Charity Sunday: Supporting Humanity, Opposing Genocide – #CharitySunday #Sudan #Rape

Last Charity Sunday I asked whether you knew anything about Laos.

This month, I’ll ask the same question about Sudan. Do you know where it is? Do you have any idea what’s happening there?

From https://www.britannica.com/place/Sudan

If you can access the NY Times (for some reason, I can’t at the moment), then read this deeply disturbing article by Nicholas Kristof.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/28/opinion/darfur-sudan-atrocities.html

Civil war, famine, rape being used as a weapon, the Black inhabitants of Sudan targeted for elimination by Arab militias... Yes, the world is a mess, with conflict at multiple locations across the globe. With people focused on the Middle East and Ukraine, places like Sudan where the situation is even more dire but where Western countries have less at stake simply fall off the agenda.

So for today’s Charity Sunday, I’m supporting Mutual Aid Sudan, a grassroots charity recommended by Kristof that’s helping the ordinary Sudanese people survive. 

 https://mutualaidsudan.org/howwework

I will donate two dollars to MAS for each comment I receive on this post.

Closer to home: I will also donate one dollar to Be Loved Ashville, an organization providing support to people in North Carolina who have been impacted by Hurricane Helene. 

 

https://www.belovedasheville.com/

So don't be shy! Leave a comment! Get your friends to comment! Make a difference.

For my excerpt, I’m still trying to keep a Halloween/paranormal theme, so I have an excerpt from my vampire erotic romance Fin D’Espoir. The main character, vampire Etienne de Remorcy, is a former slave, shipped from Africa to Haiti, then Jamaica.

To attract sweeten the pot, I’ll give away a free copy of this book to one person who leaves a comment. I’ll draw the winner on Halloween.

 

Excerpt

“Tell me.” She lay with her head on Etienne’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. Strange, she thought, that he should have a beating heart, if he was what she suspected. But what did she know of such things? She raised her face from that ebony pillow and flicked her tongue over the rosy nub of his nipple. “Tell me about her.”

Etienne stirred, untangling his limbs from hers. “Why waken old sorrows, petite? Why not just enjoy the remains of the night?”

“I want to understand you.” She braced herself on her elbow, feasting her eyes on his physical perfection. “Maybe to help you.”

“Impossible. I am damned, condemned to live alone with the knowledge of my sins. You are a poor, frail mortal. There is nothing you can do. If I wish, I can wipe your mind clean of the memory of me. From your perspective, I will not exist.”

“Please, don’t,” Madeleine whispered. “I gave myself to you. Give me a bit of yourself in return.”

The sable giant frowned. He shifted his bulk to a sitting position. His heavy penis lolled against his thigh. Madeleine’s mouth watered as she imagined rousing it from its relaxed state. She shifted her attention to his noble face. “Please, Etienne.”

“Very well. I find you difficult to resist.” He sighed and was silent for a moment, looking off into the distance.

“I first saw my mistress in the slave market in Port-au-Prince. The year was 1796. I was fifteen. It was dusk. In those glory days of colonial power, the trade in human flesh went on around the clock.

“In the midst of the filth and degradation, she was a gorgeous tropical flower. She wore a gown of emerald silk embroidered with silver thread. Her hair tumbled in jet ringlets over her pale shoulders. Her eyes were dark jewels, her mouth a crimson blossom. She picked her delicate way through the dirty straw wearing kid boots, but she held no handkerchief to her face against the stench of unwashed bodies. She carried a dainty leather whip dyed to match her costume.

“I stood on the block with the other merchandise, dirty, covered with scabs, chains around my neck and my ankles. The auctioneer called for bids on the man before me, laughing and joking in a coarse way about the man’s substantial genitals. My mistress came right to the front of the crowd and interrupted the proceedings.

“‘I will take that one,’ she stated, pointing at me. ‘What is his price?’ She was a petite woman. Her voice was not loud, but it held an unassailable authority. Everyone stopped to listen.

“‘He is to be auctioned next, Madame.’ The grizzled man looked nervous. ‘Please wait for a few moments.’

“‘There is no need to bother with the bids,’ my mistress insisted. ‘I will match any offer.’

“‘Madame, please…’ She ignored him and fixed her eyes on me. ‘I want you, boy,’ she said. Though in my own country I was a king’s son, her attention made me blush and hang my head. Then to my horror, I realized that I was hugely erect.’

“‘And you want me, too, do you not, my prince?’ She laughed. I had picked up a bit of French on the voyage. I understood why the crowd was jeering. She threw a heavy bag of coins onto the block. ‘Unchain him,’ she ordered.

“The auctioneer scrambled to retrieve the purse. Inside was more gold than he had likely ever seen at one time, enough to purchase every slave on the platform. He hastened to unfasten my leg shackles and unchain my collar from that of the two men on either side of me. He handed the chain to my mistress and she led me to her carriage.

“We returned to her plantation. She had me bathed and fed. She tended to my sores with her own hands. I thought that I was in paradise. I was hard the whole time.

“That night she took me to her bed. As I entered her, she drank from me for the first time.”

Maddy swallowed. “She was a—a blood-drinker?”

“A blood-drinker, a witch, a Voodoo priestess. The cruelest and most savage creature you can imagine. She looked white but she was an octamaroon, the granddaughter of a slave as black as I. How she loved to play the grand lady, full of contempt for the society around her…” He buried his face in his hands. Maddy rested her hand on his shoulder, encouraging him to continue.

“I grew to manhood on her plantation. She educated me, when it suited her fancy. She used me. Sometimes, she made me labor in the cane fields, laughing when I came to her at night, covered with sweat and dirt. Sometimes it pleased her to dress me in silk livery and have me serve her the wine and raw meat she favored. She enjoyed hanging me from a hook in the ceiling and whipping me until my skin hung in strips from my back. Then she would lick the gore from my wounds and tell me that she loved me.”

Buy links at: https://www.lisabetsarai.com/findespoirbook.html

Don’t forget to leave a comment. Help the people of Sudan and maybe win a free Halloween read!