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zelda o'bannon
sex. love. erotica. a risque kitten in a velvet world
A Brief Leave of Absence
This is goodbye, sweethearts.
Not like, a long goodbye, or a final goodbye. This is comma or a semicolon, not a period. I'm not getting married, or undergoing a sex change, or going into witness protection or anything. No one has knocked me up, and when they try to make me go to rehab, I'm still all like, "No, no, no."
What actually is going on is that I'm taking a very small break from blogging so I can pursue a Very Big Thing. I cannot say exactly what this Very Big Thing is yet, because that would suck all of the fun out of it like a vacuum hose around an erect penis (note: please don't try that home). But it's an awesome big thing, very cool, totally awesome, you'll all fucking love it. Swear to God.
Have the decency to miss me a little, my darlings, but do not mourn my absence because I'll be back by New Year's day to continue to deliver sub-par erotica to the glorious internets.
And I'm bringing friends 😉
xoxo, Zelda
Crossing the Line #WickedWednesday
"I'm going to break you," he says.
I spit in his face like I mean it. "I'd like to see you try."
This is the delicate game that we play: love, hate and longing all tangled together in the sheets. He has my wrists tied to his bedposts and my chin in his hand. I anticipate the slap before it crashes against my cheek, but I don't flinch. His secret police hit me harder when they brought me in.
The governor and the rebel– what a pair we make. He steps back from the bed and puts a gold ring on each finger of his fighting hand. I utter a string of curse words in a language that he's banned. When his troops first invaded this land I call home, we slaughtered them by the thousands. When I'm in his bed, he makes me pay for it.
"You need to be taught a lesson, girl." He cracks his knuckles like he scares me. "We told your kind to stay in your borders. This is what happens when you disobey orders."
He straddles my stomach and teases my breasts out of my torn blouse. I feel his cock harden as he takes my nipples between his fingers and I pretend I don't like it. He's rough with them, vicious, neatly manicured nails biting into each rosy peak.
"Beg me not to," he tells me.
"Eat shit."
I know what comes next, but that doesn't make it hurt any less. He backhands me, one cheek then the other, so hard I see pretty colors. I can smell his cologne as his rings bruise my cheekbones. I open my mouth to cry out and accidentally bite my tongue. There's the taste of blood: bright, tinny, warm.
"Does that make you feel like a man?" I growl. It's only half an act. I hate him like a cat hates water, but there's no denying the wetness between my legs as he pulls his knife and cuts me out of my breeches. My cause is my curse. I'm destined to despise all that he is, and to love every brutal second of how he makes my body feel.
This is the dance of a rough man and a rougher woman: He presses the edge of his knife against the curve of my left breast. I can feel it bruise my sternum. I kick him hard enough to knock the air from his lungs and his body off the bed. He loses the knife and I pick it up with my teeth. I'm cutting one wrist loose as he pulls his gun. I drop the knife and he brings the grip down on my temple. My world is spinning and I'm swimming in a sea of hurt as the weakened rope on my wrist finally snaps. I clap my free hand to his ear and he curses in pain, recoiling. I nearly have my second wrist free when he stops me with the click of a cocked gun. There's cold metal at the base of my skull and a hard cock pressed against my ass. No white flag needed– he wouldn't accept a surrender if I knew how to give one.
He uses my body like a solider uses a whore. I cum with his gun against my head. He has the decency not to fill me– neither of us want a bastard half-breed tied up in this war. He shoots his cum onto my back instead. It stains his fine linen sheets as he turns me over and uses my mouth until I've sucked him clean. He kisses me like I've been conquered, but we both know better. By morning, I'll be picking off the guards on the border through the scope of my sniper rifle and he'll be wishing he had just killed me when he had the chance.
He holds me after and I let him. I've got a fat lip and a bruised ego. He's got a conscience. I wonder if I popped his eardrum. Probably not– if I did, he'd be sobbing.
I let myself sink into him, let him shield me with his warmth, but when he says it, I tense up like a deer in headlights:
"I love you." His voice is hoarse as he presses the words into my ear.
I push his arm away and pick myself up out of his bed. He's looking at me with those amber eyes like he'd give me the whole world if I would just say it back.
He ought to know better. I won't.
I walk out the door naked. His guards know by now that I'm not to be touched. A string of words follows me out. They sound like "please" and "no" and "don't leave" but I've got no will to listen. There are some lines you just don't cross.
This has been a Wicked Wednesday post! Wicked Wednesday is on Week #184, brought to you by the delectable and most admirable Marie Rebelle of Rebel's Notes. As for me, this is week #4. We're on the subject of boundaries this week– is there anything in bed that you just won't do? Let me know in the comments! xxx
A Chronic Dependence on Good Vibrations
This is me right now: huddled beneath four blankets in a bed and breakfast, the closest to my hometown I've been since I decided to ditch the States and become Rambling Bohemian Barbie, shivering and tea-sipping my way through the Lovecraftian horror of all stomach flus, and mourning the recent passing of the only vibrator I brought back with me (which isn't so much Dead-dead as it is Battery-dead, thank god).
Ah, yes. As you can imagine, I am the picture of sexuality right now. May God smile down on the kind soul who can manage to a modicum of attraction to my frail trembling body beneath two layers of long johns and an oversized Motley Crue t-shirt I used to wear as a dress back in high school.
The vibrator thing is getting to me, though. My typical mountain climbing, nightclubbing, wild child self gets all Jekyl-and-Hyde when it comes to being sick. In fact, I reckon the only thing I AM capable of right now is casual masturbation– which has been thoroughly thwarted by the aforementioned dead batteries in my weapon of choice.
I wasn't always this way– swear to god. In the pre-vibrator years (some of which were when I wasn't legally allowed into a sex store, some when I didn't have real access to one, some when I was scared shitless of someone catching me perusing the local dildo aisle) I was like a sex toy MacGyver. Chuck me a condom, a spent toilet paper roll and a rubber band and I could jerry-rig something to get me off in five minutes flat.
But in the post-vibrator years, I thought that those skills would only be useful during an inevitable prison stint (and only if I didn't get wifed by some sex-kitten Alex Vause type first, naturally).
These years of vibrating my way to Pleasureville have been that kind of luxury that, to quote sub-par 80's hair metal band Cinderella, "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." But now, in my sober, sorry state, I wonder if this isn't a good thing. Maybe there's really such a thing as too much good vibrations– maybe it's time to stop humping a motorized piece of plastic and really get back to my roots. Remind myself of the magic that my own fingers create.
And barring that, I've got three magnums, some lube and a cucumber in the fridge. I've never really been the veggie-fetish type, but I mean, a girl's gotta do…
So, what's your preference? Do you vibrate along all night long, or do you prefer manual mode? Ever gone on a sabbatical from your sex toys? Unfortunate vibrator-related stories? Talk to me in the comments, lovelies xx
Uncharted Pleasures #WickedWednesday
Just take some soil samples, they said.
It'll be easy, they said.
The air was breathable on the alien planet, which was lucky because halfway through filling her first test tube, her oxygen supply had been wrecked. The bubblegum pink suction cups had come out of nowhere, latched onto her helmet, ripped it off and flung it away.
She might have been scared, but the planet's atmosphere also had a pretty high nitrous oxide content. Instead, she felt giddy. Floaty. Dreamlike and flying high.
Every breath left her head spinning deliciously, her glasses askew as she watched the tentacle slither toward her. Her toppled test tubes and extraction kit laid scattered around her, already forgotten. She knew she should recoiled when the tentacle reached out to stroke the boot of her space suit, but the instead the nitrous left her feeling euphoric. The suction cups along its bottom sucked against the boot's ankle, released and climbed upward. She knew she should have tried to scamble away from it as it wound its way up her leg. Maybe it was the scientist in her. Maybe it was way If she had thought to scream, she might have– but there wouldn't have been anyone to hear it, anyway. The planet was supposed to be totally uninhabited.
Apparently, the tentacle currently curling around her upper thigh hadn't gotten the memo.
It ripped the bottom half of her suit away like it was pulling apart cotton candy. Four thousand dollars of high tech protective synthetics, ruined just like that. The sensor in her ear was beeping frantically, alerting her to the danger of being so exposed, but it seemed so secondary to the way the planet's sun warmed her tanned calves, her bare thighs. The heat between her legs.. well, that was all her own. She was wet, she realized, and she couldn't tell whether that was because of the nitrous or because of the way the tentacle returned to her– this time, with a friend.
They tickled their way up her legs, suction cups kissing her skin gently like twin lovers. She found herself bound by them as they wrapped around the thickness of her thighs and flexed tight. No escape– not even if she wanted to. She didn't. Her clit radiated with longing, pulsing along with her heart beat. She was aching to be touched, and every breath only made that wanting worse.
The next tentacle to appear over the edge of the rockface were full of rough promise. The first shot out demandingly and tore away the front of her suit, revealing her breasts. She'd been effectively stripped by them, she realized– all of her most delicate parts bared for the taking. When it had rid her of the last barrier between her breasts and the warm alien air, it snaked behind her, binding her arms together tight. To her delight, she found herself lifted up off of the ground and suspended in the air, chest pushed out garishly, legs spread.
Tied and helpless, she watched two more tentacles pop over the edge of the cliff. Her nipples, hard and taunt and throbbing, were their targets. These tentacles lacked the suction cups of the others she'd encountered so far. Instead, they ended in two bulbs that hovered over her tender pink areola. The blubs opened up to reveal several rows of dull teeth that latched onto her nipples viciously. There was a desperate suction to them and a gentle bite that sent sensation coursing through her nervous system. The pleasure and pain were practically indiscernible, irrevocably bound to one another.
She was brimming with the need to be filled now, so badly she could feel it in the roots of her teeth.
When the final tentacle appeared, she couldn't just blame it on the euphoria of the air she was breathing anymore. She wanted it. Desperately. The thin line separating want from need had dissolved in the wetness between her legs, even as the tentacles holding her thighs spread them wider and the teeth at her nipples twisted them until she was moaning in delicious agony.
The last tentacle was slick and streamlined. It left a warm gooeyness on her inner thigh as it stroked her, almost lovingly, before sliding between her pussylips and pressing in. She whimpered for it as it expanded inside of her, adjusting its thickness to fill her tight. The sensation was surreal. She had never been filled so thoroughly, so comfortably. It fit her like it had been made to, pressing up against her g-spot so hard she was spasming in moments, gasping, bright colors all around as it brought her to orgasm, the sounds of her own pleasure amplified by the atmospheric high.
At some point, she passed out.
When she awoke, she was inside her spaceship again, a thick creamy wetness between her legs that tasted of hazelnuts and vanilla. Her test tubes had been filled with soil and carefully lined up in their holders on her console. She was naked, but wrapped gently in a soft blanket from the ship's bunk.
She almost didn't believe it had happened at all as she set her coordinates for homebase and prepared to launch. But as she looked down at her wrists, her forearms, her thighs, she knew it had been more than just a dream. The tentacles had left their mark on her, purple hickies from the suction cups marking every few inches of her skin, bruised reminders of the greatest pleasure she had ever know.
This has been a Wicked Wednesday post and my first foray into the weird world of tentacle porn. Wicked Wednesday is on Week #183, brought to you by the delectable and most admirable Marie Rebelle of Rebel's Notes. As for me, this is week #3. Check out the other entries and drop me a comment or something 😉 xox
Sushigirl in Love #WickedWednesday
November 24, 2015 November 24, 2015 6 Comments
She thought it would make the job easier, being covered up, but she thought wrong. A maki roll over each nipple, the ebi nigiri across her rib cage, futomaki down her stomach and sashimi covering her mons pubis made her feel more naked, not less. Having it stripped away by wealthy businessmen, each piece elegantly removed by well-handled chopsticks… that was just icing on the shame-cake.
A decade before, a girl like her could have made ends meet on the street corner. It would have been dark, hurried, impersonal. A couple of sloppy blowjobs, a few minutes of dry thrusting in a back seat, and she would have had enough cash to cover rent. But now there were sexbots for that, dead-eyed women of perfectly toned silicone– which was what the johns had wanted in the first place. She didn't have a voice box that could be turned from sweet and innocent to rich and sultry with the flip of a switch. She was flesh and blood, imperfections and skin flushed pink with embarrassment beneath the white imitation geisha face paint the Sushigirls had to wear as a man with a deep frown line in the middle of his handsome brow traced the tips of his chopsticks up her thigh.
If she hadn't been laying down, she would have trembled.
He had an ad man's haircut and a thousand dollar suit. He'd been a regular since before she started working at the Floating World sushi parlor, where the businessmen entertained their clients with the rare delicacy of perfectly prepared tempura and nigiri eaten off of real, live naked women. But after the first time she had laid at his table, looking elegant as his business partners chuckled and plucked California rolls off of her collarbone, he had requested her every time since. She didn't know why– she wore the same white face, black eyeliner and red lips as any of the other girls, and laid there just as still– but she had become a regular at his table, and he came nearly every night now.
His chopsticks lingered at the shallow valley where her thigh met her sex. She was meant to keep her eyes trained on the ceiling, but she let them stray to see the look on his face. Her gaze was met with steely grey eyes. He'd been watching her, waiting to see if she reacted. Briefly, she wondered if it had been a test– then one of his business partners tweaked her nipple with his chopsticks, and a roar of laughter followed as he played it off as a mistake. Her grey-eyed patron smirked, but he didn't join in. Instead, he peeled the final piece of swordfish sashimi away from skin and raised it to his mouth. He ate it like he was tasting her, obviously savoring the salty freshness of the meat.
She loved him, she realized. Not true love, no, but something akin to it. She loved him even as his chopsticks returned to stroking her inner thigh, which wasn't allowed. The clients weren't supposed to touch the Sushigirls, only the sushi– but he was a man who didn't seem to care for rules.
They all left in a hurry, sorting out whose suitjacket was whose in a bluster of designer labels and expensive cologne. No one wanted to linger for long after dinner was done. She supposed, in the grand scheme of things, she was just an appetizer for their evening– their main course was attached to chargers in the robo-brothels down the street, girls with silicone lips who had been programmed not to say no.
But the man with the grey eyes stayed, long after his companions had gone.
Her body felt dirty, sticky with soy sauce and lingering saltiness. Her patron didn't seem to care, though. Not as he rose from his seat and rounded the table. Not as he grabbed her hips and pulled her to him, so she was just at the table's edge, her legs spread. He didn't seem to care about anything, really– not the rules, not his business partners, and certainly not about the sexbot brothel down the road– only about her, her body, the unspoken desire between them that felt as real and solid as a silver chain collared around her neck and held in his hand.
His tongue was dark pink and warm as he licked his lips, then licked hers, up and down and up and down until she could have begged him to take her– but she didn't have the words. He pushed his tongue between her pussylips, claiming the salty sweet wetness between them. His tongue traced along her labia minora until her thighs trembled. There was a whimper that she held in her mouth for as long as she could stand it, but when his lips found her clitoris, it eased out of her desperately. His fingers teased her entrance, and against her will her hips bucked wildly as he pressed them inside of her.
She came hard, his perfect hairstyle ruined in the clutches of her fingers, his lips covered in her juices, her ankles crossed against the crisp collar of his dress shirt.
When he smiled up at her, the frown line between his brows seemed to have momentarily disappeared.
"A tip," he said, as if that explained it all. He kissed her lips gently once, and then rough and full of longing. His tongue tasted like her, and like saltwater and sake.
"Next week?" she asked sweetly. Her voice sounded breathless and hopeful and small.
"Soon," he promised, and then he was gone– before the bouncer or one of the other girls could discover the secret of their brief tryst. She watched him go, still tasting him on her lips. Sushi would never taste the same again.
This has been a Wicked Wednesday post, highlighting my deep yearning for some good sushi and even better sex (I'm home for the holidays and alas, landlocked again). Wicked Wednesday is on Week #182, brought to you by the delectable and most admirable Marie Rebelle of Rebel's Notes. As for me, this is week #2. Check out the other entries and drop me a comment or something 😉 xox
Silk and Velvet Beneath His Hand #WickedWednesday
November 4, 2015 November 4, 2015 5 Comments
It was a dark place, all black velvet and cool silk against her eyelids.
By day she was messy, fast-moving, fast-talking, timid. That was how he had first found her: in a white thrift-store blouse stained with coffee dribbles down the front, a lilac pencil skirt that was two seasons out of fashion and straining at the seams of her hips. Ill-fitting pumps from the half-price shoe store down the road. A bad perm that frizzed up when it rained. When she remembered those days, she could barely believe he'd given her a first look, let alone a second.
At first, she thought he must have first talked to her just out of the goodness of his heart. That's what she saw herself as, anyway: a charity case. She was used to men like him talking to her, men with stiff jawlines and immaculate stubble, men in designer suits. They flirted with her as a joke while they bought scarves for their wives and girlfriends– scarves that cost more than what she'd make in a whole month. But he'd been different. All charm, no laughing at her when he thought she wasn't looking.
She'd learned it too late: a man like him didn't do anything out of some moral sense of obligation. He'd seen something in her that day at the department store, something deep below her messiness and her paygrade. Something intimate and forbidden and closed off from the rest of the world– but men like him knew a submissive streak when they saw it. It was like how men intrinsically knew when the stripper they were tipping was ovulating. Mother Nature at her best– or her worst.
His hand came down hard against the bare curve of her ass, just like it had done dozens of times before that moment. But where at first the spanking had come in brutal, painful waves, now she was removed from it. Somewhere else entirely. The hotel room that he rented weekly for their little sessions melted away, just like the whole world had when he first asked her that all important question: "Have you ever been disciplined?" Since that day, she'd been whipped. Paddled. But his hand was always her favorite. It took her to places deeper and darker than she'd ever imagined. His skin against her skin. The softness of the bedspread beneath her cheek. The hardness of his cock against her stomach as she laid across his lap.
He built up a rhythmic crescendo with his hand while she sang the melody in tiny coos and heartfelt moans. Beneath the blindfold of his tie across her eyes, the blackness ignited into multicolored fireworks. She was dripping. Every blow was felt in her clit as much as she felt it on her ass. By day, she was insignificant. But by night, on the nights he had her, she was powerful and charged with something darkly beautiful beneath his hand.
This has been a Wicked Wednesday post by your favorite slutty pink-haired… writer-type… thing– me! Wicked Wednesday is on Week #179, brought to you by the delectable and most admirable Marie Rebelle of Rebel's Notes. As for me, this is week #1. Check out the other entries and drop me a comment or something 😉 xoxo Zelda
Purchased & Forbidden (The Billionaire's Little Princess #1)
November 3, 2015 November 3, 2015 Leave a comment
November 3rd – 5th: GET IT FOR FREE!
Have we as a society beaten this billionaire thing to death yet? Personally, I think maybe. Probably. But then again… who's stopping me?
Chanel is a busty brat with an addiction to couture. When her shopping addiction runs her trust fund dry, she finds herself at the mercy of mafia loan sharks with a price on her head.
Her only hope is the wallet of Dane DuPoint, the dangerously good looking man of the house (divorce papers pending). When she was younger, Chanel always loved playing damsel in distress with Dane, but this time, her knight in shining armor thinks she's taken their game way too far.
Dane's billionaire bank account might be able to bail Chanel out of her sticky situation, but in Dane's world of luxury and glamour, nothing comes for free. As Dane sets out to discipline Chanel for her bad behavior, her own dark side is revealed. Paid for but forbidden, Chanel might be the princess of the castle– but Dane is clearly the king.
This is a 9,000-word erotic romance short involving a sexy older alpha male billionaire and a mouthy blonde brat in a taboo tryst. It features spanking, dominance, submission and light female bisexuality. Luxury, opulence and spicy hot chemistry!
BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE:
Enjoy an excerpt, special, just from moi xx
The door clicked into its lock behind me and I felt my shoulders tense in anticipation. I wished he would just get it over already. Yell. Scream. Slap my face. Call me out for what I was: a spoiled brat whose trailer trash past would always catch up to her. An addict for luxuries I couldn't afford. A leech. A bitch. The dumb cunt who had cost him dearly just because she couldn't keep her spending habits in check. Hell– I was the daughter of the woman who was serving him papers for divorce settlement of the century. I knew he had it in him, and I knew that I was ready to take it.
Plus, I deserved it. I knew that most of all.
But Dane didn't scream at me. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't say anything– not at first. He just walked over to a plush leather armchair and let his body fall back into it, the Manhattan skyline at his back.
Now that I could get a clear look at him, not even the room's flattering amber glow could hide his fatigue. I saw the wrinkles in his white linen shirt, the kind that always worked their way into cloth in airplane seats. I saw the reddish tinge in the whites of his eyes– they didn't call them red-eye flights for nothing. And as he poured himself a glass of bourbon from a decanter on the end table beside him, I saw it in his furrowed brow. The sleeplessness. The worry. The frustration.
"Take off your shoes."
I startled at the sound of his voice, then nodded and bent down to undo the straps of my stilettos.
It was an odd request– or so I thought until I saw the way that my feet were bleeding. Give it to the high fashion world to sucker a girl into paying five thousand dollars for foot torture. Across my toes and at the backs of my heels, the straps of the shoes had left my skin painful and raw. After the night I'd had, it felt good to finally have them off. Hell, it felt like heaven.
"Now my jacket." He was the picture of casual confidence, one leg crossed over the other as he sipped at his bourbon.
Wiggling my toes against the plush rug beneath my feet, I slipped the jacket off my shoulders. I dropped it on the ground next to my shoes and looked to Dane for his next order.
He shook his head from side to side. "Didn't anyone teach you manners, Chanel? Hang it up."
Suppressing an eye roll– what did it matter? They cleaned the rooms at the Oriental twice a day– I bent down and retrieved the jacket. When it was hanging on the coat rack, I crossed my arms and turned back to Dane.
"Next time you throw something on the floor like that, you'll be punished," he said.
That time, I couldn't have contained my eye roll even if I wanted to.
"Punished?" I laughed, hard and dry. "You can't be serious."
He looked serious.
That scared me.
"Take off your dress," he said.
My mouth fell open into a perfect, round O.
"You're fucking with me," I accused.
The look on his face told me he wasn't.
To my horror, I found myself struggling to reach behind my back for the zipper. I was shocked. Annoyed. And I was struggling to follow his orders anyway.
Dane DuPoint was a dangerous man like that.
I'd marveled at Dane's ability to do that, to bend the wills of others to his own, so many times as a young girl. Like most teens, I had wanting nothing more than to do exactly that. Have my way. Get it every time. I'd seen Dane use it on his business associates, his friends, store clerks and telemarketers. He'd even been able to master my mother with it, for time. Stray dogs would trot over to Dane at his slightest whistle. I'd seen them do it. Then, they would roll over and flash their bellies to him, wag their tails and lick his hand.
"Come here," Dane said. It had become clear to him that my dress wasn't coming undone without some help.
My uncanny willingness to follow Dane's commands said as much about me as it did about him. I was no better than those dogs.
We were one and the same.
My aching feet crossed onto cool wooden floorboards and back to carpet again as I approached him. I was wary of Dane DuPoint. I was scared of what he could make me do and even more afraid of how good it felt to obey. But I was also wary of what might happen if I didn't. The threat was suspended, unspoken between us but entirely understood. Dane had bought my freedom, and he could sell it right back, too.
Subconsciously, at least, I had known that when I gave Tony Fortunato Dane's number. It wasn't kinship that I had counted on to bring Dane to my aid. It wasn't sympathy or a soft heart. Men didn't get to where Dane was in life by handing out favors– especially not million-dollar ones. I'd known that if Dane came, it was because he thought he could get something out of it in return. I'd just suspected that the "something" would be testimony against my mother in their divorce case.
I stood in front of Dane, my knees shaking, as he grabbed either side of my dress' ripped neckline and tore it off of me.
I had never imagined that he might have wanted that.
I was suddenly more exposed than I had been all night. The low hum of the suite's heater did little to change that. Beneath Dane's gaze, I felt my skin prickle until every hair follicle on my body felt as if it was standing on end. He poured over my body with his eyes like I was a legal textbook and he had a case to win. He left no visible curve unexamined. Not a single uncovered inch.
And I still had my bra and panties on.
"Bra off," Dane said, obviously keen to rectify that.
It was then that we stood on the precipice between inappropriate and utterly wrong. The shoes– that had been normal. Practically intuitive. We were in for the night. They'd been killing my feet. The dress– that too I could explain away for my own peace of mind. It had been ripped, ruined. I would have needed help out of it either way. A little T&A for his troubles? I could understand that. I could forgive him that.
But as my fingertips danced against the clasp of my bra, I knew that once it was undone, there was no turning back.
Liked it? Loved it? Neeeeeeeeed it? GET IT! 100% free from now until Saturday… no strings attached 😉
xoxo Zelda
Slumming it #MasturbationMonday
They called it slumming. That was what it was.
She could see the limousine coming from a mile away. The roads were flat in the slums, but the women had curves. That was about half of the reason rich, arrogant assholes made their way to the rough side of town. They wanted something to hold onto while they fucked. The girls uptown had delicate china bones and less fat on them than a top sirloin steak. Those girls couldn't take it rough. They were too valuable to break and they didn't know how.
The limo pulled up alongside her corner and she got in, ripped fishnets sliding against expensive leather apolstery.
The other reason why the rich came to the slums was pure superiority. They liked that they could own a girl like her for mere pocket change. She held out her hand and five hundred dollars was placed into it. For them, it was the interest accrued on their savings account that month. For her, it was rent for that month and the next and the next.
She counted her money before she looked at them, but when she did look, she wasn't exactly displeased. They were the handsome rich, good-looking as they were wealthy. It meant that their personalities were shit, of course– no man ever had all three– but it made her job easier. No matter what the romance novels said, sex wasn't about personality. Sex was about power, first and foremost, and then it was about physical attraction.
She'd done worse on a Monday night.
"Full service?" Her lips were thick, glossy red with cheap lipstick. They didn't make lips like those uptown– not without collagen injections, anyway.
The dark one spoke first, his accent elegant and cultured. He had hair slicked back like a 1950's ad man, sharp features, oil slick eyes. He and his friend sat across from her in the limo. They beckoned her to them with their index fingers, all come hither with their eyes. She crawled to them on her hands and knees to close the distance. They always loved it when she crawled.
"Blow us."
The fair one had a rougher accent– a self made man? She'd never know, but she could tell that the silver spoon in his mouth wasn't quite as large as the dark one's. The fair man had a broader jaw and cornflower eyes. His hair was shorter, unstyled. There was a scar across his left eye that cut straight through his heavy brow. The dark man looked like an aristocrat. The fair man, a mercenary.
She undid their belts one by one, methodically. One buckle, then the other. One button, then the other. Their cocks emerged erect– a good sign. They wanted her, hard with longing. Hard cocks, she adored. There was nothing more unsatisfying than a limp cock in her mouth, especially since some of their owners couldn't get it up at all– not even for a downtown girl.
The dark man was circumcised. The fair one was not. Apart from that, their cocks were practically twins. The same handsome, even color of flesh. The same luscious pink glans. She could hardly decide which to lick first. They stared down at her expectantly, as eager to see who she would choose as she was to begin.
It was the fair man's, she decided as she slid his foreskin back and took the head into his mouth. Uncircumcised men had a natural beauty to their cock's– and they were more sensitive. As she ran her tongue around the head, the fair man hissed and bucked his hips. Intensity. She loved that sound. It was what kept her on the streetcorners instead of in the factories. It was a pleasure to please.
The second man was far more reserved. She went at his cock with long, quick puppy-dog licks. Eager to please. Ecstatic.
She had a cock in each fist by the time she could truly study the two men. She wondered what their relationship was– why they had come together. It wasn't unusual for men to come in groups. They loved to gangbang the cheap whores, all of them throwing in five dollars and getting a whole night's worth of entertainment from it. But if they didn't come in hordes, they almost always came alone. Were they best friends? Lovers? Not brothers– if you took away their designer suits, they would have looked like they were from two different worlds.
As she moved her mouth from one cock to the other, sucking back and forth, she watched their heads tip backward simultaneously, their eyes fall closed in the pleasure of it. That was odd too– usually, they liked to watch. She was all smudged eyeliner and cheap mascara, her breasts bouncing heavy in the low cut of her top. Her skirt rode up as she bent over them, and she could feel herself growing wet. Hot. Longing.
They smelled like mint and citrus, tasted like salt and musk. That was the best thing about the rich men– they were clean, more often than not. Sometimes, they would come in dirty, but that was just because they liked the look on a girl's face when they forced her mouth down on it. These two were impeccable, though. Even their fingernails were clean as they dug them into the leather of their seats.
She plunged lower, taking one all the way down her throat then the other. They were close now, side by side and grunting softly. The dark man came first as she pumped his cock in her fist. His cum shot everywhere: her hand, the door, his own thigh and across the fair man's pelvis. And then, just like that, the fair man came as well– right down her throat and into her stomach.
"Lick us clean," the dark one commanded. He was breathless. They both were.
As she laid in her bed after, the darkness of her tiny, shitty apartment swallowing her whole, she slipped her fingers between her legs and thought of that moment. The way the two men held each other's gaze as she slurped up every last bit of the dark one's cum off of muscled skin and hairy thigh. Creamy. Delectable. Rich men had better tasting cum, the other girls always said. It was the first time she believed it. It had been sweet. Delicious.
She was slick as she touched herself, remembering the way that the dark one must have discovered that too. When she had straightened her skirt, she'd seen the money change hands. A roll of bills from the dark man's fingers into the fair man's pocket. The dark one had reached over then and stroked the fair man's cock once, twice, squeezing out the last remnants of the fair man's cum. And then, he had dipped his dark head low and licked it off, the final drop that she had missed.
If you liked that, then you'll love Kayla Lords' Masturbation Monday! Like somebody probably once said, two is better than one! This is week 61 for the rest of the MM crowd and week #3 for me. TELL ME THAT I DID A GOOD JOB OKAY? Blow up that motherfucking comment section and validate my sense of self worth, you beautiful bastards.
Netflix & Chill #MasturbationMonday
October 25, 2015 October 25, 2015 12 Comments
It wasn't supposed to go this far.
She'd realized her mistake as soon as she made it. Maybe even as she was making it. When he'd texted, "Can I come over?" she'd responded, "Sure :)"– smiley face, not a winky face. Friendly, but not too suggestive. She'd been putting out that vibe for weeks now, hoping that it might draw him in closer. It had been her goal to let him know that she was interested while making it clear that she was, above all else, a good girl.
But good girls didn't text their best friends' fathers, and the definitely didn't hang out with them casually, one on one, watching Battlestar Gallactica together on Netflix and drinking beers . She'd known it was wrong before his hand had wandered to rest on her inner thigh. After…
After, she was too turned on to care.
His fingers traced the ragged hem of her jean shorts, stroking the smooth tanned skin that it bordered. She knew that she should have swatted his hand away, gone on playing their little cat and mouse game. It had happened before, a brief touch here, a flash of skin there, but they'd always kept each other in check up to that point. It would only take a little slap of her hand against his and a dismissive giggle to end it, but as his fingers tickled beneath the hem of her cutoffs, she realized that she didn't want it to end. She'd known for a while now that all of the flirtations, the teasing Snapchats, the heated texting would all come to a head. She just hadn't expected it to be just then. But if her heart wasn't ready to consummate their little affair, her body didn't give a shit. Just at the slightest brushing of his fingers against her skin she could feel her pussy grow hot and wet in anticipation.
She could only imagine what it would feel like to have those fingers farther north, or even better, to feel him move inside of her.
A moan escaped her lips, involuntary but not exactly unwelcome. She didn't have the words to tell him how good it felt, how bad she wanted more, more, more– but that tiny little exhale of pleasure that slipped through her strawberry lipgloss pout was enough to make it clear. She could tell by the way he looked at her. His dark eyes were brimming with something, a brooding stir of desire and shame that she knew all too well. Would he be brave enough to face it, she wondered? Her clit twitched, aching with need. If he wasn't, she wouldn't be able to stand it.
She moaned again and he licked his lips, hungry for her. His hands were on her hips then, pulling him to her, and her heart soared.
How far they had come. Ten years ago, she'd just been the mouthy, mousy neighbor girl from across the road and he'd been the handsome father of the only girl in her class who would talk to her. He'd made her pancakes and smoothies for breakfast on the mornings she would sleep over at their house, flipping each flapjack up in the air until it was spinning high overhead. She'd fallen in love with his smile, his early morning stubble and the Navy anchor tattoo on his left bicep a thousand times before he had so much as looked at her– but there he was, his cock hard beneath her as she straddled him, his lips just inches away from a kiss that had been building in her imagination for the better part of a decade.
"Are you sure you want this?" His voice was rough, like he was straining to force himself to ask for consent.
She answered by forcing her lips against his. She didn't have words anymore. If she had opened her mouth, it would have sounded like so much begging: Want. Need. Please, please, please.
He tasted like Guinness, bitter coffee grounds and dark chocolate. His stubble tickled her chin, her cheeks, but his lips were warm and smooth and inviting. His mouth felt like home to her, and she wanted it. God, she wanted it on every inch of her body, every secret place. She imagined those lips on the softest places of her body: the crook of her elbows, behind her ears, at the hollow of her collarbone, at the place where her leg met her sex.
She kissed him like she would never kiss him again. As far as she knew, she wouldn't be able to. Men like him didn't fall for girls like her. She might have gotten tits and an ass since high school graduation, but when she was around him she felt as lovesick as the schoolgirl who had shown up on his doorstep when she was ten years old, wanting to know if his daughter could come out and play. And at the same time, as he worked his hands against her new found curves like he wanted to imprint on his memory their exact feel, their exact shape, she felt all woman, awakened and alive beneath his touch.
"Turn over," he said, wrestling his lips away. When she didn't respond quickly enough, he moved her himself, flipping her over on his lap so she was facing away from him. With one hand, he found her hair and twisted it around his palm. With the other, he reached around her waist and stroked the seam of her shorts, a layer of denim and a layer of lace away from touching the warm wetness of her cunt…
"Tell me you want it," he growled. His teeth scraped against her neck as he pulled her head to the side. She was utterly in his control now, without any means of escape, and she loved it. She needed. She wanted. He filled her up so full of longing, it seemed almost unfair that he was forcing her to ask for it, beg for it, part her lips and let it out.
"Please," she whimpered.
There was a long suspended moment where she was certain that he was going to deny her. That he was going to push her off of his lap, put on his shoes and head for the door.
But just as she was certain that it was over, he unbuttoned her shorts with an effortless flick of his fingers.
He undressed her faster than she could have undressed herself. Beneath his touch, her clothes disappeared, flung across the room far away from their position on the couch. Shirtless, pantless and, with only a quick wiggle of her ass on her own part, panty-less, she sat on his lap and felt the hard length of his cock against her ass as he touched her. His fingers traced up one thigh, down the other, and then they brought her what she had wanted for so bad, for so long. His fingertips moved against her clit, rubbing and rolling it beneath them as she whimpered and sighed. They stroked her labia, dipping down to fill her like she had always dreamed of. And in due time, he ravished her in ways that she never could have dreamed– bringing her to orgasm over and over again with only his hands, his lips at her neck and his fingers dripping. Her body convulsed against his in pleasure, toes curling as they hooked around his ankles, nipples hard and aching, mouth open in passion and desperation as every nerve ending in her body was repeatedly and relentlessly overwhelmed.
He sucked his fingers into his mouth when he was done with her. She collapsed against him– it was either that or falling straight onto the floor. Her legs felt like the bones had come out of them. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop her knees from trembling.
He kissed her as the credits rolled and Netflix suggested that they watch the next episode. But as he gently removed her from his lap, she knew that their time was up– he had to go.
"We should… do that again sometime," she said. Her voice sounded so small, so timid, but so utterly hopeful. She stared up at him, biting her lip as he rose.
"I'm not sure I could handle it if we didn't," he replied. There was a grin on his face wider than she'd ever seen it before.
And even as he walked out of the door, she couldn't help but feel smugly satisfied at the way his jeans strained against the pressure of the big, stiff erection they concealed as he went.
If you liked that, then you'll love Kayla Lords' Masturbation Monday, where getting off is only a right-click away. Masturbation is good for you– so this week, don't settle for doing it alone. This is week 60 for the rest of the MM crowd and week #2 for me. For the love of god, comment if you liked this and read all of the other sexy posts this week– there are LOADs.
Going His Way
She shouldn't have been out so late, but that had never stopped her before. Her delicate, strappy stilettos and the plunging neckline of her dress broadcasted both her sex and her vulnerability. She might as well have stripped naked and painted a target on her back. To a strange man's eyes, her look said, "Harass me. I'm obviously asking for it."
Was that what the man sitting across from her was thinking? Possibly. He was in formal wear too– not unusual for a Saturday night in the city. Tailored suit, black, silk lapels, thin tie. Crisp white shirt beneath. Shined shoes. Pleated pants. What was unusual was that they were alone in the subway car, entirely without company except for each other. Not even the city's homeless were out on the trains this late.
It occurred to her that if he tried something, there wouldn't be anyone to hear her scream.
If she'd been a smart girl, she would have gone home earlier. Tumbled into the back of a taxi with her girlfriends. Stumbled back into her apartment, downed a bottle of water, popped some aspirin, turned on Friends. Passed out safely between cool sheets behind a locked door.
But there was no thrill in playing things safe. That was what she told herself: that she was a thrill-seeker, an adrenaline junkie, a wild girl with no inhibitions. But that wasn't it, was it? No– the excitement of the danger was secondary. What she really wanted was to live unconstrained by fear.
That's what it was.
Slowly, she mimicked her companion's posture. The friendly arm draped out over the neighboring seat, like he was making a move on a blind date in a darkened movie theater. The confident line of his lips, the look of superiority in his eyes as he watched her. She watched those eyes trail downward as she perfected her pose: a mirror image of this strange man across the subway car, she spread her legs wide, like a peep-show whore or a man asserting his ownership of the space.
The dress was too short to conceal much. Her panties had been discarded before she even left her apartment that evening– they made lines in the dress. She knew he had a full view of her sex, the dark curls of her pubic hair, the shadows in the dampening ravine between her pussy lips.
There was the clank of a belt. The sound of a zipper. And then, there he was, cock in hand. His lips said something else now, wordlessly smirking at her. Smug. You show me yours, I'll show you mine.
She didn't allow herself to glance around suspiciously, ensuring they were alone. Now it was a challenge, a game of chicken beneath the glow of the subway lights. He pumped his cock once, twice, staring her down. Your move.
Her heels scraped against the floor of the car as she shifted. She was spread wider now, even more exposed. Always the entertainer, she traced her inner thighs with her fingertips first like a magician doing slight of hand. But even her sense of showmanship couldn't stop her from the final destination of those fingers. They moved upward, teasing the damp curls of hair on her labia, slicking against the sensitive inner lips. Brushing up, then down, then circling around her clit. The movements of her fingers said, "I know how to please myself. Could you do as well?"
If he understood her, his only response was to pump his cock harder.
Who was this man, this handsome stranger sharing the end of her night? A businessman, headed home after a long meeting? A club promoter on his way back from work? He had all of the refined good looks of an haughty heir of a huge fortune, a billionaire out on the town, riding the subway all through the night as he tried to remind himself how the lower class lived.
She was in love with him and in hate with him all at once. His scruffy, shadowed facial hair; the sleek style of his auburn locks; the way he devoured her with his eyes as he stroked himself, hard and erect beneath strong fingers. He clenched himself harder as she slipped her middle finger between her folds and deep into her pussy, then her index to follow. She strummed her g-spot like the string of a bass guitar, hitting note after note in perfect succession until her heels were digging deep into the floor of the car and her shoulders were tensed hard against the window at her back, braced for release.
When she came, she came violently. Orgasm hit her like a shotgun shell to the chest and she reveled in it. Her body bucked and trembled like that of a woman possessed, and all along she watched him watching her until he found his orgasm as well. His semen shot upward, onto his shirt and lapels. There was so much of it, an intoxicating amount.
Before she could control herself, she found herself rocked down on her hands and knees, crawling towards him despite the dirty floor like an animal stalking prey. She lapped it up, fulfilling the craving, giving into the need. Long, slow cat-licks, slurping as she cleaned his semen from the silk of his lapels, the linen of his shirt, the velvet of his tie.
He was going to have a hell of a dry cleaning bill.
His gaze was paralyzing as she licked her lips clean: hazel eyes, bright like a harvest moon. She knew she should say something, but what was there to say? Her arsenal of witticisms had escaped her.
Instead, she pushed off of his knees and brought herself to her feet. The slow, rocking motion of the train settled as it pulled into the station: her stop.
And silently, she straightened her skirt and winked at him before she broke his gaze and left the car, stepping out into the night.
If you liked that, then you'll love Kayla Lords' Masturbation Monday, where getting off is only a right-click away. Masturbation is good for you– so this week, don't settle for doing it alone. This is week 55 and my first go at a submission, but there's a whole hell of a lot more where that came from and much, much more left to come.
melina greenport on A Brief Leave of Absence
F Dot Leonora on A Brief Leave of Absence
Twigs on Uncharted Pleasures #WickedWed…
cammiesonthefloor on Crossing the Line #WickedWedne…
Simina on Crossing the Line #WickedWedne…


Rob Garf is VP of Industry Strategy and Insights and the Chair of the Client Advisory Board at Salesforce. With 25 years of global retail experience as a practitioner (Lids, Marshalls, Hit or Miss), an industry analyst (AMR Research), a strategy consultant (IBM), and a software leader (Salesforce), he is no stranger to the industry and the challenges retailers face. His team currently develops industry research and advises senior executives globally on unified engagement strategies. Rob is also a frequent industry speaker and a member of NRF's Digital Council.


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text:
package cn.edu.buaa.g305.qpm.processManagement.server;

import java.util.List;

import org.springframework.web.servlet.NoHandlerFoundException;

import cn.edu.buaa.g305.qpm.processManagement.domian.Product;

public interface ProductServer {

	Product getByName(String name);
	Product getById(String id);
	void delete(String id);
    void deleteByName(String name);
	Product save(Product Product);
	Product update(Product Product,String id) throws NoHandlerFoundException;

	List<Product> getAllList();

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Aroma and Creamy Tasty of Fresh Coconut!
Organic, extra virgin, unrefined & unbleached from non-GMO coconuts; Hexane-free.
62% MCTs‡ 8.6 g medium chain triglycerides (lauric, caprylic and capric acids) per serving.
Recommendation: Take 1 Tablespoon (14 g) as needed.
Enjoy straight from the jar or use in spreads, dips & more!
For cooking, baking or sauteing up to 350°.
Gluten Free. No artificial ingredient or preservatives.
No refrigeration necessary. Naturally melts and become liquid at 76°F. Returns to solid when cooled.
Keep out of reach of children. Safety seal for your protection. Do not use if inner freshness seal is broken or missing.


Meet The New Diamonds: Fordite. Also Known As Detroit Agate. | Ready, Set, Bored!
Home Creative & DIY & Inspiration Meet The New Diamonds: Fordite. Also Known As Detroit Agate.
The following series of pictures is what's called 'Fordite'. Also known as Detroit agate, is old automobile paint which has hardened sufficiently to be cut and polished. It was formed from the build up of layers of enamel paint slag on tracks and skids on which cars were hand spray-painted (a now automated process), which have been baked numerous times.
This material has been recovered from some of those places and is now being used as 'ecofriendly' jewelry.
I already knew of the material, and that it has beautiful layers and shapes, but to make jewelry out of it didn't come to my mind. Very beautiful.
This Person Makes Soap For A Living. Must Be A Clean Business.


Technology may be moving increasingly towards everything being mobile, but organisations with call centres should not abandon traditional customer service methods completely.
This is the opinion of Paul White from software provider MPL Systems, writing for Call Centre Focus, who argued that firms need an approach that complements their existing engagement channels.
He pointed out that people are still likely to want to speak to real operators when they have a big problem or want to process a valuable transaction.
"For successful apps-based mobile self-service to succeed, organisations are going to have find ways to combine both approaches - effectively creating a hybrid offering for their customers," Mr White commented.
This is something those looking to go into sales recruitment will increasingly have to get used to, as the Mobile Operators Association recently said more than half of Britain's mobile phones are now smart devices.
Furthermore, 52 per cent of firms with call centres have now removed their desk phones completely in favour of other technologies, a poll by Jabra published in Call Centre Helper reported.


By moving your real money blackjack playing action online you are instantly going to have available to you a much larger range of differently structured blackjack game variants than you would ever find on offer in a land based casino.
One blackjack game which is worth taking a closer look at is the Big Five variant, this is a game which is on offer at all Microgaming powered casino sites and comes with its own unique set of playing rules which can be quite liberal.
Those playing rules permit players to be able to double down on any initial two cards which have been dealt out to them and players are also given the option of doubling down their hand and purchasing one additional and for the same stake as their initial wager whenever they have split a pair of cards.
Splitting cards is permitted not just once but three times and as such you can end up playing of four hands off just one initial set of two cards if you keep on slitting them, the cards which can be split are any matching value cards which includes any cards with a value of ten such as a Jack and King.
One beneficial aspect of opting to play blackjack online as opposed to playing in a land based casino venue is that you are going to have a much wider spread of staking options on offer to you. For example when you choose to play the Big Five Blackjack game you are going to be able to put into play stake levels as low as just 1.00 per hand or as much as 200.00 per hand.
The winning payouts are all the standard ones on the Big Five Blackjack game and as such any blackjack hand deal tout to you but not after splitting is going to see you being paid out at winning odds on that hand of 3 to 2, the standard payout on all other hands is even money and the insurance wagers pays 2 to 1. Which is the standard payout for that optional side bet insurance wager.
If you do fully master playing this blackjack game variant then over your long term play with perfect strategy you will be able to get the house edge down to a quite manageable 0.47%, but be aware there are many other much lower house edge blackjack games on offer online, so it may be worth playing those games instead of this one.
When the dealer is dealing out the cards to himself and you he is going to deal himself just one initial card which is dealt facing upwards, he will only ever deal out his remaining cards once you have played off your hand.
There are five full decks of playing cards which are always shuffled before a new hand is deal tout in play on this blackjack game variant and whenever a soft 17 hand or anything lower has been dealt out to the dealer he will hit those hands.
The dealer is obliged to offer players the insurance side bet wager whenever he could possibly end the game with a blackjack hand and to take that option you need to place an additional side bet wager which must be exactly half of the amount you wagered on your base hand.
To be in which any chance of having a winning session you will need to be able to play this game with the best strategy in place, which means playing every single hand correctly based on just what card the dealer is showing. We have therefore loaded into this website the perfect playing strategy card for Big Five Blackjack so make sure you save it and use it! Below are some of the easier to remember ways of putting into pay perfect strategy for this blackjack game.
Early Surrender – You will be able to throw your hand away and get half of your stakes back by taking the Early Surrender option offered on this blackjack game, but there are surprisingly only six times when that is the correct decision to make. When you have a hard 14, 15 or 16 or a pair of 7's or 8's and the dealer has a 10 card then you should take the Early Surrender option and also when you have a hard 16 and the dealer has a 9.
Doubling Down – There are quite a number of times when you should double down your hand, and with that in mind please make sure you make use of our blackjack strategy card for this game as it shows you each occasion when playing this game that you should double down. One of them is when you have be deal out a soft 16 and the dealer is showing a 4, 5 or 6 valued hand. Remember doubling down will cost you an additional wager the same value as your initial bet.
Hitting a Hand – As soon as you have been dealt out a very low valued hand such as a 5, 6, 7 or 8 then no matter what card the dealer has up-facing via his hand you need to hit those hands. Only ever hit a soft 18 valued hand when the dealer has a 9, 10 or an ace showing, that is also true for a soft 17 and, but when you have a soft 17 always hit it when the dealer is showing a 2 card.
When to Stand – If you are dealt out a hard 17 valued hand then that is the best time to stand your hand, no matter what card the dealer has on display via his initial card. Also do not split any pair of ten valued playing cards dealt out to you as the best strategy for this blackjack games called for you to stand those hands, also any soft 20 hand dealt out to you calls for you to stand that hand too.
Insurance – Event though you will be offered the insurance side bet wager when playing this game online do not ever take it, for the 2 to 1 winning payout may seem attractive but the house edge attached to the side bet option alone is many times higher than the base game house edge and as such it is a very poor valued bet to take.
There are plenty of casinos giving away to both new and existing players all manner of different bonuses, but be aware you are going to be very hard pressed to find any online casino site that will not attach an extra set of additional play through requirements to the bonus les when players choose to play blackjack with bonus credits.
Always read through any bonus terms and conditions as some casinos online do not let player splay blackjack games with their bonuses! You will however always find plenty of blackjack comps can be earned when playing this Big Five Blackjack game online and it will pay for you to do some hunting around as most casinos offer a differently structured comp club and some of them are way more generous than others.


text:
URL: /core/journals/international-organization
IO Keohane Award Winners
< Back to all issues
Volume 75 - Issue 3 - Summer 2021
Globalization, Institutions, and Ethnic Inequality
Nils-Christian Bormann, Yannick I. Pengl, Lars-Erik Cederman, Nils B. Weidmann
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2021, pp. 665-697
Recent research has shown that inequality between ethnic groups is strongly driven by politics, where powerful groups and elites channel the state's resources toward their constituencies. Most of the existing literature assumes that these politically induced inequalities are static and rarely change over time. We challenge this claim and argue that economic globalization and domestic institutions interact in shaping inequality between groups. In weakly institutionalized states, gains from trade primarily accrue to political insiders and their co-ethnics. By contrast, politically excluded groups gain ground where a capable and meritocratic state apparatus governs trade liberalization. Using nighttime luminosity data from 1992 to 2012 and a global sample of ethnic groups, we show that the gap between politically marginalized groups and their included counterparts has narrowed over time while economic globalization progressed at a steady pace. Our quantitative analysis and four qualitative case narratives show, however, that increasing trade openness is associated with economic gains accruing to excluded groups in only institutionally strong states, as predicted by our theoretical argument. In contrast, the economic gap between ethnopolitical insiders and outsiders remains constant or even widens in weakly institutionalized countries.
Democratization in the Shadow of Globalization
Jacque Gao
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2021, pp. 698-734
In this article I develop a new theory of how globalization in the form of increasing potential foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows affects democratization. As the level of potential FDI inflows increases, workers become more willing to support democratization because of the large wage benefits from liberalizing FDI under democracy, while capitalists become less willing to support democratization because of their increasing need for protection from the dictator in the form of FDI restrictions. Increased demand for protection allows dictators to extract larger share of rents from capitalists. The effect of increasing potential FDI on democratization is ambiguous because it increases both workers' incentive to revolt and dictators' resistance to democratization.
Regaining Control? The Political Impact of Policy Responses to Refugee Crises
Omer Solodoch
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2021, pp. 735-768
In response to the political turmoil surrounding the recent refugee crisis, destination countries swiftly implemented new immigration and asylum policies. Are such countercrisis policies effective in mitigating political instability by reducing anti-immigrant backlash and support for radical-right parties? The present study exploits two surveys that were coincidentally fielded during significant policy changes, sampling respondents right before and immediately after the change. I employ a regression discontinuity design to identify the short-term causal effect of the policy change on public opinion within a narrow window of the sampling period. The findings show that both Swedish border controls and the EU–Turkey agreement significantly reduced public opposition to immigration in Sweden and Germany, respectively. In Germany, support for the AfD party also decreased following the new policy. Public opinion time trends suggest that the policy effects were short lived in Sweden but durable in Germany. These effects are similar across different levels of proximity to the border and are accompanied by increasing political trust and a sense of government control over the situation. The findings have implications for understanding the impact of border controls on international public opinion, as well as for assessing the electoral effect of policy responses to global refugee crises.
Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: Assessing the Effect of Gender Norms on the Lethality of Female Suicide Terrorism
Jakana L. Thomas
Although a substantial body of research argues that women provide terrorist organizations with important tactical benefits, few studies draw out the implications of this argument or examine whether female recruits affect the outcomes of terrorist operations. Using data on individual suicide attacks from 1985 to 2015, I show that an attacker's gender influences the lethality of an attack. However, this effect is conditional upon the gender norms of the state in which the attack occurs. The results demonstrate that a female advantage is more apparent only in societies where a woman's role in public life is limited; attacks by female suicide attackers are more deadly in countries where women are largely absent from the workforce, civil society, and protest organizations. I also assess whether counterterrorists eventually adapt to the use of female suicide terrorists. The results demonstrate that female attack lethality is declining with time, suggesting that security forces eventually adapt to women's participation in terrorism. These findings are consequential because they highlight the effect of persistent gender biases on counterterrorism efforts.
Public-Private Governance Initiatives and Corporate Responses to Stakeholder Complaints
Calvin Thrall
Multinational firms operate in multiple national jurisdictions, making them difficult for any one government to regulate. For this reason the firms themselves are often in charge of their own regulation, increasingly in conjunction with international organizations by way of public-private governance initiatives. Prior research has claimed that such initiatives are too weak to meaningfully change firms' behavior. Can public-private governance initiatives help firms self-regulate, even if they lack strong monitoring or enforcement mechanisms? I take two steps toward answering this question. First, I introduce a new measure of firms' performance on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) issues: the extent to which the firms issue public responses to claims of misconduct from civil society actors. Second, I argue that public-private governance initiatives allow firms to benefit from the legitimacy of their public partners, lowering the reputational cost of transparent response. Employing novel data on firm responses to human rights allegations from the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, I find that membership in the largest and most prominent initiative, the United Nations Global Compact, significantly increases firms' propensity to respond transparently to stakeholder allegations. These results suggest a limited but important role for public-private initiatives in global governance.
Research Note
Threats at Home and Abroad: Interstate War, Civil War, and Alliance Formation
Jessica Edry, Jesse C. Johnson, Brett Ashley Leeds
In the current era, many of the military threats that state leaders face come from domestic and transnational nonstate actors. Military alliances are recognized as an important policy strategy to counter military threats, but existing research has primarily been focused on threats from other states and has difficulty uncovering a consistent relationship between external threat and alliance formation. We argue that this discrepancy arises from the failure to recognize that many threats are not external to the state. We contend that alliance formation is motivated both by external threats from other states and by internal threats that make civil conflict more likely. Moreover, we argue that leaders design alliance obligations differently when faced with internal threats. An empirical analysis of alliance formation from 1946 to 2009 shows that while external threats motivate the formation of defense pacts, internal threats encourage the formation of consultation pacts. Internal threats with the greatest potential for internationalization also encourage the formation of neutrality/nonaggression pacts. This research deepens our understanding of how states design security policies to deal with the threats posed by nonstate actors, a salient concern of leaders in the twenty-first century, and helps us to understand the variety of alliance obligations that we observe.
Segregation, Integration, and Death: Evidence from the Korean War
Connor Huff, Robert Schub
How does the design of military institutions affect who bears the costs of war? We answer this question by studying the transformative shift from segregated to integrated US military units during the Korean War. Combining new micro-level data on combat fatalities with archival data on the deployment and racial composition of military battalions, we show that Black and white soldiers died at similar rates under segregation. Qualitative and quantitative evidence provides one potential explanation for this counterintuitive null finding: acute battlefield concerns necessitated deploying military units wherever soldiers were needed, regardless of their race. We next argue that the mid-war racial integration of units, which tied the fates of soldiers more closely together, should not alter the relative fatality rates. The evidence is consistent with this expectation. Finally, while aggregate fatality rates were equal across races, segregation enabled short-term casualty discrepancies. Under segregation there were high casualty periods for white units followed by high casualty periods for Black units. Integration eliminated this variability. This research note highlights how enshrining segregationist policies within militaries creates permissive conditions for either commanders' choices, or the dictates and variability of conflict, to shape who bears war's costs.
Fair Share? Equality and Equity in American Attitudes Toward Trade
Ryan Brutger, Brian Rathbun
American politicians repeatedly and strenuously invoke concerns about fairness when pitching their trade policies to their constituents, unsurprisingly since fairness is one of the most fundamental and universal moral concepts. Yet studies to date on public opinion about trade have not been designed in such a way that they test whether fairness is important, nor whether the mass public applies fairness standards impartially. Drawing on findings in social psychology and behavioral economics, we develop and find evidence for an "asymmetric fairness" argument. In a national survey of Americans, we find strong evidence that fairness, conceived in terms of equality, is crucial for understanding support for potential trade deals and support for renegotiating existing ones. Americans view as most fair and most preferable outcomes in which concessions and benefits are equal across countries, especially when those equal benefits match productivity. However, we find that Americans have an egoistically biased sense of fairness, responding particularly negatively to any outcome that leaves the United States relatively worse off—a sense of injustice that does not extend to the same degree to relative gains for Americans.
Robustness of Empirical Evidence for the Democratic Peace: A Nonparametric Sensitivity Analysis
Kosuke Imai, James Lo
The democratic peace—the idea that democracies rarely fight one another—has been called "the closest thing we have to an empirical law in the study of international relations." Yet, some contend that this relationship is spurious and suggest alternative explanations. Unfortunately, in the absence of randomized experiments, we can never rule out the possible existence of such confounding biases. Rather than commonly used regression-based approaches, we apply a nonparametric sensitivity analysis. We show that overturning the negative association between democracy and conflict would require a confounder that is forty-seven times more prevalent in democratic dyads than in other dyads. To put this number in context, the relationship between democracy and peace is at least five times as robust as that between smoking and lung cancer. To explain away the democratic peace, therefore, scholars would have to find far more powerful confounders than those already identified in the literature.
INO volume 75 issue 3 Cover and Front matter
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2021, pp. f1-f3
INO volume 75 issue 3 Cover and Back matter
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2021, pp. b1-b2

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In this book Pastor Cesar Castellanos teaches the key principles for effective leadership and the strategies to build a church that can, change a nation and reach the world. The personal restlessness and the continuous search for why the Lord chose twelve men to disciple revealed to Pastor Cesar Castellanos; the model of the Government of twelve, which in this book he explains in detail. Also, this publication will be of great help in breaking schemes and will place your church, the leadership and all its ministry in a new dimension of power.


ARM® Compiler ARM C and C++ Libraries and Floating-Point Support User Guide. This manual provides user information for the ARM libraries and floating-point support. It is also available as a PDF.
The title ARM Compiler ARM C and C++ Libraries and Floating-Point Support User Guide.


text:
Home » News » Polk County triple murder suspect has ties to Naples
Polk County triple murder suspect has ties to Naples
COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. – One of the suspects in a Polk County triple homicide has ties to Naples, according to her arrest booking sheet.
The 'place of birth' for Mary Whittemore, 27, is listed as Naples, Florida in the document. Whittemore and the other two suspects, her boyfriend T.J. Wiggins and his brother Robert Wiggins made their first appearances before a judge Thursday.
Whittemore's bond was set at $45,000; $15,000 for each count of being an accessory to the murders. She allegedly bought ammunition for T.J. Wiggins the week before the murders.
T.J. Wiggins is accused of shooting and killing three men, while they were out on a fishing trip last Friday night. Investigators believe T.J. Wiggins accused one of the victims of owing him money and stealing a truck engine from him.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office shared surveillance video of what they said is T.J. Wiggins talking to one of the victims in a Dollar General store, the night of the shooting.
Grady Judd, Polk County Sheriff, called the murders "a massacre" on Wednesday.
It is unclear how else Whittemore is connected to Naples, besides her birthplace.
Categories: Crime, News
Tags: crimenaplesPolk County
9 police officers fatally shoot pedestrian after standoff on interstate in Nashville, authorities say
By CNN January 28, 2022
Wordle brings people together in unlikely way
By Sean Martinelli January 28, 2022
Forecast: Coldest air in four years arrives this weekend
By Meteorologist Justin Hobbs January 28, 2022
P-EBT cards sent out to help feed Florida students impacted by pandemic
By Alex Howard January 28, 2022


After our 'year in search' blog post a day or two ago, we thought it'd be interesting to see which of our blog posts have been the most popular with our readers.
As you can see, our free fonts blog post we posted back in July was extremely popular and really helped launch the blog. Even four months after publish, it remains to be our most popular blog post month to month by quite a distance. Since its publishing in July, the post has attracted over 5,000 pageviews every month.
We're going to try and keep posting a great mix of content in 2010 with some larger articles as well as the usual roundups and Union Room news.


Search latest tenders in Anantapur .All right, here we are with our most flexible features & facilities.Now you can search tenders according to your working areas.We will Provide information for Anantapur tenders, Online Anantapur tenders, government Anantapur tenders notice, Anantapur private tenders, Anantapur Public sectors tenders & most importantly related to your business by the filtered. Similarly vendors can select any city of India of their choice.
Providing Supply Of Manpower Viz. Accountant, Computer Operator, Office Assistant, Peon, Chowkidar, Safaiwala (Patr-Time) On Short Term Contract Basis For Project Implementation Unit - Anantapur On E- Tender Basis. .
Supply Of Manpower On Short Term Basis .
Erection Of 2Nd 100 Mva Power Transformer Bay Along With Associated Equipment For Enhancement Of Ptr Capacity From Existing 1X100 Mva To 2X100mva Power Transformer Capacity At 220 Kv Ss Boksampalli In Anantapuramu District .
Erection Of 2Nd 100 Mva Power Transformer Bay Along With Associated Equipment For Enhancement Of Power Transformer Capacity From 1X100 Mva To 2X100 Mva At 220 Kv Sub Station, Gollapuram In Anatapuram District.
Erection Of 3Rd 100 Mva Power Transformer Bay Along With Associated Equipment For Enhancement Of Power Transformer Capacity From 2X100 Mva To 3X100 Mva At 220 Kv Sub Station, Gollapuram In Anatapuram District.


Last weekend our Year 10 students certainly battled the elements as they completed their Silver Duke of Edinburgh hike – rain, wind, leeches abounded. Thankfully all made it back safely. Thank you to Ms Jenns and Mr Pakes for once again supervising another expedition.
Our Cadet Passing Out Parade was held today. This very special ceremony was once again beautifully implemented and we thank the outgoing Year 12 cadets for their contribution to the JRAHS Cadet unit over the last 5 -6 years. It was wonderful to welcome back Matthew Rudd to inspect our parade. Thank you to Mr Bruce McFadyen, Mr Alan Best, Mr Peter Low and Mr Dave Shaw for their efforts in coordinating the parade and ensuring our cadet program operates smoothly.
Thank you to the many parents who have already paid their 2014 Contributions and Subject Fees. Due to our new accounting system we were very late in sending out our statements. If you have not paid your contributions it would be greatly appreciated if you could do so before the end of the term. Resourcing our introduction of the new Australian Curriculum in Maths, English, History and Science requires an enormous purchase of new texts for each subject in Year 8 and 10 in 2015. We need to raise these funds to be able to purchase texts early next term.
Years 7-10 have now completed the second session of their Elevate Education Study Skills program. The website is www.elevateeducaton.com and the username and password were also shared. Ms Novotni our Learning Support Coordinator and Acting Head Teacher Welfare has organised the Study Skills program.
Next week is a very important week in the school calendar as we celebrate the achievements of our present Year 12 cohort at Awards Day and also welcome our new students in Years 8-11 to JRAHS on Friday 12 th . On Thursday 11 th at 6.30pm we will hold our Year 11 Information Evening. Mr Jason Driscoll will outline career topics relevant to our students – careers, scholarships, cadetships, medical applications etc and I will discuss the scaling procedure used by UAC. All Year 11 students and their parents should attend.
This week is SASS Recognition week and I would like to acknowledge the fabulous efforts of our SASS team. We are a very lucky school to have support staff that always put students, teachers and parents first.


In this episode, Krista Hengesh of Live Salted talks about the faith required to step into what God has called you to, especially when you don't know what the results will be. We discuss the spiritual warfare you'll face when walking in His will and seeking to make Him more famous. We remind you that you are a daughter of the King and that when you trust Him with your dream, your life, your everything, your dependence on Him will naturally need to increase and thus will grow your intimacy with Him.


Close Knit Friends is always in need of volunteers to teach knitting at any of its hospital programs.
Once your application form has been received, someone from within the Close Knit Friends organization will contact you.
Make a tax deductible contribution to help cover the cost of yarn, needles, and other supplies that are donated to patients and their famlies when they take part in one of our programs.
Close Knit Friends is a 501(c)(3) organization.
Make a donation by simply clicking on the donate button below.


Try Reading is a project libraries all over the north of England are running leading up to the Rugby League World Cup this autumn. Sports clubs and libraries are working together to encourage more people to enjoy reading, creative writing and drama. As part of the project, children at St Joseph Catholic Primary School Castleford enjoyed a fun-filled day.
The library Outreach Team worked with the school, Castleford Tigers and The Yew Tree Youth Theatre delivering a non stop day of activities to encourage children not only to read but to get them involved in dance, sport and drama. Throughout the day Castleford Tiger players and TJ the mascot joined in the activities and visited the classes whilst the team were reading a story and promoting the Summer Reading Challenge.
There are two Try Reading events this summer for all the family to enjoy. Author Tom Palmer will be holding a Family Sports Challenge at Normanton Library on 12th August 2.30 – 3.30pm. Phone the library on 01924 302525 to book a place and enjoy Tom's special Rugby Challenge.
Then join us at the Castleford Tigers Learning Den at the Wish Communications Stadium WF10 2SD on 19th August 2 – 4pm for lots of family fun activities. No need to book, just drop in.


to appear 'above the fold' in a Google local search like this your business must either appear in the 3-pack or pay for CPC. Currently Google include businesses in the 3-pack based on SEO criteria. This will change to 'popularity' (the business's review score - just like TripAdvisor) as soon as Google have enough raw data (reviews).
What would encourage a click-through to the business's website - a great review score maybe?
It can then serve relevant results (the most obvious being 'local'). Google is trying hard to learn about all our various online habits (shopping/viewing and so on) so it can personalise our search results. An obvious example: if we consistently use the search term 'vegetarian' Google may assume that it's safe to give vegetarian restaurants preference in our search. But most of the time we just want to see THE BEST!
The best at the top?
And you'll get the same answer ninety-nine times out of a hundred (OK, we know reviews are 'the subjective opinions of...' but they are far-and-away better than the alternatives: a random list or the richest business): it's THE BEST!
So what are Google bound to do?
If the answer is 'No' - call us NOW!
* Important update: in January 2016 Google introduced their review filter, initially in mobile and for hotels and restaurants, other businesses are sure to follow. For full details read this.
HelpHound: your route to great reviews, always!


From Flint, Michigan to Shanghai, China, bottled water is a luxury many people can't afford to do without.
PARIS — The global war on plastic continues. With several U.S. cities, the UK and the European Union all proposing to ban plastic straws, people are now turning their attention to bottled water, asking whether that, too, should be banned. Writing in the Guardian, Sonia Sodha argues that, "There's no consumer good we have less need of than bottled water."
But while that statement is mostly true for the UK, recent examples from around the world show that not everyone can be so confident about the quality of their water supply.
"My reflex when I turn on the hot water is to wait and check the color, because sometimes it's completely red. Then I smell the water before taking my shower." For people living in the Air Bel housing projects in Marseilles, France, that, unfortunately, is a daily routine, one resident recently told the RTL radio station.
And it's not just the color and odor that are off-putting. Locals are worried about the presence of Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease. Tests on the complex's water pipes first showed traces of the pathogen in 2011. And last year, a resident died of Legionnaire's disease, although experts have been unable to say for certain whether the bacteria came from the water.
Attempts to purify the water by treating it with chlorine seen to have had little impact. In fact, the chlorine itself appears to be harming residents, the French daily 20 Minutes reports. "Some people have had stomach aches," one resident is quoted as saying. "Others have marks on their skin from showering with this water."
Across the Atlantic, in Flint, Michigan, the city's notorious noxious water continues to be problem. So much so that Flint schools will continue using bottled water for the upcoming school year, the local news site MLive reports. The Flint crisis began in 2014, when the water source was switched to the Flint river. The river was not properly treated, and between 2014 and 2015, a dozen residents died from an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease. Further studies identified lead contamination in the water, and a federal state of emergency was declared in January 2016.
Polluted rivers are also a serious concern in Colombia. Herbicides are part of the problem. Some of the country's waterways also contain so called "emerging pollutants" — chemicals from personal care products like perfume and makeup, and even drugs, both legal and illegal — the Colombian daily El Espectador reports. A study that began in 2013 identified the presence of 1,000 drugs in the Bogotá River. Traces were found even in water that had already gone through the local wastewater treatment plant, the newspaper explains.
Back in France, in rural Burgundy, the 840 inhabitants of the village Etais-la-Sauvin have been unable to drink the water from their taps for nearly two years, Le Monde reports. In 2016, an analysis of the local water table found dangerous quantities of several pesticides and herbicides, particularly metazachlor, which is used for growing canola. The prefecture took the precaution of banning the consumption of tap water.
Since then, even simple tasks such as rinsing lettuce or brushing one's teeth must be done using bottled water, which is supplied by local authorities. The local mayor laid "98%" of the blame for the pesticides on one particular farmer from a neighboring village. But the Chamber of Agriculture for the Yonne department, which plans to publish a study on the water table, says that farmers from Etais-la-Sauvin also used polluting pesticides. Other towns and villages in the department have tap-water bans as well — about 15 in total, Le Monde reports.
Then there's China, which is now the biggest consumer of bottled water in the world after surpassing the United States in 2013. This shouldn't come as a surprise given the country's enormous population, and the fact that water pollution has gone hand-in-hand with air pollution as a by-product of China's rapid industrialization. As noted in the Guardian, Greenpeace researchers found in 2015, for example, that 85% of the water in the Shanghai's major rivers was undrinkable. The environmental organization also found that despite government attempts to address the issue, nearly half of China's provinces missed their clean water targets for the period 2011-15.
As evidenced by the examples above, bottled water is, unfortunately, a necessary alternative for people in many parts of the world. And yet, even pre-packaged H2O can contain pollutants. A recent study of popular bottled water brands found that 90% showed traces of microplastics. Which just goes to show that when it comes to supplying the world with clean drinking water, there are no easy solutions.


How to create a great product to make money online.
Some great ideas to get you started with creating products which you can sell online.
Once you create your products you can sell them online over and over again. In this video Brett not only talks about how to create products but also goes one step further to talk about how to expand your product line to create a funnel which gets higher and higher price points which make you more and more money.
Did that video get you thinking?
Tell us what you thought by commenting below… We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Great information, Brett. Creating your own information product that people are searching for and ready to pay for, it's win win situation for everybody. Awesome.


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Ramsey est un village des États-Unis situé dans le comté de Fayette, en Illinois.

La population était de  au recensement de 2010.

Village en Illinois

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Governor Kate Brown was narrowly re-elected, and while mainly a lemon when it comes to new thinking in education we do see potential opportunities to make some lemonade. She is supportive of more career technical education programs and offering students hands-on learning opportunities that expose them to new technologies, and prepare them for jobs that actually exist and are at times begging for qualified workers. We'll be ready to help squeeze for that lemonade whenever the Governor is.