#Bitcoin Edge
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bitcoinversus · 22 days ago
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Hut 8 Corp. Enhances Mining Fleet with Bitmain S21+ Acquisition
Hut 8 Corp., a leading Bitcoin mining company, has announced a significant upgrade to its mining fleet, aiming to enhance operational efficiency and expand mining capacity. The company plans to acquire 31,145 BITMAIN Antminer S21+ ASIC machines, with delivery expected in early Q1 2025. This strategic move is anticipated to increase Hut 8’s self-mining hashrate by approximately 3.7 exahashes per…
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bitcoinedge659 · 11 months ago
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How to open an account with Bitcoin Edge
Security is a top priority for any cryptocurrency, and Bitcoin Edge takes this to the next level. The use of advanced cryptographic techniques ensures the integrity and confidentiality of transactions. The decentralized nature of the network also makes it highly resistant to hacking attempts, providing users with a robust and secure platform for financial transactions.
Bitcoin Edge addresses the scalability challenges faced by some other cryptocurrencies by employing innovative solutions for faster and more cost-effective transactions. With a focus on optimizing block size and transaction processing speed, Bitcoin Edge aims to provide users with a seamless and efficient experience. Bitcoin Edge goes beyond simple transaction capabilities by incorporating smart contract functionality. This allows users to create self-executing contracts with predefined rules and conditions, opening up a world of possibilities for decentralized applications (DApps) and programmable money.
Recognizing the importance of privacy in financial transactions, Bitcoin Edge incorporates advanced privacy features. Through techniques such as coin mixing and ring signatures, users can enjoy enhanced privacy and anonymity, making it a preferred choice for those seeking a confidential and secure means of transacting value. Bitcoin Edge embraces the principle of community governance, allowing users to actively participate in decision-making processes. This democratic approach ensures that the development and evolution of the cryptocurrency align with the interests and needs of its user base.
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donotdestroy · 1 year ago
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“The more influential the original, the more copies it has.” — Tamerlan Kuzgov
_ “Be brave to stand for what you believe in even if you stand alone.”— Roy T. Bennett
NFT Abstract Art 0001 Series: The Origin of Self-belief. 2015-2020 Size: 5400 x 7200 pixels (18 x 24 in.) RGB, JPEG Resolution: 300 pixels/inch
Both physical and NFT items are now available in our store.
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phneep · 1 year ago
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bitcoinedgebottrading · 2 years ago
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What is Bitcoin Edge
Bitcoin Edge Security Highlights
which expects clients to enter a novel code shipped off their cell phone to get to their record. Bitcoin Edge likewise utilizes encryption to safeguard clients' information and to forestall unapproved access.Traders can additionally guarantee the security of their Bitcoin Edge record by major areas of strength for utilizing, keeping away from public Wi-Fi organizations, and empowering email warnings for account action.
Bitcoin Edge Client service
Bitcoin Edge gives client care administrations through email and live visit. The stage's client service group is accessible every minute of every day to help brokers with any issues they might experience.
The nature of Bitcoin Edge 's client care administrations is for the most part great, albeit a few merchants have detailed sluggish reaction times to requests. Bitcoin Edge 's client care administrations can measure up to those given by other digital money stages to decide their relative quality.
. Nonetheless, the stage's high expenses and slow client care administrations might be a disadvantage for certain merchants.
Financial backers considering Bitcoin Edge ought to painstakingly assess the dangers and benefits of CFDs and genuine cryptographic forms of money, and ought to practice watchfulness to stay away from digital currency tricks. Dealers ought to likewise do whatever it takes to guarantee the security of their Bitcoin Edge record, like areas of strength for utilizing and empowering two-factor verification. Semantically Comparative FAQs
Is Bitcoin Edge a protected stage for digital currency exchanging?
Indeed, Bitcoin Edge is a protected stage for digital currency exchanging. The stage is controlled by a few monetary specialists, and utilizations progressed security elements to safeguard clients' assets and individual data.
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nichuuu · 11 months ago
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Lemon.
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Word count: 13k+
You decide that you don’t quite like Balls (get your head out of the gutter).
Music: odd. Yes, it’s a fancy mansion—5 floors, the works… But you don’t know how to feel about the sole pianist in the centre of the foyer, the one that’s playing some classical piece that has the people around you murmuring about his technique and sound (whatever the hell either of those meant).
People: you don’t know a good half of them. Scratch that—it’s a sea of strangers
Drinks: strong, way too fucking strong for your liking. The drinks are free of charge, and the bartender clearly didn’t shake this Pina Colada well, but you have to drink it if you want to even try and get into the mood of the party. Around you, men in posh suits and women in flamboyant dresses skirt each other, talk to each other with placid smiles—hoodwinking each other with their highfalutin laughs and smiles to establish connections that probably won’t matter in a couple of days. The only person you’ve talked to tonight is the bartender, and that was just to order your drink. 
This whole place stinks of capitalism, and you feel out of place in your cheaper suit and dress shoes. On your right, some guy is talking about how bitcoin and blockchain will make a grand return, some lady is gossiping about the latest Gucci handbag on your left. In front of you, a man and a woman are clearly flirting with each other, bashful grins on their faces as they hold their fancy drinks in their hands and talk about god knows what. You’re wondering if you should ask for a straw from the bartender just to dip your toes in social interaction.
Wonder why Cinderella was so hot on attending a Ball, thing seems pretty bland to me, you’re thinking, watching the tip of the ice that was shaped like an iceberg melt away and sink beneath the surface of your margarita. Some guy in a tux comes by, orders two glasses of Prosecco—one for him, one for the woman next to him. He’s talking loudly, disrupting your peace and quiet. Your solution: move seats.
From a distance—two chairs away from your original seat—you watch as he takes the two glasses from the hands of the bartender, hands one to the woman, then clinks his glass with hers. He’s preternaturally genteel, and you’d know because you recognised him as the guy that got slapped at the start of this whole thing because he grabbed the ass of someone’s wife. Impropriety, but it’s the behaviour of the newfangled rich. 
Now he’s bragging about his car. Nissan GTR fitted with this engine, this ventilation, blah, blah… Whatever it is he’s saying, the woman’s having none of it. You’re no psychologist, but you can tell that she wants to get out of a conversation; her smile is awfully sweet, but you can see that she’s silently importuring him to shut his trap—her eyes give it all away. You pity her, silently sending her your best wishes as the man grabs her by the arm and leads her back into the sea of people. Personally, you’d be screaming if you were in her shoes.
(Off to your left, just at the edge of your vision, you see your boss talking to a woman. She’s getting touchy, really touchy and really flirty; her hand’s on his thigh, fuck me eyes out to play and on full display—A trite tactic used by these types of women to get lucky with a rich man at these type of events. Luckily for her, your boss is quick to bite on to such bait. God bless them both.)
For the record: you’ve never really enjoyed Balls or anything of the ilk, because quite frankly speaking, you’d much rather burrow up in your bed at home and binge Kimini ni Todoke till you were giggling and squealing like a little schoolgirl. Maybe I’m still young, I’ll learn to like these types of events later on, you tell yourself, I’ll need connections at some point, maybe I should start—
A sickly sweet fragrance crawls up your nostrils, truncating all thought. Perfume, you’re quick to identify, and then you’re aware of the presence of someone on your right. Your grip on your glass grows tighter in the slightest; you’re praying—Please just be ordering a drink, please be ordering a drink.
Frankly, you don’t know why you’d ever think anyone would talk to you, an unimportant cog that just tagged along with his boss because he had nothing better to do. Irrational fears are really a funny thing.
Sharp, clear, resonant—three words that came to mind when you heard the voice of the person next to you, the voice that delivered the simplest of orders: Yamazaki. I want it neat. 
Your first thought is, Damn… Neat Whisky? Someone’s having a horrible night, as you turn your face away from her (if you couldn’t see her, she wouldn’t be able to see you, right?). And just as you’re wondering if she’s gonna take her drink and leave, your question is answered by the soft creak and even softer rustle of shifting fabric from your right. You bristle.
The glass makes a sound against the wood as it’s gently placed down on the table.
(Now would be an excellent time for a subtitle to come in, one that states in square brackets: Awkward silence.)
You can hear her swirling the liquid around in her glass. Fuck, now this is awkward… You’re thinking, and then you’re wondering if you should just get up and leave, absquatulate, skedaddle—any word that can convey the act of disappearing in an instant—right out of there. But as you start to slide your butt off the chair, that voice rings out once more.
“Not much of a talker, are you?”
She doesn’t know how her simple sentence has caged you in the most challenging position (to you at least). Now you’re sliding your ass back into the bar stool and you turn and face her—
(Now that you’re looking at her, your second thought about her comes in: God, she’s beautiful. Dark brown hair that falls just past her shoulders like velvet curtains, soft yet somehow piercing eyes, a smile that makes you feel fuzzy all over—probably one of the most attractive women you’ll ever meet. She’s the woman from earlier, the woman that you saw smiling and nodding placidly to that guy who got her the Prosecco. She must’ve found a way to slip away, and she has your full respect for that.)
—and you find that you’re drumming your nails against the base of your glass.
“Shy, huh?” she’s throwing out a guess, watching as the Whisky in her glass slowly swirls to a stop inside the chilled glass. “It’s been a while since I met a shy man. You’re a breath of fresh air.”
You shift in the stool, and your first instinct is to ask her if you two had met before. It’s only after that last syllable leaves your mouth that you realise how stupid of a question it is. You don’t know her, and judging by the fact that she hasn’t called you by your name: she doesn’t know you either. You let her decide whether to oust you as a fool as she scans you up and down.
(Update on your boss and that woman: She’s kissing him now, full on making out. It’s an unsettling sight to behold, and you attribute your queasiness to the fact that they’ve somehow found they’re way behind the woman you're talking to. Your boss doesn't see you; you choose not to see him. God bless them both.)
“Well… Considering that you don’t look the least bit familiar,” she sets the glass down, “and that you haven’t been introduced to me like some product by a crusty, old man… I think it’s safe to say that we’re.”
Now her eyes are on your drink. What are you drinking this fine night? She’s asking, using her chin to gesture towards your Pina Colada. You tell her exactly what it is, and she cringes slightly. They say Pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza, I say it doesn’t belong fucking anywhere. Oust it as a fruit! she’s telling you, making sure to add a little more emphasis on the word “oust” as she couches her firm belief, something you find rather hilarious considering that it’s your first meeting with her. She sips the Whisky, grimaces a bit, then sets the glass back down to say, we skipped past a lot of formalities, didn’t we?
And here comes the part of talking to strangers that you’re the most comfortable with—Introductions. You think that it is safe to assume that just about anyone would find saying hello and telling someone your occupation much easier than holding up a conversation, what more with a beautiful woman like her. You give her your name, tell her what you do for a living, the usual stuff. She listens, the gleam in her eyes that comes when you’re done talking ever so enigmatic and cryptic. 
“Lawyer huh?” She’s playing with her glass again, “considering were we are right now, I really shouldn’t be this surprised… Yet I am. Little shy for a guy dealing clients on the daily, no?”
Somehow, by the grace of some supernatural force (you call it alcohol), you crack your first joke of the night—I know. The most I ever talked is in court—and you’re relieved that she’s kind enough to humour you (or maybe she really does find it funny. You’ll never know), and gives you an elegant chortle, one that makes your hair stand at their ends as your third thought about her goes through your mind: even her laugh is attractive. Is there anything wrong with this woman? 
And when she tells you her name, you realise why she seems to be exuding this inexplicable aura; Minatozaki Sana, pleasure to meet you, she introduces herself with a generous amount of pizzaz. You’re scanning her up and down at this point, and only now do you take in the expensive dress that dons her slender frame, the same dress that’s accompanied by a glimmering necklace and earrings, 3 rings on her middle, index and ring finger respectively.
“You’re…” you begin.
“The host’s daughter? Yes.”
Now you’re at a loss for words. Well uh… It’s an honour to meet you, is what you plan on saying, but it comes out as a simple, more blunt manner: Oh damn. Sana’s giggling to herself, swirling her Whisky as she watches you struggle to find things to say to her.
“I take it that you don’t come around here often?” she asks. When you raise an eyebrow, she explains how her father hosts a Ball like this every other month to try and find her a “suitor”. Apparently, 27 years old is “too old”  to still be single, so my Dad just gets a bunch of men together and parades me around, she’s carping. The glimmering chandeliers, the array of drinks and food, the vanity of all these people; the dazzling marble floor, the glass sculptures, the embroidered tablecloths; this event, in all its glory and prestige, is all about her. 
Christ, you’re thinking to yourself, money really gets you to places, huh? 
Now she’s explaining how some of the people here are frequent visitors. Mothers and their sons, fathers and their sons, young business men, old business men, middle aged businessman; whoever can afford to come to this lavish Ball—all of them frequent this mansion like moths to a flame, all looking for a chance to ingratiate with the Minatozakis so that maybe, just maybe, they get a chance to get Sana’s hand in marriage. It’s a glorified yet obsolete form of Tinder really.
(Your boss is nowhere in sight now, and you’re pretty sure that the two of them have gone off somewhere to get it on. Maybe this event isn’t just about Sana, it’s about finding a rich person that can spoil you for the rest of your life too. God bless everyone here.)
“So what brings a man like yourself here this fine night?” She seems oddly interested in you (and also very hot on using this fine night as well apparently). You give her the truth that carries your watered down emotions in your tone—My boss asked me to tag along. Apparently all attendees were to bring a male plus one.
Sana chuckles, but it’s one of bitterness.
“So Dad’s reverted to these tactics huh?” you hear her whisper before taking an alarming large gulp of Whisky. She swallows, then sighs, “wonder what he’ll do next… Maybe an arranged marriage?”
Past the frustration and utter disappointment, there’s amusement in her voice. It tells you: if I could, I’d kill my Dad. It’s more of an inference from your end than a message that you’re sure that she’s trying to imply. You always had a bad habit of reading between the lines—probably picked it up from your job.
Sana downs the rest of the Whisky in a flash, wincing as the alcohol burns her throat. She scratches her nose, then turns to you and asks, “say, you don’t look like you want to be here, and neither do I.”
Behind you, you can hear the voice of a man approaching. He’s talking to someone—my daughter should like you very much, you seem like a man that suits her taste—and Sana bristles. Her father, you deduce, noting the way that the woman before you is searching around for an exit. Then you blink, and in that split second, she grabs your hand.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Just like that, you’re running through a crowd of people, spewing a million-and-one apologies as you jostle your way through the crowd, in tow behind a woman you've known for a grand total of 5 minutes. 
A very unlikely start to a romance really.
*
Now the gears in your head are whirring, your stomach’s churning—there’s no other way to describe how you feel when Sana’s looking at you like that from across the table: small smile, a slight gleam behind those eyes, hand under her chin and fingers tapping against her cheek… She’s got you in perdition just with a look. You’re a guy of relatively taciturn nature, and the last time you went on a date was in university. That date went horribly, and now you’re wondering if this one was gonna go up in flames as well. Your brain urges you to say something to her, but your mouth seems to be sewn shut. 
On the other hand, Sana’s poised as ever. “What’s wrong?” she’s cocking her head and pouting slightly, “nervous?”
You're not ashamed to admit that you indeed are, and that you’ve never really gone out on dates in a long time. Sana seems tickled by this—It’s been a while since I’ve seen a shy man. I like it, she tells you—and assures you that she won’t bite. In fact, she’s glad that you’re quiet and not rambling off about some business venture. She tells you, I don’t recall the last time I’ve been with a guy like you, though I’d appreciate it if you assist me in starting some conversation, and you’re slightly ashamed of your reticence. 
There’s a gleam in her eyes when you start asking her some questions on her personal life, and she finds it congenial to gesticulate in a moderate manner as she answers your questions. Her outgoing nature leaves you flummoxed, and there’s barely enough space in your brain to remember everything she tells you about herself. Born in Osaka, likes yoghurt smoothies, likes to take walks in the park, likes this, likes that… You vaguely remember her telling you this on the night that the two of you escaped that event.
(To jog your own memory: She took you to the garden, where the two of you spent the rest of the night strolling amongst shrubs and other greenery that thrived in Spring. The Pina Colada in your system allowed you to hold a conversation, one that lasted long enough for her to take a liking to you. At the end of it all, she gets your number, you get her’s, and a date’s been settled in some french restaurant she patronises.)
“Now, I don’t expect you to remember all of this,” she’s watching the wine leave streaks against the glass, “but if you do, I believe you're entitled to some extra points.” 
“Points?” you’re keen on inquiring, “we’re keeping a scoreboard?”
Sana simply smiles. For asking that question, minus 2 from you, is her answer—not a very good one if you were to be blunt. You can’t suppress a chuckle as you take a sip from your own wine.
Unwittingly, Sana has eased you into her presence. It suddenly feels like you’ve known her forever (if forever meant 2 weeks that is).
A smooth start to a relationship if you do say so yourself.
*
“Sana, there’s people out there.”
“I know.”
“They might hear us.”
“I know.”
“We could get caught.”
“We won’t.”
It’s the confidence in her voice that irks you really. The lack of hesitance combined with the sheer lack of shame towards the fact that anyone outside the changing room in this damn Prada store could easily raise a phone over the door and start recording. It’s not that she’s not cognizant of this, but more of the fact that she doesn’t give two shits if someone captures a video of her blowing you in this dressing room. Shameless, aplomb, obstinate, are the three words that come to mind when dealing with Sana at the given moment, but there’s no energy in you to convey this to her, not when she wraps her lips around your cock. The outfits that she chose remain untouched behind her, fabrics still in light while the person that chose them remains active on her knees. 
(Almost a year. Almost a year the two of you have been dating. You thought you’d learned all there is to know about her, yet she’s hitting you with new facts and surprises every day, left, right, and centre. There are probably many more things that you have yet to figure out, but they’ll all come to light in due time.)
Really, it’s on you for not exercising due diligence upon entering the store; you should’ve known better from the moment you saw that look in her eyes while she was looking at a dress. But there’s nothing you can do about it now, not when she’s already enraptured you with that damn gaze—the one that exudes want and lust, the one that’s the leaven to your morality in her eyes. She knows that she’s got you wrapped around her finger when your hand rests itself atop of her head as she slowly bobs her head over your crotch. She’s taking her time despite the situation that she’s placed the both of you in. 
“This has always been on my bucket list,” she’s letting her hand run along your shaft, spreading her saliva with each stroke of her palm. Her nails, freshly done just over 2 hours ago, glisten under the light—partially because of her spit and partly because of the gloss. “Everything about this is just so… Eroctic, isn’t it?”
Christ, she’s really into this thrill-seeking thing, you note as you choke out a reply: Not particularly, but whatever floats your boat Sana (obviously, it doesn’t come out as smooth as it should. No one would be able to get out a full sentence with phonics properly strung together if they too were getting blown in a changing room). She’s got a glint in her eye, but it’s covered by your shaft as she slides her tongue down your cock, nose brushing against the base of your cock, just behind her tongue. She knows what she’s doing, she’s given you head before; she’s building up the suspense and waiting for you to beg for more. You really don’t want to indulge her, you really don’t, but there’s not much you can do when she starts placing kisses on your shaft—base to tip in a fervently slow fashion. How far is she gonna go with this, you can’t help but wonder, but you quickly have your question answered in the next second or so.
“Unenthusiastic?” she quips, “minus four”.
She wraps her lips around you and pushes her head forward, and you almost let the people in the store know that something’s going down in here.
You figure that the feeling of her lips wrapped around your shaft will never get old, not when it sends electricity up your spine and makes your hand ball into a fist in her hair. Her eyes seem to glint as you let out a sharp gasp. Yes, you could be caught by an employee at any second. Yes, you could very well be caught on camera by a customer at any second. There were a lot of things to consider when assessing the dangers of the circumstances that Sana has put the both of you in. Yet, none of them take anything away from the pleasure she’s bringing you, not as she starts to bob her head in beat to the metronome in her head. There’s no point in trying to figure out her pace. 
“Jesus… Fuck… Sana I…” Your voice is—somehow—hushed as you struggle to convey how weak she’s making you, but it’s not like you need to anyway—she knows exactly what she’s doing, and she’s loving every second of the havoc she’s wreacking upon your senses. The slight tug in the corner of her lips is the suggestion of a smirk, and the muffled noise that rises from her throat is the implication of a giggle. 
There's a knock on the door and you bristle; Sana slows down, but she doesn’t stop. Past the door, the voice of the staff that led you to this very room asks if everything is alright in there, and you’re praying that her eyes aren’t set on the floor. Sana locks eyes with you, then darts her eyes to the door to tell you—Answer it goddamnit. Of course, she doesn’t make it easy for you as you open your mouth, applying light suction to your tip as you find the strength to say: Yep, just give us a few more minutes please, making you choke on that last word and sending alarms blaring in your head. Thankfully, the store assistant is kind enough to leave you with a take your time sir, and the shadow of her feet disappear from the gap beneath the door. It’s then that Sana pops your glistening cock out of her mouth.
“A few more minutes, huh?” She’s got drool on the corner of her lips as she rises to her feet. “Better make this quick then. You gotta keep your word as a lawyer, don’t you?”
Her wit is certainly better than most of your colleagues.
(There are customers outside now, you can hear them talking to the store assistant. They sound vaguely familiar… Maybe you heard them at the restaurant? Or maybe they’re colleagues… No, that can’t be it, at least you hope so).
Now for the record: you’ve seen Sana naked on multiple occasions, be it voluntarily or not. The shower, the bedroom, even a public shower at the pool… You could name a lot more places where she’d shamelessly flaunted her nude body before you off the top of your head. “A body to die for” is a fitting expression for Sana; you’ve always wondered if you’d find her on the top of the Google image search if you were to look up “dream bodies”, and you figure that you can probably get her there if you could somehow take pictures with your eyes as she undresses before you. She’s more methodical than anything, straying away from her usual teasing nature for the sake of being quick (that’s what you infer from her behaviour, but really, she could just be extremely horny and desperate. There’s never a solid answer to Sana’s behaviour). Mini skirt, then top, then bra; she’s going through the motions that she’d usually drag out just to get a reaction out of you preternaturally quickly.
Why is she getting naked in a changing room? You have no clue. Your best guess: she’s doing it for the thrill of it. The thought of getting caught completely nude with her boyfriend speared inside of her must be sending lethal doses of adrenaline through her veins. A pretty solid guess if you do say so yourself. No time for anymore guesses anyway—she’s already brought your hand up to her right breast, and she’s closing her eyes to enjoy the feel of your fingers closing around the semi-firm flesh. Her top lip’s furling behind her front teeth, she’s letting her other hand rest on your arm. She’s telling you where she wants it—did you cum in my ass yesterday? Or was it the day before? Ah, whatever… Give me a fucking creampie—in this soft, low voice that sends a velvet chill down your spine. Then she's kissing you softly, sweetly, nibbling on your top lip as usual, all while pushing you to the corner of the room where your feet aren't visible to those outside, flushing your back against the wall. It’s an uncomfortable fit, but that quickly changes when she grips the middle of your shaft and lines you tip up with her slit. The hand on her tit is guided to that slim waist, your other hand quickly finding its place on that symmetrical, slim figure. 
“I don’t care if I cum or not,” she drawls, trailing a finger down your chest, “I just want your load inside me, right here, right now. Just focus on that, nothing else.”
(Half request, half demand—give her an award for being so damn ambiguous. Subtitles that could translate what she truly means would be really, really handy right now. Alas, such a system doesn’t exist.)
Describing how Sana’s pussy felt would be doing her injustice. The feeling was ineffable. From entering her to hilting yourself inside of her, there was never a second of that process where you had an easy time breathing or thinking. You’ve never been so reliant on your senses to keep you grounded in reality, nor have you ever been so glad that Sana’s nails are digging into your shoulder. This position—facing each other, standing and fucking against the wall of (all places) a changing room—is a stranger to the both of you, but the sheer tightness of her cunt working hand in hand with the intimacy of it all has you welcoming it with open arms.
Your hips are moving on their own, taking liberties without signals from your fried brain as you start thrusting into Sana. For long, wordless minutes, you're thrusting into Sana in a mindless, slow fashion, relishing the  feel of her skin in your palms, the look on her face, the soft moans that are slowly slipping from her ever so slightly opened lips. Then your ability to think slowly returns, and you’re thinking like a damn neanderthal—tight, wet, hot, so fucking good—as your grip on her waist tightens. Your shaft glistens in the light of the changing room, slick with her sweet juices as it slips in and out of her slick, spearing into her with depth, making her legs weak. Sana cups your cheek, lifts your head, and it’s now that you see how her eyes have been completely glazed over with lust and want. Her face, her figure down to the sounds she’s making; everything about her, about this, is the phantasmagoria of a wet dream.
If you were being completely true to yourself right now: You couldn’t care less if you got caught. 
And as if on cue, the voices approach as soon as you finish that train of thought. 
“Do you provide altercation services?” It’s the voice of a man, closely followed by that of the store assistant: Of course sir. After you try on the suit, you can note how you’d like it to be altered to your liking. 
A shadow of feet appears at the base of the door. Sana cups a hand over her mouth as the door rattles—the customer trying to open it. You stop your movements, breath caught in your throat as the store assistant tells him to use the other fitting room. Sana’s breath is loud in your ears as a second set of footsteps approach, followed by a female voice that asks, “Is my husband in there?” 
Yes ma’am, is the assistant’s reply. Of course, this is hardly the end of it.
Now, as the woman engages the store assistant in conversation right outside your door, Sana lets the hand on her mouth drop. She flushes herself against you as the store assistant answers, and she whispers, “Keep going”.
Endlessly seeking thrill. Classic Sana.
The logical part of you warns you against doing as she says. Sadly, there’s not much room for logic in your head in the given circumstances, not when your balls-deep inside your girlfriend in a changing room. There’s barely enough room for dilemma to occur; Sana’s the sole occupant of your mind, rent-free, free-hold, and really: she’s the only thing that matters right now. 
She almost, just almost, lets out a cry when you spear yourself back inside her. You didn't expect to start so soon, and neither did she. However, catching her by surprise is a novelty to you, and you relish in that brief rush of smugness before you restart your movements. Her mouth is frozen in a silent scream, but her eyes say all that she wants to: smug asshole, I’ll kill you later. You reply by letting your index and forefinger slip into her still-open mouth. 
“Personally, I enjoy the Italian selection more…” The store assistant’s voice is barely audible to you over Sana’s small, muffled moans that manage to skirt your fingers and Sana’s closed lips, and as the lady starts talking about trench coats, Sana coats your fingers with a fresh layer of saliva, turning your fingers slick and slimy with her tongue as she looks you dead in the eye, as if challenging you: Is this the best you can do? Is this the riskiest you can be?
Every question from her deserves an answer, and your’s is to remove your saliva-slicked fingers out of her mouth, draw a circle with her spit just above her collarbone, then whisper right into her ear: I’m gonna mark you right there. The involuntary gasp that she lets out tugs the corner of your lips up into a perverse smile. Slowly your lips drift down to the glistening spot, and you wait just a moment to build up that sweet-sweet suspense. It’s a split second, but it’s a second too much for her to bear—the way her body tenses when you finally make contact is the clearest indication you will ever receive. And when you start sucking, God does she almost drive you over the edge: she tightens, she gasps, she starts twitching; she loves it, every second your lips stay locked around that sweet spot of skin is bliss to her.
You can hear the door to the other fitting room unlock, and you hear the man’s heavy footsteps as he walks out, no doubt in that suit he had earlier. The compulsory question comes: how do I look?
There’s a brief moment of silence, and you’re almost fearful of the fact that maybe, just maybe, their ears are picking up on the ragged breathing and slightly audible squelching coming from the other fitting room. All consternation dissipates when the woman starts to comment on how she looks, but Sana seems to have an answer to his question as well: So good. So fucking good. Harder, let me feel all of you, fuck me harder. Oh fuck, you’re so fucking deep. 
You look dashing honey. The pitch of the woman’s reply harmonises with Sana’s soft whine as your lips leave her skin, the same patch where you’ve left your purple artwork on. I think we can afford to alter the pants—
Sana crushes your lips against hers, hot breath filling your mouth as you feel her lift her leg. You hold the back of her knee (like the gentleman you are), bring it to your side, hold it there. She bites your lower lip, hard enough for her to pull and tug it as you start losing yourself in her: her scent, her breath, her skin—all of it’s so deliciously addicting. You can’t get enough.
Then she’s going straight to moaning into your mouth, letting those muffled cries permeate in the small space and hopefully not outside the fitting room. She’s wet, she’s tight, she’s everything you need right now. You want, so badly, to pull her apart, ruin her till you can’t put her back together, get her begging at the top of her lungs for you to fuck her harder and harder. 
And you’re almost on the verge of calling her a slut. There’s no need for that though, she knows what she’s made of herself.
—so that they’re a little shorter. I think we could also try—
Sana’s figured out the best way to moan: straight into your ear. She’s not letting up with them, and she’s giving you one hell of an array of sounds. There’s the common ah, the not so common, oh, and the very common shit, fuck, fuck me and so good. Her phonics are so loosely strung together that they’re just a jumbled mess, and you're perfectly ensconced with that; you love hearing those lazy, sloppy cries, and they only seem even more melodic at this volume, at this moment. Fuck, record them and play them as white noise as you sleep.
—changing the colours of the buttons? Ooh! Maybe we could even change the stitching around—
She tilts her head back, and you’re peppering her neck with kisses. She loves it, you know she loves it; all this attention, all this adrenaline, all this carnality she’s invoking—all of it for her. Each time you grunt, she knows that she’s the damn reason for it. Every time your fingers dig into her thigh a little more, she knows it’s because of her. Every kiss on her neck, every inch of her pussy you fill with your rock-hard meat, all of it’s for her. She isn’t vain, nor is she a pick me girl, but she sure as hell knows how to make you treat her like she’s the only girl in the fucking world, and you’re more than happy to give her what she wants.
Because it’s always like this with Sana: if she wants it badly enough, she’ll formulate a stratagem to get it, nip her cravings in the bud before they turn into desires that she can’t control. Mind you, she’s not dissolute; she’s just “riding the highs of life” as she calls it. Pretty bullshit and circumlocutory, but you always let her off the hook.
—the pocket area? That’s my two cents. What do you think darling?
Another moment of silence follows, and Sana seizes the opportunity to nibble on your earlobe. Her leg’s sweaty, slowly slipping from your grasp and trembling from the pleasure that’s giving her voice this lilt when she says: Carry me. Fuck me. Cum in me. Please. Pleasure, coursing through your veins, makes you comply in an almost servile manner. It’s precipitous, even fatuous to pull such a stunt in a fitting room of all places, but when your hands are supporting her by her ass and her legs lock around your waist, there’s no turning back.
And as the man starts going off on his own preferences, Sana’s wrapping her arms around your neck, letting you get a look at those bouncing breasts as you reach new depths inside of those slick, warm walls. If she could cry out, she would, but those damn customers outside are placing her in a box here, and it’s clearly frustrating her. If you were at your place, her hands gripping your sheets and her juices messing up your quilt, she could moan, mewl, cry and cuss however loud she wanted. In a way, it was funny to watch her hold back, but at the same time: you so badly want to make her scream, undo her right here and now and make her a mess in your arms, but you’ll settle for what you have right now. What the two of you have created is controlled chaos, and should it be released past that damn changing room door, God knows what will happen.
Now it’s the store assistant’s turn to speak, and she’s giving them a rundown of the pricings. Outside, they’re talking about the possibility of a discount; inside, Sana’s talking about how deep you feel inside of. Outside, the man’s trying to guilt-trip the store assistant by saying how exorbitant the price is; inside, Sana’s exclaiming and pleading in a hushed voice—Own me. For the love of God, fucking o-own me!—as each thrust you make into her pussy sends her further and further down this rabbit hole of pleasure. It takes guts to fuck in a fitting room, but it takes the guts of Minatozaki Sana to be this needy while fucking in a fitting room. The risks of being caught are high, the risk of being heard even higher, but neither of those affect her ardour. At a controlled volume, she’s pleading for you to fuck her harder, faster, unravel every single bit of her being while she tries to keep herself together. It’s one hell of a show, and it’s one hell of an experience too. 
(The sight of her perfect body flushed against yours as she’s fucked in the air, the smell of her sickly sweet perfume, the feeling of that divinely tight pussy wrapped snugly around your shaft like a damned glove, the way those sonorously soft moans filter into your ears. Add these together with the fact that the people outside could hear you at any second, and you’ve got one hell of a recipe for a voyeurist’s wet dream. You’re no voyeurist, but everything about this moment is making you feel like one.
Right now, this is everything to Sana. Having you this close to her, feeling that cool Prada air conditioning against her bare body, listening to you grunt and sigh as you piston yourself in and out of that slick, wet slit… All her needs are being fulfilled, all of her senses heightened and primed, aware of every movement you make inside of her pussy. Sometimes, you feel so good and oh fuck, or maybe even oh god isn’t enough to convey how she feels, so she just opts to let out this strained, strangled gasps that tells you everything you need to know—a maelstrom of emotions and expressions compressed and compacted into one simple “hngh” is enough for you to know that you’re doing something right.)
“You like this Sana?” you find yourself whispering. “You like being fucked like a damn slut with people just outside, don’t you? You like everything about this, don’t you?”
Right now, she doesn’t have that capacity to reply. Of course, you know this, which makes you feel all the more smug as you watch, watching as she slips into a state of complete, utter bliss: her mouth hangs open, her eyes are unfocused, she’s barely holding on to you. The purple mark that your lips have left on her neck sears itself into your sight, and it’s joined by the breathtaking view of her breasts loosely bouncing each time you drive yourself into her. Loose strands of hair are flying, neither of you have any hands free to fix them. Her legs are quaking around your waist, neither of you want to stop just so that she can be back down on the floor. Her eyes are closing, you can feel her heartbeat in her pussy, she’s begging, pleading, fucking imploring you to keep going. 
Christ. You want her to moan as loud as she can for you.
It’s hard not to get turned on by the sight of it, and it’s even harder to keep yourself controlled under the rapidly tightening grip of her cunt. Her breaths are shallow, her head is almost completely limp. She may not seem to be aware of it, but you sure as hell are more than cognizant of the fact that the both of you are about to hit that peak that you’ve been chasing for the past God-knows-how-many minutes.
“Sana.” Uttering her name is all that’s needed to bring her back to the real world. When you have her attention, you give her the sentence that she’s been waiting to hear for so damn long: I’m gonna fucking fill you, and It’s like the air gets heavier when she softly whispers, pleads for you to fulfill her new desire; cum with me. I need it so bad. 
Controlled orgasm would take strength to pull off, and you silently pray that you have that strength as you send one final thrust between her shaking legs. Your cock twitches, spasms and the first rope of your warm seed that’s sent into her waiting walls is enough to send her over the edge. She bites down on your shoulder, quick enough to muffle the cry that escapes her throat. The tightening of her walls seem to coordinate with each spasm of your cock, and they sync up, working together to get every last drop of cum out of you and into her. She lets a soft moan escape her lips with each spurt, as though welcoming it, as though each one were something she long wanted and needed. You let out a single, soft grunt, as though thanking her, as though every twitch of her walls that sends a shock down your cock is a treasure to be relished.
So the scarf that she brought in to try is no longer just an ornament like the rest of the outfits. Even after adjusting her outfit, the fabric still can't seem to cover that hickey you left on her collarbone. The simple solution: Sana waits there, you buy the scarf, hand it to her, she puts it on and the both of you walk out of the store like nothing happened, like the both of you really were in there to try on some clothes, then leave. 
It’s unsuspecting, it’s smooth. The store assistant wishes you a good day, and Sana smiles and waves to her, looking exactly like she did when she entered, plus a scarf. The only difference in Sana’s entrance and exit from the Prada store is the load between her legs.
But that’s a secret for the two of you.
*
“Hey. Could I talk to you about something?”
In your two years of dating Sana, never have you heard her this nervous in your life. The fact that your client isn’t responding to you a day before his trial plagues you no more, and your laptop is shut before she can close the door. 
Your posture—arms crossed atop the desk and back straight—is all she needs. The message is implicit: I’m here, all ears, and she smiles softly as she walks over to the bed. The frame creaks a little as she settles down.
“My uh… My Dad is organising another one of those damned Balls again.” The way she intonates her words tells you that the Ball is the least of her concerns at the moment. “It’s gonna be at the usual time.. Usual place… Not like we can move it anyway.”
You offer her a chuckle to assuage her, diffuse the tension a little. She manages a half-forced giggle at her own joke. Is this a transitional opening? Or is this legitimately the subject of her conversation? you’re thinking, and as you sip from your cup, that subtle shift in her posture is shifting the atmosphere of the room. 
She’s scared, but of what?
“I was wondering,” she drums her nails against her knees, “could I… Introduce you to him tomorrow? M-My Dad I mean.”
And now you suddenly understand why she’s on edge. She’s not scared for herself; she’s scared for you. The head of the Minatozaki clan, Sana’s father—you heard much about him, partly because of the stories that Sana tells you and partly from the things you heard through the grapevine at work. In your firm, there’s a whole box dedicated to storing suits that have been opened by him on the intern’s table (it’s a hilariously off-putting thing to say out loud), and from what you’ve heard: there’s another two in the storage room. Personally, you’ve assisted a colleague in one of his lawsuits, and the emails you billed weren’t pretty. You’d be throwing out a fib if you ever couched that you never once thought: It’s a pretty bad first impression of the man, could he maybe… You know… Stop suing people? Please? but you’re not going to let a mere few boxes and one night of reading through emails determine your perception of Sana’s father. 
And hopefully, he won’t judge a book by its cover too.
“I have a trial tomorrow Sha,” you remind her, but it’s not like you actually expected her to remember this; you whispered it to her while cuddling on the couch a solid week ago. “I don’t know when I’ll end. It might be a little tight for me.”
It's undeniable that she sighs in relief. The blush that follows the breath is a clear indication. She’s glad, too glad. You can't help but ask: What’s up? Think I’ll flub everything when I meet him?
Sana does that thing where she wants to answer, but doesn’t know how to: her mouth opens, closes, opens again—longer this time, then closes again. It isn’t an easy thing to talk about; what your father will think of your partner is never not a touchy matter. All touchy matters should be discussed in comfort (Sana knows that you strongly believe in this, that’s why she’s situated herself on the bed), and you join her on the mattress. 
“WIll he feel that I’m not enough for you?” You’re prodding, all while you gently reach for her hand and grasp it in your own. It’s cold, really cold. You’ll warm it up with your palms, keep them there while she replies, “it’s not that… I know that you’re more than enough for me, that’s what matters to him… At least I think so.”
She’s staring down at her hand, the one that’s slowly heating up via the warmth of your hand. Then what’s making you so worried? you’re asking. She folds her bottom in, past her front teeth. You rub her knuckle with your thumb.
“Yea I… I don’t know what’s making me so worried either,” she finally muses. “Guess I’m just… New to this practice. Never had to do it before...”
Because all the men that have tried to win you over have never lasted for more than a week, you complete in your head, smiling as she lays her other hand over yours. It’s cold too—that won’t do.
And as you set another hand atop hers, she’s asking you for a kiss. Luckily for her, obliging her wants is your specialty, and your lips are quickly travelling that small gap between the two of you. Connection is made, and you physically feel her relax. You know. You know that she belides a truth that she’s not ready to divulge. It’s in her kiss, it’s in her hands, and that’s fine with you. You can infer that it’s not something that’s going to be detrimental to your relationship, and whenever she’s ready to speak about it, you’ll always be available.
Now the kiss is done, she’s asking for fried chicken. You counter-ask if the kiss was to soften you up so that she could ask for her Famichiki. Of course, you get a classic Sana reply: a “maybe”, followed by that mischievous grin. You rise from the bed to grab your coat. 
You're glad that the Konbini is just next to your apartment. Sana’s glad that she gets to be close to you as you walk through the snowy street.
“You know,” she’s whispering, “I really won’t mind if you propose to me one of these days.”
You laugh it off, kiss her on her forehead. 
In your head: you note to start looking for a nice ring.
*
Money can get you to places, but it can also get you a private soundproof karaoke room in a club. Three and a half years of dating—that’s all you need to know: you can bet your left kidney that Sana is taking full advantage of that room.
The bottle of Whisky that she opened to get the room is hardly the main event; Sana, slowly slipping out of that tight black dress she’s wearing, foreground to the default music that’s on the TV, has your unwavering attention. The smile on her face could've been mistaken for a sweet one if it weren’t for the fact that she’s getting naked, and the lack of a bra really doesn’t help with her case either.
“There isn’t a time limit to the use of this room, right?” You know the answer to that is no, the lady at the counter told you so. The question is more of a gauge, an instrument that’s helping you assess her plans for the night.
“If you’re trying to know how long we’ll be here for,” she slings her dress onto the couch next to you, and in her stockings and panties, saunters over with a sultry sway in her hips, “my answer is a secret.”
“I have work tomorrow, Sana.”
“Too bad. Call in sick.”
She picks up the glass of Whisky, raises it to her lips. When she drinks, she lets some of that amber liquid trickle out past her lips, down past her chin and onto her tits. In the light, her wet skin glistens and shimmers, and you once again find yourself in absolute awe with the woman before you. And as she straddles you, glass in hand, the way she uses her fingers to tilt your face up to the light tells you that she’s in control. She takes a sip of the amber liquid, swallows it, then brings it to your lips.
“Be a good boy,” she’s tipping the glass as she speaks, a strong way to convey that there’s no room for disobedience, “say ‘ahh’ for me baby.” 
The glass is cold against your lips, the liquor even colder on your tongue as it flows into your mouth at a manageable rate. When she stops pouring, you take the cue, and you swallow all of it in one gulp. The burn in your throat is oddly rewarding, probably because Sana’s smiling down at you, stroking your hair and telling you how obedient you are as you swallow. Then she makes you open your mouth again, pours another portion down the hatch. 
How does it taste, she’s asking, cupping your right cheek as she swirls the glass. You give her a short honest review of it: It’s good. The answer pleases her, and she sets down the glass in her hand to pick up the bottle from the table next to you. 
“Yamazaki, 12 year old single Malt.” She’s letting you see the bottle under the light, though you have to admit that her tits right next to the bottle are a horrible distraction. “My personal favourite.”
She unscrews the cap and takes a swig straight from the bottle, swallows it without even flinching. She’s always been able to hold her alcohol well, and you know for a fact that she can probably outdrink 5 of your colleagues and maybe, just maybe, your boss too. But you’ll never have a fair gauge on how well she can drink in comparison to your peers; she only drinks around you. 
Your face is back in her hand, and she’s got some more things to say—Drink it neat, on the rocks, add it to another drink, it tastes great no matter what—as she starts to lightly grind herself over your throbbing shaft in your pants. But you know what the best way to drink it is, she asks you. She’s not looking for an answer from you, just finding a way to transition from the Whisky to whatever it is she has in mind—you can tell because she leans down to capture lips right after she throws out the inquiry, kissing you deeply, her tongue playing aggressively on your lips before searching your mouth for its counterpart. The smell of Whisky is so damn strong on her breath, and the only thing hotter than the burning sensation in your throat is the fact that she’s using one hand to play with herself, the bottle of Whisky in the other. You can hear it slosh next to your ear as she raises it. 
And as she breaks the kiss, the thin strand of saliva connecting the two of you doesn’t stop her from providing the answer to her question—it tastes the best when you drink it right off my body—as she straightens herself. The next second, still playing with herself, she’s bringing the bottle to her lips, tipping it just before it touches those red-tinted lips to let the golden liquid flow down her chest and breasts. There's no time to admire; you reach out and catch the rapidly falling liquid, your tongue pressed tightly to her skin to lap up as much of the bitter liquor as you could. Her skin glistens with the Whisky on it. It looks like gold in the snow. She smells like lavender and lust.
Your tongue, saturated with Whisky, finds and captures her left nipple. You close your lips around it, suckling deeply from her chest, enjoying the taste of her body and the liquor that made it spicy and bitter. Sana gasps and moans as you have your way with her chest, fondling her small mounds, suckling both of her taut nipples—roughly, hungrily. You could say that she’s wasted some perfectly good Whisky, but you say that she’s added complex flavours to an already exquisite meal. The blend of alcohol and Sana’s skin is not something you never knew you needed, but now you do. The novelty of it, the sheer lust she’s emanating, all of it makes her tits taste better than ever, and you find yourself leaving marks on her cleavage, the right side of her left breast, the left side of her right breast; every centimetre of skin that can be reached is marked and tasted—your attempt at dipping your toes in a little control in this karaoke room that is Sana’s domain.
Maybe you’re a little over-indulgent in her, maybe you’re just unaware, but you certainly can’t feel her slipping your tie off your neck. By the time you’re aware of the sudden feeling of freedom at your throat, she’s already wrapping your wrists, securing them together with an intricate knot. You know damn well that even the boy scouts couldn’t untie this one, even if they sent their best member. The theory is only enforced when Sana asks you to try pulling your wrists apart, and it feels like they’ve been superglued together. Satisfied, she feeds you some more Whisky off her body, then it’s time for her fun.
Palm flat against your chest, eyes flaring, wicked smile; Sana pushed you back against the couch with graceful authority—something that only she is capable of. Then it’s onto your shirt, and he’s unbuttoning it with practised dexterity: unfastening, pulling—motions so fast that she has your reverence for mastering the art. She takes a moment, parts the fabric covering your chest and runs a fingernail down the centre of your torso. The nail—painted black with little Sakura flowers adorning it—stops at your belt. It isn’t hesitance that keeps her finger there; it’s the innate cheekiness that makes her linger there a little longer, that makes her smile softly as the other hand joins in and starts undoing the clasp of your belt. Not a word is uttered as she pulls apart your belt, then goes straight for the buckle of your belt. 
Then it’s back to kissing. Sloppy, passionate kissing. Sloppy, passionate kissing as she runs her fingers through your hair. The Whisky on both of your breaths mingle. Admittedly, you’re feeling a little floaty, engendering a pleasant tingle on your skin as she starts placing kisses on your cheek, then on your jaw. Next thing you know, she’s sucking hard at the nape of your neck, marking you with those lovely lips, as if she’s placing a wax seal on you, declaring: you are mine and mine alone. And when she successfully sears the shape of her lips onto your skin, she traces the slick outline with a finger, whispers softly, You have no idea how much I want to own you right now. 
The excitement is palpable, the tension even more so. She’s whispering all sorts of things to you—most of them entailing what she’s about to do with your cock—all while she starts to slip your briefs off of your legs. Your cock springs out of your pants, slaps against her ass and twitches on the rotund flesh. The smile grows wider, devilish dimples appear. And for the record: no, she’s not gonna blow you. She’s gonna make herself cum before anything else happens, and she’s going to make you feel things you’ve never felt before. 
She slides off you, gets back up on her feet. With her back turned to you, she bends forward at the waist, shaking her ass while she uses her thumbs to hook onto the waistband of her panties. She looks over her shoulder, eyes locked on yours. With a little hop, she pushes the fabric down and off her hips, kicking it to the side. She looks over her shoulder, eyes locked on yours. With a little hop, she pushes the fabric down and off her hips, kicking it to the side. Her pussy glistens in the light, flushed pink and folds tantalising as ever puffy and swollen with excitement.
She bends her knees, getting down on all fours.
She wiggles her ass at you, looking back at you over her shoulder.
“Bet you wished,” she gets on her back, spreads her legs to get the spotlight on her slit, “that you could absolutely own me like this right now, don’t you?”
She’s so cocksure. It’s driving you crazy. You swallow, your voice barely audible as you utter her name. She crawls to you, sits up, her face in front of yours, so close, so hot. Her hand touches the back of your head, her voice barely a whisper as she grips the base of your cock—but you can’t, and it’s so damn frustrating, isn’t it?—and rubs your tip between her dripping folds, lathering her juices all over your head and smiling all the way through. 
And when you least expect it, she turns and sinks down on your cock.
You throw your head back, groan, the sound of her wetness as she takes your cock into her pussy loud and clear over the music. Your head falls forward again, watching her sink further and further, taking more and more of your cock inside her with every passing moment as she lets a long, drawn-out moan float through the air. When her crotch meets yours and you are fully embedded inside her, a soft, wordless cry of pleasure that leaves open lips. You meet it with a sigh of your own, somehow tearing open your own shut eyes to watch the expression on her beautiful face as you fill her. 
Christ, fuck and god—just some of the words that you want to cry out as she starts to slowly grind herself against you. The ride she’s about to take is one that’s of perverse nature; it’s not going to be a slow, pleasant ride. Naturally, her habit of jumping straight into things leaves her unprepared for what she’s about to experience, so now she has to slowly slowly adjust to your size, like striking the flint over and over next to the fireplace as you hope to get a flame going. Usually, this would be a time where you’d caress that beautiful body, run your hands over that unblemished white skin and pepper kisses all over the places that she loves to be kissed. But she’s not in the mood for that, not when she has this room and you at her disposal. 
Then the fire ignites, and it is merciless, a force of nature—untameable, unrelenting. In your bonds you are unable to resist. You never would’ve in the first place. She begins to move, her pussy tight and slick around your cock. She rides you like she was made to do this, like a pro. She rides you fiercely, roughly, taking you in and out of her tight wet heat, caring little for your comfort or much of anything aside from stuffing herself over and over with thick, hard meat. Throughout it all she is digging into your thigh, crying out like her life depends on it as she goes up, down, up, down—a lewd seat on a merry go round.
Yes, yes, yes—she throws her head back, auburn hair flying like streamers in the wind as she has her way with you—o-oh fuck I need this! I need this so fucking bad! The rhythmic, repetitive motion, her unbridled desire to be filled, it sends you reeling. The pressure on your leg is forgotten, the slight discomfort in your arms pushed out of the way. You can do nothing but watch her ride you. You can do nothing but marvel at how good you feel inside her, how the tightness of her pussy massages your shaft, how the way she takes you so completely into her folds, how you stretch her and make her quiver and quake.
A part of you wishes the mirror were visible from your current position, so that you could watch as Sana impales herself over and over on your cock. You want to watch the expression of pleasure wrangle her cute features, want to watch her full, round breasts bounce up and down, want to watch every muscle of her long, perfectly shaped legs work to throw her body again and again against your cock. But you’ll have to content yourself with the almost equally alluring view of her sweaty back (not that it was a particularly difficult position to enjoy. How could you call it “bad” with the view of her round, full ass as she slams it down against your crotch?). It’s not like you can change anything about this anyway. No—the only thing you can do is sit back, watch, and savour how her ass jiggles as it crashes against your crotch.
Oh fuck, oh yes! I’m so fucking full! I’m so stuffed with this cock!
You lose yourself to the sound of her voice, the feeling of her pussy as it swallows up your cock, the sight of her back arching and her hands shaking. As much as you try, you find yourself unable to move, as though your own pleasure has been drained out of your body, and you are just an observer. You watch as she pushes herself down further on your cock, impaling herself with every thrust of her hips, her voice growing louder and louder as she gets into that dangerous rhythm, the rhythm that makes you think she’s on Acid. Well-formed breasts bounce, you see them past her slender figure. Her shapely, luscious ass ripples. Long legs work overtime, cooperating with the stamina of the girl who is using them to drive herself over the edge like it’s her be-all and end-all. It’s exhilarating. It’s thrilling. 
It’s so fucking hot. 
Oh god. You’re stretching me out so good. This cock feels so damn good!
Two things are getting you at the moment: (1) The sweat glistening that’s building up on her back. (2) The fact that she’s pushing your thighs apart to get more of you inside her. The former sight is a breathtaking process really: beady moisture on that well built back, pooling at all the best places and making her skin glow as some of it slowly trickles down her spine. The latter’s no grain of sand either mind you, maybe even hotter than Sana’s sweaty back if you dare say. Freshly done nails sit just outside the insides of your thighs, the palms that they’re connected to pushing down against the flesh beneath them. They’re indenting the muscles of your thighs, it’s uncomfortable, but only for a second at a time. 
I don’t wanna stop. I don’t wanna fucking stop!
In your restraints, your hands grasp at the flesh that’s so close yet so far, the skin that’s rippling and slapping against yours. Her ass taunts you, tempts you, teases you. It’s so frustrating yet so erotic; you aren’t sure if you should welcome this mix of emotions or reject it before it folds its wings and nestles itself in your chest. The mix of desire and vexation, exasperation and ecstasy—any two emotions that shouldn’t go together are mixing, blending, forming these bubbles in your chest that you can’t explain. 
One woman; innumerable sensations.
You need more. More of everything. More of her.
You wish you could touch her.
You wish you could fuck her.
But all you can do is watch, watch as she starts going down harder, crying out even louder. 
Her body, so flawlessly feminine, is in deadly motion, working you over from the inside like you’ve never experienced. The air is filled with the wet, lewd sounds of her pussy sucking you in your hips slapping against her ass, her moans and groans, her curses that seem to go on perennially, blending in perfectly with that shitty synth in the background.
And you’re just along for the ride.
You have no idea… How good this is.. Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
And she wants you to see it, she wants you to watch her—it is exactly that kind of attention that she is basking in. So you watch. You watch her, the way she looks back at you, the way her eyes flare as she takes you in, the way her hands claw at your leg. The way she's moaning with that lilt back in her voice. Everything about this spectacle seems like it’s been scripted for some porno, and her body is certainly making you feel like you’re in one. The only grasp on reality that this situation offers is… Well, nothing. And it’s not that there really isn’t anything for you to root yourself in this real world, rather you’re choosing not to make that mental effort to do so; every little corner of your mind is being bled with whatever colour the image of Sana bouncing on your cock is. There’s no room for reality, and it's addicting, enthralling.
Fuck. You can't get enough of her, and you probably never will.
So deep! So fucking… Oh my god!
Your breath is ragged, and it takes every bit of control you have left in you to not cum right then and there. It takes every ounce of focus not to simply give in to her, not to simply melt into the couch, not to lose your mind to the sensation of her tight, wet slick as it swallows you in, pushes you out; fucking itself over and over and over again on your rock hard shaft. You don't know how much longer you can hold out for, and as if she can tell, Sana starts to move faster, her movements getting even more aggressive. The slaps of her ass against your crotch are louder now, and the wet smacking sound of her pussy's getting faster and faster. Her fingers are digging into your leg, her moans more frequent and more desperate. You can feel her tightening around you, the way her walls clamp down, the way her legs are trembling, the way her voice is going up in pitch. 
(It’s the moments of privacy that really get her going; the moments where she can scream and cuss and moan like there’s no tomorrow are everything to her. 
Yes, she likes fucking in public spaces for the thrill of it, but she likes it better when she can hold you freely as you fill her, not having to care for the fact that the way her body’s positioned engenders any discomfort or risk of being heard.
Yes, she likes it when there’s the chance that someone can walk in on the two of you, but the prospect of being able to own your cock, uninterrupted and unheard, thrills her like nothing else in the damn world.
Yes, she likes to see if she can hold in her cries while you’re rearranging her insides in a bathroom stall, but she prefers it much more when she can slam herself down on your cock—be loud and be proud of the fact that she loves every inch of meat that fills her till she can barely breathe. 
Bottom line: she likes chasing that thrill of being caught, but she loves those moments where she’s alone with you in private even more. Now is one of those times, and God… She’s barely herself anymore.
She is a storm of pure, unfiltered lust. And you must say: it’s fucking sublime.)
Then the game changing sentence comes from her, and it's beautiful. 
"I'm fucking cumming!"
The words ring out, clear and loud. And she doesn't stop; she keeps riding you, taking you into her wet hole and milking your cock, using you to bring herself off. It's not until the final second that she slows down, her back arching as she lets out the most satisfying scream that you have ever heard in your entire life. It is all that you can do to watch as she slumps forward, breaths ragged and body twitching as you hold yourself back. It takes everything—every fibre, every cell and every last bit of will—to not cum in her right there and then. And when the final spasm has passed and the shuddering has subsided, when Sana has collapsed against you, your cock still buried inside her, she turns to you.
There are no words spoken, just a mutual understanding of what comes next. She slips off the couch, takes your slick shaft in her hands. A few pumps are delivered, and they’re considerate and slow; she’s good at building tension.
“You’ve already marked my tits. Might as well cum on them.” She’s still got some cheekiness left in her, and that smile is really doing everything for you. 
“Fuck, Sana, I—” “Do it. Paint me.”
You feel the semen gather in your balls before coursing up your shaft and erupting from its tip, landing in thick, wet, warm ropes upon Sana’s creamy skin. Your tip is directed between her cleavage, and the first spurt of cum shoots itself between those wonderful mounds. It’s quickly followed by a second rope, and the third lands on her upper chest. With grace, she manages to direct your spurting cock by the base so the fourth and fifth ropes cover the front of her tits, then the rest don’t matter anymore.
The last ropes of thick, warm semen land upon her face, staining her soft, blushing features with creamy white cum. Some of it lands on her cheeks, on her forehead and onto her open mouth and the thirsty tongue within it. When you finally open eyes you hadn’t known had closed, the picture of Minatozaki Sana, face and chest painted with your warm, thick cum, is one you never want to forget. And as she scoops up your seed with her fingers, she’s got a thing or two to say.
“Excellent load,” she whispers, watching as the cum slithers down her palm. “Plus two to you.”
Just two? Is your reply of false bewilderment. Sana chortles. 
Maybe if you can give me a load up my ass, I’ll consider adding another three points.
*
Now the ring’s oddly heavy in your pocket. 
Sana’s father seems more imposing than he should for a man his size, and looking at the Yamazaki bottle on the desk, you can tell that Sana gets her liking for Whisky from him. 
“I’ve never met you in my life,” he begins, “and now you come here like a friend, asking for my daughter’s hand in marriage?”
Sana’s head is bowed. In the corner of the office she sits, hands clasped over one another as she listens in silently. No amount of trials or oral submissions could ever prepare you for this tension.
“Mr Minatozaki… I understand that all of this is sudden,” you begin, but you’re interrupted by a raised hand.
“You know boy… You sure do talk like you know everything about the situation.” His voice is nowhere near threatening as he speaks, and it’s absolutely terrifying. “For a lawyer, you sure do sound quite the fool. Guess I shouldn’t have been expecting much considering your background.”
And it’s that very statement that has you on tenterhooks. You’ve never met him, never even seen his face, yet he knows your occupation which you never even touched on, and from the sound of it, knows what went down in your family. Sana’s head snaps up, her eyes wide as she watches her father produce a file from under his desk. 
“It’s not the suddenness,” the air quotations he uses hold more weight than they really should, “that doesn’t sit well with me dear boy. No, no… It’s more than that.”
The broad leather chair in his office grows constricting. As he rises from his seat, the foam that holds your butt up seems to depress. And as he begins—if you sauntered in here as just a lawyer, I would’ve let you take my daughter in a heartbeat!—his explanation of what’s grinding his gears, you start feeling uneasy. For context on the severity of this feeling: the last time you felt like this was when you first met his daughter.
But you’re not just a lawyer—he’s opening the file in his hands, flipping through its contents—you’re a disgrace to this very world. You shouldn’t even be in this damn house right now. 
Into the file his hand reaches, and out from it: two mugshots. You bristle; Sana gasps (and it’s not that she didn’t know, rather because she was shocked that her father knew.)
So it’s the next sentence that seals your fate. Frankly, you kind of expected it, but it still doesn’t take away from the sheer bedlam that goes down in your head when Mr Minatozaki waves the mugshots of your parents before your face and shrieks at the top of his lungs. 
This isn’t the way you pictured this going. 
Honestly, you never pictured this happening at all.
 “Do you seriously think for a second that I’d let the son of two druggies—two disgraceful, repugnant, filthy, druggies—marry my daughter?”
*
It’s hard to forget what she told you over the phone after your talk with her father (if you can even call it that): we’ll figure this out. I promise you, we’ll figure this out. 
Money can get you a nice fancy Ball, some nice Whisky and a private Karaoke room. Naturally, it can grant you a means to keep the son of two convicted drug abusers that hung themselves in their cells away from your daughter. 
So not even 12 hours after that fate-sealing conversation did you get a phone call from your boss. Next thing you know, you’re uprooted from your workplace in Osaka, transferred to the branch in Nagoya; Sana’s number mysteriously changes itself, none of your letters ever reach her. 
It’s over the payphone, months after all of this, that Sana finally reaches you, and she’s ugly crying over the phone. 
We can fix this, we’ll figure something out. We’ll figure this out. I promise you, we’ll figure this out. 
In a way, she ended up being right. 
And in your suit, you smile as you watch her walk down the aisle. She’s beautiful as ever, and you feel like that white veil over her face is doing her the biggest disservice ever. The little boy carrying the wedding rings seems a little confused, but it only adds to his adorable aura as he stumbles behind Sana. The flower petals are being scattered, the crowd’s on their feet. They’re clapping; you’re crying. Have you mentioned that she looks beautiful?
Oh? You have? Odd…
But just in case it slips your mind, you tell her how beautiful she is in your head, all while she walks right past you and continues to the stage. It feels like the ring boy’s acting stupid to taunt you for being the fool here. 
In a way, she ended up being right. If “We” referred to Sana’s father and that man on the stage, “We” did indeed end up figuring things out. The invite broke you, and this wedding is breaking you even more. You know that this invite wasn’t sent by Sana—she isn’t cruel. This has the fingerprints of her father all over it: the seat close to the aisle, your wristband to authorise your access to the venue holding the same serial code as your father’s prisoner ID… All of it is him. 
But there’s not much you can do about it is there? You chose to come, you chose this for yourself. There was the option to not come, to tear the invite up and go cry in your apartment in Nagoya, but you bought the Shinkansen ticket here, didn’t you? You walked through the doors of this damn place and took your seat, didn’t you?
And the Yamazaki doesn’t taste as good as it should, and the Spring air is sharper than it should be at the afterparty. They’re over there, congratulating the newly weds and wishing them all the best; you’re over here, sipping on your neat Whisky behind a bush as the music roars on.
It really shouldn’t be a question on how she finds you; she knows you too well to know where you’d go at a place like this. And in her wedding gown, she stands where she is, this look of a god-knows-what mix of emotions simmering on her face. You rub your nose with a thumb, sip on the bitter Whisky as your remedy. No words are spoken, not even a “hey” or “how have you been”—both of you know that there’s no use in starting a conversation here. It’ll go sob, fast, and this isn’t the place for it.
There will never be a place for it.
So why not substitute words with actions? 
So in her bare feet, she hikes up her gown, runs over to you, lunges to close those years of separation between you two to hug you like she used to. The Whisky is knocked out of your hands; you’re knocked off your feet. And in the grass, she buries her head into your shoulder and weeps. 
You always thought that only death would make you cry, but now as you hold her for what may very well be the last time, you realise: you're not as tough as you think.
Like a Lemon, the realisation that comes is bitter, and it has you bawling.
Cause maybe in a world that wasn’t so cruel, you could’ve been the one on that stage.
(Then the two of you could be in love, happier than ever.)
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thelongestway · 9 months ago
Text
A crazy theory just coalesced about Star Trek holodecks. Why does every ship have them? Why are they some of the last things to go down, if they need so much power and are purely recreational? Why do they malfunction so often? I submit to you that holodecks essentially fulfill the function of a top-end graphics card on modern-day PCs. Yes, they run games for pleasure. But also they are very good for running a bunch of complex calculations, especially involving the simulation of space and laws of physics. And this has a bunch of utility uses. Y'know how graphics cards are used for stuff like protein folding or, more annoyingly, bitcoin mining? This, but in Star Trek.
So here's my little bit of crazy world building: holodecks function as reserve processing units. In normal operation, they handle scientific sims, like we often see in the shows (and a bit of fun for the crew). But in combat, they handle some of the heavy-duty calculations for things like autofiring beam banks or shield redistribution, which is why people don't usually redistribute power from them immediately. Your holodecks go down, you do a lot more by hand. And sometimes you get edge scenarios such as storing physical bodies in their RAM. Most crews fiddle with and overclock theirs, which is why there are so many bugs. But everyone swears by them anyway.
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heartthrobin · 1 year ago
Text
my bleeding dream, my shadow in the night
jake lockley x female!reader
wc: 9.5k
warnings: mutual pining, enemies to lovers (kinda?), angst, jake lockley is emotionally constipated, there is heavy steven / marc x reader but mostly jake centred, description of wounds and stitching them up, blood, a couple references to sex, there is a dog (i see him as a leonburger btw), jake still works for khonshu, post mk s1, heavy handed on the spanish fight me
an: hey loves !!! sorry it took so long, but here you go. obvs this is my interpretation of jake cause we don't see much of him in mk :// remember to comment and repost to support your fav writers
summary: you were convinced, no: you were sure, that Jake Lockley couldn't stand the sight of you. then why was he consistently banging at your door in the middle of the night, dripping in blood and begging to be stitched up?
Mouse was noisy.
You really wished he wouldn't be.
He was a big boy, the largest puppy you'd ever seen when you'd picked him up from the shelter. Tall enough now to sit straight up at your kitchen table and swipe leftovers off the middle shelf in the fridge when left unattended.
Despite his monstrous presence, Mouse yipped and whined like a teacup terrier.
It wasn't too bad most days. You were more than welcome to lug his eighty kilogram bum with you to the veterinary clinic where you worked, which you did, but it was the weekends that were tough on him.
When he'd be left alone in the flat.
Mouse would whimper at the door all the hours you were gone, whine until he heard you shuffling back up the corridor after a couple drinks with friends or between all the mostly horrible dates with monotonous men you subjected yourself to.
You couldn't call him a nuisance - he was your baby, you could never - but the guilt picked at you. You wondered most of all if he bothered your neighbours.
There was a sign up in the elevator: no pets allowed in the building! which you avoided eye contact with on a daily basis.
It wasn't all bad, Mouse's noisiness.
After all, it was his dramatics that brought Steven Grant to your door in the first place a Sunday night somewhere deep into April.
Steven had knocked so lightly, so politely on your door.
You'd opened it just slightly, enough to hide the furry mountain who was hovering curiously behind your figure. Who's there? Who's there?
He'd stumbled out a greeting, introduced himself as your neighbour. Two doors down.
You were long lost in the confusion of how you'd never realised that the most handsome man you'd ever laid eyes on was living less than a few feet from your front door, when he mentioned Mouse.
Not by name, exactly, but rather asked if "the dog" was alright. That he'd heard whining into the early hours of that morning.
That morning when you'd been in a bar two streets up from the apartment building listening to a man tell you about why Bitcoin was the "future of finance". God.
Dread had drained your face of colour, you remember how you'd tripped over your apologies, and begged him not to mention it to the landlord.
Steven's face reflected your panic. He assured you that everything was fine, he was just worried that something had happened. He apologised about as much as you had.
You invited him in that night, let Mouse sniff around the edges of his pants.
Mouse had sat with his bear-sized head in Steven's lap the rest of the afternoon when you'd poured them tea. Steven chuckled nervously: you figured that he hadn't anticipated the size of the dog when he'd come to make his welfare check.
From that day, things rumbled into a colourful blur of neighbourly dues to genial friendship to ... god, you didn't even know anymore.
Stops in the corridors became twenty minutes for tea which morphed into "I cooked too much pasta, care for a plate?" and then three hours over your kitchen table.
Steven, you found, was cheeky and endearing, and shy in all the right places.
He talked more than he listened and you would warm yourself happily with the sound of his voice for hours before he'd stutter out a "I'm so rude, I didn't even ask how was your--", and then you'd give a little too.
There were books he put you on, mostly about Ancient Egypt, but others were poetry or mysteries or biographies. He'd invite you for tea in his flat, poke and prod you on your thoughts on the book while Mouse sat quietly invested in watching Gus and Gil float up and down the tank for hours.
You met Marc eventually.
He was soft in different ways to Steven, eyes wearier than his counterpart's. Marc was hesitant, following slowly when Steven tugged him out into the light of your eyes.
You worked on him gently, steadily. Brought him baked goods when you'd made, walked out with him some mornings to work and offered to stop with him for a coffee.
More than that, none of the boys took to Mouse more than Marc.
It was something about the military in him, you thought, that brought Marc around to bury his hands into the spaces behind the dog's ears. Coo at him and fish pieces of jerky out his pocket just so long as Mouse sat draped over his lap the whole time.
It rolled into walks with you on the weekends, when you'd need to sneak Mouse out the building, and then dinner on the way home.
The ebb and flow of it was sweet, and slow, and you sunk into the boys' presence like a cat bathing in sunlight.
Jake came later. Later, in the early days of July when the tendrils of Summer had sunk themselves deep into the heart of London.
He wasn't like Marc, not skittish. Neither welcoming nor open to your meddling, he seemed distinctly above it. Above you.
There was an explicit distinction between him and the other boys, maybe just to you.
Jake avoided your eyes and your conversation. He kept up with his alters' wishes but entertained you no further.
You'd heard about him long before you'd met him. A rainy afternoon, chasing down the foyer of the building with a "hold the elevator!"
His eyes found yours and you beamed at catching Steven or Marc before heading up.
"Hey--" you watched his eyes turn you over.
Jake didn't slouch like Steven, nor was he taut and tense in the shoulders like Marc. He stood with an ease about him, his head tilted down under the flat cap that worked to shield his eyes.
He greeted curtly, a definite East coast twang to his speech.
"You must be Jake." You said plainly, finding no other way around it.
The man's brow tightened, "Sure."
There came a realisation to his expression, twisting up again. "You must be the doll from down the corridor."
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Neither of you moved.
"Uh ... I suppose so."
Jake nodded, moving without another word down towards his door. Your feet tripped over themselves to follow him.
Jingling keys broke the quiet of the corridor and his door creaked open.
"It was nice meeting--"
It closed with a thump.
"... you."
Your interactions with the third member of the system were spread out, bumps here and there. No more than a few words.
Steven worried about him, about Jake.
Him and Marc had told you about Khonshu, about the Moonknight, in the darkness of a Thursday night following a few glasses of whisky.
"But ..." the glass teetered over the wooden table where Marc was twirling it round. "He's gone now, right? I-I mean, you're done, aren't you?"
Marc's eyes flickered up just once.
"Yeah, yeah ..." he nodded, words blurred around the edges with alcohol. "Just some days ... I ... I don't know."
"You don't know?"
His eyes flickered.
"Yeah, love. We just worry about Jake some days, he comes home with bruises and stuff--" Steven.
His expression twisted again, this time almost painfully.
"Nothing to worry about." Marc had returned, clearly intent on shutting Steven up. He took a long slug of the brown remnants in his glass. "You still got any of that cake from yesterday?"
And so it passed that way, for weeks.
Jake was a ghost that haunted the corridors between awkward elevator interactions or sometimes when he'd pop into the middle of you and Steven's documentary movie nights.
It stayed that way for a long while, until the visits began.
The landlord arranged a check-in once a month, just to ensure that nothing was broken, that you were keeping the place clean, that you weren't hiding one of the hounds of Baskerville in your flat. Things of that sort.
Steven had graciously offered to let Mouse come stare at his fish tank for a few hours until the check-in was over.
You lingered at his door and knocked twice, eyes flickering nervously up and down the corridor for signs of any other tenants creeping out their own flats.
The door opened and with one glance over his figure, you knew it wasn't Steven.
"Jake?"
He squinted at you, clad in pajamas and looking you up and down affronted as if it wasn't already three o' clock in the afternoon. It was clear that he'd just woken up.
"Yeah?"
His hair was tousled in a way that was making your stomach churn. God, surely there were laws in place to stop men from looking this handsome in the middle of broad fucking daylight?
"Sorry to bother," your hand tightened around Mouse's leash where he was inching forward to lick at Jakes exposed ankles. "Steven said I could leave Mouse here for a couple hours while the landlord comes to check my place?"
Jake's eyes dropped to the dog, as if he was noticing him for the first time. He nodded, pulling the door further open for him to slip past.
You smiled softly, feeling the awkwardness crowd over your face and redden your cheeks. "Thanks, I-I really appreciate it."
He nodded again. "Yeah, no problem."
When you collected Mouse later that night, Marc opened the door with the dog merry under his palm and Jake was foggy memory.
That was the first night.
The street outside had already dimmed to a soft whir of taxis and buses when you'd slipped off into bed. Mouse was taking up most of the space, as he did most nights, and you'd passed out before the blinking light on your bedside clock had even hit midnight.
It was thunderous, the knock, when it came. It jostled you from sleep with the immediate panic that the door was being broken down.
Mouse was scratching at the base of the door before you'd even sat up, adrenaline pumping through your system. The clock flashed four thirty-seven.
"What the fuck ..." your bare legs kicked off the sheets, stumbling towards the door.
In hindsight, maybe checking the peephole would have been wise, but you threw open the door in oversight.
Leaning, head down and panting, against the wooden frame stood the figure of your neighbour.
"Jake?"
The jacket with the fur lining, the cap crumpled in his fist. It had to be him.
"What are you ..." Your eyes found the side of his waist, white shirt blossoming with a crimson stain.
Jake looked up with wide black eyes. Even in the darkness, they curled with remorse.
"Listen, I'm sorry, I just--"
"Get inside," your hand reached for his arm, helping him off the doorframe and guiding him to crash down into the nearest chair at your kitchen table.
He seethed, head leaning back over the seat. "Fuck ..."
Your knees found the wooden floor, hands creeping up his legs towards his shirt. "Can I?"
He nodded.
Cold hands crumpled up the edges of the once white t-shirt and you lifted it up against his chest. A deep gash was reaching from his armpit towards his hips.
You drew a shaky breath, "Jake, you need to go to the hospital--"
"No." His voice was stern. "No hospitals, I can't ... they can't know."
Realisation was dawning on your reeling mind.
"This has to do with Khonshu. Doesn't it?"
Jake's gaze burnt into yours, but he made no move to answer. It was the response you'd expected.
You sighed, running a hand back over your hair. "I ... I don't know what you want me to do?"
Mouse was sniffing curiously at Jake, sensing where the tension was building.
"You're a doc, aren't you?"
"For animals!"
He shrugged, "I'm as close as you're gonna get, muñeca."
Sucking in another deep breath, you glanced back at the wound. The dim light in the kitchen worked to hide where you were sure other cuts and bruises were forming over his torso.
The thought of Steven and Marc occurred to you. When they would wake up tomorrow morning in a hospital bed, panicked.
You nodded eventually.
"Fine." It was barely a whisper. "Give ... give me a second."
There was a small set-up in the cupboard beneath your sink, the basics you'd need to stitch him up.
He made no other comment in your movement to the bathroom and back. You placed the box onto the table noisily.
"You need to get up on the counter," you said, flipping the light on in the corner of the room. "I can't work kneeling down like this."
With a grunt that made your cheeks warm, Jake rose from the chair and hauled himself up onto your kitchen counter, knocking your toaster back against the wall loudly.
"Lose the shirt." You said it without meeting his eyes.
When his jacket and shirt had been tossed back against the table behind you, you neared him again: letting your fingers graze softly around the wound. You worked hard to ignore the sharp inhale he made at your touch, or the goosebumps that rose around your hand.
He was watching you with heavy eyes, you glanced up to meet them and if you didn't know better, might have said that they twinkled with a shine of endearment.
"I don't have any anaesthetic," you whispered, sure he could hear you at the close proximity you now found yourself with him. "You'll feel everything."
"He tenido peores."
I've had worse.
You considered him for a moment, before reaching behind his head for the knob on the cupboard: swinging it open.
Behind some coffee mugs was the last of a bottle of vodka you'd gotten for your birthday. Not a lot, but maybe enough.
You handed it to him and he took it without question, spinning off the lid. He took three big gulps, face twisting as he sat it down.
Picking it up before his hand had even left it, you took two similar sips to wash down the panic rising in your throat.
When you found his face again, a smile had curled into his lips. Like he was on the verge of a laugh.
"Oh no," you set it down, "Don't go starting to like me now right before I have you put your life in my hands."
The objects from your little medicine box clattered out onto the counter beside him, you pretended not to notice where his face curled up in confusion.
"What makes you think I didn't like you before?"
You huffed. "Jake, please."
It seemed he didn't have an answer. Silence grew stale between your figures as you sanitised the utensils and your hands.
You drenched a bandage in alcohol, giving Jake a sympathetic look before pressing it over the wound.
He seethed at the pain, but not enough that you worried. You wiped it down as gently as you could manage, resting your other hand on his shoulder.
When the dried blood had been cleared and only fresh blood was leaking out did you reach for the needle.
"You ready?" You whispered, voice trembling.
He shrugged, "Are you?"
Mouse nudged at your leg, whining lowly. You ignored him and nodded.
Your fingers pushed at the skin, nudging them together where you pierced the needle and Jake let out a jolt.
The needle wove in and out, your fingers stained in blood against where Jake was groaning. He'd reached for the bottle of vodka again, guzzling down sip after sip: the rim of the bottle working to quieten his moans of pain.
Your eyes flickered up between the wound and his face, his face twisted and his chest reeling with heavy pants.
"I'm sorry," your words wobbled, the vision of the wound growing blurry behind gathering tears. "I'm sorry, I'm so..."
A hand found your jaw, pulling you back up into Jake's line of sight. The grip was warm.
"Hey, hey ..." his other hand released the neck of the bottle, swiping a calloused thumb over your cheek where a tear had run down. "You've done this before, I'm just like a ... a big dog. Just not as hairy."
You nodded, ragged breaths escaping you. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."
His hand stayed over your face and you hoped it would linger for a little longer.
It moved, returning to the safety of the last swigs of vodka.
Your hand came to find the needle again, working it into his side to finish out the last few stitches. He was making more of an effort to stifle his groans, you could tell.
When you finished, you patted it with alcohol again before setting everything down against the counter. You wiped your hands, watching down as you stained the kitchen cloth with blood.
Jake investigated the wound site, hunched carefully over. "It looks good. You did a good job."
You handed him a roll of fresh bandages, ignoring his needless compliment. "It needs a fresh wrap every time you shower ... and put some antibiotic ointment on if you have. If you don't have, go buy."
He slipped gently off the edge of the counter, you took a seat at your kitchen table: sucking in hard breaths and avoiding his face.
The jacket and shirt slid off the table, he pressed them against his chest.
"Thank you."
You nodded, still not looking at him. "You need sleep, Jake."
But he lingered, made no move towards the door. The quiet stretched long enough to where your head came back up to find him.
His fist was curling and uncurling at his side, lips pursed.
"What is it?"
Jake's brow softened. "Please don't .... don't tell Steven or Marc that I was here."
You stared at him, affronted. "I think that's the least of your worries, Jake. If I were you, I'd worry about how you're gonna explain the twenty stitches in your side."
"You'd think." He shrugged, an air of charisma to his tone that you were realising was characteristic of him. "They'd freak those two, if they knew I woke you up in the middle of the night for this. For anything, actually."
"Meaning?"
He huffed, tugging the blood-wet shirt over his frame carefully. You avoided where your eyes were desperate to follow the trail of black hairs down over his stomach.
"You're a smart woman, princesa. Playing dumb doesn't suit you." Jake tightened the jacket to his side. "You've got those two wrapped around your pretty little finger."
The implication made your cheeks flush. Made you itch under your skin with his remarks, with how little care he tossed them at you.
"Right. So that's why you don't like me, is it? Cause I care about Marc and Steven?"
He shook his head in place of answering.
"I'm gonna go." Jake's feet shuffled backwards.
The door clicked behind him and Mouse whimpered at his absence.
-
In the weeks following that night, days dissolved into a technicolour blur of work and sleep.
Things had picked up at the clinic: you were tied down by late night surgeries and early morning consults.
You didn't see Jake once in that time.
Steven invited you around in the few moments you were home when you had them, with the pot boiling, offering a store-bought muffin warmed on a plate and good intentions.
Even Marc had stopped past your work, a coffee in hand and a smile lit between blushing cheeks. It was the one you liked from the place around the corner.
But Jake remained a foggy memory and as they days passed, you were growing more and more sure that his visit had only occurred in a dream.
That was until he came again.
Another knock, another confused shuffle through the darkness towards the door.
The light from the hallway framed a halo over his head, throwing a shadow over where you knew a cheeky grin was forming. "Princesa."
You drew the door back, rubbing the sleepy buzz from the corners of your eyes. Too tired to indulge him with argument, you motioned for him to pass into your flat.
He limped past your frame, hand kissing his bloody shoulder.
"On the counter, Lockley." You mumbled around the sleeve of your pajamas.
Jake lifted himself with his left arm, groaning where he slid onto the surface. He reached into the cupboard, bumping past mugs to where you'd stashed the bottle of vodka. There was hardly two sips left in it and he cleaned them out before you'd even returned.
Mouse was watching the action from a spot on the couch.
When you'd set the kit onto the space beside him, his shirt was already pulled to the side: revealing two stab wounds up his right shoulder.
You made no move to lift your arms from your sides, instead your eyes traced the wound where blood was leaking steadily out.
"I thought there was a suit? Steven says it used to heals wounds."
Jake's gaze hadn't left your face since he'd sat down. He shook his head.
"I don't wear it, the suit." He said simply.
You said nothing else, instead moving to wash your hands and wipe down the needle, attaching some thread to the end of it.
Silence rung in the space. You could tell by his fidgeting that it bothered Jake, but still, he made no move to talk.
Your hands, cool from the water, ran up over his arm and pressed gently into the skin surrounding the cuts. He sighed and you pretended that the sound didn't eat you up from the inside, pretend that you weren't thinking about how it would sound muffled against your own mouth.
The needle pierced his skin without warning and he jerked against your hand before apologising quietly.
Compared to his last visit, these cuts were deeper rather than wide: like the perpetrator only managed a nick before Jake threw himself back. It would only need five or six stitches and you sewed them in gently, but this time, insensitive to his twitching and squirming.
Annoyance flared beneath your skin. He doesn't show his face once in the time since he last appeared at your door, but here he was again: offering his wounds like a struck puppy.
"You know I could lose my license for this." You say it quietly, more of a comment than a question.
He observed you from under thick black lashes. "Why're you doing it then?"
There hung a pause where you grappled for answers. Different combinations of words fought to leave your mouth - all of them reaching out from your bruised heart.
"Because Marc and Steven are in there." You settle on. "And if I left it to you, all three of you would die of sepsis."
Something akin to hurt flashes across his face, but it's hard to tell through the darkness and easy to chalk up to the needle dipping in and out of his skin.
"Good to know you worry about me, too, muñeca."
You wipe the now stitched wound unceremoniously, not even admitting to the end of the procedure and definitely not addressing the fact that you do worry. That since his last visit, you worry about him every fucking night before you sleep. But he doesn't need to know that.
"Let me see your side." You motion over his shirt where you'd stitched him up less than a month before.
Jake lifted the shirt tentatively. You were met with the pink stretched scar down his abdomen.
"Who took out the stitches?"
His abdomen rippled where he shifted. "I'm sure you can guess."
The image of Steven poking around between dried stitches and gagging dramatically made a chuckle rise up in your throat. "Marc."
"Yeah."
"What did they say? About the scar?"
Jake's hand brushed along where your forearm rested at the counter, but - not for the first time - drenched your question in silence.
Irritation picked at you again. You pulled your arm out from under his touch. "Whatever, Jake. Keep your fucking secrets."
Before you'd even been allowed the chance to storm back to your room, he caught your arm: slinging you back against the counter.
Your breath caught on the back of your teeth when his forehead pressed against yours.
It was warm and sticky with sweat.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, his nose pressing against the side of your own. "I'm sorry, don't be angry at me princesa. Please?"
His eyes were so intoxicating this close. You unstuck your face from his, far enough to wash him with your gaze but close enough to still feel the puffs of warm pants across your jaw.
You pressed some hair up out of his face, letting your fingers venture softly through its brambly depths.
"I'm ... I'm not." His forehead was salty where you pushed a kiss there. "Go to bed, Jake."
You'd already disappeared under the comfort of your duvet when your neighbour's footsteps faded out into the hallway.
-
Steven and Marc had taken to asking you about Jake. More than they ever had and far beyond what was necessary.
It peaked suspicion in you.
"No, I've barely seen him." You'd shrugged. Not completely untrue in your words, but not letting on what you knew you could. "Why's that?"
Steven would shake it off. "Nothing, just wondering."
Marc's responses were laced in a little more candour. "He's been asking about you. Talking about you."
"What's he say?" You pretend it's unimportant, like you're not burning to know.
Marc raised his shoulders. A part of you knew that Jake had to be imploring him, insisting he abandon it. Leave him alone, and you alone, and you and him alone.
It was a matter your mind twisted over: did they know? know about Jake and Khonshu and your medical handiwork? -- until it wasn't.
Steven asked you out on a Monday night outside your flat door.
He'd stuttered and stumbled through: "I'd like to take you to dinner."
"Sure, that sounds great Stevie--"
"No, like ... like a date. I'd like to take you to dinner. On a date, i-if you want to."
You'd paused, delight crawling up over your face and manifesting into two cherry red cheeks. "I'd love that."
That Friday after work, you sat across Steven at a tiny round table in a dress you'd not had opportunity to wear in ages.
It was at a pizza place up the road where a single candle lit the space between you, like it did in the movies, and a bouquet of white roses sat in the open chair with your purse. Steven had bought them for you.
You noticed his eyes flicker back in intervals when you spoke, but pretended you didn't.
He was attentive and funny, like he was most every time you saw him, but this time seemed more nervous at it. Your hands curled around his across the red tablecloth and he smiled over words when you brushed a forefinger over his own.
The night ended with a takeaway pizza box interrupting the space where you pushed against his chest, taking his jaw gently into your hand and kissing him sweeter than you'd offered a man before.
It was barely Monday morning when Jake came again. Hardly a week since his last visit.
He hung at your doorframe, fist hovering over the wood.
His head was throbbing something terrible and he could feel where blood was trickling between the tendrils of hair down past his left ear.
A part of him wished he could feel an ounce of shame for it, for creeping out into the night in search of a fight. In search of a reason to end up back at your door.
He didn't.
The knock scraped his knuckles and echoed down the hallway past the other flat.
Jake waited for it. The sniff of the dog at the door, then the sleepy shuffle of feet over wooden floorboards.
It played into the space like his favourite song. The door clicked open, spreading to reveal your figure against the light from the street beyond the window.
The image was burnt into his mind the first time he'd seen it, playing like a video on loop until the next moment that he was blessed with the sight again.
Your sleeping shorts rumpled up against the top of your thigh, sleeves reaching down to your fingertips and a stretch of stomach peeking up at him. So soft, so domestic - he wanted to squeeze you between his calloused palms and press you against him until your forms fuzed.
Instead he settled, like he's done before, with a "princesa" and a finger motioning to wherever he let a deadbeat land a punch or a swipe of a blade on his body.
Tonight, he was dripping all over your doormat. The sky lit up the flat behind you with a crack of lightning, followed with a rumbling that could just have easily grown from the back of your throat as it did from the sky.
Jake felt your eyes, felt it's warmth over his neck where the trail of blood was leading down like the Nile.
"Have you ever thought of coming to visit me when you're not fresh off the bad end of a beating?"
I never stop.
"You gonna patch me up or not, doc?"
He found his usual spot, up on the counter. You disappeared, like you did each time. The dog rested a friendly head on his lap and Jake offered him a pat.
You'd bought a new bottle of vodka, he found it behind the mugs just as he did the time before. He wondered for a moment if you'd gotten it specifically for him.
Cool hands found the base of his neck. This was always his favourite part, when he'd get a taste of your touch against his begging, desperate skin.
And as much as this was his immediate reason for coming, your skin lingered further in his mind: a memory that didn't belong to him. It had kept him up for days.
You were working quietly, like you'd done before and the time before that.
"So." He broke the crisp air that had settled around you two. "Steven asked you out?"
Your eyes flickered up from where you were patting an antiseptic drenched cotton ball at the bump on the side of his head between his hair. The smell was reminding him of the last time you'd pinned him against this counter.
Why're you doing it then?
Because Marc and Steven are in there.
They were words that punctured a new wound into his gut every time he thought on it.
"What's it to ya, Lockley?"
Your hands went back to work, unconcerned for his question.
He shrugged like he didn't care. Like he hadn't scratched violent tears into the sides of his shared brain for a fraction of a sight of you that night: in the prettiest green sundress he'd ever seen and looking like heaven on a plate.
Satisfied with just that, he'd slunk back into the shadows again.
Steven deserved the moment to himself. Deserved you to himself.
It didn't mean that Jake was any less jealous. Any less ripped apart by your place in their life, the place he could never make for you in his own.
"He took you to Lorenzo's, right?"
You hummed, not looking at him.
Jake shrugged noncommittally. "I mean ... everyone knows that the pizza at De Luca's is better. The wine too, but whatever, I guess."
A nail raked gently over a spot behind the cut and Jake tried - failed - not to shiver at it.
"Isn't that place run by the mafia?" Curiosity weaved through your tone.
Jake hummed, "That's what makes it the best."
You laughed softly at that, just barely under your breath, and it made the pit in the base of his stomach warm. He could grow drunk on the sound.
He noticed the red vase on your kitchen table, white roses peaking out the top and watching him merrily.
"And white roses?"
"I like them, Jake." you dug a finger into soft spot against the side of his neck, no doubt on purpose. He jerked against it. "Steven put in a lot of effort."
It struck a funny chord in him, listening to you defend his alter.
"You'd prefer carnations though, wouldn't you? You said they're your favourite."
"Not to you, I didn't."
Sure, you hadn't. You'd mentioned it to Marc one afternoon stroll past the new florist that had opened up around the corner, but that didn't mean he hadn't heard. Didn't remember.
He leaned closer to your face, watching how your eyes flew up from wiping the blood down his neck.
"You forget ..." He whispered, tapping a finger against his temple. "I'm always here, muñeca."
You stepped back and out of his space, tossing the bloody tissue into the bin.
"Well, if it bothers you so much ... you're welcome to take your complaints up with Steven when you see him. Alright?"
"You kissed him."
That made you stop. Made your hands freeze over the kitchen cloth you'd been using to wipe his blood from your fingertips. Another line of lightning cracked beyond the window loudly.
Your eyes moved slowly between resting on his knee and taking sips of his own gaze. There was a sliver of moonlight grazing over your cheek, Jake was sure it was Khonshu taunting him.
"Is that the only place you were bleeding?" You deflected his question with another.
Jake watched you with desperate eyes. He didn't know what he wanted, he just knew that he wanted all of it. All of you. It's heat dissolved when he looked down to his boots. Sticky drying blood smudged over the toe.
"Yeah. Tha's all."
He was surprised when a warm palm closed over his cheek. Droplets of water chased down from the edges of his hair over the back of your hand.
The hand was gone before he'd even a chance to acknowledge it.
"You could have a concussion, Jake." You perched yourself at the edge of your kitchen table across from him. "I think you should go shower and put on warm clothes and come back ... so I can watch you for a bit. Okay?"
As tempting as the offer was, and it did tempt him something terrible, he nudged himself off the counter shaking his head. "No. I should go."
"Jake." Your voice was stern. "Just ... please. I want to make sure that you're okay."
"That I'm okay, or that the others are okay?"
You swallowed. "That you're okay."
His chest inflated and deflated loudly against the hum of the rain at the window. Was it a crime to want more than just a few blood and pain filled moments under the solace of your hand?
"You have work in the morning."
A simple huff escaped you, akin to a chuckle. "Never stopped you before."
He flashed you an annoyed look that held absolutely no substance. His hands itched for yours.
"I'm not gonna go change."
"But you're wet."
"A little rain never killed anybody."
"Does someone pay you to be difficult, hm? A little something on the side?"
You grinned, proud of your little jab at him and he could melt under it's sticky sweetness.
"Shut up." He mumbled.
You sighed and he followed you without instruction towards the couch where you fell back against it. He sat more civilly down beside you - purposeful in the space he left between your thighs.
"You wanna watch something?" You ask quietly.
He shakes his head. No. You nod. Fine.
The fabric was growing damp under his wet jeans, Jake could feel the cold creeping up his legs. The dog was snoring loudly from a spot on the carpet.
"Where did you find this giant dog--?"
"Why do you only talk to me when something's wrong?"
Jake's eyes flew to you, but your gaze remained steadfast on a dark corner of the book shelf across the room.
"I found him at the shelter. Named him Mouse, thought it would be funny ... cause mice are small. And ... he's so big." Your voice was only barely more than a whisper, meandering between words like you didn't know where the sentence was going. "Your turn."
He ran a hand down the jean over his thigh, adjusting in his wet seat. Honesty choked him with the way it was clawing it's way up his throat. You make me nervous and I'm too scared of how much I care for you to face you in the light of day.
A hard swallow washed that confession back down from whence it came. You still weren't looking at him.
"I like it when it's just us." He mumbled instead. A half admission.
You sniffled like you might be crying. Jake was too scared to look.
"It could be just us during the day sometimes too, you know."
There was nowhere left to look for answer, so he didn't bother. Instead, he reached tentatively across the space where your hand was curling on itself at your side.
He pressed his palm against yours and it uncurled, fingers drawing around his like they knew all the curves and dips and callouses there. You shifted so your head pressed into the side of his arm, it stayed there.
Nothing else was said. Not for the rest of the night.
A long quiet hour had drifted past when Jake realised that you'd fallen asleep. Soft, predictable breaths were drawing in and out from your nose.
He shifted to look down at your face, a movement that jostled you off of him and he almost mourned the loss when you curled instead onto the plush of his lap: arms twisted up against your chest.
It took a long moment of convincing to lift his hand from his side: letting it brush along your hairline, tucking back pieces that fanned over your forehead.
His fingertips trailed down over your face, brushing along the bridge of your nose - he watched where it scrunched up and twisted, feeling his heart melt stickily over his ribs - and softly over puffy lips.
He thought again about how you'd kissed Steven.
Jake knew because Steven had told him, voice breathless and heart thumping against his chest just moments after he'd shut the door on you. Marc was proud, Jake was too - but it burnt where it lingered.
Marc would no doubt get there with you too, ask you on another date and have his moments with you. Have something to tend to, to grow, and he knew it because he saw how you looked at them.
That endearment that he knew he could have too if only he just--
He blinked the thought away.
There was danger in allowing himself to love you, far too much to consider it. A weakness that one of Khonshu's adversaries could surely exploit. 
Sure, Steven and Marc could bask in your warmth. Taste the sweet fruit of your intelligence and kindness, wrap themselves around your heart.
But not him.
It’s what kept him so far, you at arm's length. 
Only in the moments where pain and adrenaline blinded him to sense could he offer himself pathetically at your door in the dark of hot London nights. 
You twitched against him.
"I'll come for you one day, muñeca." He whispered for nobody but himself to hear. "Te lo prometo."
I promise.
-
Life fell into a sweet sway after that, it curled around the edges with the warmth of finding home in a person.
You drifted between work and the comfort Steven's presence.
It took three more dates and a shy kiss along a bridge over the Thames before he asked you to be his girlfriend and your heart swelled three sizes at the look on his face when you agreed.
Many weeks passed that way: Saturday mornings were warm despite the creeping winter where you found the morning light between the crack in Steven's arm over your waist.
Marc was around almost as much as Steven.
He'd asked you to the ice-rink in the days after Steven and you had become official. He wouldn't have asked if Steven hadn't thought it fine so you smiled and accepted his offer too.
You'd promised and delivered on the fact that you couldn't skate. Marc spent most of the time catching you moments before hitting the ice and your stomach cramped with laughter. He laughed too, loudly and with a shaking chest pressed against your own. It was the most you'd ever seen him smile.
He'd held you close under the gazebo where you'd bought him a coffee and yourself a tea, his nose brushed against yours almost as nervously as Steven's had. A different kind of nervousness though, more ... tentative. He shivered with it.
His hand slipped into yours, nose against yours but shifting no further than it. Quiet in his plea for permission.
"Steven?" You whispered against him.
Marc's eyes found the puddle below his feet, the hint of a smile teasing at his mouth.
"He's been begging me to ask you out for months, d'ya know that?" He chuckled softly, warm breath drifting over your lips. "Been holding out. Kind of forced him to do it first."
You laughed too, brushing your top lip over his. "You two are ridiculous."
He snorted. "Just wait till you get to know, Jake."
You kissed him.
Marc was confident, leading the kiss where Steven only followed. It was all-consuming, hand at the bend of your throat and sucking oxygen from your lungs until it's absence forced you apart.
You'd already made peace with the fact that maybe Jake was just a ghost. A figure that appeared to you in the night and you'd never see his shining beetle-black eyes in the light of any day.
But as you should have long since made out, Jake had a special talent for surprising you.
He appeared in the five minutes between making eggs and toast that you'd run to the bathroom. Nearing the kitchen: you found Steven leaning against the counter and biting down into a piece of buttered bread, wide back turned to you.
Your face found the centre of his back, nuzzling your cheek against his warmth. Cool from being freshly washed, your hands slipped under the flimsy layer of Steven's pajama shirt and chased up his hot stomach.
"Ay, mierda!" he flinched, but his voice stayed soft and even, "your hands are freezing."
It took a hard second, digesting his exclamation, before your hands withdrew from his chest as if scorched by a hot stove.
"Jake?" Disbelief laced your tone.
He glanced over his shoulder, clearly unconcerned when he nodded, "good toast, this."
That same wave of irritation was crawling over you, the one that found you late when the banging on your door deafened you, but it was numbed by the endearment. The fondness at hearing the lilt of his voice, seeing him so bright in the daylight.
"It wasn't supposed to be for you." You grumbled but the words held no malice.
Jake bumped his shoulder against yours, he shrugged: "Same stomach."
You rolled your eyes.
"But," he sighed, sipping on Steven's mug and making a face, "If you want your darling back so desperately, you could have just said."
"Jake, wait--"
His eyes rolled back and Steven returned, gripping the counter. "Was that Jake?"
He chuckled softly, reaching for the mug Jake had just abandoned. "Sneaky man."
You nodded, sighing quietly. "Yeah ..."
It wasn't the last time. Jake cropped up again and seemed determined to surface in the moments where things were most tender, the most private.
Late one night, your bare chest draped over Marc's. His fingertips drifted up and down your back, and you smiled while he talked.
"Why're you looking at me like that?"
He was grinning though like he already knew, fishing for affection.
You shrugged, pressing closer to him. "Like what?"
"Like that."
"What, like I'm lying against a very handsome man and enjoying his conversation but also thinking a little bit about how I wished he'd kiss me again?" Your nail outlined a little heart over his tanned chest. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
A warm hand moved up your side, finally resting up behind your neck and steering you in the direction of his face.
"What, like this--" His voice crackled out like a television losing signal and his eyes rolled back as they'd done time and time before.
Pupils straightening out again, you knew who it was immediately: that tight, thin line tugging between his brows giving it away.
"Jake, what the hell--!" Your hand grappled for the sheets, ripping it up over your chest to hide your body. You straightened up to sit on the bed.
His eyes widened, hands inching himself backwards. "I ... I didn't know-- perdóname. I'm sorry--"
He was gone again.
It carried on like that, Jake popping in for a few minutes at a time: once at lunch, once when you'd arrived from work, again when you'd fallen asleep against Marc on the couch - you'd awoken to find him there.
Sometimes, he lets you get a question in edgeways: "you gonna stick around, Jake? I'm about to put the pot on?"
"No, no. Just ..." he always looked around like he came for something but he'd forgotten what. "Never mind."
-
Christmas leered in the distance. Almost two months since Steven had asked you to be his, nearly one since Marc asked you to be theirs, and Jake remained the elusive man in the shadows.
There was ten days to New Years when Jake appeared for the fourth time.
You'd long dropped the habit of waiting up for him, having done that in the early times he visited. It was almost enough to put him out your mind, almost enough to pretend you didn't miss him miserably.
The door rumbled against the hinge as it had all the times before. You sat straight up, Mouse was already bounding noisily down the hallway.
Your hand ran up over your face, waiting for the knock to sound again. Maybe you'd dreamt of his return.
But it delivered, and the sound echoed through your flat.
With little concern of the sheets tangling around your ankles, you leapt from the bed and stumbled to where Mouse was scratching at the foot of the door.
The knob rattled under your hand where you threw it open and, as you'd hoped, there stood Jake: illuminated by the starchy yellow light of the building hallway.
"What's wrong?" Your eyes pressed over his figure for another bloody wound or ripped tendon. "Where are you--"
Your eyes could only find one smear of red. Barely more than a trickle edging down from the bridge of his nose. He pointed tiredly up at it.
Jake drank in your figure with his eyes. You'd abandoned the shorts that he loved so much, replaced by winter bottoms: the ends too long and trapped under your heel. A worn jumper hid your hips.
Like all the times before, you moved aside and Jake found himself up on the counter. He'd be surprised if the cut on his nose even bruised come morning, and he hadn't even gotten it in a fair fight. If you didn't consider hitting himself with the cupboard door while looking for a mug a fair fight, that is. But the pain had his eyes stinging with tears and the blood against his fingertips reminded him of you, again, and he'd crushed his tight fist through the cupboard door where it ripped clean off the hinge.
It's what lead him down the corridor, down the six steps separating your door from his.
You reappeared beside him, little first aid kit in hand and your side brushing his knee. When you dug through the box, your calf nudged at his hanging ankle.
The sharp smell of sanitiser made his nostrils itch but warmed his insides. Reminded him where he was, who he was with.
Your hand was gentle where it overtook the stubble of his cheeks. "This is gonna hurt a little, okay?"
Jake nodded, before realising that he still had yet to say a word since entering the flat. "Sí, amor. Está bien."
The cotton was ice cold against his nose and he groaned against it.
“Why are you here?” You wiped the drying blood down his cheek.
He watched you down the bridge of his nose. “Whad’ya mean? I’m all banged up here. Needed the doc to fix me up.”
He couldn’t tell if you appreciated his little sarcastic comment, but you didn’t answer him.
“Oh, you didn’t miss me?” He asked, digging and prodding in the hopes of hearing your teasing voice again.
“I missed you so much it made me sick, Jake.”
It was so quiet, a sentence said half into your chest and Jake thought he might have imagined it.
The words bubbled something inside his chest that was making it hard to breath. Hard to think.
But maybe that’s what made it so easy for his envy to creep up around the lump in his throat and jump out of his mouth.
“Didn't look like it.” His voice didn't come out as strong as he'd hoped it would have. "Got those other two keeping you plenty busy."
Your eyes flew up where to him. They were wide and wet.
"Like I didn't ask you to stay all those times you decided to pop in? Huh?" You pressed, tone crumbling around the edges. "You're the one who jumps in and out as he pleases."
"Not everything is about you, y'know that princesa--" It was a disgusting fat lie and Jake knew it too. Every breath he drew was in your honour, he'd long decided.
"Just answer me, Jake." Your hands trembled. "Just this once, can you give me something more than shrugs and silence. Can you answer me this once?"
He betrayed you with his silence.
"What do you want?" The wetness was collecting at your waterline, shivering like your frame.
Jake shook his head, the threat of your tears was making it hard to focus. "I can't ... I just can't."
"Can't? Can't what?"
"I can't have what I want."
You stepped closer again, hips pressing into his knees where he was still up on the counter. The gap of silence egged him to continue.
"Khonshu ... someone, they'll--" he sighed, hands curling into fists at his side. "I'd be putting you in danger."
Your head shook. "You think I didn't know that when Steven told me? That I'd be in danger?"
"It's not the same. thing"
"It is, Jake, it is!" your hands tightened against his thigh, "Do you forget that you're walking around with the same face? That I'm holding the same hand walking down the street?"
Mouse was peeking up at him from where he'd crammed himself under the kitchen table. He whined miserably.
"So what now?" He asked, not exactly sure what he wanted. "That solves everything?"
You retracted your hand and Jake desperately wished you hadn't.
"You still haven't answered my question." A whisper.
He shook his head, as if his thoughts would come tumbling out his ears at the motion. Frustration willed him off the counter, he huffed like a wild animal and pushed past your still figure towards the door.
His hand hadn't even collided with the doorknob when your voice rung out again.
"Don't come back, Jake."
Your tone was soft, apologetic, but the words hit him like a curled fist to his windpipe. He stopped.
"I ... I used to wait up nights for you. Hoping you'd come by. It's the waiting that'll kill me ... and I can't do it anymore."
Jake's forehead pressed against the wood of the door. He sighed deeply against it. Is this really how it ends?
"I want what they have."
He made out the sharp breath you sucked in. "What?"
His shoes squeaked against the wood where he turned. "I want what they have. I want what Steven and Marc-- I want you."
You seemed suddenly uncomfortable in your body, weight shifting between each leg and hands folding over themselves. "Oh."
It snapped a cord in him and his legs were moving before they'd been commanded, urging himself against you in three long strides.
"I also want to take you out," His voice was course, but pressing gentle words where he nudged his cheek against yours. "To De Luca's because Lorenzo's is shit--"
You giggled wetly under tear kissed lips and it made Jake's knees buckle. His hands found your jaw, face still hiding in your neck.
"-- and I'll bring you carnations or whatever the fuck you want. I want you to make me toast and coffee, too, and I want to come home to you. Let you patch me up like you do, but I want to stay. Want to fall asleep next to you afterwards and not ... not disappear like a coward anymore."
Your hands found his waist, scrunching his shirt into your fists. "Jake, I--"
His own hands slipped down from your face, caging your hips between his wide palms.
"And I wanna make you feel good." His thumbs dug welts into the soft skin there, he pressed a hot kiss against your neck and watched where the skin rose with goosebumps under his mouth. "Fuck, princesa, I could make you feel ... so good."
Hot pants were warming the shell of his left ear.
There was a long moment where nobody moved and nothing was said. Fear was starting to drain him of the courage that had so readily devoured him moments before.
When your hands nudged at his chest, he stepped resentfully back. Your face was twisted into an expression he couldn't place and you motioned him back toward the counter.
"Come on ... I haven't finished patching you up yet."
He slid himself back onto his usual seat. You rustled back in the little first aid box, your hand emerged with a little slip of paper.
"This is my last plaster." You flashed it at him, he made out the little pink poodles and sparkling hearts decorating the glittery little patch. "Is it fine?"
He sighed, pretending as if he cared even at all. "'s fine."
You smiled, the kind of smile that could stop traffic down the Lincoln Tunnel, and pressed the sticky end over the bridge of your nose.
"You not gonna say anything?" He asked quietly.
You chuckled softly, laughter bubbling like you'd been holding it in a while. "Oh, not so nice is it?"
"You're very annoying."
Shrugging, you pressed yourself into the space between his knees. "And yet, you seem pretty in love with me, Jakey."
His face ran hot all over at the allegation.
"Jakey?" he guffawed, his heart thrumming against his ribcage like a rabid dog. "Worse than annoying, I'm afraid, you're absolutely aggravating."
Your face drew closer against his own.
"And you are exhausting. You're worse than a child." But you grinned the whole time, "And you make me want to rip my hair out."
His nose prodded your own. "Well, you--"
"Jake, will you shut the fuck up and just kiss me."
It took all the willpower not to melt off the countertop when your lips met his. They were warm and soft and tasted sweeter than he could have imagined them to.
His hand pulled you all the way against his figure, desperate to swallow you whole. Your breath stuttered over the bow of his lip, parting for a fraction of a moment before pressing hot surging kisses against him again.
"I want that too," words huffed out between wet, red lips. "I want to take care of you, Jake. All the time, until you get desperately sick of me--"
Jake licked into your mouth, aghast at the accusation. "Not ever, mi princesa. Nunca."
Your hot tongue chased over his and he swore he was moments from floating off the counter. Your soft sighs were making his hands more desperate where they brushed over the warm skin of your back.
You pulled back abruptly, eyes wild and lips swollen. Guilt was twisting at your face. "We have to tell Steven and Marc."
Jake shrugged, his pulled you back against him by the sides of your pajama pants and kissed you again.
"Ugh, don't worry about 'em. They already know."
"What do you mean?"
He sighed, "Who do you think told me to come here in the first place?"
A silence divided you, words sinking in when you slapped his chest: plaguing him with a widening grin. "I was worried, you asshole."
"Claro, pero al menos ahora soy tu imbécil."
Sure, but at least now I'm your asshole.
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comment and repost <3 mwah!
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synthient · 9 months ago
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I can certainly see an ai guy sincerely believing that he'd "created an immersive willy wonka experience" by generating a few pages of gibberish and a couple images of big rock candy mountain. And I can see the organizers he handed the money to correctly surmising "wow, if this guy is stupid enough to believe that this ""script"" will be useful for putting on a willy wonka event in any practical way, then he's stupid enough to believe anything," and riding the bitcoin train to scam city. But somehow I feel like the quarter cup of lemonade and a single jelly bean per child detail is what pushes it over the edge from "scam" to "active sabotage/trolling." Like you could have kept this out of parents calling the police territory simply by dropping 20 bucks on a few sacks of grocery store variety chocolate the morning of
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justinspoliticalcorner · 21 days ago
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Jamie Tahsin at Vice:
As the polls began to dramatically shift in favor of Donald Trump on the evening of the election, Elon Musk, arguably Trump’s biggest supporter in recent months, tweeted: “The cavalry has arrived. Men are voting in record numbers. They now realize everything is at stake.” The top reply came from the notorious influencer and accused rapist and human trafficker, Andrew Tate. His summary of the election: “It’s men vs gays n chicks.” 
Tate’s political analysis had the tone of a 14-year-old playground bully, but Musk’s excitement at men turning out to vote spoke to something fundamentally true: that Donald Trump’s plan was working. When I first read the tweet, I began searching for evidence that men were indeed turning up in record numbers. On Musk’s platform, X, I was greeted with videos from Philadelphia and Miami of young men wearing red caps celebrating in the streets—pickup trucks tearing down street-lit highways with MAGA flags trailing from their cargo beds. After covering the Manosphere and the hyper-online ‘Bro’ Right for the past five years, I knew that in recent months they had mobilized like never before behind Trump, and that if they were motivated enough to actually go out and vote, Trump had a serious edge. 
Videos began to spread of frat boys across the US declaring their support for Donald Trump. When his victory was announced, one group filmed themselves performing Trump’s dance moves to “Y.M.C.A.” on the steps of their fraternity. 
Men aged 18-29—a group that has been politically unengaged in recent years—voted decisively for Trump. The Wall Street Journal reported a shift to the right of 28 points among this group. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning, 56 percent of young male voters opted for Trump in 2024—a marked increase from 41 percent in 2020. In Trump’s successful courtship of this cohort, his secret weapon appears to have been his 18-year-old son, Barron. 
[...]
But Barron’s role in Trump’s media strategy goes beyond just introducing Trump to figures like Adin Ross. Barron and his best friend, fellow 18-year-old Bo Loudon, were tasked by the campaign with helping Trump reach a young male audience. Loudon is a pro-Trump influencer, and son of the conservative media personality Gina Loudon, former co-chair of Women for Trump. Bo and Barron reportedly set up the Adin Ross stream, and Bo has claimed he helped set up Trump’s interview with Joe Rogan, too. 
On the day of the election, figures from across the vast and frequently depressing multiverse that is the online ‘Bro right’ gave their ringing endorsements of Donald Trump, and implored their fans to go and vote for him. Upon the announcement of his victory, John Shahidi of the Nelk Boys tweeted: “Idc what anyone says, podcasts helped us win this election.” When the Wall Street Journal reported that ‘Younger Men Voted Decisively for Donald Trump,’ Shahidi reposted it alongside the message, “Shout-out to our entire team!” A part of Trump’s message that particularly resonated with his young male audience, and the podcast hosts he made appearances with, was his seemingly favorable stance towards cryptocurrencies, and his puzzling claim that Bitcoin will be “made in the USA.” Earlier this year, in Austin, Texas, I interviewed an African-American man who told me he would vote Trump for the first time, almost entirely because of his stance towards crypto. 
[...] The rise of influencers like Tate and Ross aren’t just a symptom of young men shifting to the right, but an active factor that has exacerbated it. The ideology gap is widening between young men and women, not just in America, but all over the world. In the UK there is a 25-point gap between the views of young men and women; in Germany, this rises to 30.  The factors that have led us here are wide-ranging, but in making a concerted effort to reach out to disaffected young men, Trump gained an edge in what is being described as one of the most consequential elections in US history. We saw a similar effect in the UK during the last election, as young men shared their support for Nigel Farage and his Reform Party.  Many of the complaints coming from young men may appear to be misguided. Yet if politicians on the Left do not find a way to reach out to this group, and engage with it where it dwells online, opportunist populists like Trump and Farage most certainly will. In this election, one of Trump’s strongest weapons appears to have been his gigantic, chronically online 18-year-old son, his best friend Bo, and the ‘Bros’ they swung for Trump.
What the hell is wrong with these misogynistic and privileged frat bro males who got Trump over the line?
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donotdestroy · 1 year ago
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Welcome to Kala land! The land of untrue. 🐸🌈🥥 Do Not Destroy NFT Store: Abstract Art Series: Circular Arc Size: 5400 x 7200 pixels (18 x 24 in.) RGB, JPEG Resolution: 300 pixels/inch Both physical and NFT items are now available in our store.
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billdecker · 16 days ago
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so yesterday i left the grounds of my flat for the first time since march and stuff happened...
my dentist on the edge of the town centre and is across the road from the town's biggest supermarket, a high school, and the town college so the traffic was mayhem. i was anxiety ridden anyway because of my agoraphobia, general the world outside being Too Much, and my dentist phobia, but being late on top of that sent me to the edge of meltdown. I think it shows that I am very slowly progressing because not too long ago I would've just lost my mind and not be able to go through with the appointment.
got there right on time. bossed my appointment. I still have loads of work to have done but my dentist gave me a good report and said I just need to be more confident brushing my teeth. so I was feeling Very Happy with myself and went to sit in the reception area while my partner sorted out my prescription and next appointment. he helps me to sit down, makes sure I'm calm, and then heads down to the other end of the room. the reception is empty except for me, two women and two kids (age around 14 and 8/9).
the youngest kid then says to her mum in the LOUDEST WHISPER EVER, "she's fat." And yes, I am. I'm a uk30, which is big. I have shit mobility. it's a viscious of circle of that I need to go outside to practice walking again and yet I'm stuck in my flat because of agoraphobia, and the reason I'm so agoraphobic is because I've literally had people point and laugh at me in the street and shout abuse because of my size. this was even before people thought it was okay to film strangers on the street and post it online.
I gave them my best death glare. The mum goes, 'Shhhh!' and the little girl and her sister spend the rest of the time I'm in reception nudging each other, trying to look at me when I'm not looking, and trying not to laugh. I somehow kept it together and avoided another massive meltdown or saying something I regret and being unable to return to the dentist because of embarrassment. My partner came back to me, we left, and then my dad took my partner to the supermarket to get some stuff. I stayed in the car and listened to my dad rant about the us election and bitcoin and had to explain doge to him.
I kept it all in until I got home and then I told my partner and had a good cry. I've tried to focus on the positive in that I got through my appointment with very few tears shed and I'm making good progress on my treatment. I vaguely mentioned it on my IG post I made because I was proud of going outside, and then today my auntie comments and part of her comment is, 'at least you got someone coming home at night.' what the fuck has that got to do with going to the dentist?? i'm sorry your husband died three years ago diane but what the fuck???
usually when I go outside I need weeks to recover from it. i don't have that. next wednesday i am finally going to see my gp to ask for an autism referral. i'm already bricking it. my bff is doing hers through right to choose with an online psychiatry place, and while i'd be seen a lot quicker I don't feel comfortable with using teams things and am wary about being able to express myself through a screen. the downside is if i wait for the nhs then i'll be waiting for years.
that's if my gp agrees. he's a dick. i asked him for weight loss help/psych help with my binge eating and he referred me to a private weight loss group that focused on group bootcamp exercises which why the fuck would i ever go to that when i'm agoraphobic?? the private weight loss people said that my only other option was vouchers for slimming world. they did no one-to-one psych or counselling.
anyway wish me luck for next wednesday. i'm gonna need it for getting out of the flat again with the confirmed fear that i could get actually laughed at and people are no kinder, let alone getting myself referred for an assessment.
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librarianrafia · 8 months ago
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"But there is a yawning gap between "AI tools can be handy for some things" and the kinds of stories AI companies are telling (and the media is uncritically reprinting). And when it comes to the massively harmful ways in which large language models (LLMs) are being developed and trained, the feeble argument that "well, they can sometimes be handy..." doesn't offer much of a justification.
...
When I boil it down, I find my feelings about AI are actually pretty similar to my feelings about blockchains: they do a poor job of much of what people try to do with them, they can't do the things their creators claim they one day might, and many of the things they are well suited to do may not be altogether that beneficial. And while I do think that AI tools are more broadly useful than blockchains, they also come with similarly monstrous costs.
...
But I find one common thread among the things AI tools are particularly suited to doing: do we even want to be doing these things? If all you want out of a meeting is the AI-generated summary, maybe that meeting could've been an email. If you're using AI to write your emails, and your recipient is using AI to read them, could you maybe cut out the whole thing entirely? If mediocre, auto-generated reports are passing muster, is anyone actually reading them? Or is it just middle-management busywork?
...
Costs and benefits
Throughout all this exploration and experimentation I've felt a lingering guilt, and a question: is this even worth it? And is it ethical for me to be using these tools, even just to learn more about them in hopes of later criticizing them more effectively?
The costs of these AI models are huge, and not just in terms of the billions of dollars of VC funds they're burning through at incredible speed. These models are well known to require far more computing power (and thus electricity and water) than a traditional web search or spellcheck. Although AI company datacenters are not intentionally wasting electricity in the same way that bitcoin miners perform millions of useless computations, I'm also not sure that generating a picture of a person with twelve fingers on each hand or text that reads as though written by an endlessly smiling children's television star who's being held hostage is altogether that much more useful than a bitcoin.
There's a huge human cost as well. Artificial intelligence relies heavily upon "ghost labor": work that appears to be performed by a computer, but is actually delegated to often terribly underpaid contractors, working in horrible conditions, with few labor protections and no benefits. There is a huge amount of work that goes into compiling and labeling data to feed into these models, and each new model depends on ever-greater amounts of said data — training data which is well known to be scraped from just about any possible source, regardless of copyright or consent. And some of these workers suffer serious psychological harm as a result of exposure to deeply traumatizing material in the course of sanitizing datasets or training models to perform content moderation tasks.
Then there's the question of opportunity cost to those who are increasingly being edged out of jobs by LLMs,i despite the fact that AI often can't capably perform the work they were doing. Should I really be using AI tools to proofread my newsletters when I could otherwise pay a real person to do that proofreading? Even if I never intended to hire such a person?
Or, more accurately, by managers and executives who believe the marketing hype out of AI companies that proclaim that their tools can replace workers, without seeming to understand at all what those workers do.
Finally, there's the issue of how these tools are being used, and the lack of effort from their creators to limit their abuse. We're seeing them used to generate disinformation via increasingly convincing deepfaked images, audio, or video, and the reckless use of them by previously reputable news outlets and others who publish unedited AI content is also contributing to misinformation. Even where AI isn't being directly used, it's degrading trust so badly that people have to question whether the content they're seeing is generated, or whether the "person" they're interacting with online might just be ChatGPT. Generative AI is being used to harass and sexually abuse. Other AI models are enabling increased surveillance in the workplace and for "security" purposes — where their well-known biases are worsening discrimination by police who are wooed by promises of "predictive policing". The list goes on.
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official-microsoftedge · 7 months ago
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We're past 400 followers
so here's the edge update log
Anything related to Google has been purged from the browser
Edge no longer mines bitcoin
We've made the button softer so it's more comfortable to press
pve content soon
the search bar now covers half the screen
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unpluggedfinancial · 18 days ago
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Bitcoin's Role in Times of Financial Crisis: A Beacon of Hope in Turbulent Times
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Introduction: Setting the Stage
Imagine this: the economy is unraveling, inflation is soaring, and banks are teetering on the edge of collapse. We've seen this story before. Each time the financial world is shaken, the average person is often left to pick up the pieces. In moments like these, people look for safety. Gold has often been a refuge in times of economic uncertainty, but today, a new kind of "digital gold" has entered the scene—Bitcoin.
Bitcoin isn't just another speculative asset; it's a new form of money created for the very purpose of facing crises like the ones that leave economies in shambles. But how does Bitcoin really function during times of financial turmoil? And why do people increasingly turn to it when traditional systems let them down? Let’s explore.
Historical Context of Financial Crises
The world has witnessed countless financial crises. From the Great Depression to the 2008 Great Recession, from the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe to the recent collapse of banks—economic disasters are not anomalies, they’re almost predictable. These crises share common traits: a loss of trust in financial institutions, erosion of the value of fiat currency, and people scrambling for alternatives to preserve their wealth.
Take the 2008 Great Recession. Banks gambled with people's money, and when they lost, governments stepped in to bail them out, leaving regular folks to face the consequences. It was amidst this backdrop that Bitcoin emerged—a system immune to human manipulation, with no central authority to dilute its value or make decisions in secret.
Bitcoin's Emergence During the 2008 Crisis
Bitcoin was created in response to the failures of traditional finance. Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, embedded a message in the very first block, known as the Genesis Block: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." This wasn’t just a timestamp; it was a clear statement of intent.
Bitcoin aimed to be different—a currency free from the whims of governments, banks, and those who had lost the trust of the public. Its birth was a direct reaction to a broken system, offering an alternative that promised financial freedom, transparency, and true ownership.
Bitcoin's Unique Qualities as a Crisis Hedge
What makes Bitcoin uniquely suited for times of financial crisis? Let’s break down the key qualities:
Decentralization: Bitcoin has no central authority. No government or institution can control its issuance or manipulate its value to serve their own interests. It belongs to the people, run by a network of nodes and miners spread across the globe.
Fixed Supply: Unlike fiat currencies that can be printed at will—as central banks often do in response to crises—Bitcoin has a cap of 21 million coins. This scarcity is fundamental to its value, acting as a hedge against the rampant money printing that often leads to inflation.
Portability and Accessibility: Bitcoin isn’t tied to any one country, and it doesn’t require a physical footprint. It is accessible 24/7, unlike banks that can close, restrict access, or freeze assets during turbulent times. Bitcoin gives people control over their wealth, regardless of where they are or what’s happening around them.
Real Examples of Bitcoin as a Safe Haven
We’ve seen Bitcoin being used as a safe haven asset in various crises:
Venezuela and Argentina: In hyperinflationary economies where local currency loses value rapidly, Bitcoin has provided a crucial way for people to preserve their purchasing power. Venezuelans, for instance, turned to Bitcoin as the bolivar crumbled, finding in it a stable store of value relative to their national currency.
Cyprus Bail-In (2013): In 2013, the Cypriot government froze citizens’ bank accounts and implemented a "bail-in," using their deposits to rescue failing banks. In that same year, Bitcoin’s price saw a surge as people began realizing the power of holding an asset that couldn’t be confiscated by any government.
Recent Banking Concerns (Silicon Valley Bank Collapse): More recently, during times of banking uncertainty, Bitcoin again saw an uptick in interest. People are slowly waking up to the idea that having your wealth in a system controlled by others isn’t always safe. Bitcoin offers an alternative—one where individuals have complete control.
Dollar-Cost Averaging: A Simple Strategy for Uncertain Times
One of the biggest hurdles for people looking to get into Bitcoin is its infamous volatility. This is where Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) comes in—a simple yet effective strategy that makes Bitcoin accessible to anyone.
What is DCA? DCA involves investing a fixed amount of money in Bitcoin at regular intervals (e.g., weekly or monthly), regardless of the price. Whether Bitcoin is up or down, you keep investing the same amount.
Why DCA Works Well for Bitcoin:
Mitigating Volatility: Bitcoin’s price can be unpredictable, but DCA helps to average out the highs and lows. Instead of trying to time the market—which even experts struggle with—you gradually accumulate Bitcoin over time, reducing the impact of its swings.
Making Bitcoin Accessible: You don’t need to be wealthy to start accumulating Bitcoin. Even a small amount like $20 a week can add up over time, building a safety net that could one day protect you from economic turmoil.
Examples of DCA Success: Someone who started DCA-ing into Bitcoin during the peak of 2017’s bull run would still be significantly up today. The key is consistency and a long-term view. In times of crisis, DCA can be a powerful way to build a hedge, step by step, without taking on overwhelming risk.
Challenges and Criticisms
It would be disingenuous not to mention Bitcoin's challenges. Its volatility is real, and for some, this is a reason to be hesitant. But it’s crucial to understand that Bitcoin is still a young asset, evolving in a world that’s just beginning to understand its potential.
For those looking at Bitcoin as a hedge against traditional financial instability, the strategy isn't about short-term gains. It's about adopting a different mindset—one focused on time in the market, not timing the market. Volatility is less intimidating when viewed through a long-term lens.
Why Bitcoin is Different from Gold
Bitcoin has often been called "digital gold." While both assets serve as stores of value, Bitcoin has some distinct advantages. Unlike gold, Bitcoin is digital and easily portable. You can carry millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin on a USB-sized hardware wallet or even just in your memory if needed. Bitcoin is also much easier to divide. You can send someone a few dollars' worth instantly, whereas gold needs to be physically divided or tokenized to achieve that same flexibility.
Perhaps most importantly, Bitcoin is resistant to seizure. Throughout history, gold has been confiscated by governments. Bitcoin, on the other hand, can be stored with no physical footprint, making it far harder to seize if managed correctly.
Conclusion: A Modern Solution for Modern Problems
Financial crises are not going away. They are a byproduct of a flawed system that prioritizes short-term solutions over long-term stability. Bitcoin was built as a response to these very issues. It offers an alternative that’s built on transparency, ownership, and the promise of true financial sovereignty.
If you’re looking for a way to protect yourself from the next inevitable crisis, Bitcoin stands as a beacon of hope. And you don’t need to jump in all at once. Start small, consider using Dollar-Cost Averaging, and build a position over time. Bitcoin could be the life raft you need when the storm inevitably comes—a modern solution for modern problems, providing hope and resilience in a world of uncertainty.
Take Action Towards Financial Independence
If this article has sparked your interest in the transformative potential of Bitcoin, there's so much more to explore! Dive deeper into the world of financial independence and revolutionize your understanding of money by following my blog and subscribing to my YouTube channel.
🌐 Blog: Unplugged Financial Blog Stay updated with insightful articles, detailed analyses, and practical advice on navigating the evolving financial landscape. Learn about the history of money, the flaws in our current financial systems, and how Bitcoin can offer a path to a more secure and independent financial future.
📺 YouTube Channel: Unplugged Financial Subscribe to our YouTube channel for engaging video content that breaks down complex financial topics into easy-to-understand segments. From in-depth discussions on monetary policies to the latest trends in cryptocurrency, our videos will equip you with the knowledge you need to make informed financial decisions.
👍 Like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to stay updated with our latest content. Whether you're a seasoned investor, a curious newcomer, or someone concerned about the future of your financial health, our community is here to support you on your journey to financial independence.
Support the Cause
If you enjoyed what you read and believe in the mission of spreading awareness about Bitcoin, I would greatly appreciate your support. Every little bit helps keep the content going and allows me to continue educating others about the future of finance.
Donate Bitcoin: bc1qpn98s4gtlvy686jne0sr8ccvfaxz646kk2tl8lu38zz4dvyyvflqgddylk
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vophuocthien · 4 months ago
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How to Ride the Uptrend and Maximize Profits
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Capitalizing on a market uptrend can significantly increase your investment returns. Read on for practical tips to navigate market movements and optimize your profits. Start improving your investment strategy today!
How to Predict the Uptrend?
Predicting exactly when the market will experience an uptrend is challenging. Even if experts anticipate an uptrend soon, the exact timing—whether in 2024, 2025, or beyond—remains uncertain. 
The real challenge lies in avoiding premature profit-taking that could cause you to miss out on gains, while also not holding investments too long and risking losses when the market turns.
So, how can we navigate these challenges and maximize our gains during an uptrend? Here are some strategies to consider:
Focus on Your Goals
Monitoring market movements is not sufficient on its own. It’s crucial to establish clear financial goals. Attempting to buy at the absolute lowest and sell at the highest points is an impractical approach since it’s impossible to precisely predict the end of an uptrend. 
Instead, set clear, achievable targets that align with your financial objectives. This approach will guide you in making well-informed decisions rather than chasing market trends.
Use the Four-Year Cycle
The four-year cycle remains a dependable framework for anticipating market movements, even though minor deviations can occur. This cycle can help guide your profit-taking strategy, allowing you to gauge the mid-phase of an uptrend. 
Utilizing a dollar-cost averaging (DCA) approach, particularly from late 2024 to Q3 2025, can be beneficial. DCA involves consistently investing a fixed amount, which mitigates the risk of buying at peak prices manipulated by market whales. For those preferring a safer strategy, DCA can be an effective way to spread investment risk over time.
Stick to Your Strategy
Maintaining a well-defined and disciplined strategy is crucial. This disciplined approach helps you stay focused and avoid making emotional decisions driven by market volatility.
Adhering to your plan, even amidst market fluctuations, is key to successful profit-taking. Regularly reviewing and adjusting your strategy based on your goals and market conditions can also enhance your decision-making process.
Diversify Your Investments
Diversification is a time-tested strategy to manage risk and enhance profit potential. While applying DCA to established assets like Bitcoin, consider diversifying your portfolio by holding presale tokens such as $BUSAI or participating in airdrops. 
Presale tokens are often available at lower prices, offering potential high returns with reduced initial investment. Diversification spreads your risk across various assets, reducing the impact of any single asset’s performance on your overall portfolio.
BUSAI PRESALE CASE STUDY
In today’s crowded presale landscape, distinguishing between genuine opportunities and scams is crucial. For example, the meme AI project BUSAI is gaining significant attention, but don’t let the hype cloud your judgment.
Before diving in, it's vital to thoroughly examine the whitepaper, tokenomics, and the project's backers. If your research checks out, it could be worth considering.
BUSAI stands out with its impressive ecosystem and strategic tokenomics. Its innovative features, such as the interact-and-earn and staking rewards, set it apart from typical meme tokens.
Its tokenomics emphasizing substantial presale, marketing, and liquidity allocations, the project shows strong growth potential. Additionally, BUSAI’s focus on community engagement and cutting-edge technology makes it a distinctive and promising investment in the evolving crypto arena.
By following these guidelines, you can navigate the uptrend effectively and avoid common pitfalls. Stay focused, be disciplined, and make informed decisions to achieve your financial goals.
BUSAI Official Channel: Website | Twitter | Telegram 
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