#I just like jean-paul tormenting himself for his wants

[proverbsss]

eating you right (father paul hill/john pruitt x reader) -nsfw

(pt. 2 of "reading you right" linked here)

Father Paul Hill, Midnight Mass

reader(s): I am not responsible for how you see your own headboard following the consumption of this fic <3

notifs: paul hill wants to worship you!! ; reader turns the tables for a subby paul; reader's still down HORRENDOUS ; cunnilingus, hierophilia

Your legs are unsteady as John leads you to his bedroom by your hand.

"Haha, look at Wobbles try and make their way down my hall," Paul teases.

"You edged me on your boot," you complain sharply, though this of course is tinged with pleasure and the hope that his treatment will continue. The muscles in your pelvic floor are on fire and your hips burn.

"Mmm, technically you edged you on my boot," he quibbles, pleased with himself, "Can you make it to the bed yourself?"

Rather than answer verbally, you turn back to look at him. It's a tart, cursing look that John meets with yet another grin. Even so, it's now you begin to notice the usual signs of how wrecked he is. You were so caught up in your own delicious torment that you failed to clock Paul mirroring it. You might some of your get your own back yet.

He's comfortable with your routine of the last few days, starting to strip out of his jeans when you say, "Wait." His doe eyes flick over to you, questioning.

"I don't know…" you pick your words carefully, the neediness of earlier converting itself into a sadistic little impulse to tease. "I don't know if we want your pants off yet, right?"

Paul stops a minute. Makes his positively adorable thinking face. There's a reset somewhere in his eyes as he works out why you might have said what you said.

"We don't..?" he repeats, uncertain.

"Nah," you throw out, dragging the tips of your fingers along the foot of the bed. If this duvet could talk, it would already have plenty dirty to say. "I think we probably want you to keep them on and sit first."

Paul clears his throat. His chin dips to his chest a little. Gears recalibrated toward submitting and taking orders fire fast behind those pretty eyes. "Okay, yes." He sits, trembling a bit, on the edge of the bed.

"I'm gonna sit next to you, Father, and you don't move for a little bit. Okay?"

He nods. Good enough for now. Your underwear clings wetly to you under the sleepshirt you were just hiking up for him in the living room. You pull the hem of the shirt down, a bit demurely over your thighs. Paul watches every move.

"Still don't move, baby." You purr at him. He preens silently at the pet name. "Close your eyes." When his eyes are closed, you take his face into both your hands, fingers grazing his ears, the peach fuzz of his tapered sideburns. In a decisive, hushed moment you bring Paul's face to yours and kiss him. Deeply. First-time tier kisses, slow and curious and just beginning to use your tongue.

Paul half-laughs, shyly against your mouth. "Still no moving," you remind into his lips, and he nods "good boy. Good Father." Oh, he likes that very much.

You lick his bottom lip and enthusiastically he opens his mouth to invite you closer, hands scrunching at his sides in desperation to follow your instruction and not not not touch you.

You withdraw from the kiss after another moment, riled yourself and needing to catch your breath. Still you have enough command of yourself to make this all about him, about how pathetic and needy and perfect he is. You bat your eyes at Paul and smile.

"You probably want to make it up to me. How badly you made me need you before,"

Paul tilts his head uncertainly from side to side. A smirk flickers at the corner of his mouth.

"You wanna know how to make me feel good after that, Paul? You wanna know what I need from you?"

He nods again, thoughts boyishly absent from his eyes, his demeanor relaxed and yet so, so ready to do what he's told.

"Can we make that a yes?" you prompt gently.

"Yes." The huskiness in his voice is like a refresher to your thirst for him. You tingle all over with anticipation.

"Good. I'm going to lay back, and I want you on top of me." As you lay down on the soft bedcovers, you realize all the tension your muscles held kneeling on the ground and fucking yourself onto him, even now some melts away and you sigh contentedly. Paul crawls over you, tenderness and want in his eyes and it calls up a smile to your lips.

"What are you smiling at?"

"My little pet priest. Bet he'd do anything I'd ask him."

Paul lays his head down on your belly, happiness going a little fuzzy because of the attention you show him. His curls call out to your hands and you play with his hair. He's radiant. And for now he's yours. He's kissing your neck now, giggling in the crook of your shoulder, lips tickling your chin, your cheek, your ears. You luxuriate in all this for a moment, then tell him, "Give me your ear please, I'm gonna whisper what I want."

His back muscles ripple like a cat's under his shirt as he makes the necessary adjustment to put his ear up to your mouth. But he's too close, too fucking perfect, so you have to bite his earlobe with such exquisite access.

He groans, tenses in his upper body, and rolls his hips over yours. "That's. Not whispering," he complains.

"Shh, shh." you tell him, "You wanna know? Really?" He cocks his head enough for you to see him nod, his length getting easier to feel against your thigh. You reach a hand up in his and gently bring his ear to your lips, "I need you to eat me out like your life depends on it."

He moans, low in his throat, at just the thought of that.

"You want to do that for me?" That serious attention is in his expression again as he nods at you, starting to kiss his way down your chest. "Can you tell me using your words that's something you want?"

In addition to teasing the everloving fuck out of him, getting his consent turns you on more than anything. The thought of Crockett Island's well-mannered, mildly twitchy new priest so eager to touch you, taste you, have you that he'd kept you in his quarters for the last two days reminds you in a heady rush.

"I…" he lifts his head from your chest and blinks, not reluctant, but so fucking needy, "I want to eat you out." He nods quickly, lashes dropping over his eyelids. "Like my life depends on it."

"Good boy. Do it then, please."

His beautiful, hot mouth begins an eager assault of kisses across your chest, migrating down your belly. You arch your back. Usually you two take a little more time here, but there isn't any to spare. So quickly, so deliberately, Paul finds your clothed sex. He wants to touch you, and he wants you telling him that he can.

"Can I take these off you? Please."

You have nothing smart to say. You're no less eager to feel his tongue, his kisses, the vibrations of his voice where you're most sensitive. You nod, and he holds his gaze to your eyes for a beat before pulling your useless underwear off your legs, discarding them on the floor.

You think without meaning to of the word 'devotion,' used in religious terms to describe a supplication, an adoring, faithful, upturned look. It applies equally to the naked need written on Paul's face with his hands carefully spreading your thighs apart.

"Please let m--" he swallows, begins again, "Please may I worship you?"

"Fuck, Paul, yes, please."

And he may have dedicated years to seminary study, he may have pored with his hands wrapped around old books of his faith and volunteered his body in the service of a Christian God, but that tongue of his was made for sinning.

He starts by kissing gently around your cunt, soft, spellbinding little pecks that make your body jerk to close your legs. You still open up for him, gasping and squeezing your eyes shut with how good, how good, how earth-shatteringly good he feels. His tongue starts to lap at your clit and you do feel yourself drip a bit as he deepens the kiss of his mouth on you. Your mind pleasantly lets go of so much residual tension, of today, of every day before this moment with Paul kitten-licking between your wet lips.

Your hips buck as he sucks a little more intently at your clit and your hands lift up and knot themselves up in his hair. He lives for it as you start to fuck his face.

"Yes, yes, salvation is your fucking cunt, thank you--" he sputters out, certainly only half aware of what he's saying but so, so pleased to look up at you and find your face entirely lost in what he's making you feel.

"Here, here," he takes one hand that's left a few fingernail marks in your thigh and hurriedly covers the knuckles of your hand that's controlling his head, "Put me where you want me. Use me, please."

His mouth and your cunt make an obscene symphony together as you moan and arch toward him, trying to win back enough self-control to direct him the way he needs. He's doing pretty goddamn well on his own, you think and laugh to yourself, your calves shaking and heels digging into the bed. His nose bumps an especially sensitive square inch toward the hood over your clit, and his tongue grazes the inside of you. You see stars, the way the old expression goes, you literally see stars. You have to fight to keep your eyes open to how beautifully looks, you'll need this memory of your pleasure, his pleasure, you and he together, for all time.

Your hips are bouncing off his face rather quick and desperately and Paul is drunk with chasing your cum. He sees you biting your fist and between kisses and sucks he has to ask, "You need more? What do you need? Tell me. I worship you. I deify you. I need this," And like a madman he shakes his head to deepen the stimulation of his tongue hitting, soothing, exciting your clit.

"Oh, Paul!" you cry out and reach for his bedframe. "Oh fuck," you're curling into him and keening and he's humping his mattress outright. "Finger me. Fuck please, give me something to-"

Something to cum around, of course. You feel slicker and sluttier than you've ever felt as Paul obediently probes a finger inside your cunt. You fuck his hand, unabashed, so far gone, so trembly. And even the trembling is helping you get more contact out of his tongue, and he's not tired, his thirst is unmatched, the hand not fingering you finds that little arch where his nose bumped up against you before and spreads you the littlest bit open to lap at your clit.

You make a sound that's kind of a shriek and kind of a delighted giggle, and words something like "Ha-fuck, I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna cum on you--" fall out of your mouth. Paul moans, the pitch of his voice increasing in a way that sort of matches yours, nearly as desperate for your orgasm as you are. Nobody could be as desperate for this as you, however. No one in the history of fucking cumming has ever felt like this.

"Please," he sucks attentively at your clit and shakes his head again, a black curl plastered across his forehead, his gorgeous brown-green eyes searching you and seeing all of you, then closing again, a holy sight. "Please cum. That's it, please I want to drink you in, please--"

And your upper body accomodates for how powerfully you need to let go, the need for release screams out of your body and you almost hit the headboard, but Paul stops you, adjusts the hand that kept you exposed to him to grip your hip and pull you down to his mouth. Your body thrusts and bucks and arches of its own volition, you're just here, in this tear-you-apart pleasure of cumming on his tongue like no one's ever made you cum before. You're panting, your heart is racing, your blood is on fire.

"Enough-enough-enough fuck please---" you shake and beg and tug a little at his hair as he licks hungrily at you, but he's going to let you go when he's fully satisfied. Your voice continues to climb in whispers and shuddering gasps.

"Like my life," he makes a disgusting, gorgeous slurping noise over your wet needy hole, "depends on it." Like a man starved. Like a man crazed. How will you ever function again. You cry out as he drags his tongue up and down your slit, one last long articulation, before his hand finally relaxes on your hip.

Your eyes flutter as you remember suddenly to breathe, and Paul's hands glide up your leg as you sink them down back onto the bed.

"What did you just do to me?" You utter, mystifed, not fully with the thought as it escapes.

"You have no idea how intoxicating you are." He says, dead serious, if breathless and soaked in you. He sucks his middle finger clean. "None at all."

[usergreenpixel]

Frev writing prompts, Part 5! Seriously, I have no idea how I keep coming up with these. 😅

36. The protagonist was born and raised by a troupe of traveling performers. For as long as they can remember, they have been traveling from place to place, never staying anywhere for a few days at most.

The protagonist’s father is the troupe’s flutist and singer while their mother is a puppeteer so the youth has always had a passion for the performing arts and dreams of traveling all over Europe with their big happy family.

Nicknamed “L’œillet rouge” (The Red Carnation) by the troupe as an homage to their father’s favorite flower, the protagonist enjoys playing the flute and singing with their father, as well as putting on puppet shows with their mother.

With a song in their heart, a smile on their face and their father’s precious flute in their hands, the protagonist travels all over the country with their family, entertaining the people of France but never settling down and they like it that way.

But one day, while the troupe is staying in Paris and putting on a rather satirical puppet show which mocks the current regime, the protagonist’s parents are suddenly arrested by the police. Apparently, the father is a dangerous rebel while the mother is guilty of having sheltered said rebel years ago.

The protagonist is convinced that there must be a mistake and decides to rescue their parents with the help of all the other troupe members, including the protagonist’s older maternal half-brother and their maternal grandparents, all of whom are eager to help.

The time is limited and the rescue will be far from easy, but the protagonist will be damned if they don’t at least try to succeed. So, with that in mind, the young flutist and their family start to concoct the rescue plan...

37. Rumors have it that people who have been murdered tend to become vengeful ghosts and haunt their killers to exact revenge.

This is certainly true for Robespierre and his supporters. Unable to find peace, their souls are brought back to the realm of the living, seeking revenge on the Thermidorians.

This particular circumstance is quite convenient for the protagonist, a spirit medium who summons these ghosts and intends to use them as tools in their plan to torment the Thermidorians and avenge their family that got massacred in Lyon, skillfully using the revolutionaries’ restlessness and anger to achieve their goal.

However, soon certain events make the protagonist question the morality of using these spirits. Perhaps the protagonist is no better than their enemies if they are not above manipulating others. Perhaps there’s another way… Nonsense! It’s not manipulation if the other people also want revenge and are dead anyway...right?

38. The heroine of the story, like many other girls of the noble class, grew up and got her education in a convent in her hometown of Caen, France.

As a result of this upbringing, the young woman is rather used to a sheltered life, her idealism is through the roof and she is rather nostalgic about her life in the convent and her friendship with another noble girl, Charlotte Corday, who is the heroine’s closest friend and confidant.

At first the noblewoman wants to stay out of the events of the revolution, dreaming of taking her vows as a nun and living a quiet life in the convent, but those plans are abruptly thwarted by Corday, whose influence slowly gets the naïve heroine deeper and deeper into the mess that is the French Revolution.

Being idealistic, easily trusting, quiet, pacifistic and devoutly Catholic, the heroine initially follows her best friend’s lead and trusts her judgement since Corday is the closest thing to a big sister that the young woman has.

However, when Corday tries to convince her to kill Jean-Paul Marat and end the revolution, the heroine starts having mixed feelings about her friend’s decisions, despite being angry with Marat for her own personal reasons. After all, her faith teaches to forgive, not to judge and take revenge, so now the heroine must make a choice.

Will she betray her best friend and ruin the plan or will she cast aside her morals to help Corday and, presumably, the rest of the country? Is Marat really the bloodthirsty monster that Corday says he is? Is there another way to deal with the situation at hand without any casualties? And what consequences will the main character face for the choice she makes?

39. The main character is an illegitimate son of a Russian noble and a serf (yes, serfs were still a thing in Russia) who got taken in by his father as a “ward” and sent to France to get a good education, as everything French was very fashionable in the Russian Empire at the time.

There, in Paris of 1789, the young man absorbs all the knowledge he can, learning languages, reading the prominent books written in the Enlightenment era and even befriends a man by the name of Maximilien de Robespierre, a lawyer from Arras and the representative of Artois.

Considering that Robespierre was almost born illegitimate, he is the first person in a long time who doesn’t judge the protagonist for the circumstances of his birth and accepts him for him. Excited to be accepted at long last, the young man begins to look up to Robespierre as a mentor and an older brother of sorts, quickly absorbing his ideas and supporting him.

So, naturally, when the revolution begins and the young man finds himself trapped in Paris, he joins the revolutionaries to fight alongside his mentor.

Thus begin his adventures.

40. The protagonist is a child of criminals forced to survive on the streets after losing their parents until they’re eventually taken in by a seemingly sympathetic Jacobin, given a new name, a home and a fresh start in life. The protagonist essentially becomes the revolutionary’s ward and their guardian even takes them to the Convention so the youth can observe the meetings.

All seems good for the protagonist...almost too good to be true. But eventually certain events force the protagonist to wonder if their new guardian truly cares about them.

Could it be that their Jacobin guardian has some sinister motives? And will the protagonist be able to move away from their “bad” heritage and live an honest life at last?

41. Barras is in love. Again.

Head over heels over a pretty servant he recently hired and she even seems to like her employer back. Even her suspiciously strong resemblance to a certain Jacobin who got executed in 1794 isn’t a dealbreaker for Barras and the smitten man writes said resemblance off as a coincidence.

The other Thermidorians, especially Fouché, are not that blind and they fear that a relative of that particular executed man is here to seek revenge. Fouché decides to investigate this seemingly ordinary and harmless young servant, suspecting that she has quite a few skeletons in her closet.

Are these suspicions going to be confirmed or is Fouché simply being paranoid?

42. Thermidor has just taken place. The Jacobins are imprisoned and it seems like the traitors are going to win. All hope is lost for the Jacobins and their enemies rejoice.

But little do the Thermidorians know that by betraying and imprisoning all the men who stand in their way, they have just acquired new enemies - women.

Revolutionary women.

Wives, daughters, sisters, nieces, goddaughters, lovers, wards, friends and sympathizers of the captured Jacobins who are not going to sit back and give up.

Seeing how bleak things are, these women, led by a mysterious woman who conceals her face behind a mask and calls herself “Citoyenne Liberté” (Citizen Liberty), decide to rescue their imprisoned loved ones from the clutches of the Thermidorians.

They’re running out of time, they’re outnumbered and not equipped with proper weapons, but that is hardly a problem they can’t solve and they’re willing to fight against the odds regardless of the obstacles.

After all, Heaven hath no fury like a woman scorned, which is what the Thermidorians are about to learn the hard way.

43. A singer and actress who used to perform in Venice flees to France after a scandal demolishes her reputation. Having only her voice and her acting to make ends meet, for a while she tries to find work in Paris but barely makes enough money for her and her son to survive.

Her only friend and confidant in this bleak situation is a future revolutionary who happens to admire the heroine’s singing and strongly believes that she deserves better. He even bonds with the actress’s toddler son and is willing to step up and become a proper father figure for the child.

Thanks to said revolutionary, the heroine’s life begins to change for the better and she decides to settle down in Paris. Even when she learns about the approaching revolution, she chooses to stay in the only place where she feels like she can belong.

What’s more, the actress finally finds her new purpose in life. She too can fight for the cause of her new partner and his friends, in her own way.

How is a woman whose main talents are acting and singing supposed to be able fight, you may ask? Why, by becoming a spy for the Jacobins and the singing voice of the revolution of course!

And she might just be able to prove that anyone can be a revolutionary and one doesn’t need to be a fighter nor an orator to help a noble cause.

44. A female servant working for Georges Danton has to practically flee the house of her employer after the latter crosses all the possible boundaries while drunk.

Fearing for her safety and profoundly traumatized by the event, the servant is found and taken in by a seemingly sympathetic man who sees Danton as a sworn enemy for his own reasons. Considering that both have a grudge against Danton and the man is a journalist, he and the servant team up to bring Danton down.

Will they succeed? Why does the journalist hate Danton? And is his desire to aid the heroine genuine?

45. Paris, France. The revolution is in full swing.

The Committee of Public Safety has to deal with multiple issues, the ongoing war is depleting France’s resources and the situation seems dire.

What’s more, a new newspaper, “La Voix de la Justice” (The Voice of Justice), began to circulate in the city. While this particular fact isn’t that surprising by itself, the thing that sets this newspaper apart from the rest is the fact that its author is anonymous.

Nobody knows who writes this newspaper but the articles are quite good and this mysterious person has already exposed several people who were using the Reign of Terror as an excuse for their atrocities.

Naturally, all these details catch the attention of Jean-Paul Marat and Camille Desmoulins, two of the most prominent journalists of that time. Intrigued by this new newspaper and its author, the two revolutionaries team up to track that person down, if only to find out who they are and thank them for helping their cause.

46. The protagonist grew up believing that Robespierre is single handedly responsible for the execution of their beloved aunt and uncle and, as a result, believes that the man deserved to be executed for that betrayal.

However, the protagonist is soon forced to question their judgment when their older cousin, Horace Desmoulins, reaches out to them in a letter, inviting them to Paris and claiming that he found evidence proving that in actuality Robespierre attempted to save Camille and Lucile Desmoulins, Horace’s parents.

Although the protagonist is skeptical at first, since Horace has always defended his godfather, they are still intrigued by their cousin’s invitation and leaves Guise to join Horace in his investigation.

Together, the two cousins are both determined to clear the names of Horace’s parents and figure out what role Robespierre actually played in the family tragedy.

47. The five protagonists are all members of a heavy metal band whose name and songs are an homage to the French Revolution.

Previously little more than a quintet of college misfits determined to rehabilitate this particular event and tell the real story through music, the band finally starts gaining popularity after a successful concert at a music festival in Marseille.

And then things take a turn for the unexpected when the band gets into an accident on their way home, only to wake up in Revolutionary France. Naturally, they now must survive and return home but this adventure might just become the inspiration they needed so much...

48. After the protagonist’s father leaves them and their blind mother behind to move to Paris, the protagonist is naturally upset. Year after year, they wait for their father to return but he never does.

In 1789, after losing their mother to an illness, the protagonist decides that enough is enough and travels to Paris to confront their father. To their disgust, they soon find out that their father is now remarried, with a new family and quite rich while the protagonist is basically a pauper. Moreover, the father seems to have joined the revolutionaries, which is something that the protagonist cannot approve of either.

Now the protagonist wants to make sure that their father faces the music for his betrayal so they contact a journalist who is about to expose said father in an article.

A story of one of his enemies leaving behind his first family will be a nice addition to the already existing accusations of corruption, but the protagonist and the journalist soon realize that they are not immune to the consequences of their actions either and this article might cause more damage than they think it will.

49. (A reimagining of Aladdin) After their flute is broken beyond repair, the protagonist goes to a pawn shop to find a replacement for their practice.

It is there that an old ivory flute catches their attention so the protagonist purchases it, has it professionally restored and decides to keep it, ignoring the warning of the shopkeeper that it’s cursed and the suspiciously low price.

The protagonist is a skeptic and never believed in magic, curses and other occult things.

That is until they play the flute for the first time and a man poofs into existence like a genie from a lamp. Introducing himself as Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, he informs the protagonist that he used to be the owner of the flute but is now trapped in it because of black magic.

Despite their skepticism, the protagonist cannot logically explain anything that’s going on but wants to help so they strike a deal with Saint-Just - he is going to help the protagonist win over their love interest in exchange for freedom.

As for how the spell is supposed to be broken, the protagonist is completely clueless but their mysterious neighbor with a knack for alchemy and the occult might be able to help…

50. Lyon, France.

The future Thermidorians mercilessly massacre innocent people and rule with an iron fist. Just today they massacred several prominent noble families of the city for defying them.

However, what the tyrants do not know is that they didn’t massacre everyone, for the daughters of the executed nobles are currently living at a convent to get education, as was common back then.

Upon receiving the tragic news and fearing that these young girls are going to end up on the death list, two nuns, the heroines of the story, come up with a plan to escort the girls out of the city and get them to a different location where they would be safe.

The plan is daring but the risk is too high to sit there and do nothing. Will the nuns be able to keep their students safe?

Let me know in the comments or DMs if any of my prompts interest you! I can help you with certain prompts if you want! 😊

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 46 Review: 2 Theories About Jean Paul, Erica, and the Locket

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

In this great house on Maljardin, evil lives, even amongst the dead, and the poison this evil spreads threatens Erica Desmond, who lies frozen in this cryocapsule until the day a scientific miracle returns her to the living and back into the arms of her husband Jean Paul Desmond, who has defied powers real and imagined to assure his wife’s return from beyond the veiled curtain of death. Strange happenings are forcing a decision that could doom Erica Desmond...forever. 

Hello and welcome back to my Garden of Evil, where today we will examine Jean Paul’s reaction to Dr. Alison Carr’s new discovery about her sister’s bloodied locket and two possible explanations of what it may say about Erica’s death and Jean Paul’s state of mind. I could do an entire recap of this episode if I wanted to, but I'd rather narrow the focus of this entry to the theories that have been floating around my head for a while (one since before I started this blog, in fact).

A brief summary of the important stuff that happens in this episode: Alison learns that the blood on the locket is human blood, type AB-, which leads her to conclude that it must be Erica’s, because both she and Erica have that rare blood type[1]. She also tests the poison found in the glass of wine that Holly drank from two episodes ago and finds that it’s not the missing cyanide, but an unknown poison of vegetable origin. Elizabeth defends herself to Matt, telling him that she has no motive to kill Holly, not even her inheritance--and, surprisingly, he believes her. And then Raxl and Quito steal the rabbit from Jean Paul’s room and stumble upon that wonderfully sinister skull, which will co-star with Jacques in Episode 47.

Jean Paul receives irrefutable proof that the locket found around the rabbit’s neck belonged to Erica.

Outside of those plot points, this episode focuses primarily on Jean Paul’s confusion over how a bloodied locket even ended up in the cryonics capsule with his beloved Erica to begin with. When Alison shows Jean Paul the blood sample under the microscope, he's skeptical at first and tries to convince her that she either bled on it or someone else somehow put her blood there to confuse him. I would say it boggles my mind how someone with an IQ of 187 like Jean Paul can conceive such a ridiculous theory, but, honestly, it doesn’t. The popularity of conspiracy theories and other misinformation in our time has convinced me that human beings of any intelligence level can trick themselves into believing anything, no matter how patently absurd, if they want to believe it enough.

Subtle Dark Shadows reference?

I can’t tell how much of the next part where Jean Paul continues speculating about the locket is actually in the script and how much is just a particularly bad line flub. Listening to his dialogue, it sounds like a combination of both, but it’s hard to tell given that the character is supposed to be very confused already. Here’s an exact transcription of what he says:

Jean Paul: "Well, maybe I-I-I put the necklace on her neck without realizing it. I perhaps didn't put it on her when I put it in the capsule. It could have happened that way very easily. You see, I had thought I had. You didn't see me do it, did you, Raxl?" Raxl: "No." Jean Paul: "Quito, did you?" Quito: *shakes head* Jean Paul: "Well, there you are. You see? She could have cut her finger a while before she died, and so the blood got on the locket, and maybe I put the locket in the, uh, dresser drawer, and it was left there, and in my grief I didn't know what I was doing and I gave her another piece of jewelry which I put around her neck. Don't you think that probably is what has happened?"

Vangie isn’t convinced of any of these theories, and neither is Raxl. The latter believes that the locket appeared because of evil, “slimy like a snake, ugly like a black rabbit.” (WTF? The rabbit is adorable!) Jean Paul accuses Vangie of suspecting him, but she insists she doesn’t. Of course, he doesn’t believe her and he takes out his anger by breaking Alison’s microscope in half, throwing it to the ground, and accusing Erica of mocking him.

In the next scene, he ruminates in his room over the likelihood that he killed Erica, intentionally or otherwise:

Could I have killed my Erica? Could I have slain my love? That's impossible! Oh, you would like it, Jacques Eloi des Mondes, my bloody murdering ancestor. If it was so, how you would rejoice! But then, if I didn't put the locket in the cryocapsule with Erica as I thought, what other things that I believe as facts--things which are part of my life and experience--may be no more than creeping, malicious, lying fancies? Perhaps I didn't love my Erica at all. Perhaps I hated her!

Jean Paul pondering whether he truly loved Erica.

Getting dramatic!

Later, while lying on his bed in shirtsleeves, he realizes that he genuinely loved her, but that his memory is still faulty:

Jean Paul: "I loved her. I remember how I loved her. There was no world but the world outside, and then there was another world and that was us. Oh, how I loved her, so good, so beautiful, but what happened at the end? I can't…was the necklace with Erica when she was sealed in the capsule? I can't remember."

But later on when he visits the Great Hall (inadvertently giving Raxl and Quito the opportunity to retrieve the Rabbit of Evil), Jacques torments him by implying that Jean Paul, like him, is a murderer. “Think there’s a chance you may have murdered your sweet Erica?” he asks. “That blood was very interesting, wasn’t it?”

Jacques hinting again that they’re the same man, or just that the apple doesn’t fall far from the proverbial tree? Or perhaps this is like that one line from Game of Thrones: “You can’t kill me, I’m a part of you now.”

Then we get this exchange which acts as a segue into the next scene:

Jacques: "So maybe you killed your little love before you put her in that tin coffin, hm? Maybe there is no pristine, pure body to revive. That's what's been on your mind all day, isn't it?"   Jean Paul: "Even if it has been, I certainly wouldn't tell you."   Jacques: "You can have no secrets from me, anyhow. You know, if you ever are thinking of murdering again…" Jean Paul: "I did not kill her!" Jacques: "All right!" *laughs* "But whether you did or not, you might want to kill someone else one of these days." Jean Paul:  "Good night." Jacques: "All right, run away, but you might find an example of my skill nearer than you know and sooner than you think."

After he storms out of the Great Hall, Raxl and Quito return, the latter carrying the rabbit. Before they can sacrifice the rabbit in an effort to rid the house of its evil, it jumps from Quito’s arms. While trying to catch it, he bumps his head into a painting of mysterious ancestor Étienne des Mondes and knocks it off the wall, revealing a hidden cupboard with a skull swinging from a rope through its jaws.

We’ll discuss this skull in the review for next episode, where it becomes the focus. For the rest of this review, however, let us turn our attention to two possible interpretations of the Jean Paul and Jacques scenes in this episode. My theories are as follows:

Theory #1: Jean Paul killed Erica and is living in denial

Jean Paul’s reaction to learning that his deceased wife’s blood is on the locket and especially Jacques’ comments about it seem to imply that Dan Forrest’s theory about murder may not be a red herring after all as Ian Martin would have had us believe. Remember that, although Jacques is evil and Martin’s episodes portrayed him as the Father of Lies, he and Jean Paul may or may not be the same man. That could mean anything from Jean Paul having a split personality to Jacques having transported himself forward in time to live as Jean Paul Desmond before the events of Episode 1, but I’ll save those ideas for another essay. The point is that Jacques seems to know Jean Paul as well as he knows himself, and as such knows things about him that the other characters don’t.

It’s possible even that Jacques has observed and interacted with Jean Paul since long before Jean Paul freed him by removing the silver pin from the conjure doll’s temple. Think back to Jacques’ introductory scene in the pilot, where he responds to Jean Paul’s proclamation of “on this island, from this moment forward, I am God” with “bravo.” He could speak through the portrait and even give characters visions before Jean Paul freed him! Also think of all the things he’s referenced that a man from the 17th century wouldn’t be aware of: merry-go-rounds, bus time tables, the figurative expression “jack up by the bootstraps,” and whatnot. Assuming Jacques is a spirit like he claims, he’s been observing and learning things on Maljardin for a very long time! Sure, he looked confused about that fountain pen in Episode 4, but perhaps that was only because he hadn’t had a chance to practice using one before Jean Paul set him free. If Jean Paul killed Erica, Jacques would know about it and may even have encouraged it by communicating with him through the portrait. There’s no indication that the scene in the pilot is the first time he made contact with his descendant. It could be the second time, the fifth, the tenth, the thousandth, or more.

Also note that the exact cause of Erica’s death is never made clear. Jean Paul claims in Episode 5 that she died of eclampsia, but the Lost Episode summary for Episode 47 from the CBC program log indicates that Dr. Menkin’s missing notes would have eventually revealed her to have “died attempting to gain eternal youth.” The latter could have meant anything from plastic surgery complications to swallowing gold à la Diane de Poitiers. It’s not even clear if the attempt at eternal youth is truly the cause of her death, just what she was doing when she died. This leaves the possibility of homicide open.

But did Jean Paul (or Dr. Menkin) intentionally kill her, or could it have been an unpremeditated, spur-of-the-moment decision? I believe the latter is more likely. Jean Paul seems genuinely confused by her death, and even by whether he loved or hated her. It’s possible he already wasn’t in his right mind before her death and may even have blacked out during it (although probably not because of possession, as he had not yet freed Jacques). Perhaps the artificial intelligence hinted at by the reference to W. Grey Walter’s “Imitation of Life” factored into this: for example, the implant inside Erica’s brain may have malfunctioned, causing her to become violent and attack Jean Paul and/or Dr. Menkin.

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961)

Another thing to consider: Strange Paradise shares many plot points in common with the Roger Corman/Vincent Price movie The Pit and the Pendulum. In the film, we have (1) a husband whose wife recently died under mysterious circumstances, (2) whom he comes to suspect he accidentally murdered. (3) His doctor is living at the castle with him, when (4) a sibling of his deceased wife comes to investigate her death. Among the ghostly happenings in the house, (5) a portrait of the wife is slashed. Finally, (6) the husband goes mad and (7) is possessed by an evil lookalike ancestor, in this case his father. While I don’t think that we can accurately predict planned revelations in Strange Paradise using the events of a film written by someone unaffiliated with the show’s production, it is interesting to note that Vincent Price’s character accidentally buried his wife alive. This connects to the events of Episode 44, where Erica’s spirit possesses Holly and tells them to “let [her] out,” although in Erica’s case it’s more likely that she’s just been resurrected from death instead of being buried alive.

END SPOILERS

Theory #2: Jean Paul is imagining things

Another possibility is that he didn't kill Erica and is using the new (apparent) evidence to construct a false memory of killing her. Although most of us like to think of memory as infallible, numerous studies have proven that it's anything but. This can occur on a collective level, such as the famous Mandela effect where, prior to Nelson Mandela's actual death in 2013, many people misremembered him as having died in the 1980s. More often, however, individual people remember false versions of events from their own lives.

In the late 20th century, numerous psychological studies identified the way that even changing small details of a story--changing a stop sign to a yield sign, for example, or adding the detail of broken glass to the story of an accident--could alter a subject's memory of it, creating a "misinformation effect." During one such study, researchers used a fake advertisement showing Bugs Bunny in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland to trick their subjects into believing that they could meet Bugs at the park (despite Bugs being a Warner Brothers character and Warner Brothers being affiliated instead with Six Flags). For 16 percent of the subjects, it worked, and they described further false memories of meeting Bugs at Disney, adding details like that they touched the ear of his costume[2].

Speaking of false memories of amusement parks, I swore for years that I remembered visiting a dinosaur theme park in the northern Ohio woods back in 1998 or 1999, when I was five or six. I never questioned whether the memory was real until one day when my family drove past a drive-through dinosaur exhibit and my dad said to my mom, "They didn't have anything like that when Michelle was a kid." Skeptical of his claim, I did some Googling and discovered that there was a dinosaur-themed park in the woods near Sandusky called the Prehistoric Forest that looked much like what I thought I remembered[3]. When I sent my parents the link to the article about the Prehistoric Forest, both of them denied ever taking me there or even having heard of the place. Nevertheless, I swear I've been there or somewhere very similar. I think the most likely explanation is that I dreamt about it, but that the memory of the dream was so vivid that I mistook it as one from my waking life.

Much as a researcher can convince their subjects to believe that Bugs Bunny appeared at Disney or I convinced myself that I had visited a place like the Prehistoric Forest, Jean Paul is capable of brainwashing himself into thinking that he murdered Erica. This isn't even the only time he speculates without clear evidence that he’s guilty of murder. We'll see something similar in Episode 137 regarding the murder of a different character, whom Jean Paul will successfully convince himself he killed despite hazy evidence at best.

Note that these two theories are not one hundred percent mutually exclusive. It’s entirely possible that Jean Paul killed Erica, but misremembered specific details about her death or how he felt about her. Also note that this show contains quite a few retcons, one of which we saw last episode. Just as the trajectory of this show has changed significantly from Ian Martin’s original plot, the truth about Erica Desmond’s fate is currently in flux within the show’s universe.

The contents of the secret compartment that Raxl and Quito discovered.

Coming up next: A delightfully chilling episode where Jacques uses the skull that Raxl and Quito found to further terrorize his guests.

{<-- Previous: Episode 45   ||   Next: Episode 47 -->}

Notes

[1] While rabbits can have type AB blood (or type ZY blood, using the system from this 1954 study) and they cannot tolerate injections of Rh-positive blood, they have different antibodies in their blood from those of humans.

[2] Elizabeth F. Loftus, "Memories of Things Unseen," in Current Directions in Psychological Science 13:4 (2004), pp. 145-146. There are other examples from other studies, including one involving false memories of witnessing a demonic possession, but the Bugs one is my personal favorite. Also, this period of Strange Paradise puts me in a rabbity mood.

[3] Coincidentally, the Prehistoric Forest's entrance appeared in the 1995 film Tommy Boy, which also featured Colin Fox and Pat Moffat (Irene Hatter) in supporting roles. There was also an animatronic dinosaur attraction at Sea World Ohio called Carnivore Park that operated in the late 1990s. Despite having visited that Sea World many times as a kid, I couldn’t have gone to that exhibit because we couldn’t afford to go there in 1998 or 1999.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The Many Lives of Lee Miller: Surrealist icon who photographed World War Two

If you were one of the few women photographers accredited by the U.S. Army at the start of World War II, chances were you were far from the front lines. Military regulations at the time dictated that female photojournalists, unlike their male counterparts, were not to enter combat zones.

But Lee Miller, the Poughkeepsie-born photographer and noted Surrealist operating as British Vogue’s war correspondent, was not one to be constrained.

Miller had made a habit of not taking no for an answer long before she accompanied American forces to document scenes such as the Blitz; nurses operating hospitals after D-Day; women serving across the armed forces; and just-liberated concentration camps.

Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller was born on the 23 of April 1907 in Poughkeepsie,  New York. She was the middle child of Florence and Theodore Miller, a mechanical engineer and avid amateur photographer. She was something of a tomboy, always ready for the next big adventure and to try the biggest stunt.

Her first coup was gracing the cover of U.S. Vogue in 1927 at age 19. Lee Miller was walking down a crowded street in Manhattan. She was ravishingly beautiful: blonde hair stylishly bobbed, lips painted red, her slim figure clad in the latest fashions from Paris.

Perhaps it was Paris she was thinking about so deeply. Whatever it was it absorbs her entirely that as she stepped off the sidewalk she didn’t see a car speeding towards her.

At the last minute a man whisked her to safety. He turns out to be none other than the publisher Condé Montrose Nast. As soon as he saw the woman he saved, he decided she must model for his magazine.

A few short months later, Lee Miller’s face, drawn by Georges Lepape with the New York skyline for a backdrop, stares out from the cover of Vogue.

That cover launched Lee Miller’s modelling career. Within months she became a fixture on the New York social scene, hobnobbing with the likes of Charlie Chaplin, George Gershwin and the Vanderbilts.

Fashion greats such as photographer Edward Steichen zipped her into Lanvin and Lelong, draped her in pearls, swathed her in velvet. In one picture she models a Chanel evening gown covered with geometric embellishments, her body resembling a glorious art-deco building.

Lee was fêted and pursued by suitors. A glassware manufacturer even moulded a champagne coupe in the shape of her breast. It was all very glamorous but, for Lee, not wholly satisfying. Later, remembering her New York years, she said, ‘I looked like an angel but I was a fiend inside.’

This contradiction – stemming from a traumatising childhood into early adulthood,

Her father, Theodore, was an amateur-photographer and had begun to photograph his naked daughter long before that, in 1914, when she was seven. According to Miller herself, in that year, she, then known as Elizabeth, had been sent to stay with family friends while her mother was in hospital.

During the trip, she had been raped by a sailor; the attack left her with gonorrhea. For the next year, the child was subjected to daily douches of potassium permanganate, and k twice-weekly visits to the hospital to have her cervix painted with picric acid. Everything she touched at home was immediately sterilised.

It was during this year that Theodore had begun to photograph his daughter in the nude, his first composition being a take on the French artist Paul Chabas' September Morn, a painting of a nubile girl bathing, which had caused a scandal when it was shown in New York in 1913.

For his own picture, Miller required his daughter to pose, nude but for slippers, in the deep Poughkeepsie snow: the resulting picture was called "December Morn". Theodore made it using a stereoscopic camera, so that, viewed through accompanying glasses, his naked child appeared three-dimensional.

The early childhood experience would plague her throughout her adult life, and arguably cause her to constantly try to reinvent herself, wondering if she ‘ever was meant to fit together’.

Those reinventions – as a key figure in the Surrealist movement, fashion photographer, muse and tormented war correspondent – have made her the subject of plays, film scripts (Nicole Kidman wanted to play her in a film written by David Hare that was never made).

Reinvention of otherworldly beauty was also so evident in all her photographs. But Lee wasn’t happy as a model. A sketch she drew in her journal in 1930 shows a woman standing against a studio backdrop, daggers pinning her into place, as another woman in a hat looks on. No wonder, then, that she was hungry to forge her own identity beyond the camera’s frame – a frame that, to a woman who had been looked at by men her entire life, represented an implicit power imbalance. 

She gave up her modelling career and set sail for Paris, intending, as she provocatively stated, to ‘enter photography by the back end’.

Bags of confidence, together with letters of introduction from Edward Steichen, convinced Man Ray to take her on as his assistant. He was instantly enchanted and their professional relationship blossomed into a love affair so tumultuous that it affected them both for years afterwards.

Miller was to befriend other iconic Parisian artists like Max Ernst and Picasso and intellectuals like Jean Cocteau. She would vacation with some of the most prominent figures in the art world at the time. Picasso would paint Lee six times and the two remained friends throughout the rest their lives. Picasso wanted to bed her but she held her distance.

It was Lee Miller, not Man Ray, who discovered the photography technique known at "solarisation" bu turning on a light in their darkroom before the negatives had fully developed. It creates a dark line around the subject of the photograph and created groundbreaking images at the time. Ray is often credited with this discovery and he used it often in his own work, but it was actually Lee Miller who made the first picture of its kind on accident.

Man Ray’s portraits of Lee are sensuous and romantic, but even he never seemed able to see her as a whole, often depicting her body broken up into pieces.

He painted her lips floating disembodied in a mackerel sky in ‘Observatory Time: The Lovers’, and in his photographs her breasts, neck and eyes are removed from their context, palpably humming with sexual energy, the ultimate surrealist objects.

In December 1930, Miller's father, Theodore, had come to Paris from Poughkeepsie, New York, to see his daughter. Like any good parent might, he had taken pictures of her. Unlike most fathers, these photographs were shot in the nude, in the bathtub of their shared hotel suite. Lee Miller was 23.

The shots Man Ray took of Lee and Theodore Miller, she in a demure print frock and curled, child-like, in her father's lap, are deeply weird. They seem less of a father and daughter than of an older man and his much younger lover.

Perhaps Ray had heard rumours that Theodore had been Lee's actual childhood abuser, or he may have imagined it for himself. (No charges were ever brought against the unidentified sailor-rapist.)

In terms of age, Ray's own relationship with Lee was also ambiguously paternal: he was 17 years older than her, a pattern that would mark all her relationships with men. At any rate, Theodore and Ray seem to have gotten along famously. Together, the two men photographed Lee, nude, lolling on a bed with three other naked women.

It is hard not to see all this in psychological terms, if not in moral ones. Cursed with a perfect beauty, Miller became a focus of Ray’s internal need to violate. For Man Ray, this was aggravated by the masculine drive to compete.

If the countless celebrities photographed by Man Ray – Wallis Simpson, Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf, Picasso, Chanel, Schiaparelli, himself – the one he went back to most obsessively was Lee Miller. You can see why. Miller was a physical ideal, the kind of perfectly moulded, ice-blonde beauty beloved of Hitchcock; flawless, or at least imaginably so.

Lee Miller and Man Ray's exciting, passionate and tumultuous relationship ended and Man Ray did not take it well. In fact, one of his most famous pieces, Indestructible Object, includes her eye ticking on a metronome.

Ray's instructions to fans on how to make their own version of the work suggest the violence of his anatomical method. "Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more," he writes, bitterly. "Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow."

That done, the photographer, ever the drama queen, sat for a self-portrait called "Suicide" with a noose around his neck and a gun pointed at his head.

Hell hath no fury like a Surrealist scorned.

When their affair ended, Lee moved back to New York and opened her own studio, where she worked ‘in the style of Man Ray’, as she advertised in a bold appropriation of his name.

She hardly needed the help. Clients such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Elizabeth Arden paid handsomely for pictures by the woman who was herself ‘one of the most photographed girls in Manhattan’.

But in just a few years the Lee Miller Studio closed when Lee married an Egyptian, Aziz Eloui Bey, and moved with him to Cairo. She felt stunted by Egypt’s restrictive society but produced some of her best work there, driving into the desert with her trusty cocktail kit in the boot to take photographs of the landscape.

Her husband, however, let Lee spend extended holidays in Europe with the Surrealist set, where she met painter and art collector Roland Penrose, the man who eventually became her second husband. They would be happily married for the rest of their lives until death. She at last found someone who accepted her whole. But it still wouldn’t be enough for Lee. 

By 1939, it was time for another reinvention. War broke out, the Blitz rained down on London, and Lee, urged on by her friend, the photojournalist, collaborator and sometime lover David Scherman, got accredited as a war correspondent for (of all places) British Vogue.

Her editor, Audrey Withers, expected soft-focus photo-essays about war privation, but Lee had other ideas.

Her reportage was gruesome, intimate and important. On the front lines at the siege of Saint-Malo, Lee documented the Americans’ first use of napalm and described a company ready for action, ‘grenades hanging on their lapels like Cartier clips, menacing bunches of death.’

She shot close-ups of the faces of German Nazis who had committed suicide in Leipzig and took powerful portraits of starving prisoners following the liberation of Dachau and Buchenwald.

When she arrived in Paris during the Liberation the first thing she did was go to Picasso's studio. There they are pictured smiling holding each other tight, probably beyond relieved that they were both alive. Picasso is quoted saying in astonishment "the first Allied soldier I should see is a woman- and she is you."

When Hitler fled Munich at the end of the war, Lee and Scherman were the first of the press corps to reach his apartment, where they drank his cognac and napped in his bed. They propped a picture of Hitler on the rim of his bathtub, set Lee’s dirty combat boots on the bathroom rug and took the now-famous photograph of her bathing in Hitler’s tub.

The war made Lee feel alive.

The image of Miller in Hitler’s tub was the one that led to the end of her Vogue career. The public was outraged at what they interpreted as flippant disregard for the ravages of war. Being accused of insensitivity inevitably took its toll, but it was what she saw, felt, and experienced during those years that would eventually send her into a struggle with depression.

She loved her uniform, tailored on Savile Row. She loved roughing it: washing in her helmet and subsisting on K-rations. And for a woman always searching for meaning in her life, documenting the war for readers back home gave her purpose. ‘Believe this,’ she cabled to Vogue, and the pictures she sent back were indeed horrifying. They came at a cost: Lee was never able to distance herself from her subject. She threw her entire self into her work.

Lee suffered mightily postwar.

The trauma of what she had seen haunted her for the rest of her life. Today we would call it PTSD. In postwar England, Lee was told by her doctor ‘we cannot keep the world permanently at war just to provide you with excitement’.

On her return to London after the war, she was feted. "Who else has written equally well about GIs and Picasso?" her editor said. "Who else can swing from the Siegfried line one week to the new hip line the next?"

Desperate to ward off a sense of anticlimax, she returned to eastern Europe. But soon she was pregnant at 40 years old and finding the prospect of motherhood scarier than any front line.

She missed the action, despite suffering post-traumatic stress. She also felt increasingly sidelined: in staid, patriarchal postwar Britain, her husband was the one in demand.

Finding the inspiration to write and take photographs became harder and eventually she gave it up entirely, hiding more than 60,000 negatives and contact sheets in the attic and becoming so tight-lipped on the subject that even her own son, Antony, knew nothing about her war work until he was an adult. An entire piece of herself was boxed up and placed out of sight.

Depressed at her loss of looks and gain in weight, she found solace in drink and cooking elaborate gourmet meals for her guests at Farley Farm House in East Sussex, her home until her death in 1977. 

She could have written a very good cookbook by all accounts. She was a virtuoso chef. 

She remained friends with the Paris crowd. In particular she was close to Picasso. Lee Miller's son recalls going over to Picasso's home as a child. He even wrote a book about the time he bit Picasso, as a child, called ‘The Boy Who Bit Picasso’.

Lee even reconciled with Man Ray. Lee and Man Ray last met in London in 1975, at Man Ray's retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. By now, he was in a wheelchair and Lee Miller was a drunk. 

Lee Miller died of cancer in 1977. By the end she was overweight, an alcoholic, ravaged by depression, and tortured by her husband’s affair with a trapeze artist. Anyone meeting Lee Miller then would have been surprised to know that she was once considered the most beautiful woman in the world, second only to Greta Garbo.

But just as she, and her reputation, went out of sight for years. There has in recent years been a resurgence of interest in Lee’s photography, bringing her legacy, and her enduring appeal, further into the light.

As a female icon she never saw herself as a victim. It's remarkable that Miller was able to delight in her body (and in the pleasure others took from it). She saw sex and love as two very different beasts. She was very comfortable living out the truth as she believed it."Emotionally, I need to be completely absorbed in some work or in a man I love," she wrote, but she didn't see why going to bed with someone should upset whichever man she was currently in love with.

Lee insisted that she couldn’t be kept and that women should be able to be as sexually free as men. She was radical, and people made her suffer for it  - Man Ray included.

Strikingly beautiful, she was used to submitting to the male gaze and even subverting it. A less spirited woman might have been crushed by these alpha males, but Miller, unfazed, determinedly transformed herself from passive model to active artist.

Her son, Antony Penrose, observed in his 1998 biography of his mother, The Legendary Lee Miller: Photographer, 1907–1977, her unique background capturing uncanny moments and haunting, bizarre portraits during the heyday of the Surrealist movement served her well in war photography. Penrose wrote:

“Unexpectedly, among the reportage, the mud, the bullets, we find photographs where the unreality of war assumes an almost lyrical beauty....On reflection I realise that the only meaningful training of a war correspondent is to first be a Surrealist—then nothing in life is too unusual.”

But it was the very nature of unconventionality of her career trajectory that hampered her historical reputation.

Her early association with the Paris Surrealists - particularly her role as Man Ray's "perversely enchanting muse" - overshadowed her own artistic accomplishments.

Her abandonment of photography, and the consignment of all her work to her own attic also limited her impact during her lifetime.

Her association with fashion also coloured the interpretation of Miller's work. As her biographer Carolyn Burke states, "to this day, her life inspires features in the same glossy magazines for which she posed...this approach turns the real woman in to a screen onto which beholders project their fantasies", and further perpetuates the legend of Lee Miller as an "American free spirit wrapped in the body of a Greek goddess".

The force of her beauty, effervescent personality and high octane biography will always remain central to interpreting her work.

Today Miller has been recognised as among the most original and ambitious photographic artists of the 20th century, and a subtly transgressive artist, who - as Lynn Hilditch asserts in Lee Miller, Photography, Surrealism and the Second World War - took off from her Surrealist background and "pushed the boundaries both of art and war photography, often using unconventional methods to comment on such multifaceted issues as sex, gender, death, and war"

[yerlinmedia]

Blog Post 2

When it comes to the movie Black Swan and American Psycho, Mental illness is a very prevalent theme in both films. Both movies give great insight towards how mental illness can suddenly creep up on you leaving you engulfed with emotions. One note that stands out for both movies is how the main characters don’t even realize they have a problem. Dealing with depression and anxiety myself, It took a very long time before I started to notice that I had an issue and an even longer time to try and reach out to someone for help. Now that may be clear for most people however the endings for these movies may be confusing so I will break the symbolism that I got from these movies.

In Black Swan has a theme of setting problems aside. Nina throws any issue aside and just lets it build up. Nina’s Anxiety is symbolized by the black swan. Anytime she starts going through waves of anxiety she imagines herself turning into this black swan. She starts getting goosebumps and black feathers eventually as her anxiety worsens. When the feathers start emerging from Nina’s skin her immediate reaction is to start plucking. In the real world birds that are locked in cages with no stimulation have a habit of plucking feathers from stress or boredom. Therefore the plucking scene shows that audience that Nina is self harming when she gets these panic attacks.  

Nina has a habit of pushing her problems aside and this is affecting her mental state. For example her boss keeps sexually assaulting her. Yet she allows it to happen over and over for her to get the lead role. While rehearsing for the performance Nina sprains her ankle and cracks her toe nail yet pushes aside the pain and continues. These are things that build up over time and attribute to Nina’s increased anxiety toward performing the lead role. Nina lacks self confidence and this can be seen when she attempts to self pleasure herself yet is unable to.

Now what does the ending mean? Before analyzing the ending of we need to look back at the events that lead to it. In the first act Nina accidentally falls on stage leading her to panic to her stage room once the scene is finally over. Over there she sees Odile Dressed up as the black swan offering to take Nina’s position. In a fit of panic Nina kills Odile and becomes the black swan. She returns to the stage with what seems like confidence as she grows feathers and even kisses her boss in front of everyone. What seems like an amazing stroke of self improvement. However Nina actually finally gave in to her mental illness. She is absolutely swarmed with terror in this scene yet Nina continues to push her emotions aside and keeps a blank face. Nina has been completely enveloped by her anxiety. She doesn’t come to realize that she has given in until she returns to her room to see Odile isn’t there. Odile is not the source of her illness, Nina herself is where all the problems lay and that is why she stabs herself. In the final moments of the last act Nina dies however she is happy. It may be confusing if this is a happy ending or not but this because there are two perspectives being shown. Nina sees herself being free of the torment of her illness, Yet everyone else is panicking because she is dying. This is a reflection of how mental illness can lead to suicide. Nina believes that this will bring an end to her torment; she sees this as something positive. However she is surrounded by friends, family and an audience that care about her well being. It isn’t until it’s too late for her to get help because Nina refused to reach out to anyone. At times suicide might seem like the only answer however we are surround by people who can help us. This is the message the director is trying to give. 

American Psycho is another movie with a bit of a confusing ending. The audience is left unclear on if Patrick is an actual psychopathic killer or if everything is all in his head. This is that actual struggle for those with schizophrenia. They often have hallucinations and struggle to tell what is real and what is made up. So the ambiguous ending reflects this. I really enjoyed American Psycho because it makes you want to watch the movie a second time to figure out what was real and what was an illusion. I have theorized that Patrick only thought himself to be a killer. Anytime he kills someone he is only fantasizing about killing. Patrick has obsessive personality disorder is the type to easily get made. The scene when Jules puts the spoon in the spoon on the table instead of the ice cream container really shows how easily Patrick can snap. The only change I would make in the ending of the movie is the scene when Jean finds Patrick’s journal. I would have added more scenes to show Patrick has a mental issue. For example, instead of just finding a journal, Jean also finds medication such as thorazine or prolixin. I would also bring back Paul Allen just to really confuse the audience. However overall this movie was insightful and yet entertaining. I am left wanting a true sequel to Patrick Bateman’s story. Unfortunately neither Black Swan or American Psycho. Although yes there is an American Psycho 2. I refuse to believe that movie is a true squeal, it was just slapped with that name just to bring an audience. I would definitely recommend these movies however I'd suggest also doing background research on mental illness prior to watching. I believe that would further help the viewer fully grasp the meaning behind either movie.

[hcpefulmarshmallow]

Time for some long, unnecessary Meta. I’ve had this one in my brain for ages, but I haven’t really had an excuse to talk about it until recently. Identity isn’t a major theme in Nagito’s character (although it plays it’s part), and so, I’ve been putting this one off. Then, my good pal Ashi had to go be a literary genius and incorporate some really interesting things into their Gundham, and now I have all the excuse I need. So I’m going to be talking about him, too, to a marginally lesser extent, using aspects of the Best Gunny’s characterisation. (Seriously though, plug. I’m not even sure it’s possible to follow this blog and not know about Ashi’s Gundham, but on the off chance: @the-taboo-king.)

 Under a cut for length, philosophy, and shameless, shameless Roulette.

 This is the part where I say something that makes the reader’s eyes glaze over, but indulge me. No Exit is a 1944 existentialist French play by Jean-Paul Sartre. It’s about three people - Garcin, Inez and Estelle - who are all doomed to hell, except hell is just an ordinary room, and it’s really, really good. I’d highly recommend. 

 The characters spend much of the start of the play sitting around, waiting for Satan to show up with the hot pokers and the lube, but once the three of them are gathered in this room, nothing happens. All they can do is sit there, get to know one another, and watch the people they left behind on Earth live out the rest of their lives and move on. There’s nothing there except three chairs; nothing else for them to do. It’s explicitly mentioned that hell has no mirrors, so for instance, when Estelle wants to fix her makeup, she has to rely on Inez to tell her if it looks alright or not. The trouble is, Inez is really attracted to Estelle, so Estelle has no way of knowing if Inez is telling her the objective truth or not. Furthermore, Estelle is kind of grossed out at the thought of another woman being attracted to her, so she starts flirting with Garcin. Not because she’s especially interested in him, per se, but he is the only man there, and Estelle thrives on male attention. 

 Garcin doesn’t seem to want much to do with either Inez or Estelle at first, preferring to focus on watching his wife try and cope with the terrible reputation he left behind. However, eventually she, and everyone who knew him, dies or moves on. It becomes like he never existed, as it does for them all. 

 Garcin accepts Estelle’s advances, but it’s not her attention he wants. It’s Inez’s. She’s furious, jealous, and ready to throw some hands. Inez’s fixation remains on Estelle; Estelle’s on Garcin; and Garcin’s on Inez. Things become vicious between the three, until, at last, the door to hell opens. Garcin has the chance to leave, but he doesn’t. 

 The play is especially famous for the line “Hell is other people”, and directly opposes the old adage, “I think, therefore I am”. It posits that humans exist because we are seen, and therefore if we are unseen, we do not exist. At this point, Garcin has become dependent on his feud with Inez. He might be forgotten in the world, but as long as she hates him, there’s a him to hate. The absence of mirrors removes the characters’ abilities to reflect on themselves, so they can only experience themselves through one another. In that sense, their purpose here isn’t solely to be punished, but to punish one another for all eternity. 

 So, what does this have to do with Dangit Roomba 2, the game where everything’s made up and the deaths don’t matter? Like I said, this play has been in the back of my mind for a while when it comes to writing Komaeda, but it hasn’t been explicit enough for me to justify writing oodles about until recently. So before we talk about Nagito, let’s talk about the man, the myth, the hamster dad himself. 

 Identity is a major theme for Gundham. He cultivates his own very, very carefully, only breaking character here and there either to adjust himself (and comment on a “good line”), or when he’s flustered and his composure slips just a little bit. Given how much effort he puts into his words and appearance, you’d be probably correct in assuming he wants to be seen a certain way. He appears to thrive off the fear and intimidation he inspires, yet despite demanding “silence and solitude”, he seems to crave companionship, and find it best in those who can easily reconcile his demonic persona with the kind, nurturing person he is underneath, as opposed to people who try and see directly through it. He needs that persona, you see. He can’t cope with it being stripped away. I’ve spoken about Gundham’s tendency to play the bad guy even when he is, objectively, the hero, before, so I won’t belabor the point too much. But what I’m driving at here is, who he is, and how he’s seen, are too intricately linked to be separated.

 If you recall, the door to hell opens and Garcin has the chance to leave, but he doesn’t. 

 I can think of no better example than the ideas in No Exit, and the intricacies of Gundham’s character, falling into place better than Ashi’s future verse. Which is really, really good, and a masterful take on the philosophy of identity. When Gundham shatters the mirrors and covers the reflective surfaces in his living space, he is effectively robbing himself of the ability to see himself. He’s forced into the vulnerable position of his identity being placed in the hands of others. With no way to reflect on himself - literally and symbolically - he has to take what others say to him as is. Rely on other people to cultivate his appearance and judge what he can no longer see, and therefore, alter. Coupled with his persistent, subsequent self-aggrandizing and deprecation, and he’s submitting himself to the torment of being made into the villain of this story, no matter what he does from hereon out. 

 You see, the world isn’t in despair anymore. He’s been given a second chance. The door to hell is open, and Gundham has the chance to leave, but he doesn’t. 

 Like Garcin, he becomes reliant on the fight. The constant struggle against people who will see him in the worst light possible, no matter what he does. But unlike Garcin, Inez, Estelle, or even Nagito - and we will get to Nagito - he isn’t forced into this state, for survival or for punishment. At least, not by a third party. He’s condemning himself. He’s robbing himself of the ability to improve, or to see himself improve. He doesn’t think he deserves to. He relies on others to validate who he is, because others have always let him down. Always seen him as the villain.  The weird kid. The one not worth including. He’s waiting to be told, “Actually, you’re a bad person and I don’t want to be near you”. He’s waiting to be abandoned and left alone because, when there’s no one left to see him, he will, effectively, no longer exist. He’s given up on a meaningful, extraordinary death, opting to instead languish in the depths of oblivion. For someone who has grappled for years to forge an identity he can live with (again, that other meta I did on him a while back), this. This is hell. 

 Now that I’ve outed myself as a secret Gundham Tanaka stan blog, let’s talk about his boyfriend. Identity is less a key theme for Nagito, and more a background element to his character. So it hasn’t been something I could justify a thousand-odd words on so far. But now I have an excuse, I’m going to talk about the single most underrated ship in all of Dimple Raddish. Like I usually do. Look, there’s been a semi-recent semi-surge on popularity for Roulette in the fandom, just let me ride it out, okay? As someone who doesn’t shut up about these two, I have no idea how much of it I’m responsible for, but I am arrogant enough to take more credit than is due, so. You’re welcome, fandom. 

 For all the things Nagito is awkward and dumb at dealing with (see: All The Things), helping Gundham cope post-tragedy is one thing he does pretty effortlessly. Because what Gundham needs is what Nagito has in perpetuity: relentless, unyielding love. The only way Gundham will ever face himself again, is if he’s forced to believe there’s something worth facing. There is an opportunity in seeing himself as others do. He can see the good things he’s never let himself acknowledge before. 

Now’s as good a time as any to say: this is not a healthy way to be. And I’m not trying to imply that the love of the right person can cure years of trauma and abuse. But you know what can help? Being treated with some basic decency and respect. And heck, even love. Gundham is not a role model, and Nagito, less so. He’s a morally ambiguous, deeply damaged young man. He can’t really be fixed. But he can be given the support he needs to heal.

 This is the inevitable part in all my long metas where I lament that Nagito’s childhood was loveless, and robbed him of the ability the feel any kind of self-worth. That he’s rendered incapable of recognizing his own needs much less putting them first, as a result of them never being met. That he’s a good person who deserves a good life, and despite having been through insurmountable hell, it’s a wonder he came out the other side so, very capable of selflessness. And that it’s tragic his biggest wish in life is to just know how to feels to be loved in any way by anyone, just to have the most basic, fundamental human experience. F in chat. 

 Nagito has interests, and hobbies. He...reads, sometimes. He likes dogs. His luck ruins everything. But when he isn’t encouraging others to chase that One True Hope, what is he actually doing? What would he be doing if he never attended Hope’s Peak? Given how many times he’s been treated like a burden, can he ever truly feel like he’s worth something to anybody?

 There’s a sense of static around him, I feel. Like when the video quality suddenly drops, and it takes you a moment to realise. Who is he, exactly? The answer is simple and sad: whoever he’s told to be. He’s spent his life being treated like his feelings are a burden and he’s useless trash, therefore he is burdensome trash. In class he is often ignored and ridiculed, so he largely keeps to himself during group activities, and whenever he says something out loud, he often scolds himself for it before anyone else can. You know, that whole, “Haha sorry, that was a bit much, guess I’m just trash” thing he does. He has to be this way. For his own survival, for whatever sanity he has left. It’s easier to be treated like garbage if you believe you deserve it.

 It’s normal for people to be different around different people. But I find that to be especially true with Nagito as I play him through different relationships with different people. The more he is with Gundham, the more his nurturing, animal-loving side comes out. The more he is with Celeste, the more we see his intelligent, competitive, gentlemanly side. With Sonia, his ability to be princely and adventurous; with Chiaki, his gentle and relaxed nature, with Yuuki, or the WoH, or literally any child under his care, we experience a strong paternal side to him. He is by no means a different person, but different aspects of his personality are given more dominance over him as a whole, based on what somebody sees in him. He’s very capable of stepping up, but only when he feels someone expects him to. Otherwise he’s content to sit on his hands and watch, because he doesn’t think he deserves anything better. 

 Nagito will not see these things, or anything especially good, in himself until he is given permission. Until he is made to feel, by an authority higher than himself, that it’s okay. He exists as others see him. If someone he looks up to, whose opinions he values, recognises the - for lack of a better term - hope in him, he will eventually be forced to accept that it’s there himself. He might even. You know. Develop enough self-respect one day to forge a more self-actualised identity. Have the audacity to want things, and have dreams and stuff. He might even follow them. It’s a long, tiresome, non-linear process; but a worthwhile undertaking if I say so myself.

 I guess the tl;dr here is that: both boys validate themselves through the eyes of other people because it’s the only way they know how. It’s not a good or healthy thing to do, but with the right kind of support, and enough time and patience, maybe next time the door to hell opens, they’ll have the courage to leave. 

[ohblackdiamond]

no change in the weather (peter/paul, nc-17)

“You’re gonna owe me the rest of your life for joining the band. Just like I’m gonna owe you the rest of my life for letting me in. Whether you like it or not, that’s the way it’s always gonna be.” During the Farewell Tour, Peter confronts Paul.

Notes: Credit to @collatxral-damage for input on the initial rough draft and the necklace; without it I don’t think this fic would’ve been completed.

“no change in the weather”

by Ruriruri

It’s wild when he lets it hit him, just how long he’s known Paul Stanley. More than half the bastard’s life. He was still Stanley Eisen when they met, legally, at least, but he’d never been that to Peter. He’d introduced himself in front of Hendrix’s old studio as Paul, stuck out his hand nervously and smiled, there with his long, curly hair and flower-printed tee and jeans. Peter remembered being disappointed, and then just resigned. Paul told him later he was twenty, but he looked younger. He looked like a kid. It had been ten times worse during his actual audition, when Gene and Paul both walked into the restaurant he played at wearing the exact same hippie outfits as before.

“You guys just stay in the back, all right?” Peter had gestured, unnecessarily, to the clientele in their immaculate suits and ties. “They think you’re fruits.”

They think you’re fags would have been more accurate, but he hadn’t wanted to blow his own audition with an insult. Paul and Gene both knew it, anyway. Gene had kind of nodded and Paul had followed him over to the corner of the restaurant. Peter had played the set and that was it; he was in. He was in the band of a part-time cabbie and a schoolteacher. A band that didn’t even have a name yet. Didn’t even have a lead guitarist yet.

In five months, they’d gotten the name and the lead guitarist. Another five or so and they had the record deal, and then they were on the road. And by that time, he’d spent a stupid amount of time with that kid. Eaten the sandwiches he’d brought back from the deli on the way to band practice. Listened to him bitch and fret on the phone and in person, share his dreams in weird, furtive little bursts, as though Paul was always counting on a dismissal before he even got the words out.

“I used to have this fantasy,” he’d confessed once, late at night, after a show, “when I was real young. Like, shit, maybe eight or nine, I dunno.”

“That’s kinda young for fantasies. You find a dirty magazine or something?” Peter had taken another gulp of beer and sat up in the bed across from Paul’s, squinting at his face in the dim lamplight. They’d shared a girl just after the show, a pretty brunette undergrad. Showered together after she left, fooled around in there a little too long. Gone from smacking each other with washcloths to real stupid stuff. Jacking each other off as the shower ran, high off the excitement of the concert and the girl. Once they’d stepped out of the bathroom, with all the evidence washed down the drain, Peter had thought he’d feel awful about it, but he hadn’t. He still felt good and high and—secure, oddly secure.

“Not a sex fantasy, pervert.” There hadn’t been a blowdryer in the hotel room, so Paul was lying in bed with a towel wrapped tight around his hair. Every so often, he’d rearrange it and try to twist out a little more of the water. “Anyway, I’d be in the schoolyard and sitting up in some chair and all my classmates would be down beneath me, calling me King Paul.”

“That’s pretty screwed-up,” Peter said after awhile, and Paul had glanced away. “Who do you think you are, Joseph out of the Bible? You want everyone who ever picked on you worshipping you?”

“I didn’t say they picked on me.”

“You didn’t have to.”

There’d probably been plenty to pick on, from what Peter could see. Paul had been a bit fat and still was a bit effeminate, and he had a lisp that he kept trying to get rid of but couldn’t. Not that it took much for grammar school kids to start tormenting. But most people got over it. Peter had, or thought he had. Up until that night, he’d thought his and Paul’s rockstar ambitions came from the same place. They didn’t.

It should’ve been more of a wedge between them than it managed to be. From then on, they kept sharing girls and kept fooling around every so often. They didn’t discuss it. It didn’t mean anything. Peter would do it with Ace, too—Ace was wilder, warmer about it, but Paul, for all his shyness, was more consistent. Just something that took the edge off, something that felt a little more real than dressing up in bondage gear to play the drums four days out of every week.

About a year later came the Hotter Than Hell photoshoot. Lydia sitting nearly naked in his lap, soft and flirting as he’d posed with her. Paul laying ten feet behind him on that king-sized bed, uncharacteristically soused, head lolling like a rose on too thin a stem, just about ready to break. Just about ready to pass out. There’d been a couple guys on the set, too. One of them had been watching Paul, tossing out catcalls Paul was too drunk to do more than laugh at. Peter had laughed, too, at first, until the guy started to head toward the bed between shots, until the come-ons got nastier. Paul was still laughing then, completely oblivious, guileless as a kid, half-dangling off the bed as he tried scooting over to offer the guy some room.

Peter hadn’t seen anything else, but he’d heard Gene stomping over. Heard the thump as he shoved the guy off the bed and onto the hard studio tile. Twenty minutes later and the shoot was over and Gene had locked Paul in his own car, like he thought the pervert was going to drag him out bodily, and that was that.

Peter had felt a little sick, thinking about it. Even back then. He hadn’t stopped it. Been too damn stupid to think it’d get any farther than a kiss or a grope, at best. Only Gene had recognized the danger for what it was.

Afterwards, half-sober at best, Peter had tried to ask him about it. Maybe even thank him for it. Gene had just shrugged.

“Paul’s fragile.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve only been living in the same room with him the entire year.”

“You don’t understand.” Something in Gene’s expression had curdled. His voice was lower; there was an edge to it Peter didn’t recognize. “Paul can’t—handle things.”

Peter hadn’t pushed for any more of an explanation, for once. The look on Gene’s face told him enough. Christ, he’d never thought Gene had ever handled anything more traumatizing from a woman than a venereal disease. Thought all his stupid bravado about the girls he’d laid was only because he’d never really gotten any until the band got big. He hadn’t thought there was any more to it than that. Hadn’t wanted there to be any more to it than that.

But even Hotter than Hell’s more than twenty years on. Twenty-six years on, now, and Gene’s still up to all the old bullshit there anyway. Fidelity never did matter to him when he had Cher, when he had Diana, and it doesn’t matter to him now that he’s got two kids by a Playboy Playmate he won’t even give his last name to. No Coop, but he’s still getting the roadies to pick out chicks for him during the show. Huge-titted blondes that weren’t even alive during KISS’ prime. It’s like Gene thinks there’s a fountain of youth in being desired. Like hell he really is desired now—he’s just a bedpost notch they can brag about to their girlfriends later. Same as he ever was. Same as any of them ever were.

But Gene isn’t the only one. Ace has some drugged-out girlfriend that’s there often enough; otherwise, he’s got a groupie or two that he finds himself. He’s got computers set up in his hotel room, probably cameras, too, as if he’s going for one more hedonistic thrill. Ace used to seem indestructible. Even five, six years ago, he seemed indestructible, like maybe the Jendell bullshit wasn’t bullshit and he’d keep on and on and on, bouncing back from every wasted night. He’s faltering now. He’s really faltering now.

Paul, well. Paul’s in bad shape from all the stage stunts he’s still stupidly pulling. Probably back to gulping down white cross before shows just like he used to in the seventies. But for all his come-ons and preening onstage, he isn’t even trying to pull the girls into bed anymore. Just stalks off to his hotel room alone after concerts, barricading himself in like fucking Greta Garbo.

Paul’s wife used to drop by sometimes. She hasn’t this entire tour, and fuck, Paul honestly seems to think Peter doesn’t know why.

Paul seems to think Peter doesn’t know a lot of things. Par for the fucking course. When Peter calls him out on it, about the tour profits, the contract renegotiations—Paul dismisses him out of hand as smoothly as he would a journalist trying to get an angle. Gene isn’t any better about it, but it hurts worse, coming from Paul. Maybe because he didn’t used to be half this slimy. Maybe because he used to care.

Maybe because Paul still has something like a hold on him. Materially, anyway. God knows he hasn’t touched the guy for anything more than a handclasp or hug for the cameras in years, for all Peter’s certain Paul still thinks he’s worth fooling around with. No. Paul had had sort of a fascination with crosses, one he’d obliquely apologize for (“I think they look cool, guess that makes me a pretty lousy Jew”), whether Gene was next to him or not. They’d traded off a couple times, worn each other’s jewelry. Not just for photoshoots, but for going out in general. Paul swapping out the gold Star of David necklace he occasionally wore for one of Peter’s smaller crosses. Never the crucifixes, only the crosses. At some point Peter had just given one to him, out of convenience. The only reason he remembers is because Paul tried to put it on immediately and got the chain stuck in his hair. Peter’d had to help him free it. Doesn’t matter. Some little eighteen-karat necklace from the days they’d both drop thousands a month just on their wardrobes. Paul probably doesn’t even have it anymore.

It’s just as well.

He catches a glimpse of Paul behind him in the hallway one afternoon around noon. Paul glances his way, speeds up, then they’re walking together in silence, passing a couple stiff-suited businessmen on the way to the elevator. Paul pushes the lobby button, then looks over at him again, finger still hovering over the panel. Peter shrugs.

“Same.”

“Oh.” Paul pauses, resting a foot against the side of the elevator, all the way up against the metal railing. Has to be uncomfortable just holding that position, but Paul doesn’t flinch or even wobble. It’s like he thinks Peter has a camera at the ready for a photoshoot ten years too late to attract anybody. “You hungry?”

With Gigi back home, he’s been taking half his own lunches alone in his hotel room, not wanting to spend the meal listening to Paul bitch or Gene hit on the waitresses. Not wanting to see Ace drink himself to oblivion. He starts to shrug again, but Paul’s expression, weird and a little strained, keeps an outright no at bay.

“Wanna stop somewhere with me?”

The elevator dings before Peter answers. He keeps staring at Paul as the elevator descends, looking for some sign of deception. That smarmy, satisfied look he couldn’t erase while he was busy screwing him and Ace over. He can’t find it. The bags under Paul’s eyes are worse than usual. Eyeliner’s on, probably concealer, too. It’s just his mouth, pursed and crooked, giving him away now. Paul’s not trying to pull one on him right now. He’s just sad as hell.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Where do you wanna go?”

“I don’t care.” And then, seeing Paul’s deflated look as they get off the elevator, “Maybe something light like sandwiches.”

“There’s a bistro down the block. Gene said it was pretty good.” Paul digs a pair of sunglasses out of his pants pocket and puts them on.

“You’re pickier than Gene.”

“I won’t send anything back. Promise.”

“Like I believe that.”

“No, really, I won’t. Well, maybe if it’s really awful, but…”

They pass up the front desk on their way out. The girl behind it offers a cheeky little wave and a giggle that can’t be part of the five-star hotel experience at all. Paul lifts his hand idly and offers a smile, and Peter does, too, both speeding up their pace so she won’t have time to ask for a picture.

Maybe a picture wouldn’t have been such a bad thing to stop for. No one comes up to them the entire walk to the bistro. Peter feels a couple of stares from passerby, but none of the old excitable murmurs, those are-you-sures and it’s-them-it’s-them-I-swear. No screaming, sobbing high school girls trying to grab Paul by the arm like they thought he’d run off with them if they just tugged hard enough. No bodyguards following them around to keep fans in check. All the old ego boosts are gone except for the roar of the concert crowd.

Paul holds the door open for him at the restaurant. They have to seat themselves, a piece of normalcy Peter feels like he should resent, but he doesn’t. Peter barely glances at the menu before ordering a Reuben sandwich, fries, and a Sprite, while Paul yanks off his sunglasses and deliberates for five minutes over whether to get a half-sandwich, half-soup combo or just the soup. He ends up getting the lobster bisque instead.

“That’s really all you’re eating?” Peter asks as he passes the menus back to the waitress. Paul shrugs.

“I’m not that hungry.”

“First time in a long time.”

“What, me not being hungry?”

“No. You having soup for lunch.”

“It’s a bisque, be specific—”

“Are you going to have candy for dinner, too? Like you used to?”

Paul winces.

“God, I’m not that sentimental.”

“The hell you’re not,” Peter says, and he means it harsher than it comes out; instead, the words sound almost warm, almost fond. He can’t manage to call Paul out on his own nostalgia trips with any real rancor when he’s putting on the old greasepaint, too. “You used to eat, what, two rolls of Life Savers before concerts—”

“And a bag of Satellite Wafers for nutrition.” Paul stirs the bisque before taking a swallow. His nose wrinkles as Peter watches, but true to his word, he doesn’t send it back or even start complaining, just reaches across the table to get the pepper shaker. “Or maybe because they were about five calories a wafer, who knows? You can’t even get them anymore.”

Peter shifts a little in his seat. The Reuben’s just okay, nothing great, but the fries are fresh and smothered in grease. There’s that oily sheen radiating off them unapologetically in the dim lighting of the bistro. Miles better than the five-star shit Paul raves about. If he’s not careful, he’ll finish them off in another five minutes.

“I never ate all the Life Savers. Gene always got the cherry ones.”

“Does he even like cherry?”

“He likes getting his tongue red.” Paul takes another few spoonfuls of the bisque. Peter expects him to continue, to start a stupid tirade against Gene—they’re not the big buddies they used to be right now, as if Peter cares—but there’s nothing.

Nothing except that worn-down look on Paul’s face and that emptiness in those too-big, too-sad brown eyes. The girls used to go crazy for them, just nuts, but Peter had only ever been reminded of a droopy-eyed beagle. Without the Starchild façade perking them up, the comparison’s more accurate than ever.

It should be satisfying, Paul having a hard time. Should really make Peter feel vindicated for the hell he’s been through over the last decade, to see Paul really struggling to pull himself together. It’s about time Paul struggled for anything. A guy like him, so fucking sensitive and vain, stupid enough to believe his own hype even now. Greedy and spiteful enough to be sucking him and Ace dry for daring to ever quit the band. Berating him during practice like he’s just a hired gun, like he’s Eric Carr or Singer, those poor bastards. Enjoying knocking him down peg after fucking peg. It ought to feel great knowing Paul’s sinking faster and harder than he ever did, knowing he’s trying to crush Peter’s ego out of his own flat-out misery.

But every time Peter looks at Paul, he doesn’t feel satisfied or pleased or any of that shit, just hollowed-out and edgy all at once. Like he should do something—which is fucking stupid. There’s nothing he’s ever been able to do for Paul. Not in twenty years at least. Paul doesn’t want anything from him, either, except a series of servile yeses and contract signatures and a drumming ability his destroyed arms can’t manage. Paul’s never wanted anything from him that Peter could offer up.

Peter’s tapping his fingers against the table before he realizes it. At first Peter doesn’t think Paul notices, either, until he feels his eyes on him.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” A breath, then, quiet, abrupt—“You better go easier on yourself sometimes, Paul.”

“I can’t.”

“You should,” Peter says, insists, weirdly, and then he shoves the basket of fries towards Paul’s side of the table.

He’s not positive why he’s done it. He doubts Paul will do anything but push them back. Wouldn’t be the first time. Paul’s piss-poor relationship with food is just like everything else in his life, all about control and a desperate need for approval. He’d starve if he thought it’d make one more chick in the audience think he was attractive. Eat an entire cake if that same girl told him he looked good doing it. No real sense of self, just a still-pretty face Peter shouldn’t give a damn about anymore.

Paul’s expression shifts slightly. He doesn’t look quite as blatantly miserable there for a second, as he reaches out his hand—black nail polish chipped, knuckles ragged—and takes a fry from the basket. Hesitates, eats it carefully, like it’s something delicate—and then he puts a hand on the basket, about to push it aside.

“Paul, c’mon, it won’t kill you. Lose any more weight and you’re gonna need those suspenders.”

“Pete, I can’t—”

“Sure, you can,” and Peter reaches over and takes another fry, holding it up a few inches from Paul’s mouth.

To Paul’s credit, he doesn’t glance around the restaurant, or snap at Peter to cut that shit out. Maybe even he realizes nobody’s looking. His fingers curve on top of Peter’s—no wedding ring—and he leans in, tugging the fry out of Peter’s grasp with his teeth and tongue, and eats it. There’s the quick flick of Paul’s tongue against his skin, brief enough Peter almost wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for that glint in Paul’s eyes. That sudden eagerness. Just like he’s found an advantage to press. Just like one of their old impromptu photoshoots. The effect isn’t the same on a dozen different levels, but something too-familiar and raw coils up in Peter’s stomach anyway. He starts to move his hand down, but Paul catches his wrist before he can manage.

“You gonna give me another?”

“Quit fucking around, Paul.”

“I’m not fucking around.”

“You are. Knock it off.” Peter yanks his hand back. Paul lets him.

“I—” Paul falters. He looks a little hurt, bewildered, maybe, which is strange to watch. He almost looks like he’s about to apologize, which is even crazier, but then his lips purse tight and he snatches a sudden, awkward fistful of the fries. Then he pushes the basket back with his other hand.

They don’t talk much after that. Paul makes some halfhearted conversation about Gigi, asking when she’ll be back by. When Jenilee’ll be back by. Peter barely answers, just eats the rest of the Reuben as Paul finishes off the fries he took. The only real discussion they have is over the check.

“I’ve got it.”

“No, I’ve got it. I invited you out.” Paul’s already thumbing through his wallet. Peter catches a brief glimpse of the plastic-covered photos inside, and he’s vaguely surprised to see Evan and his niece Ericka in there instead of Starchild. Evidence of Paul’s basic humanity’s been just that lacking lately. Paul pulls out a twenty and a five, sticks them on top of the bill, and stands up. “You coming back to the hotel?”

“Got nowhere else to be.”

“Sure? We’ve got six hours before they want us at the stadium.”

Almost thirty years of knowing him, and Paul still doesn’t want to go anywhere alone. The guts that made him eager to sing to twenty thousand people a night, paired with an anxiety that crippled him out of being able to do basic fucking things like sit in a restaurant by himself. Probably still does. Probably exactly why he even invited Peter along.

“I’m still heading back. You go off if you want.”

“No, I’ll head back, too.” And it’s confirmed, no matter what Paul says next to justify it. Peter’s just another prop to stave off his own pitiful lonesomeness. “I mean, there’s nothing really here to see.”

---

The walk back from the bistro isn’t as quiet as the walk there. A couple passerby stop them for autographs and they pose for all of one photo before getting back inside the hotel. The attention perks them both up, briefly, especially Paul, and they’re talking again on the way to the elevator.

“That last girl was really looking at you, Pete.”

“She was looking at both of us, c’mon.”

“No, no, it was you, I could tell.” Paul starts to smile. “She said she had your solo album.”

“I had four of those,” but Peter can’t manage much rancor over it. It feels a little too good to be wanted, however briefly. The concert crowd, fickle as it is, rarely compares to a gushing fan out on the streets.

“I’m just saying, she didn’t say she had mine. You could’ve had a real easy opening.”

“Yeah, twenty years ago. C’mon, Paul, I’m done with the groupie shit. So’re you.”

Paul blinks, then inclines his head and pushes the button for the elevator.

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I’m done with a lot,” Paul says shortly. For a second Peter almost wants to push it with him. Call him out on why Pam never comes around. Ask him if it’s the groupies from the last four years—or fuck, the last ten—or if it’s the escort services he used to patron on tour, or if it’s just too many years of breathing the same air as him that’s made her leave. It might be worth it after Paul’s stunt at the restaurant. It might really be worth it to see Paul’s expression crumple, except that’s not the crux of what’s bothering Peter, and it never has been.

“Done fucking me over?”

“What?”

That stupid doe-eyed look again. That twitch to Paul’s mouth as the elevator ascends like a ski lift.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Peter, what’ve I done—”

The elevator dings and they get off, Paul still giving him that look like he really has no idea at all. Peter speeds up, trying to force Paul to pick up the pace.

“You’re cheating me. I sign whatever the hell you want me to sign after I get my lawyer on it, and every month I get a fucking check that doesn’t even match the terms in the contract. Now explain that one.”

“It’s based on ticket sales, Peter, I explained that.”

“You didn’t explain shit.”

“You wanna look at numbers? I’ll get out whatever paperwork you want. The Reunion Tour was a flash in the pan. We won’t ever make that kind of money again.”

“Oh, you’ll make it. You’ll run this show straight into the ground just to get one more nickel.” Peter exhales. “I can’t take this shit anymore. You guys are fucking me at every turn.”

Paul stops dead in his tracks. Looks him straight in the eye and takes his arm. Peter’s too surprised to flinch or pull back as Paul leans in, right in the middle of the hallway, and kisses him on the mouth.

He hasn’t kissed him in years. Years. Peter’s mouth might as well be a plank of wood for all he responds to the still-familiar pressure. There’s no warmth to it. Paul’s eyes are closed and his hand’s squeezing Peter’s arm, but there’s no warmth to it at all, no pleasure, no want, even, nothing but meanness. By the time Paul pulls away, there’s a sick, choked feeling somewhere in Peter’s throat, almost a shakiness as he yanks his arm back, and then Paul’s got the nerve to spin another lie.

“Peter, I swear on my kids, there’s nothing going on.”

“The hell there isn’t,” Peter manages, shoving Paul aside and walking straight back toward his hotel room.

“Pete—wait—”

Paul’s following him. Peter can hear those stupid, clipped steps of his against the carpet, one more unforeseen product of wearing six-inch heels for over a decade. But Peter just quickens his pace, tugs out his keycard midstride and shoves it into the slot, satisfaction seeping through him as he slams the door right in Paul’s face. He doesn’t even wait for Paul’s knock before throwing open the minibar door and getting out a bottle of champagne, one he doesn’t even end up drinking. The sight of the label makes him think of Ace and how many braincells the poor bastard’s fried with every drop fizzing down his throat. Ace’ll be mush onstage soon if he doesn’t quit, and Paul won’t care, and Gene won’t care, as long as he can shudder through the solos. They won’t care at all.

He thinks, crazily, about pouring every single bottle down the sink. Paul and Gene can pay for it. Put it on their ever-expanding tab. Paul’s upcoming divorce is already on it. A minibar full of booze ought to be the least of their concerns.

He doesn’t do it. He doesn’t do anything, just lays on the bed for over an hour before he hears a knock at all. Long enough he’s sure it’s a cleaning lady, and doesn’t check the peephole before opening the door. He regrets it as soon as he’s gotten the door those first few inches open. There’s Paul.

He almost shuts the door. God only knows why he doesn’t. God only knows why he walks into the hallway and closes the door behind him, except to get the satisfaction of making Paul take a few steps back.

“Pete, look, come over to my room, we can go over everything. Whatever documentation you want. If I don’t have it, Gene will. I want to be fair with you.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Paul.”

“You just might. C’mon.”

“No.” Peter pauses. “No, you get in here.”

“But all the paperwork—” Paul starts.

“I don’t care. You meet me on my terms or you won’t meet me at all.”

Paul  looks at him flatly. Disbelieving. As if Peter’s just throwing another fit for no good reason. As though Peter really is just a paranoid asshole, as though Paul’s some innocent angel. Peter’s pulse feels more like a battering ram pounding at his neck once Paul answers.

“It’s hotel rooms, Peter, what’s it matter to you?”

“You’ll do it or I’m cutting out. You can get Singer back and wave goodbye to half your fucking ticket sales.”

Paul starts to laugh.

“You can’t pull that shit anymore.”

“No, you can’t afford for me to pull that shit anymore.”

“The fuck do you expect, Peter? You expect me and Gene to just bend over backwards for your whiny ass? You think it’s ’73 again? You think you can threaten to quit whenever you want and—”

“No, I don’t think that. I know that. And I think a guy who’s about to get divorced might wanna hold onto every dime he—”

Paul grabs the door handle to Peter’s room. Yanks it, pointlessly. Peter tries not to snort as he pulls the card key out of his pocket and unlocks the door, tugging it open for Paul to come in first. He does, immediately shoving aside the phone and alarm clock from the nightstand to lean up against it. Peter just sits on the bed.

It’s plush in the suites. It has been ever since the Reunion tour four years back. Every hotel elegant to the point of being uncomfortable. Themed rooms—not tacky Vegas shit, either. Jacuzzis. Gene had told Peter at some point over dinner, a month or two ago, that it’d been Paul’s doing.

“He doesn’t think we’ll feel big in Ramada Inns,” he’d said, almost embarrassed. None of that interview-ready self-assurance. Weird as hell to see Gene acquiesce to any of Paul’s bullshit instead of brush it off.

“We didn’t need a ritzy hotel to feel big twenty years ago. We were big.”

Gene had shrugged.

“It’s perception. Maybe he’s right. Elvis wouldn’t have done a farewell tour and come back to a Motel 6.”

“Elvis had the dignity to keel over first,” Peter muttered, and Gene had laughed, and laughed hard, enough that he almost choked on a bite of one of the cookies he’d ordered for dessert. The conversation hadn’t eased Peter’s mind much, still certain at least half the star treatment was just another means to placate him and Ace while cheating them both. The other half was just feeding rotten egos.

The soft, yielding mattress might as well be concrete for how comfortable he feels sinking down onto it. Peter almost expects Paul to snap at him immediately, but at first, he’s just standing there against the nightstand, hands behind him, curling over the table’s edges.

“You got me in here. Congratulations. You going to rail me out over your contract? Complain about how fucking unfair it is that you’re not getting a quarter-share of everything? Go ahead. I’ve heard it the last four years, but go ahead. Maybe it’ll wear a little better now, who the fuck knows. What do you want, Peter? I’m all ears.”

“I just bet you are.”

“Fuck you.”

“You wanna know what I want?” Peter’s voice sounds weird even to him, close to throaty. Nerves all stretched out, taut and tight as piano wire. “I want a bandmate instead of a dictator. I want to share the stage with somebody I can stand to be around. But that ain’t happening. I guess I’d be better off asking for my quarter-share.”

“Don’t try to play me—”

“Then don’t you ever fucking kiss me again unless you mean it.”

Paul just stares at him. He looks almost as though he’s about to laugh, his mouth twitching up for a second or two, and then he shakes his head.

“That’s what this is about? Really? God forbid I get my mouth on you anymore. I guess once you’ve got a good Christian girl you’re done fucking Jews—”

“I haven’t fucked you in years.”

“Nah, you’ve just fucked me over.” Paul does laughs then, throatily. “You say I’m the one doing it when it’s been you the whole time. You and Ace and Gene. You all jumped ship the second you got tired of it. The second KISS wasn’t fun anymore.”

“I didn’t jump ship—”

“Decided you’d rather play house and do coke than play the fucking drums. Right before we were set to tour—but that’s fine. Doesn’t matter. Ace quits. We lose fifteen million. That’s fine. That doesn’t matter. Just me and Gene, right? Like you thought we always wanted, right?” Another laugh. “I didn’t ever want that.”

“You sure as hell gave off that impression.”

“I didn’t want it. I wanted a team, I wanted the four of us. I thought we were gonna be like the Beatles. Like they were in the movies. I really thought—I was a kid, I bought into it. I thought they really did stay all together in the same damn house and—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “I was so naïve, I…”

“A team stands up for each other. I don’t remember you doing a whole lot of that when Ezrin—”

“I’m not talking about Ezrin. I’m talking about the band. Or what was left of it.” Paul shifts against the nightstand, yanking a hand through his hair. “You think we were still living it up after you quit. I don’t know what the hell ever gave you that idea.”

“Must’ve been all those gold albums.”

“Yeah, all two of them.” Paul snorts. “Lucky we even got that many. Gene fucking off to Hollywood was the last straw. Left me holding the bag for everybody. Found out if I wanted a record made, I had to pull the whole damn thing together myself. Like the solo albums all over again, except nobody was in line begging to collaborate anymore. I got fucking front-row seats to watch KISS turn into the biggest joke in the industry. I had to beg on my hands and knees just to get the band on MTV. And meanwhile you still got your nice quarter-share of all my work. You got that for eight fucking years after you quit. Just right out there for you.” Paul takes a breath. His voice is starting to crack. “Then you’ve got the nerve to say you want anything out of me. You don’t deserve what you’re getting out of me.”

“You want me to feel sorry for you, Paul? Is that it?”

“Please, the only person you’ve ever felt sorry for in your whole life is yourself. I know you couldn’t give less of a shit.”

“That’s a lie. If I didn’t give a shit, I wouldn’t still be touring with you.”

Paul’s expression starts to twitch. Then it hardens back up right like it used to, when an insult cut a little too close, like every insult did, and his mouth tightened and he’d be sniping for the next half-hour. He starts to say something, but Peter cuts him off before he can.

“I wouldn’t tour with you, I wouldn’t eat with you, I wouldn’t even talk to you.” Peter exhales. “But I do. I owe it to you. And you owe me something, too.”

“Don’t act like you’re such a martyr for wanting a paycheck,” Paul snaps out. “What do I owe you for? ‘Beth’? You still get your royalties—”

“Not ‘Beth.’ It ain’t that simple.” Peter’s hands are sweaty against the covers. “You’re gonna owe me the rest of your life for joining the band, Paul. Just like I’m gonna owe you the rest of my life for letting me in. Whether you like it or not, that’s the way it’s always gonna be.”

“I don’t owe you a goddamn thing. I don’t—” Paul pushes forward from where he’s been leaning against the nightstand. His eyes are glassy, that strange, haunted look making every curve and jut of his face seem like it’s carved from alabaster. It’s only when Pete feels a tug on his sleeve that he realizes Paul’s reached out a hand. “Come with me and I’ll prove it to you. I-I’ll make sure.”

He shouldn’t get up. He shouldn’t follow him. It’s going to be another attempt at robbing him of what’s his. Paul’s going to use the time it takes to get there to get his bearings and then he’ll really lay in on him, cut him up with surgical precision. Peter’s never going to get the contract fixed. He’s never going to get the money he’s owed. He’s never going to get that flowerchild wannabe back again, that shy kid still propelled by a dream from when he was eight, that vulnerable, stupid kid who had to be protected. He’s gone now. He’s been gone for decades. Even the nightly stageshow’s just a parody of the Paul that Peter remembers.

But Peter does get up, and he does follow him. Not to some conference room like he expects. He doesn’t call up Gene or any lawyers or Doc. Paul just takes him four doors down to his hotel room, lets him in.

Inside, it’s the same bland opulence as in his own suite. The same “Welcome, KISS” banner from the hotel next to the full-length mirror. A made-up, empty bed. No printouts or laptops. Paul hasn’t gotten any business materials out at all. Paul heads straight for the vanity, pushing away a small stash of makeup and creams as Peter watches. It’s a second or two before Paul’s hand closes around a small velvet box, pops it open, and he pulls something out and pushes it into Peter’s palm.

“There. That’s all. You wanna renegotiate the contract, talk to Gene. I’ll tell him to give you whatever you want.”

“Paul—”

“I don’t owe you. I don’t owe you, all right?”

Paul’s not looking him in the face now. His eyes are on the vanity table. Slowly, Peter opens his palm and looks down, confirming what he already knew he’d been given, the metal hard and cold in his hand. It’s nothing special. Eighteen karat gold. No tarnishes. No scratches. It’s the cross necklace he’d given Paul more than twenty years ago.

All of a sudden, Peter can’t lift his gaze from his own hand. His eyes are burning, and he’s far too aware of every breath pushing through his lungs. The cross glints in his palm, dangling heavy as an oath from its chain, and he can’t seem to close his fingers back around it. Can barely seem to speak.

“This is yours.”

“It’s not. It’s yours. I’m giving it back.” Paul still isn’t facing him, still staring at the vanity counter, fingers curved on its edge. He isn’t even looking at his own reflection in the mirror. “Y-you can go on now. I’ll see you at soundcheck.”

“Paulie.”

Paul stiffens up. Peter doesn’t see him do it, but he can tell, something in the way he shifts. He won’t ever get another chance. He knows it. Peter tears his gaze away from the necklace, fingers closing around the cross, and he takes a breath and says his name again.

“Paulie.”

Peter swallows and steps behind him. Paul doesn’t react at first. Peter almost expects Paul to start snapping at him, or pop off with some acidic comment to make him leave. Peter takes the chain between his fingers, cross dangling, as he drapes it over Paul. No wild mop of curls to brush forward anymore. He hesitates, watching Paul’s expression in the mirror, waiting for a sign that he should pull away, but Paul doesn’t move or shake his head or anything. His eyes are a little watery, and he’s biting his lip, but the rest of his expression’s blank up until Peter’s fingers brush against his collar as he closes the clasp. Then his lip starts to twitch and he turns around, bracing one hand against the counter.

“Pete—”

“It’s yours.”

Paul looks stunned. He reaches up to the necklace like he can’t believe it’s there. There’s something painfully nostalgic about watching Paul fingering that cross, watching a real moment of surprise sweep across his features. Reminiscent enough to almost hurt.

Peter’s sick of hurting. Now he knows Paul is, too.

His hand finds Paul’s shoulder a moment later, only to shift over to cup his cheek as he leans in, thumb dragging across his jaw. Peter can still feel the tension even as Paul inclines his head to meet his lips. Paul’s mouth against his is timid at first, almost afraid, for all that he’d kissed him so hard in the hallway. Peter has to ease him into it at first, like the steps to a half-remembered dance, fingers roving gently down from Paul’s face to the back of his neck.

They never did talk about it back then. What they liked. Just went in blind and laughed off the screw-ups. Paul was always headstrong with the groupies, all too willing to initiate, but shyer with him. Peter’s going off what he remembers and what Paul’s responding to, trying to be gentle without coddling, fervent without overwhelming. Trying to impart some meaning, some reassurance. It’s been so long, Peter forgot what a delicate, frustrating balance it is with him.

He almost doesn’t think it’s paying off, for all that there’s less caution to Paul’s kisses now, the brief swipe of Paul’s tongue against his lips. Peter parts them on automatic and Paul’s there, tongue darting lightly at first, then a little more urgently. He breaks off the kiss for a breath, hands shifting to rest on Paul’s shoulders, only to feel Paul get his arm around his waist and pull him in close, until they’re flush against each other. Then Peter knows Paul’s getting his bearings again, though feeling the start of Paul’s hard-on against his thigh is plenty, and flattering, evidence enough.  It’s taking Peter longer to get there, but Paul seems determined, rocking against him steadily, groping and fondling his ass. Peter responds in turn, eager, pressing in hard, grinding their hips together, until Paul’s soft grunts turn into a groan.

“Pete, every time you do that, you’re knocking me against the vanity.”

Peter just grins.

“Then maybe we better move.” His grip tightens on Paul’s shoulders as he leads him towards the bed. Peter tries once to turn him around so his back’s facing the bed, but Paul doesn’t respond and so Peter doesn’t attempt it again, just lets Paul press him up to the bed, easing against him until he’s seated. Paul doesn’t seem half as nervous now, pushing kisses against Peter’s neck as his fingers work the button and zipper of his jeans, tugging them down just enough to free his cock.

“All this time and you’re still not wearing underwear.” Paul’s breath is warm against his neck, a hint of a laugh in his words.

“I wouldn’t even wear the cup, what makes you think I’d—nghh,” Peter trails off as Paul’s hand wraps around his dick. Twenty years and, unsurprisingly, Paul’s hardly out of practice at all, the steady rhythm of his fingers urging Peter to full hardness before long. But it’s Paul’s mouth driving him crazy, the way he’s leaning in, the hunger of each kiss. Peter returns it all eagerly, insistently, pressing tongue and teeth against the soft skin of Paul’s neck, not managing to stay there long enough to leave a real mark, while his hips push up with every pump of Paul’s hand, a hand that’s soon withdrawn. Peter’s about to complain when he realizes Paul’s sinking to his knees in front of him, rubbing his hands against his thighs. Peter puts his own hands on top of Paul’s, resting against his wrists.

“Paul, hey, you don’t have to—”

“I want to.” Paul’s hands shift beneath Peter’s, fingers rubbing circles along the seams of his jeans. “At least lemme get you worked up.”

“I’m pretty damn worked up as it is,” Peter retorts. Every second without some contact is making his arousal all the more distracting. Judging by the glint in Paul’s eyes, he knows it, too. Peter’s down; of course, he’s down. His uncertainty’s borne more out of concern for Paul’s comfort level than his own. If Paul’s pushing himself for the wrong reasons and they’re about to fuck each other up ten times worse. “You think you can handle it?”

Paul snorts.

“You’re gonna have to be more specific on where,” he says, and before Peter can respond with more than a laugh, Paul’s laving his tongue against his dick. Peter’s breath hitches, hands tightening around Paul’s wrists. Paul tugs meaningfully at his jeans, lets up for a second so Peter can pull them down further. They’re around his knees now, Paul roving his hands eagerly across his bare skin. Freshly shaven. The spandex costumes still won’t allow for anything less. “Either way, I got this. Don’t worry.”

“Okay.”

Paul starts in earnest, then. His mouth’s encircling his cock before too long, taking him in further and further, a hand closing over what he can’t fit inside his throat. The only performance Peter’s ever known Paul to stay quiet for, apart from those occasional soft hums, the vibration intense around his dick. He’s still adept as ever. It’s almost bewildering. It’s like the way he felt that first night when they all went backstage together and put the greasepaint back on again. How close it is. How much everything’s falling into place. Like the years are melting in front of him, time lapsing backwards if they’ll both just let it.

Peter closes his eyes briefly, his hands wandering from Paul’s wrists to his shoulders to finally his hair, fingers rubbing against his scalp. For all the time it took to get him here, Peter’s unraveling quickly, mumbling curses and groans, trying to resist the urge to move his hips as Paul’s throat constricts tight and wet around him. He’s starting to moan, watching Paul’s expression, simultaneously intense and dazed, and he has to force himself to tug his hair and get them both back to reality.

“If you wanna fuck today, you better stop now.”

There’s a pause, a lick to the underside of his cock, and then Paul slides his mouth off his dick with a wet pop.

“All right, all right,” he says after taking a few sharp breaths and clearing his throat, not bothering to wipe the spit from his face before standing up. Peter shoves his jeans the rest of the way down, kicking them to the floor, shifting to give Paul room to climb onto the bed. Onto him. Paul’s already stripping, peeling off his pants and boxers far too fast for it to be a show, to Peter’s relief. He’s watched enough of that over all their tours and even from the times they’d share girls. He’d never really done it for Peter. The only thing he's careful about is the necklace. Peter watches him carefully tuck it underneath his t-shirt just before tossing the shirt to the floor. Peter waits, expecting him to fumble with the clasp, but Paul doesn't, just heads to the bed, and Peter realizes, suddenly, warmly, that Paul's leaving it on.

They’re still showering together after the shows, the three of them, Gene still abstaining from the stupidest and longest-held of their concert rituals. The years haven’t been bad to Paul, but then, he hasn’t had quite as many. Hasn’t yet even hit fifty. Despite all the diets and workouts, Paul’s abdomen is softer when Peter runs a hand down his hairy chest, but that’s about the only appreciable difference. He doesn’t get a chance to pay too much attention. As soon as he’s helped Peter shuck off his own shirt, Paul’s all over him, none of the cautious hesitation from before, practically crawling into his lap. The cold metal of the necklace makes a shiver run down Peter’s spine when Paul presses his chest against his while he’s licking a long stripe against Peter’s neck, hard-on rubbing up against his stomach. Peter’s own erection is making him heady enough, half-afraid he’ll come from just their fooling around, but Paul’s almost desperate, hands everywhere his mouth isn’t. He’s toying with and sucking on Peter’s nipples the way he used to, leaving Peter panting, his dick aching painfully with every swipe of his tongue.

Paul only stops to rustle around in a drawer for the lube. At first Peter figures he’s overcompensating for earlier, but then he realizes that’s not it at all. Paul’s not trying to prove that old Lover persona right with the one person who’d never buy it. It’s just that every bit of contact, every touch of skin to skin is soothing and maddening all at once. It’s just that he’s longing, too.

Peter eases Paul onto his back after awhile, leaning over him, kissing him on the neck and cheek as he slicks himself up, starts to prep, Paul’s gaze on him feeling more intent than ever. He’d said he could handle it. God knows his mouth still could, the memory of it making Peter’s cock twitch anew, but he’s really not sure about the rest of him. Paul never complained about Peter’s dick being too much to take in the seventies, for what little that’s worth now. Paul grunts as Peter slips and crooks his fingers inside him, legs splayed, hips lifting up, urging him deeper. Peter feels the familiar, faint bite of short nails against his back, a sharp hiss of breath against his forehead as he keeps working Paul over, stretching him out further. He’s pleased that Paul’s moaning starts before Peter’s so much as rubbed his dick teasingly against his entrance.

“C’mon,” Paul urges, rocking up to meet thrusts Peter hasn’t even made yet. It’s flattering as hell, whether it’s for show or not. From the consternation in his expression, the sweat beading on his face and chest, Peter doesn’t think it is. He can’t argue with the plea, can’t tease further when he’s wanting it so badly himself. Before long, Peter’s entering him, slow at first, getting him accustomed. Erasing the separation between them. Trying to. Paul fidgets beneath him, a little quieter once Peter’s fully inside him—and maybe that’d worry Peter more, if he wasn’t starting to smile, if his fingers hadn’t gone from digging into Peter’s back to rubbing his shoulder in a warm, encouraging rhythm. But Peter can’t help but ask anyway.

“You’re okay, yeah?”

“Yeah.” A wry pause. “I mean, you could give me a hand here—"

Peter barely swallows a laugh, wrapping his hand around Paul’s dick, trying to time each thrust with the pump of his hand. The pace is inconsistent despite his best efforts, but Paul doesn’t seem to mind, cock already throbbing, precum long since dripping from the tip.

After all the desperation from earlier, it doesn’t take much for either of them. Peter’s breathing gets harder and harder, curses and groans bleeding back into Paul’s name as he feels his orgasm approaching. Paul beats him to it, but barely, spilling into his hand with a sharp cry and a shudder, hand going lax at his shoulder, dilated eyes sliding shut. That’s nearly all it takes for Peter. Sweat’s dripping from his face, his hair, onto Paul and the bedsheets both as he manages another thrust or two before coming inside him.

He practically collapses against Paul in the aftermath, and he doesn’t pull out straight away. Stupidly, he doesn’t really want to. He feels way too—whole, odd as that seems. This hasn’t buried everything. Twenty years of hurt can’t disappear in one afternoon. Not for either of them. But it’s a start. It’s a start. It’s like something’s coming back to him. Like someone’s coming back to him. Like he understands now, that maybe things are finally going to be all right between them, maybe even great, maybe even grand. He could believe that now. He really could. All the more with Paul’s arms clasped tight around him as he murmurs quietly in the afterglow, the rise and fall of his chest against Peter’s the best tempo he’s felt in years.

[katymacsupernatural]

Stories to Awaken Terror Part 8: The Lottery

Dean Winchester x Reader

2600 Words

Story Summary: As a couple of kids read a scary book, Sam, Dean and Y/N live those scary tales. Will they be able to figure out what’s causing the hunts before it’s too late?

Catch Up Here: Masterpost

Sitting in the back next to Cas, you were almost giddy with excitement. Sure, you had just gone through a horrible time with that creepy baby, but you had finally received some good news. The torment was almost over, and soon you would be free of those kids and that evil book. Free to finally have a relationship with Dean.

“You seem happy,” Cas spoke up finally, smiling over at you.

“That’s because this is almost over! You found the kids, and we’ll get rid of the book, and we can go back to our normal lives.”

“Y/N, I don’t think it will be that simple,” Cas answered. “That book is very powerful, and why would it be warded against Angels? I think the worst is yet to come.”

“Dude, Cas!” Dean exclaimed. “A little positive outlook, okay?”

“I was just telling the truth. We all want this to be done, but it’s going to be hard.”

“It’s alright Cas, I know that. I’m just excited that we finally have a lead,” you mumbled, even though your good mood had vanished. “I’m just ready for the day this book isn’t hanging over our heads anymore!”

“We’re about an hour outside of…,” Dean started. “Wait, where are we? This isn’t the road we were just on.”

“What do you mean?” You asked as Sam woke up.

“You weren’t paying attention, were you? We were on a four-lane road back there. This is only two! And it’s heading right into a creepy looking forest!”

“The book must have realized we were close. Trapping us in another story, trying to keep us off of its trail,” Sam said in the middle of his yawn. “I wonder what we’re facing this time.”

“At least all four of us are together,” you piped up. “And with an Angel maybe it won’t be as bad. I mean, anything can’t be as freaky as that baby.”

“I have to agree with Y/N. That baby was freaking,” Dean said, just as a small town came into view. With huge forests surround it, the town seemed secluded and antique. The buildings were all old fashioned, and Dean’s Impala had to be one of the newest cars on the street.

“What is this place?” You asked, staring at the women wearing sundresses, while the men were dressed in suits.

“It’s called Burkesville,” Sam read the sign as Dean slowed the Impala down. Coasting down main street, you could see the banners and sashes proclaiming the Annual Lottery Festival.

“A Lottery Festival? I wonder what that is?” You asked as Dean came to the end of the street. Nothing but trees in front of you.

“I really don’t want to find out,” Dean grumbled, turning the Impala around, heading back the way you had come. “Let’s get out of here, and find that highway again.

But as you came to the only way out of town, big wooden barricades were placed on the road, stopping anyone from entering, or anyone from leaving.

A man in his thirties, wearing a grey tweed suit and a black hat came walking over, leaning down to talk to Dean. “I don’t think we’ve seen you around here before.”

“We’re lost,” Dean spoke quickly. “We need to get back on the road as quick as we can. We have people waiting for us to arrive. Tonight.”

“I’m sorry, but nobody’s going anywhere tonight. It’s Festival time! The whole city shuts down. It’s a pretty big affair.”

“Where’s a hotel?” Dean grumbled, even though you could see him trying to figure out a way around the barricades. But he didn’t want to cause a scene.”

“We have a nice little homey place right there. Tell them Paul sent ya,” he told Dean, pointing to the right of him. “Get settled in, and then come to Main Street. And it isn’t really an invitation, it’s a must. If you don’t show, the Sheriff will be more than willing to guide you there himself.”

“Oh, we’ll be there alright,” Dean assured the man before pulling away. Driving the short distance to the hotel, he turned to face you.

“I don’t like this place,” he said what you were all thinking. “Cas, can you move those barricades?”

“I can try. I’ll need to get close though.”

Vanishing from the car, you watched as he reappeared next to the barricades. His face full of concentration, seconds ticked by, but nothing happened. Before you knew it he was back beside you. “They are warded. Powerfully so. No one is leaving until those are removed.”

“What is going on with this place? And what’s so important about that Festival?” Sam asked as you all climbed out of the car.

“Let’s get ourselves a room, and see what we can pull up on the internet,” Dean suggested.

It was only moments later that the four of you were crammed into a small room, the only one the place had left. With a pull out couch and two doubles, it was more than enough room. You just hoped that you wouldn’t have to stay there very long.

Sam pulled out his laptop, frowning when he attempted to connect to the internet. “There’s no internet here. Nothing.”

Checking your phone, you could feel your heart beat growing faster. “No cell reception either. I’m really not liking this!”

Just then an alarm sounded through the town, much like an air raid from the wars. “I guess it’s time,” Cas said, peering out the window. “I’ve never been to a festival before. I wonder what it’s going to be like.”

“Well, if the blocked road and the siren are any indications, I don’t think it’s going to be very good,” Dean said, tucking his gun into his jeans as Sam followed suit.

Once all of you were as full of weapons as you could be, you began the trek up to Main Street. Joining the throngs of people dressed fancier than you, excited mumbling feeling the air.

At the beginning of the street were tables where people were being searched. Items like cell phones and pocket knives were being left behind, and you turned quickly to Dean. “Dean, we’re going to get caught!”

“What the hell is going on?” He asked.

“Let’s hide them here, that way they’re closer than the Impala,” Sam suggested, nodding to a couple of old boxes forgotten in the alley.

“I don’t like this,” Dean muttered, leaving behind his special gun before you once again joined the crowds. After the quick pat down, you were given a white slip of paper, forced to write down your name before it was dropped into an old metal bowl.

Once clear of the entry area, you saw that it really looked like a festival. Booths were set up on both sides of the street, filled with food and items for sale. Dancing was held at the far end, along with tables and a microphone.

“What do we do now?” You asked as Dean wrapped his arm around you.

“We join in and keep an eye out for anything strange.”

Sam and Cas stayed off to one side of the street, their eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. You stayed with Dean, chuckling when he bought both of you a pie on a stick. “This has to be the best invention ever!” He exclaimed before taking a huge bite.

“You amaze me,” you told him. “How you can be so excited about something like pie on a stick while we’re facing another stupid hunt.”

“You got to enjoy the little things,” he answered. “Like having a pie on a stick, and you by my side.”

Smiling up at him, you were distracted by a bell ringing by the dance floor. “Gather around!” A pepper haired man exclaimed into the microphone. People complied, and soon a huge gathering crowded the dance floor, some still sitting at tables.

“Tonight we honor the tradition past down for hundreds of years!” He started as the crowds grew quieter and more sullen. It was weird, how suddenly everyone seemed so nervous, and you glanced up at Dean in alarm. “We honor this tradition with this Festival. Because in times of sadness, there need to be thoughts of better times as well.”

People stayed quiet, and you could see Mother’s pulling their kids tight to them, husband’s holding their wives close. Looks of horror and trepidation filling ever face.

“As you, all know, or most of you. We have a tradition. This village stays safe. Stays out of harm’s way, year after year. Because we appease the Gods who gave it to us!”

“Oh shit,” Dean muttered as Cas and Sam pushed their way to stand behind you.

“Every year we put all of our names into this bowl. It doesn’t matter how influential you are. If you’re new in town, or if you’re a Mother or a Father. We’re all the same in this bowl, a name. A sacrifice to appease the Gods.”

“Dean, what are we going to do?” Sam asked, whispering between the two of you.

“I have no idea,” Dean answered as the Mayor reached in, pulling out a little white piece of paper.

“I don’t know whose name I’ve pulled out. But whoever it might belong to, know this. That you are doing this for the good of all the people that you see here. That you will be moving on to bigger, better things!”

Your heart beating furiously, you watched as he slowly opened the folded white paper, almost coming to a stop as he read the name. “Dean Winchester!” He called out, all of you freezing in horror. “Dean, don’t be shy!! I think you’re one of our visitors, but you’ll be revered just as much as anyone else!”

Before Dean could even move, a couple of big burly men came racing through, grasping his arms and pulling him to the front of the crowd. “The Gods will definitely be happy with this strong specimen!” The Mayor called out as the rest of the crowd breathed a sigh of relief.

You stood there, frozen by fear as they tied Dean to a post. Other men began passing out rocks to the crowd. Huge, heavy rocks that were meant to be thrown at Dean. Turning quickly, you saw that Cas was gone. “Sam, what are we going to do?”

“Cas went to get our guns,” Sam whispered. “We’ll get Dean off of there, and try to figure a way out of this town!”

Just then you could hear the trees rustling loudly behind Dean, the crowd taking a step back. “Cas needs to hurry,” you muttered, as a couple of huge, dark dogs came growling out of the trees, their eyes glowing red.

“Oh ancient ones, we have your sacrifice!” The Mayor called out, and the crowds pulled their arms back, ready to throw the rocks at Dean.

“Zach, what are you doing?” Sophia asked, waking up to see her brother standing next to her bed, the evil book in his hands. His eyes almost glowed in the dark, his smile creepy.

“I’ve been reading, but the book says it needs you too,” he spoke up, turning on her bedside light.

“Zach, it’s just a book! It can’t talk to you!” She tried to tell him, but he reached out, grasping her neck and squeezing tight.

“Don’t you dare say that! This isn’t just a book and you know that. This book is magical, and if we finish it, it promises to take care of us for the rest of our life!”

He released her then, and she took deep gulping breaths. Zach began reading, about an old town, hellhounds and a lottery that picked someone to be a sacrifice. It all sounded scary to her, but nothing was as scary as the life she was currently living.

“I’ve got the guns, but they won’t work on those hellhounds,” Cas said, appearing right behind you as the Mayor began the countdown, the hounds growling low.

“Hellhounds? But we can’t see hellhounds without our special glasses!” Sam argued.

“That’s what they are! Now, how are we going to stop this?” Cas asked, handing you a gun as the Mayor got dangerously close to one.

“The only way I can think of,” you told him. Aiming the gun, you pulled the trigger, hitting your target easily. The mayor stopped counting, glancing down at his chest in shock. You had just knicked him on the shoulder, enough to hurt, but not enough to kill. But it had done its job, stopping the counting, and Dean was free, for a moment at least.

“No!” The crowd cried, a couple of men throwing their stones anyways, and you watched in horror as they collided with Dean, hitting him in the chest, one brushing across his temple.

“No!” You screamed, trying to push your way through, trying to get to Dean before they did any more damage.

“You must stop this!” Cas screamed, standing in front of Dean, his hands out, turning all the rocks to ash. “These aren’t Gods! They are the pets of Demons. You have been tricked all this time!”

“But it’s the only thing we’ve ever known,” the Mayor answered. “Every year we give a sacrifice. Every year that means they won’t kill us. But if we don’t give them this man, what will happen to us?”

By this time you had reached Dean, and you quickly untied him, wincing at the bruises already covering him. “Cas, go get the special knives from the Impala while we stall!”

Cas vanished, much to the crowd's amazement. “That is an Angel. Would an Angel steer you wrong?” You asked, ignoring the sarcastic laugh Dean let out as Sam came to stand beside you, letting Dean lean against him. “Those are evil, and they have been controlling you for too long! It needs to stop!”

Just then the hell hounds came snarling up to you, snapping their jaws, drooling a foul, sulferish scent. Cas reappeared, tossing you a knife, keeping one for himself. With Sam keeping Dean behind you, you faced off with the hellhound as Cas did the same.

It jumped you, knocking you off your feet, but giving you an advantage as you drove the knife deep into its belly. Screaming loudly, it fell limp on top of you as Cas fought off the other one, killing it instantly. “You’re free!” You exclaimed. “Free to live, to leave. Whatever you choose! But don’t get sucked into something like this again!”

With those parting words, you led the way as Sam pulled Dean with him, back to the Impala. Cas went in, grabbing your belongings while Sam laid Dean in the back seat. “I would heal him, but the frequent trips have drained me,” Cas explained.

“I think he’ll be okay. Sore, but okay,” you answered, taking out the first aid kit, washing away the blood on his face. Dean had passed out as soon as he was in the car, and you knew that was a good thing. It gave you a chance to clean him up, and a chance for Sam to get you as far away from this place as possible. Hopefully towards where the book was before you had to go through another crazy situation.

Dean/Jensen Tags:@acreativelydifferentlove @a-girl-who-loves-disney @akshi8278 @anokhi07 @aubreystilinski @bebravekeeponfighting @bobasheebaby @brindz30 @colette2537 @crusadedean @darthshreydar @dean-winchesters-bacon @deanwinchesters-impala67 @haelyn @horsegirly99 @ikeneasul11 @imascio08 @its-not-a-tulpa @just-another-winchester @lady-phoenix-of-tardis @librarygeekery @mlovesstories @msimpala67 @love-charmer-sketch @michirutenshi @pisces-cutie @ria132love @ruprecht0420 @shadowhunter7 @sizzlingbearpolice @sleep-silent-angel @sortaathief @superseejay721517 @thegrungequeer @thewinchestergirl1208 @torn-and-frayed @wonderfulworldofwinchester 

STAT Tags: @joseyrw @suckystoryteller @salt-n-burn-em-all @wingedcatninja @waywardbaby97 @waywardnerd67 @horsegirly99 @profoundly-bitchy-collection @jae-sch @sociopathtime @depressed-moose-78 @sophiebobzz @oreosatmidnight @librarygeekery @winchesterxtwo @asirammm @itsmerighthere @squirrelnotsam @karmamariejoy @linki-locks11 @xthelittlethings @incredibly-sarcastic-url @alwayskeepfightingkaz-2y5 @imascio08 @deansbabygirl01 @deansgirl215 @sasquatch5 @kay18115 @gh0stgurl @quackerstheduck663057 @photos-by-16 @idk-wtf-is-happening @pheonyxstorm @fandom-queen-of-wonderland @bunnybaby121115 @thegrungequeer @monkeymcpoopoo

Forever Tags(CLOSED): @16wiishes @4401lnc @algud @amanda-teaches @andkatiethings @andreaaalove @angelsandwinchesters @anspgene @artisticpoet @atc74 @be-amaziing @bemyqueenofdarkness @bohowitch @buckysmetalgoddamnarm @bumber-car-s @brooke-supernatural16  @brunettechick @camelotandastronauts @captainradicalpassion @chelsea072498 @clairese1980 @captainemwinchester @darthdeziewok @destiels-new-girl @donnaintx @dont-you-dare-say-misha @dslocum89 @duckieburns @docharleythegeekqueen @emmazach @emilicious-7 @emoryhemsworth @ericaprice2008  @esoltis280 @essie1876 @generalgoldfishldrm @goldenolaf25 @growningupgeek @herbologystudent252 @heyitscam99 @highfunctioning-soiciopath @hms-fangirl @hobby27 @ichooseeternalplaces @imboredsueme @internationalmusicteacher @ithinkimadorable-67 @iwriteaboutdean  @jayankles @jensen-gal @just-another-busy-fangirl @karlee-fay-my-wayward-son @keelzy2 @leanbeankeane @lifelovelaughangell123 @li-ssu @littleblue5mcdork  @lowlyapprentice @luciferslucille @maui137 @mellowlandrunaway @mogaruke @nanie5 @natashacamillaus @newtospnfandom @offbeatsilhouette @offbeatwriting @percussiongirl2017 @pilaxia @pizzarollpatrol @plaid-lover-bay25 @roonyxx @ronja-uebrick @rosegoldquintis @roxyspearing @samanddeanmyheroes @sandlee44 @shamelesslydean @sillesworldofwriting @sgarrett49 @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @smoothdogsgirl @spnbaby-67 @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @spnwoman @sunskittlex @starry-chaos @superbadassnatural @thebikiniinspector @theflameontheinside @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @tina8009 @totallovelesson @tunadean @vvinch3st3r @walkslikesummeractslikerain @whimsicalrobots @wildlandfox @winchesterbrothers-inc @winchesterxtwo @winchester-writes @worldwidehansum @zombiewerewolfqueen

[saxafimedianetwork]

We unearth little-known tidbits of information about the King of Pop Michael Jackson’s life, on what would have been his 60th birthday

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1. He was born in Gary, Indiana. He remains the city’s most famous resident, with Gary never recovering from the loss of its factory industry in the 1960s. That said, it’s also home to Jesse Powell, Kym Mazelle and Sista Monica Parker.

2. His parents had musical ambitions of their own. Mother Katherine Jackson played the clarinet and piano, and aspired to be a country and western singer. Father Joe was a guitarist and made extra cash performing in local R’n’B bands.

3. His first public performance was in 1963. When he was 5 he sang Shirley Bassey’s Climb Ev’ry Mountain at a public event organized by Garnett Elementary School’s Kindergarten.

4. His father was the first to notice the talent in his children. He would invite music executives to the family home, where The Jacksons would audition in the living room.

5. James Brown was his major inspiration. The late Godfather of Soul inspired Jackson to hit the stage. Speaking at his public funeral in 2007, Jackson recalled how, “Ever since I was a small child, no more than like 6 years old, my mother would wake me no matter what time it was, if I was sleeping, no matter what I was doing, to watch the television to see the master at work.”

6. He made his recording debut at 9 years old. It was on Big Boy by The Jackson 5, which was released by a small label in January 1968. It didn’t sell in large numbers, but it was enough to notify the major labels that these kids had talent.

7. His love for books began as a young teen. His early favorites were Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. He reportedly amassed a library of more than 10,000 books.

8. His relationship with his sister La Toya was based on their love of practical jokes. His favorite was tormenting her with fake spiders and tarantulas. He would place a suspect creature on the phone in La Toya’s bedroom and would then call her and wait for her scream.

9. He began touring as an 8-year-old. As part of the first run of shows in America’s Midwest, The Jackson 5 supported soul legends Etta James, Gladys Knight and Sam & Dave.

10. He was never particularly fond of his voice during early recordings with The Jackson 5. Despite the acclaim, he would often lament the high pitch of his voice in later interviews, describing it as similar to that of Minnie Mouse.

11. It could have been The Jackson 6. Nearly 18 months before he was born, his mother gave birth to a set of twins, Marlon and Brandon. As a result of a severely premature pregnancy, Marlon survived but Brandon passed away 24 hours later.

12. Berry Gordy initially wasn’t a fan of Michael and his brothers. The star-maker and head of Motown Records dismissed the idea of signing them to his label, preferring to focus on Stevie Wonder. But he was eventually convinced to give them a shot and he signed them up in 1969.

13. You may not know her name, but Suzanne de Passe had a big role in his artistic development. She was assigned as a mentor and stylist to The Jackson 5 after they joined Motown. That relationship extended to Michael’s solo career, and she was the first one to see him rehearse the iconic dance The Moonwalk in 1983.

14. The Jackson 5’s global hit I Want You Back in 1969, was originally written for Gladys Knight and The Pips and Diana Ross. What’s unusual about the song is that the lovelorn lyrics are sung by Michael, who was barely in his teens at the time.

15. ABC is the first of Jackson’s songs that 50 Cent recalls hearing. Speaking to NME in 2015, the rapper said the track was responsible for him becoming a fan. “I’ve always loved MJ, so I guess it was probably a good place to start music: right here, with the ABCs.”

16. He broke barriers from a young age. When he was a 12-year-old with The Jackson 5, the group became the first black male group to release four back-to-back chart-toppers with 1969’s I Want You Back and 1970’s ABC, The Love You Save and I’ll Be There.

17. There was solo life before Off the Wall. For many, Michael arrived with 1979’s Off the Wall, but he released his debut solo album, Got to Be There, in 1972. It was a solid collection of soul and pop, with covers of Leon Ware’s I Wanna Be Where You Are and Bill Withers’s Ain’t no Sunshine.

18. He won his first and only Golden Globe in 1972. For Ben, a song he wrote for the 1972 horror film of the same name.

19. He always had his ear to the clubs. Jackson was a frequent visitor to the legendary New York City club Studio 54, where he was exposed to beat-boxing, which was an early harbinger to the upcoming hip-hop movement. He went on to incorporate the vocal technique into many of his future songs.

20. His first venture into film was The Wiz. He starred as a scarecrow in the title role of The Wiz, an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. The film was horrible, but it was here he struck up a life-changing partnership with Quincy Jones, who went on to produce his biggest albums.

21. Quincy Jones nicknamed him “Smelly”. This was during their time on The Wiz. “I used to call Michael ‘Smelly’, because he wouldn’t say ‘funky’. He’d say ‘smelly jelly’.”

22. He broke his nose in 1979 during dance practice. He then consulted Hollywood favorite Dr Steven Hoefflin who reportedly performed Jackson’s first rhinoplasty.

23. He only worked with the best. In addition to enlisting Jones to produce the 1979 blockbuster album Off the Wall, the songwriters who helped him on the record included none other than Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.

24. Unlike many of his peers, Jackson hated singing from a sheet. While recording Off the Wall, he spent the evenings learning lyrics and harmonies, and would arrive at the studio the next day singing them off by heart.

25. Prince visited him during the Off the Wall sessions. Speaking to The National, Quincy Jones recalled how Prince arrived “into the studio like a deer in the headlight – clothes and shirt off – but he was always competing with Michael”.

26. He was the only musical mind behind one of his biggest hits. Off the Wall was full of songwriting collaborations, but Jackson was solely responsible for one of its biggest tracks, Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough. He decided to write the song after constantly humming the melody at home.

27. The change on 1979 single Rock with You. It was originally called I Want to Eat You Up, but that was deemed too risque for Jackson’s heartthrob image.

28. Off the Wall was almost a hit for Karen Carpenter. The hit title track from Off the Wall was originally written for the late Karen Carpenter’s debut solo album. She declined to use it and Jackson made it a top 10 hit instead.

29. The tears in She’s Out of My Life are real. Jackson would break down in tears at the end of each studio take. “We recorded about – I don’t know – 8 to 11 takes, and every one at the end, he just cried,” producer Quincy Jones said. “I said, ‘Hey – that’s supposed to be, leave it on there.’”

30. Jackson surrounded himself with talent in both the studio and the boardroom. With Off the Wall he secured the game-changing royalty rate of 37 cents wholesale per sale. It went on to sell more than 20 million copies.

31. Thriller was a blockbuster fueled by frustration. Despite big sales and critical acclaim, he was irked that Off The Wall didn’t win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. “It was totally unfair that it didn’t get Record of the Year and it can never happen again,” he told manager John Branca. Thriller went on to win a record-breaking eight Grammys in 1984.

32. Billie Jean doesn’t exist. Despite being the subject of one of his biggest hits, the woman – who in the 1983 song admits she is carrying Jackson’s unborn son – is pure fiction. “The girl in the song is a composite of people my brothers have been plagued with over the years,” Jackson wrote in his memoir Moonwalker.

33. Billie Jean was the first video by an African-American artist to air on MTV. The video revealed Jackson’s new look of a leather suit, pink shirt, red bow tie and his signature single white glove. It was a style copied by kids throughout the United States. It caused one school, New Jersey’s Bound Brook High, to ban students from coming to class wearing white gloves.

34. Jackson introduced his famous Moonwalk in 1983. It was during a live performance of Billie Jean for the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever concert special. He was taught the move by veteran dancer Jeffrey Daniel, who went on to be hired as Jackson’s co-choreographer.

35. Jackson was a music investor from 1983. He bought the rights to select music from funk pioneers Sly and the Family Stone, and the iconic Dion DiMucci songs The Wanderer and Run Around Sue, before landing the rights to the 4,000 song catalogue of ATV Music Publishing, which included the lion’s share of The Beatles’ songs.

36. Jackson’s Beat It was a fiery single … literally. When Eddie Van Halen recorded his blistering solo, the sound of his guitar caused one of the studio speakers to catch fire.

37. The gritty music video for Beat It was a landmark production. The lavish production cost US$100,000 (Dh367,250) at the time. It was set in Los Angeles’ Skid Row and featured up to 80 real-life gang members from the notorious street gangs the Crips and the Bloods.

38. Toto were heavily involved in the making of Thriller. Keyboardist Steve Porcaro co-wrote Human Nature, and Steve Lukather contributed rhythm guitar on Beat It.

39. Thriller was almost Star Light. The lyric “thriller” in the track of the same name was originally “star light”. The decision to change it was down to marketing appeal.

40. PYT (Pretty Young Thing) was never performed live by Jackson. Despite being a well-received single from the Thriller album, the star never featured the song in any of his live sets.

41. Thriller was included in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. The music video for the title track was also placed in the National Film Preservation Board’s National Film Registry of “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films”.

42. It was with his seventh album, 1987’s Bad that Jackson really came into his own as a songwriter. He wrote nine of the 11 tracks and co-produced the album with Quincy Jones.

43. The title track for the Bad album was supposed to be a duet with Prince. But the latter walked away from it due to the opening line “Your butt is mine”. “Now, who is going to sing that to whom? Cause [he] sure ain’t singing that to me, and I sure ain’t singing it to [him],” Prince said in a TV interview with American comedian Chris Rock.

44. The smooth 1987 ballad I Just Can’t Stop Loving You is a duet with singer Siedah Garrett. She was the third choice after Barbra Streisand and Whitney Houston rejected the offer.

45. The Way You Make Me Feel was his mother’s request. Jackson wrote this track after his mum asked him to write something with a “shuffling kind of rhythm”.

46. Man in the Mirror is one of the few music videos he is hardly in. Other than appearing at the end standing in a crowd, the video is a montage of major events and historical figures.

47. His Superbowl XXVII half-time show in 1993 was game-changing. His pyrotechnics-laced four-song set was watched more than the game itself. It has set the standard for half-time shows ever since.

48. Michael Jackson’s 1991 album Dangerous was hot property. Five days before its release, three armed men broke into a music warehouse in Los Angeles and stole 30,000 copies.

49. The explosive video for Black or White was directed by Hollywood stalwart John Landis. It starred an 11-year-old Macaulay Culkin fresh from his starring role in Home Alone.

50. The music video to Scream was, at the time, in 1995, the most expensive ever produced. It had a US$7m budget. The menacing and arty video starred Jackson and his sister Janet.

51. Even when he wasn’t trying, Michael Jackson broke records. His album Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix, released in 1997, remains the bestselling remix album of all time, with more than six million copies sold, after virtually no promotion.

52. Jackson consistently mixed music with charity work. He was behind a series of Michael and Friends concerts in Germany and Korea, which featured performers such as tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, as well as rockers Slash and The Scorpions. The money raised went to the non-profit organization War Child.

53. Jackson’s final studio album Invincible was the bestselling album of 2001, despite moderate reviews. It features the song Unbreakable, which had, until then, the unreleased vocals by slain rapper The Notorious BIG.

54. After years of scandals and court cases, Jackson re-emerged on the music stage by announcing his final live tour This Is It. The first 10 shows alone, to be held at London’s O2 Arena in the summer of 2009, would have netted him £50m (Dh236.49m). The residency was extended to 50 shows, but the tour was cancelled following his death on June 25, 2009.

55. This Is It was his first posthumous release. With the This Is It tour abandoned after Jackson’s death, the tour’s title track became the first of many posthumous releases. The song was originally written in the 1980s by Paul Anka.

56. The secrecy of Xscape. Michael Jackson’s second posthumous album, released on May 13, 2014, was such a big deal that journalists were invited to secret listening sessions around the world days before its release. The session for this region was held at Dubai’s now-closed Qbara restaurant.

57. The life and times of Michael Jackson were discussed in detail at the inaugural Dubai Music Week in 2013. It featured a sold-out special panel session on Jackson’s career featuring producer Quincy Jones and other collaborators, the late Rod Temperton (via live video feed) and singer Siedah Garrett.

58. Abu Dhabi and China were discussed as possible sites for the world’s first Jackson family-themed hotel called Jermajesty. Speaking exclusively to The National in 2013, Jermaine Jackson said he was looking at Yas Island as a possible site for the hotel, which would be filled with Jackson family memorabilia. Nothing has been built as yet.

Read also: Jermaine says Michael Jackson was on the verge of converting to Islam

59. To celebrate Michael Jackson’s 60th birthday today (August 29), a large street party was held in New York City last Saturday to celebrate his life. It was organized by the director, and his collaborator, Spike Lee.

60. It is only fitting that the Apollo Theater in New York is hosting its legendary Amateur Night today. It was on the same stage that, in 1967, The Jackson 5 launched their career.

60 Things You May Not Have Known About Michael Jackson

[lestwinsfanfics]

For, The Taking

Chapter Eight

Anaya’s POV

I stared into her fearful gaze as I began to speak to try and suppress my hurt.

“I guess I should taste it huh?”

I immediately watched her forehead crease as she battled between feelings of fear and confusion.

“I guess I need to try it so I can understand what the fuck you got that has these two fools risking their marriages and livelihoods over you”

She lowered her head as I continued to let out my frustration about finding her here.

“I guess I will have to be the one to rid us of you once and for all”

She cowered further back into her bed.

“How would you like to die Chantel? Or can I call you Chani?” I stated with the most venomous grin.

“I really think that I should see what all the fuss is about” Moments of silence passed between us before I watched her slowly lift her head. My smirk instantly turned into a grimace once I saw the look on her face.

 “What the fuck are you smiling for, bitch?” I spat out with venom in my voice.

“Because” She paused for a moment to clear her throat.

“Because—today is a good day” She finished.

My face morphed into one of confusion.

What the fuck is this bitch talking about. I thought to myself.

“Confused?” She asked reading my thoughts.

When I didn’t respond fast enough she became more aggressive in wanting a response.

“Bitch, I asked you a question!” She spewed out with vitriol in her voice.

She moved to get out of the bed and my reflexes instantly started to kick in.

I began to move steadfastly towards her. My stomach dropped as soon as I felt two muscular arms wrap around me to halt my advance.

“What the fuck?” I whispered to myself.

I intended for those words to come out louder but the shock and disbelief of what is happening right now almost knocked the life out of me.

“Jean-Paul” I gritted out through clenched teeth.

“I hope for your sake and everyone that you love, you are putting your hands on me because you don’t want me to harm my unborn child”

“Don’t respond to her” I looked across the room to see who has the audacity to give an order to one of my team members. I own these muthafuckas and I am possessive.

“Yes Boss” came from behind me and the grip on my arms grew tighter.

I’m losing control of this situation, I thought to myself. My team has been corrupted. I mentally prepared myself to go into survival mode.

I will kill as many as I can if it comes to that.

I jerked my body to try and free myself of Jean-Paul’s hold.

He moved his arms to get a tighter grip on my body.

“Fuck” I whispered to myself. The fact that none of my other team members jumped in in to help me confirmed my status now.

“Well, well I guess the tables have turned, huh?” I heard a snaky tone speak out.

Lesedi’s POV

This muthafucka really showed his face? He has the nerve to come here after what happened? I peered at the back of his head as he spoke with my nurse right outside of my room. I asked the nurse earlier in the day to keep my door all the way open. I didn’t want any more surprises after only gaining consciousness a little over a week ago.

To have rage running through your blood and not be able to move more than an inch to react to it, is pure torture. To know that the person you put all your trust into would do some fucked up shit like this has me seeing red.

Their conversation ended and he turned to come into my room. Fuck this family shit, I continue to think to myself. I quickly closed my eyes so that this nigga can think I’m asleep.

I felt his presence as he stared at me while he stood over my bed.

“Get your rest Sedi, I promise I take care of whoever did this to you”

I could feel my chest getting tighter after every word he spoke.

This nigga thinks that I’m stupid. He plans to take care of it himself?

“I plan to hang around for little bit. I got a surprise for you. I be back when you wake up”

I felt his presence leave the room. I slowly opened my eyes and painfully shook my head. It’s going to take a lot practice to get back to using my motor skills but as soon as I’m able to walk I’m coming for his ass.

Larry’s POV

I walked into our bedroom to unsurprisingly find my wife still awake staring into space. I’m sure she didn’t get any sleep last night. After I left the hospital I had to make a quick stop at the secret location and get new instructions.

The instructions were not what I was expecting and the shit has me tormented inside. I’m praying, no begging that my wife decided to let me handle this alone. I couldn’t bear getting her caught up in this or further having to tell her the new plan and that it is currently being put into action. They neglected to tell me that they corrupted a good majority of my brother’s teams.

Reality has surrounded me and I’m sick because we have a chance at winning. I knew this when I hooked up with these guys but I didn’t realize the full damage until now.

I climbed into the bed and pecked her cheek before climbing back out to head into the shower. I want to avoid the answer that I am sure she is about to give me.

“Honey”

I stopped in my tracks mid-way to our bathroom.

“We talk baby, I need to jump in shower first” I stated swallowing hard after.

“I’m in” she stated before I tuned her out due to the ringing in my ears. I had to shake my head just to snap myself back into reality.

[queennicoleinboots]

Peter Walks Away Out of Stress and Anxiety

Jamie was screaming in severe pain.

"No!!! I'm not doing this today!!!" Peter screamed as he jumped out of his Toyota Highlander in a torn up white shirt and jeans his mother made him. "No!!!" He stomped into the house. He was uttering swear words. I couldn't help but laugh.

"Sigh!!! Fuck you!!!" Peter said as he slammed the door to the inside of his house.

Godiva was also arriving home from her doctor's appointment with groceries. She was struggling to get them in the house because her back was hurting.

"Do you need help?" I asked.

"Yes. And get Peter. Some of the items are heavy," she said as she put what she had down and sat down to do paperwork.

"Oookay," I said. I didn't want to bother Peter really. He was irate as is. I might die today.

I knocked on Peter's door.

"WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?!" Peter yelled as I heard something hit the door. I think he threw an object at the door.

"Your mother and I need help with groceries???" I said with an awkward smile on my face.

"I didn't know she was buying groceries today! I just got home from weeeeeerk. What the fuck?" Peter yelled before he opened the door. There were severe red circles around his eyes and a tight frown on his face.

"Sorry, Peetie," I said as I helped him with the groceries.

While Peter and I were unloading groceries, he sang, "Fuck Fuck Fuck I don't want to do this! Fuck fuck fuck I hate my life! Fuck fuck fuck fuck it all." All I could do was chuckle. He was sighing, slamming shit, and dropping shit. I laughed the whole fucking time.

Peter dropped a boxed pizza on the ground. He tried to pick it up and put it on the counter, but it kept falling back on the floor.

After the third time of that bullshit, Peter said as he stared directly at the God-forsaken pizza box, "You know what fuck you. You can fuckin' stay on the ground. That's where the fuck you want to be. Fine. Stay there. I'll fucking eat the box when I feel like getting on the ground AND EATING. Fuck baking. I don't give a fuck!" He stormed outside to get more groceries.

I cracked the fuck up and picked up the pizza box before putting it on the counter. The box stayed in the counter for me. At that point, I rolled on the floor and laughed.

"What is so funny, Xara? What are you laughing at?" Godiva asked as she shook her head. That woman has been on edge lately.

"Peter! Peter! Peter! Hahaha. He's so goddamn funny! Hahahahahaha!!!" I said between laughs.

"He isn't funny today. He's more on edge than I am," Godiva said.

Peter sighed as he carried the groceries. "You know what I am?! I'm a walking source of goddamn entertainment for every fucking body. I have been laughed at all goddamn day. Paul is an asshole and doesn't help. He is a big fucking clown himself fucking asshole," he bitched as he put the groceries down and put them away. "Fuck everybody. That's all I have to say. Fuck everybody and fuck everything."

I continued to laugh because I had no other way to respond to the chaos going on in Peter's life. "Is this any indication of how your life is going at the moment?" I asked with a huge smile on my face.

"YES!!!!" Peter screamed as he put his hands near his head. He finished putting groceries away and smiled at his mother. "I'm done." He walked away with angry whistles as he retreated to his side of the house.

Apparently, he had a terrible day at work and in general. Poor bastard.

Godiva pursed her lips together and nodded. She looked like she was done, too.

My phone rang.

"Bae WHUHhhhh!!!!" I screamed.

"I am going to break my computer and destroy the world," Joebear said.

I chuckled uncontrollably. "What the fuck happened?"

"I did a virus scan on my computer because I just recently put a new hard drive in. Well, I didn't think I was going to have a virus... But I had a few viruses. Anyway, one of them is causing my computer to restart over and over again.... Sigh. Okay, I'm trying to reformat the drive. I have to clone the drive once I'm done with this bullshit..." Joebear was saying.

I heard something being smashed into Peter's wall over and over again. Yep. Peter was pissed off.

"Oh Jesus," I said.

"WHAT THE FUCK?! IT'S RESTARTING AGAIN!!! BEEN TRYING TO FIX THIS FUCKING THING FOR THREE HOURS! I'M READY TO MOVE ON!!!!" Joebear yelled with a sigh of frustration.

"OH WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT NOW?????!!!!!!" Peter screamed from the other side of the door. His phone was ringing.

I tried not to laugh. "I'm sorry, baby," I said.

"There should be a special place in hell for people who create viruses!" Joebear screamed.

"Really! There are plenty of better things to do, like being a firefighter, volunteering for a homeless shelter, working in a soup kitchen, helping a church group, working in waste management," I said.

"Yeah, I know, but all they accomplished was wasting my time. Great! Fucking assholes!" Joebear shouted.

"Aaahhhhhhh!!! Paul, you FUCKING ASSHOLE!!! It's your own goddamn fault!!!!" Peter screamed through the door. "You put yourself in this goddamn mess! Of course your client isn't going to like you showing up drunk!!! DUH!!! Are you stupid?!!!!" Peter punched the door and screamed.

I cracked up. "Yeah. Viruses are a waste of time."

"Steam is coming out of my eyes!!!" Joebear yelled before he growled like a bear. He kept growling over the phone.

"What do you want from me?!... What do you want from me?! No, mother fucker, I'm not... Live with me?! Why the fuck-you're married!!!! My house is cursed. You don't want to live here! You don't want to live here!!!" Peter screamed as I heard some more banging.

I chuckled. "I'm sorry, BaeBae," I said. I was ready to roll on the floor again. The two angry men in my vicinity were cracking me up.

Joebear growled loudly before he said, "Stupid assholes. Why would you make a program that just restarts itself? This is some low IQ shit!!!!"

I coughed, muted the phone, and laughed while doubling over.

"What the fuck, Paul? Why do you ALWAYS DO STUPID SHIT?! Every day, it gets worse!!!! Why does my boss show up drunk?! I look like a fucking asshole!" Peter screamed in the other room before he stormed out and went to the kitchen. He was snarling and using hand gestures. "No you cannot live with me. You can live with my parents BUT. NOT. ME. I am going to live in a cardboard box near the liquor store with a GLASS OF WATER!!!" Peter was pouring himself a glass of water.

I unmuted the phone. "Bae, I'm sorry your computer is fucked up," I said as I looked at an irate Peter who downed a glass of water before pouring himself another glass.

"No. I'm pretty calm for how I feel right now. If I were any iota less sane, I would destroy the world right now and terrorize the neighborhood. Oh God I hate these people," Joebear said.

I laughed. "Me, too. Today is retarded. Peter is walking through the house with a large cardboard box and a glass of water."

"Paul, you are by far the dumbest mother fucker I have ever met, and holy fuck I met a lot of dumbass people. I can't talk to you. I can't know you. Fuck you right now. I'll talk to you later," Peter said as he hung up the phone.

I kept laughing as tears were forming in my eyes.

"That sounds fucked up. Let me beat my computer with a hammer. I love you. Talk to you later," Joebear said before he growled.

"Love you, Baeeeee!!!" I sang.

Joebear growled before he hung up.

"Hey, Peter. It sounds like you had the worst day ever," I said cheerfully.

"YEESSSS!!! AND IT'S GETTING WORSE!!! And I am going to bury my cell phone in the yard before I take my cardboard box and glass of water the fuck away from this world," Peter said as he walked outside. Of course, I followed him.

He put the cardboard box and glass of water at the end of the driveway before he came back and went into the garage. He grabbed a shovel. He turned off his cell phone and set it on the ground next to a toilet.

"Hey Peter. How are you?" the toilet asked him.

"Fuck you. That's how I am. Fuck everybody. Fuck every thing," Peter answered as he dug a hole next to the toilet.

The toilet laughed at him. "Has anyone ever told you you're fucked up?" she asked.

"Yes. Every fucking day of my fucking life," Peter answered as he continued digging that hole.

"I just wanted to remind you that you are fucked up," the toilet said.

"Thank you. I appreciate that," Peter said as he slid the cell phone in the hole he just dug before covering up the cell phone. He then beat the hole with the bottom of the shovel.

I cracked up. "Peter, why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Because I am done with everyone and their bullshit," Peter answered as he walked away and picked up the large cardboard box and glass of water. "I'm done. I'll see you later."

"Okay, Peter," I said as I followed him.

He was carrying the cardboard box and the glass of water down the street. This man no longer gives a fuck.

I was chuckling hard as I followed Peter down the street. He took sips of water as he continued walking away from everyone.

When he saw me follow him, he sighed. "Please, Xara, I had a bad day. I just want to be alone with my cardboard box and glass of water," he said.

I walked next to him. "Well, I have to leave in a few anyway, but I'd like to know where you are taking your cardboard box so that I can locate you when I need to torment a middle-aged man," I said with a grin.

"Why the hell would you want to do that?" Peter asked.

"Because your generation deserves it," I said as I poked his arm.

"Ugh. If I have to hear how the baby boomers destroyed the fabric of society one more time, I am going to destroy the world," Peter said with a scowl on his face.

"Well, it kind of did. No generation after you is doing better than you are," I said as I reached over and pinched his waist.

"How is that my fault?!" Peter asked as he made grinch noises and tried to push me away.

"Because you were born, jerkwad," I said.

"I didn't cause the economic and societal failure that occurred in 2001!!! Leave me the fuck alone!" Peter yelled as he threw his hands up and walked faster to try to get away from me.

I sighed. He was right. I was just blaming him for something he himself was at the tail end of. He was a younger baby boomer who acts more like a part of Generation X: edgy, non-conformist, likes grunge rock, and did drugs when he was younger. (I'm not sure if he still does drugs.)

To tell the truth, the downfall of American society was planned since the 1940s... or earlier. At the end of World War II, the Chinese said they would win the next world war without firing a single bullet. So, it isn't Peter's fault at all. I just say that to troll him. I blame Peter for all of the world's problems. Why? Because he is a perfect scapegoat. In that respect, he is unlucky.

I probably should admit that some of the things happening around me are my fault and that maybe Peter isn't the sole reason why the whole world is fucked up... NAH FUCK THAT! Let's blame Peter for everything. Life is easier and much funnier that way. Fuck it.

[kingafabo-blog]

A fiction (story) by Kinga Fabó, translated by Paul Olchvary, published in Numéro Cinq... Two Sound Fetishists vibrato I. Hidden in distortion Back into the body; may commotion reach her no more. Busy people had disturbed her relentlessly. Bad memories—noises—had showered her, even amid the strain of—inner—tunes. All rhythm, sheer sound. Tension ever at the ready—ready for rhythm: attuning to the other, conjuring up any of her own rhythms, indeed, any sound she’d ever heard. That which it didn’t conjure up, that, she composed. No one knew of her rare ability; she kept the secret well. The concealed sounds now began storming within her—all of them, at once. (Making their word heard?) A fine orgy flooded through her. Perhaps her overblown need for a personality, her oversize ability to attune, was linked to her singular sensitivity to sounds. Effortlessly she assumed the—rhythm of the—other. Only when turning directly its way. She is in sound and she is so as long as she is—as long as she might be. Yet another orgy flooded through her. She would have broken through her own sounds, but a complete commotion?! May nothing happen! “VIRGINITY  IS  LUXURY, MY  VIRGINITY  LOOSE  HELP ME,” T-shirts once proclaimed. This (grammatically unsound) call to action, which back then was found also on pins, now came to mind. An aftershock of the beat generation. And yet this—still—isn’t why she vibrated. Back then, everyone wore tight T-shirts and jeans. T-shirts emblazoned with words, wrapped snugly around breasts. She should have bulged on the outside—now too. Campaigns bent on conquering—those, she didn’t undertake, after all. Beautifying operations—she was weary of those. No ambition, no action; no action going forward, either. Because externals were all sucked into her at once, they were stuck in her—hiding her. No aligning of perspectives. She’d become mired in authoritarianism. Under a one-way communications blackout she’d been forced into a singular pleasure—a self-pleasuring (art). The vibrations within her were too many. Sound or prosthesis? No longer did it matter. If only she could be done with them. Her whipped-up body knew that an unanticipated stimuli would one day cause its explosure. Her perpetual doubt about whether she lived up to her body’s demands, satisfying it, had now seen dubious proof. Her unique sensitivity to sounds had heightened to the extremes. At every sound she shrank all the more. Now she herself—putting into practice the performative act of naming—dubbed her unprecedented illness, which she was the first to suffer from, “ego-atrophy.” (In the absence of use, personality fades away. Through sound—it comes, and so too it goes. In the meantime: totally tied up.) And, indeed, as her body slowly gobbled up her shrinking self, the exertion bent it out of shape. Having formed a parentheses, it was charged with covering its once (already, then) perfect shape; depriving her of her womanhood before it would deprive her of everything. Until now her shape and form had not overlapped, and so the gaps, where they did occur—there had always been some, and they remained—are for voyeurs to peep through. She tolerated no eyes upon her. For being watched neither on the outside nor the inside; nor for peeping upon her through the gaps. She wore a cuirass. No one could see—in—there. Her onetime desire, slow with the body, was realized in here in distorted form and late (in delay is the pleasure—but whose?). In a distorted mirror, she seemed tinier. Her full, sensual mouth—in parentheses; lying fallow (in reserve, words squelched). Doors and windows elsewhere: she had to fear in two directions. As far as goings-on were concerned, mornings were more radical even now. The house made a big hoopla over her. It screwed her down—one turn, every sound. He abounds at my expense, she thought, my thyroid minds. Can the soul be seen, or only if its stain is? Not wanting to injure an ear, she all but thought this only. My body—a smoothly turning screw; my soul—a metabolic disorder. This, she really did think, but—still not injuring an ear. A great advocate of silent bouts of being left alone, that she was. But, bewitched by the degree of her exploitation (the screw is turning), still driven by the centrifugal force (away from the centre!),[1] words came to the mouth: “I will not share in your degree of noise.” This, she didn’t even think. The late declaration of her stifled demand for her ego—extruding from the mouth—derailed at once: lost in the general commotion. Thus she was compelled to keep sharing. It was to her that every ringing noise pulled in. There was always noise—at the ready. Continual reinforcements: lines waiting. Her anachronistic organs cramped; as with heart and soul. Her love organs could not interlock, her working organ went kaput. If a glance could kill! Alas, it couldn’t. By now her hearing had turned cocky: she differentiated between people based on sound alone. The difference was not too big—only a matter of who happened to fling off which portion of his/her own sound back upon her. Of a certain ringing she claimed to know: surely is to be continued. (It was.) She didn’t want to hear it. She switched to her own volume. She opened all her sources of noise and leapt into their dizzying waves. (Optional musical closure, cadence) A singular life—she chose: for it a singular—death. Always she drew on her own source, and so on her own she would have—run out. And yet she didn’t wait it out. “Shall I regard you as absence?” “Feel free.” Never had—the scene and in it, her: simultaneously—become a fact, given that she really had gone away, by homeopathic means: with noises. She couldn’t stand them, so with them she killed herself. Her neighbor, who was not at all rhythmically attuned—helped her unwittingly in this. Or too attuned? With noises he murdered his unknown partner into—into—suicide. . II. Bestial rutting; the tension degenerates Out of the body; ready for noise at once. Bad memories didn’t bother him; his were that too. (He was quite willing to forget anything.) Not even busy people; he too was one. Most of all he liked to make noise (bent on it, he was, hissing from the mouth), but he irritated (tormented, molested) other organs too. His act hit home patient at once. He screwed onto her with every noise. He kept screwing onto himself, too, until—he became erect and stayed that way. His body, prancing as a sheer exclamation mark (a priapism?) but feeling no desire (a priapism indeed) covered everyone: to swarm and to occur! Out and in all directions; dispersed and every which way. And in fact: he was constantly flickering and buzzing. At first he scattered—compliments—properly. His tool gradually took over—on him. His glance—blocked—an operational territory. Storms of communication got stuck there—all of them. He knew no—joke—when it came to noise level. His hyperactivity—mounting to the max—as much as could be. He partook of—singular pleasure. Because his attention could not be riveted, he always adhered to other loose ends. (Perfect cementing.) As a signal of his recognition, at such times he gave forth all sorts of clicking and knapping sounds. He always pulled another to his constantly subservient threads—rotating them often. They were a tool; a silent partner. When he managed to tie himself down, he had pleasure—lots of it. With them—totally tied up. Thus it was he turned cocky (became free). Time having passed, his mood having been satiated, his public disturbances became routine. He organized splendid little mornings (orgies) for himself. He could cause a ruckus as he wished on the house. Spirits set ablaze—the screw turned higher and higher. (Squeezed, pressed, screwed.) Passions set ablaze awaited their turn in subservience (in bonds). His whip was frayed, while he was marching on his own. The chronic, pleasureless swelling of his male organ (the aforementioned priapism)—has entered into a chronic ego-hypertrophy. His onetime desire, May a woman never deflate me, has now reversed, distorted, late: Someone deflate me already! He moved an entire crowd. His great big ego ensured a spewing of pleasure to behold. So much spewing that it almost emptied out, cut to shreds. The tool, the object, the method changed along the way, but—not the aim: to cleave the ear with noise, for he is a homeopathic—murderer. The mass of naked torsos didn’t bother him. Everyone gathered, links in the chain; a public in line (canon fodder). But then one day (malfunction? rigor mortis?), silence fell. His singular mercilessness (exquisite dispassion) toward noises intensified to no end. He rang the doorbell of a random neighbor. A door can’t stand in the way, he thought, indeed—and, intoxicated by this repository of burgeoning opportunities—he flung himself on all potential sources of noise, among them his neighbor, who was just starting to give an overdose of sound, (Optional musical closure, cadence) and who, in the end, died multiple deaths. Opening the sources of noise (like turning on the gas on a stove), she overdosed on the noise (as on medication); jumped (as from the fourth floor); and—drowned—in the waves. Finally, she exploded (like a gas tank) due to the simultaneous inner and outer pressure. . I. and II. Homeopathic murderer and suicide up and away for good . . . The bodies, and those who take pleasure in them (both of their own), could get mixed up and away even when exploding (much energy in a tight space) but no later than when plummeting. And in the foams! The organs and events are similar, after all, as is, indeed, the method—homeopathy—though in their lives they could have done so. Now—not by chance—they were preparing to plop into a black hole. Explosions yielded many of them everywhere. Nearing the event-horizon, its current immediately sucked everything in. No goal was kicked. And had one been, the black hole would have gobbled it up, too. Neither she who (would have) received it nor he who (would have) kicked it—felt it. Enormous anesthesia, as if after orgasm. Footnotes    (↵ returns to text) 1.Desire, never yet so fast; maybe—because it is—already it is away from there.↵ (Translated from the Hungarian by Paul Olchvary)

[lizmckague-blog]

Rimbaud the Son, by Pierre Michon

Translated by Jody Gladding and Elizabeth Deshays

Yale University Press, 2013

If you’re going to single out the agony of “the gift”, the iron in irony, the embodiment of the tormented artist, the lost son of all sons, it would be Rimbaud.

It would be human and masculine.

It would be what is recovered

                                                   L’éternité.

It would be what is pure

                                                  La mer mêlée au soleil.

“History is all about fathers, sons and whores.”

                                                                   -Duncan McNaughton

Or the dark well of a single mother who can’t, just can’t- because the farm in Charleville is a daydream surfacing only in the sallow yellow sunbeam that comes out from the attic window like a church bell on Sunday when everything is hideous and you’re supposed to remember.

Remember what?

                                  Infamy and alchemy, perhaps.

Yet the ‘Carabosse’ (mommy) can’t breathe, so fades into the shadow of her dark fingers, like Eurydice, gripping the edge of the bowl of the dark well, lined with wild forget-me-nots.

Whether rebellion is a curse or a blessing, it’s still poetry.

So he walked. Back and forth from the future into the past and back again from 1854 to 1891.

Crossed the Alps on foot. In Italy (if I remember correctly)- walking, walking, walking until his ribs cut into his Siddhartha stomach lining.

Burst!

He wanted to burst from the very first time he watched a spider.

He became a saint behind the closed shutters in Camden Town, perching like a peacock in the presence of a devil.

Drown in the green fairy and rise out of the lake like a Lancelot with a sword wound by violets whose roots are stronger than your thin wrist.

So after the offenses and defenses, after the crime of the enfant terrible, and all along the solitude, the one thing that loved you- solitude, you plunged, like Eurydice, back into the dark, fecund pantomime of the earth below the earth

And in Abyssinia, illegally exported guns.

Maybe once upon a dream you remembered your boyhood with three sisters, an older brother, the haystacks, the color of each letter of the alphabet and the lapis-lazuli chunks of sky blinding the pillows of clouds where you chose to hide

                                                                                                      Your wings.

Until the day you took the train

Without a ticket

To the Gods.

Michon thinks you were nervous before the steps to Zeus’s Palace.

I do not.

Zeus doesn’t give a crap about peonies and the prodigal son has eyes like Novalis’ blue flower

and a body protected by thorns.

You were sixteen.

You wanted the hue of that vast, endless sky

Seen from the well of the soul

                                                     It’s not a good view.

But it’s focused in a circle that is beyond you.

Was it at nineteen, or in Cypress, or in Africa, when you finally understood how freedom spoiled you? Surrender, surrender to the sands of the line, to the banks of Lethe. And plaster your fasting with a belt made of gold.

She was as black as the country wife’s fingers.

She emerged from the dead cavern of Verlaine and the blood of the lonesome soldier in the meadow and the invisible city of the barracks across oceans.

Once it stopped

There was beauty.

That spider crawling in the attic, in the sallow yellow sunbeam, is a messenger from Izambard, the ferryman, telling you to give him a penny

but instead you knocked on the door and had your photograph taken.

Who gives a fuck about the crooked bow tie? It was brown, the color of shit. Not your own shit, or Paul’s, or Banville’s, or Hugo’s, or your mother’s or father’s or sisters’ or brother’s, or even Monsieur Carjat in the black hood over the plate of silver nitrate… The bow tie in the black and white photograph is the color of Jesus’s shit.

Carjat wanted to touch it (the crooked bow tie), to adjust it-

But dude, if you were in front of Jesus’s shit would you adjust it?

(Touch it, maybe, but adjust it?)

You were hung over. Then you were drunk and then you were hung over. Fuck Virgil, fuck Dante, fuck Shakespeare, fuck Hugo, fuck Mallarme, fuck Baudelaire…

No, not Baudelaire, he’s my baby.

History is reversed. I’m the first.

A charcoal sky over Paris, day after day. They all want me. They are hungry. I am not. So I stay. Their soup is spiced with my piss, their lips are parched by my invisible sun. They laugh, imagining how my white ass must be luminous as the moon.

I wanted grace. I didn’t know it then, but I wanted it.

Books were gentle. The pages were silky. The bindings were hard. They smelled like History. They smelled like the well.

I saw the sea, remembered love and learned how to bring it against me.

Wave after wave after wave…

A La Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust

Translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin

Three volumes, 1107 pages, Vintage, New York, 1982

My friend Miles Bellamy’s father, Dick Bellamy, owner of the once rather notorious Oil & Steel art gallery on the Hudson river in New York, died with the first volume of A Le Recherche du Temps Perdu open in his hands. The portrait here being that dear Dick, knowing he was taking his last breaths, remembered that the one thing he had yet to accomplish in life was… well, you get it. Unfortunately poor Dick never read did the whole thing, all 1,267,064 words, but I did. And before I die, I might attempt to do so again.

When I did finish this monumental work, I vowed that it must be the greatest book of time… and then I read Jean Santeuil (see below), yet still say yes, it’s the greatest work of all time. It’s the delicacy of feeling, the stamina of that delicacy, the persistence… days turning into years of sunlight scattered through clouds.

If asked what this novel is about, I’d answer, “The end of the aristocracy in France.” Simple. But it’s about everything not only ending, but spreading out and folding back on itself. It’s about love. It’s about mysticism.

The famous madeleine dipped in tea in the beginning opens up the space for, well, enlightenment really, and when Marcel accidently trips on uneven stones in the path to the Guermantes mansion in the end, that very path is raised into another, higher dimension and you go there too… bursting through clouds, transformed.

It’s hard to say what actually happens in this moment but one is undeniably transformed. *

James, a co-worker of mine at a used bookstore, (way back when- when there was a happy abundance of used bookstores)- came into work one day kind of glowing, radiating and outside of himself, almost floating. He said, “I just finished reading Proust,” then added, “sitting on the stone steps of a church.” I don’t remember where I was when I finished it, probably in my garden in the darkening twilight, unable to move until the end of the last page, or more likely, propped up against pillows in my bed at four in the morning or something, nothing as romantic as the steps of a church, or a chair in a room on the Hudson River in the glow of lamp, but I do remember that when I did finish it, yeah- I was in some kind of nebula, my perspective of the mundane egg (as Blake terms our world)- changed and I was stronger. Inside, there was this new strength of fragility, my own and every one else’s, even strangers, even the dead… perhaps, thinking back on it now, especially the dead…

This has stayed with me, this joy of (at the risk of being cliché)- an inner knowledge that was had, and could only be had, by reading A Le Recherche du Temps Perdu.                                                                                                                          

Of course I am familiar with a book entitled “How Proust Can Change Your Life”, I’ve never read it and never will because the title alone is so pretentious it makes me nauseous and the fact that someone would write a book for the sole purpose of self-propaganda really makes me want to puke.

Looking for St. Loop

by Elizabeth McKague (1999)

“I thought I saw in his eyes that thirst for more sublime happiness, that un-avowed melancholy which aspires to something better than we can know here below, and which, for the romantic soul, however placed by chance or revolution,

“still prompts the celestial sight,

for which we wish to live, or dare to die.”

(Ultima lettera di Bianca a sua madre. Forli, 1817)

-Stendhal, “On Love”

Looking for St. Loup

I.

The gallant boy ran across the tables

like Holderlin’s comet through a mad sky.

There is no system for this.

Monsieur Melandrine came from the theater

to the Place de Clichy in work pants on a scooter.

We ate oysters and drank champagne

in the same corner where Baudelaire

sank into reverie, after a shoe shine.

The gentlemen arrive, all in black, from the Garden

and wish to enter the dark forest

yet wily nymphs hold them back.

No one believes it, although you were right

about the Minotaur-  now he’s using a cane.

It’s time for change when the familiar

becomes a loneliness one can not breathe.

Leopardi said Slyia reached out to her own grave.

His red cloak flying over their heads-

He seemed to be swinging from a garland of bells!

I must find invitations to better dramas.

Philosophy, the kiss, your paint box even

that has been emptied into this night

are lost so quickly, I can’t stand, I can’t walk,

I want to limp.

I gazed over the shoulders of so many others

as he leapt past an orgy of apocalyptic monsters

made by the shadows of coats and hats on racks

behind the French double doors.

He gathered his whole life into his arms to bring,

dashing, that fearless taste of the fruit-

blind to all but Surrender, to the approach

of a movement where feeling becomes a circle of light

drifting you upwards s that your heels

are actually rising from the small,

round, marble faces, arranged for reflection

against the great window, like a sliced up moon.

II.

He wants

the word

one word

from the

beginning

to     after

the end.

Some temperance

and arrangement

of the muscles

like flowers

in a vase.

Young Werther spoke of a kind of horse

that would bite open it’s own vein to relieve a fever.

Di te mi dole: Tu me manques.

A posture of Spring time in the cultured rows of sailboats.

The secret gathering is to live

as foreigners forced by the archer

to almost touch the shore.

marked obscura. The phantom swooped into the realm.

I revealed my dream.

“You mean, you actually want them t put you in the ground?”

Bones. Maybe. And daughters leaving azaleas.

My favorite part was when he drove up alone

and stepped out in front of the hotel.

How the sun carried him then, how

he lingered inside it

even as he entered the mulberry carpeted lounge.

Sultry wives, embarrassed by the heat, heaved out loud.

Bellhops hopped and stray men snatched

a second mind from the ice bucket

to place atop their usual, girdles of ennui.

She’ll torture herself with those pink hawthorns

a few hundred years from now.

Some erziehungsroman left in a box unfinished

in the closet and pithoi and stone cellar where

Thomas Aquinas once lived across the street

When once the body, the earth listened and

men walked where ever they found

an arresting feeling waiting in the distance.

It is necessary.

III.

As he watched the fawn

climb from the thicket

through unsteady branches

black with a melting frost

Play of time

the clouds bore down

another spirit upon

his wounded mind.

IV.

I’ll rent a studio where the river

becomes a dragon at the end of May.

Read Giuseppe Ungaretti at the round cafe

in the Piazza Giuseppe Poggi there is

a piece of shade shaped like an angel

from one certain elm.

If I asked you to read the palm on the hill.

You could be anybody reaching

the purple turrets in a limehaze.

I can see a missing chapter

in the prow of your hands,

mouth at the edge of a miracle.

It has been too long now not to know what to believe.

A shock went through the back of his neck.

A marching band stepped on the train.

He sat with a silent

tuba in his ear.

Another espresso in Rome.

Best one he ever had.

She walked through the Piazza della Repubblica

guitar on her back with a

pineapple and an eggplant, one in each arm.

The street musicians wondered,

“Must be some kinda California minestrone.”

She left her letters in the Hotel Vienne, 1814.

The unfinished dawn bleeding through crepe de che curtains and

the boys in stone statues across the Rue Raspail

when everything has happened in the presence of desire

and the Saints came in after kissing the trees-

She knew she could see across the expanse

but how could she scramble such love into the margins?

The sky moved closer, became charcoal and smoked.

V.

They pierced the continual sky with an auger,

threw loops up to heaven

and hung down like acrobats.

Sprung from a doubtless tube of royalty; he owned up

and saw truth as a visible object, a kind of crystal ball

in which nothing was false but the tints

of lavender in the hair and cheeks of so many Duchesses,

Princesses and Marquises’.

St. Loup laughed to cheer others.

In the hearth he burnt only the finest timber

to keep you warmer, longer.

He would soon ride again.

She escaped out under the trellises where

the quiet, gold days waiting for the post

spread out like tea with lemon.

On his own orders, later, after the pride

turned to pain (for no particular reason);

he went to the Front of the Line, crossed

the bloody battlefield in Auverres.

Endymion fought the jackals then rested his sword between her breast.

Tristan turned into Hermes when suddenly

everything on his back moved over his neck like a breeze.

It was always a trust.

In his last years he visited homosexual brothels.

His alienation pulsed. After all the gifts, still it was

like a bonfire all the way down the Champs Elysees,

it was like the dried figs at Christmas-

Perhaps there’d been too many sensations outside of himself,

he could no longer measure the end.

Perhaps it had past.

Perhaps he missed it.

You ask why it is a question of wandering?

Because somewhere the last line contains

a horizon  of Nobility.

VI.

I’m in that painting; rushed through the Vatican.

Justine taught me the eye trick how when you focus

on Hell then move slowly up and above

it’s all buoyancy and heavy globes.

I found my ecstatic consciousness on the map.

What a relief. (I was getting weaker from surviving

on the nebula of the dead).

T’was not I who wrote bitterness into the third novel.

Monmartre mattresscake on bare stone and gazing

naked into the long dawn and ashes of Chesterfields.

“Comme un paysage après l’orage, attention a la mélancolie,

c’est la plus belle mélodie de l’amour

c’est aussi la plus cruel et plus difficile.

Soit prudent avec ton coeur et rendre un peu triste.”

Someday, I’m going to the

top of the hill to live

with the Capuchin sisters.

I wanted the stillness to come and last, beside some one.

It speaks when we are children as a form of protection-

to find placement amongst that which is sensual.

Each memory in its own making like a sun

surrounded by a sun, surrounded by a sun... and so on;

if you can believe such a thing.

They say it all began with the Danube,

from the Black Sea to 1001 night’s heads resting on jewels in the great net covering all.

Then Calvalcanti came in with the key and the Pieta, the Pieta and the Pieta danced

all night out back of Hamlet’s Mill.            He just wanted to prove that it’s real-

that everything touches it, that it feels like Rouen blue

and haunted by crimson,

                         corrosive moss

         that took the mouths of gargoyles.

He distinguished a solitude far beyond the waves and valleys of reason.

His precipice divided the elliptic and he finally slept when the moon left Paris,

was carried off to Asia where he studied new characters; hieroglyphs of lover’s

limbs.

No, see

               MIND                              Body

                                                                               is the first

and second half

                                            of attention.

Then habit oppresses

soluble links to the night.

The machinery itself looks dangerous.

I wanted to tell you

how nice it would have been

when it was                possible

to escape.

And now,  there’s      that.

That it affected you so much.

Maybe it could have been more

than these pall books to carry us,

to weave the way in.

VII.

He walked along the shore, throwing each thought that started

in his groin and moved North over his shoulders

back in to the water.

I               have married many shepherds.

It was too orange- that light

in his North Beach hotel room.

Now he’s making violins for Carnagie Hall.

We’d watched the sun like we planted it,

even the noise of traffic and Ave Marias

from the laundromat below his rotting window, drowned.

Nobody talks about the Upyia Gallery anymore,

sometimes, a siren brings the needles and trumpets back into your brain.

Then the stranger appears, feeding the birds.

I couldn’t make anything new anymore, I wanted

to give it all away. Forgive me,

the East is precious, but, forgive me.

St. Loup is an archetype

the misunderstood troubadour

and the violence of another world.

Ternion in chains in the Caucasus Mountains,

no one can find you there.

the monsters come, the monsters go...

He’d never say her name in writing.

It meant house. House of peaches.

VIII.

St. Loup surrounded himself with the resistless type.

He liked to tame them. But you were the one

he appreciated. You were the dark self, the delicate solitaire.

Conversation was pure.         It was only a favor. So,

he traveled to her hiding place

and learned she had died.

He told you by telegram, “I’m sorry.

She went horse riding in the planets.”

He rarely slept in the barracks.

When the Great War came he went in barefoot

and lonely, following demons for secrets

and no one to save.

He never had a photograph taken of himself.

Leave, was three days in Nueilly-

But you’d been salvaged

into the asylum.

I’m not going to be calm about this.

I believe there’s an answer.

If I could say, “Tonight, my love...”

but my voice is fainter, transient,

like a sliver of ice.

You must be brave. learn to balance

the antiquity of character with laughter.

The shetayan who is wise never returns-

you go there- in the periphery of the campfire.

Each bridge in Prague is like the bow of a violin.

For every two French people there is only one mirror.

Proust and Stendhal differ on the idea of love.

What    idea?

Friends have run off to Nederland, Colorado.

Dreadlocks in Switzerland.

The Trenitalia are always right on time, to the second.

and mothers and grooms waving good-bye.

I’m concerned about the lighting (not too dark, not too cold...)

the Byzantine painter, who is eccentric, is coming.

“If you impress them too much they’ll end up thinking

you’re a survivor.”

Gray, gray, the color of storm

and that soft, yellow patch,

and the chimes, and the albatross.

The carriage waited. The shadowy lamplighter alone,

walking down the Boulevard de Batignolles in a mist.

St. Loup entertained his table until midnight.

Who are you looking at?

Let’s have another round.

His red cloak hanging on the back of his chair like Shelley’s ghosts.

The underpainting the color of brown glass

then Mediterranean light and a tiny bottle of arsenic.

Chatterton as Icarus on the bed in the attic.

You were right, about culture, how it’s all about

fathers, sons, and whores.

Monsieur Melandrine had such a fucking

intelligent looking upper lip. He abandoned

everything to position himself between feeling what is illusion and what is manifest.

I pictured his boyhood,

tangerines and linden trees, imagination at Fontainebleau.

It was the last time.

I watched an old man pour soapy water on the steps,

then sweep it away with a broom.

IX.

The sullen wind

cherry blossom snow

it is Spring.

I still have your banjo. I threw away the case.

It looked like Rimbaud’s passport.

She wrapped the souvenirs in the pretty printed paper from the confiserie

and left them in the front zipper pocket of her suitcase

when she got home, unpacking.

Forever that midnight.

He did look a bit surprised when she lay down

on the floor of pine needles in the spreading moonlight,

beyond the red stones, over the wall, out back of someone

unknown’s villa, through the dewy meadow

in an atrium of skinny trees

where Dvorak had the inspiration to compose his-

“So did you get those cool sandals...?”

“At the bazaar, in Cairo.”

Allegro ma non troppo.

St. Loup was killed in battle.

Blown up and scattered.

No one knew, but himself, then-

at that very moment,

that he really wished

for truth and freedom,

that he had plans,

that he wanted to continue

the task that

in this little globe

one can still find

some definition

of virtue.

2005

Jean Santeuil by Marcel Proust,

Translated by Gerald Hopkins

Simon & Shuster, New York, 1956, 2nd printing, first printing 1955

Bernard de Fallios, a young Proust scholar, found several boxes of torn manuscript pages and seventy notebooks in Marcel’s cork-lined room at 102 Boulevard Haussmann. Written, and obviously abandoned, when Proust was around 25, these pages were carefully reassembled by Fallios and published in Paris as the novel, “Jean Santeuil” in 1952.

This probably my foremost favorite novel, although Le Recherche is absolutely a greater work, Jean is… well, it’s like a raindrop. (And the dated, pale pink cover is really cool!)

It is the tender story of a poet. An indulgence in sentimentality. A bath of isolated sensuality. Lonesomeness. Illness. Growth. The humor of adolescence, hypersensitivity, innocence, natural voyeurism, connection points into the center of sexuality, naiveté and intelligence merged by poetic vision into the beauty of windows out onto the ‘health’ of society when one is so young and so ill. Jean Santeuil is the beacon on the lighthouse. Portrait of an artist as a lover alone. (Yet, aren’t all artists lovers alone?) It’s a bout a boy taking the boy into the man no matter what…

From page 369, when Jean’s mother calls him while he is away from her for the first time (if I remember correctly): And also, the telephone is a new invention at this time in history:

“Quickly, he put the receiver to his ear… then, all of a sudden, as if everyone had left the room and he was throwing himself into his mother’s arms- he was aware, close beside him, gentle, fragile, delicate, so clear, so melting, like a tiny scrap of broken ice- of her voice.”

The mature Marcel (see above) finds strength in fragility. Jean Santeuil creates, fashions out of clay, strength out of weakness. Strength to accept death (at such a young age!) and the weakness to love life. Hope.

The tendons of language are bruised.

The sky is grey, the ocean green, girls wear white, boys wear blue and in between, the lover, the lighthouse, fearlessly feels the world through his window, the window of all the lost time of youth that has been emptied into his shining soul.

from page 743:

“For death in a man journeys into the infinite and into nothingness. For no matter how obscure he may be, no matter how limited his intelligence, the thought of death, the coming of death, opens for him a window on the mysteries of eternity.”