destroy my marriage, did not push me out to find more sexual excitation in an adulterous affair, or with prostitutes, did not even impel me to place unrealistic demands on my wife's sexual performance. The effect was far more subtle. Mainly, I think, it cumulatively caused me to devalue my wife as a sexual being. The great lie promulgated by Playboy, television commercials, and racy movies is that the physical ideal of beauty is attainable and oh, so close. I stare at a Playboy centerfold. Miss October has such a warm, inviting smile. She is with me alone, in my living room. She removes her clothes, just for me, and lets me see all of her. She tells me about her favorite books and what she likes in a man. Cheryl Tiegs, in the famous Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, sweetly walks toward the camera, letting the coral blush of her breasts shine out boldly from underneath a net bikini. She lets me see them—she has no inhibitions, no pudency.

The truth is, of course, that if I sat next to either Cheryl Tiegs or Miss October on an airplane, she would not give me the time of day, let alone take off her clothes for me. If I tried to strike up a conversation, she would brush me off. And yet, because I have stared at Cheryl's breasts and gone over every inch of Miss October as well as the throng of beauties that Madison Avenue and Hollywood recruit to tantalize the masses, I start to view my own wife in that light. I expect her to have Farrah's smile, Cheryl's voluptuousness, Angie's legs, Miss October's flaming red hair and sparkling eyes. Envy and greed join hands with lust. I begin to focus on my wife's minor flaws. I lose sight of the fact that she is a charming, warm, attractive woman and that I am fortunate to have found her.

Beyond that, lust affected my marriage in an even more subtle and pernicious way. Over time, I began to view sex schizophrenically. Sex in marriage was one thing. We performed OK, though not as often as I liked, and accompanied by typical misunderstandings. But passion, ah, that was something different. Passion I never felt in my marriage.

If anything, sex within marriage served as an overflow valve, an outlet for the passion that mounted inside me, fed by sources kept hidden from my wife. We never talked about this, yet I am sure she sensed it. I think she began to view herself as a sex object—not in the feminist sense of being the object of a husband's selfish greed, but in the deprived sense of being only the object of my physical necessity and not of romance and passion.

Yet the sexual schizophrenia pales in comparison to the schizophrenia of my spiritual life. Can you imagine the inner rupture when I would lead a spiritual retreat for a weekend, winning sighs of admiration and tears of commitment from my devoted listeners, only to return to my room and pore over the latest copy of Oui? I could never reconcile it, but somehow I could not avoid it. If you pinned me down on what degree my succumbing to temptation was a conscious choice, I would probably search for an enigmatic response such as the one a Faulkner character gave when asked about original sin. "Well, it's like this," he said. "I ain't got to but I can't help it."

Paradoxically, I seemed most vulnerable to temptation when speaking or otherwise performing some spiritual service. Those who see Satan as personally manipulating all such temptation to sin would not be surprised by that observation.

Lust became the one corner of my life that God could not enter. I welcomed him into the area of personal finance, which he revolutionized as I awakened to world needs. He cleaned up many of my personal relationships. He gave stirrings of life to the devotional area and my sense of personal communion with him. But lust was sealed off, a forbidden room. How can I reconcile that statement with my earlier protestations that I often cried out for deliverance? I do not know. I felt both sensations: an overwhelming desire to be cleansed and an overwhelming desire to cling to the exotic pleasures of lust. A magnet is attracted equally to two opposite forces. No matter how small you cut a magnet or rearrange it, the two ends will still be attracted to opposite forces. One force never cancels out the other one. This must be what Paul meant in some of those strange statements in Romans 7 (a passage that gave me some comfort). But where was Romans 8 in my life?

Even when I had lust under control, when I successfully limited it to brief, orderly perusals through Playboy at the local newsstand, I still felt this sense of retaining a secret corner God could not enter. Often I would get bogged down in sermon preparation. For motivation to keep going, I would promise myself a trip to the newsstand if I could finish the sermon in an hour and a half. Can you sense the schizophrenia?

Just as I can remember graphically the precise incident in Rochester when adult lust moved in, I can remember the first flutterings of a commitment to healing. They also came on a trip out of town, when I was speaking at a spiritual life conference. The conference was scheduled for a resort hotel in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, near my favorite part of the country. Nothing affects me like the long drive up the rocky coastline of Maine. It is an invigorating, almost religious experience. Some people find deserts affect them like that, some wheat fields, and some mountains. For me, the magnificence of creation unwinds with each curve on the road up Maine's coast. I made plans to fly into Boston, rent a car, and spend three days cruising the coast just to refresh myself before the conference.

My mistake was spending the first night in Boston. I was then practicing a fairly rigid regimen of "controlled lust." I hadn't given in to any scary splurges like my Washington, D.C., encounter in some time. But sure enough, that night I found myself stalking the streets of the seedy areas looking for lust. I did not have to look far. Like many cities, Boston offers strip shows, porno movies—a veritable menu of lust. I usually avoided porno movies because they had proved so unsatisfying. But, Boston also features live nude girls on a revolving platform that you can watch for twenty-five cents. I went in one of those booths.

The mechanics are simple. Twenty curtained booths encircle a revolving platform. Each booth has a glass window covered by a piece of plywood. When you insert a quarter, a mechanical arm somewhat like a toll gate lowers the piece of plywood and lets you see the nude girls revolving on the platform. Then, about three minutes later the toll gate goes up, and you have to drop in another quarter to continue. This is lust at its most unadorned.

The girls employed by such places are not beautiful. Imagine for yourself what kind of women would willingly settle for such employment. You lie under bright lights, revolving like a piece of roast beef at a buffet table, masturbating occasionally to keep the quarters clinking. Around you, leering, furtive stares of men appear for three minutes, then disappear, then appear again, their glasses reflecting your pale shape, none of them looking at your face.

Maybe such booths do serve a redeeming purpose for society—by exposing lust in its basest demythologized form. There is no art or beauty, no acrobatic dancing. The woman is obviously a sex object and nothing else. The men are isolated, caged voyeurs. There is no relationship, no teasing.

The girls are bored stiff: over the whir of the timing mechanism you can hear them trading talk about grocery prices or car repairs. They masturbate as a routine for the customers, like an ape at the zoo who learns to make faces because the onlookers then laugh and point. This is what the richest, freest society in history spends its wealth and freedom on?

And yet, there I was, a respected member of that society, three days away from leading a spiritual-life retreat, dropping in quarters like a frantic long-distance caller at a pay phone.

For fifty cents you could go to a private booth, and one of the girls would entertain you personally. A glass wall still separated you from the girl, but you could, if you wished, pick up the receiver and talk to the girl. Maybe you could talk her into doing something special for you. I went into the booth, but something restrained me from picking up the telephone. I could not make that human an act—it would expose me for what I was. I merely stood, silent, and stared.

Guilt and shame washed over me in waves that night, as usual. Again I had a stark picture of how low I was groveling. Did this animal lust have any relation to the romance that had inspired the Symphonie Fantastique, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets, and the Song of Solomon? Certainly each of those works contained traces of glandular desire, but this that I had experienced was devoid of all beauty. It was too naked, and shameful.

I had felt all that remorse before. What shocked me more was my trip up the coast the next two days. I followed my usual practice of staying in homey inns with big fireplaces, and of eating by the waterfront and watching the sailboats bob in the shimmering sea, of taking long solitary walks on the rocky promontories where huge waves crashed with thunder, of closing my eyes and letting salt spray splash across my face, of stopping at roadside stands for fresh lobster and crab. There was a difference this time: I felt no pleasure. None. My emotional reaction was the same as if I had been at home, yawning, reading the newspaper. All romance had drained out, desiccated.

The realization disturbed me profoundly. By all counts, those wonderful, sensuous experiences rated far higher than the cheap thrill of watching a fat, pock—marked body rotate on plywood. And yet, to my utter disbelief my mind kept roaming back to that grimy booth in Boston. Was I going crazy? Would I lose every worthwhile sensation in life? Was my soul leaking away? Was I becoming possessed?

I limped through the conference, and everyone warmly applauded each talk. They were all blessed. Alone in my room at night, I did not pore over pornography. I pored over what had been happening inside me for ten years. I did not like it.

Exactly three days later, I spent the night with a very dear friend, a pastor of one of the largest churches in the South. I had never shared intimate details of my lust life with anyone before, but the schizophrenia was building to such a point I felt I must. He listened quietly, with compassion and great sensitivity as I recounted a few incidents, skipping over those that showed me in the worst light, and described some of my fears to him.

He sat for a long time with sad eyes after I had finished speaking. We both watched our freshly refilled cups of coffee steam, then stop steaming, then grow cold. I waited for his words of advice or comfort or healing or something. I needed a priest at that moment, someone to say, "Your sins are forgiven."

But my friend was no priest. He did something I never expected. His lip quivered at first, the skin on his face began twitching, and finally he started sobbing—great, huge, wretched sobs such as I had seen only at funerals.

In a few moments, when he had recovered some semblance of self-control, I learned the truth. My friend was not sobbing for me; he was sobbing for himself. He began to tell me of his own expedition into lust. He had been where I was—five years before. Since that time, he had taken lust to its logical consequences. I will not dwell on sordid details, but my friend had tried it all: bondage, prostitution, bisexualism, orgies. He reached inside his vest pocket and pulled out a pad of paper showing the prescriptions he took to fight the venereal disease and anal infections he had picked up along the way. He carries the pad with him on trips, he explained, to buy the drugs in cities where he is anonymous.

I saw my friend dozens of times after that and learned every horrific detail of his hellish life. I worried about cognitive dissonance; he brooded on suicide. I read about deviance; he performed it. I winced at subtle fissures in my marriage; he was in divorce litigation.

I could not sit in judgment of this man, because he had simply ended up where my own obsession would likely take me. Jesus brought together lust and adultery, hatred and murder, in the Sermon on the Mount, not to devalue adultery and murder but rather to point to the awesome truth about hatred and lust. There is a connection.

If I had learned about my friend's journey to debauchery in an article like this one, I doubtless would have clucked my tongue, questioned Leadership's judgment in printing it, and rejected the author as an insincere poseur in the faith. But I knew this man, I thought, as well as I knew anyone. His insights, compassion, and love were all more mature than mine. My sermons were like freshman practice runs compared to his. He was a godly man if I had ever met one, but underneath all that … my inner fear jumped uncontrollably. I sensed the power of evil.

For some weeks I lived under a cloud that combined the feelings of doom and terror. Had I crossed some invisible line so that my soul was stained forever? Would I too, like my trusted friend, march inexorably toward the systematic destruction of my body and my soul? He had cried for forgiveness, and deliverance, and every other prayer he had learned in church, and yet now he had fallen into an abyss. Already lawyers were dividing up his house and possessions and his children. Was there no escape for him—for me?

My wife could sense the inner tension, but in fifteen years of marriage she had learned not to force a premature explanation. I had not learned to share tension while it was occurring, only afterward, when it fit into a logical sequence, with some sort of resolution. This time, I wondered whether this particular problem would ever have such a resolution.

A month after my conversation with my friend, I began reading a brief and simple book of memoirs, What I Believe, by Francois Mauriac. In it, he sums up why he clung to the Roman Catholic church and the Christian faith in a country (France) and an age when few of his contemporaries seriously considered orthodoxy. I had read only one novel by the Nobel prizewinning author, Viper's Tangle, but that novel clearly showed that Mauriac fully understood the lust I had experienced, and more. A great artist, he had captured the depths of human depravity. I would not get pious answers from him.

Mauriac's book includes one chapter on purity. He describes the power of sexuality—"the sexual act has no resemblance to any other act: its demands are frenzied and participate in infinity. It is a tidal wave"—and his struggles with it throughout a strict Catholic upbringing. He also discounts common evangelical perspectives on lust and sex. The experience of lust and immorality, he admits, is fully pleasurable and desirable; it is no good trying to pretend that sin contains distasteful seeds that inevitably grow into repulsion. Sin has its own compelling rewards. Even marriage, Christian marriage, he claims, does not remedy lust. If anything, marriage complicates the problem by introducing a new set of difficulties. Lust continues to seek the attraction of unknown creatures and the taste for adventure and chance meetings.

After brazenly denying the most common reasons I have heard against succumbing to a life filled with lust, Mauriac concludes that there is only one reason to seek purity. It is the reason Christ proposed in the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Purity, says Mauriac, is the condition for a higher love—for a possession superior to all possessions: God himself.

Mauriac goes on to describe how most of our arguments for purity are negative arguments: Be pure, or you will feel guilty, or your marriage will fail, or you will be punished. But the Beatitudes clearly indicate a positive argument that fits neatly with the Bible's pattern in describing sins. Sins are not a list of petty irritations drawn up for the sake of a jealous God. They are, rather, a description of the impediments to spiritual growth. We are the ones who suffer if we sin, by forfeiting the development of character and Christlikeness that would have resulted if we had not sinned.

The thought hit me like a bell rung in a dark, silent hall. So far, none of the scary, negative arguments against lust had succeeded in keeping me from it. Fear and guilt simply did not give me resolve; they added self-hatred to my problems. But here was a description of what I was missing by continuing to harbor lust: I was limiting my own intimacy with God. The love he offers is so transcendent and possessing that it requires our faculties to be purified and cleansed before we can possibly contain it. Could he, in fact, substitute another thirst and another hunger for the one I had never filled? Would Living Water somehow quench lust? That was the gamble of faith. Perhaps Mauriac's point seems obvious and predictable to people who respond to anguished problems with spiritual-sounding cliches. But I knew Mauriac and his life well enough to know that his observation was the culmination of a lifetime of struggle. He had come to that conclusion as the only possible justification for abstemiousness. Perhaps, just perhaps, the discipline and commitment involved in somehow allowing God to purge out the impurities formed the sine qua non, the essential first step toward a relationship with God I had never known.

The combination of grave fear struck in me by my pastor friend's grievous story and the glimmer of hope that a quest for purity could somehow transform the hunger I had lived with unabated for a decade prepared me to try once again to approach God in confession and in faith. I knew pain would come. Could God this time give me assurance that, in Pascal's words, pain was the "loving and legitimate violence" necessary to procure my liberty?

I cannot tell you why a prayer that has been prayed for ten years is answered on the 1,000th request when God has met the first 999 with silence. I cannot tell you why I had to endure ten years of near—possession before being ready for deliverance. And, most sadly of all, I cannot tell you why my pastor friend has, since our conversation after New Hampshire, gone into an unbelievable skid toward destruction. His marriage is now destroyed. He may go insane or commit suicide before this article is published. Why? I do not know.

But what I can tell you, especially those of you who have hung on every turn of my own pilgrimage because it so closely corresponds to yours, is that God did come through for me. The phrase may sound heretical, but to me, after so many years of failure, it felt as if he had suddenly decided to be there after a long absence. I prayed, hiding nothing (hide from God?), and he heard me.

There was one painful but necessary step of repentance. Repentance, says C. S. Lewis, "is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose; it is simply a description of what going back is like." Going back for me had to include a very long talk with my wife, who had suffered in silence and often in nescience for a decade. It was she I had wronged and sinned against, as well as God. Perhaps my impurity had kept our own love from growing in the same way it had blocked the love I could experience with God. We lay side by side on our bed one steamy summer evening. I talked about nothing, in a nervous, halting voice, for an hour or so, trying to break the barrier that held me back, and finally about midnight I began.

I told her nearly everything, knowing I was laying on her a burden she might not be able to carry. I have wondered why God let me struggle for a decade before deliverance: maybe I will one day find out my wife required just that much time to mature and prepare for the one talk we had that night. Far smaller things had fractured our marriage for months. Somehow, she incarnated the grace of God for me.

I hurt her—only she could tell how much I hurt her. It was not adultery—there was no other woman for her to beam her resentment toward, but perhaps that made it even harder for her. For ten years she had watched an invisible fog steal inside me, make me act strange, pull me away from her. Now she heard what she had often suspected, and to her it must have sounded like rejection: You were not enough for me sexually, I had to go elsewhere.

But still, in spite of that pain and the vortex of emotions that must have swirled around inside her, she gave to me forgiveness and love. She took on my enemy as her enemy too. She took on my thirst for purity as her thirst too. She loved me, and as I type this even now, tears streak my face because that love, that awesome love is so incomprehensible to me, and so undeserved. But it was there.

How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel! … For I am God and not man, The Holy One in your midst. Hosea 11:8-9 Saint Augustine, who wrote so eloquently of his own war within, describes our condition here on earth as a simultaneous citizenship in two cities, the city of man and the City of God. The lure of the city of man often drowns out the call of the City of God. Man's city is visible, substantial, real; as such, it is far more alluring. God's city is ephemeral, invisible, cloaked in doubt, far away. It may not even exist— no one knows for sure.

Cheryl Tiegs coming toward me out of the page, her teeth flashing, her eyes sparkling, her body glistening, is that city of man. She, and what she represents, fits well with my body and the hormones that surge inside it and the complexes that grew in my repressed childhood and whatever else contributed to my obsession with lust. The pure in heart shall see God. Set against luscious Cheryl, sometimes that promise does not seem like much. But that is the lie of the Deceiver, and the dyslexia of reality we are asked to overcome. The City of God is the real, the substantial, the whole. What I become as I strengthen my citizenship in that kingdom is far more worthy than anything I could become if all my fantasies were somehow fulfilled.

A year has passed since the late-night talk with my wife. During that time, a miracle has occurred. The war within me has fallen away. Only a few snipers remain. Once I failed, just a month later, when I was walking the streets of San Francisco. I felt myself pulled—it felt exactly like that—into another of the twenty-five cent peep shows to watch an undulating girl on a revolving table for three minutes. Not ten seconds had passed when I felt a sense of horror. My head was pounding. Evil was taking over. I had to get out of there, immediately.

I ran, literally ran, as fast as I could out of the North Beach district. I felt safe only when I got out of there. It struck me then how much had changed: previously I had felt safe when I had given in to lust, because the war inside died down for a moment, but now I felt safe away from the temptation. I prayed for strength and walked away.

Other than that encounter, I have been free of the compulsion. Of course, I notice girls in short dresses and halter tops—why else would they wear them?—but the terror is gone. The gravitational force has disappeared when I pass in front of newsstands. For twelve months I have walked by them and not picked up a magazine. I have not entered a porno theater.

I feel a sense of loss, yes. I enjoyed the beautiful women, both the art and the lust of it. It was pleasurable; I cannot deny that. But now I have gained a kind of inner gyroscope that is balanced correctly and alerts me when I am straying off course. After ten years I finally have a reservoir of strength to draw on as well as a conscience. I have found it necessary to keep open and honest communication with God and my wife on every little temptation toward lust.

The war within still exists. Now it is a war against the notion that biology is destiny. Looking at humanity as a species, scientists conclude that the fittest must survive, that qualities such as beauty, intelligence, strength, and skill are worthy factors by which to judge the usefulness of people, that lust is an innate adaptation to assure the propagation of the species Charity, compassion, love, and restraint fly in the face of that kind of materialist philosophy. Sometimes they defy even our own bodies. The City of God can seem like a mirage; my battle is to allow God to convince me of its reality.

Two totally new experiences have happened to me that, I must admit, offset by far my sense of loss at the experiences of lust I miss.

First, I have learned that Mauriac was right. God has kept his part of the bargain. In a way I had never known before, I have come to see God. At times (not so often, maybe once every couple of months), I have had an experience with God that has stunned me with its depth and intimacy, an experience of an order I did not even know existed before. Some of these moments have come during prayer and Bible reading, some during deep conversations with other people, and one, the most memorable of all because of my occupation, while I was speaking at a Christian conference. At such moments I have felt possessed, but this time joyfully so (demonic possession is a poor parody of the filling of the Spirit). They have left me shaken and humbled, renewed and cleansed. I had not known that level of mystical experience, had not, in fact, even sought it except in the general way of seeking purity. God has revealed himself to me. The City of God is taking on bricks and mortar.

And another thing has happened, again something I did not even ask God for. The passion is coming back into my marriage. My wife is again becoming an object of romance. Her body, no one else's, is gradually gaining the gravitational pull that used to be scattered in the universe of sexes. The act of sex, as often a source of irritation and trauma for me as an experience of pleasure, is beginning to take on the form of mystery and transcendence and inexpressible delight that its original design must have called for.

These two events occurring in such short sequence have shown me why the mystics, including biblical writers, tend to employ the experience of sexual intimacy as a metaphor of spiritual ecstasy. Sometimes, lingering remnants of grace in the city of man bear a striking resemblance to what awaits us in the City of God.

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wrestlinghasmelike-blog · 6 years

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Monday Night Raw Review: June 25th, 2018

Hey gang, it’s Monday again. I hope everyone had a great day/weekend. Today I got up really early and took my dog out and then watched the season 2 finale of Westworld (which got me FUUUCKED up, but that’s another story lol).

Based on what my twitter timeline told me about tonight, it might be an interesting show? I’m feeling a little uninspired tonight about the show, personally, but hopefully, the show will prove me wrong.

Let me know what you thought of the show! Was it terrible, or did you like it this week? What was your favorite match? I’d love to hear from you, about anything! Thanks for tuning in and reading and sharing. I’m super close to 100 followers (like 5 away I think!)

Sweaty Kurt Angle and Baron Corbin opened up the show tonight, only to be interrupted by Roman Reigns and Bobby Lashley, who have sort of an interesting feud brewing. They both believe that they have the tools to beat Lesnar, but apparently, there won’t be a match at Extreme Rules anymore to determine Brock’s new competitor because of his “contract”.

Basically what this means is that Brock didn’t want to wrestle and give his title up, so he called Vince and Vince said ok. Ugh.

I think this is the main reason Raw, and WWE for that matter, has been faltering for the past couple months. There’s no Universal title on the show, which means that no stories can be written around it, and new feuds can’t be built. It sucks, and it’s really starting to affect my watching, as well.

The Revival vs. Lashley/Reigns

This is a rematch from last week. Why do we need to see this again?

The Revival need to prove that they are still relevant, and it’s unfortunate that separate injuries have kept them at bay, and they haven’t really been given a chance to be on TV since their return. This was never a team I saw much of, their NXT days were during the time where I wasn’t watching, but from what I can tell about them today, they hit their peak back in NXT.

This match is just a chance for Bobby and Roman to show off their egos, which Bobby needs, at least. Bobby’s feud with Sami ended at MITB 2 weeks ago, and pushing him into a match with Roman, or Brock, could give Bobby the spotlight he needs. He’s a big guy, always has been, and he needs to be showcased as one.

This match had no momentum going into it, and while the crowd loves to boo Roman whenever they can, they are dead silent otherwise. It’s gone on too long, and either team needs to bring something different to get the show rolling.

The Revival won with a roll-up on Roman? A little unbelievable? Roman losing on a small package is just hard to fathom, especially against a small guy like Dash Wilder, but at least the match is over. Next, please.

Curtis Axel vs. Woken!Matt Hardy

Ok, wait, why is this a great storyline now? Oh yea, because it’s actually interesting and funny and the superstars are selling it really well.

But this match is over in a heartbeat before I can say anything else.

Matt has been putting in time at the gym. He looks great right now. That’s it.

AoP vs. Local Talent

This is not a match AoP needs. Put them in contention for the title, not this.

We haven’t seen this team since their debut after Mania and I’m really wondering why! They were so dominating in NXT, and they’ve fallen short on Raw. I’m trying to remember if one of them was injured in their time off, but I can’t find anything that says so.

Titus Worldwide came out, too. Does anyone care?

FINN MAKING FUN OF BARON OOOH

...but I’m not a fan of that tag match. I know Finn is just going to lose again anyway, right?

Alexa Bliss vs. Natalya

In a super long segment before this match took place, Alexa and her friend Mickie James went off about Alexa not getting respect and thanking god for Ronda’s suspension. There was a long video package during this promo that took me out of the program, and it was basically just Alexa and Mickie picking on the crowd. Whatever.

Natalya came out with Nia and the match started.

A lot of weird moves and botches from Alexa. She did that standing double monkey flip over Nattie, and her knees are supposed to hit Nattie in the belly, but Alexa’s knees were nowhere near her belly at all!

Natalya was really putting on a clinic, debuting all of her best moves and ultimately, getting herself a win over the undeserved champ.

Put Nattie back in the title race.

6-Woman Tag- Riott Squad vs. Banks/Moon/Bayley

Ooh boy, are we actually getting the feud people have been asking for?

Last week, things between Bayley and Sasha finally exploded the way everyone had been hoping for, and this week, Kurt Angle says they have one more chance to get on the same page.

Sasha does the Meteora too much. That’s my first thought.

Ember Moon is fantastic in the ring. God I love her so much.

Personally, I’m tired of seeing the Riott Squad. All three women need to wrestle in singles matches more. The singles matches that they do always end with the other members of the team charging in and either distract the ref or attack the other woman in the match. It’s so played out, it’s tiring! It’s a trope that’s been played out too much.

Banks took the loss for her team, and Bayley straight up attacked her and threw her around the ring. The crowd loves it! Personally, I do, too! I feel like Bayley is always too much, but a heel Bayley is just what her character needs to find her way back to the top of the division. I think this has been a long time coming from Bayley. She had to endure years of being the weakest of the four horsewomen and being second best, and now she’s ready to show what she’s got!

The ONLY thing that ruined that moment was when her music played her out. It’s too preppy and happy for her recent actions.

No Way Jose vs. Mojo Rawley

I don’t care. I just don’t. And WWE is not doing a good job of getting me to care.

Strowman/Owens vs. Balor/Corbin

Well, after losing last week, Braun was tired of teaming with Finn and has decided to team with Kevin Owens tonight.

As I’ve probably mentioned a lot over the past few weeks, I love Kevin Owens right now. His unofficial feud with Braun is hilarious, and Kevin sells it so well.

And in typical fashion, I am in tears while Finn makes his entrance. Maybe I should make a post about him soon. It’d probably be long as hell.

FINN ALSO LOOKS SO TAN?!?

I am also really loving Corbin’s new look. His hair needed to go so badly, and the suits that he wears are really doing better things for his character. I don’t love the fact that he’s basically corporate Kane, but it’s fine for now.

Kevin tagging in Braun was so good. He just smacked him in the chest and ran. It was such a cartoon moment and I loved it.

Finn is finally being allowed in this match after Baron decides that he’s had enough. Kevin steals the momentum away from Finn and keeps him in a fierce chin lock.

Braun just literally squished Finn in a corner and Finn just melted out of the ring. My god.

This match kind of exploded as Finn and Corbin couldn’t get along. They ended up fighting all the way up the ramp and got disqualified. I mean, at least Finn didn’t take the pin. I just wish they’d let him win a match for once.

Seth Rollins vs. Dolph Ziggler for the IC Title

After suffering a hard loss last week to Ziggler after a distraction from Drew McIntyre, Seth Rollins is looking to win back his title from Dolph.

I personally love this new angle. Dolph has been out of it for a while now, and the IC title scene is a great place for him to stay. Remember that feud he had with Miz about a year and a half ago? That was the greatest thing ever for Ziggler and Miz.

This current storyline is rumored to lead to a huge battle between Drew and Dolph, which is set to skyrocket Drew to a top position. It’s mostly because Vince loves Drew, but it’s also because Drew is a massive star now, and he belongs at the top. I’d love to see a program with him and Kevin, or him and Braun, or Roman, or even Finn.

Rollins seems to be controlling most of the match so far, but how long will it take for Dolph to fight back?

Not long it seems as Seth focuses on Drew for too long, allowing Dolph to get up tackle Seth. This is where Dolph’s collegiate-style will come into play as he finds a way to tucker out Seth Rollins.

This is exactly the kind of pace Ziggler likes. He keeps his opponents on the ground and wears them out with a headlock or a chinlock.

MICHAEL COLE JUST SAID THAT ROLLINS AND FINN ARE THE TWO OF THE BEST IN SHAPE WRESTLERS ON THE ROSTER WHO CAN HOLD A MATCH AND WHO HAVE BEEN PUTTING IN THE MOST WORK THANKS COLE YOU DID GOOD

Anytime Seth looks like he’s favoring a leg, I get super nervous. An injured Seth would not be good for business right now. I know he’s probably just selling it, but stilllll you guyssss

Rollins just reversed a whip on Dolph and he launched him into the turnbuckle, blasting Dolph into the corner. For a moment, it looked like Seth finally found his footing, but Dolph sent him over the top rope and crashing to the floor, hurting Seth’s wrist on the impact.

The match gets more aggressive as it continues, and the crowd is doing their signature “this is awesome” chant, which is something that Dolph hasn’t heard about his matches in probably a long ass time.

Seth was about to win the match, an incredible match by thE WAY, and Drew came back and pulled the ref out to stop the count. Dolph will retain because of the DQ. Dammmnnnnn

...Roman made his way down to stop the attack on Seth. Are we getting Drew and Roman?? I’m here for it. It better not be a tag match next week, though.

I feel like the last half of the show went by really fast. I guess I’m kind of thankful for that, considering there were a lot of filler moments and matches during the show. I was fine with Raw tonight, no strong feelings either way. I don’t know if I had a favorite match honestly. Did you? Let me know!

Tune in for more!

Casey

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eurusholmmes · 7 years

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Keep Breathing// Sherlock Holmes

I don’t create gifs, so obviously it’s not mine. This request was more recent and because I’ve been singing a relevant song for it literally all day, I thought I’d write it first. Two more oneshots coming tonight! Requests: STILL OPEN!

Requested by anon: You and Sherlock are in a bit of a conundrum. You’re locked inside Lestrades office closet in Scotland Yard for the rest of the night, and you happen to be extremely claustrophobic. So, like a good boyfriend, Sherlock takes it upon himself to calm your fears.

Song lyrics are inspired and taken from Ingrid Michaelson - Keep Breathing

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“A case! I finally got us an interesting case!” Sherlock proclaimed. It had been nearly a week since he’d solved his last case, and you knew as well as anyone else that a restless Sherlock Holmes was an irritating one. “Y/n! Where are you?”

You softly padded out of the bedroom you shared with your boyfriend of two years, buttoning the top buttons of his lavender dress shirt that you frequently wore when you spent the night. “You have a case for us to solve, Mr. Holmes?” You mused, a slight hint of seductiveness lurking in your voice. Whatever Sherlock was planning to say was halted as he then realized how close the two of you really were and how little space was left between your bodies. Intimacy still wasn’t his strong suit.

“You’re standing too close to me.” His voice had dropped down an octave as his eyes flickered from your own to your lips. You rolled your eyes and turned away, gasping as he wrenched you backwards by your hips and allowed his head to fall to your neck. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it, y/n but I’m not permitting another man to gaze at you like I can. Get dressed, and we’ll leave.”

“What exactly are we doing?” You questioned, cocking your hip as you leaned against the doorway to your bedroom. Sherlock swallowed the lump in his throat and adjusted his white dress shirt, which was becoming far too tight against the toned muscles of his chest.

“We’re breaking into Scotland Yard.”

On Friday nights, most of the Detectives in Scotland Yard went out to the local pubs for drinks with one another, which left most of the building unoccupied albeit the remaining senior detectives working nearly around the clock. Unfortunately that also included Greg Lestrade, but not tonight. Tonight, Sherlock had set up a complementary meal for both the DI and pathologist Molly Hooper to share several blocks away.

One of the perks of taking John Watsons place while he raised his baby was that you were in charge of choosing your own outfits when working cases, which were basically comprised of dark colored blouses and form fitting dark jeans, with your favorite leather jacket and combat boots. Sherlock had always admired your tastefulness in fashion. “You see that closet?” He whispered, jabbing a thumb towards the office in the back. “We’re gonna hide in there. That’s where the files we need are.”

Your breathing immediately hitched at the thought of being stuck inside a small space for God knew how long. Your severe claustrophobia was one of the few things you hadn’t told Sherlock in the time you had been a couple, and you were instantly regretting it as you sneaked past the janitors and remaining detectives to break into Lestrades office.

“Sherlock, there’s something I need to tell you-” You said quickly, gasping as another voice rounded the corner on the other side of Lestrades office. “Why, why does it have to be Anderson!?”

Sherlock shoved you inside the closet, completely missing the file cabinet in the corner of the room, where your files actually were. You breathed heavily beneath his hand clasped over your mouth, desperately trying to control your dizziness as the walls seemed to be coming closer and closer from where you were pinned against the door.

“He’s complaining about Lestrade. Figures.” Sherlock felt a change in the air as your breathing became frantic and your body went limp beneath his. “Easy y/n, what’s going on?”

“I-I can’t-breathe.”

His eyes widened as a sudden flash of an earlier conversation sped through his memory; he had asked you to step inside one of the cages in Baskerville and you had adamantly refused. He hadn’t taken into consideration your inability to remain in the bathroom at 221B for long, or how fear was always visible when in the midst of a confined space. “Why didn’t you tell me you had claustrophobia?” Sherlock murmured, groping for your hands in the dark. “I would have asked you to babysit Rosie so John could do this with me-”

You desperately gripped the lapels of his trench coat, pulling him close enough to you that you could feel his breath ghost over your skin. “Talk to me.” You panted. “Talk to me, kiss me, just give me a bloody distraction. The walls, they’re getting closer-”

Sherlock nodded firmly and sat on the floor, twining your legs together and reaching outward to take your hand in his own. His fingertips danced up your forearm, where he began tracing words as he recanted one of his favorite cases in thorough detail; the same case where he’d realized how attached he was to you.

The storm is coming but I don't mind People are dying, I close my blinds

“Moriarty had me cornered on the roof on top of St. Barts. He kept going on and on about Richard Brook, the man he had created. An alter ego of himself meant to desecrate my reputation and my name.”

It was getting easier to concentrate on the man in front of you. That beautiful, insane man.

All that I know is I'm breathing now “At first he’d said that John was going to be one of three people who bit the bullet if I didn’t jump. And then he changed his mind and started talking about you. When he shot himself.. I knew that was it. I had to fake my suicide in order to save the people I cared about most, and the love of my life.”

If he couldn’t tell, at that point there were tears streaming down your face. Sherlock was absentmindedly tracing the same word over and over again on the inside of your wrist with the tip of his finger.

I want to change the world Instead I sleep I want to believe in more than you and me “I assume you saw the letter I left beneath your pillow. My supposed suicide note telling you to wait for me, because no matter what happened, I’d be returning to you.” He paused briefly for a moment at the soft sound of your sleeve dragging against your skin. “Did that help?”

A smile spread across your face as you leaned forward and captured his lips in your own, dragging your fingers through his mass of black curls.

All that i know is I’m breathing now

Pulling away, you leaned upward and slowly turned the doorknob, peering through the crack only to find Scotland Yard void of any remaining persons. Your eyes lit up as you turned towards Sherlock and grinned, reaching outward to take his hand. “Immensely.”

The next day you went to the tattoo parlor and watched as the artist inscribed the word Mine right on the inside of your wrist.

Tag List

@charlottemalfoy @foureyedsiopao

#sherlock x reader #Kayla Grace writes imagines #sherlock holmes #sherlock season 3 #sherlock imagines #sherlock oneshots

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calliecat93 · 5 years

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RWBY V6 CH7 Review: The Grimm Reaper

(Note: This was orignally posted on my backup blog due to a series of events that was due to this blog being flagged and me unable to post until now. This is a repost from said blog.)

We are at the halfway point! Yay! God, it has been one Hell of a first half so far. Unlocked secrets, evil plotting, a wintry forest, and zombie Grimm. It has been a dark, tense, emotionally breaking journey so far and we’re only halfway through. I can only imagine what the rest of the volume is going to be like. But first, we have to get this chapter out of the way. So lets do this!

Overview

We begin in, of all places, the Haven Vault. I wonder if they ever got Vernal’s body out of there… anyways, Cinder has brought Neo there, having apparently explained to her the Maidens, Relics, and of Salem. IDK how much detail she went into, but hey it sounds like the basics were covered. The door to the dimension where the lamp was is now sealed off completely. Heck it’s not even a door anymore, just a giant stone wall. So why has Cinder told Neo all of this? Well Cinder has been forbidden form killing Ruby via Salem, which makes sense since she also forbade Tyrian form killing her back in V4. Why? No clue, but it’s probably bad. But while Cinder can’t kill our hooded heroine, Neo is under no such obligation. So if Neo helps Cinder get to Atlas so that she can reclaim the Relic and redeem herself to her mistress, then Neo can get her revenge for them both and it can be played off as an unfortunate accident. Neo seems to be on board with this plan as the two villainesses shake hands. This is not going to end well…

Speaking of not ending well, we suddenly cut to a foggy area where a woman in a blue cloak is waking along a rope-bridge. It reminds me of V1, CH8 tbh. This woman, clad in blue and wearing a skeleton mask, is the Grimm Reaper. Or, more relevant to us, a younger Maria Calavera. Yes my friends, we are in a flashback now. And it’s one Hell of an impressive one as Maria is faced with a giant Nevermore, leading to a badass fight sequence. We also get to see Maria’s weapons, pair of sickles powered by Gravity Dust, allowing her to maneuver them at will. They are awesome! Its really hard to talk about a fight scene, but you know how the girls struggled against one Nevermore back in Volume 1? Maria handles it single-handed here, ending it via a blast of her Silver Eyes. It turns the Grimm to stone and it promptly shatters. This indicates that, when controlled, the Silver Eyes can merely petrify a Grimm and not outright obliterate it, which would explain how Ruby froze the Dragon back in V3, but didn’t kill it.

Maria may have killed the birdie, but she soon is faced with other problems. She gets ambushed by a group of bandits, who are led by a cocky Crocodile Faunus woman named Tock. She is based off the crocodile from Peter Pan, and man her design is freakin’ great. She’s a rather confident woman, already knowing who Maria is and bragging that these next sixty seconds will be the Grimm Reaper’s lasts. As she says this, she turns on a clock as her aura glows. It was revealed by one of the animators on Twitter that Tock’s Semblance is, for sixty seconds, she is completely invincible. This is demonstrated as the fight begins, the seconds ticking in the background, as while Maria can handle the other bandits, Tock gives her quite the challenge. Weapons break when they hit her and not even minor damage can be done. It’s pretty much regular aura, but multiplied by 100.

Maria gives it her all, even combining her weapons in a dual-wielding form. But Tock is able to bite it in half and knock the Grimm Reaper’s mask off. This leaves Maria’s Silver Eyes wide open, and Tock promptly slashes them. Maria is left blinded and outright screaming in pin as Tock’s Aura breaks, a consequence of using her Semblance. She mockingly offers Maria mercy since the whole reason that her ‘master’ wanted her dead was due to her eyes. I am going to assume that the 'master’ is Salem. Maria tosses one of her sickles at Tock and as the Faunus prepares for the killing blow, Maria uses the Gravity Dust to force the one weapon into Tock’s back. This causes Tock to meet her final fate as she is pulled towards Maria, who proceeds to behead her as the flashback comes to an end.

In present day, the group is surprised by this new information. Qrow is especially stunned, having admired the Grimm Reaper and he even based his weapon off of hers. Everyone assumed that she had died at some point despite her being a legend, but she had never given away her name or shown her face. Qrow had aspired to be as good as the Grimm Reaper… to which Maria says that hes well on his way with how much of a disappointment he’s been so far. Ouch But… yeah after last chapter, Qrow had that blow coming. Maria goes on to explain how despite surgery giving hr back her vision, after the attack she chose to go into hiding and look after herself. Since a Huntress’ duty is to protect and serve others, she feels that she is a failure and not someone that another should aspire to be like. She even points out how some are already stronger than she was, looking at Yang as she does so. But the former Huntress feels guilty for hiding away, unable to help make the world a better place for the next generation.

Ruby, however, points out that Maria CAN still help make things better now. How? She can train Ruby to use the Silver Eyes. That way, Ruby can use the power to help in the fight and therefore help others the way that Maria once aspired to. Maria doesn’t give an answer to if she’ll accept this offer, but it does look like she’s considering the younger girl’s words. But that will have to wait another day as Ruby’s Scroll goes off… an to her shock, it’s Vomit Bo.. ugh, I mean Jaune! This can only mean one thing. Yes my friends, after a train crash, a demoralizing revelation, an abandoned farm, and literally losing their wills to live, our heroes have arrived at Argus safe and sound. Once in the city, they are found by JNR, with Nora giving poor Oscar a glomp for good measure. There are hugs all around, the most emotional being between Jaune and Ruby. Jaune is clearly emotional that his friends made it back safely as Ruby assures him that she had promised, and she kept it. It’s such a beautiful moment signifying that, at least, our heroes are safe and together again. After these past few chapters, it is a VERY welcome sight.

Argus itself seems to be based off San Francisco, and it looks gorgeous. The settings are beautiful, the people are actually animated and not a still frame like with Mistral, and it really feels like a major city. It’s explained that Argus, being the man trading port between Mistral and Atlas, had help from Atlas to settle a firm establishment. SO while Atlas DOES maintain a military presence until recently, the city falls under Mistral domain and is one of the largest locations outside the main kingdom. And now that everyone’s together, there is the matter of living arrangements. As it turns out, Jaune already has this covered as we soon see a young blonde haired, blue eyed woman. This is Saphron Cotta-Arc. That’s right folks, this is one of Jaune’s long-awaited sisters. I believe that Ruby’s reaction speaks for all of us XD

When at the house, Saphron explains that she moved out of the Arc household as soon as she could as she teases her baby brother. It leads to some cute, funny banter as Jaune insists that he’s not a baby, but there IS an actual baby. Saphron’s infant son, Adrian, who pouts at his uncle’s implication. Which… OMG Jaune is an uncle… JAUNE IS AN UNCLE!!! Also Adrian is an absolute cutie patootie and I will let Weiss and Yang’s reactions speak for me. But yeah, it turns out that Jaune was inspired by Saphron setting out on her own to do the same, which she has no problems rubbing in his face. It leads to more cute banter before they are interrupted by the arrival of a young woman named Terra. And she is Saphron’s wife. Yes my friends, you read that right. Wife. IDK if they’re both lesbian or one or both is bi or whatever, but yes my friends, we have a married LGBT couple in the show at long last! I’ll go more into this in the review portion, bUT OMG YES! SO MUCH YES!!!

The lovebirds are more than happy with housing the group due to how Huntsmen and Huntresses give so much to protect people like them that they feel that it’s the least that they can do. Terra does question the use of students though, which Qrow does a.. meh job at passing off. But it’s okay, they have sandwiches! During this, Terra has to answer a call as Saphron explains that Terra works as a technician at the main radar tower. But it’s also where the military’s systems are housed, so things are buggy and poor Terra is getting the blame. Welt hat sucks. Int he meantime, the gang pan their next move. They intend to go to the military the next day and discuss getting transport to Atlas. But… well Jaune explains that they already tried… and the episode ends with the military base doors closing right into Team RWBYs faces. And no one was surprised.

Review

Guys… I can’t believe. We actually got a happy episode! Nothing bad, at least outside the flashback, happened whatsoever! The characters were… happy and laughing and cooing at cute babies! MILES AND KERRY HAVE FINALLY GRANTED US MERCY! HALELLUJAH!!!

Okay in all seriousness, this episode was great. We were in desperate need for a breather episode, and Thank God we got one. It feels kinda like Chapter 7 form last volume when RWY and JNR were catching up. But I feel like this one did a much better job since it both had some nice action, buildup for what’s coming next, and the build-up to this felt much more natural. But yeah… God IDK where to start with this one…

As I said, Argus looks absolutely stunning. It is probably the best-designed location in the series so far. And this time it felt alive and animated, unlike with Mistral where it used stills and then we spent mos to four time in a house. We actually got to explore a little bit this time, and it made the city feel all the more like… well, a city, as a result. The San Francisco vibes with the tram car and the theater were also super well done and made the city feel unique compared to previous settings. Major kudos to the art and compositing team here, they nailed it.

This was an excellent follow-up to the Brunswick Farms storyline. We get to see what Cinder is up to and set up for her and Neo’s next move. Enough to remind us that something is coming our heroes way, but it doesn’t drag or feel forced in. It presented us what we needed to know and look forward to their next move. On the good guys side, after all the Hell that they went through these past six volumes, they FINALLY got to catch a break. They made it to Argus safely, their moods have greatly improved, and they are once more focused on the task at hand. Hard to say if they feel any better about Ozpin yet, and considering we still haven’t seen Jaune man-handle Oscar, I assume that it’s gonna come up soon. But for right now, it’s just good to see our heroes happy and laughing again. Heck I got close to chocking up when Jaune and Ruby hugged and just seeing the pure relief on the paladin’s face. He’s earned it. They all have more than earned it.

The flashback, and in turn the deeper insight into Maria’s character, were also absolutely fantastic. Maria was a pure badass in her younger days and, while I wish that there was more foreshadowing (like mentioning the Grimm Reaper in passing or something), I absolutely can see why she was a legend. Once more CRWBY shows us a fast-paced, badass fight sequence and they all look so good. They’ve been striving much harder with the fights, which makes sense since it was one of the biggest complaints about V5, and it is very much appreciated. They are doing Monty proud. And Tock is such a fun one-time antagonist. Wicked design, awesome Semblance, a cocky but fun personality, her screentime was short but she made sure to own every second of it. And gotta say this, she had one Hell of a death scene!

It also served to help make Maria feel all that well-rounded of a character. I’ve loved her since the moment that she first introduced herself, and I’ve been loving her more and more with each new chapter. She’s sassy and independent, but wise and considering she stowed away on the train as all the chaos was brewing, has a noble spirit. And when you think about it, her stowing away makes sense. She feels guilty for hiding away after losing her eyes and being unable to move forward after it. She doesn’t come off as a weakling or a coward, she comes off as a sympathetic old woman who knows that she’s made missteps, and feels guilty because she failed to do her part to make things better. Hopefully she will agree to train Ruby and be the guiding light that the girl needs to master her powers and continue to help make people’s lives better. But yeah, so far Maria is the best new character in the show, and this episode truly solidified that.

But speaking of new characters, let us talk about the Cotta-Arc’s. First, I love Saphron. She’s bubbly, energetic, and super charming. The way that she teases Jaune is so silly, but you can tell that she loves her little brother and how affectionate she is. Getting to meet one of Jaune’s sisters at long last was a real treat and her and Jaune’s interactions were a major highlight for me. As for Terra, she also seems like a friendly lady, more than happy to house Huntsmen for all the good that they do for others. And Adrian I a total cutie and I still can’t believe that Jaune is a freakin uncle. I love it so much!

But of course, let us talk about the importance of these characters. They r 4our first LGBT couple in the series. We have Ilia, who I adore and she was a good first step, but now we have an actual married couple in the series. This is EXACTLY how you do representation. RT’s had a couple of examples of LGBT at this point (The Millers in Camp Camp, Agent Ohio (lesbian) and Sister (bi) in RvB, Skout in Nomad, Grimmons (RvB) in my own dreamworld) and so far they’ve done a good job. But aside form The Millers, this is the first blatant married couple that they’ve put into the show. And it was done beautifully. Saphron and Terra are portrayed as friendly young women with no stereotypes or cliches attached. They come across as regular people who are in love and just happen to both be women. Terra calls Saphron 'hon’, Saph goes to help her with groceries, they hold hands while sitting together, Saph is understanding when Terra has to answer a work call, it’s super sweet and, well… normal. And no one questions it or even addresses it when Terra comes in. They’re treated like any other couple, ad THIS is how you do proper representation. You portray your characters as people first and foremost, and then just let them be a couple. There’s no need to make a big deal out of it or put it under a spotlight. Let it be normal. Let it not be questioned. It is a VERY positive portrayal of LGBT characters and it made me cry in happiness when I watched it the first time. Thank you CRWBY. Thank you so much for this.

Final Thoughts

What more can I say? This episode was fantastic! A new setting, enjoyable new characters, a badass fight sequence, and plenty of build-up for what’s to come. But most of all, it was a positive episode. The characters got to be happy, and as such I was happy. Of course it makes me worry for what evil Miles and Kerry are going to unleash next, but hey at least they know when to finally let us breathe. This episode was very much welcomed, and I loved every second of it! Th first half of V6 has been a lot of things, but the one thing that it hasn’t been is disappointing. I eagerly await the second half for what is currently a strong contender for the best volume since V3! Great job CRWBY!

#rwby reviews #callie reviews

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