#Aged Parent Visa

[gobrittpaige]

Australian Parent Visa Processing Time Explained

Are you planning to bring your parents to Australia? The Australian Parent Visa is a great option that allows parents to live permanently with their children in Australia. There are two main types of visas: the Contributory Parent Visa, which has a shorter processing time of around 4 to 6 years, and the Non-Contributory Parent Visa, which can take up to 30 years due to high demand. Each visa has its own eligibility criteria and costs, so understanding these details is essential.More details? Read our blog “Australian Parent Visa Processing Time: Your Ultimate Guide”

[aicademyconsultants]

Aicademy Australian Immigration consultants in India

AiCademy is an Australian immigration consultancy with a presence in India, offering comprehensive services for those looking to migrate to Australia. We provide assistance with various visa categories including skilled migration, family visas, employer-sponsored visas, study visas, and more. AiCademy’s consultants are MARA (Migration Agents Registration Authority) registered, ensuring we meet the standards set by the Australian government for migration advice.Image Source by Google 

Here are some key features and services provided by AiCademy:

 Expert Guidance: Our consultants have extensive knowledge and experience in Australian immigration laws and processes. We guide clients through the entire visa application process, ensuring all legal requirements are met.

Range of Visa Services: We offer support for a wide range of visa types including permanent residency (PR), student visas, partner visas, parent visas, and more. This comprehensive service portfolio helps cater to various immigration needs​AICademy.

Client-Centric Approach: We emphasize a personal approach, tailoring our services to meet the specific needs of each client. We maintain confidentiality and provide timely updates on the progress of visa applications.

High Success Rate: We have achieved a high success rate in visa approvals, having managed over 10,000 visa cases. Our expertise and effective handling of applications contribute significantly to our clients' success in securing visas (AICademy).

Additional Support: In addition to the visa process, we offer post-landing services, which include assistance with job searches, settling in Australia, and other related support to help clients integrate smoothly into Australian society.

For more information or to get started with your Australian visa application, you can visit our website and contact our offices in India​(AICademy)​.

Visit : www.aicademy.co.in

Phone: +917594050585

[pathwayedu]

https://adbellmedia.com/posts/power-of-choice-aged-parent-contributory-visa-as-migration-solution

The Power of Choice: Aged Parent Contributory Visa as Your Migration Solution

The Aged Parent Contributory Visa is a migration option designed for individuals who wish to bring their aging parents to join them in a new country. It is a testament to the importance placed on family reunification, acknowledging the significant role parents play in the lives of their adult children and grandchildren.

This visa category is characterized by its contributory nature, meaning that applicants are required to make a financial contribution to cover some of the costs associated with their healthcare and welfare in the host country. This financial commitment sets the Aged Parent Contributory Visa apart, making it a feasible choice for those seeking a faster processing time and more comprehensive benefits.

Know More @ https://shorturl.at/bfpzI

[ghothanelawyers]

Contributory Aged Parent Temporary Visa (Subclass 884)

The Contributory Aged Parent Visa (Subclass 884) is a visa that allows a permanent resident of Australia or the parents of an established Australian citizen to reside temporarily in Australia. The Subclass 884 visa is a two-year temporary visa that permits the applicant to live in Australia. The visa period begins when the visa is obtained. During this time, the individual might engage in a full-time course to pursue higher education at their own expense. The visa also enables the holder to work in Australia for a period of two years.

When you intend to stay in Australia for an extended period of time, you may apply for a permanent visa using this one. 

You cannot apply for a new temporary visa or extend an existing one if you have a Contributory Aged Parent Visa (Subclass 884). You can bring your family along, but you have to mention this on the application.

Read more:-

https://ghothane.com.au/temporary-visa-subclass-884/

[roses-and-revolutions]

DP x DC prompt:

Daniel was seething. It's been a year since he left the league and they've already found him. Well, it was his mother who found him. Not that that was any better but at least it wasn't Grandfather.

It also shouldn't have taken him so long to dispose of those soldiers. They weren't even that capable. Far below his level and yet he struggled. He needed to resume his training soon or else he would become rusty.

He cursed himself for getting too comfortable with civilian life. Not that his life was comfortable, far from actually.

He had been adopted by a pair of mad scientist with no concept of lab safety; and for all the intelligence they had, they couldn't fathom how to properly take care of a child, leaving their daughter to take care of herself and now her newly adopted sibling!

He sighed. He was starting to get angry. He couldn't afford to get angry. Especially not at Jazz. She was only two years older than him and was doing her best. She's also the only good thing in his life right now meaning that he had to cherish her, not break her. (He wouldn't be like his brother)

His mind stayed on Jazz for a while before immediately increasing his speed. He really needed to resume his training. How could he be so slack to forget such a possibility! Daniel desperately hoped that his sister Jazz was okay and that they wouldn't dare.

Entering through his bedroom window he rushed straight to Jazz's bedroom. It was open. She wasn't there.

Daniel started to panic when he heard a muffed scream coming from downstairs. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he rushed down the stairs and into the kitchen.

In all honesty Daniel expected the worse. To see his sister Jazz dead on the floor, thick red gushing from her neck, the scent of blood in the air. And there was blood, it just wasn't her's.

Daniel always prided himself on having a vivid imagination. It was a great way to escape after an especially hard training session with his brother. But he would have never imagined this.

In the small, laughably suburban kitchen of the Fenton household was a sight to behold. In the air were two mangled bodies, unidentifiable if not for the league's emblem still visible on one of them. And on the wall was a splatter, a rather big one. It wasn't blood. It was too dark to be. But whatever it was was very unlucky.

In the center of the kitchen was Jazz. Her arms were outstretched, burning sigils rotating at the end of each palm. Her eyes glowed a bright icy blue.

Upon noticing him everything stopped. She looked fearful. Tears threatening to come forth.

"Wait I can explain, just don't tell mom or dad! Please!"

Daniel, still a bit shocked but not as much, simply walked into the kitchen towards the cupboard. Taking out a clean towel he unsheathed he sword and began to clean it.

He looked over his shoulder towards Jazz. She didn't look as scared but her eyes still held some fear. So he spoke, making sure the still bloody sword was in veiw.

"I won't tell if you don't." He flashed a grin his tiny fangs peaking out.

Jazz sighed as in the weight of the world was lifted off of her. She looked at him and smiled.

"Mom and Dad aren't going to be back for a while. Wanna help me clean up?"

[saccharine-pink-lemonade]

being a writer has me googling some wacky wild things

[pankajbhatiacanada]

Secure Your Adventures with Travelance Insurance | Pankaj Bhatia

Explore the world worry-free with Travelance Insurance - your trusted companion in every journey. Protect your travels with us at Pankaj Bhatia.

#TravelanceInsurance #WorryFreeTravels

[rapidmigration-blog]

Permanent Contributory Aged Parent Visa Subclass 864

A Contributory Aged Parent Visa – Subclass 864 allows you (the applicant) to stay in Australia as a permanent resident. To become eligible for visa subclass 864, know your eligibility requirement, document checklist, cost, and processing time. Don’t know how to apply for Subclass 864? Rapid Migration has vast experience in Australian Migration and can help you understand and navigate the visa application process confidently.

[bishopsbeloved]

the art of falling in love (part one)

natasha romanoff x fem reader (high school au)

You’ve been in love with your best friend’s sister ever since you first met her (who wouldn’t be?), and you were content to take these feelings to the grave. But when she begins to reciprocate, things get complicated, and you find yourself lying to almost everyone you know — including yourself.

best friend!yelena belova, aroace!yelena belova, internalised homophobia, found family trope, coming of age, angst, fluff (eventual happy ending)

part one (5k words) | part two | part three | part four | part five | epilogue

read this fic on ao3!

You’ll never forget the fateful day that you laid eyes upon Natasha Romanoff for the first time. Even at the ripe age of seven, you knew you wanted her in your life forever.

Melina Vostokoff and Alexi Shostakov are your neighbours — they live right across the street, and they have done for as long as you can remember. On your fifth birthday, they came home from a trip to Russia with a daughter, Yelena. From the moment you laid eyes on one another, the two of you knew you were best friends. Neither sets of parents had any qualms on that (“oho, here comes trouble,” Alexi would say teasingly whenever the two of you came tearing into the room), and so even before Natasha’s arrival you spent more of your waking hours in their household than in your own.

One time, two years since Yelena entered your life and only a few weeks before Natasha’s arrival, you were playing in the sandy dirt down the back of Yelena’s house, and huffing in annoyance as it proved too fine to hold up as a sandcastle. You looked over at your best friend who was currently experiencing much more success in her own task, her tongue sticking out slightly in concentration as she carefully stacked twigs to build a bug hotel, and without even thinking you asked, “why did you pick me? To be your friend?”

Yelena blinked, surprised, but placed a leaf on top of her miniature structure to serve as a roof before responding. “What do you mean?”

“Weeeeell,” you narrowed your eyes in thought, trying to figure out what it was that you meant, “we’ve just always been friends. And I like it, but I was like, why?”

She was quiet for a good few moments, and if you didn’t know the girl any better then you would have missed the slight cleft between her brows that means she’s formulating her next words, and you would’ve thought she was ignoring you. But you did know better, because she was your best friend, and that thought filled your tiny frame with joy.

“Sometimes when you meet people, it’s special,” she said eventually. “Like a puzzle, you know when they fit together? Like — like that,” she mimed two things slotting together with her fingers, and you nodded. “It happened for us, I think. It happened when my mom and dad met, they tell me all the time that dad loved mom from the moment he met her,” she wrinkled her nose, and you giggled. “And it happened for me and my sister in Russia.”

With that last statement, she’d caught your interest. Often in passing she’d mention her sister from the orphanage in Russia, where she’d been before Melina and Alexi had sorted out her visa to bring her back to their home in Ohio. You never quite knew how to respond to it, and she never elaborated beyond throwaway comments such as these, so you were fairly certain that this sister wasn’t even real until the day she was brought home.

And what a day that was; one that turned your life upside down forever. As far as you knew, when you first woke up, it was a day like any other. Another sunny morning of summer vacation. You woke up as bright and early as children annoyingly do and rushed to get ready to spend another day at Yelena’s house, no doubt irritating the shit out of her parents (who, to their credit, were very tolerant of you and Yelena’s seven-year-old antics). But once you’d knocked and stood fidgeting eagerly on their front porch, it wasn’t Yelena, or her parents, who opened the door.

No, it was an unfamiliar girl you were faced with — only one year older as you were soon to learn, but already an entire head taller than you. She looked down at you, face stony, and you stared back in confusion. There was no way this was the wrong house, you’d been coming here every day for the last two years, and you saw it every time you looked out of your bedroom window. So what was going on?

You found yourself remembering a Slavic children’s story Alexi had told you and Yelena last winter, late at night when you were curled up by the fire together drinking hot chocolate, about an old lady who had a house with chicken legs. The Baba Yaga, Alexi had called her. During the night her house would stand up and run away, and be gone from its previous spot the next morning; you found yourself wondering if this had happened to Yelena’s house too. Could any house have legs, or just the Baba Yaga’s house? You’d have to ask Alexi — once you tracked down his runaway house, of course.

“Y/N,” a voice squealed from behind the unfamiliar girl, and Yelena’s face poked out from behind her. “Y/N this is my sister! From Russia, her name is Natasha.”

“You are Yelena’s best friend?” Natasha asked softly, a gentle Russian lilt to her words. “It’s nice to meet you.”

And just like Yelena had described to you, you looked up at Natasha and something just clicked. Something aligned; a puzzle piece you hadn’t even known you were missing slotted into place.

You knew even then that you wanted to be around her forever.

It’s been ten years now, since that day, and you’ve grown up alongside the two of them. You’re an only child with distant parents, and Alexi and Melina have taken you under your wing — so much in fact that Yelena’s room is referred to affectionately as the twins’ room, and you have your own bed in there. More of your stuff is at their house rather than your own these days.

But Natasha has always been just out of reach. Since the day you first met her there’s been this pit in your stomach whenever she’s been around, strange and foreign and somewhat scary to you, that has you reduced to a silent mess with trembling fingers whenever she’s around. It’s a feeling you’ve not always understood, but in more recent years you’ve come to accept you’re in love with her; something you will take to the grave.

You don’t stand a chance with her, of course. You’re her little sister’s best friend, a whole year younger than her, and where she’s popular in school you tend to stick to the shadows. You’re not really picked on, per se — no one dares to when Yelena Belova, who’s terrifying in her own right as well as the little sister of Natasha Romanoff, is constantly glued to your side — but you just don’t have the same social standing that Natasha does. Even if by some miracle you did, she’s your best friend’s sister. You know she’ll never see you that way.

So you’ve decided to yourself you’re going to keep these feelings under lock and key, and pray they’ll go away.

And it’s been going pretty good!… well, that is, until tonight.

Alexi and Melina have flown back to Russia for the New Year, leaving the household in the hands of you, Yelena and Natasha. You and Yelena were perfectly content with spending your days of freedom ordering takeout, bingeing awful reality TV shows and annoying the cat for hours on end, but Natasha was having none of that. The Starks can’t hold their New Year thrasher at their house like normal this year (something about a sick aunt on bedrest? You weren’t really listening, to be honest), so with her parents out of town, Natasha’s offered up her house.

“I don’t want a bunch of gross sweaty drunk people in our house,” Yelena had protested when it was proposed to her, nose wrinkling. “это отвратительно. No.”

“Aw come on, please,” Natasha groaned. “It’s just one night.”

“But it’s not just one night, because we will be cleaning up for days after,” retorted Yelena. “Last time there was vomit everywhere. That was a zero out of ten experience.”

Natasha snorted. “What are you, TripAdvisor?” Dodging Yelena’s half-hearted smack, she’d added, “See, why can’t you be like Y/N? They don’t mind. Right, Y/N?”

Sure, she’d probably played you, but with those eyes who could say no to her?

Well, evidently not you. And because of it, you and Yelena are stuck spending New Year’s Eve locked in her (your) bedroom, her TV on at max volume to even be vaguely heard over the music that shakes the bed with every beat.

“О мой Бог, it’s not even midnight,” Yelena whines, checking her clock for the sixth time in the last ten minutes. “We are going to be dealing with this for hours. Natalia owes us one.”

“She’ll feel guilty tomorrow and take us to a drive-thru,” you tell her, and she sticks her tongue out at you instead of admitting that you’re right.

She opens her mouth to say something else (something witty and uncalled for, you’re sure), but she’s cut off by an abysmally loud crash and scream from downstairs, followed by even louder cheering. The look that crosses her face next just makes you very glad you’re not on the receiving end of her anger tonight.

“Liho,” you remember suddenly, “where is he? Did we pick him up before the party started?”

She pauses. “Oh, shit.”

“He’s still down there?” you panic. “Fuck, Lena, you know how much he hates noise. I’m gonna go get him.”

“No, let me,” Yelena protests, but you wave her off.

“No, because you’ll come back with a kill list twice as long as it is now,” you retort and she scrunches up her face at you, because as always with her you’ve hit the nail on the head. You blow her a kiss before closing the door behind you.

Immediately, you’re hit by the overwhelming stench of sweat and alcohol. Okay, ew. You’d practically begged Natasha to dilute the jet fuel that the Russians call vodka before distributing it, but evidently she’s not taken your pleas into account tonight. (You’re all going to pay for it tomorrow morning come clean-up time.)

At least the universe isn’t totally against you right now, though — the household’s cat, Liho, has one place he will flee to without fail whenever he’s scared; the tiny gap between the washing machine and the wall, in the laundry room. With any luck, you can sneak in and out of there through Melina’s office without encountering too many partygoers.

Getting down the stairs proves a task in itself; they are absolutely soaking for some reason, something must have been spilled on them, so thank god they’re hardwood and not carpeted. It’s like a slip and slide on your way down, and you cling onto the banister for dear life, your task only made more difficult by the tens of other people who have no regard whatsoever for your Mission Impossible-level task currently at hand.

Miraculously, you somehow make it to the bottom of the stairs unscathed, and immediately wince as you straighten back up. The noise down here is even louder, the smell even stronger, and you want nothing more than to flee back upstairs and cower under the bedsheets with Yelena until everyone finally fucks off home. But you remind yourself that if this is the way you feel, tiny flighty Liho probably feels even worse, and as his self-appointed cat mother (which you have been ever since you and Yelena rescued him from the roadside and brought him home), it’s your duty to rescue him.

So you battle your way on through to the laundry room, which thank the lord is empty. You close the heavy wooden door behind you with relief, and lean back against it for a moment, panting to recollect yourself. Jesus fuck, do you hate parties. You’re not even trying to be difficult, it’s just something you’ll never understand — they’re so overstimulating, so overwhelming. You always leave them with such a depleted social battery that you won’t be seen again for the next week. How someone can enjoy these things, you’ll never fathom.

You’re distracted from your inner monologue by the sound of gentle scrabbling, coming from behind the washing machine. An involuntary smile spreads over your face as you instantly clock what that noise is, and you approach slowly, dropping to a crouch.

“Hey buddy,” you say softly to the black fur vaguely visible among the shadows. Its gentle movements freeze, and the scrabbling noise stops. “This sucks, doesn’t it? All alone down here.”

He blinks at you.

”Yeah, it does, huh?” you continue. “What do you say we get outta here? You can come upstairs with me and Lena. How’d you feel about that, bud, huh? It’ll be much nicer, I promise. It’s so lonely down here, isn’t it?”

Convinced, the kitten wriggles out of his hiding spot and trots into your waiting arms. You scoop him up, planting kisses on his head and giggling.

“Good boy. Sweet boy. We got snacks in our room. You just love Twizzlers, don’t you?”

“He does love Twizzlers,” says a raspy voice from behind you, scaring the absolute shit out of both you and Liho. He yelps in alarm, and alarm at your alarm, digging his claws into your shoulder in a way that makes you hiss out loud. You spin around to see none other than Natasha behind you (she must have been in here before you closed the door, you vaguely piece together in your state of gay panic), red beer pong cup in hand, looking fucking beautiful.

You’ve avoided her as much as you can today while she’s gotten ready for tonight, reasoning with yourself that you’re only torturing yourself if you keep admiring her from afar, but holy fuck you can’t believe you were depriving yourself of this. A pale pink, almost nude dress, with silver blossoms settled comfortably on her hips in the way that your hands itch to be, and eyeliner that could fucking cut someone. But she’s smiling at you so softly that even the knife-sharp eyeliner smiles with her, and even though she just gave you the fright of your life you’re almost shaking with the restraint it takes to not go absolutely feral. She looks so good.

Oh lord, you are hopeless.

“You and him are just as bad as each other,” she comments, still smiling, so you know she doesn’t really mean it. Desperately scrabbling to cover for your internal screaming, you fake a pout, dropping a kiss on Liho’s head (he rubs his forehead gratefully against your cheek in return).

“That’s so mean,” you grumble.

“You look really pretty tonight,” she tells you, and your heart actually stops at the compliment. It feels like a trick for a moment, that she’d say something like that, but she’s still smiling a smile that makes your insides go all woozy.

“I really don’t think,” you begin, looking down at your outfit, but then pause. What with the top secret CIA-level mission that retrieving Liho has become, you’ve almost forgotten that before all of this you and Yelena had been playing dress up — strictly within the confines of your bedroom, of course, but you’re wearing one of Mama Melina’s old college dresses and it doesn’t look half bad on you, even though it now probably has Liho hairs all over it. You vaguely recall Yelena begging you to let her do your makeup (“pleeeease, Y/N, I swear I’ll be serious this time no more penises I promise”) too, so maybe it’s not such a reach that Nat actually thinks you look pretty tonight. “Oh. Thank you. S- so do you, I —” You forcibly stop yourself there, for fear of real embarrassment.

Her lips twitch in amusement at your antics. “Thanks.”

There’s a lull in the conversation, a moment of silence, and you figure you’d best take your leave before you inevitably embarrass yourself in front of the love of your life. You step toward the door which she’s still stood in front of, mumbling something unintelligible, but Natasha remains firm and simply raises an eyebrow at you as she sips from her solo cup. Literally everything she does is so insanely attractive that you have to bury your face in Liho’s fur for a moment and inhale in order to ground yourself properly. How can one person be so lovely? It’s just not fair.

“I should go back upstairs, Liho doesn’t like the noise,” you tell Natasha.

“You know, it’s nearly midnight,” is all she replies. “They’re about to start the countdown.”

You nod, tight-lipped. Even when it’s muffled through the thick wood of the laundry room the noise is starting to get to you now, and Liho won’t sit still in your arms either, and you want to get back upstairs to the warm safety of your bed and Yelena’s company and the shit Kardashians show you were watching, away from the girl who it’s as torturous as it is wonderful to be around.

“It’s a romantic thing for a lot of people,” she continues, and you have to look away at that. It’s almost as though she, or the universe is dangling the fact that she’ll never be interested in you in front of your face tantalisingly — like a carrot on a stick. “To kiss the one you love when the clock hits midnight, and the New Year rolls in. You got anyone to kiss this year?”

Okay, wow. Ouch.

“Liho,” you reply with as much humour as you can muster. “He is my one true love. Aren’t you, bud,” you add a few octaves higher, and he perks up, recognising that voice that’s for him. When you look back up at Natasha she’s studying you with amusement in her eyes, as though she knows something you don’t. You can hear the chanting beginning outside of the laundry room now, preparing to ring in the New Year; twenty… nineteen…

Still, though, Natasha makes no move to let you leave.

“Do you have anyone to kiss at midnight?” you ask her pointedly. “Cause you should probably get back to them.”

She downs the rest of the contents of her solo cup in one before slamming it down on the counter beside her. “Don’t need to,” comes her gruff reply, “they’re right here.”

Your jaw actually fucking drops at that statement, and your brain shortcircuits. What? Even though your heart skips a hopeful beat, you shake your head quickly to clear it of the idea that she could reciprocate these crushing feelings you harbour for her. Instead, you hold Liho out to her, hands under his armpits so that his hind legs dangle below him and he stretches to look comically long — as though you’re giving him to her like a present (which he sends you a very unimpressed for). “O— oh,” you stutter, “well if he’s your midnight kiss, is that why you were in here? I don’t want to —” twelve, eleven…

She actually laughs out loud at that, and bats Liho away. “Not him, дурачок. You.”

Her hands are cupping at the side of your face, and despite the absolute bizarre circumstances you find yourself leaning into her touch, desperate to memorise the feel of her warm calloused fingertips against your skin — seven, six; she looks down at you, the blue-green outlining her wide dark pupils framing a silent question. You’re in absolute slack-jawed disbelief, this has got to be a prank, it’s got to be — four, three — but she holds your gaze with a kind of certainty that surely can’t be summoned to fool someone. You nod a trembling, single nod, and her lips press against yours just as the clock strikes midnight.

Her lips are so soft, so gentle against yours. Your eyelids flutter shut; you can’t help it. She feels like heaven. She’s tentative at first, but when she can feel you reciprocating, her hands begin to explore a little; one moving to tangle itself in your hair, the other to your back and pulling you in closer to her. One of your arms is busy still cradling Liho close to your chest, but the other is free to trace along Natasha’s skin wonderingly as she continues her ministrations. Her leg slides between yours, forcing you backwards against the wall, where her kisses trail down your jaw for a moment before creeping back up toward your lips and returning to kissing them instead. When she nips gently at your bottom lip, you let out a noise you’ve never heard yourself make before, a kind of high-pitched whine in the back of your throat that makes Natasha laugh quietly as she pulls away for air. Liho, who was nestled comfortably between the two of you throughout the exchange, is purring merrily (“talk, Valentina!” as your friend Darcy would say).

She looks down at you for a moment, eyes wide and dilated, hair a little less perfect than before, panting slightly. She’s always had a few inches on you, ever since you were kids, and that’s something she often teases you for but right now the way she’s towering over you is so fucking hot. None of this can be real, you think to yourself hazily as she leans back in to plant one more kiss, much more chaste this time, against your lips.

“Happy New Year,” she says lowly to you; her voice is a little more broken and raspy than it was pre-makeout and it actually sends a shiver down your spine. And then she’s waltzing out of the room, leaving you absolutely shaking against the wall she was just pressing you against; your legs give up on you as you slide down against it to the ground, trying to catch your breath and understand what just happened.

Because what? 

You wake up the next morning to a house that’s thankfully empty, aside from its usual residents. You’re absolutely terrified that last night was some kind of dream, or it was a drunk mistake. You’ve never felt so vulnerable in your life. You’re right in the palm of Natasha’s hand and she has all the power in the world to absolutely break you right now. She could shatter you into a thousand irreparable pieces and leave you in the dirt if she so wanted to, and that thought is one that had you tossing and turning last night.

Yelena can’t for the life of her fathom why you’re so jittery this morning. You’ve told her fuck all, of course. What were you meant to say? Hey, sorry, last night your sister who I’m kind of a little bit in love with cornered me and we made out? No fucking way. When you came back to the bedroom last night all shaken up and wordless, she just assumed that the party atmosphere had been that overwhelming. You were very grateful for her gentleness with you as you tried to figure out what the fuck was going on, and what you were meant to do now. You tried to Google it, but it would appear that not many other people can relate to the situation that you’ve found yourself in (the best thing you could find were some decade-old Quora threads about being in love with your straight best friend, and the idea of Yelena being straight was so funny to you that you had to close the tab before your laughing woke her up), and you ended up being so worried about Yelena somehow seeing your search history that you cleared the whole thing, which definitely is not suspicious. 

“Hey,” Yelena slaps the back of your head playfully as she passes you, knocking you out of your trance, “it is a new day. Party is over, the house is ours, leave the miserableness behind in yesterday, да?”

You nod as you follow her down the stairs.

Natasha, to your surprise, is already awake, and seemingly not even hungover as she bustles around the kitchen, preparing something.

Yelena seems to read your thoughts, as she often does, and nods in agreement. “What, you are not curled up in bed with four million painkillers?” she asks incredulously as she slides onto a stool at the kitchen island.

Natasha shakes her head good-naturedly at her sister’s greeting, pressing her lips together to keep from smiling like an idiot as she continues to cook. “No. I feel good this morning, actually. Really good.” The smile bleeds through her words and takes over her face again.

You and Yelena exchange a look. What is… happening?

“You are being weird,” Yelena tells her, and smacks her over the back of the head with a rolled-up newspaper as her older sister walks past her to grab the butter. “What have I missed, did you get laid last night or something?”

Your blood runs cold at that, and you have to look away from Yelena so she doesn’t see the way your face drops. Is that true? Did she kiss you and then sleep with someone else? No, she wouldn’t do that to you, surely.

Your thoughts (hopes) are confirmed when she snorts to herself and shakes her head, her back still to the both of you as she pours batter into a pan. “No. No, I just — I had a really good time last night. That’s all. Thanks for letting me have the party.”

You watch as Yelena’s eyebrows furrow, her eyes tracking every one of Natasha’s movements intently, and she tries to figure out what’s going on. You’re similarly perplexed. Natasha is the silent, stony older sibling, the watcher, the one who hears everything and knows everything but doesn’t often speak of her own accord. Last night in the laundry room was the longest exchange you’ve had with her in weeks (and that was before she kissed you). As a kid you would mistake this for shyness, but it eventually became clear that Natasha Romanoff is not shy. She’s very far from it, in fact. She’s just observant, and doesn’t feel the need to speak unless she has something to say. You have zero clue what she’s feeling or thinking half the time — her poker face is so good it’s unsettling. So this is a weird occurrence. You don’t think you’ve seen her as happy as this since… well, since the day she was brought home.

“Well, it is not as though we had much choice in the matter,” Yelena retorts humorously. “Don’t forget we are not cleaning up. That’s on you, сестра.”

“I know, I know,” Natasha grumbles playfully, placing a plate in front of each of you before sliding a pancake onto each of them, right out of the pan. “I owe you one.”

Yelena looks from the pancake to her sister, and back again. “What is this?”

“A chocolate chip pancake.”

“They’re heart-shaped,” you observe quietly.

“Well done for having eyes. If you don’t want them —”

“Nope, it’s good, thank you,” says Yelena thickly, and it’s already gone. You let out a noise of amusement as you eat in a more dignified manner, humming your approval. You don’t think Nat’s ever made you breakfast. It’s nice, though.

Yelena swallows, and leaps to her feet. “I think it’s a Kardashians marathon on TV today,” she informs you, pointedly ignoring the noise Natasha makes whenever that show is mentioned, and she dashes off into the living room. You are alone with Natasha, for the first time since last night.

The nerves from earlier are back, swelling up inside of you uncomfortably, and you do your best to casually avert your gaze from her as you continue to eat. You have no idea whether to bring up last night or to pretend it never happened. Just thinking of the latter makes your heart ache, but it’s becoming a more real possibility by the minute.

Seemingly indifferent to your internal struggling, Natasha slides a pancake onto her own plate and ruffles your hair as she passes you on her way to the fridge. You flinch at the touch, and she giggles.

“You okay?” she asks you teasingly as she pulls a container of raspberries out of the fridge.

You swallow, and nod, trying your best to not embarrass yourself this morning. “Y — yeah. Uh, can I have some?” You gesture at the tub of raspberries.

She pretends to think for a moment, taking slow steps back towards you, until she’s right in front of you — towering over you even more so than she usually does, since you’re still sat down. You look up at her, filled with something not dissimilar to awe. Even in the mornings, when she’s fresh out of bed and still half-asleep, she’s the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen. She places her spare hand on your thigh, with the other still holding the berries, and you think to yourself with absolute certainty that you could die happily in this moment.

“Mmm,” she says thoughtfully. “Beg me.”

Not for the first time in the last twenty-four hours, your jaw drops. You look up at her, pleadingly, not even sure what you’re pleading for. Pleading her to go easy on you? Pleading her to stop? To keep going? But she’s unrelenting.

“Please,” you say eventually, quietly, your voice barely above a whisper. “Please can I have some.”

Almost too quickly for you to process, her lips are pressing against yours. You gasp against her, every single emotion from last night swelling back up, with the added concern that Yelena is in the next room over. But she pulls away after a moment, winking at you as she retreats to her own seat, and as you raise a hand to your lips you realise that in kissing you, she’s left a berry between your lips. She laughs gently when she sees you openly staring at her, and the sound sets your whole body alight, the feeling only amplified by the fact that you’re the cause of her laughter.

Well, you wanted an answer and there’s not many ways to interpret that one.

And so begins your scandalous affair with your best friend’s sister.

[aicademyconsultants]

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Family is the cornerstone of a fulfilling life, and being separated from loved ones can be challenging. If you are an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or eligible New Zealand citizen longing to reunite with your parents, the Parent Visa Subclass 103 is your gateway to bringing them closer to you. At AICademy, we specialize in guiding you through the intricate process of obtaining a Parent Visa Subclass 103, ensuring a smooth and stress-free journey towards family reunification.

What is the Parent Visa Subclass 103?

The Parent Visa Subclass 103 is a permanent residency visa designed for parents of Australian citizens, permanent residents, or eligible New Zealand citizens. This visa allows parents to live in Australia indefinitely, providing them with the opportunity to be closer to their children and grandchildren. With this visa, parents can enjoy the benefits of living in Australia, including access to healthcare, social security, and the ability to apply for Australian citizenship.

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Applying for the Parent Visa Subclass 103 involves several steps, including meeting eligibility criteria, providing necessary documentation, and undergoing health and character assessments. At AICademy, we simplify this process for you. Here’s how we can help:

Eligibility Assessment: We conduct a thorough assessment of your eligibility, ensuring that you meet all the criteria for the Parent Visa Subclass 103.

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Contact AICademy Today

Don’t let distance keep you apart from your loved ones. Take the first step towards family reunification with the Parent Visa Subclass 103. Contact AICademy today for a free consultation and let us help you bring your parents closer to you in Australia. Visit our website or call us at +917594050585 | +61 480 030 229 to learn more.

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[pathwayedu]

https://handyclassified.com/step-by-step-process-to-apply-for-the-804-aged-parent-visa-in-2024

The Aged Parent 804 Visa is valid for permanent residence in Australia with your children. However, the application process can be difficult and inconvenient for some. Professional and experienced support is needed to present the best case.

The process of an 804 aged parent visa can take quite a while, but you still need to know the steps to apply for a visa.

Know More @ https://tinyurl.com/4zwf3zn4

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Reuters, via The Guardian:

A swath of Democratic-led states and civil rights groups have filed the first lawsuits challenging executive orders Donald Trump signed after taking office, including one that seeks to roll back birthright citizenship in the US. A coalition of 22 Democratic-led states along with the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston on Tuesday arguing the Republican president’s effort to end birthright citizenship is a flagrant violation of the US constitution.

That lawsuit followed a pair of similar cases filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, immigrant organizations and an expectant mother in the hours after Trump signed the executive order, marking the first major litigation challenging parts of his agenda since he took office. “State attorneys general have been preparing for illegal actions like this one, and today’s immediate lawsuit sends a clear message to the Trump administration that we will stand up for our residents and their basic constitutional rights,” the New Jersey attorney general, Matthew Platkin, said in a statement. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuits, which were all filed in federal courts in Boston or Concord, New Hampshire, take aim at a central piece of Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, an order directing federal agencies not to recognize US citizenship for children born in the United States to mothers who are in the country illegally or are present temporarily, such as visa holders, and whose fathers are not citizens or lawful permanent residents.

More lawsuits by Democratic-led states and advocacy groups challenging other aspects of Trump’s agenda are expected, with cases already on file challenging the Elon Musk-led, ill-defined “department of government efficiency” and an order the Republican signed weakening job protections for civil servants. Any rulings from judges in Massachusetts and New Hampshire would be reviewed by the Boston-based 1st US circuit court of appeals, whose five active federal judges are all appointees of Democratic presidents, a rarity nationally. The complaints cite the US supreme court’s 1898 ruling in United States v Wong Kim Ark, a decision holding that children born in the United States to non-citizen parents are entitled to US citizenship. If allowed to stand, Trump’s order would mean more than 150,000 children born annually in the United States would be denied for the first time the right to citizenship, according to the office of the Massachusetts attorney general, Andrea Joy Campbell.

22 Democratic AGs, DC, and the city of San Francisco, CA sue over 47’s tyrannical and unconstitutional executive order ending birthright citizenship.

[yourdailykitsch]

Taylor Kitsch Was Sleeping on the Subway Before He Was Cast in 'Friday Night Lights'

Taylor Kitsch, 43, is a Canadian actor best known for his roles in "Friday Night Lights," "Savages" and "American Assassin." He stars in the Netflix Western miniseries "American Primeval," which starts Jan. 9.

Beginning in the fourth grade, I loved talking in front of my grade-school classes. We had public-speaking contests, and I'd get up and tell improvised fictional stories.

Some kids spoke about penguins or polar bears, but I made up funny stories about nightmares. Classes often voted for me as their favorite, sending me on to compete on the assembly stage. If the audience there voted for me, too, off I'd go to compete against other schools.

I was a class clown, always trying to make people laugh. While I had zero interest in drama in school, public speaking planted a seed for acting years later.

My family first lived in Kelowna, British Columbia, but I don't remember much about it. My parents divorced when I was 1. My father, Drew, had been a race-car driver and then worked in Guyana diamond mines before going into construction.

Following my parents' separation, my two older brothers - Brody and Daman - and I lived with my mother, Sue. When I was 5, we moved to Anmore, a rural area north of Vancouver. My mom held a few jobs to pay the bills.

Three years later, my mother had a serious boyfriend, Peter, who was older than her. We moved into a double-wide, ugly blue mobile home with four bedrooms in a trailer park.

The surrounding area was forested, so I often played in the woods with my best friend, Paddy. All those trees and quiet provided me with a sense of calm and wonderment. The woods were an adventure and an escape.

Peter was a gentle soul and taught me to play soccer. When I was 12, he and my mom split up. I was a mess, angry, and not totally understanding. I was emotional when Peter and I had to say goodbye.

I insisted my mom drive me a half-hour to his house so I could spend weekends there. This continued for several months until I was told he'd died.

Peter was a big guy and incredibly athletic. He never yelled, and he taught me it was acceptable for guys to express their feelings. That was a huge help. As a kid, I was so freaking insecure. I didn't know where to put my energy when I felt things.

In high school, I was good in subjects I liked - English and history. The rest was a mystery. At the University of Lethbridge in Albert, someone told me to major in finance. I took a semester of macroeconomics, which was ridiculous for me.

After a year, I left. I was lost. I'd hoped hockey would be my ticket, but an injury at age 20 ended that dream.

Then my mom tricked me into meeting a modeling agent in Vancouver. He sent my pictures to IMG Models in New York. They signed me, and I moved there in 2002. While acting wasn't part of my grand plan, it seemed like a logical offshoot.

I took classes, but I was super cocky at first, which angered my acting coach, Sheila Gray. She kicked me out of class, and said, "Come back when you're ready to listen and study." That was the nudge I needed.

I returned to Sheila a few weeks later and dug in. My passion for acting grew as I uncovered my love of a challenge, leading to self-discovery and belonging. That's when I realized acting was more than just a craft. It was a career.

Most helpful were sheila's classes on improv and scene study. Chris Forberg, my friend and modeling agent who knew I was studying, saw that I'd stuck with it and thought I would make a better actor than model. He offered to introduce me to a few acting managers, and that's how I found Stephanie Simon, who is still my manager.

Though Sheila let me take classes for free, I didn't have a visa so I couldn't work. I lived on friends' couches, slept on the subway and coached clients on nutrition for cash.

Eventually, I went to Barbados and worked construction with my dad for nearly two months before returning to Vancouver. I bought a small car and drove to Los Angeles but had to live in the car. I soon returned to Vancouver again.

In 2005 I auditioned on tape for the TV series "Friday Night Lights" and was cast. The studio got me a visa to work in Austin, Texas, where the series was shot. That was my big break.

Today, I live in a wood-and-steel contemporary house in Bozeman, Mont. I also have a 22-acre property outside of town on top of a mountain that I'm developing into a foundation and a drug-and-alcohol healing retreat for veterans and kids.

Three months ago, one of my brothers was on Facebook and came across a photo of Peter at his 93rd birthday. I was shocked. Just before Christmas, we paid him a surprise visit and stayed for two hours. He was grateful. I left him a card thanking him for his influence on me. And for teaching me about kindness.

Taylor's Hike

"American Primeval"? I play a weathered loner who helps a woman and her son fleeing their past cross the violent West in 1857.

Your dad and mom? He passed last year. My mom lives outside of Vancouver.

Fireplace? It's a long, contemporary, black steel gas model. I turn it on every morning when I have my coffee.

Home splurge? I recently bought a nice Breville Barista coffee machine.

Bozeman too chill? If you're bored up here, it's your fault. I just went on a 7-mile waterfall hike. It helped clear my head after a long stretch on set.

[constantlymisspelled]

The SUPERCOMMANDO CODEX - DRAFT

CONTENTS

Mandalorian Code Interpretation [link is found here]

Strength is Life

Honor is Life

Loyalty is Life

Death is Life

2. Honourable Conduct [link is found here]

Honour in self

Honour in the Community

Honour in the Galaxy

Honour Amongst Clan

Honour in Partnership

Honour in Leadership

Honour in Combat

3. Adoption Law [link is found here]

The Legal Definition of Foundling

Foundling Procedure

Disownment of Parent

Community Adoption

Adoption regarding criminal activities

Adoption regarding marital conditions

Adoption Consent

4. Marriage and Divorce [link is found here]

Spouse Definition

Spousal Privileges

Conditions for Legal Engagement

Consent and Age Restrictions

Conditions for Legal Marriage

Conditions for Legal Divorce

Children, Clan and House Considerations

5. Resolnare [link is found here]

The Six Tennent’s Broader accepted conditions

Way Followers Interpretation

Naasaade Interpretation and Redemption of Vows

Noncombatant Interpretations

The Mandalorian Healer’s Code

The Mandalorian Armourer's Code

Codes recognised in Conjunction

6. Clan and House [link is found here]

Definition of House

Responsibilities of House

Definition of Clan

Responsibilities of Clan

Requirements needed to be declared Alor of Clan

Requirements needed to be declared Alor of House

Requirements needed to be declared a Major House

7. Language Protectorate [link is found here]

Mando’a in Practice

Rights to change, add or remove words

Script usage and recognition in Mandalorian Space

8. The Position of Manda’lor [link is found here]

Requirements needed to be a candidate for Manda’lor

Responsibilities

Oversight

Commanding body

Restrictions, Compliance and Declarations of Misconduct

9. Education and Cultural development [link is found here]

The Education Responsibilities of Clans

The Education responsibilities of Schools and facilities

Freed Re-education programs and foundations

Religious and cultural rights within education systems

Parental rights throughout education

10. Electoral Process [link is found here]

The Court of Houses

The Sector Governors

The System Governors

The Astro Body Governors

District Electoral Members

Electoral Voters

Voting conditions

Overseers of the Ballot

Postal Elections

Voting Eligibility

Right and Responsibility

Conditions for Referendum, Re-election and Hung Parliamentary Votes

11. Court of Law

Family Court

Criminal Justice Court

Court of Appeal

Military Court

Financial and Business Court

Public Courts

12. Responsibility and due process

Parental Responsibility

Personal Responsibility

Political Responsibility

Financial Responsibility

Military Responsibility

Adoption Due Process

Engagement and Marriage Due Process

Divorce and Separation Due Process

Election Eligibility Due Process

Firearms Licensing Due Process

Verdgoten and Adult Graduation Due Process

Election Results Due Process

Parental Disownment Due Process

Clan and House Formation Due Process

13. Foreign interaction and policy

Foreign Ambassador acceptance

Externa; Ambassadors abroad

Foreign Currency and Exchange

Border Security

Digital Security and Programming Policy

Citizenship and Visa Acceptance

14. Employment within and outside of the sector

Legal age and parameters of employment

Contract and procedure for levels of employment

Foreign policy for Mando'ade working abroad

Foreign policy for outsiders working in Mandalore

15. Property and payment

Land ownership and tenancy

Forms of payment accepted in legal contract

Ownership and registration of vehicles

Ownership and registration of Firearms

Ownership and registration of Non-sentient Animals

Copyright, fair trade and artistic license

16. Beskar

Donations to Foundlings

Ownership

Sacred right to wear beskar as armour

Conditions for percentage declared

Rights to mine and export

Religious significance

17. Recognised Mandalorian Sects and Coverts

Traditionalists

Haat Mando’ade

Naasaade

Way Followers

Creed Bound

Silver Children

18. Armour and Weapon Classifications

Military Issue

Military Grade

Civilian Use

Hunter and Mercenary Equipment

Trade and Specialist Equipment

Journeyman, Protectorate

19. Criminal sentencing

Theft

Grievous bodily harm

Assault

Rape

Murder

Manslaughter

Negligence

Criminal Negligence

Medical Malpractice

War Crimes

Demagolkase - War Crimes against children

Sentient Trafficking and experimentation

Financial Misconduct and Tax Evasion

20. Military and Law Enforcement

Military

Mandalorian Protectors

Journeyman Protectors

Home Guard

Manda'yaim Reserve

21. Land Rights and Conservation

Land Ownership

Sale and Redistribution of land

Declaration of Sacred Places

Sector Council Lands, Protectorate Lands, Crown Lands and Stock Routes

Protected Areas

Water Ways

Tenancy, Lodging, and Temporary Accommodations

Public Areas

Squatters' Rights

Sanctioned and unsanctioned terraforming

22. Commerce, Business and Integrity

Currency and Zones

Business Licenses and Legal Procedure

External business practice

Monopoly businesses and Mega Businesses

Banking within the Sector

23. Discrimination [link is found here]

Species

Sex

Religious Interpretation

Language

Ability

24. Closing Statements

Manda'lor Jaster Mereel [link is found here]

The Translator

25. References

Regarding headcanons for Houses; [link is found here]

26. Contacts and Relevant Supervising Personnel of Note

[This post will be altered as I go, and as amendments are made]

[i-mushi]

Cumpounding Debt (Salesman/OFC)

VERY NSFW, unfinshed but 165k of absolute filth. In case anyone wants to start from the beginning again:

“And your parents said they would pay for it.”

Ivy swallowed a larger mouthful of wine than she meant to. He held his glass lazily, eyes razor sharp. “Yes, but there were some problems, sir.”

“About $200,000 in problems,” he said, and Ivy’s cheeks turned red. “And American student loans have interest too, don’t they?” She couldn’t meet his eyes, mortified he knew not just about the debt but the extent of it. She was deep in the hole and not crawling out anytime soon. “Student visas don’t allow you to work either, do they?”

She shook her head mutely. 

“Pity you have no one to confirm you are an upstanding citizen, that is the English, right?” Ivy couldn’t help looking up sharply at that, his smile most definitely a smirk now. He hadn’t touched his wine, the glass dangling in his hand, sex and sin seated on the couch. Ivy sensed the devil offering a deal.

“I don’t,” she admitted warily.

“What would you do with a full visa, Ivy? Would you leave Korea?” He leaned forward, watching her with something behind those eyes.

“No, sir.” She still owed money to the school, and she still couldn’t bring herself to speak to her parents. Her debts would follow her no matter where she went, it hardly mattered what country she was in. At least she’d chosen Korea and she had a friend here.

She waited but he didn’t interrogate her further, his eyes just taking her in. She fought not to squirm on the couch, his visible chest a tempting spot for her gaze. 

“Take off your dress.”

Ivy lowered the glass she’d almost raised to her lips. She looked at him confused.

“What?”

“Tsk, forgetful brat.”

“Sir?”

He nodded meaningfully at her, crossing one ankle over his knee and taking a sip from his glass.

His smile was a challenge, expectation readily apparent. That smug look riled her almost as much as the chaste touches all night. Her skin had been humming, wondering, wanting, and now he just wanted to order her around?

She drained the last of her wine glass.

“Is this part of the job, sir?” Ivy challenged.

He broke out into possibly the first genuine smile Ivy had ever seen on him. “Do you want to pay off your debt?”

“Yes.” She stubbornly left off the sir.

“Then go ahead.”

Chapter 1 under the cut, read the rest on Ao3!

She got the job because Granny K vouched for her.

Ivy didn’t know her as Granny K back then though. She was just the grandmother of Kim Sun-hee, her roommate at the prestigious foreign language department of Sungkyunkwan University, just someone Sun-hee occasionally chatted to on the phone. 

It was all a bit of a mess from start to finish. Ivy had been an international student at the university until she’d gotten a confusing series of phone calls and then some formally stamped letters. As they were in high-minded, legalize-Korean she hadn’t known what they meant, not until the director of the international student program requested her presence.

Her parents hadn’t paid the tuition. They’d taken out student loans in her name, private not federal because she was an international student, and credit card debt to cover her costs. They’d told her she’d had a scholarship, that’s why they’d indulged her dream, even though she should have seen the signs: the lack of interest in the details of her college career, the vague “you’ll do great” cards without any other message, no “are you sure?” questions when she spent Christmas in a different country on the opposite side of the globe.

Her parents had told her it was fine, they’d been saving for her college and she’d pay them back in their old age. Apparently not though, at least not when things started bouncing back and her mother had that DUI and car accident. Now Ivy was thousands of miles away with over $100,000 in student loan debt, not dischargeable even in bankruptcy because her parents had taken it all out in her name to cover their own misdeeds and recklessness. Apparently she also owed the school itself money, since some of those loans hadn’t covered fees and housing, and her parents had promised to pay in installments and hadn’t. The director had told her she wasn’t permitted to leave Korea without either paying off what she owed the school—roughly $50,000—or some guarantee she would.

She’d been too distraught to ask a lot of detail, horrified by the gaping pit she’d been dropped in. Ivy didn’t have a job, she was on a student visa that explicitly denied her the ability to get one. She didn’t have a degree either, being one year from finishing, so getting any work that wasn’t low-paying would be even harder. How could she pay off this debt? How could she look her parents in the eye knowing they’d done this to her without any warning or thought to her future?

Immediately after that meeting had been a blur. Sun-hee had been the only person she could turn to her, too embarrassed to tell the other international students what had happened and too removed from everyone she’d grown up with in America. Sun-hee had been there when she’d come back to their room white as a ghost, shaking and crying. She’d wrapped Ivy up in a blanket, given her hot tea and one of her grandmother’s special cakes she’d been saving for after exams, and let Ivy blubber the whole story out in broken Korean. 

With Sun-hee’s grandmother’s help and Ivy’s meager savings from the spending money she’d been given—all a lie—they rustled up enough to cover her housing the rest of the spring semester, and so long as she didn’t fail all her classes she could keep living in the dorms. But after the semester the school wouldn’t let her continue to take her classes, and she was only allowed to stay even now on the grace of the director and the promise that she’d make the payment installments her parents had not. 

Ivy still didn’t know how she was going to do that, especially with the first one looming three weeks away, but she had the first paper of the year to write and a thousand more tears to cry while she figured it out.

#

She picked up jobs at the tutoring center for English first. Her Korean was passable enough that she could manage even with the younger kids, so Ivy snapped up as many of those jobs as she could. It wasn’t really fun work for her and it paid like crap. The cushier private tutoring gigs Sun-hee texted her ads for wanted proof of her worth: references, glitzy teaching jobs, a bachelor’s degree. Ivy applied to them all, and she even got a few interviews, but only landed one. The boy, also a college student at another upstanding university Ivy was 90% sure he got in because of his parents, seemed mostly to pity her more than anything, especially when her stomach growled during lessons. Her cafeteria money had been taken back toward her debt so she subsisted on cheap ramen, Sun-hee’s generosity, and whatever free food was on campus. 

Every time Han-gyeol looked at her like that when her stomach interrupted their practice conversations she wanted to shake him. He paid her in cash for the lessons and was otherwise fine though, accepting of her stumbles as she learned how to teach him as much as actually teaching him. He could have been brattier given his excessive wealth, but he mostly just seemed so ignorant to her situation. Even so she dreaded going to his lessons.

Ivy paid the first installment by the skin of her teeth. When she started googling whether Korea let people sell plasma she knew her options were getting more and more dire. She was young and blonde, and at least she’d had sex before. The internet told her there was a market for foreign escorts, assuming she could stomach it. 

Her third, maybe fourth, session with Han-gyeol to help him read an American newspaper for class, Ivy spent speculating if someone like him would hire someone like that. He did seem attracted to her, when he wasn’t shooting her pitiful looks. He wasn’t bad looking either, even if his sense of fashion was so fashionable it bordered on weird. Then she saw his father as she left that night, biting her lip with shame as she accepted the rice ball and the wad of cash, him trying to be generous, her trying to escape as fast as possible. His father had a politician’s perpetual frown and heavily wrinkled forehead, stomach bulging a little over his belt, hair graying as he pulled a beer out of the fridge. It was more likely someone who looked like him would want a pretty blonde prostitute to hang off his arm at a skeevy “upscale” bar. Ivy cringed internally even as she thanked Han-gyeol and started the walk home. It took an hour because she didn’t dare waste her little money on a bus ticket, and she passed more than a few questionable clubs and bars, but she didn’t look up and didn’t consider it. There had to be something else out there, any other work.

Then she was offered that job. 

Granny K cleaned houses for a living, despite being 75 years old and looking at least 100. It was the job that put her children through school, though she’d slowed down now so she only worked on Wednesdays. At least that’s what Sun-hee told Ivy, though she hadn’t been able to weasel any details out of her grandmother. Granny K had told Sun-hee she might be able to get Ivy hired at the agency she worked at, and Ivy was so impossibly grateful for even the option she’d actually burst into tears when Sun-hee told her. Since that lesson with Han-gyeol and seeing his father she’d been struggling to pick up more tutoring jobs, especially since she needed to pass her classes too, and she had one more week before her next installment was due. Ivy had been forced to go back to wondering if escort work would pay until Granny K made the offer. If she had to be on her knees to beg for money to get rid of this debt she’d do it, but she’d rather clean a thousand floors on her knees than suck a thousand cocks. 

Sun-hee coordinated their meeting at Granny K’s house, and at Granny’s insistence Sun-hee went to class instead of skipping to help translate. Ivy wished her friend could be here to smooth things over, especially since Granny K was difficult to understand, at least until they got past the pleasantries to talk about the job.

“He is dangerous,” the older woman warned, setting down a bowl of soup in front of Ivy, enunciating every word. 

“Dangerous?”

“Ask no questions, don’t speak about anything you see.”

“Um,” she chuckled nervously. “Granny, maybe I don’t understand but what—“

“Sttt!” She snapped her chopsticks in Ivy’s direction. “No questions!”

From what Ivy could figure out at this meeting was that Granny K wasn’t employed by a cleaning agency at all but a single person, and they'd told her to train up a replacement. It was clear whoever she worked for wanted discretion because they were dangerous, and someone like Sun-hee had all the world at her fingertips. Granny K’s granddaughter wanted to be a lawyer; Ivy wanted to eat more than once a day this week. 

“All you do is clean the house?” she clarified, grateful for the meal even if the thought of this job made her queasy. 

“Every Wednesday,” she nodded. “No questions, no speaking.”

Ivy had a class Wednesday morning, but she wasn’t going to get her degree anyway if she couldn’t pay up by next week, so it hardly mattered. 

“Can I come with you tomorrow?”

#

That first day Ivy could feel her breath coming quicker than usual as Granny K showed her the elevator that led to the penthouse suite. It was a fancy building in a fancy neighborhood somehow only a bus ride away from the school but a million miles in income. They didn’t enter by the front door but the underground garage, which was full of cars that gleamed made by brands Ivy didn’t even recognize except they all made sports cars. 

Granny K knew him only as the Salesman in her ancient flip phone, and she was clear he was to be referred to as “sir” whenever they had to speak, which was very little. He texted Granny K what he needed outside of cleaning, usually picking up dry cleaning or sometimes small errands, and she did it, no questions asked. Ivy desperately wanted to ask if the house cleaning involved blood, bodies, or a sex dungeon, but Granny K’s most important rule she would not bend on: do not ask; do not talk about it; be blind to everything in the Salesman’s business and go home with a fat check.

In another life Ivy wasn’t sure she could live like that, working for a shady man who’s name she didn’t even know. Things had changed drastically.

At least he wasn’t there that first day. He was working as he often was, so Granny K only rarely saw him. As she’d warned Ivy while they got on the bus, the house was almost definitely bugged. Head down, no questions, Granny had told her, and Ivy didn’t dare do otherwise. 

The penthouse was stunning as soon as the elevator doors opened. Sleekly modern, with a hefty grey couch and massive central fireplace backlit by a wall of windows and the Seoul skyline. To the left was a piece of woodwork doubling as a dining table, a long wooden bar with a full set of glassware for every type of drink imaginable, and a massive open kitchen behind it with state of the art cookware. Behind the kitchen at one corner of the building was a balcony shrouded in neatly groomed bushes complete with small hot tub. Indoors, right of the fireplace was a sunken TV set up and couch, then closed doors that led to a corner office, two guest rooms, and bathrooms bigger than Ivy’s dorm room. The master bedroom commanded almost an entire side of the building in windows alone, with a closet big enough for a car, and an attached private gym. The whole apartment was absurdly plush with nearly a 360 degree view of Seoul and so much marble, mahogany, and crystal it should count as a small palace. 

It didn’t even look like it needed to be cleaned, but that was, Ivy supposed, the magic of routine cleaning every week and an occupant who was gone more often than not. She wondered if he hosted parties and if there was extra cleaning for that, or a locked room for the sex dungeon or dead bodies.

Mid-gawp in the foyer, Granny K put a broom in Ivy’s hand and indicated the entranceway. “Clean!”

They cleaned the bathrooms, kitchen, entryway, and living room. The guest rooms got a cursory dusting, as did the expensive looking modern art piece that stood in one of the windows off the living room, and the office was also dusted and vacuumed. Unlike the other rooms in the house this one had a little personality, with two huge computer monitors, a locked set of filing cabinets, and a wall of knickknacks from all over the world, including a whole series of elaborate masks, from Japanese Noh to Italian Carnevale ones.

There was almost nothing to clean in the kitchen except a few mugs and small plates, but they put the sheets in the washer, fluffed the pillows, wiped down the windows, and took out the trash. Granny handled the laundry while Ivy packed suit after suit, some European brands some Korean, in colors from charcoal to slate to midnight black, into dry cleaning bags. It was a lot of work for one person, Ivy had no idea how Granny had managed for so long.

Around 1pm the bell chimed and Ivy jumped at the kitchen counter she’d been scrubbing, but Granny K tsked and went to retrieve a box of groceries, which they packed away neatly into the fridge and cupboards. Ivy only had her hand slapped a few times when she moved to put things in the wrong place.

By 4pm they were done. Everything was swept and shined, polished and placed just so, and the home could have doubled for an interior design magazine. Everything was either modern art, museum worthy, or that weird in between that interior designers thought looked cool but had no actual purpose or didn’t seem designed for humans. It had been stunning at first, but after a long day of work Ivy found she didn’t much like the place.

Two days later Granny K called her to say she’d be paid a quarter of her salary for 6 months to be trained with an advance—already in her bank account despite Ivy not giving Granny K her account details—and then the details could be worked out from there. Apparently she’d passed whatever test the Salesman had put her through.

Creepy as the thought of being watched and the direct deposit she hadn’t authorized was, when she heard the figure from Granny K she had to make her repeat it. It was enough to cover her installment and keep her fed. If she scrimped and still worked tutoring jobs the rest of the week, along with eating ramen and rice most of the time, she’d be at least she’d have enough to rent a small, seedy apartment until she got the full salary. Too many ifs really, but that was a lifeline of hope Ivy desperately needed, no matter how sketchy the man who held it.

#

Ivy didn’t meet the Salesman until her fourth month cleaning the apartment. 

The semester had ended, and Ivy hadn’t been able to get an apartment despite saving up enough for the cheapest listings she could find. No one wanted to rent to a foreigner with no credit history and a student visa on the verge of expiring. She was in talks with the school to change that, but she didn’t exactly have gainful, legal employment. Her direct deposits for the work kept coming every week and there were no taxes, physical checks, or questions, but also no paper trail and not even a name to put on a resume. Right now her gig with Han-gyeol and on-campus tutoring were the only things she could legitimately point to for work experience.

At the moment her pay—with help from the tutoring jobs—was enough to cover a week at a hotel that didn’t advertise itself as a love hotel but almost definitely catered to the hourly spender. It didn’t come with a kitchen, so Ivy had gotten a little portable outdoor grill, a cooler, and bought a bag of ice every other day, and only cried herself to sleep sometimes. Whenever she walked past a homeless person on the street though it reminded her that she wasn’t at that point yet. In two more months her money would quadruple too if she was lucky, and then she would be able to afford something better. With enough money in hand someone would rent to her, she had to hope that.

She and Granny were quite the team now cleaning the fancy apartment. They each had their separate chores, and Ivy was learning the monthly and bimonthly chores too. She almost felt comfortable as she did it, cleaning being a relatively mindless activity. However, this Wednesday was the second time Ivy would be handling the day alone. Granny had another appointment with the physical therapist, but she really needed to talk to a surgeon. Her hips just weren’t what they used to be, and Ivy had insisted she take more breaks or at least do the less physically laborious work, like sitting down to fold the clothes. 

The first time Ivy had gone to clean the apartment alone she’d been a nervous wreck up until she’d realized she was alone, at which point the urge to snoop had become almost unbearable. Only that intimidating quiet and the sense she was most definitely being watched had shut that down. She’d done her job and gotten out.

This time the elevators opened and Ivy carried her bag in, replenishing some of the cleaning supplies, and quietly thinking to herself this was the week to flip the master mattress and change the guest room bedding, not that Ivy had seen any sign of their use. There were no parties or guests at all really, she’d only seen two glasses of wine left in the sink once, but the guest bedrooms had been untouched. Probably the Salesman worked too much, or just never had people home. Maybe because he was a germaphobe or a neat freak—

The clink of a plate in the sink startled her to stillness. Oh fuck…

“Hello,” a man’s voice greeted in Korean, coming around the corner from the kitchen. Ivy sucked in a sharp breath, caught somewhere between instant attraction and utter horror at meeting her employer without Granny K beside her. Of course he had to be stupid wealthy and stupid hot.

“Uh, um—“

“You must be Ivy.” He was still speaking Korean, but her name would have jumped out at her even if she didn’t understand his words. That smile was all charm and good looks, one eye crinkled just slightly more than the other. He stood there in casual sweats, socks, and a grey v-neck sweater holding a coffee mug. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She stumbled over the formal Korean and dipped the most awkward bow she’d ever done, suddenly doubting every rule of the culture she’d ever learned.

“Would you prefer to speak in English?” he asked with an accent, switching languages effortlessly and that smile never wavering. 

“Oh! Only if you’re comfortable,” she said, speaking a little slower just in case he wasn’t totally fluent. She was surprised at all that he spoke some English, though depending on what sort of business he did he might use it. He didn’t look like a hitman or a member of the mafia, but maybe that just made him more dangerous.

His dark eyes swept over her attire critically and Ivy felt a dull red fill her cheeks. She didn’t dress nicely to clean someone’s home obviously, but the small stains on her sweatpants and the slightly tattered cuff of her secondhand sweater made her feel embarrassed. He was so put together and his home so well-heeled she felt every inch the street bum. 

“Hm, I had wondered why Soon-ja recommended an American,” he said still in English.

“I intend to work very hard,” Ivy said formally in Korean, another phrase she’d perfected while trying to find any job that would take her. 

He smiled at her, head tilted slightly. He had to know what a weapon that smile was. “I’m sure you will. Please, continue your work.”

Ivy felt a weird buzz in her head at the way he said that. She stood very still as he walked by her to the office, his hair cut short on the sides and swept as neatly as a model’s, the sweater he wore some fine cashmere that hinted at an athletic frame. She couldn’t help the quick glance at his butt in those designer lounge pants before hurriedly opening the cleaning closet for the broom and pan. If she was lucky that was all she’d ever see of him again. 

#

“You can’t tell me anything?” Sun-hee whined at dinner Friday night, both of them seated in a cozy corner booth of a nice barbecue place to celebrate her big job offer. She was going to work as a secretary at a law firm for a year while she prepped her law school application. “Granny K never says a word but I know it has to be a famous person. Why else would it be so hush-hush?”

“I know, but I really can’t. It’s Granny’s biggest rule.” Without a name Ivy couldn’t google the Salesman, but she was sure he wasn’t an actor or politician. Dangerous was right, and she didn’t want to jeopardize this job. She needed the money, the love hotel she was living at came with a lot of weirdos, and she was just glad that the front desk was basically automated. She didn’t know how she’d look a receptionist in the eye or Sun-hee if she ever found out the dire straights Ivy had been forced into.

“He’ll never know, I swear to never tell a soul.” Sun-hee made a cross over her chest. 

“ ‘Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead’,” Ivy quoted, badly translating it into Korean and grateful the waitress came over with their food right then. 

Sun-hee grumbled good-naturedly, distracted by the spread of meat to barbecue. “At least it’s money. Look, you have a safe place to stay, right? You know I have a single room this summer and could sneak you in.”

“Thanks, Sun-hee, but I’m okay.” It wasn’t the most convincing based on her friend’s expression. Ivy slumped over her drink. “You’ll get in trouble if I’m caught and we can’t do that. I should be full time in two months, I’ll be fine.”

“We can be roommates when I graduate,” Sun-hee offered, smiling brightly. “Then we can get a great place!”

Ivy bit her lip. She was so tempted to live with her friend in some cool high-rise apartment, and they’d go all out decorating it, but Ivy had so much debt the last thing she could afford was a high rent. Even split, the cost of rent in Seoul was no joke, and Sun-hee shouldn’t have to live in a crappy place if she could afford better.

“Let me get all the paperwork done first,” Ivy said instead. “Plus, who knows how things will go with this boy?”

“Oh please, he’s cute but there’s no way I’m moving in with a guy as soon as I graduate!” 

Successfully distracted, Sun-hee launched into a story about her new boyfriend and Ivy swallowed down the jealousy and sadness of how carefree she was. It felt like she spent all of her spare time either tutoring, applying to jobs, or ignoring her growling stomach to sleep, even though less than six months ago she’d been as hopeful and fun as Sun-hee. 

#

The next week Granny couldn’t make it on Wednesday again, her doctor insisting the cleaning job was too much physical labor for her. That meeting with the orthopedic surgeon loomed closer as Ivy rode up the elevator. She was nervous for Granny K and the potential surgery, but also anxious about whether she’d see the Salesman again. Last week had left an uncomfortable feeling in her belly.

Ivy stepped off the elevator and took off her sneakers, glancing up to see the Salesman sitting on the living room couch by the fireplace. He looked up and they made eye contact, her’s wide and surprised, his pleasantly amused. She almost felt a bizarre urge to ask him if he lived here, given Ivy thought she might come here more often than he did.

“Uh, hello, sir,” she greeted awkwardly in English, giving a half bow after freezing like a deer. His piercing gaze fixed her in place before that snake-oil half smile softened his features. No wonder he was so rich, people probably bought whatever he was selling when he looked like that.

“Did you get caught in the rain?” he asked, gesturing to the windows. A few droplets had hit them now and the sky was noticeably grayer. 

“No, I must have just missed it,” she murmured, uncomfortable and unsure about this small talk. 

“Ah, that’s good.”

He kept looking at her like he really had nothing else to do, and maybe he didn’t but Ivy did. Maybe he was off work today or not feeling well, though he looked perfectly fine. What on earth did he do in his downtime? The TV remote had never been moved as long as she’d been cleaning here, and there were no other visible hobbies. That computer setup definitely wasn’t for gaming. 

“Um, I’m going to clean now,” she announced, heading to the closet with the supplies. 

“When you’re done I have another job for you.” 

She paused with the closet door half open. “Another job?”

He looked amused at her, that smile on his lips again. “Finish this one first, won’t you?”

Ivy was thankful for the closet door to hide the burn in her cheeks. It hadn’t really been scolding, but his tone had just the right mix of condescending and knowing that made Ivy feel transparent. When he’d said another job her first thought had been a bonus paycheck, maybe enough to squirrel away for a down payment and a treat for dinner. 

He probably had no idea what it was like to live paycheck to paycheck like she was now or deal with the bureaucratic nightmare that was her visa closing on her like a noose. She may not be in a position to ask for much but she did have needs, and she didn’t need some rich snob to shame her about that.

It took her a few hours to work through the house, the Salesman disappearing into his office mid-morning. He stepped out to make some kind of quick stir-fry for lunch that smelled wonderful and forced Ivy to spend extra time cleaning the master shower so he couldn’t hear her stomach grumble. Normally Ivy paused to stuff a rice ball or some other convenience store snack into her mouth but her stomach was all twisted up today and her egg salad sandwich paled to whatever home cooking he was doing. She wondered if he cleaned up the pots himself and that’s why they were never in the sink for her and Granny K to scrub.

He eventually settled back down on the couch with a book, and Ivy had to keep crisscrossing the living room for supplies, half her mind on him sitting there. He wasn’t doing anything, she chastised herself, so why couldn’t she stop stealing looks? She tried to ignore him but he might as well have loomed as large as Michaelangelo’s David in the room: big, beautiful, and staring. He watched her with that same vaguely curious smile, eyes following her every movement even when she was sure he was looking at his book. She skipped vacuuming the living and dining rooms and was almost grateful to be done wiping the kitchen counters down, one of the last chores. 

She may have dragged it out a bit, but eventually she had to carry a bucket of sponges and rags back to the closet, the first signal the shift was done. What was the other job? Did she need to ask or would he say something? What could it possibly involve? She should have asked Granny K more details about those side jobs she’d done.

“How is your Korean?” he asked in the language, closing the book in his lap to look at her with expectant curiosity. 

Ivy’s free hand was outstretched for the cleaning closet door, the other holding her bucket of supplies. “Um, I am still learning all the time,” she said hesitantly. When she dared to meet his eyes his eyebrow was slightly raised. Ivy felt unaccountably unnerved by that look. “I can understand more than I can speak.”

His face broke into a smile and the small wrinkles at his mouth and the crinkling of his eyes were unfairly beautiful. “That is the way of the learner. Would you like to learn about the new job?”

Ivy squeezed the handle of the bucket. “Yes please.”

His smile got a little fuller at that. “I am going to a formal dinner and need a date.” 

“A date?” Surely she hadn’t heard that right. 

He tilted his head and quirked his lips, and then his eyes ran over Ivy slowly, undressing her. It shouldn’t have been hot, but Ivy felt a shudder run down her spine just the same. No one had ever looked at her like that before.

“Yes. I think you’ll look very good.”

Her cheeks betrayed her, flushing red. There was no way he didn’t know his effect on women. His smile became a smirk and he nodded his head at the garment bag hanging from a hook over the front closet door that she hadn’t even noticed, so consumed with cleaning under his watchful gaze. “Try it on.”

Ivy hesitated, but he waited patiently, like a cat waiting for the mouse to creep out of its hole. She put away the bucket and went over to the other closet, unzipping the bag to reveal a black dress inside with sheer, ruched sleeves. It was hard to get a sense of the style but she saw heels also tucked into a front pocket. There was no label, but considering the rest of his home this probably wasn’t cheap.

“Use the guest room to shower and get ready,” he instructed. “You have three hours.”

Ivy zipped the garment bag back up slowly, so many questions flying through her head she didn’t even know where to start. This was… was he implying…? Or was it some foreigner thing? Did he want her to listen in on something? Spy or prostitute?

She was thinking too much and he knew it. She heard the soft snap of his book shutting and then the rustle of clothes as came around the couch. 

“You need this work, Ivy,” he reminded her in English, coming so close she could smell his cologne and natural musk. He took the garment bag off its hook and handed it to her. “You’re a quick learner, otherwise you wouldn’t be so successful in college.” Her eyes went wide as he tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, acting so familiar and so unperturbed by it. “Now go get ready.”

She knew the Salesman had done some kind of background check before hiring, but it was alarming how he knew such personal details. He had to know about her debt, didn’t he? What about the visa difficulties? Did he know where she was living right now? Shame and horror mixed together noxiously in her throat as Ivy shut the guest room door behind her, garment bag in hand. And what had that been with her hair? Her cheek burned where his palm had barely brushed it. A man like that could have anyone; she had to be reading into it too much because she hadn’t had sex or felt remotely interested since her last boyfriend, before all this horror had started. 

Actually, why did he need her for a date? If anyone could hire a foreigner escort it was him, or even just ask a model. Whatever the Salesman was doing with this dinner Ivy had a bad feeling about it. He was clearly using her because she needed the money, as he’d said, but there had to be an ulterior motive. 

She’d already taken the dress though, and she fully expected it would fit well, so it was really too late to say no to this dinner. If she walked out of the apartment right now she’d be out of the job that paid for practically everything she had right now, and she’d be back to square one. She had enough to cover a week more at the hotel before she’d be begging Sun-hee and Granny K for a place to stay, and then it would be the streets. Either that or show up at the embassy and risk being caught in the middle of a political or diplomatic incident—or more likely thrown in Korean jail. 

That thought got her feet moving. Ivy stepped into the familiar bathroom and opened the drawers, finding what she’d always known was in them because once a month she dusted them: shampoo, conditioner, hair dryer, curling irons, and, to her surprise, a drawer of makeup and a waxing and shaving kit. That hadn’t been there before.

He’d been planning this obviously, but he’d waited until the night of the event to tell her. Red flag, as though everything else about him wasn’t.

Ivy had never gotten to use the shower before though she’d cleaned it a million times, so that was exciting, and three hours gave her some time. She washed her hair and body with the expensive shampoo and then spent most of her time waxing her legs and, because she was the level of bush that was the stubbly time between trimmed and shaved, she shaved her vulva too. Feeling clean and soft and a little readier to tackle the evening, she stepped out with one of the super fluffy towels she’d washed but never used before, only to realize she had a small dilemma. 

Her bra was a sports bra because cleaning did sometimes get to be sweaty work, but even more importantly was her underwear. 

She was freshly showered so she didn’t want to put back on the dirty underwear she’d worn all day, and it was one of her “cute”, fun purchases before she’d known how much debt she was in. This pair was a boy brief style with Pikachu on them, which absolutely did not match the green and black sports bra she was wearing or the formal dinner she would be attending. The drawers in this guest room were all empty, but maybe…

Ivy unzipped the garment bag and took the dress out this time. A form-fitting, short black dress of expensive material, it had sheer, bunched up sleeves and a low neckline with a heart-shaped design. The shoes were four-inch high heels with red bottoms, her size of course. An investigation of the other pockets turned up nothing though. 

Okay, one problem at a time, she thought. Get ready first.

Ivy blowdried her hair, put in a little product to make it bounce, and, after a little experimentation, did her makeup as well as she could. She didn’t have any jewelry, but considering the cut of the dress no one would be looking at that anyway.

When she stepped into it Ivy couldn’t help the burst of excitement as she pulled the tight dress on, not quite able to zip the back up. Even so it cinched at her waist and accentuated the shape of her hips, but it sat very high up on her thighs. Ivy was a little alarmed how short it was, especially how much it rode up when she was sitting. With the low neckline and wide shoulders she couldn’t have worn a regular bra anyway. As it were, she had to adjust her boobs a bit so she didn’t flash a nipple, the center v of the cut dipping quite low. Ivy had never worn anything like it, but when she crossed her legs to test the length she could feel the wetness between them. She was soft as a dove there too, and without panties this was going to be a little too hot. 

Ivy checked every drawer in the room and bathroom again but found nothing, and rechecking the garment bag too also came up empty-handed. She either wore her old panties or went without.

Biting her lip in the mirror, Ivy slipped on the black high heels, tightened the straps, couldn’t believe how outrageously comfortable a pair of heels could be, and said fuck it to underwear. If she was going to sleep with him anyway might as well skip the embarrassment for the last night of high-rolling fun she’d probably ever have.

#

He was waiting in the front hall adjusting his cuffs when Ivy stepped out just shy of three hours later. It had seemed generous at the time, but she’d gone back and forth over her hair and makeup for a good chunk of it, not to mention fretting over the dress itself. His head came up slowly, gaze sharp and then molten hot as he ran it over her body. “You look beautiful.”

Ivy flushed. He looked absurdly good too in a three-piece suit in a dark black that accentuated the effortless cut of his hair and the lines of his fine jaw and cheekbones. The low-grade arousal that came from a fresh shave was not helped by the look of the Salesman. This was going to be a long night. 

“Um, there is a button and a zipper,” she murmured, pointing to her back. He moved immediately, gliding over the floor to sweep her hair aside and pull the zipper up tight, the smell of him making her dizzy as he buttoned her up. One hand just skated the curve of her waist as he stepped back. 

“Ready?”

#

He drove a Maserati of course, and Ivy wondered how many of the cars in the garage were his. The dinner was at the top floor of some outrageously stunning hotel somewhere in Seoul. She had no idea what the name of the place was, overwhelmed by the valet, the doorman looking at her legs in appreciation, and the Salesman’s arm snaking around her waist to hold her tight to his side as they walked in.

Ivy didn’t know a single face or remember a single thing from the night except that she ate well, he cut her off after two glasses of wine, and she wasn’t the only one staring at him all night. Sometimes his hand was on her low back or hip, guiding her around, thumb occasionally rubbing her side, chatting in fast, business-jargon Korean to whoever these wealthy people were. Ivy wasn’t expected to say anything beyond a hello or two in English, a doll on his arm, but his hand burned where he touched her. Every tilt of his head that moved a lock of hair, every smile and smirk, those appraising eyes that looked at her every now and then, it made it hard to focus on everything around her.

She escaped once to the bathroom where one of the woman there had made some offhand comment about only a few good-looking men here to her friend. Ivy felt a bizarre possessiveness and pride to be on the arm of the one of those few, even though he was twisting her’s to be here. She didn’t want to feel that way, she wanted to get this night over with, ease the craving between her legs and sort through her confusing feelings in the morning. When a different drunk women left without her glass of whiskey Ivy downed it in front of the mirror. If she was fucked up in the head at least she could blame the alcohol tonight. 

When she’d stepped back out, whiskey still burning her tongue, he’d been like a beacon in the crowded room, pulling her in while others stared. When she sat down the Salesman didn’t seem to notice, turning to answer someone across the table, but his hand slipped over her thigh, hot against her bare skin. Ivy stiffened a moment, surprised, then relaxed. Her knees were firmly together only because her pussy was wet and tingled and the tight cut of this dress made spreading her legs uncomfortable anyway. The Salesman’s hand didn’t move, but Ivy did notice the man directly across from her was staring, his eyes firmly fixed where the dress began on her breasts, bare centimeters from her nipples. She glanced at the Salesman who didn’t look her way.

Through dessert his hand stayed in place, and as the night wound down and people began to say their goodbyes the Salesman stood up, offering Ivy the hand that had been on her thigh. It was warm and surprisingly soft, and he tugged her to his side, arm sliding around her waist. He led her over to the front table and offered their thanks to the host, some older man who grunted in incomprehensible Korean. Then the Salesman guided her out the door, squeezing her hip. 

They didn’t speak as they waited for the valet to bring their car around, too many others from the dinner around still chatting with each other, though with noticeable slurring or over-enthusiastic tones. If he was touched by alcohol at all Ivy couldn’t guess, he’d nursed drinks all night and she wasn’t sure he’d sipped a single one. When his Maserati pulled up the Salesman opened the door for her. 

She got in, glad his body blocked the possible flashing as the dress rode up nearly to her hips. His teeth were white in the dark before the door shut, and then he got in on the other side.

“You were perfect tonight,” he complimented as he pulled the car away from the curb. 

Ivy blushed, trying to even her breathing out. “Thank you. Um, what was this?”

“A dinner to close a deal,” he said, which explained almost nothing. “Did you have fun?”

Fun? Half of her attention all night had been on not rubbing her thighs together, having spent the evening on edge, and the wine and atmosphere had only made it worse. Now they were back in the car alone, heading to his apartment. Fun wasn’t how she would have described it. Aggravating? Hot? A blur of arousal and confusion?

“Yes.”

He glanced at her as he stopped for a signal, the glow of the late night lights throwing his handsome face in sharp relief. He seemed to see something in Ivy’s expression because he started to smirk at her, eyes sliding down her body before he was pulled away by the light change.

“Did you like the dress?”

“Yes.”

“I think you’re forgetting something,” he murmured, expression still that aggravatingly teasing look even as he drove. 

Ivy immediately thought of her lack of panties and pressed her thighs tighter together. Gods she hope he couldn’t smell how wet she was.

“What?”

“Sir,” he said silkily, and Ivy blinked, startled to realize she’d forgotten that rule—and that he wasn’t talking about her panties. 

“Yes, sir?”

“Good girl.”

Fuck, forget the smell, she was going to leave a wet spot on the leather seat. 

#

The rest of the drive was quiet, but the smell of his cologne and the casual closeness of sitting in the car together made Ivy hyper aware of every breath she took. Her foot itched but she didn’t dare move, playing the velvety way he’d said “good girl” and the pleasant jolt that had shot through her on repeat in her head. She’d never felt like this about a man before, intoxicated by his attention.

Despite time seeming to ooze by with every breath they were pulling into the underground garage before she realized how far they’d driven. The Salesman parked seamlessly into a space between a Porsche and a Land Rover then turned off the engine. He didn’t say a word as he got out, but Ivy had barely opened the door before he was there, holding it for her. 

“What are you thinking?” he asked, his look saying he had some idea already.

The empty space between her legs felt more obvious than ever as Ivy followed him out from between the cars to the elevator. “Um, it’s late, I don’t know what time the buses stop.”

He looked down at her, still taller despite her four inch heels. His fingers stroked over her hair for a moment before he wrapped a fistful and gently but forcibly tugged. A startled gasp escaped Ivy as the sensation shot down to her cunt and his smile was positively wicked. “I won’t repeat myself again.”

“Sorry sir,” she said quickly, and he released her hair, some of the golden strands sliding through his fingers slowly as he pulled his hand away.

“I have two guest rooms,” he reminded her, “and I’m the one keeping you out late.”

“This is part of the job, sir,” she murmured, not very convincingly. The elevator chimed and the doors soundlessly opened. She stepped in but he waited a beat, standing outside.

“Mm, and you are a hard worker, aren’t you?”

He didn’t look at her in the elevator as it rode up and up, but the tension between them was overwhelming. He looked so unbothered, not even shifting his weight, while Ivy swore she could feel her pulse in between her legs.

The elevator was too efficient. They were at his floor before Ivy could figure out what to say in response, and then the Salesman was striding out into his home, toeing off his expensive shoes and peeling off his jacket. It was unnecessarily sexy how he tossed the jacket aside and rolled up his sleeves, still in the matching vest, on his way to the liquor cabinet, part of the bar that separated the living room from the kitchen. 

“Wine?” he called as Ivy unstrapped her heels and placed them by the exit. Her old, beat up sneakers still sat there, appallingly out of place. 

“Sir?” 

He was smiling when she rounded the corner, pulling down two dangling wine glasses Ivy had hand-cleaned at some point. Had he boozed and smiled at another woman here just like this, the way he was with her? Had she washed those glasses out and made his bed without realizing someone else had lain in those sheets?

Those were ugly thoughts that she tried to banish as he expertly popped the cork and poured out generous glasses. He offered one to her, and the way he smiled made her unsure if he was happy or just enjoyed watching the fly fall into his web. 

“To a successful night.”

“Geonbae,” Ivy murmured, hating the way her heart jumped at his pleased smile as she tapped her glass to his with the Korean word for cheers. He’s probably a monster, she told herself even as she sipped wine that probably cost as much as her rent, don’t let him talk you into anything you don’t want.

But he’d make it so good… the insidious voice in her head said, reminding her that she was standing with this handsome man without a bra or panty on. This dress sat so high on her thighs that if one of his long fingers dipped beneath it he’d know immediately that not only was she bare, she was wet.

“—Taste?”

“Hm?” Ivy asked, almost choking on the wine. She hadn’t fully understood whatever he’d said in Korean except the last word. Taste what? Her?

“Do you like the wine?” he corrected in English, looking amused as she looked up at him with wide eyes.

“Oh yes.” There was a beat of silence, his gaze so heavily on her. “Sir.”

He relaxed, setting his glass down and popping the buttons on the vest of his three-piece suit and shedding it, dropping it on the console carelessly. He only undid the top buttons of the white shirt beneath, exposing creamy smooth skin.

“When did you move to Korea?” he asked, walking to the couches Ivy had cleaned a thousand times and been too afraid to sit on. She’d always eaten her lunch standing in the kitchen like the servant she was. 

“Two years ago.”

“For university?”

He sat down like he owned it, legs spread, arm over the top of the couch, watching her as she tried to sit primly and failed because this dress was so tight and so short. The U-shape of the couch let them face each other over a coffee table. 

“Yes, sir.”

“And your parents said they would pay for it.”

Ivy swallowed a larger mouthful of wine than she meant to. He held his glass lazily, eyes razor sharp. “Yes, but there were some problems, sir.”

“About $200,000 in problems,” he said, and Ivy’s cheeks turned red. “And American student loans have interest too, don’t they?” She couldn’t meet his eyes, mortified he knew not just about the debt but the extent of it. She was deep in the hole and not crawling out anytime soon. “Student visas don’t allow you to work either, do they?”

She shook her head mutely. 

“Pity you have no one to confirm you are an upstanding citizen, that is the English, right?” Ivy couldn’t help looking up sharply at that, his smile most definitely a smirk now. He hadn’t touched his wine, the glass dangling in his hand, sex and sin seated on the couch. Ivy sensed the devil offering a deal.

“I don’t,” she admitted warily.

“What would you do with a full visa, Ivy? Would you leave Korea?” He leaned forward, watching her with something behind those eyes.

“No, sir.” She still owed money to the school, and she still couldn’t bring herself to speak to her parents. Her debts would follow her no matter where she went, it hardly mattered what country she was in. At least she’d chosen Korea and she had a friend here.

She waited but he didn’t interrogate her further, his eyes just taking her in. She fought not to squirm on the couch, his visible chest a tempting spot for her gaze. 

“Take off your dress.”

Ivy lowered the glass she’d almost raised to her lips. She looked at him confused.

“What?”

“Tsk, forgetful brat.”

“Sir?”

He nodded meaningfully at her, crossing one ankle over his knee and taking a sip from his glass.

His smile was a challenge, expectation readily apparent. That smug look riled her almost as much as the chaste touches all night. Her skin had been humming, wondering, wanting, and now he just wanted to order her around?

She drained the last of her wine glass.

“Is this part of the job, sir?” Ivy challenged.

He broke out into possibly the first genuine smile Ivy had ever seen on him. “Do you want to pay off your debt?”

“Yes.” She stubbornly left off the sir.

“Then go ahead.”

She opened her mouth, couldn’t find a way to phrase the million thoughts in her head, and shut it. His smile slowly widened.

“If you’d rather just clean this apartment for a pittance that’s fine.” He waved an arm to encompass the huge, cold space. “But if you’d like to pay off your debt, get your visa, and make something of yourself eventually, well…” He looked meaningfully at her and then gestured at the floor. 

Take off the dress, get on your knees, and beg.

He was so unbearably smug it made Ivy angry, and the wine stoked the fire in her belly. “I want some ground rules,” she told him in English, and he laughed, eyes closed, head back, amused. 

“I’ll negotiate,” he acquiesced, “but consider this an interview.”

It wasn’t much but she felt a little less manipulated if there was a discussion, and frankly she was still wet between the thighs. Ivy set her glass a little too firmly down on the coffee table and stood up. “Will you unzip me, sir?”

He sobered from his laughter quickly, lidded gaze watching as she walked over, turning around when she reached him. His hands on her waist pulled her down beside him to undo the top button and lower the zipper of her dress. 

From neck to sacrum he exposed her bare back, the lack of bra immediately obvious, the lack of panties not clear until Ivy was stepping out of the dress entirely. She couldn’t see his expression since he was behind her, but his hands immediately cupped her bare hips, this time tugging her back so she was seated on his lap. He might have most of the power here, but she did have a chip on this bargaining table.

His thumbs caressed her hips and then the tops of her thighs, exploring the naked, unexpected terrain, as Ivy luxuriated backward. She felt ridiculous uninhibited, nude in an all-but-stranger’s lap, his expensive clothes rubbing pleasantly against her skin. 

“All night like this? What a little whore you are,” he murmured, thumb finally reaching the softness of her totally bare mound. It didn’t take more than a nudge to coax her legs apart, her head falling back on to his shoulder. 

“You forgot something sir,” she repeated, and he laughed, low and sexy, as his other hand cupped her breast. He tweaked her nipple as his lips trailed up her throat, and Ivy groaned, wishing he’d do more. She’d been worked up all night, and at this point had sold her soul, so at least she’d get a nice glass of wine and an orgasm for her trouble. 

When she made to touch herself or perhaps even reach back and touch his undoubtedly silky soft hair, he made a tsking sound. 

“Needy thing, you get what you want? I get what I want. And this body is mine.” He suddenly cupped her bare sex, startling a soft moan from her. “Now get on your knees.” The fingers that had been holding her cunt retreated, reminding Ivy that this wasn’t about her pleasure, she was merely a vessel for his. The thought shouldn’t have made parts of her throb but it did. 

She stood up slowly then turned and sank to her knees. The Salesman’s eyes were all black, pupils blown, but his hair was still neatly parted, and her fingers itched to mess it up. He looked at Ivy with possession and expectation, his cock tenting his fine suit pants obscenely. 

Some wanton sexual beast had taken over her, the same one that had been disappointed by her partners in the past. She opened his fly and tugged down his black pants to find silk boxer briefs and a considerable erection.

Whoever had said South Korean men were lacking did not average in the Salesman. Flushed and heavy with arousal with a darker head filling with blood, Ivy actually hesitated at the sight of him. She’d only given a few blow-jobs in her life and never one that mattered so much, especially to someone with such high expectations. She took him in her grip but paused, assessing where to start. 

“Go on,” he instructed, tucking a stray hair behind her ear, like he had earlier, out of place in such a lewd act. “Have you done this before?”

“I have,” Ivy said defiantly, squaring her shoulders. He hummed lowly, clearly amused, but didn’t say more, letting her figure out her way from here. 

She ended up licking first, starting at the slit then around the soft head, discovering his taste and texture for herself slowly. She enjoyed the soft hitches in breath and the subtle thrusts of his hips when she hit a particularly spot just right. It was difficult though, having to be mindful of her teeth, mind on what her tongue was doing, jaw aching and drool starting to escape her. She tried to take him deeper and almost gagged. When she pulled back to catch her breath he was sipping wine, as though her efforts were barely holding his attention.

Nervous now, Ivy returned to his length, toying with the salty precum of his slit, pleased to hear the clink of the glass on the table at that. Her hand worked over the length she couldn’t easily suckle or swallow as she slurped around him, his knees pressed against her shoulders, breathing in his unique scent of cologne and clean sweat. She was unsure how to make this better or what to change until his hand landed on her head, tightening almost to the point of pain in her hair. 

“Breathe through your nose,” he instructed, and when she obligingly took a breath he thrust up, pushing his length deeper into her mouth. Ivy jerked, surprised, but he grunted, and squeezed the back of her head, holding her in place. “Relax your throat, hollow your cheeks, that’s a good girl.” On his next thrust she choked, sputtered, and he waited another moment before pulling back, then thrusting again. The tip of him hit the back of her throat and she breathed out harshly before sucking in air. It took her a bit to figure out his rhythm and how to breathe, finally tentatively licking at his tip when he drew back.

His next few thrusts went deeper and then he started to speed up, using her mouth, uncaring of the tears escaping the corners of her eyes or the tight grip on her hair. “That’s it pet, such an eager fuck toy. Here I thought I’d have to make an effort for you, and yet you didn’t wear a thing to dinner under that dress, did you? Should have made you cum on my fingers while Jin Sun-heon watched across the table. Were you wet then? Are you wet now?”

Ivy groaned because somehow she was, even though her throat felt raw and she literally choked with each slam of his hips. Her mouth was overfull of him, the haze of the discomfort from her knees to her scalp sharpening the edge of pleasure he’d been honing all evening. 

He jerked his hips a final time and pulled back, a splatter of salty bitterness hitting her tongue and cheek before the rest hit the top of her bare breasts. He worked his cock in quick, efficient movements as the last weak spurts escaped, watching her as she unconsciously licked her lips clean.  

Ivy’s breath was rough, her throat and mouth sore, eyes huge as her employer stared at her, his mouth slightly open, cheeks warm, and the hottest look in a man’s eye she’d ever seen. 

“Stand up, pet,” he instructed, and Ivy barely registered the words, just staring at the sheer lust he was made of in that moment. She snapped to awareness when he grabbed her nipple cruelly and twisted. “Stand up.”

She did, and he wrapped one big hand around her left thigh and pulled it beside him on the couch, so she was awkwardly half-standing half-astride him. It opened her pussy lips enough that his inspecting hand came back wet. “You’re soaking, slut,” he commented, thumb lazily swiping at her clit to make her jump. “I should have you ride the corner of my coffee table for that sloppy blow-job,” he murmured, sending a jolt through her at the image. “But you have to learn somewhere,” he continued, petting her pussy casually, thumbs spreading her lips obscenely and then rubbing up her slit. Ivy desperately wanted to grab her own breasts or something, give herself some kind of contact beyond his fleeting, assessing touch. Her legs were trembling as she stood there for his inspection.

Two fingers unexpectedly slid into her soaking depths, and Ivy cried out, almost losing her balance. She grabbed his shoulder and he bit at her breast, a sharp pain that he soothed with licks. She couldn’t stand back up with the way his fingers thrust into her, thumb rolling her clit, and she was unable to stop rutting his hand. When he slapped her ass the sound resounding through the room.

“Oh!” she yelped, startled and impossibly more aroused.

“Do you want to come?” he asked, looking into her desperate eyes, his own hair finally tousled, so boyish with the face of the devil. “Beg me.”

“Please,” she tried, only to be slapped again, her foot on the ground trembling. His hands inside her found that delicate, sensitive spot and rubbed mercilessly, Ivy’s knees almost giving way. He spanked her ass again and she moaned. 

“Please what?” He sucked her nipple into his mouth, worrying the bud with his tongue. Ivy’s leg gave way and her other knee hit the couch. He tutted, pulling his fingers free until he wasn’t touching any of her at all, and Ivy couldn’t stand it. She reached for him and he batted her hand away. 

“Desperate, aren’t you? For such a little whore you are so easy, pet.” His voice was like sin, chocolatey and soft and dangerous, oh so dangerous. “Has anyone touched you like this?”

Ivy shook her head furiously, her cunt so empty it nearly hurt. The sting of his slap again felt so good, and she barely twitched, bliss so close to mind.

“Liar.” He sounded affectionate though, indulging, as his hand remained on her backside, caressing the flaming skin. She arched her back, breasts jutting up as she groaned. “You’ve never had it this good, never had someone give a cocksleeve like you what she needs,” he crooned. “I’ll make it good, love, just ask.”

“Please…”

His lips brushed the skin of her breast lightly, not enough, and his hand simply held her there. She felt the burst of his breath as he laughed when her hips canted forward instinctively, searching for his touch, her hands squeezing his shoulders. Ivy could feel her pussy clench on nothing. Gods, she never been so turned on her life, everywhere aching for him, so close to an impossible edge.

“Please sir, I need to come, please, let me come. Make me come, sir.” It didn’t feel degrading to Ivy as she blurted out the words, it almost felt uplifting, asking for what she needed. His hand was there immediately, fingers tracing the seam of her lips, shifting the hood of her clitoris aside to play with the bud.

“Good girl,” he praised as he sunk three fingers inside her, smirk widening as Ivy keened. The Salesman rewarded her with their first kiss, his lips caressing and soft, tongue tangling deeply with her’s. Ivy wanted to devour him but it was hard to focus when she was so overwhelmed with sensation. His hand was buried inside her, pumping deep, while his other held her hair pulled tight, his mouth ravaging her’s. 

He drove the breath from Ivy’s lungs, fingers pounding up and into her, hitting that spot deep inside while his thumb caught her clit. Her breasts were bouncing as she rode his hand, utterly nude while he sat fully dressed on his couch, curtains wide open, and it was too much, the whole night has been too much, and Ivy sobbed as she hit her peak. She shook as his fingers rolled and rubbed her clit, pressing mercilessly inside her as she came. 

“Good girl, sweet whore, that’s my slut,” he was whispering as Ivy swam back into the real world, slumped against him and breathing hard, her thighs still quivering slightly.

When she opened her eyes he was looking at her with indulgence, and Ivy was too exhausted to fight the rush of pleasure at how satisfied he looked. 

“Take this suit to the dry cleaner tomorrow,” he told her, caressing her cheek. “You got it all wet, pet.”

Ivy was sure of that, dripping wet and shaking from what he’d done to her. He kissed her softly, almost lovingly, hands trailing over her cum-splattered body. She hummed against his mouth, pleasure-drunk and exhausted, the wine and the stress earlier tonight capping it off. 

It took a moment to register that she was being picked up in a princess carry, head lolling back on to his shoulder. Ivy barely recognized the hallway or the bed, only waking up a bit more as the Salesman pulled the blankets up, the ones she’d cleaned and made up the bed with earlier that day. 

“Sleep,” he murmured, smiling face the last thing she saw before she drifted off to sleep.

#

The next morning should have been a harsh awakening, one filled with a horrible awareness of what she’d done, but Ivy just felt good.

God, she hadn’t actually had good sex like that in, well, ever. She’d also slept like a rock on a decent bed for the first time in a long time. It truly took her a moment to realize she still smelled like semen, she was naked, she was in her employer’s guest room, and breakfast was set up on a tray by the bed. The clock told her she’d slept late, almost past 10am. 

A small note sat next to the plate of toast, a bowl of kimchi, and a smaller, covered one with rice and a fried egg on top, along with a covered mug of tea. In neat Korean characters Ivy read: “A reward for last night.”

Reward? she sounded out the word several times, trying to figure out his meaning. Was this breakfast a reward? Or would she find something else when she left the guest room? How long could she linger?

No matter what Ivy wasn’t leaving without a shower and a fresh change of clothes. She found a new set of stylish jeans and a light shirt in the bathroom, complete with a lacy pair of red lingerie and a matching bra. She hadn’t heard him come in and leave any of this, which was a bit scary.

The shower cleaned up the tacky spend left on her, and Ivy had a weird jolt in her stomach when she touched it. Shouldn’t she feel dirty? Used? She’d just whored herself out to “interview” for a full-time position as what? His personal escort and plaything? Why couldn’t she get properly mad at him for coercing her to have sex with him, calling her degrading things, and taking advantage of her situation? Was she that depraved?

How was she ever going to enjoy regular sex again? 

The bra and panties were lacy and a thong, and wearing them under such regular clothes felt like an intimate secret known only to her and him. None of the clothes had tags on it but it was still her size, and she wondered if he’d gone to a shop and gotten these himself or had someone else on his payroll do it. A secretary? Maybe a courier delivered them?

Ivy brushed out her hair, fixed her makeup, and quickly ate the breakfast despite it being cold. She even found her phone charging beside the bed after she’d left it in the foyer last night, having no place to carry it while at the dinner.

There were no missed calls or messages when she turned it on, just a news alert about train delays. She refused to be disappointed, at least until her calendar reminder pinged, telling her she was about to be late for her next lesson with Han-gyeol.

Ivy bit her lip. She couldn’t get across town to Han-gyeol’s home in time, and the last thing she wanted to see was his face anyway. That fratty, well-off kid with no sense who had paid her in cash while staring at the hollows of her cheeks hungrily. He had no common sense but he meant well, though he had no idea how to do well. He was a boy in comparison to the Salesman, and Ivy just wanted to go home and process what she’d signed up for last night.

She texted Han-gyeol: I can’t make today, I have a fever.

Please take care of yourself, he responded. Ivy almost expected another message, maybe about making up the lesson or her fee, but he didn’t say anything.

Done with breakfast and dressed, Ivy looked at the rumpled, dirty bed sheets. Should she wash them? She wasn’t technically on the clock, or was she? If she left them she’d have to do it next Wednesday anyway. 

She stripped the bed and carried the sheets out almost like a shield, nervous about what he would say or do when she saw him. Would he act like it was nothing? Expect weekly repeats? But the apartment was empty and quiet, his bedroom door ajar, sheets rumpled, no sounds in the kitchen or office. He must have already left. 

Thank god. Her nerves could only handle so much. Ivy put the laundry in, tidied up the glasses from last night and the… pan he’d fried the egg in. She’d never seen that before, and she felt touched by it even though frying an egg was hardly impressive. He could well have given her nothing except the boot, so to speak, or even just ordered something in.

While the laundry ran she made up the guest room bed again and then his, lingering an extra moment in his room. His scent here was nice, and now she knew it wasn’t just expensive cologne but also his shampoo and something else entirely him. 

The sheets were moved to the drier as Ivy gathered his suit together for the dry cleaners, pausing in the foyer to get the jacket and vest parts, only to see her black dress there too. Should that be cleaned? She’d likely never wear it again but it shouldn’t be put away dirty. Figuring he could afford one more thing on his dry cleaning bill, Ivy put both outfits in the bag. Only when she was done with everything, washed sheets folded and lights off, putting her ratty shoes on after she’d put away the heels in the shoe closet, did her phone chirp with an alert.

New deposit! 

Ivy opened the email, eyes widening at the number. That was… that was more than she made in two weeks cleaning this apartment. She didn’t need to make up Han-gyeol’s appointment with a paycheck like that. Shit, she’d have the downpayment soon enough on a new place at this rate. 

Maybe this was the reward that she’d earned with her body last night, she thought as the elevator closed on the apartment and the events of the last 24hrs. Finally Ivy started to feel some disgust with herself. She wanted to ask him what the night had meant, what he’d been thinking, and… did he want to do it again? 

#

The first thing Ivy did with her bonus was buy steak. She hadn’t eaten beef in ages, but now she went to a restaurant and deliberately ordered it, paying the bill in cash just because she could. It was freeing, exhilarating, even if the rest immediately went to rent, groceries, and the next installments plus paying down the principle on her highest interest loan. 

She wished there was someone she could talk to about that night. She didn’t dare tell Sun-hee lest her grandmother hear about it, and there was no one in America Ivy was close to anymore. She wasn’t even sure she wanted next Wednesday to come or not, anxious and excited and confused by it all. Talking it all out would have helped, but for Granny K’s ultimate rule of discretion. Plus, Ivy had reasoned that if her phone wasn’t bugged she’d be surprised. In the days after that Wednesday night she’d taken to putting it in a pot in her apartment and always playing music so she could pretend at some privacy. Not that there was anything to hear.

Well… except at night. Ivy would leave her phone charging in the bathroom, heavy ceramic pot lid cracked for the cord to snake through with the bathroom door slightly ajar, while she settled on the bed with the absurd mirrored ceiling.

Buying the vibrator had been terribly embarrassing, the proprietor of the sex shop watching her a little too closely, but her fingers just weren’t going to do it now. The first night home she’d tossed and turned, unable to forget how uninhibited she’d been, how sexy, strange, and wonderful she’d felt on that couch with him. Despite being the one straddling him and usually the person who was asking her partner to do something different, he’d been in charge, not asking but taking what he wanted and giving what she needed. He’d pushed so many boundaries the field had been covered in red flags but she’d come so hard, and the most alarming thing was Ivy didn’t care. 

I’m completely insane, she thought as she thrust the vibrator inside her, trying to hit that spot he’d found so effortlessly and failing. 

I should hate him, I should feel violated, she thought as she folded her knees up and widened her hips, imagining how dark his eyes would be and how smug he’d look if he knew she was masturbating to him. She didn’t know how it’d feel to have him inside her but it had to be better than this.

I shouldn’t have liked that, she thought as she roughly groped her breast the way he had, trying to keep her harsh breathing down so no one would hear. 

Gods I want to do it again, she thought as orgasm crashed over her, shorter and weaker than the night before but still worth it. She laid there with the vibrator switched off inside her, obscenely exposed, and wondered what he’d think if he walked in right now.

That I’m a desperate slut and he knew it. 

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Fisimatenten machen

literally: to make fisimatents

to make a fuss, to get up to some silly things, to mess about, to make excuses or frivolous objections; in the broadest sense, all actions that cause circumstances or problems

Origin: The origin of the expression is not certain. Several theories exist. One of them goes back to the Latin official language of the late Middle Ages: Visae patentes (verified documents) became a mockery of excessive bureaucracy and was first mentioned in 1499. Other linguists cite the Early New High German word fisiment = meaningless ornament (on a coat of arms).

The idiom was also used by parents for their young daughters whent they went out for an evening with friends: "Dont make any fisimatents!" Thus, the following folk-ethymological explanation is given: When Germany was largely under French occupation at the beginning of the 19th century, French soldiers repeatedly tried to lure German girls into their camp to pass the time, for example with the invitation: "Visitez ma tente" (visit my tent) or "Voici ma tente" (see my tent over there). So when an evening out was planned, the young women were given a "don't make any fisi ma tenten" to take with them.

It has also been explained by popular etymology as an excuse used by late passers-by when being checked by the French military police: «Je viens de visiter ma tante» (I have just visited my aunt).