A/N: Thanks to Sensha for help editing and to Joey for the inspiration.
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Prologue
He looked sick, his head bowed over the table. When Prince Yusupov returned to the basement room, the monk had his head down. Yusopov just came from upstairs, where he had talked with the other conspirators. "Will this man not die," they said. Yusupov had long suspected that the monk was in contact with dark forces that protected him, and he told as much to his guests, somehow he had bewitched the Czarina and it must be some form of evil magic. Before he went back down they gave Yusupov a revolver; if cyanide would not kill this parasite maybe lead would.
"My stomach burns like fire. I need another glass of wine," he complained, after sitting up in his chair. Prince Yusopov poured the monk another glass of the poisoned wine and the monk drank it down, all at once. The basement room had been set out for the monk with the finest linens, in addition to the poisoned wine, poisoned tarts were also on the table, a few of which the monk had eaten. "That's better" he said, setting the glass back down on the table. Smiling at Yusopov he said, "Let us go to the Gypsies, what do you say. There we will have women. God may own our souls, but our bodies are our own to do with as we wish."
Prince Yusupov was done with the charade. Removing the borrowed Browning revolver from his jacket pocket, he pointed it at the monk. "Gregori Efimovich, look to the crucifix and say a prayer." The monk looked up at Yusopov and from the look in his eyes it seemed as if the monk was resigned to his fate. The monk crossed himself and began to silently pray. Yusopov aimed the revolver at the monk's heart and fired. The loud explosion from the revolver stunned Yusopov, and as he watched the monk crumpled over, falling out of the chair and on to the bearskin rug before the fire.
Hearing the gunshot the others rushed down to the basement room. They all stood around and looked down upon the monk as he lay out on the bearskin rug, bleeding. "Help me take him upstairs," said Yusupov. When the other men started to pick up the body, he said "Careful, I don't want to stain the rug." The conspirators Prince Yusupov, Grand Duke Pavalovich and Vladimir Puriskevich carried the monk's body upstairs.
"We must throw him in the river," said Purishkevich.
They carried him to the palace entryway, and set him down on a large side table. "We will leave him here for now, let us go get a drink," said Grand Duke Pavalovich. "We can come back and dispose of the body later." All three men went out the door to the courtyard where the Grand Duke's carriage was waiting. Half-way across the courtyard Yusupov, still numb from the act of violence he just committed, realized that he had forgotten his fur, winter coat. He returned to the entryway and walked toward the coatroom. Seeing the dead monk lying on the table he walked over to examine the body. As he was leaning over examining the body, the monk's eyes popped open.
"You naughty boy," said the monk. Yusopov was stunned as the monk quickly sat up and wrapped his hands around his neck. Yusupov struggled to breathe as the monk's hands crushed his windpipe.
Purishkevich, returning to see what was delaying Yusupov, pulled his revolver out from under his coat and fired at the monk. Three shots rang out and the monk collapsed to the floor. After making sure that the monk was dead, they wrapped him in a carpet and threw him into the river.
Chapter 1
"Nothing much is recorded about Rasputin's youth other than he had two siblings, an older brother and younger sister, both died as children, his sister Maria of drowning, his brother Dmitri of pneumonia after a fall through ice on a frozen lake. At eighteen he went to spend three months at a monastery in Verkhoturye, possibly as penance for a theft. His monastery visit combined with a vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus, he had when he returned home left Rasputin a changed man, turning him to a life as a religious mystic and wanderer."
Sitting on a bench in the shade of a redwood tree, Joey looked up from her book, and she wondered what a weirdo Rasputin must have been, the picture in the book of him, with his long hair and strange eyes creeped her out. She looked down at her watch. Class would be beginning in less than ten minutes. She put the book she was reading way in her book bag, slung it over her shoulder and got up to walk up the paved path to the lecture hall, subconsciously using her hand to make sure that her plaid skirt was laying down flat to her legs.
She knew that her attempt to do the assigned reading after failing the test covering the material was futile, but she needed to start somewhere in case her plan failed.
This was her first semester at Parnassus College. The small private college in Northern California had been her first choice because both of her parents were alumni. She had chosen to major in history, the subject her mother taught at a local community college, and this was her first class in her major, "modern Russian history". She knew it would look bad if she failed the first class she took in her major, and her performance on the first mid-term had been a disaster.
Adjusting to college life seemed so easy. Without her parents around she had frolicked in what had seemed to be a consequence free environment. Every night it seemed there was somebody partying, and being a blonde nineteen year-old, she had no trouble finding somebody to buy alcohol for her. She had made several new friends, and even met a few boys she thought might make good boyfriend material. The first three weeks of classes floated by in what seemed like no time at all.
The good times came to a screeching halt when she got back the bluebook from her first midterm. Out of a possible one hundred points she had only received only a 44, and because the midterm made up twenty five percent of her overall grade, she knew she was in trouble.
As she stepped out of the warm sun and entered the cold, grey cement building that was the lecture hall she thought about her plan to improve her grade. She had worn her best school girl outfit to class today, with a light blue oxford shirt, a blue plaid skirt, white knee high socks and black patent leather Mary Janes. She walked down the aisle, carefully stepping down the steps to the front of the hall and took a seat in the front row. Previously she sat in the back of class, hoping not to attract the professor's attention, but now if her plan was to succeed, she would need to make sure that he saw her.
Shortly before the class was scheduled to begin Dr. Erickson entered the hall from the door behind the lectern. He, as always, was dressed impeccably, in a white shirt, black slacks and a red and black striped tie. He set his black leather case down on the table beside the lectern, opened it, and removed his lecture notes, placing them on the podium.
Joey, looking up from her seat, looked him over. He was quite young looking to be a professor she thought. He was tall, almost six and a half feet and had short blonde hair. He looked like a young Michael York, from Zeffirelli's Taming of the Shrew, which she had seen in her high school English class, she thought, and she adored his English accent. She thought he was one of those professors who you took his class just to listen to him speak, his pleasant voice, she found soothing. She took out her notebook and pen and wrote the date on the first blank sheet.
Dr. Erickson took his place behind the lectern, and looked out over the class. "If you will all take your seats ladies and gentlemen and let us begin," he said. He waited a few moments as the last few students took their seats and the class quieted down.
"Last time we had started talking about the establishment of the Extraordinary Commission," he began.
Joey stopped listening to what he was saying almost as soon as he started talking. Now was the time to put her plan into action and all of a sudden she was afraid. What if it did not work, she thought. What if he does not notice? She did not think she could bear the shame of failure, failure to seduce her professor, even if she was the only one who knew of it.
This was not the first time she tried to use sex to pass a class, she thought, remembering Mr. Briggs, her English teacher in her senior year of high school. He had been only too willing to trade a good grade for the chance to fuck her. She remembered staying after school and sitting on his desk as he screwed her. She remembered coming all over his school papers and that more than one student had gotten their vocabulary quizzes back with suspicious stains on them. She seduced him the same way, using her schoolgirl outfit. Why should it not work on a college professor as well? He was a man after all. Why would not a clear view of her shaved school girl pussy show him what she was willing to trade for a passing grade?
Determined to see her plan through she carefully, so that Dr. Erickson standing behind his lectern would be the only person able to see what she was not wearing underneath, lifted her skirt and smiled her best innocent smile.
Dr. Erickson was looking around the room as he lectured, "Lenin appointed Felix Dzerzhinsky to organize a force to combat internal political threats. This force, the All-Russia Force Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage, or simply the Cheka was well funded and gave birth to what was called the 'Red Terror'." For a moment as he looked down at her and it seemed to her that he stopped and smiled, but then he continued, "As the civil war continued tens of thousands were shot by the Checka, without trials. Dzerzhinsky himself boasted that the Checka represented organized terror to the enemies of the Revolution."