Cosmopolitan Magazine Book Editor

God Warrior

Megan Nolan emerged from the bowels of Montmartre's Abbesses metro station in a cold and raw late afternoon in January 2001. Rauer and colder, it seemed to her as if she the Metro in the vicinity of their dwelling, which earlier in the Latin Quarter just twenty minutes. In order to catch the breath, lit it a Gauloise and stood in the vicinity of the station covered entrance. A passing businessman slow smoked to stare at her as she stood and. Her blonde Strawberry hair flowed to her shoulders, dark green, au courant wool coat, which flowed to the tips of her knee-high boots Prada. Under the coat she had on washed Jeans and an ivory-colored cashmere turtleneck sweater. She wore no jewelry in Montmartre, as she had heard the stories of the suddenly down and collar, or even worse, Earring Knock-grave of marauding boys. Her hair, her gold-flecked green eyes were her best accessory anyway. She loved jewelry, however, bear and for sale, so she went to her friend Anna Bella Jeritza, gypsy fortune teller whose widowed the store was only a few blocks away near the small obscure Olney Park to see.

Past the Square Jehan-Rictus with his ridiculous Je t'aime wall – a mass of blue tiles with stylized I love you's in different Languages written about them – Megan east on the Rue Yvonne Le Tac, whose name always made her smile, because they stole Yvonne Taccopina the friend in high school and then had broken his heart, as it was a dry branch. And Yvonne's also in the purchase. In her bag was a white gold heart-shaped pendant its original velvet box Raumet, given her for Christmas from her current boyfriend, Alain, whose father owned the Raumet chain. This would find a buyer Annabella for and receive ten percent commission. When Harry Winston yesterday Megan had a similar counterpart at $ 7,800, convenient location. They expected net-$ 2,000, what would they Add to your account with Pictet & Cie, their private Swiss banker on the Avenue des Champs-Elysees.

Alain would certainly ask some why they not the trailer, which would give it a worn opportunity to tell him that she decided what she was wearing and if he is not. She was able to sell it, if they wanted, they could not? Or was it a gift with strings? Alain, who was supple and sensuous beauty, and their unconscious sense of superiority shone from all his pores, was when all was said and done, a 24-year-old child who could – and should – easily be brought to heel. Only three years older, felt Megan old compared to her new lover, too secular, for their own good. Not a good feeling, but as it was, and everything was still made money Alain's, its very real sexual stimuli, and of course his father's jewelry.

As Megan strolled along Rue Durantin, she was staring at her from The Lost Boys, whores, pimps, Drug dealers and pickpockets – the cream of the low life of Paris – which in and around the bars and greasy spoons that hung lined avenue. Clutching tightly to their Pocket, they do naturally proud and erect bearing her look bigger than her five foot seven inches, threw it in spite of her hair, and moved with seeming casualness through the carnival, was Montmartre, especially on market days, when the tourists appeared to be a victim in busloads. At the corner of Rue Caulaincourt, she ran into two prostitutes, whose garish makeup and fabulous gown she had a story about slut chic, had bought with the editors of Cosmopolitan, she thought to something new into the world of fashion. The mother-daughter team named Marie and Michelle had with pride when Megan and photographed them agog gave them $ 50 each for their "personal story and image rights."

Megan stopped to chat to remember how she did it, the girls' pimp, a large and muscular mulatto named sky, they observed through the glass window the pizzeria on the corner. It was Sky, which had actually taken one hundred U.S. dollars to the girl and her name on the versions that Megan was in her pocket at all times. Sky had hit her, and Megan's smile in response was not one of complete dismissal. Then she made a point to stop by the pizzeria – Sky's office – to turn on him. A charming and attractive man of about thirty-five years old, with close-cropped hair and blue eyes incredible, Megan did not want to sleep with him, although they might have in another life. However, your instinct – the instinct of a woman alone, was their only protection her wit and cunning – told her that a Such a man would be worth knowing, if only have one friend in the wilderness of Montmartre.

On the next block, Megan is turned into an alley leading to a weed and debris-strewn yard maintained that some of the six-storey residential building in the Rue Durantin and the road behind him, including LED Anna Bella's. In the good Weather, she would sometimes Annabella in the backyard hanging clothes or sitting drinking tea with their gypsy friends, some of which young mothers were observed to play their children. Megan, starting around the age of sixteen, was aware of the envy and jealousy aroused in other females. Her eyes were submerged brush in fear and hatred. Anna Bella's Friends – gypsy to the bone – she painted with the hottest colors. Although she was allowed to pass unhindered because of their friendship with the old fortune-teller, she was hoping not have to concern themselves with any gypsies on their way to the back entrance to Anna Bella's shop. At the end of the alley, they slowed down and stood behind a rusty dumpster on the scene before the survey. Relieved to see the yard is empty, they wanted to stage races behind the dumpster when she saw Anna Bella on the ramshackle wooden porch at the back three steps of their building and its land-extensive and twisted in the weeds at a naked clothesline.

Before Megan could react, Anna Bella's Son, and a black man, the arrogant little Megan had seen once or twice, about the fortune teller's shop – reeked of alcohol every time – emerged from the back door through which he had apparently thrown his mother. When, after Anna Bella she tried to rise, and he helped her by grabbing her by her brassy orange hair and lifting and turning him before slapping her twice across the face with a full arc forehand and backhand face, shaking the backhand her loose from his grip and knocking them back on the floor. It was Anna Bella, inert, their rouged cheeks resting on an old magazine – it looked like Paris Match, to Megan bent – while her son to say anything about it, before spitting on them and turned back into the building.

Megan took a step on Annabella and then stopped as her friend turned on one elbow, and began in broken lines to smooth out her long dress made of cotton on their legs, which, dressed as embroidery and stockings rolled to just below The knees were exposed almost to the waist, when she opened for the first time on the floor. In the old gypsy profile, could significantly Megan welted hand mark on the right cheek, its reddish color enhancement by the second, so it was, as it painted on, part of a costume or ritual saw. Megan memory – it would be for a long time – the cloud that had risen from the rouge Anna Bella's wrinkled face down, as each blow landed by her son with his right hand with a sharp snap like the lash of a whip. Lindsay remained in place, only their eyes visible above the top of the garbage bin, and watched as Anna Bella moved slowly to her feet. Searching the ground and tried to steady the old Palm Reader discovered something and then bent down to the colorful head scarf she wore at all times on the head to retrieve. Apply in Hand – the Bobby Pins to fly away – it was staggering, not without dignity into the building.

* * *

Eight months later, at the end of a hot Day in early September, was Megan in the delicate wrought-iron fence that borders the grassy pitch L'Ermitage International School in the leafy suburb of Maison-Lafitte, west of Paris. The fence's sturdy bars, she could see a group of middle school girls, eleven and twelve year olds playing soccer in the middle of the elongated Shadow by the chimney near the seventeenth century castle, which had given the city leave their name. All the girls wore the same black pants and Nike sneakers, the teams by the colors of L'Ermitage-imprinted T-shirts differentiated. The girl she was interested, Jeanne, had just reached for the green team. Megan did not know how they score the middle of the game arrived and it was no scoreboard, but they knew the target was surrounded by the way, Jeanne's team-mates them in a short jubilation before important institution for the ensuing kick-off.

An elderly woman, an American-looking blonde freckled about sixteen or so in a smart blue skirt, striped top and the ubiquitous Nike, did double duty as a referee and secretary. When they finish their whistle at the game, leaning Megan passed in as Jeanne, fifty yards or so from the fence, as they line their way through the post-game handshake. With her jet black hair and dark coloration, Jeanne saw nothing, like the rest of the girls, but her flushed face and the sparkle in her dark, piercing eyes – their team had won obviously – voice of a happy child, safe their place in their little world. Megan knew it was not always so.

The girls gathered their gear along the sideline and led in groups of two and three to the school. Megan Jeanne looked up to the last possible moment. No one had noticed watching the game. And certainly no one knew she had contracted, Jeanne's Tuition in L'Ermitge Fund seven-day, twelve-month-boarding, to the end of the twelfth year, would be a sum that eventually exceed $ 90,000. Most of this money they had already been extracted from the desperately-in-love Alain Tillinac, and there are special instructions for Pictet & Cie

On the short train ride to Paris, watched Megan roll the small towns and landscapes by for a while and then, images of a happy and healthy Jeanne fresh in her head, did not remember her first and last, meeting with the child who was chained at the time on a dirty bed in the back of an apartment in a Housing project in the Paris suburb of Florentin.

* * *

"We will have your man," Sky said on the phone, giving her the address. "Do not hesitate." In thirty minutes she was there. Boiko Jeritza was there, sitting in a stuffed chair in a dark living room, his mouth taped closed-channel bound his hands behind his back. Boiko wild eyes followed her as she led Sky in the dirty kitchen, where he showed her the photos, in all Sixteen: Children – boys and girls – naked or half naked, helpless, some posing some who have sex with men. One of the men was Boiko. In the same folder that the photographs instead, had a list of customers was, some highlighted in yellow, some with amounts in euro as well as their names and addresses. Before Megan could speak, they heard a noise from a back room and there they found Jeanne.

This plan was to scare Boiko in submission, but he thought now Megan was dead. Was, in fact, that he was dead. You Annabella was visiting a half dozen times since, and not even seen Boiko. Two weeks earlier, she called the courage, the old gypsy woman to ask about her son. They drank tea with whiskey Lacing in the back room late one night Anna Bella's. The old gypsy woman's face had healed, but occasionally Megan she would easily see the back brush their fingers on the cheek or the other. Anna Bella had taken her cup on the oilcloth-covered table between them, and said: "He is in hell."

"In the hell?" Megan had asked.

"Hurt and with Satan where he belongs and can do no more,"

"He's dead?"

Anna Bella smiled before answering, Megan is looking into his eyes for a second or two. A long second or two.

"Yes, but you know he is," she said finally.

It was Megan's turn silent. Missing, disappeared does not mean dead. Was she fishing? Tying her suspicions confirmed? Or, like Megan would come more and more to believe, have the second glance that Gypsies spoke softly and revered?

"How did he die?" she asked at last her friend stare with equanimity. She had not survived the last nine years on his own in Europe and Africa, by all the cards off.

"He was slain by St. Michael, the archangel."

"At your request?"

"With his instruments on Earth."

"Anna Bella, you frighten me."

"God's warriors do not appear to be so."

Megan sat back in her chair and shook his head slightly. Sky had for a while and gone, but he soon returned to his office in the Pizzeria keeps his eyes on his beautiful prostitutes and their customers. He had asked for a further € 2,000 for the cost, but he seemed unchanged, its usual airy, threatening self.

"Who are they?" She asked.

"I do not know, but once elected, they are apart. You have one foot in another world. "

Megan picked up her cup and took a sip, feeling the fire in the throat as they swallowed Anna Bella's brew, warm and soothing, like the Gypsies themselves. Her hand was steady as she replaced the cup on the table, her heart beat normally.

* * *

Megan was still in her dreams, as her train approached the Gare de Montparnasse. Once they are elected, Anna Bella had said she removed from each other are. It would be one thing, a conscience, must have been bad enough, but also be elected? To address? They shuddered at the thought. Sky was not chosen, her. They had no intention of do not like themselves. What was it like? It was affection itself, or rather the attempt, in a way to create this feeling that they care behavior. That would mean an end to her life as she knew it. Since Jeanne was, of course, but that was a special case. A child so ill, a young girl without family, had been helped. She did not want to even know her last name and did. Sky and its bankers had taken all precautions. She had the trip to Maison-Lafitte made out of curiosity, a natural curiosity in the circumstances, but would never again the girl.

On her last visit with Anna Bella, had the to keep old woman took Megan's hand, sometimes it turns around and rubbed her thumb across the palm, as if the future they saw there to delete. Yeah, but you know that he is her friend had said, and Megan had not denied. Maybe revenge was in store for the role they had played in the downfall Boiko. How ironic, that they should be punished so that only one act.

Megan smiled to himself at the thought. Cause and effect and moralizing were not her cup of tea. Tomorrow she would be spending the day with Alain at the Ritz, it was his birthday. It would Alain longer tolerate for a while. He was very nice and very energetic. Why not? The train of the low hiss of how it came to its full stop, seemed to emphasize this idea. Why not? Nothing must change, it also will not.

The above is an excerpt from the book "A World I Never Made by James LePore. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text to print. Although this statement was has proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 James LePore Author of a world I never

Author Bio
James LePore, creator of a world I have never, is a powerful, concise writer , with a glittering future as a writer. He is a lawyer who practiced law for more than two decades. He is also an accomplished photographer. He lives in South Salem, NY with his wife, Artist Karen Chandler. A World I Never Made is his first novel. He is currently at work on his second, the history of the plant is released for spring 2010.

About the Author

For more information please visit http://www.jamesleporefiction.com.

Hilary Duff’s Beauty & The Briefcase Movie Promo

Harper’s Bazaar: Greatest Hits $38.00 Harper’s Bazaar is America’s longest-running fashion magazine, revered for its style-setting contributions to fashion, photography, and graphic design. Under the direction of Glenda Bailey in this decade, the magazine has maintained its position as a prominent cultural icon. Bailey is known for commissioning dazzling visual features that frame fashion in the context of contemporary pop culture…

The Cosmo Kama Sutra: 77 Mind-Blowing Sex Positions (Cosmopolitan) $17.95 SEX HAPPENS…all year long!More that 460,000 copies in print!Just when you thought the Kama Sutra couldn’t get any hotter, Cosmo cranks up the erotic heat with detailed, instructive illustrations and essential sex advice. This great looking gift book is packaged in a sensual red slipcase–what a way to say, “Be my Valentine!”… 365 days a year.Three million fun, fearless readers of Cosmopolitan …

Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown, the Woman Behind Cosmopolitan Magazine $3.75 “Scanlon’s shrewed biography reveals a woman of contraditions…a strategically racy cultural pioneer.” -O, The Oprah Magazine As the author of the revolutionary Sex and the Single Girl and the longtime editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, Helen Gurley Brown changed how women thought about sex, money, and their bodies in a way that resonates in our culture today. In Jennifer Scanlon’s wide…

Cosmopolitan $10.36 New in paper! Cosmopolitan: A Bartender’s Life is a memoir of the bartending life structured as a day in the life at Passerby, the bar owned and run by Toby Cecchini. It is, as well, a rich study of human nature—of the sometimes annoying, sometimes outlandish behavior of the human animal under the influence of alcohol, lust, and the sheer desire to bust loose and party. It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s always compelling through the gimlet-eyed gaze of the author. As his typical day progresses, from the almost pastoral quiet of opening the bar and setting up to the gathering rush of customers dropping in after work to the sheer madness of catering to a crazed crush of funseekers, Toby Cecchini muses over a life spent in the service industry and the fascinating particulars of his chosen profession. Topics touched on include dealing with regulars, both welcome and not; sex and the bartender; cocktail connoisseurs (and drinks he refuses to make); learning the bartending ropes of the Odeon when young and newly arrived in New York; the sheer man-killing pace of keeping those drinks coming at flood tide; and the manifold varieties of weirdness and bad behavior that every bartender has to learn how to manage. Cosmopolitan: A Bartender’s Life is the hip, behind-the-scenes look at the frenzied yet undeniably fun atmosphere of that great establishment—the bar—and Toby Cecchini is, by turns, witty, acute, mordant, and lyrical in dealing with the realities of his job, shedding plenty of light on the hidden corners of what people do when they go out at night. Toby Cecchini is part owner of the bar/gallery Passerby, located in New York’s far west Chelsea neighborhood. He began his bartending career in the mid-eighties at New York’s fabled bar and restaurant Odeon, where he began the Cosmopolitan cocktail revival. Cosmopolitan began as a series of acclaimed diaries in Slate. Cecchini has also written for The New York Times Magazine and the Times’s Style section. He lives in New York City.