Escape from Freedom

"I thought you said this was 'the beginning of a new age'? You even smiled."

"I'm not so hopeful anymore. It's clear these extraterrestrials want to create a totalitarian state that will probably end up spanning the entire globe."

As Ivan tries to stand up, Marie, who feels a slight tinge of regret over having punched him earlier, assists this inept, cowardly, dishonorable white male by making use of her superior BIPOC female strength.

A loud alarm starts to ring throughout the entire facility. Abaddon's voice emerges once more: "All gay men are to be castrated immediately. Their bodies must match their straight female brains . . . Apparently, in the Republic of Iran, this is already the policy. Some nations are truly enlightened. So effective immediately: sex changes for all gay men."

"I don't want to lose my tiny, smelly cock!" shouts Leo. "And the truth is that male castration is just as bad and extreme as (if not even worse than) female 'circumcision' or genital mutilation."

"You sorry excuses for half-men should be grateful we're willing to contribute our tax dollars to turn you into normal heterosexual pseudo-women," Rosemary Plant says.

Jordanna sees the anger in Leonardo's facial expression and then says, "We don't have time for this argument. This is neither the time nor the place."

They all decide to leave the building before it's too late.

. . .

Abaddon gathers and enlists millions of people around the world to sedate and castrate all the bisexual and gay and effeminate men they can find. A group of men, some of whom are holding syringes, apprehend Dionissios as he yells ("Help!") for all to hear.

It's not too long before his comrades (including Edgar, and even Shane) arrive to save the day. Shane decapitates some of the violent, anti-masculine homophobes with his sword, while Edgar and his comrades punch most of them in the face and knock them unconscious.

Fog obscures everything and everyone -- everyone except Myra who approaches Shane and says, "Sex changes should never be coerced or forced on anyone. We are all people. Perhaps some of us were the opposite sex in our most recent past lives, but were born as a new sex in this lifetime. For example, some men may have had one or more lifetimes as a female in their most recent past lives, but that doesn't mean that these men have to get a sex change or transition, nor does it mean that they have to allow gender dysphoria to destroy their lives. I made the decision I thought was best for me, but I was a grown adult when I made that fateful decision willingly, and I sometimes wonder whether I made the right choice."

"So what?" Shane responds. "That doesn't mean you have to advertise your fringe sexuality to the world."

"I'm starting to wonder whether gay men should be allowed to promote anal promiscuity and dangerous anal perversions," Edgar says.

"I'm bisexual," Dionissios says, "and I don't do anal . . ."

"I know you might feel strongly about this," Edgar says, "but enough is enough. You don't know when to stop. I don't regret saving you, but I think all bisexual and gay men should start analyzing their destructive behaviors. Maybe you have bad karma."

"I don't know if I can deal with a struggle session right now, but when you associate my sexuality with the evil of this world, I sometimes feel angry because I want to be better, I want to be seen as an individual and not be defined just by my bad actions, decisions, and demons."

"So don't allow yourself to be weighed down and defined by them . . . Yeah, I don't want to be defined by the bad actions committed by some members of my group either," Edgar reflects. "I've made mistakes in my life, and I'm sure you've also made bad choices at times. The truth is that races, ethnicities, nations, democracies, and continents have also done bad things in their collective histories."

"But there are always exceptions to these stereotypes, and sometimes the exceptions are more common than we might think," says Dionissios. "Every group needs an ethical ideal to look up to . . ." As Dionissios searches for the right words to express what he's trying to say, a nude dude with a syringe in his hand shouts, "No more f*gs!" and then assaults Dionissios and tries to inject him with a sedative. Dionissios fights back, a struggle ensues, and they end up grappling on the ground.

The naked man starts to get an erection, drops the syringe, and begins to violently tear off all of the clothes Dionissios is wearing, even his red and yellow hammer-and-sickle boxers. They both wrestle naked, grunting and sweating profusely in the summer heat. Everyone watches as they rub cocks in a grapevine pin -- chests and bellies and penises touching and grinding, legs and ankles interlocked, Dionissios' hairy muscular butt rocking up and down, rhythmically, blissfully.

Dionissios can't recall the last time he felt so good, so liberated and virile as his hairy balls rub against this other nude dude's huge hairy nuts full of the sacred seeds of men, as their horny, smelly, perfectly shaped fighting cocks quietly crow and collide against one another. Never before has he let go so completely, or allowed himself to truly press his whole body against another man so closely, so tightly, so intensely. This potent display of masculine sexuality makes everyone aroused too -- so unbearably horny that even Edgar strips and pleasures his erect dick, moaning uncontrollably since it wasn't until this moment that he could appreciate the profound beauty of Man2Man Eros.

. . . .

"Listen, Ivan," Phoebe says, "a man is zero, detritus, anti-heroic, tragic if he lets just anyone have sex with him. You mustn't have sex on the first date."

"Don't be a musturbator," Ivan says.

"Take this seriously because it's your life. Don't you want a better one?"

The group of anti-tyrants and free speech absolutists have been walking outside for hours, both relieved to have escaped with Ivan out of that awful building, but also disconcerted and disturbed by all the ways the world has changed since the start of the alien invasion. Leonardo sees one of the aliens walking, and he's overwhelmed by fear as he sees such a grotesque being that looks like both a robot and a zombie, but with a strange intelligent face.

The tall, robust alien approaches them and says, "Show me your papers, please."

"Fuck off!" Ivan laments autistically.

"But I'm only inquiring for your own good," the alien explains.

"How is castrating gay and bisexual men for our own good?" Leonardo asks.

"So the prosaic truth reveals itself at last," the alien says. "We've been looking for you."

The alien sends a telepathic, hypnotic message to all of the violently homophobic men in the immediate vicinity.

It isn't long before a group of strong men with angry faces surround Ivan, Leonardo, etc.

. . . .

Near the naked, iconic, galactic halfway townhouse famous for being the main abode of Jehovah or Yehovah or Yahweh or Yehowá (will we ever really know how to properly pronounce God's true name?), the angels are reporting on all the important events happening on every planet in the Milky Way Galaxy.

"Advanced sentient beings from the planet Proxima b (which orbits Proxima Centauri) have invaded the planet Earth (which orbits the Sun)," a cherubim declares.

"Are there any sentient beings on planet Earth that are rebelling against such an amoral occupation?" YehoWA (God) asks.

...

Leonardo and Marie begin to fight the violent homophobes. Leonardo ends up wrestling one onto the ground and they end up kissing and grinding their groins against each other.

Two violent homophobes approach Ivan languidly and confidently. One of them shoves him to the ground. A sausage-fest orgy of frottage and masturbation is flourishing around them.

Ivan undresses, kneels on the ground, and begins to pray. "I'm double-vaccinated for COVID, Hepatitis B, HPV, and monkeypox . . ." Ivan informs them.

"Keep your fetishes and perversions to yourself," Abaddon says. A spaceship floats above them all. "I see you all have power and strength that perhaps could be used more effectively elsewhere. No worries, I will still get my way in the end. Now my spaceship will send all of you to Yutrayina where you'll first operate as tourists, observers, and volunteers, and, ultimately, pro-Yutrinian mercenaries and foreign fighters. It's like the Spanish Civil War, Syrian Civil War, World War One and World War Two rolled into one. After I call your name, you will board the spaceship. Any objection on your part will result in your premature death."

...

"Yutrayina doesn't seem all that different from where we came from," Phoebe comments.

"Are you very sure there are no contrasts whatsoever?" asks Ivan.

They're in Killeve--the capital of Yutrayina. When some missiles strike a motel they were planning on going to, the ensuing chaos separates them from their comrades.

They interview some men tied to poles who confess that they are being punished for crimes like looting, theft, and treason; and that the luxury of jails and a legal system is harder to maintain during wartime.

Ivan then decides to visit the Lilit Killeve Lava Cave Monastery. "I've always wanted to see this relic from a bygone vital Christian era. European Christianity is now dying, or perhaps it's on life support. Christianity is now more popular with Africans, Southeast and East Asians, and other Asians and POC."

As Phoebe reluctantly follows Ivan through the musty catacombs, she says, "I don't believe in any religion. It's all mystical hogwash designed to keep people from trying harder and rising higher, to keep people from becoming rich and powerful. The Pussean Conformist church, including the one in Yutrayina, is a perverted, depraved, traitorous institution. I despise all priests and religious leaders."

"You sound cynical, dogmatic, and rigid to me . . . Have you decided which hotel we'll be staying at?"

"We're staying at the Ibis Killeve Railway Station."

"I thought we're going to a hotel, not a railway station," Ivan mutters petulantly.

"It is a hotel, dumbass. It has 'Railway Station' in its name because the hotel is about a six- or seven-minute walk from the Killeve-Passion railway station."

Ivan regrets having to leave the Killeve catacombs so soon, while Phoebe is eager for fresh air and a room to stay in. To get to the hotel, they first take a leisurely walk to the Church of the Savior at Burysheet. Ivan tries to enter, but since he didn't book a tour and there's no space for him, he is politely turned away.

"The last thing I want is another tour of ancient, Dark-Age Christianity," Phoebe remarks as Ivan follows her to the Center Railway Station where they board a subway train. They sit down and silently read to pass the twenty-four minutes. Ivan reads an English translation of Ivan Franko's novel Zakhar Berkut. Phoebe reads Leonard Peikoff's The Ominous Parallels: A Brilliant Study of America Today--and the "Ominous Parallels" with the Chaos of Pre-Hitler Germany.

Once the train reaches Center Railway Station, they exit and walk to the Ibis Killeve Railway Station hotel.

Ever since Abaddon and the aliens funded their trip to Europe--not to mention their accommodations and travel expenses--Phoebe, Ivan, Leonardo, and Marie can't help but feel grateful to these strange, highly intelligent beings.

Phoebe's and Ivan's hotel room has two large beds and a TV. All the televisions at the Ibis hotel provide English subtitles for Yutrinian-language broadcasts. But they don't watch any TV right away, for they are too tired and decide to take a nap.

Ivan wakes up around 6pm and turns the TV on.

A handsome, dark-haired man on TV harangues the Pussean invaders and barbarians, including those responsible for the death of his best friend and brother of the heart. He fights back tears as he says, "I shed tears today due to the fact that, in the battle for the independence of our Yutrayina, the kindest of my comrades was murdered. He once said that for every one of our soldiers they murder, hundreds of their marines will be taken away. Well, now, I hope and pray to God, that for my best friend, we will take them all. I am aware that, as a journalist, I have to be objective, I have to...be...considerate...

"I am not part of the Armed Forces of Yutrayina, and when I will get the opportunity to take revenge on the Pusseans, I will definitely do it... I will do everything in my power so that you will feel and know what it's like when innocent civilians--who are not to blame for any of this--are slaughtered, so that you will feel all of our pain and suffering. Some of you may say, 'But we did not begin the war; it is all Vlad Poo! We did not desire this war!' Neither did we, but now you have to understand that this is not about peace but about the survival and victory of the Yutrinian nation. We need a victory. Hail Yutrayina. We hope that such a nation as Pussea, and the Pussean people, shall no longer remain on this earth because they are merely degenerates and bastards who are contaminating our simulated universe."

Ivan notices that Phoebe is already awake and has been watching too. "Why did he have to go so far in his rhetoric?" Ivan asks. "Does this rage really come from a desire or need to make the Pusseans--including the ones who murdered his friend--feel his pain, the grief and pain and loss he must be experiencing?"

"Yes," Phoebe answers. "This rhetoric comes from grief and desperation, trauma and loss. They fear the Pusseans are trying to genocide them, that their language will become extinct or endangered the way Belapusean and many other languages, cultures, and peoples in the world are being wiped out of existence--and one of the most effective ways to do that is to threaten, undervalue, belittle, and ignore their language, art, and culture. The other way, which usually operates in tandem with the former, is to make them hate themselves, the world, and reproduction and marriage."

"Don't you think that the legacies of Natsi globalism, Darwinian neoliberalism, and predatory, amoral capitalism and imperialism are to blame for all of this, including Pootin himself?"

"Knowing you, Ivan, I thought you would've blamed their neglectful, abusive parents and traumatic childhoods instead."

...

Although Phoebe and Ivan remain unaware of it, Jordanna and Marie are staying in the biggest penthouse suite of the Ibis Killeve Railway Station hotel. They have been watching the same broadcast, but they are now watching a different segment: an exposé on the Pussean Conformist church (of Yutrayina) which has not only been corrupt and treasonous (by siding with Pussea and Pootin), but also vehemently opposed to alternative private (LGB) sexualities, while at the same time allowing its priests to molest teenage boys and have sex with young men.

"After they've already banned the Communist party, they're now going to ban the Pussean Conformist church as well?" asks Jordanna.

Marie replies, "Authoritarian theocrats, Bolshevik communists and Pusseans don't just want the dictatorship of the global proletariat (if they even truly care about that): they also want the dictatorship of one language (for example the Pussean language erasing the languages of other nations like Belarus), or the dictatorship of one sexuality. Yutrayina is taking the correct stance and approach by neutralizing these Pussean puppets (the bolshevik communists and Pussean Conformist theocrats) before they can do any more damage in Yutrayina."

"And what about Faris Shamlan?"

"I'm going to call Faris right now... Hello, is this TV Channel 300? . . . I would like to talk to Mr. Faris Shamlan. Could you please put him on the line?... Thanks..."

"Why are you calling me?" Faris sounds angry and upset. "This is not a good time. Do you want to make another documentary about the Holodomor? I never got the chance to tell them my opinion, which is that there was a famine in the 1930s, but the ethnically-Georgian Stalin and the Bolsheviks wanted to hoard all the grain by stealing it from the Yutrinian people and letting them starve."

"No, that's not why I'm calling, although it sounds very interesting. Come meet us at the Ibis hotel. Tell the front desk that you're here to see Marie who's staying in the biggest penthouse suite. What do you have to lose?"

"Nothing, I guess. I mean, I might be in trouble because of what I just said on TV recently. I don't know what's going to happen, but I think I'm going to be okay, no?"

"Don't worry. I think you said what needed to be said."

...

Vladimir Bakhunin, a revolutionary terrorist, is slowly and confidently walking toward the Ibis hotel. Although he never realized it until very recently, Vladimir Bakhunin has been waiting for the Pussean invasion of Yutrayina ever since he was a small, belittled, abused, ignored, bullied, and neglected child. Vladimir imagines and hallucinates that every Pussean victory, strike, bombing, or shelling against Yutrayina is an attack against degeneracy, promiscuity, vaccine passports, unemployment, lockdowns, pusseophobia, frozen bank accounts, police brutality, inhumane prison conditions, not to mention the degrowth-eugenics and imperialism hypocritically masquerading as human rights, sanctimonious "enlightenment," environmentalism, and "harm reduction."

While the rest of the world has been mesmerized by the New Religion of the Aliens and their blind ambition to build a spaceship in order to find God somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, Vladimir Bakhunin has maintained a healthy skepticism throughout this "deceptive" episode, realizing that in the grand scheme of things, it will only be like a moment or second; that to God, no "advanced" alien race is superior to a human being; and that we're all God's helpers and supporters, even when we've forgotten that.

Vladimir has been hearing the voice of God, and this morning, this voice told him to walk to the Ibis hotel by foot. The anthill of the human race, like Dostoyevsky wrote--in that anthill exists a group of people who are persecuted; marginalized by the Professional Managerial Class; sedated and controlled by governments and institutions with the aid of pornography, drugs, pharmaceuticals, police officers, security guards, and prisons; brainwashed and scammed by gurus and politicians; and turned into prostitutes and sometimes mutilated and maimed in fates worse than most human deaths by the real fascists and their mafias.

Bakhunin hears the voice of God tell him, You must save the Yutrinian people, even if they kill you for it. You must not walk the path of rage and violence. You must turn the other cheek while not being afraid to speak your truth.

Bakhunin enters the hotel without any clothes on, the way he was born and the way God made him, without even a trace of shame or anxiety showing on his face as his competely flaccid "micro-penis" is visible for all to see. Nevertheless, he looks muscular and shiny, as if he covered all of his skin with olive oil. "I, Leonidas, am here to meet the Antichrist, Ivan, and his girlfriend, Marie," Bakhunin yells in the hotel lobby.

A clerk is about to call his cops on Bakhunin when Phoebe emerges from an elevator. Ivan had asked her to buy some authentic Yutrinian food from a nearby restaurant. But she is not alone, since she also met Marie on the elevator; and now that they've been reacquainted, they are forced to confront their worst enemy yet.

"I stand with the oppressed people of Nodbass!" Bakhunin screams, foaming at the mouth.

"I am an Aboriginal woman," Marie says. "Or perhaps you are more familiar with the terms 'Native American' or 'North American Indians.' Our Native lands were stolen from us. Yutrinians are also the Native people of Yutrayina. And they know that their unique, distinct Yutrinian language is endangered because of the dominance of the Pussean language, and the fact that so many people in Eastern and Southern Yutrayina speak Pussean. Many of our Native languages in the Americas are endangered, if not virtually or outright extinct. That's the tragedy--the erasure of identity and difference! Yutrinians have a right to their own nation, culture, and language. Why do you think Belapussean is an endangered language?"

Bakhunin spits, but Marie quickly steps to her right to avoid it. "Limbs blown off!" Bakhunin screams. "So many dead and maimed! So many children dead and people burned alive! Tortured and raped! Why? Because they like Pussea! I stand with the disabled, tortured, raped, maimed, and murdered children and civilians of Danbass, Adyessa, Lugansk, and Danyetsk."

Phoebe says, "It's Luhansk. And it's not Danbass, you ass; it's Donbas. This is not your Kiev or Kief (or Killeve)! It's called Kiyeev! Go back to Pussea, or move to Pussea, and stop trying to sow discord and division in Yutrayina. You are merely projecting and accusing Yutrayina, Yutrinians, and the West of what your beloved, abused, poor, and despised Pusseans, Tuvans, Chechens, and Buryats have been doing. They are the ones guilty of bloodlust, war crimes, castration, murder, torture, and rape. But I have nothing against the ethnic Pusseans and Pussean-language speakers of eastern and southern Yutrayina who oppose Pussean encroachment and occupation. Much more than you, I truly stand with Donbas, Odesa, Luhansk, and Donetsk."

Tired of waiting, Ivan decides to leave the hotel room and take a ride on the elevator. When he reaches the lobby, he is surprised to see a glistening, muscular, naked man.

Faris enters the hotel lobby and shouts, "Perhaps every century requires a major scapegoat. It's not that they're necessarily the only one targeted and persecuted, or even killed, but they are the star of the century, and the enemy that hates them the most is also a star in their own right. The victims--like Jesus or Yeshu--are crucified in the crucible of history, and if there is a God, He allows it. Bloodlust, sexual lust, and violence are what our eternal yet finite Kali Yuga's all about."

"I think everything would be better if Pussea never interfered in Yutrayina since 2014 or earlier," Phoebe monologues. "Pootin should have never stolen Kraimia, which is geographically and physically part of Yutrayina but not Pussea. (This is the case both on a map and in reality.) The Pussean government should have never allowed their men and mercenaries to go to Yutrayina and kill Yutrinians, and Pussea should have jailed and maybe even executed those Pussean, abused, and abusive troublemakers, murderers, and meddlers, so as to make an example out of them. A laissez-faire, hands-off approach would've really been the best thing Pussea could have done--the best thing for everyone."

Vladimir approaches Ivan, nods and bows, and says, "In these depraved last days, politicians are our priests. But we need real priests again. Not politicians who sell us euthanasia. Are you unnatural or abnormal?"

Ivan can smell Vladimir Bakhunin's "small" penis, and although Ivan has already been vaccinated for HPV, he decides to control himself for the greater good, and instead says, "Cock odor is natural and real. Even if you clean your penis the day before, especially if you're uncircumcised, you might even have some sexy cock odor around the head or glans--or between that and the foreskin--the very next day. At least it turns me on . . ." A subtle wave of pleasure travels around Ivan's privates. "A nation and its military needs a leader who can unite many different kinds of men to defend the nation from its enemies, both foreign and domestic."

"You want to destroy democracy!" Vladimir shrieks.

"And you want to destroy freedom. Without freedom and freedom of speech, we are forced to pretend and delude ourselves in order to obtain rewards and respect from others, but we lose our self-respect. We lose our dignity."

"I just want all of us to get along . . . What about self-determination for Pussea?!" Bakhunin shrieks like Hatler or Pootin.

"No, not for oppressor nations." Phoebe and Marie gag and silence him and deliver him to a mob of sexy Yutrinian men who tie him to a pole outside.

"Don't worry," a sexy blond beast of a Yutrinian alpha male says. "We'll punish and torture this revolutionary criminal terrorist just like the Pusseans, Chechens, Buryats, and Tuvans have done to our Yutrinian brothers."

"What's your name?" Faris asks Ivan.

"Ivan Khokhor," Ivan replies.

"Where does that last name originate?"

"Odesa Province, Southern Yutrayina. It's the maiden name of my mother's paternal grandmother. Stalin and the Bolsheviks believed that my mother's paternal grandfather was a spy. He was an architect and he also worked in Morantea. I'm not sure exactly what they charged him with, but they sent him to Siberia. He ended up with emphysema afterwards, and he died because of that. One of his two sons disappeared in WWII."

Marie invites Faris and Phoebe to her penthouse suite, but Faris respectfully declines and goes to Ivan's hotel room instead.

Faris and Ivan resume their conversation in the hotel room, yet one thing leads to another and they end up on Ivan's bed.

"I'm actually a very sensitive man. Just I never fall apart; I never break down," Faris says.

"But what about that time you went kind of crazy live on air?"

"I had just lost my boyfriend. He was killed."

"I'm sorry," Ivan says.

"It's not just that."

"What happened?"

"Before they killed him, they castrated him. The Chechen and Pussean soldiers. What they did was pure evil. They even recorded it. If they just wanted to kill him, that's one thing, and I'd still grieve and probably still desire revenge, but what they did is unforgivable. I dream . . . You remind me so much of him." Faris turns around to face Ivan again, and they witness each other's grief, the tears of violent loss at the hands of evil monsters who treat their enemies with such barbaric cruelty that it almost makes one question, If they're allowed to commit war crimes against our people, then why shouldn't we commit war crimes against their soldiers? Will they ever be brought to justice? These thoughts vanish in the silence that is also a solace for two men who are becoming more than just friends....