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yeyinde · 14 days ago

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hands like barbed wire

John Price x Reader

18+ | dubcon that flirts heavily with noncon. fingering (in public). manipulation. slight corruption kink. sheltered reader forced into a wife-grooming speed run. lotsssssa good girl/sweet girl/baby abound. implied kidnapping.

You meet him in a bar.

He's sitting alone in the corner, body angled towards all the exits. There's a glass of scotch on the table that drip, drip, drips these big, teardrop-sized droplets of condensation down the glass, kept cradled between a thick, grizzled hand. The scabs on his knuckles remind you of ripe, sour cherries when they flex under the coarse dusting of hair.

There's something about his hands that catches your attention first. Keeps it.

Your daddy used to say there was a lot to learn about a man by the shape of his hands. And his, this magnetic stranger's, are rough. Worn. Dangerous. Blistered and torn up. Caution tape in pale peach. Dirt under his nails. Ash on his forefinger. Stay away, it says. Run.

But the flicker of orange sparking up in the gloom draws you in like a moth to a flame. Stupid girl—

(just like daddy always said)

He doesn’t look up when you step closer. Little moth drawn to that orange light, the shift of those fingers wet with condensation. But you catch the slightest shift of his chin from your periphery. A silent acknowledgement, but it’s all you get. He keeps his eyes glued to the newspaper he has spread out on the table. Disregarding you entirely. Ignoring you.

(and you keep yours fixed on the clench of his hands—)

"Not supposed to smoke in here," you murmur, voice a little slip of a thing when it shudders out of your throat.

You don’t mean to say it. You’re not sure why you do. The words roll to the tip of your tongue and drip down your chin when your mouth shifts on a small, soundless gasp. Beneath the scabs on his fingers, his skin is all scar tissue—

In an almost laughable contrast, he growls, purring like a tiger, a diesel engine, when he speaks.

"m'not supposed to do a lot of things—" When you finally, finally, drag your eyes away from his hands (the flex of his fingers, wondering how they'd even fit inside—), you catch a flat, uneven line buried under untameable brown. But he still doesn’t look at you. "But who is gonna tell me that?"

You don't get it. Sheltered girl—little girl, he adds, all ugly and cruel; cold in his mockery because that's what you are to him: little—growing up buried in the mountains, left to rot on the fecund plains where your daddy sowed seeds and mama pickled the wares for the market. Barely scraping by on a farm doomed to fail. Some poor man's burial ground, the locals say. Cursed. But hindsight—the gold band on his ring finger, one half of a matching set belonging to a woman who isn't you; and the patch on his leather jacket, faded yellow and bold, 141 with a twisted skull—bring you to a neat conclusion:

he's a bad man. Stupid girl, daddy would bark. Ain't you know nothin'? Stay away from them folk. Bad news. Nothin' but trouble.

(Mama would laugh. And oh, honey, did trouble find you—)

Between the heavy thud of your heart, the words slip out. “Well, I just did.”

More gall. Cheek. You don't know where it comes from.

Mama would have washed your mouth with soap. Dragged you to the washroom, spitting about respect as she twisted her gnarled fingers into your lips, and tugged.

You expect the same from him. Maybe worse. Much worse. But he just looks—

His eyes peel away from the article (train robbery down south, it says in bold, ugly letters), finally darting to take you in. There's shock, you think. Stupefied by your audacity. The disrespect. But when he rests his eyes on you—cold blue, like a glinting gem, a lagoon—the slow climb of his brows, drawn up high until three deep lines stretch across his skin, comes to a stop.

He seems to pause for a beat. Just long enough for an exhale of smoke, twin funnels of dragon's breath, to pour out of his nose. They draw together, but it's not in anger. Scorn. It's a rough sort of contemplation. Eyes narrowing into slits as he stares at you.

And the weight of his gaze is a palpable thing. Heavy. You try to fight the urge to fidget as he sizes you up, rolling your eyes down the length of his body above the table to skirt around intense, dizzying blue.

But your avoidance makes him huff, and he leans back, sucking in another breath.

"C'mere," he demands. Doesn't say, doesn't ask. Just growls the words out between the clench of his teeth buried in that cigar you tried to nitpick him about. "Come sit."

And you do. of course, you do (stupid girl).

But when you reach for the chair next to his, he scoffs. "Didn't tell you to sit beside me."

"Then where—"

He's pushing back in his seat before the words are out, thick thighs open wide (impolite mama would say), stretched tight over a pair of jeans. But even with the wide spread, you can't even see the cheap red plastic in the open v of his legs. When you don't move quick enough—head all thick, syrupy—he grunts. Reaches down mockingly and pats his thigh.

"Come sit, little girl—"

It's demeaning. Embarrassing. But there's something about him that seems to negate choice the closer he gets. Renders it into dust between his fingers. Head syrupy. Empty. No thoughts needed when he'll just think for you—

And oh.

Oh. That thought does something to you. Static in your veins. An electric shock. Mind reeling, spinning around that single, wayward idea.

Your head is hot. Feverish. Everything inside is melted, liquified, and drips out of your ears to pool between your thighs.

(Under the white cotton of your modest summer dress, they squeeze together, sliding in the gathering slick—)

When you don't move fast enough for his liking, he grunts. "Ain't gonna tell you again—"

And you listen. Obey. Because that's what you are: a good girl. You do what you're told, don't you?

So you slip onto his lap, letting those big, gnarled hands wrap around your waist. Holding you steady (keeping you trapped) as his thick, warm thigh splits yours apart. Wrenching you open for one of his rough, dirty hands to slide between.

His forearm anchors you to the broad, dizzying spill of his chest, head dipping to nuzzle against the shell of your ear. Shushing you softly as you squirm around the hard, thick press of his thigh against your core—cunt, he bites out, teeth nipping along the skin of your ear; can feel your hot little cunt, sweetheart—and grapple with the strange, dirty-wrong, sensation of sitting in a stranger's lap as he slowly pulls up the dress you wore to church this morning, fingers hot on your inner thigh. Chasing that sticky-slick dampness that makes him groan low in his throat when he first touches it. Softly still, a hoarse good girl—

But this isn't what good girls do.

Mama says no man is allowed to touch this hot, slick little place between your thighs until you're married. A sin, she called it. Wrong. The pastor, too. Only when you're married. Only as a wife.

You don't think he has any intention of marrying you, but he touches you like a man would a wife. Knuckle hard, firm against the thin, worn cotton of your panties. Grazing. Rubbing. All soft and slow. Not even much of a touch—just the whisper, the idea, of one.

The rasp of his smoke-scorched, whiskey-scented voice in your ear, peppering filth, sin, out as he tells you he can feel how wet your little pussy is. Feels it against his finger. And can you feel that, sweetheart? when he pushes a little harder, digging the peak of a bent knuckle into the seam of you. Can you feel him through your pretty little panties?

"Mm," he grunts, pushing harder. Arm tightening around your waist when you squirm, and squirm. "Can you?"

Yes, you think around a long breath. A little stretch. Your legs kick out under the table when he grazes over a spot that blooms a vicious, intense pleasure through your belly. Something that feels so good, that it makes you a little sick. Makes you want to run. Maybe that's why your legs kick and kick, and—

"Be good." It's a snarl. A warning. "Or I'll take you over my knee—"

Be good, he adds again when you whimper, softening the grit in his voice from granite to soot. The same tone Daddy uses when they bring him a broken horse. "Jus' wanna make you feel good, sweet girl, mm. Want that, don't you?"

"We're n-not supposed to do this if we're not—not married."

Shivering it out into the balmy, smoke-dense air of the bar feels almost like a release. Baptismal. Like maybe now you've said it, whatever spell has fallen over the two of you will be broken. He'll blink awake and right the wrong you've committed with a quick, decisive shake of his head. You'll go back to being a good girl, a simple girl from a simple family, and he'll be the stranger in a bar you think about sometimes, like the real man mama loved but her daddy wouldn't let her marry.

(A sweet little fever dream, she'd said fondly. Sadly. And then, scared, tense: don't tell daddy, though, okay?)

He hums around it, but it sounds accommodating. Placid. Like an adult entertaining the whims of a child.

"Want that, mm?" He digs the question in with a slip of his finger over the cheap lace lining the hem of your panties. "Want me to marry you?"

You're not sure. You don't know him, but he's touching you in public. Has you sat—spread—on his lap with his hand under your dress, touching you the way a husband would. There's a ring on his finger already. The suggestion of a wife. A life outside of this hovel where nothing grows, and you're just expected to roll over and grow old with whatever man daddy approves of.

"No," you stammer out because he's married already, and that's what daddy will say. "No—"

"Shame," he grunts, and his nail catches on the edge of coifed lace. Scraping it over slick, damp skin. "Jus' lost mine, you know. Been thinkin' 'bout takin' another."

A good little girl to warm my bed is said as his nail drags your panties over your swollen, slick folds.

It's instinctual to want to snap them shut. Keep him out. But his knee lifts like he's expecting that, keeping you spread. Open. His hand is hot on your skin. Burning. His thumb wedges into the hem of your panties, stretching the fabric to tuck the edges together, exposing your cunt to his wandering, blistering fingers.

There's no quarter. No choice. He doesn't let you think. Doesn't give you a minute to breathe. It's just—

Skin on skin.

His knuckle slides between the seam of your swollen folds, parting them as he touches that slick, hot space cradled inside. Groaning, too, when he does; like he touched fire. Like you burned him. Hurt him even though you know you never could.

The noise balms the panic and clots thick tufts of cotton inside your ears. The low, rolling brass trembles in your belly. A small quake. You feel it in your cunt; a strange, throbbing little hum that makes you clench down twice on nothing but the idea of that sound. The echo.

He tells you he feels it. Feels how desperate you are for him.

Needy little thing, he rasps, and it isn't kind. It isn't nice. There's a reprimand needling in against the grain of his praise. An unspoken good girl said in the tone of a man who thinks you're anything but.

"Been thinkin' about takin' a wife," he says again, dragging the rough, scabbed tip of his knuckle across the powder-soft flesh of your folds. It's ticklish. Weird. Something that makes you want to giggle and cry. Pull your blankets over your head. Lean into it more. Spread your legs wider until he touches that spot that made you shake. "But the mistake I made the last time was not testin' 'er out before I married 'er. Turns out—" the tip digs in between your swollen folds, touching where you're hot and sticky and far too sensitive for such rough hands. "She wasn't as sweet as I thought she was."

And it's electric. The rough, calloused scrape of his finger stroking up and down your split seam (your clit, he mumbles into the hollow space behind your ear, giving it a little swirl that makes your toes curl; to your hole, nice and tight and so fuckin' wet f'him, mm?) is a jolt of that dizzying, too much-not enough pleasure. A shock. Mouth open, toes clenched tight. Legs kicking. Muscles seizing as he works you over with just the tip of a finger. Barely even a touch.

"But you're sweet, aren't you?"

It sounds like he's chiding you all over again, but the cotton puffing up against your eardrums, the pleasure buzzing in your belly, between your thighs, makes everything sound so sweet. Enticing. So you agree. Nod feverishly on a gasp when his finger trails down to where you clench tight around nothing, circling your opening with the tip of his finger, nail skimming over swollen, slick flesh.

You're not sure what this is. Don't even know where to begin to articulate what you want, need, but each pass makes you feel every bit of the needy little thing he called you earlier. An admonishment drenched in fondness. Wrapped up so tight in a soft, velvet cloth of amusement that you could barely feel the pricks of barbed wire nestled inside when it rubbed against your skin.

Sweet enough that it makes you turn your head into his bicep, nuzzling against the fabric of his jacket as he works his fingers between your wet, slick thighs. Thumb against your clit. A brand. Pressing down, down, and then softening when your legs kick out, too much. That dirty, awful kind of pleasure that makes you feel like a balloon being pumped too full, ready to burst. His finger slips inside. Just a tease. As gentle as a kiss. Only up to his cuticle. Barely even a knuckle.

He tells you all of his with his beard scraping against the flushed, damp skin of your cheek. Murmuring the words into the pool of blood throbbing against your cheekbones. Reinforces them with a sharp nip of his teeth when the shame trickles in—when the easy pump of his finger, not even a knuckle, makes a wet, sticky noise as it pushes into that pool of heat inside of you.

And it's all good girl, sweet girl against the sticky-slick shine of your raw cheek when your needy little cunt sucks him in deeper. Beggin' for it, and sweet little pussy wants it so bad, mm, needy girl? and don't worry, baby, m'gonna make you feel so good.

Baby. It catches, loops. Makes it easier to ignore the noise spilling out under the thick spread of his palm, finger digging in deeper (the first knuckle is a soft good girl, the second is a rough a doin' so good, sweetheart; and the third, slipped right up to last is a low, rumbling that's it, baby, takin' it so well, ain't you?), and the clatter around you. A semi-crowded bar.

You forgot, you think, squirming suddenly. Stiffening around him, on him, as the world sharpens into a whistle. Glass on worn wood. Thud, thud. Legs squealing against herringbone as a heavy chair is dragged back. Low murmurs. Laughter. Noise spilling out from the front of the room, calls for more beer. Another shot. Hey, bartender, gimme another Jack on the rocks—

"Shush-shush, baby," he coos, finger dragging out a lewd squelch when slides back inside of you, as deep as it'll go. The slap of his bent index and ring finger hitting your puffy, drenched folds when he thrusts. "They can't see you. Can't hear you. Jus' be good for me, mm? My sweet girl."

Nothin' matters except me, he adds, curling that finger inside of you until it hooks on a spot that makes you whimper into his arm, teeth sinking into leather. I own this bar, he promises, lifting his arm up as you cling to him with your teeth. A block against the world. Nothing but faded, aged leather and stale smoke. Gunpowder. The slick glide of his finger inside of you, the sting of the stretch dissolving into a wet, sticky pleasure.

His own teeth dig into the curve of your neck. A pinch. Sucking in a mouthful of skin as his ring finger extends, drags over your messy cunt until it's pushed up against your stuffed hole, nudging inside. A shallow dip. Lemme in, it says as he bites through blood vessels with the hard suck of his mouth. Lemme in because—

"I own this town. This bar. Jus' like I own this sweet little cunt."

A shove and he's in. All the way. To the last knuckle. Quick and sudden, the sting is an afterthought; the burn is a hazy, ephemeral throb in the back of your head. Balmed by the drag of his thumb over your pebbled clit.

It feels like a seesaw. Up and down. Bending your knees, feet planted into the ground, and then kicking up, up. Weightless. Over and over again. An ebb and flow. Higher and higher until you slowly fall down—

(—into his lap. the cup of his palm.)

You tell him as much. Mewled out into spit-drenched leather as he rumbles against your spine, his voice so deep, so full, you can feel it humming in your chest when he speaks.

(feel it drip down your spine like hot wax where it pools between your thighs—)

"Good girl," he says, and you feel like anything but. Less like the girl who sat in the pew this morning, humming along to hymns in a modest, cotton dress and more like gum spat out onto the pavement. Squished down under his heel. Dragged along beneath his boot. Pretty, dizzy pinked up remora. "Bein' so good, mm? Maybe you deserve a reward."

It comes on the crook of his fingers twisting inside your slicked up cunt; blunt nails pressing against soft walls until it stings like the nip of his teeth over your cheek. You're not even sure if it feels good. It's just—

Pressure. A burning stretch. The foreign sensation of something detached from your body squirming inside of you, touching places you've never been able to reach before. Too deep and too full. His index finger is nearly double the width of your own.

It makes you mewl like a child. Twisting on his lap, trying to pull away from the place that parts for him so easily, opens up with just the crook of his finger. Leaks slick down his palm, drenching his pants. Makin' a mess, he growls, and pulls you back down on his lap. Feel it, sweet girl? Mm? Feel the mess you're makin'.

And you hate that you can. That each thrust of his hand between your thighs sounds wetter and wetter than it did before. That it pulls it out of you until it drips down your inner thighs and pools against the back of your dress. Stains his thighs. The hard thing—his cock, he tells you, dragging your ass over it with a grunt—under you that jerks and throbs and flattens up to a size that makes you want to curl into a ball and weep.

(that makes your knees twitch, wanting to spread wider—)

It's a lot. It's too much. You're not even sure you like it ("ain't nice to tell lies, little girl;") but he doesn't stop. Won't. Not even when tears drip down from the corners of your eyes, and you hide whimpers into the damp, sticky leather of his sleeve. It doesn't really matter because—

"mm, you look so pretty when you cry."

You feel drenched. Liquid. No longer a person but a puddle. Melted, leaking. Dripping down his lap and pooling onto the dirty barroom floor. A slippery little thing held together by the cup of his palm, the hook of his fingers sinking into you over and over again.

"Are you watchin'?" The arm wrapped around your waist shifts until his dry, rough hand is cupped under your wet, sticky chin, curling over your throat. "Look at us."

Between the spread of your thighs, white cotton dress rumpled and rucked up around your hips, the sight of his hand—masculine: dangerous; knuckles bruised and scarred, cherry red; big and rough and hairy—is obscene. Ugly. Wrong.

(a grunt: too tight. his fingers flex, spreading open inside of you, scissoring apart. loosen up, love, before you break 'em, mm.)

So, so wrong.

You feel small with that big, grizzled hand between your legs. Insignificant. A toy to play with. A thing to be used. And that's just what he does.

Shows you how he can play with your body when he peels his fingers out of you nice and slow until just the tips keep you open, skin shiny and wet. Glistening in the flushed, low light of the bar. And then slides them back inside, just as slow. The first knuckle. The second. The third. Wiggles them around. Scissors them apart.

Pulls them out faster now, and thrusts them back inside hard.

This cunt belongs to him, he grunts, words nestled beneath the slick, sticky-wet sound of him taking what he owns. Over and over again. That big, bearish hand works at your messy cunt until your thighs tremble, and your head throbs.

The hand on your throat is firm. Tight. And when it pulls away to slip inside your cotton dress, you realise you've forgotten how to breathe without him controlling every breath.

"Come on," he rasps, fingers working harder. Faster. His thumb catches your clit, rubbing small, tight circles; each pass brings a new, terrible pleasure rippling through you. A crescendo that builds and builds. Higher on the seesaw—up, up—

His hand is scorching as it cups your breast, index and middle finger scissoring over your nipple until it's caught between the two. A pluck. A pinch. It buzzes down your chest, sinks like a stone into the wet, muddled mess between your hips.

And that's all you are. Nothing but a soaked, hot mess of a thing in his lap. Putty. Messy girl. Silly girl. Sweet. Stupid. His.

(his low, growling voice in your ear: mine, mine, mine;) "aren't you, little girl?"

The leather between your teeth tastes like ash. Smells of gunpowder. Fresh hide in the summer's sun. Smoke. Tobacco. Potent. Masculine. Grizzled, like his hand between your thighs. The other cupped around your breast, pinching and pulling and kneading flesh you hadn't realised could feel so good when it was touched like this—

By his hands, palms hot enough to scorch, to brand. To melt you from the outside in until you leak all over his lap where you're cradled like a child. Obedient and docile.

Especially when he makes you come on his fingers. Tells you that's what you'll do before it happens—a grunt, a command, in your ear. Do it, sweetheart. I ain't askin' again—

And you do. Pulsing like a heartbeat around the thick stretch of two fingers digging deep inside of you, stabbing into that spot that makes you pant like an animal. Blooms more heat, more pleasure, that thickens inside your navel—molten. Spilling out from between your hips. Up, up, up on the seesaw—

"Good girl. Good fuckin' girl—"

He doesn't even sound like a man anymore. The rough, feverish grit of his voice pitches low into his throat, hums in his chest. Rattles like bones in the wind. Howls. Sharpens in the pit of your belly, another liquid pulse around his fingers. It sounds animal. Primal. Bearish as he claims you as his, as he curls his fingers around the heart of you, and tugs. Leaving you spun around those thick, grizzled fingers like fresh cotton candy, sticky and sweet. His to keep.

And that's what you are,

"aren't you?"

Good girl, he coos when you nod, sniffling into creased leather that smells of cade and motor oil. Too dizzy to make sense of what he's asking for, too incomplete.

Your neck feels cold without his touch, but you don't know how to ask for something you don't even think you really want. Shouldn't want.

You feel feverish, too, and it's an all-over thing. From the space between each toe, to the backs of your ears—everything is too hot, too cold. You're shivering, but you want to sink down into a pool of ice, a blanket of heat and warmth. Wrap yourself around the hot, oozing insides of a chest—like the hunter who slept inside his beloved horse—and bathe in the waters around the polynya. Icy and dark.

Mostly, though, you just feel raw. Wrong. Scraped out and hollowed. Broken into pieces and put back together with mismatched parts.

And it's worse, you think, when he pulls his fingers out of you, and you're reminded of what it feels like to be empty all over again.

"Shush, baby," he's cooing when you whimper. Chiding. "Let's have a taste, mm? Find out if you're really sweet."

His hand is drenched when he pulls it from between your thighs. Thick, clear strands make a bridge between his fingers when he splits them apart, rumbling low and brassy in his chest at the sight. Spits like a burning log, crackling sap in a dry fire, when he says, look, baby, got me all fuckin' wet—

But you can't. Not when he drags his hand up, up, over your shoulder, above your head, and sinks his fingers into his mouth with a groan that raffles through you, all the way down to your toes. Slurps on his hand, on the slick you left behind, like a man half-starved. Grunting at the taste. Cock throbbing beneath you like a heartbeat. Pulsing and angry. Enough that you cower a bit, flinching back into the broad expanse of his chest as his thick, fat cock twitches under you, eager for something you only really know about as an abstract concept. Knowledge gleaned through rummaging around in cupboards when no one was looking. Playground tales; cupped palms against the side of an ear. Stage whispers.

Husband and wife.

And oh, baby—

"you're the sweetest thing I've ever tasted," he rasps into your cheek, lips shiny and wet. Smearing spit and slick across your raw skin. "Looks like I found my new wife."

It doesn't make sense. Another abstract concept. Fragmented pieces. You want to say we can't get married, but all that comes out is a squeak. A whimper. Some shallow warble in the back of your throat that sounds like daddy, please.

But he's pulling his hand away from your breast, and clasping it tight around your neck before the words can make it through the panic clogging your throat. A firm squeeze snuffs those flames as quickly as they formed, and you swallow down the ash in the back of your throat before it can choke you.

Good girl, he says with a paper soft kiss to the bruised, burning apple of your cheek. Sweet girl, baby girl, and when he smoothes his damp hand across the rumpled fabric of your cotton dress, pulling it back over your thighs, you realise you forgot your own name.

(It doesn't matter, you suppose. You'll have his soon enough.)

When it's back in its proper spot, unblemished and pristine despite the ache between your thighs and the way your panties stick, uncomfortably, to swollen skin, he drags his hand back up your leg until his palm swallows your thigh. The warmth of his skin bleeds through the cotton, and his rough, calloused fingers catch on loose threads when he splays them wide, touch firm, possessive—as if he has the right to hold you like you're his.

But his skin is still wet, and when it catches in the light, you feel a sinking weight in your belly. An echo in the back of your head that says you already are.

His thumb strokes over cotton, and it's almost obscene, really: soft, virginal white against marled, cherry red and scarred peach; from his knuckles to the hem of his leather jacket, he's covered in a dense swath of hair. Veins bulge when he flexes, thick lines running down the back of his hand like little rivers of blue beneath raw peach flesh. He's just so—

Different.

Masculine. Big. Dangerous, you think again, and hear that muffled echo in the back of your head that said run, stay away.

(except now it sounds like stupid girl, you're much too late—)

Trapped like a fawn under his paw. One on your thigh, the other on your throat. The phantom burn, the hollow echo, of his fingers tearing through the too-tight space inside of you, making room for the heavy, fat length under you.

Soon, it seems to say, still as angry as it was when he feasted on your sweet taste.

His hand leaves your thigh, reaching up towards the half-drunk glass on the table beneath a puddle of condensation. It, too, is swallowed up under his bearish hand when he curls his fingers around it, tugging it closer, over your shoulder.

You smell whiskey as he takes the last swig, grunting at the burn, the sting. When he's finished, he leans forward, warm chest glueing to your spine, and places the empty glass back in the puddle.

The hollow thud of glass on wood seems to shake loose the cobwebs that spooled around your head. It feels like blinking to life. Waking up from a deep sleep.

The bar is still buzzing with noise, but you can hear it clearly now. A constant, endless press of voices and low hums, words you can't make sense of. You're too far back in the bar for anyone to have seen you—the bulk of his arm is a wall between you and the world—but you wonder just how much your whimpers carried under the static chatter. The wet, messy squelch—

"You're fine, sweetheart." A squeeze and the panic welling in your throat is choked under his palm. Snuffed out. "No one heard a thing."

You're not sure you believe him, but it keeps the embarrassment from eating you alive, and so you let it go with a slow, sleepy nod. A sniffle. Wet, weepy: I want to go home.

"S'right, sweetheart," he soothes, pressing another brittle kiss to your temple, one that feels the sting of a scraped knee. "We'll get you home."

(Chiding. Look at what you've done to yourself. Pitying. Patronising. Poor thing.)

His home isn't the same as the one cradled in the maw of a mountain, where the land is always barren, and your mother weeps when your father isn't around, but you relent when he tugs, pulling you into his arms. Holding you like a small child as he bites down on his cigar, and moves through the blanket of silence in the once rowdy bar. Hands firm, tight like shackles when they close around you.

Your father used to say you could tell a lot about a man by the look of his hands, and when he slips his fingers between the soft brackets of yours, filling the spaces you hadn't realised were empty, you know one thing:

these are not the sort to ever let go.

(bassbround. apodictic.)

and when he slips his ring on your finger and tells you to wear that little white cotton dress for him, you suppose you have no one else to blame but yourself.

#daddy is not said in reference to price even once in this but honestly it should have been #captain john price x reader #john price x reader #price x reader

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requinoesis · 10 months ago

Text

A glimpse of Roberto's old family home, where he was born and lived until he was 8 years old, before it was destroyed by the mysterious 'Great Storm' that devastated the downtown of Reef City.

The house was a large "Sobrado" designed by Fernando, one of Roberto's two dads and who is an environmental engineer. Fernando was inspired by the ancient architecture of the sharkfolk, called 'atoll style', a ring structure with several rooms surrounding a central lagoon. The family who lived in this type of house usually met to consecrate meals at a gazebo in the center. These houses were always built by the sea.

I was inspired to try to make a 3D model to imagine what the complete house would look like hehe

As the house was built in a rural region of the island, Alejandro, Roberto's second dad, established a seaweed plantation around the house to make 'seaweed wine', which was aged submerged under the sea.

Unfortunately, everything was lost in the great storm. Fernando holds a lot of resentment about this, as the house he designed was literally a dream come true. He had wished on a falling star to have the chance to build this house and honored the star with an ornament on the house's tower.

Roberto's family currently lives in a resort called 'Seven Waves', which has been converted into a residential building to house refugees who lost their homes in the great storm.

The style of the house looked like something from Studio Ghibli hehe

---

I thought about preserving the model of the house on Sketchfab if anyone wants to see it!✨

I added some more details that I was missing in the construction hehe

#worldbuilding #sharkfolk #sharktopia #art #illustration

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months ago

Text

Conspiratorialism as a material phenomenon

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I think it behooves us to be a little skeptical of stories about AI driving people to believe wrong things and commit ugly actions. Not that I like the AI slop that is filling up our social media, but when we look at the ways that AI is harming us, slop is pretty low on the list.

The real AI harms come from the actual things that AI companies sell AI to do. There's the AI gun-detector gadgets that the credulous Mayor Eric Adams put in NYC subways, which led to 2,749 invasive searches and turned up zero guns:

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nycs-subway-weapons-detector-pilot-program-ends/

Any time AI is used to predict crime – predictive policing, bail determinations, Child Protective Services red flags – they magnify the biases already present in these systems, and, even worse, they give this bias the veneer of scientific neutrality. This process is called "empiricism-washing," and you know you're experiencing it when you hear some variation on "it's just math, math can't be racist":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/23/cryptocidal-maniacs/#phrenology

When AI is used to replace customer service representatives, it systematically defrauds customers, while providing an "accountability sink" that allows the company to disclaim responsibility for the thefts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

When AI is used to perform high-velocity "decision support" that is supposed to inform a "human in the loop," it quickly overwhelms its human overseer, who takes on the role of "moral crumple zone," pressing the "OK" button as fast as they can. This is bad enough when the sacrificial victim is a human overseeing, say, proctoring software that accuses remote students of cheating on their tests:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

But it's potentially lethal when the AI is a transcription engine that doctors have to use to feed notes to a data-hungry electronic health record system that is optimized to commit health insurance fraud by seeking out pretenses to "upcode" a patient's treatment. Those AIs are prone to inventing things the doctor never said, inserting them into the record that the doctor is supposed to review, but remember, the only reason the AI is there at all is that the doctor is being asked to do so much paperwork that they don't have time to treat their patients:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-health-business-90020cdf5fa16c79ca2e5b6c4c9bbb14

My point is that "worrying about AI" is a zero-sum game. When we train our fire on the stuff that isn't important to the AI stock swindlers' business-plans (like creating AI slop), we should remember that the AI companies could halt all of that activity and not lose a dime in revenue. By contrast, when we focus on AI applications that do the most direct harm – policing, health, security, customer service – we also focus on the AI applications that make the most money and drive the most investment.

AI hasn't attracted hundreds of billions in investment capital because investors love AI slop. All the money pouring into the system – from investors, from customers, from easily gulled big-city mayors – is chasing things that AI is objectively very bad at and those things also cause much more harm than AI slop. If you want to be a good AI critic, you should devote the majority of your focus to these applications. Sure, they're not as visually arresting, but discrediting them is financially arresting, and that's what really matters.

All that said: AI slop is real, there is a lot of it, and just because it doesn't warrant priority over the stuff AI companies actually sell, it still has cultural significance and is worth considering.

AI slop has turned Facebook into an anaerobic lagoon of botshit, just the laziest, grossest engagement bait, much of it the product of rise-and-grind spammers who avidly consume get rich quick "courses" and then churn out a torrent of "shrimp Jesus" and fake chainsaw sculptures:

https://www.404media.co/email/1cdf7620-2e2f-4450-9cd9-e041f4f0c27f/

For poor engagement farmers in the global south chasing the fractional pennies that Facebook shells out for successful clickbait, the actual content of the slop is beside the point. These spammers aren't necessarily tuned into the psyche of the wealthy-world Facebook users who represent Meta's top monetization subjects. They're just trying everything and doubling down on anything that moves the needle, A/B splitting their way into weird, hyper-optimized, grotesque crap:

https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-being-overrun-with-stolen-ai-generated-images-that-people-think-are-real/

In other words, Facebook's AI spammers are laying out a banquet of arbitrary possibilities, like the letters on a Ouija board, and the Facebook users' clicks and engagement are a collective ideomotor response, moving the algorithm's planchette to the options that tug hardest at our collective delights (or, more often, disgusts).

So, rather than thinking of AI spammers as creating the ideological and aesthetic trends that drive millions of confused Facebook users into condemning, praising, and arguing about surreal botshit, it's more true to say that spammers are discovering these trends within their subjects' collective yearnings and terrors, and then refining them by exploring endlessly ramified variations in search of unsuspected niches.

(If you know anything about AI, this may remind you of something: a Generative Adversarial Network, in which one bot creates variations on a theme, and another bot ranks how closely the variations approach some ideal. In this case, the spammers are the generators and the Facebook users they evince reactions from are the discriminators)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network

I got to thinking about this today while reading User Mag, Taylor Lorenz's superb newsletter, and her reporting on a new AI slop trend, "My neighbor’s ridiculous reason for egging my car":

https://www.usermag.co/p/my-neighbors-ridiculous-reason-for

The "egging my car" slop consists of endless variations on a story in which the poster (generally a figure of sympathy, canonically a single mother of newborn twins) complains that her awful neighbor threw dozens of eggs at her car to punish her for parking in a way that blocked his elaborate Hallowe'en display. The text is accompanied by an AI-generated image showing a modest family car that has been absolutely plastered with broken eggs, dozens upon dozens of them.

According to Lorenz, variations on this slop are topping very large Facebook discussion forums totalling millions of users, like "Movie Character…,USA Story, Volleyball Women, Top Trends, Love Style, and God Bless." These posts link to SEO sites laden with programmatic advertising.

The funnel goes:

i. Create outrage and hence broad reach;

ii, A small percentage of those who see the post will click through to the SEO site;

iii. A small fraction of those users will click a low-quality ad;

iv. The ad will pay homeopathic sub-pennies to the spammer.

The revenue per user on this kind of scam is next to nothing, so it only works if it can get very broad reach, which is why the spam is so designed for engagement maximization. The more discussion a post generates, the more users Facebook recommends it to.

These are very effective engagement bait. Almost all AI slop gets some free engagement in the form of arguments between users who don't know they're commenting an AI scam and people hectoring them for falling for the scam. This is like the free square in the middle of a bingo card.

Beyond that, there's multivalent outrage: some users are furious about food wastage; others about the poor, victimized "mother" (some users are furious about both). Not only do users get to voice their fury at both of these imaginary sins, they can also argue with one another about whether, say, food wastage even matters when compared to the petty-minded aggression of the "perpetrator." These discussions also offer lots of opportunity for violent fantasies about the bad guy getting a comeuppance, offers to travel to the imaginary AI-generated suburb to dole out a beating, etc. All in all, the spammers behind this tedious fiction have really figured out how to rope in all kinds of users' attention.

Of course, the spammers don't get much from this. There isn't such a thing as an "attention economy." You can't use attention as a unit of account, a medium of exchange or a store of value. Attention – like everything else that you can't build an economy upon, such as cryptocurrency – must be converted to money before it has economic significance. Hence that tooth-achingly trite high-tech neologism, "monetization."

The monetization of attention is very poor, but AI is heavily subsidized or even free (for now), so the largest venture capital and private equity funds in the world are spending billions in public pension money and rich peoples' savings into CO2 plumes, GPUs, and botshit so that a bunch of hustle-culture weirdos in the Pacific Rim can make a few dollars by tricking people into clicking through engagement bait slop – twice.

The slop isn't the point of this, but the slop does have the useful function of making the collective ideomotor response visible and thus providing a peek into our hopes and fears. What does the "egging my car" slop say about the things that we're thinking about?

Lorenz cites Jamie Cohen, a media scholar at CUNY Queens, who points out that subtext of this slop is "fear and distrust in people about their neighbors." Cohen predicts that "the next trend, is going to be stranger and more violent.”

This feels right to me. The corollary of mistrusting your neighbors, of course, is trusting only yourself and your family. Or, as Margaret Thatcher liked to say, "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families."

We are living in the tail end of a 40 year experiment in structuring our world as though "there is no such thing as society." We've gutted our welfare net, shut down or privatized public services, all but abolished solidaristic institutions like unions.

This isn't mere aesthetics: an atomized society is far more hospitable to extreme wealth inequality than one in which we are all in it together. When your power comes from being a "wise consumer" who "votes with your wallet," then all you can do about the climate emergency is buy a different kind of car – you can't build the public transit system that will make cars obsolete.

When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about animal cruelty and habitat loss is eat less meat. When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about high drug prices is "shop around for a bargain." When you vote with your wallet, all you can do when your bank forecloses on your home is "choose your next lender more carefully."

Most importantly, when you vote with your wallet, you cast a ballot in an election that the people with the thickest wallets always win. No wonder those people have spent so long teaching us that we can't trust our neighbors, that there is no such thing as society, that we can't have nice things. That there is no alternative.

The commercial surveillance industry really wants you to believe that they're good at convincing people of things, because that's a good way to sell advertising. But claims of mind-control are pretty goddamned improbable – everyone who ever claimed to have managed the trick was lying, from Rasputin to MK-ULTRA:

https://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

Rather than seeing these platforms as convincing people of things, we should understand them as discovering and reinforcing the ideology that people have been driven to by material conditions. Platforms like Facebook show us to one another, let us form groups that can imperfectly fill in for the solidarity we're desperate for after 40 years of "no such thing as society."

The most interesting thing about "egging my car" slop is that it reveals that so many of us are convinced of two contradictory things: first, that everyone else is a monster who will turn on you for the pettiest of reasons; and second, that we're all the kind of people who would stick up for the victims of those monsters.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/29/hobbesian-slop/#cui-bono

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #taylor lorenz #conspiratorialism #conspiracy fantasy #mind control #a paradise built in hell #solnit #ai slop #ai #disinformation #materialism #doppelganger #naomi klein

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theemporium · 8 months ago

Note

Blues lagoon with Quinn please 🥰

Promt 6 🩵

thank you for requesting!🫶🏽

6. "Don't touch me."

The silence had been deafening.

Quinn had pulled into the parking spot over ten minutes ago, cutting the engine and letting you both just sit in silence, neither one ready to break the silence just yet. Neither of you had shared a word during the whole car ride ride and it had made him prickle, the hairs on the back of his neck rising with the growing tension.

He could only take so much.

“Baby—” He started as he reached over the console to take your hand in his, to soften the suffocating tension in the car but your response was blunt and biting.

“Don’t touch me.”

His hand quickly fell back onto his lap, a lump in the back of his throat that he tried to swallow away but failed to do so. Instead, the two of you were left in the lingering silence again before you eventually spoke.

“I think we should take a break,” you eventually said, your voice mostly devoid of any emotion as you stared blankly ahead.

Quinn’s head snapped around. “What? You want to break up?”

Your jaw twitched. “I think it’s for the best.”

“Baby,” he said in a helpless voice, trying to bite back the shake in his words. “Let’s talk about this—”

“Now you want to talk?” You snapped back, finally turning to look at him. Letting him finally see the hurt and frustration written across your face that you had been holding back all night.

The joke of the matter was that Quinn had practically begged you to come tonight. It was a simple hangout with the team and their families, casual and laid back at one of the bigger houses. He said he wanted to introduce you to his team, said he wanted to start meeting the important people in each other’s lives.

And yet, he barely gave you a second glance all night. You sat there watching all the other girlfriends and wives snuggled into the sides of their partners, laughing and smiling and joking around. You watched them reach for each other, whisper to each other. You watched them all look so happy and relaxed.

Meanwhile, Quinn didn’t even hold your hand. He didn’t wrap his arm around the back of your chair. He didn’t even talk to you, most of the conversations you had through the night coming from a few of his teammates who took pity on how you awkwardly sat there amongst a large group of people who already knew each other well.

If you hadn’t wanted to cause a scene, you would have saved yourself the hours of humiliation and let thirty minutes in. But you kept your mouth shut and didn’t complain until you left, until Quinn drove you home and you had finally had enough.

“Look,” you started, trying to swallow back the urge to yell. “You’re the captain. You’re busy. I get that. I understand. But I don’t think you do.”

Quinn instantly felt defensive. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not ready for us or a relationship, Quinn,” you said, feeling like you were explaining yourself to a toddler. “I don’t know what the fuck is holding you back but I don’t have time to work that out for you. And I have too much self respect for myself to go through something like tonight again.”

“Babe,” Quinn choked out, his voice heavy and shaky but you were already reaching for the door handle.

“Call me when you’ve figured out what the fuck you want, Quinn.”

#cece's cocktail celebration #quinn hughes #nhl #vancouver canucks #quinn hughes x reader #quinn hughes x you #quinn hughes x y/n #quinn hughes fic #quinn hughes one shot #nhl x reader #nhl x you #nhl x y/n #nhl fic #nhl one shot

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starlightz4mj · 2 months ago

Text

Something Is Not Right With Me

Pairing: Michael Jackson x fem!reader

Category & Warnings: horror, mentions of blood, smut (mild), masterbation (m! receiving)

Era: Thriller

Word count: 4,522

Setting: Indiana. Autumn of 1957

Note: This oneshot is a continuation of the film at the beginning of Thriller. Both reader and Michael are 18. Re-edited to tweak some things and to correct the em-dashes.

Something is not right with me!

How was I supposed to know?

. . .

Something is not right with me!

Tryin’ not to let it show!

The white Chevrolet halts to a stop as the engine turns off, surrounding the young couple with the mysterious sounds of the night. A frigid breeze sweeps through the heavy layer of oak trees laying on each side of the winding road. The fissle of it dances in your ears, brushing against the skin of your sleeveless arms and sending a chill up your body.

The constant chirp of crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl, symphonies that otherwise would be relaxing, were the only sounds that could be heard in the still, quiet of the woods—a daunting reminder of being stuck in the middle of nowhere. Though slightly anxious at the gloomy atmosphere, your worry eases by the reminder of the handsome and caring boy you have by your side.

Since you transferred schools last spring during your junior year, you had been crushing hard on Michael, but never had the courage to make any advances. Nearly every girl in school swooned over him—the captain of the football team—his popularity and good looks were irresistible. Between you both in some of the few classes you shared, there was the occasional, friendly conversation over assignments or the fleeting exchange of a greeting in the hallway.

You reminisce over the scent of oranges, cinnamon and cedar always swirling around him, intoxicatingly sweet yet manly. And though your discussions flowed nicely, it was not enough to convince you of the possibility of him ever having any feelings for you. And with that belief, you remained merely another admirer amongst the rest on campus. What you didn’t know was that Michael had been interested in you as well. That is, until the day he approached you at your locker.

“Hey, I wanted to let you know that I really like talkin’ to ya, and I’ve thought you were beautiful since the first day I saw you sittin’ in Mrs. Kelly’s class. I was wonderin’ if maybe you and I could go out sometime? How’s this Friday?” His accent drawls out smoothly from his supple lips, kind eyes staring intently into yours. He stood there, nearly towering over you, red varsity jacket fitted attractively over his broad shoulders and hands tucked casually into his jean pockets as he waited for your response. Despite his collected demeanor, he was a ball of nerves internally, fearing you would reject him.

Stunned at the request, you simply gaped for a minute that dragged on in awkward silence, entirely surprised and flattered that he approached you for a date. And how could you resist that? Finally collecting yourself, you giddily accepted the arrangement, anticipating how you would spend the evening with him. It had been nearly six months since that fateful day, and you and Michael have been going strong ever since.

Tonight, you both had agreed to go to the showing of Creature From The Black Lagoon at a drive-in theater the next town over, but he had been warning for the past 10 minutes that the tank would likely be empty before you could make it there. Seeing as the car’s not moving anymore, it seems it was no mere jest.

“Honestly, we’re out of gas!” Micahel exclaims with a charming chuckle as he takes in the inquisitive look on your face.

“So, what are we gonna do now?” The honeyed lilt in your voice gave clear indication to Michael of what you were hinting at. Though the dense and lofty woods of Lake county were somewhat unsettling this time of evening, there was still a peaceful solitude it offered that could be used to both of your advantage. You and Michael had strictly been keeping things at first base, scandalous makeout sessions behind school bleachers and in the back of his

car, but never anything past the waist.

An arched brow curled up in amusement with a slight smirk resting on his lips, you were under the impression that you both were on the same page about what would take place next… Surprisingly, and much to your disappointment, you instead find the two of you traveling on foot, trying to locate the gas station about 2 miles away from where Michael had left his car.

As you continued your stride, there was a comfortable silence that rested between you two, leaving Michael deep in questioning thought. He was sure that he filled the tank the day before this outing. Or, maybe it was three days ago? Recently, Michael found himself not being able to remember things with certainty. In fact, he’s been experiencing an array of bizarre occurrences for a while now.

It all seemed to start a few weeks ago on that fishing trip he took with his grandfather to Fox Lake. A rare and special occasion, they traveled for miles to the only one in all the state of Indiana that was welcome to black folks for vacationing. Staying out on the water for hours, they took in the vibrant hues of the autumn leaves resting gently against the fading horizon, sharing stories and memories to make themselves merry.

Night had nearly fallen by the time they headed back to shore with their catch of the day when a sudden and violent shaking amongst the bushes alerted them to caution. In an instant, Michael yelped at the sharp claws of a bobcat etching into his hand as it hopped out from hiding and swiftly disappeared back into the thicket just as rapidly as it emerged, but not before he could make out the bright, neon gleam of its yellow tinted iris. The bucket of fish tumbles from the clutch of his fingers.

“Michael! You okay, boy? Lemme look at it.”

Grandpa Sam rushes over to his side, cradling his bloodied hand to inspect it.

“Yeah, I’m fine ‘pa. It got me good, though.” With a wince and a slight hiss from the sting, Michael wraps a cloth tightly around the deep gash to stop the bleeding. A bumpy ride back home in the old pickup truck they came in and his mother worriedly fussing over the wound as she tended to it, Michael soon finds himself easily diving into the comfort of his bed and quickly taken by sleep. Though, it remains anything but a good rest.

First came the nightmare. Astral visions painted with crimson red, haunted by ghastly screams and wild, hideous growls. A demon or some beastly creature with an unruly coat and glowing orbs, bounding through the midwestern woodlands, in a pursuit for carnage. And the moon, full and bright, beaming in an inky and starless sky. Its glow illuminates from above, pouring down over Michael. In the waking world, this feeling would gently bathe over the skin, as faint as a phantom.

But here, it was simmering against Michael’s body, gradually getting hotter and hotter until an unyielding, searing burn gnawed at his flesh. A scorch abruptly set off inside him, as if lava had been directly injected into his veins before he found himself startled awake by his own anguished shout, body and sheets alike drenched in sweat, and panting desperately to calm the racing within his ribcage.

“I heard you screaming. Is everything alright?” His mother inquires with urgency as she barges through the door. Now more collected after a few deep breaths, Michael straightens up, directing his attention to her.

“I just had a nightmare is all. Don’t worry. I’m alright.” Relieved to hear that nothing serious happened, she lightly instructs him to get ready for school as she finishes making breakfast before exiting the room. As he goes to stand up, the gauze that was secured around the scratches slips from his hand and to his astonishment, he's staring at a surface unblemished.

Wide eyed and in disbelief, he flips his hand from front to back, flexing the joints experimentally, as if that would make the mark or its signifying twinge of soreness reappear. Alas, it did not and with it, he began to feel the fraying of his sanity. Ever since that night, his sleep has been disturbed by nightmares. Precisely, the same exact one over and over again.

Then came the hunger. Now, Michael has always been on the smaller side, possessing a lithe frame that most wouldn’t expect to be suitable for football, but strangely, he was one of the best players at Shortridge High. A standard 3 meals a day, prepared by the loving and kind hands of his mother, with regular exercise and training were usually enough to keep him in tip top shape for his games.

But lately, those meals have done little to satisfy his growing appetite. His days have been filled with ravenous engorge. Popcorn bags, mini orange juice cartons and plenty of burger wrappers from Lou’s Diner up the road, all piled high in the corner of his room. And when it came dinner time, whatever protein that’s been made goes on his plate in surplus, priorly requesting of his mother to make extra.

“Michael sweetie, slow down! You don’t want to give yourself a stomach ache.” Kathrine gawked in shock and bewilderment at her son devouring the slab of steak as if he were some starved animal indulging in its first meal in months. Momentarily, he’s snapped out of his frenzied feast, awkwardly gazing up at her.

“I’m sorry, Mother. You know how much I love your cooking,” an embarrassed smile of grease-stained lips and meat-stuck teeth accompanied by a subtle moment of silence, and he’s back to eating the second steak on his plate with a calmer restraint.

As a teenage boy, of course your hormones are all over the place. Michael, understanding this, made an extra effort to keep his emotions in check and save that energy for the field where he could release it in a productive way. Sex had been something that Michael tuned out relatively well, simply because he hadn’t actually romantically pursued anyone. That is, until he started going out with you.

Adamant about being a gentleman, he made it clear that he only wanted to fully engage with you when the time was right, and so far he’s miraculously managed to abstain. But ever since that incident at the lake, he’s found himself in constant battle with these carnal desires.

Besides the nightmares, his sleep often was comprised of the vivid and lewd images of you and him. Bodies joined together, gyrating and slick with passion, your wanton cries and desperate calls of his name echoed alluringly within his mind. Consuming and greedy caresses to intimate, fleshy parts flashed enticingly behind his eyelids like a view-master reel, and he’d awaken to briefs damp with his emission, sensitive and still not satiated, craving for the real thing.

Behind the locked door of the bathroom, the recollection of your titillating noises fueled the rapid pace of his fist against himself while his other pressed firmly to his mouth, muffling the pleasured groans that spilled from his lips. Though he made an earnest effort to keep these lustful urges at bay, it was starting to become more tempting to give in.

And then there was his anger. Uncommon and newly emerged, he’d been having an increasingly difficult time grappling with it.

“Mike, chill out man! The guy didn’t mean it!” Max and Chris, Michael’s teammates and friends since grade school, attempt to dislodge his firm grip from the collar of the unnamed kid who’s clearly shaken from the ferocious glare Michael holds. A forceful bump into Michael, being too deeply immersed in the story another classmate was recounting, landed him in this current predicament.

As he gasps from the air being knocked from his lungs after being slammed against the lockers, the handle digging painfully into his spine, and gazing back into the chilling, animalistic glare of his assaulter, one that clearly screamed of intense rage and intent to murder, he wishes he would’ve been paying attention before. After what felt like an eternity, Michael breaks his look away for a brief glance in the direction of his friends, reluctantly releasing hold of his polo shirt.

“Watch where the fuck you’re going next time,” a gruff warning is cast in the quaking boy’s direction as Michael storms out of the locker room. And though his thoughts were veiled with an underlying puzzlement as to why he reacted so explosively, he was still seething too much to even fully acknowledge it.

“What the hell’s the matter with him?”

All three boys stand and stare dumbfounded as the blue door slams behind Michael with a resounding thud. As he paces across the field, his rage riddled mind settles deep in ponderment, unable to shake the feeling that something terrible was happening to him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” gently grabbing hold of his arm and offering your sincere apology, Michael focuses his line of sight on you before stopping and fully turning towards your direction. His voice cuts through the brief pause he takes.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What?” You reply softly, taking in his quiet determination.

“You know I like you, don’t you?”

“Yes.” A smile and endearing eyes focused on him, you hold on to every word with adoration.

“And I hope you like me, the way I like you.”

“Yes.”

“I was wonderin’ if… you would be my girl?” During these months of courting as you both grew closer and closer, Michael's feelings had grown much fonder for you. He decided it was the right moment to take the next step in this relationship.

“Oh, Michael…” you two share a warm and tight embrace, pulling apart for Michael to slip a silver promise ring onto your finger.

“It’s beautiful!” Taking in the intricate, fine details of petaled vines spiraling toward the center to a rose with a sapphire gem resting delicately in the middle of it, you feel elated that your connection had finally developed into something deeper.

“Now, it’s official.” Michael chimes with a satisfied grin and voice filled with pride. Though in an instant, his expression turns grim.

“I have somethin’ I wanna tell ya.”

“Yes, Michael?” Staring quizzically, confused at the sudden shift of mood, you wait for him to continue.

“I’m not like other guys…” Michael's voice tinges with foreboding, contemplating if he should come clean about the strange happenings he’s been plagued with since the lake, or if he should just drop it and pretend that they don’t exist. Perhaps, you not knowing would be best for both of you. Somehow, they might disappear on their own, leaving their revelation to you futile in the end, or maybe even scaring you off, ruining what you both have.

“Of course not! That’s why I love you,” your fervent declaration pulls at his heart, anchoring the resolution he has to share these secrets with you. Still, he finds himself troubled on how to phrase it.

“No, I mean I’m different.”

“What are you talking about?” Uttering in perplexity, you begin to worry about what could possibly be the cause of the cryptic nature of Michael’s words. But before he can continue, a yelp filled with agony cracks abruptly in the space between you. Michael crouches down to the ground, doubling over as the same inferno that’s been haunting his dreams starts to set him ablaze from within.

And as he feels a terrifying shift, as if being ripped away from himself and replaced with something untamed and vicious, he is certain that the events over these past weeks are reaching a cataclysmic peak. Whatever this is, he senses if you stay near him any longer, it will have dire consequences.

“Are you alright?!” You go to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, but before you even take the first step, Michael’s head whips up, startling you with the horrifying sight of citrine eyes and razor-sharp teeth.

“GO AWAY!”

Frozen in fear, your feet plant firmly to the ground as the petrifying scene unfolds in front of you. Blood curdling screams reach your ears, soon recognized to be your own, tearing out of your throat as you watch Michael transform into something morbid and monstrous. The delicate structure of his face morphs horridly, distorting into a grotesque visage of bulging contours and wiry whiskers. His once smooth skin is replaced by coarse, silver fur and the unmistakable snap of contorting bones rings through the air as his features expand and bloodied claws push through the tips of his fingers.

His protruding maw hangs open threateningly, lined with jagged fangs and emitting unearthly snarls that penetrate the night like a raging hellhound. Though on the contrary, his resemblance is akin to a wild cat as opposed to that of a canine. Finally regaining your senses, your legs break into a sprint towards the forest, hoping to escape the beast that was once your boyfriend in the shadowy vastness of it.

Soles pounding against the leaf-layered ground, the branches you push through tear at the purple skirt of your dress and scratch you in various places, but spiked on adrenaline and fear, you hardly notice. The full moon, backdropped by rolling, wispy clouds, is the only light offered in the ever increasing darkness of the woods as you descend deeper and deeper, getting lost in them. As its rays cast over the trees, creating silhouettes against the forest floor that waver in peculiar and unsettling ways, your pulse hammers in your ears as you find yourself failing to grasp what's real and what’s not.

Your desperate flight carries on as a ghostly howl sounds off not far behind you, spurring you to move faster to seek coverage. Once you feel you’ve reached a safe distance, you quickly take hiding behind the trunk of a towering oak, using this as an opportunity to regain your breath.

Fingers gripping and back pressed to the rough bark, it grounds you as you adjust to the sudden calm that envelops your dim surroundings. The hush of the space brings an uneasy feeling of suspense as you notice the muffled stomps of the creature have vanished entirely.

“Ah!” You shriek as the horrendous brute leaps out from above, pouncing and knocking you to the bed of withered leaves beneath. Hovering and caging you in, it lowers until it's at eye length with you and the huff of its breath fans hotly over your face. And as it lets out a loud bellow, extended claws baring menacingly, your demise seems sealed as imminent.

With clenched eyes and pummeling heart, you brace yourself for the impact of them shredding through your flesh. But a moment passed, yet again, where everything is still. And you wonder, is this truly death? Being so caught up on the uncompromising actuality of it, that you feel nothing at all?

Supposing the universe heard your despairing rumination to make reason of it, you feel the definite press of claws over the left side of your chest, simply resting as if to feel the rhythm there. Cautiously you pry your eyes open, intently taking in the slitted, inhuman orbs piercing through your own.

But oddly, behind them lies no malice. Instead, the tender and musing gaze of your used-to-be lover holds you captive as loud, rumbly chuffs vibrate affectionately against your form. And in this exchange between you, juxtaposing with danger and serenity, you feel as if somewhere far beyond this grisly countenance, he is reaching out to you.

“M-Michael? Are you there? Is it you?” Gingerly, your fingers inch closer and closer until they finally press flush to the cheek of this cat-like beast, silver mane tickling your skin. It reciprocates, overlapping its warm paw over the place your hand rests and letting out a series of soft, chittering purrs. Completely ensnared to each other in this moment, your resistance and distress gradually dissipate until you are only left with a deep yearning to understand this mystifying oddity before you, lost in the moonlit reflection of your eyes.

But, you are given no time as within them, gray clouds roll over, gathering to enshroud the moon, causing the creature to feel an unsteady shift inside of itself. Yowling in affliction, its paw tears away from your hand, claws catching the skin and drawing a scream from you once again with alarm restored. Somehow, you both manage to scurry from each other- you in terror and the nonhuman thing in pain.

And as you dash back into a run in the direction from whence you came, the open gash of your hand leaving a trail of blood in your path, you hear the indistinguishable shout of your boyfriend through the forest that is now almost pitch black as the moon has completely taken cover.

“Wait! Please, come back!” Wondering if your mind is playing tricks on you, you attempt to halt the progression of your steps and turn to see if Michael is really there. You are unable to confirm as you miss sight of the edge of a rock jutting out from the earth, foot seized by it as you tumble to the ground, bumping your head, and becoming consumed by a world of darkness.

Eyelids snapping open, you take in the familiar setting. Your bedroom of soft hues and ruffled accents is lightly aglow with the slivers of morning sky that seeps through the undulating curtains of your window—slightly ajar and inviting the nippy, autumn air into the space. Lifting the pink comforter from yourself and expecting to see the tattered dress from last night, you are surprised to find your form clad in your usual attire of a nylon nightgown. You adjust yourself, sitting up straight to fully take in where you are. How did you get here?

You mull over internally for some explanation. To pinpoint a cause on what you suppose you only could have conjured up in your wildest imagination. Maybe it was stress from the upcoming end-of-semester exams you have, or that off-tasting slice of pie you ate the previous day. Lost in the introspection of your mind, you almost miss the bright ringing of the telephone on your bedside table. With a self-soothing sigh, you extend your hand to the receiver when the dazzle of a silver band graced with a sapphire stone leaves you shell-shocked, ice freezing over your bones.

The ringer thrums one final time before stopping as you fail to answer the call. Feeling as if your mind has stopped functioning while simultaneously being in overdrive, the phone sounds off again. After the third toll, you yank the receiver to your ear, muttering into the transmitter after a beat.

“...Hello?” You're gifted with nothing but the quiet breathing of whoever’s on the other side of the line, and you have a creeping suspicion to who it might be.

“...Michael?” The name drifts out in a low whisper. You then hear a tentative exhale being taken. “Yeah. It’s me.”

An abnormal feeling rests in the pit of your stomach at the sound of his voice, taken aback by the normality of it as your memory flashes back to the possessed and hellish tones that were produced in the woods. His question breaks through the thought. “Do you remember anything from last night?”

“I remember everything.” The statement falls from your lips with clarity and no hesitation.

“...Is it okay if we talk in person?” He requests nervously with an obvious unease in his words.

“I-I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Your chest pangs with apprehension, thoughts varying between the fear you felt last night and your desire to know the unknown. You’re not sure which one outweighs the other yet.

“Baby, please. I’m begging you. Give me a chance to explain. I promise you’ll be safe. I just need you to understand.” He pleads desperately on the other side of the phone, but you're still not sure if you are willing to take that risk.

“How can you promise me that? My hand, Michael. Do you even know what you did?” The incredulity in your voice aches Michael deeply as he rakes through his brain, attempting to spot any glimpses of what took place. But he can only recall the excruciating burn and the pale moonlight; anything else remains hazy.

“I can’t remember everyth-”

“You can’t remember? How is that supposed to reassure me?” You cut his words short with trepidation rushing through your lips.

“I don’t know! I can’t remember! I don’t know what I was. I’m not even sure I know what I am anymore. But whatever happened, you have to know that I am so sorry, and that I would never, ever do anything to intentionally hurt you. I-I need you to hear me out. Please. Baby, it’s me. It’s Michael… Can you just trust me?” The quiver and break of his voice he tries his best to hold in reaches your ears. You feel the strain on your soul as you hear him clearly hurting and confused. Though your skeptical concern still persists, you can’t bear the thought of him dealing with this torment alone.

“...Okay. But I’ll only do it if we go somewhere public.” Your stalled yet willing answer gives Michael a sense of hope and relief. Even though he’s slightly disappointed, he understands your wary disposition. Therefore, he quickly casts the feeling aside, mustering up the best response he can.

“Of course, of course. Whatever makes you feel comfortable. I’m headin’ over right now, so be ready in 15 minutes… I love you.”

“I love you too, Michael.” Albeit a small murmuring, you declare it with absolute devotion, soothing his underlying doubt that you no longer felt the same. The conversation ends by the small clack of the receiver against the switch hook, leaving you to simply settle into the stillness of your room, lost in raking over the events of the night before. Panic faintly remains, but you are mostly filled with curious wonder. As you marinate in the mixed sensations and emotions of that unnatural interaction, you think back to the sentimental moment the two of you shared on the earthy ground.

It somewhat subdues the anxiety and confliction you feel as you are reminded of the gentleness you were handled with. Despite the frightening exterior, you can still feel the lingering warmth of its benign touch and the adoring expression it held towards you. Michael’s struggle between beast and man was unequivocal, but you were certain that your affection for him mirrored the same. And though you were still having trouble wrapping your head around the reality of this situation, you were determined to hold the fortitude needed to navigate through it together.

With a sudden shiver, pulling you away from your inner dwellings, a particularly frigid gust of wind blows through your open window. Rising slowly, you shuffle across the room to pull it shut. Placing both palms on the sash, you seal the gap from letting in anymore of the biting air from outside. But as you look down, you are dismayed to see that the wound on your right hand is nowhere to be found.

Note: Thank you for reading and I hope it was enjoyable :) credits to @carnage-cathedral for the dividers.

mentions: @mjfavgirlie2006 @mjsgirlie04 @moonwalkerdiana

#michael jackson #michaeljackson #king of pop #michael jackson smut #michael jackson fanfic #michael jackson imagine #michael jackson x reader #michael jackson thriller #Thriller Era #starlightz navigation 💫

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fuckyeahfluiddynamics · 7 months ago

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Engineering the City of Venice

In 452, Roman refugees established what became the city of Venice across a series of low-lying marshy islands in a lagoon. With no solid ground available, Venice has needed clever engineering for its infrastructure, as discussed in this Primal Space video. (Video and image credit: Primal Space) Read the full article

#civil engineering #fluid dynamics #history #infrastructure #physics #science

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seat-safety-switch · 1 year ago

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Going for a walk in the woods today, if you're up to join me. Oh? No, nothing special, just figured it was time to get some fresh air. Why don't you come with me? We'll do this great hike down by Deadman's Lagoons, yeah, plural, don't go to the singular, that's on the wrong side of the province. Meet you there, I bet we'll get to see a heron or some shit.

Ah, great, you came. Here, have some trail mix. Yeah, I know it looks a lot like gas station Hawkins Cheezies®, but rest assured that it is homemade and very natural. Organic, even. Most healthy thing you'll eat today. That staining on your fingers? Toxins leaving the body. C'mon, let's go.

Man. Just look at the absolute, sublime beauty of nature. We've barely been ten feet from the parking lot and already we've seen a glorious, heart-stirring example of the infinite pleasures of our fragile earth, this weird-looking frog sitting in a stinky puddle right here, next to the porta-potties. Let's all reflect on that for a bit. Now that we've had this experience, I'm going back to the car.

What do you mean, where's my car? Do you think this was just an elaborate plan to get a ride home after my Viscount puked its guts out on the side of the highway after trying to drive it to the next town without second or third gear working? That's a preposterous accusation, and I look forward to spending a lot of time on the ride home disproving it point by point. Don't worry, I'll drive. Hey, this thing has a lot of room in the back. I bet I could grab a spare engine from Pick N Pull on the way home, won't take even a minute. Why don't you have some more trail mix?

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afrotumble · 30 days ago

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THE SECRET OF VENICE-ITALY

Under Venice, the historic structures rest on thousands of wooden piles, mostly oak and fir, driven into the lagoon bed.

Although it may seem strange to build on logs immersed in water, this engineering method has proven to be extraordinarily effective. The brackish water, devoid of oxygen, prevents the wood from rotting, while its constant contact with water helps to harden it over time, transforming it into a material similar to stone.

This system has allowed the Venetian palaces to maintain their stability for over 2,000 years.

Write-up by Piacentini.

#architecture #italy #venice

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yurimother · 2 years ago

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Lesbian Sci-Fi Bounty Hunters Fight For Their Freedom in GL Space Western Apollonia