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Praefectus Praetorio: stories and tributes

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Rebecca and The Bloody Codes

Easily one of my favorite stories. I had long dreamed of writing a story of a poor, innocent country girl coming to London in the 1700s, being arrested for stealing to eat, and then subjected to the harshest punishment and most corrupt exploitation imaginable. This was the first story on which I spent an extravagant amount of time on research to make the long-buried roads and sights of old London Town newly come to life.

Rebecca, the waif from Kent arrives in 1723 in the London of Pope, Fielding, and Hogarth, where the very rich and powerful did whatever they wanted. Unfortunately, she falls into the hands of some of the most famous and depraved persons in the Kingdom, including members of the Royal Family. The city is awash in vice and sin (it was estimated that one in six females was involved in the sex trade!) It is also the age of the "Bloody Codes" which prescribed the death penalty for any theft of 12 pence or more (£5.80 in 2021).
In art and literature, the time was dominated by the ribald and the suggestive, Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress was popular and captured some of the locations in this story. Daniel Defoe, fresh from the runaway success of Robinson Crusoe, published The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders. Henry Fielding was writing The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Most significant of all is the work which leaves my humble efforts to grovel in the mud, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (popularly known by the protagonist’s name Fanny Hill), published by John Cleland.

I and most readers fell in love with Rebecca as the story progressed. Doing so, you will face the approaching ending with rapt attention and terrifying fear. A visit to Tyburn Tree!

The Archive Cover, by @Madiosi
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The Original Thread
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/threads/rebecca-and-the-bloody-codes.7734/

The Archive Edition
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/rebecca-and-the-bloody-codes-by-praefectus-praetorio.747/

The Ebook page
 
Friday Nights Barb

The early part of this story is inspired by a short story I read a few years ago. It stuck with me, though the original title and author did not. Therefore, I cannot properly credit him. For that, I apologize. However much of the early writing and all of the latter are my work. The bulk of the material is suggested by the diary of an 18-year-old high school girl who recorded the traumatic and abuse experience she had late in High School. She shall, of course, remain nameless. Her role is played in the story by @Barbaria1.

Follow along as an innocent first date turns into a nightmare when the kids are picked up by the local police, who prove to be less than honorable.

The Original Thread:

No Archive, no Cover
 
Hanged for Shoplifting
Being a True History of Mary Jones’ Sad Life and Death


"Being a Truest and Accurate History of the Sad Life and Unfair Death of Mary Jones, a Comely 18-year-old Wife and Mother from the East End of London, Who was Forced into Desperate Poverty and Eventually Compelled to Shoplifting to Clothe her Naked Children, In Which Act, She was Apprehended, and then Imprisoned and Cruelly Sentenced to Be Hanged at Tyburn Tree on October 16th in the Year of Our Lord, 1771."

This story is unique among my efforts in two ways. It was my first (and to date only) commissioned story. A member offered generously to pay me to write it. The more unusual fact was the level of historical accuracy.
I have written a number of what would be called "historical fiction," stories set in historical times. For example, Rebecca which takes place in the same London as Shoplifting is true to the history of the time, but the story is fictional.
The Story of Mary Jones is true. It happened just as I have written. Feel free to look it up. Though I'd suggest you enjoy the story first and then confirm it. The locations described, the historical characters named, the surrounding events all are true. The story of Mary's short life is told as accurately and true to fact as is possible at this remove of 250 years. Naturally, some unrecorded connecting events, everyday conversations, and people's inner thoughts must be added to complete the narrative, but I have made them as honest as possible. Only, in one minor place, have I invented something for the enhancement of the narrative (and I reveal that at the end).
In this narrative, I have attempted to bring you as close as humanly possible to observing the True History of Mary Jones’ Sad Life and Death. As the title warns, it is a true story, a sad story – as are many concerning the kind of “justice” dispensed in those times. If that is not what you want to see, do not read further.

Archive Cover
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The Original Thread

The Archive Edition

The Ebook page
 
KRR (Kidnap – Rape - Release) Club Files: Affair #25 Caroline

The first of a hoped-for series of stories featuring a club, whose purpose is to kidnap, rape, and then release women. This episode is a short story about a seemingly random kidnap and rape of an attractive young mother.

The Archive Cover
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The Original Thread

The Archive Edition

The Ebook page
 
Praefectus's Shorter Subjects

A Thread where I started posting some shorter stories. Some stories started here, such as Fate of a Goth Girl, grew to occupy their own thread. Another, Praetorian was completed here and then directed to Archive. Others have just stayed here. I expect to post more here.
A nice collection to browse at your leisure.

The Original Thread
 
A Lowland Adventure - Mr. Maxwells' Vacation

This is a story that is very close to my heart. I was sublimely privileged to write it with the cooperation of the lovely and talented @Eulalia. Her input allowed the use of authentic Scots language (don't worry, it's easily figured out - just read it out loud and listen) and marvelous descriptions of a magically beautiful place in Lowland Scotland. I hope you love this as much as I do!
The form is a mystery romance. It develops slowly and carries the reader on an entertaining and intriguing adventure. It is mostly not concentrated on sex and torture. However, in keeping with this forum's name and my own twisted, prurient interests, there is some Bondage, Discipline, and Sado-Masochism. But it is far from wall-to-wall coverage. There is consensual sex, but not described in pornographic detail.
Think of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, or Dorothy Sayers.
Alex Maxwell, a mild-mannered, socially awkward criminal profiler from Madison, WI, reeling from a painful divorce, decides to take a trip to the Scottish Lowlands. When he arrives in Gallovidia, he has no idea of the romance or of the danger that awaits him there. Maxwell meets a bonnie and mysterious Scottish Lassie, Jessie Mctaggert. Incongruously, the two are thrown together in the pursuit of a possible serial kidnapper of young women. The chase leads them to dark and unexpected evil in the seemingly peaceful and ideal Scottish Lowlands and a criminal enterprise that extends far beyond the coast of Great Britain.


The Archive Cover
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The Original Thread

The Archive Edition

The Ebook page
 
Praetorian

It's November 13, 31 CE, the aging and dissolute Tiberius is still Emperor, but has yielded most power to his Praetorian Guard. This unchallengeable force is under the leadership of evil and corrupt men. One of these men, Praetorian Tribune, Marcus Gallius, targets a rich patrician. Not only will he frame the man and confiscate his fortune, but Marcus also lusts after his sexy wife, Flavia. He plots to destroy her as well. Gallius plans a brutal gang rape and flogging, followed by a horrid death on the cross. A brutal tale, not for the faint-hearted.

A story that was posted in my short story thread and then archived. A possible start for a new serial set in the most delicious time of the Roman Empire, the end of Tiberius's reign and the beginning of Caligula's.

The Archive Cover
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The Original Thread
(note some details were changed for the archive.)

The Archive Edition

The Ebook page
 
Flogging of the Silurian Princess

Even though this has only been in the archive for three months (as of July 30, 2021) it is my most downloaded story.
An unusual effort for me (which perhaps should tell me something to change in my usual efforts) the story was posted on another member's thread. @Juan1234 started a thread with the challenge to write an interesting story that only covered a girl being flogged to death. I took up the gauntlet and wrote, rather quickly, such a story set in Wales in the early days of the Roman occupation. In my hurry, I skipped most of my historical minutiae.
The character of the victim, a young defiant princess of the local Silurian tribe is not fully developed. Instead, I focused on the legionary floggers, an unlikely pair modeled after Asterix and Obelix.
Short and bloody, this is perhaps my most brutal story (after all it is flogging to death!)

The Archive cover
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The Original Thread
(You will find my contribution broken by other postings, most especially @Loxuru's far longer and better version of a flogging.)

The Archive Edition

The Ebook page
 
The Fate of a Goth Girl

(not to be confused with a similarly titled story about a Gotham Goth Girl - whatever that is?)
This story started as a little crux story for @Barbaria1. When it grew, I posted on my short subjects thread. When it outgrew that, it received its own thread. It ended as one of my longer stories. I was extraordinarily fortunate to have @settantuno step up to provide many fantastic illustrations (often far better than the text deserved). Also, perhaps my most extensive inclusion of historical background and detail. In the archive edition, most of this is collected at the end, so you can skip it if you wish there. I think that this is the first story on CF to include a vivid description of the infamous Roman punishment of the Poena Cullei.

It was 383 AD, a year of great upheaval in the Western Roman Empire. Hadrian's Wall, the northern Roman frontier in Britain, was overrun by the Picts and fell into ruin. Flavius Gratianus was the Emperor of the West. But Roman troops in Britain rebelled and in August, Gratian was assassinated leaving Gaul. In the Western Empire, signs of decay were everywhere, though ignored or denied by most. However, tucked away in Southern Gaul, the old Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis, was, in the early part of the year a placid island of continuity. A barbarian people known as Goths had settled in what is now Romania until driven south and westward by the Huns. After epic wars against the Eastern Empire, some migrated into Gallia Narbonensis. They were despised as ignorant barbarians by the cultured Romans, with no rights and many were unjustly enslaved. One of those many unfortunates is the topic of this sad tale. At twenty-four, Barbaria, the daughter of a chief, was single, well-educated, respected, and not a little feared for her fiery spirit and temper. It was the middle of Julius mensis (July) and a sweltering hot day in the countryside. Barbaria had been visiting a neighboring village. Just past noon, she was walking back toward her home when her life changed for the worse. Much worse!.

The Archive Cover
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The Original Thread

The Archive Edition

The Ebook page
 
Trailer Park Trash Trixie's Torments - Part I
Branchwater to Singapore

Trixie Thomson was introduced as a minor character in Barb's Singapore III. Her story there was left unfinished, though with ominous portents. The readers took immediately and lovingly to Trixie and clamored to know the rest of her story. When I started to write it, I found that I needed to tell the whole story of Trixie:
Red-haired Trixie Thomson was a cheery and loving child despite a home situation that would horrify many. For as long as she could remember, Trixie had lived alone with her mother, Magnolia in a dilapidated single-wide perched unevenly on cinderblocks in “Bubba Jim’s Mobile Home Resort” in Branchwater, Alabama. From a very young age, Trixie had seen other kids point at her and say "Trailer Park Trash."
The story tells her difficult struggle to rise above her humiliating origins and join the US Foreign Service. Despite terrible obstacles and encountering some very evil men, Trixie manages to succeed and the story ends with her flying off to Singapore.
Part II will cover her time in Singapore and Part III, her time in Turkey.

The Archive Cover
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The Original Thread
Note the Title has been changed from the thread.

The Archive Edition

The e-book page
 
Sad news

Praefectus Praetorio communicated with both of us frequently, and told us a good deal about his 'real life' self. Becoming seriously concerned when he hadn't returned a couple of weeks after he'd said he'd be away from the Forums for a few days, Barb did some searching and found an obituary for a gentleman who died unexpectedly on 5th December, the day after we last heard from Pr Pr. Sadly, the information in that obituary was sufficient to leave us in no doubt whatever that it was our friend who has passed away.

He was a good man, highly intelligent and widely read, sincere and quietly passionate in his beliefs and principles, a lively, witty contributor to the life of Crux Forums, and his superbly written stories will be a treasured memorial to him here.

Barb and Eul
 
Sad news

Praefectus Praetorio communicated with both of us frequently, and told us a good deal about his 'real life' self. Becoming seriously concerned when he hadn't returned a couple of weeks after he'd said he'd be away from the Forums for a few days, Barb did some searching and found an obituary for a gentleman who died unexpectedly on 5th December, the day after we last heard from Pr Pr. Sadly, the information in that obituary was sufficient to leave us in no doubt whatever that it was our friend who has passed away.

He was a good man, highly intelligent and widely read, sincere and quietly passionate in his beliefs and principles, a lively, witty contributor to the life of Crux Forums, and his superbly written stories will be a treasured memorial to him here.

Barb and Eul
PrPr was a mentor and a friend. His passing is very sad. He will be sorely missed.
 
These are really very sad news. He was always such a friendly person to me and almost every one else here in these forums and I really loved his "Uplifting ..." thread much more than many others all over the internet.
As we can see and hear in almost every news on TV (new national & regional lockdowns in many European countries just in the week before Christmas etc.), this will be a very sad christmas time this year in many countries around the world and I hoped to find much more thoughts of wisdom and beautiful music collected and suggested by him in his "Uplifting ..." - Thread here.
I really cannot tell you, how much I will miss him here ...
 
Sad news

Praefectus Praetorio communicated with both of us frequently, and told us a good deal about his 'real life' self. Becoming seriously concerned when he hadn't returned a couple of weeks after he'd said he'd be away from the Forums for a few days, Barb did some searching and found an obituary for a gentleman who died unexpectedly on 5th December, the day after we last heard from Pr Pr. Sadly, the information in that obituary was sufficient to leave us in no doubt whatever that it was our friend who has passed away.

He was a good man, highly intelligent and widely read, sincere and quietly passionate in his beliefs and principles, a lively, witty contributor to the life of Crux Forums, and his superbly written stories will be a treasured memorial to him here.

Barb and Eul
I am so sorry for your loss. May he Rest In Peace and may his works here continue his literary legacy.
 
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