#Like I made art for the first time in forever and one of my friends responded to it but no one else did

[oopsallturtles]

Awww, thank you so much @bagels-and-cream-cheese333 and @soaptastesfunny!!

Okay, so one of the things I'm trying to be better about is leaving comments on things because it means so much when it happens to me, so I'm going to treat this like a big collection of ao3 comments towards the users I've found to be supremely amazing in my time exploring tumblr:

@somerandomdudelmao - your cass apocalypse series is half the reason I got a tumblr account in the first place. Your art and story have made me feel just about EVERY emotion, and inspired me to want to work on my own art and stories about this best little turtle family <3

@wickcipher - you have NO idea how excited I get when I see an update to your portaljacked comic!! The art is so cute and the way you write the brothers is spot on.

@grey-viridian - your rottmnt art is brain-tingling perfect, I LOVE IT SO MUCH

@remedyturtles - your rottmnt fics MAKE ME FEEL THINGS. You have an amazing talent for making these characters so real. I don't make fanart, but the little kid with a death wish pushed me over the edge to finally decide I wanted to learn to draw so that I can make a worthy attempt - KEEP WRITING FOREVER PLEASE

@dandylovesturtles - your rottmnt fics are SO GOOD -- AND I HAVEN’T EVEN READ THE BIG BOY i may be invisible fic YET. But I KNOW it’s going to be amazing if your other ones are any indication (not to mention the fanart and snippets I've read). It’s next on my reading list and I don’t know if my heart can take it IM SO EXCITED

@bobtheacorn - you’re the first ao3 author I subbed to because I have read all your rottmnt fics and LOVED THEM. Which says a lot since I normally don’t read anything with pairings in the rottmnt fandom, but I took a chance and, congrats, you’ve won me over with leosagi with your sky that i sleep under series <3

@bagels-and-cream-cheese333 - I absolutely love how involved and encouraging you are in this fandom. You helped make me (and i know SO many others) feel so welcomed! I now also think of you every time I pass by the bagels in the grocery store XD

@tonystarkwasrobbed, @the-city-kitty , @carrots-bear, @asheronangel - you guys were some of the very first people to interact with my posts and soon became names that I recognized and got excited to see! You’re all so fun, kind, and welcoming and helped me feel like I could do more than just lurk silently in the background in this fandom space lol

@trilobitepunch - your art is what I aspire towards. It is SO gorgeous and instantly recognizable as yours, I ADORE it so much

@heretherebeturtles-comic - my first thoughts at seeing this comic art: THERE'S NO WAY THIS IS FAN MADE, IT’S TOO SHOW ACCURATELY PERFECT. The amount of work and care you must have put into this is AMAZING! I will never get over it and I’m looking forward to the next update!

@thursdaysyme - your art. YOUR ART! It’s SO cool. One of the rare few whose style I can identify as yours with just a glance. I love your comic panels and your sense of humor with those brothers is so great lol

@soaptastesfunny - FRIEND!! I’ve been having so much fun chatting and exchanging story ideas with you! I love seeing your art and I’m so excited to see what you’ll be drawing, writing, and creating next!!

@banana-jar-studio - your art is mindblowing. It’s SO GOOD and has such a super fun energy to it, I want to plaster my walls with your art

@intotheelliwoods - i’m so happy the tmnt au competition introduced me to your 2 arms left comic! Your art is so freaking adorable and expressive, i love it so much!!

@novastar-creations - thank you so much for making that rise art challenge! Even if I only managed to complete a few of the prompts, that was the most fun i’d had making art in quite a while! I love seeing your comments as well as your drawings, and I legit still laugh when I think of that one you drew of Leo eating pancakes for pancake day.

@howl-182 - This is very specific, and I don’t know how you do it, but your art made me actively enjoy the human versions of rise turtles. I’m typically just neutral about human redraws, but every time I see yours, it makes me stop and be like THAT’S THEM! You capture their essence perfectly and I am impressed every time.

@resha04 - You commented on my fic and you were SO incredibly kind and thoughtful and just the most epic hype-man that your name is forever burned in my mind (hope that’s not weird haha). I feel like every time I see a post from you, you’re lifting up people’s works with a love of creativity that’s just so lovely and you remind me all the time that my words do matter and that I need to share with people the good things I see in them and their works (hence this post, actually!)

@snowbriar - I love this mission you’re heading on Project Rise Revised!! In sifting through all those lost pieces and stringing things together on that red stringed plot board, I can see the passion and excitement you have for this and i’m so glad that you invited me to be a part of it, even in just a small way! Everyone working on this is super cool and it’s these types of what-if passions that got me into writing in fandoms in the first place.

I know there’s dozens of others whose creative/genius/hilarious posts I’ve seen floating around that I LOVE, and I’d tag you all if I could, but it takes me forever to learn usernames to specific works lol. But I look forward to growing my hoard of likes thanks to you all! Keep writing/drawing/posting! You are amazing!

hey, did you know that the world is a better place because of your creations and art and writing, no matter how niche or how many people see it

[rc-catalog]

It's that time again—our Creator of the Month event is back in full swing!

Our April Creator of the Month is @cursedbycain! 🎉 Please join us in giving a big round of applause to Aditi for her incredible creativity and contributions—this spotlight is so well deserved! 🌟 To help you get to know her better, we’ve put together a short interview where she shares a little bit about herself and her work ✨! Welcome to the COTM hall of fame, Aditi! We’re so excited to celebrate you this month and beyond! 🫶

💬 1) INTRODUCE YOURSELF! Tell us a little bit about who you are—not just your name, but what inspires you, what you love, and how you would describe yourself beyond your creations !!

🎤: I’m Aditi! I’m in my 20’s and I’m Indian Canadian! I am a chronic gym rat and probably the most annoying morning person you will ever meet. I love all things makeup/fashion/skincare and of course, Cain is basically the loml, despite being a blonde. My main inspiration is of course my loves Elle and Agatha (@kazu-naito and @agattthaa respectively). I make a lot of things either for them or because of them and I could probably talk about them forever so I’ll cut myself off here! There isn’t much else to know about me, pretty much all I do is gym, study, write, and clean. My friends like to refer to me as “insane” but i prefer “organized” so if that doesn’t sum it up, I’m not sure what will.

💬 2) WHEN AND HOW DID YOU FIRST DISCOVER ROMANCE CLUB? What drew you in, and what made you stay? Were there particular characters, stories, or moments that left a mark on you?

🎤: So my first interactive romance game was actually the Love Island game, and because of my interest in that subreddit, Reddit suggested the Romance Club sub! So I downloaded the app, started a story, instantly disliked the artstyle, and then forgot about it for a month! Then I tried it again and started with KFS for the Indian culture, fell absolutely HEAD over heels for Ram, and I was hooked! Funnily enough, I started playing during a diamond rush and thought the free diamond choices was some crazy glitch. But finding out that they have these events was so incredible that I couldn’t stop playing.

💬 3) HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN CREATING? Can be both RC related and in general! what first sparked your passion for it? Think back: when did you realize you wanted to create—whether it was writing, art, or something else?

🎤: In general—we’re coming up on probably 6 or 7 years? I have ALWAYS loved reading and when I discovered fanfic and how much I loved reading fics, I started to constantly come up with ideas and send them to people in asks (this has not changed) and eventually I would think—well instead of sending requests for other people to write things…why don’t I just write it myself? And then I did! I’ve been writing on and off since then, for various fandoms and people and I’ve always loved the outlet it gives me! For RC—I am quite new to the fandom in all honestly, I started playing right around the Feb update and I didn’t start making content until late March/beginning of April! I love participating in fandoms and this one is a bit smaller than I am used to, which meant not nearly enough fics to satisfy my insane urges, so I figured I would write some!! So technically I’ve been creating for a month but wow, it feels so much longer.

💬 4) DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST EVER CREATION? Again, can be RC related or in general! What was it, how did it feel to bring it to life, and looking back now, how do you feel about it?

🎤: I have a vague memory of my first fic, but it is so horrible that I’m gonna talk about my first RC creation instead! I started with a CainLane fic (who could’ve guessed) after yapping in Elle’s inbox about them for a month! I sent her an anon about the idea around the end of March, and then I wrote it! It was basically a fic about Lane being trapped in Baal’s domain and her small interactions with Cain! It was a random idea that came to me, and writing it was actually really satisfying! Characterizing Cain was slightly challenging since it was my first time writing him, and I hate writing things that are OOC, but after some satisfying workshopping, it turned out quite nicely! I hadn’t written fanfiction in about a year, and it shows in that fic, but honestly I still like the way it turned out!

💬 5) IS THERE A PIECE OF ADVICE YOU WOULD GIVE TO YOUR YOUNGER CREATIVE SELF? Or readers in general?

🎤: This is gonna sound so cheesy, but have fun!! I used to literally burn myself out trying to stick to scheduled fic postings and crazy challenges, and writing would almost feel like a chore? Don’t let that happen to you. Above all, creating should make YOU happy. Even if something gets no notes, if you’re proud of it and creating it made you feel good, it’s a win. Everytime my friends mention their “flops” (oh yeah I’m calling you out) I wanna shake them because it really does not matter! NEVER let that kind of stuff discourage you. Focus on creating things that fulfill YOU and not others, because as wonderful as external validation feels, internal validation is so much more important.

💬 6) CHOOSE 3-5 OF YOUR FAVOURITE WORKS AND RAMBLE AWAY! We want all the behind-the-scenes thoughts: What do these pieces mean to you? What inspired them? Were there any struggles you faced while creating them? What emotions or memories are tied to them now?

🎤: Giving me permission to yap is so dangerous of you guys, alright lets do this! In no particular order:

Haircut - Cain x Lane — This fic holds a very special place in my heart because domestic fics are my absolute favourite. I also consider this to be my first proper CainLane fic since it’s in third person and more in character. Like many of my fics, it was inspired by something Elle said about how hilariously well groomed they are in HSR. It was such a funny idea, giving an immortal angel a haircut in the middle of a literal apocalypse that I just really wanted to bring it to life! Sometimes I find it hard to characterize Lane in relaxed moments like this, since the poor girl is always so stressed but it fell into place quite well! I also LOVE to incorporate found family moments of the squad into my fic and I pictured the ending of this one a lot. This fic is still so comforting to me and I honestly love it.

Rooftop - Cain x Lane — You know, you might as well call this interview an ode to Elle with the way she’s inspired all of my stuff. Once again, this is all her doing. I was halfway through my treadmill routine when I checked tumblr and saw her message and damn near fell off. No good morning message, just “lol, imagine lane finds cain crying alone and he immediately puts the mask back on when he notices”. There was nothing funny about this, I cannot believe she started this with lol. Anyways, I had already been left wanting by the rooftop scene in the update (seriously, we couldn’t get a kiss or something?), so I figured I would, in fact, write the loml crying because well, everyone needs a good cry. This was my first time writing Cain being vulnerable, and it took some workshopping. He’s such a guarded character, and crying felt almost OOC for him, so I wanted to make it feel right, which I think I managed! This one really does mean a lot to me. I really enjoy writing vulnerable moments like this, especially with Cain. As Agatha likes to say, he’s just a doll Elle likes to poke and I have joined her in said poking.

Eternity - Cain x Lane — Okay this is just embarrassing now uh this is ALSO inspired by Elle. She told me to make him cry again and I said “well, give me a reason” and she did, and I wrote it in less than two days. So this is probably the best fic I’ve ever written. I wanted to extend the scene where Cain visits her in s2 and sleeps on her lap, and just flesh it out. Elle, of course, brought up Lane’s mortality and how Cain would think about that and his feelings about it. Of course, the thought of this made me cry, and then I wrote him crying. I’ve never written a fic this descriptive and like flowery. It made me really nervous, but I loved the way it turned out. I probably edited it over 10 times to get all the metaphors and feelings of pain in there. Cain is a really complex character, which is part of the reason I love writing him, but it also means I am always doubting my characterization of him. With some lovely help from Agatha, I managed to work out his crying in a rather beautiful way, if I do say so myself. I honestly find myself rereading this fic whenever I’m particularly in a sad mood and just want to wallow a bit. The ending always makes me feel better though, and I always come back to it.

Unlocked - Yan x Lane — This is probably one of the fics I reread the most. I may be a dmitryan truther but don’t get me wrong…Dmitry can’t handle all that and I can! I honestly just love Yan, I think he’s such a sweet character and I just really wanted to expand on this small moment we got in the update. In a book like HSR I am always cravingggg these happy moments so this was a very self indulgent fic. The premise of this one was very random tbh, I kinda just let it come to me as I was writing. Normally I have a vague plot when I start a fic but with this one I was just like, well he’ll get in there and figure it out. I wanted there to be some smut but it didn’t feel right in the context of the scene. I was also very nervous writing this one because there are no YanLane fics on here, so I was really going in blind. Normally, I like to read a few fics to see how other people characterize who I’m writing about before I do my take. I was honestly surprised this did well, I didn’t realize YanLane was popular at all. But more importantly, I really like it! It’s a very comforting soft fic for me to reread.

Hate me harder - Cassiel x Audrey (18+) — Okay a wonderful change of pace here, this one was for Agatha not Elle! She tolerates so much CainLane from the both of us that I had to write this for her. She made a post about how Cassiel and Audrey should have slept together in season 1, and I was just very inspired by it? I think that’s my favourite thing about writing, if I want something to happen, I can just write it happening. The scene in the hallway where he tells her, “I’m gonna lock you in a closet” was genuinely so funny to me. They have such good chemistry in that first season, I love a good enemies to lovers moment. I hadn’t written full smut in a long time so I actually had to go back and consult some of my old smut fics and jog my memory a bit! But the banter during the sex was actually really easy to write, I really enjoyed that part of it. I don’t reread this one as often but I do really like it. I hope to write more for them but their dynamic doesn’t come to me as easily as CainLane and YanLane, which is probably because I’ve played HSR almost ten times now. But ABH is definitely a banger for me so I’m excited to see the ending and write some more Audriel.

🌟 Thank you so much for joining us, Aditi, and for sharing your incredible creativity with us! Your work has truly enriched the RC fandom, and we’re so grateful for everything you’ve contributed. Keep creating, inspiring, and making this community even more amazing! And a huge thank you to you, the reader!! You help us keep the catalog going strong. We appreciate you being a part of this amazing journey! 💛

[b-blushes]

i <3 planners/journals/scrapbooks

[dalishthunder]

.

[hoonsluvr]

cherry - p.sh

pairing ; bsfsbrother!sunghoon x f!reader

synopsis ; you never thought that an unexpected obsession formed during your trip to southern italy would teach you one life’s cruelest lessons, never fuck your bestfriend’s brother

genre ; summer au, best friend’s older brother, forbidden romance, smut, a bit of fluff, a bit of angst

word count ; 4.8k

inspired by ; cherry - lana del rey

cw ; p in v, unprotected sex, spit, choking, gagging, oral fem!receiving, mating press, edging mdni

note ; hii, this is my first work so i’m a bit nervous!! lmk what you think of the layout and feedback in general is appreciated! :)

Was it wrong that you felt happy when your parents announced they wanted to take a vacation alone this year?

You sit opposite them at the dining table, your mom explaining herself for the hundredth time over. Clearly she felt guilty about it but you didn't mind. “You know its our anniversary during that time darling and I hope you understand that we love having you with us, of course we do, but 50th anniversaries are rather special and we’re booking a honeymoon resort.”

You feign a look of sadness to act like you’re listening but your mind is already elsewhere. It wasn’t that you didn’t like spending time with your parents, that wasn’t the problem at all, but now that a family vacation was out of the picture, joining Stella’s family in Italy was back in the conversation.

Soojin, or Stella as she liked to be called was your best friend, your ride or die. Years ago, when you moved to a new town, the Park family were your next door neighbours and you and Stella quickly became close, bonding over your hatred for the town and its people. You two had always felt suffocated in its environment, the way everyone knew everyone’s drama, everyone’s problems, everyone’s secrets. You promised each other that one day you would escape and explore the world together for that very reason.

You were over at her house so much that you were basically a part of the family. You had your thumbprint on their security system, the password to the garage door, and even your own designated chair at the dining table. Her mom used to jokingly call you two sisters, but honestly, that didn’t feel far off. You and Stella had grown up together, seen all of each other’s phases too. The cringe phase, the boy-obsessed phase, oh god- the emo phase, and yet your friendship was still going strong. From weekend sleepovers where you giggled and gossiped all night long to crying on each other’s shoulders after not feeling accepted in school, to smoking your first blunt together, you two had been through every whirlwind experience together. After all these years, you still struggled to express just how much admiration you held for her.

And now, it had come. This was the last summer you had left with her. In 3 months you were going to head North to New York City, to pursue a degree in arts while Stella would remain in your hometown. When you broke the news, you expected her to be angry at you because of the promise you made to travel together forever, but she simply smiled and told you she was proud of you and that she always knew you would make it far.

You felt a pit in your stomach thinking about being apart, you had never really imagined life without her, so imagine your relief and excitement when she proposed that you join her family on their vacation to Italy this summer. One last chance to have the time of your life with your best friend while you were both still young? No one could catch you dead saying no.

-

“Mom, please.” You beg, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes from frustration. You sit across from her on the kitchen island, sipping on a mango smoothie as she prepped dinner for tonight. At this point, the conversation had been going on for far too long and both of you were running thin on patience. “I just don’t understand why you won’t let me go.” You huffed, used to getting your way.

Your mother sighs. “Sweetie, I’ve explained this to you. The Parks have done so much for you, your entire life! I just don’t want you to be a burden on them when they’re trying to have a family vacation. They're extremely sweet for offering but it’s a tough situation.”

“Ugh!” You exclaim and your mother shoots you a don’t-be-so-dramatic look. “They offered to have me! And besides, with you and daddy going to Mexico and Stella going to Italy, I’m going to be alone this summer. My last summer before college is going to be spent wasting away. It’ll be years before I see Stella again!” You pout, your eyes sparkling with hope as you see her expression soften, triumphant that you clearly struck a soft spot.

“We’ll see about it darling.” She sighs.

Even with her weary expression, all the tell-tale signs were there. She had been convinced. You stand up, satisfied as you go to text Stella the news.

And that’s how you find yourself going to the South of Italy for three weeks with the Parks: Stella, her mother and father, and her older brother Sunghoon.

Sunghoon had always been a little shy and introverted making him hard to talk to, your four year age gap not doing much to help create a relationship either. Despite that, Sunghoon had always tried being sweet to you. After many attempts of trying to talk to him over the years, you finally managed to break his shell the one time he rescued your prized possession, a teddy bear plush named Ben, from a tree branch. You still remember the warm hug he gave you when you cried over Ben’s stitching being torn and ever since that day, although you wouldn’t call yourself friends, the relationship shifted. It changed from nods of acknowledgement to smiles, from waves of greeting to hugs.

During your last years of middle school, you even developed a small crush on him but you never once told Stella, knowing she would have killed you. Once you turned fourteen, Sunghoon left to go for college and you hadn’t seen him since then. You had no idea what he was like now, his personality, his likes and dislikes, his interests. Honestly, the thought worried you a little. You just decided you would try sticking to Stella on the trip, hoping that things wouldn’t be awkward.

Only if you knew. Only if you knew what was about to happen, you never would’ve chosen to go on that godforsaken trip.

-

The last minute nature of your decision to join the vacation meant that tickets weren’t available on the same flight as the Parks, so you booked one for a flight that arrived in Italy just two days later. You didn’t mind however, you were just excited to spend time with Stella.

And so you arrive in the quaint beach town of Taormina, located on the shorelines of the island of Sicily. The drive from the airport to your location spans over rugged hills overlooking the Loian sea. You maintain small talk with the barely english speaking driver, chatting about what to do in town and what beaches to visit. A gasp leaves your mouth as the taxi comes to a halt outside a stunning Italian villa style Airbnb. You know the Parks aren’t exactly middle class, neither were you, but you weren’t expecting this much grandeur.

Cobblestone bricks line the pathway to the house, leaning up against the ivy covered walls. Heaps of colorful potted flowers are placed at the entrance and a wooden gazebo in the corner catches your eye. Stella is sitting in the gazebo, sipping tea. When she sees you, she jumps up in excitement and rushes over.

“You’re here!” She squeals and twirls you around as you both laugh excitedly. You hear claps of joy from the back as Shin-ah, Stella’s mom steps out of the front door, her husband, Ji-hun in close pursuit. You quickly wish the driver goodbye and thank him before hugging them both fondly.

“Gosh, we only just saw you a month ago and you’ve already become prettier!” Shin-ah exclaims, making you blush and immediately resort to your usual ‘humble’ deflections that you recited out like a poem whenever she complimented you.

You lean to the side, getting up onto your tip-toes to get a glimpse of the dark haired boy who just stepped out of the door. Sunghoon. His short black hair was now grown out into a mullet and he no longer held the smiley expression that his face once always used to carry. You glance at his arms, his thin tank top showing off his muscles, a striking difference to his previously scrawny build. He looks so different. He’s grown now and more confident, no longer the sweet, shy boy you used to crush on. Theres no doubt, Sunghoon Park has matured. He’s a man now. A fucking gorgeous man, that too.

Sunghoon murmurs a half-hearted greeting towards you, reminiscent of the way he used to speak to you before you two became comfortable. You’re not surprised-it had been years since you’d seen him. Traces of your previous dynamics were long gone by now. You return the soft greeting as Shin-ah ushers you into the house, Stella following behind, wheeling your luggage in.

“You must be hungry, come, we’ve already set the table.” And sure enough, the intricately carved wooden dining table was all set up with dishes, cutlery and a large pizza in the centre. Dinner with the Parks is comfortable as you go back and forth with them, discussing the trip’s itinerary, recent stories and more.

Shin-ah glances at Sunghoon before turning back to you. “So, you and Sunghoon haven’t seen each other in a while. He’s been asking what you’ve been up to.” It was horribly obvious that Sunghoon couldn’t care less about what you’d been up to. His mouth opens in annoyance at his mother’s words. “What? No I—" But he’s cut off by a sharp nudge from his father who scowls at him. Embarrassment pools inside of you and you laugh awkwardly before Shin-ah nods encouragingly for you to continue.

“Well uh— I’m going to NYU after this summer. I’m going to be studying art history and I’m hoping to get an internship with a local gallery this summer, after the trip of course. But yeah…” You trail off awkwardly as Sunghoon pretends to be interested. An awkward atmosphere settles over the table and you finish in silence.

After dinner, you head up to your room that you’ll be sharing with Stella. You’re sitting on the floor, unpacking your suitcase while she removes her makeup.

“Hey,” she turns to you, “I’m sorry about what happened with Hoon earlier. I don’t know why he’s acting like that.”

You wave it off. “No, don’t worry about it at all, it’s all good. I’m sure it’ll settle down in a while.”

She nods comfortingly but deep down you feel a little hurt. You knew that it wasn’t going to be the same but you didn’t expect him to be so cold.

-

After a few chaotic days of what felt like never-ending sightseeing and cold shoulders from Sunghoon, you finally collapse onto a picnic blanket out in the back-garden, your white sundress pooling around your knees. You roll over onto your stomach, kicking your legs into the air as you grab your book, the pages soft between your hands as you slowly flip through, trying to find where you left off. Pop. The sound of plastic popping as you open the box of glowing red cherries next to you. Your favorite.

You're a few pages in when a soft voice calls from behind you. “Hey.” You glance behind to see him standing there in a loose white shirt and khaki shorts, holding a book. He laughs softly as you scramble to straighten yourself. “No need for that, you can sit however you want.”

“No, no it's okay,” you shake your head, sitting up straight now, confused at his cheerful demeanour “what do you need?”

“I was wondering if I could join you,” he tilted his head, “you seem to be having fun.”

You squeeze internally. Something about Sunghoon was making you nervous right now but you plaster on a sweet smile nonetheless, “of course.”

You’re hyperaware of his every movement as he approaches and sits down next to you on the blanket. He holds up the book he had and it takes you a second to realise that both of you had gotten the same book to read, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. You smile at him, “that’s funny.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He hums. “How’s Ben doing?”

You laugh, the anxious feeling in your stomach fading a little. There’s no need to be nervous in the first place, it’s just Sunghoon. “He’s doing okay. No more accidents since the last.”

The two of you fall into silence. He coughs. "Listen... I uh— I didn't mean to act that way when you first came."

You nod almost immediately. "You don't have to explain yourself, I get it, it's fine."

"No, I was acting like a jerk for no reason. I mean- you know how I am with people at first and I hadn't seen you in a while, it just took me a while to get used to. That's not an excuse for how I acted though, I'm sorry."

You peer at him. "I get it, I figured that's the reason you were acting distant. It's okay. I'm glad we can be pause normal again." You both look at each other and for a second you feel him glance at your lips but his eyes move away so fast, it's impossible to tell. He smiles softly at you.

-

Your legs are crossed as you lounge lazily on a chair on the balcony, taking in the view of the salty sea, waves lapping against the rocks. Once again, a box of perfectly round Italian cherries lay on the table behind you. You couldn't seem to get enough of them.

“You must really like these.” Sunghoon murmurs from behind you, pointing at the box of the sweet fruit. You smile lazily at him, not surprised by his interruption. Somehow, he had been finding you in all sorts of odd places recently, almost as if he was looking for you from the second you disappeared from view. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Sunghoon thought you were pretty. You realised fairly quickly from the way his eyes flicked up and down whenever he saw you, resting on your tits for just a second more.

“They’re my favorite.” You nod, grabbing one and popping it into your mouth as he watches. Maybe it's the way he’s staring at you hungrily but a newfound confidence takes over you. You reach for another cherry but this time, you make sure to hold eye contact with him, looking up with big bambi eyes as your tongue swirls around the sweet fruit. You bite into it and the red juice dribbles down your chin, your eyes glinting. His finger instinctively reaches down, a millimetre away from your chin before you nod to give him permission.

He swipes at the juice on your chin, before pulling his finger back, licking it slowly. Your throat suddenly feels like it’s constricting. You should not be doing this— holy shit you should not be doing this. You stand abruptly, coughing slightly. He doesn’t react much but a slight smirk plays on his face. Pause. “I should go,” you stutter as you rush into the house, heart hammering in your chest.

You try your best to ignore him for the next few days because you had no idea what possessed you to do that. Your mind constantly replayed the moment. The way he stared at you. The way he touched you. The way he licked his finger. God you were so fucked. Every time you saw Stella, you couldn’t help but feel guilty but then you tried comforting yourself. It wasn’t like you had done anything wrong, nothing actually happened.

You didn’t even notice what you were doing at first, your actions seemingly innocent in your mind. You just wanted to make the most of the summer clothes you owned and the heat in Taormina was intense, right? But your skirts were growing shorter and shorter by the day, your bikinis became skimpier and skimpier. That, accompanied by the way you tucked your hair behind your ear when he came around, batted your eyelashes at him, knowing it made him crazy-you hadn’t even realised but that little incident between the two of you had made you develop a little obsession with Sunghoon Park, just like the one you had all those years ago. And you were desperate for his attention now.

Right from your shiny olive skin that glistened in the Italian sun to your long hair that swayed as you walked, Sunghoon Park knew you were gorgeous, even more so now that you were making it painfully obvious. He knew. He knew you were doing all of this entirely on purpose but that didn’t mask his staring as you lather on sunscreen, resting beside him in the sand in a floral pink bikini.

You know you have him.

"Hey can you help me with this?" You ask softly, holding out the bottle of sunscreen towards him. His jaw ticks but he takes the bottle from your hand.

"Actually," you smile sweetly, "on second thought, I think I'm done, what do you think?"

If looks could kill, you would strike dead at this very moment from the way he was looking at you. “What’s your game?”

You stare at him, not expecting him to say those words so soon. “What do you mean?” You pout, pretending to be oblivious, a little upset that you didn't get to have that much fun with him before he called you out.

He scoffs. “You know exactly what I mean. Don’t play dumb. You like teasing me and then pulling away at the last moment, don’t you?” When you don’t respond, his expression hardens. “You’re trying to win a game you don’t even know how to play.”

Before you get the chance to respond, the two of you are interrupted as Stella runs to you, laughing.

“Hey are you having fun?” Stella smiles down at you.

“I’m having a great time, thanks.”

She nods as she moves to sit down on the sand, between you and Sunghoon.

Theres a moment of silence before you speak. “Hey Stells, thank you for letting me come. I appreciate it a lot. I would’ve had a terrible summer without you and I’m just really glad we get to spend time together before … you know …”

She smiles at you again. A genuine smile. “I’m gonna miss you. A lot. And I know you’re worried but i’m not, because I know we’ll always be friends. We’ve been through everything together and stupid New York isn’t going to change that.” As she pulls you in for a hug, you feel a pang in your heart. You love your friend and the last thing you want is for her older brother to come between you. But you just can’t help yourself.

You glance up at Sunghoon who's watching you two hug with an emotion in his eyes that you can't quite place. He meets your eyes and you shut yours, unable to look at him any longer. You hold onto Stella tighter, suddenly feeling disgusted with yourself. You're sickening. Sickening and selfish.

-

Your phone screen shows 4:36AM and sleep wasn’t coming. You sit up, rubbing your eyes as you glance at Stella snoring beside you. You get out of bed slowly, the wood creaking beneath you. You desperately needed a walk to clear your mind. Stepping into your fuzzy slippers, you leave the room, entering the narrow corridor outside. Sunghoon’s door stands tall in front of your face, which you would have normally ignored, except today, streaks of light peek out of the crack at the bottom. Why is he awake?

You know you shouldn’t. You know you really shouldn’t but you do it anyways. You knock softly. A few moments pass and you think he might not come. Right as you’re about to leave, the door clicks open and he stands there in grey sweats, shirtless. You choke a little but he doesn’t notice, neither does he seem surprised to see you.

He looks you up and down and you realise what you’re wearing—a tiny pink lace-trim nightgown, barely covering anything. He’s smirking now. “Come in.”

“Uh I—“ You start to say as you begin to regret your decision but you’re cut off by his harsh tone, his smirk now faded, replaced with a hardened expression.

“That wasn't a question. Come. In.”

You swallow nervously as you follow him into the room and shut the door behind you. Sunghoon sits on the edge of the bed, motioning for you to stand in front of him. You do as he asks and now you're staring down at his face, your silky hair hanging loosely, brushing against his cheeks. He starts to grab harshly at your waist and you gasp slightly.

"You think this is funny huh? Playing all these games? Do you have any idea what you're doing at all?" When you don't respond he starts again. “What? Cat got your tongue? Are you all nervous now? Don't be, you started this after all."

You breathe out shakily, hands finding his neck. "Please—"

"Please what?" His smirk is back, he likes that he's finally the one in control. "Say you want me."

"God I want you, I do." You whine pathetically. And whatever little power you may have had over him was gone, he had claimed it back. His dark eyes glint sinisterly as he stands, picking you up by the waist and placing you down onto the bed. Your legs are raised, being held up by his hands as he presses kisses on your left ankle. He slowly makes his way down, nuzzling his nose into your inner thighs. His teeth lock onto your panties and you gasp as he drags them off, discarding them on the floor, leaving you exposed.

"Fuck you're beautiful."

He dives in again, his nose pressing against your clit as he laps harshly at your folds. You throw your head back, a jerk reaction to the sudden sensitivity. You cry out and feel him immediately stop what he was doing. You whine softly in annoyance. "Wow baby, it seems like you really want my sister to know I'm fucking you right now." You swallow harshly as his eyes shoot daggers at you. "Keep. Quiet."

He's looking at your pussy now. You wait, burning to see what he would do. And he spits on it. You gasp, biting your lip to stop the moan. He spits right on your pussy, using his fingers to spread his saliva around your messy area. He begins to lick up your folds again, pressing his tongue down on your clit.

You can't handle it. It's pathetic but you already feel a knot building up in your stomach. "Hoon— I'm going to—"

"Not yet," he spits out, coming up.

You moan weakly in protest but he doesn't seem to care. "You don't deserve to cum yet. You've not been a very good girl have you?" You shake your head.

His hands reach for his pants now, pulling them down in one quick move and you could see how painfully hard he is. Your eyes widen as he pulls out his cock. It was big. Too big. Bigger than you'd ever had before and you didn't know if you would be able to handle it. He laughs, looking at your expression. "Don't worry baby, we'll make it fit."

He pushes your legs up all the way and you were practically bent in half in front of him, your knees blurrily shifting in and out of your peripheral vision. He lines his cock up with your entrance and rubs the tip across your wet folds, groaning softly as his eyes shut. Without warning, he pushes it in and you shriek in surprise, causing him to shove his fingers into your throat. You're choking around his fingers now as he thrusts into you, quickening the pace. Tears stream down your face as you gag, you're close again, you can feel it, but so can he. Just as you're about to reach your high, he stops his motion again and you lean back into the bed, panting hard. You're desperate for release now but as you stare up at his fucked out face through your lashes, smirking down at you, you know he's not going to give you that release anytime soon.

So you go four more rounds. Four more rounds of chasing that desperate high that he pulls away from you at the last moment. You're fucked up now, sweating and panting, your hair splayed across your face as you cried and cried, begging him. The sun had risen now and it pooled in through the window, enveloping you in a warm glow, making your tan skin look golden.

"God baby, you look so fucking sexy right now." Sunghoon reaches an arm towards the desk nearby, where a small pile of digital cameras lay. Stella's digital cameras. The one's she had excitedly bought for the trip, wanting to capture every memory. He points the lens of one of them at you and you don't even have enough energy to protest. Click. And just like that, a picture of you in one of your most fucked up moments was captured forever. He tosses the camera aside, turning his attention back to you.

"You up for one more?"

Strings of gibberish come out from your mouth and he chuckles as he pushes into you once again. He thrusts in and out and you're moaning loudly this time but neither of you cared anymore. You're so sensitive at this point that it doesn't take long for that familiar feeling to arise again. This time, Sunghoon lets you have it. You let out a strangled moan as you feel your orgasm wash over you. Pure fucking euphoria. He collapses on top of you after cumming as well. You reach out, your hands tangling in his hair, stroking his face gently.

You realise you haven't kissed yet. You lean down, placing a gentle kiss on his pink lips. He kisses you back immediately but there is no lust behind it. "You're a goddess, you know that?" He speaks, muffled against your arm. You laugh this time, reaching for the camera next to you. Click. Another picture. But this one is much cuter, the two of you staring into the camera, laughing as your arms are wrapped around him. Click. And another. He's kissing you and you just want to stay in this moment forever.

-

The remainder of the vacation is spent stealing glances and kisses with Sunghoon as you two sneak away at random times together. You visited his room every night, sometimes it was sex and sometimes you just wanted to cuddle.

If there was one thing you were sure of by the end of the vacation, it's that you were madly, madly in love with him. And he was in love with you too.

-

1 month later

You step into your room, flopping onto the bed, exhausted from your shift at the gallery. You pull out your phone to texts from both Stella and Sunghoon. Sunghoon's reads 'see you tomorrow :)' while Stella had texted to cancel your bar plans for the night, wanting to hang out at home instead. You almost feel relieved, too tired to even think of going to the bar. Instead, you quickly change your clothes and head over to the house next door. Shin-ah opens the door and she's delighted to see you as ever.

After exchanging some small talk, you head upstairs to Stella's room, briefly glancing at Sunghoon's door.

"Hey Ste—“ You stop. She isn't there.

You look around, confused for a moment before realising she's sitting outside on the balcony.

"Hey, what's up?" You smile at her as you take the seat beside her.

She doesn't respond, staring straight ahead into the pink sky. She's holding an envelope, nothing too special, just a plain white envelope.

"Do you know what this is?" She speaks for the first time, holding the envelope up, still refusing to look at you.

Your eyebrows furrow. "No?"

She breathes out, finally turning to meet your eyes. You recoil slightly when you see the wild anger looking straight at you. She opens the envelope slowly, almost teasingly. "You know..." She trails, "I recently sent in the film from the trip to be developed."

Your stomach drops.

She knows.

The envelope is finally open and she pulls out three photos. The first one of you laid down on the bed, fucked out with his cock still inside you, then you and Sunghoon are hugging naked, then you're kissing.

You're going to throw up.

"Look at me." She speaks softly, gently, but her voice is full of venom.

You look up to meet her eyes but you just can't do it. Your world is spinning.

"I want you to go to New York," her voice drops to a whisper, "and never come back. I never want to see you again. I never want you to see my brother ever again. Do you understand?"

You're nodding now, pleading silently, tears streaming down your face but you know it's not going to do anything.

She takes your nod as a yes. "Good, then we're clear."

[nkogneatho]

SANTA'S CUMMING TO TOWN

—fushiguro toji x fem!reader

#TAPE NO 1 OF 'Tis the Season to be Naughty

—cw: breeding, santa kink (idk bruh i am all high and horny), mention on pregnancy, prone bone, raw sex, spanking, dirty talking, nick names. (art creds: yy6241 on ig)

—a/n: 1.2k words of everything that is wrong with me

Christmas wasn't particularly the most awaited time of the year for Toji. You on the other hand? You made sure that your place looked like the Christmas Spirit threw up garlands, trees and cute lights all over.

"Can you pass me those lights?" you ask Toji who was hanging the pinecones on the tree.

"Tell me why we're doin' this again?"

"Because it's Christmas. It's the season of joy. Oh, by the way," you gently step down from the table that helped you a gain a foot to put on the decorations, "gumi's friends are coming tomorrow so make sure to dress up as a santa."

"What?" He is stunned. It's not that he doesn't like kids but to have all their excited eyes on him would give him quite the stage fright.

"Please Please Toji. I know you don't like this kinda stuff but gumi was so excited the other day to see santa."

"What's in it for me?"

"You want a bribe for dressing up to make your son happy?" Your arms fold against your chest and you look at him with a poker face.

"Of course. That little brat gets spoiled way too much by you. When's my turn?"

"Toji. It's either the santa costume or the shark costume and dancing on baby shark for an hour"

*GASP*

"Hope ya know Santa doesn't like you, sweetheart." He walks away after giving you a nasty look. You know he doesn't mean it. He is cute when he is all pouty.

The party felt like forever. You send Megumi off to Shiu's place with his son and his mom. They were gonna have a sleepover. Megumi was a raging introvert just like his father so him having a best friend was a big deal for you.

"So the dishes are done. The extra party hats are in the cupboard, the floor is clean and y—" You stop your moving feet and look at the view in front of you. "And Santa hasn't left yet."

"Well...I still have one bad girl on my list. Thought I'd take care of that." He steps closer. The heat emitting from his body already reaching to hug your skin.

"But I've been your good girl, haven't I?" your doe eyes flutter at him, your fingers curling his white faux beard.

"Nah sweetheart. You've been so bad. You've barely paid any attention to me all month. Don'tcha think ya should get punished for that?" His grainy voice grazes against your neck. You try so hard to come up with a quick witty answer to turn this into a wholesome conversation but that was down the drain the moment he put that thing on. You were never into the whole santa thing until now. All blame goes to the man underneath the costume.

"P-punished?" You clear you throat. "Like?" You wait for an answer but you don't get one. Well, at least not in words.

Toji picks you up bridal style and walks to the cozy mattress next to the christmas tree and the gifts.

"Gonna give you a full experience, doll."

Everytime you fuck, Toji's always the one to get undressed first. He is too impatient to feel you against him. But tonight, you're the only one getting undressed. Your dress pools on your stomach as calloused hands hike it up.

"Toj—"

"tsk tsk. address me properly, naughty girl."

"Santa! Need you inside me.

"Heh. Not so soon, darling. Gotta punish you first." In a split second, you're turned on your belly, face pushed against the pillow. Toji inhales a sharp breath watching your exposed ass. A quick spank is landed on your them, making your husband hard as your plump skin bounces.

"Look at'cha. Such a slut. getting all wet with just a spank? what you gon' do when santa fills up your hole, doll?"

*spank*

"Ah! Fuck. I am so sorry, Santa. I promise I'll be a good girl f'you" you mewl.

"Promise? ight. Let's test that." You hear him shuffle. His fingers unbuckle the comically large belt and tugging down the pants just enough to expose his throbbing cock. He pumps it a few times before slapping the precum covered tip on your butt cheeks, the slight wet feeling on your skin turning you on even more. Toji grabs a cushion and settles it between the floor and your stomach so your pussy is easily visible. It's shameful. You know you're so wet that it's traveling down your thigh and drenching the cushion.

You feel his cockhead rub against your slick, opening the folds.

"Shit. She's dripping, sweetheart. Don't even need to stretch ya tonight. You ready for Santa's cock?"

He doesn't even give you a chance to answer before he is slowly forcing it in your pussy. Emerald eyes not even blinking for a second out of fear of missing even a single frame of the way you swallow him.

"Fuuuuuck!" you cry out at the stretch.

"Attagirl. Took it all in once. Keep it up and I might take you off my bad list, baby."

He starts off a few gentle strokes to get you used to it all before he puts his arms on your back, pushing you further against the mattress as he starts pounding into you like an animal.

"Fuckfuckfuck fucking god! I love your pussy. You feel so fucking good. Ughhh"

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Santa, pl—please. You're so big."

"I know, baby. But—ugh—you're takin' me sooo well. Fuck! Yeah, baby c'mon. Grind that ass on my cock. Yeaaaah just like that fuck!"

"G-gunna cum, anh anh ffu—ngh," you cry and your tears are soaked by the pillows. In another second, you're coming undone on his cock, screaming his name.

"Good girl. Good. Fucking. Girl." Each word enunciated with a deep plunge in your shivering pussy.

"You've been such a good girl. Santa's gonna give you a gift." Toji picks up his pace again, rolling his hips faster, the faux beard chafing your shoulders as he is putting all his weight on you, all his instincts telling him to breed you.

"Gunna give my sweet doll the greatest gift. You better take it all. 'm gonna make sure your pussy does. goddaaaamn nghh—" A few more deep thrusts and soon he is losing his composure, cumming and painting your insides with his thick leak.

"You better return the gift in nine months doll." You're too fucked in your brain to even register what he said.

The next morning you're not even making eye contact with Toji, too embarrassed to accept you were turned on by something so innocent. Good thing Megumi comes by the door running, helping you avoid the situation for a little longer.

"Aww come here, my boy. Did you have fun at Uncle Shiu's?" He nods. His little arms coming to hug you.

"So what gift ya got brat?" Toji asks the little sea urchin.

"I got a pink tiger with a red color bow. He is the best. I named him Yuuji." You chuckle, wiping the drool from corner of his lips. "And we ate fortune cookies."

"ohh! what did your cookie say?"

"It said Santa will bring a little sister next year." Blood rushes to your cheeks, your face heating up at the little boy's innocent comment, sounding completely sinful after scenes from last night play in your head. You bite the insides of your cheek.

"Mhm. Hope he does, babe." He kisses the top of the boy's head and then your temple. Yeah he is not the Christmas kinda guy. But this might be his new favorite holiday now.

[oceandolores]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 | masterlist!

Dbf! Joel Miller x female reader

"God loves you but not enough to save you,"

summary: In the small town near Austin, Texas, you are trapped in a life of rigid expectations and silent suffering. As the preacher's daughter, you endure the mental and physical abuse of your father while your mother, bound by obedience, offers quiet love. Your longing for a father's warmth finds an unexpected solace in Joel Miller, your father's best friend and neighbor. In Joel's presence, you discover a forbidden sanctuary, where your yearning heart is met with a gentle strength you've never known.

warnings: 18+ only, Minors DNI, AU, No outbreak. (TW) mentions of substance abuse/alcohol use disorder, adult content, religion abuse, violence, blood gore, mentions of death, sexual abuse, sexual content, domestic violences, pedophilia, cannibalism, human trafficking, dad's best friend!Joel, HUGE age gap (i will not specify her exact age, but she's legal and Joel is 49), daddy issues, mentions of toxic family dynamic, Joel is widowed, Ellie is 16, angst, smut A LOT, forbidden relationship, soft and protective Joel, innocent and pure reader. your last name is Gibson. any other details will be explain throughout the story. inspired by the album Preacher's daughter by Ethel Cain and also mix with lana del rey vibes.

𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡

❝ to my love, Joel.

,...found you just to tell you that I made it real far, i never blamed you for loving me the way that you did.

while you were torn apart, i would still wait with you there.

don't think about it too hard, honey. or you'll never sleep a wink at night again.

and don't worry about me and these green eyes,

baby, just know that i love you. and i'll see you when you get here.

i love you forever, Joel... ❞

THE PLAYLIST! (on spotify)👰🏼‍♀️

the preacher's daughter ▪️ dbf! joel miller

MASTERLIST!🐇

Chapter 1: "But I always knew in the end, no one was coming to save me,"

Chapter 2: "Because that's how my daddy raised me,"

Chapter 3: "I watched him show his love through shades of black and blue"

Chapter 4: "He looks like he works with his hands, and smells like Marlboro reds,"

Chapter 5: "Because for the first time since I was a child, I could see a man who wasn't angry,"

Chapter 6: "Let him make a woman out of me,"

Chapter 7: "You wanna fuck me right now?"

Chapter 8: "The fates already fucked me sideways,"

Chapter 9: "Christ, forgive these bones I'm hiding,"

Chapter 10: "and that's why I could never go back home,"

Chapter 11: "I don't care where as long as you're with me,"

Chapter 12: "If it's meant to be, then it will be."

Chapter 13: "Beautiful people, beautiful problems."

Chapter 14: "You put your hands into your head, and then smile cover your hearts."

Chapter 15: "Something's bad is 'bout to happen to me,"

Chapter 16: "Tag, you're it."

Chapter 17: "If he's a serial killer then what's the worst that could happen to a girl who's already hurt?"

Chapter 18: "He's cold-blooded so it takes more time to bleed"

Chapter 19: "Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise,"

Chapter 20: "You poor thing, sweet, mourning lamb. There's nothing you can do."

Chapter 21: "If we die tonight, I'd died yours."

Chapter 22: "I'm always going to be right here, no one's going anywhere"

-THE END-

read it on wattpad!

the preacher's daughter by babyvenoms

ENJOY! and if you guys have any like visuals to this, or art that you made for this I would love to put it here, just let me know! thank you!! 🩵

[byshens]

nasty girl ─── wang yixiang ( f. reader ) -> wc 1,794

ⓘ breast fucking, deep throating, cumming on face, breast worship(?), nipple sucking, petnames ( baby, nasty girl, princess, good girl ), needy nicholas, cum eating, raw sex (dont), creampie, fingering. lmk if i missed any !!

note i just had to write this after posting my hard thought abt it … but oh em gee?! first &team work posted LESS GOO !!! if you wish to be tagged in works, apply here !! 💌 ── back 2 catalogue!

── requests are open! ( pls ignore any typos .. )

“f-fuck, baby—“ nicholas groaned, his fist full of your hair as you took his cock in your mouth, softly gagging around his length.

you dont even remember how you got in this situation. one minute you’re just chilling on the couch and the next nicholas has you on your knees in front of him, forcing you to take all of him into your mouth.

not that you were complaining, though.

the painful grip that your boyfriend had on your hair mixed with your throat being full of his cock, your eyes started to tear up. you glanced up at nicholas and his hips stuttered, his breath catching in his throat.

“oh my god—dont—dont look at me like that,” nicholas moaned, pulling your head back slightly so he could watch how deep his tip hits the back of your throat.

“fuck, im close,” he moaned, his pace quickening. your hands gripped his legs as you watched him chase his high. his hips jerking forward before he stilled, his cock still deep inside your mouth while it filled with his cum.

you choked around him which made him pull out, but before you could even do anything else, he was kissing you. forcing you to keep his cum inside your lips, having him taste himself as he pushed his tongue into your mouth.

“swallow it,” he demanded once he pulled away, his eyes staring back at yours, cold and stern. he loved watching you become his nasty girl.

and you did as you were told, you swallowed his release and took a breath, finally able to breathe again from all that. you watched his eyes light up with admiration, he loved watching how pretty you looked whenever he messed you up like this.

he moved you over to your shared bed and climbed on top of you, his hands instantly cupping your breasts from under your shirt. you never wore a bra when around him, knowing how obsessed he was with your tits. it always gave him free access to them whenever he wanted.

“baby, can i take this off?” he asked, referring to your shirt, which you quickly nodded. your nipples immediately hard as the cold air hit them, but it didnt last long before your boyfriend’s mouth was on them.

“fuck, nicho,” you whined. his tongue swirling around each bud, giving both breasts fair attention from his mouth. you could feel yourself getting wet just from this, nicho’s hand giving your tits a squeeze which caused you to whimper.

“you’re so perfect, so so pretty.” he praised as he kissed along the soft skin of your breast, his tongue flattened and sliding across them, leaving saliva all over.

whenever you and nicholas had sex, there was always a break section between the rough and dirty fucking, and that was nicho worshipping your tits. it wasnt until the 2nd year of you dating when you found out his obsession with your chest.

you always knew he liked your tits, what man wouldnt like a nice set of breasts? especially on the woman he loves? but nicholas.. oh he was a freak, he fantasized about yours. all his friends knew it too, he never shut up about it to them.

but he never wanted to rush you to his freaky desires, especially if you didnt like it. but during sex one time, you gave him the word. you pushed his head towards your boob and his face lit up.

“suck.” was all you had to say to change your sex life with him forever. now he never misses his chance to admire you, your body, praise you like you’re the finest piece of art in the world—and to him—you are, of course.

your thoughts were interrupted by his teeth, softly biting down on your skin. oh nicholas, always needing to leave his marks on your skin.

“please,” you moaned, looking down at him. he looked like he was in heaven, your chest covered in his spit and love bites, his cock fully hard again while you soaked up your inner thighs with need.

nicholas’ head snapped up at your plea, his face red with blush but his eyes filled with hunger. hunger for you. he nodded and smirked, settling into his spot right in front of your face, and you knew immediately.

your hands pushed both your breasts together so they were on either side of his hard, leaking cock. it twitched once it felt your soft skin, his lips releasing a loud whine before he looked into your eyes, begging if he could start.

you nodded and his cock started fucking between your tits, his thrusts sloppy due to the weird angle but he didnt care, you didnt care, no one cared.

he sped up, desperately trying to find that intense pleasure he always got from just this, how your head was leaned forward, mouth open, tongue out, so every time he fucked forward the tip of his cock would slide into your warm mouth.

no matter how many times this occurs within your sex life, it will never not be fucking sexy to you. watching how needy and pathetic nicholas gets just from your boobs always amazes you, and you love every second of it.

“oh fuck, fuck, princess—“ nicholas moaned, his cock twitching and begging to release, but he didnt want to end it so fast. he held in his climax, looking down to watch how dirty you looked in this position.

you leaned onto your elbows, causing a shift in the direction of his thrusts but made it even better, but now his cock slipped deeper into your mouth with every thrust. your tongue hitting his slit, nicholas felt like he was on fire.

“oh, oh, shit—“ he cursed, his hips jerking forward as he came. white strips of cum splattering across your face and onto your tongue, nicholas was breathing heavily when he moved himself off of your body to hover you, leaning down to kiss you deeply.

you moaned into the kiss, your hands moving to the back of his neck to pull him closer, deeper. he could taste himself again, never really enjoying it but nothing mattered to him when his lips were on yours, kissing the soul out of him.

his hand moved down to your panties, he gasped against your mouth as he felt how soaked you were. slowly feeling bad about how he didnt notice your needs sooner, but now its here. he pushes your undies to the side and inserted two of his fingers into your wetness.

your back arched at the sudden touch, your eyes rolling back behind your eyelids as you pushed your hips down onto his fingers. nicholas’ tongue still deep inside your mouth, inhaling your every sound.

your legs spread wider for him, giving him more room to finger fuck you. angling his fingers in all the good places, your thighs shaking slightly. “nicho, please, i need you.” you whined, finally pulling away from the passionate kiss.

nicholas didnt waste anytime after those words slipped through your lips. he removed his fingers from your cunt and ripped your panties off. he positioned himself between your legs, his cock already hard again before he pushed himself inside your heat, earning a loud cry from you.

“oh! my god,” you whimpered, finally embracing his cock with your soaked walls. nicholas groaned as even with how wet you are, you were still a bit tight but that didnt slow him down. he knew you needed to be fucked good and fucked good you will be.

“c’mon, princess, you can take it, hm?” he smirked before his pace quickened. the sounds of your needy cries and squelching of his cock sliding in and out of you, oh he was going mad.

you nodded, a small ‘yeah’ was whimpered out of you as you took him, as he used your cunt for his and your pleasure, needing to fill you up with his seed.

his hands gripped onto your hips tightly to keep you still as he pounded into your pussy, the tip of his cock nearly hitting your cervix, your stomach tightened with all the pleasure.

your skin was on fire, you were breathless but couldnt stop moaning, couldnt stop needing more. you felt like you needed him to live inside your pussy, never leaving. that’s how good nicholas always makes you feel, you never want him to stop.

“mmph—please! fuck!” you cry out, your hands gripping the bedsheets, back off the bed in a long arch. he wasnt slowing down, he wasnt going easier, he was fucking you with all he had. he was desperate, almost as desperate as you were.

“fuck, you feel so fucking good, taking my cock so well,” he praised. he was sweating, the sounds of skin slapping against each other was loud, but neither of you cared. you were always prepared to deal with noise complaints, but your pleasure was way more important right now. to the both of you.

“nicho, i’m close, im close!” you squeaked out as your thighs trembled on either side of his body, his nails digging into your skin. he was close too, his cock overstimulated with how much he had already came before.

“cum for me,” he groaned, snapping his hips roughly into you, slower but harder. you let out a loud broken cry as you came, your body shaking from the overwhelming feeling. nicholas was close behind you, his hips snapping hard and still as he filled up your cunt with his cum.

“good girl, good girl..” he whispered, leaning down to kiss your neck, breathless along with you. he stayed inside your cunt, giving you time to come down from the high, his fingers now soothing your hips. his lips kissing softly all around your skin, whispering soft nothings to you.

“‘m good now, fuck..” you breathed out, a small giggle leaving your lips as nicholas gave you his dumb cheeky smile. and just like that, he was your silly annoying boyfriend again.

“let’s stay like this for a while.” he said in a soft loving tone, all seriousness in his voice but all you could do was scoff. he was—mind you—still deep inside your cunt, and he wanted to stay like that? while his cum was dripping out from the sides?

“baby, thats nasty.” you whined, already feeling the stickiness from it all, but nicholas grumbled and pulled you closer to cuddle, a gasp leaving your mouth as his cock moved in you with it.

“you’re nasty, though.” he fought back, a grin across his lips as he held your hand and he said something you couldnt even deny. in the most sincere tone, he said—“you’re my nasty girl.”

© byshens. all rights reserved. do not copy, steal, plagiarize, or post onto another platforms without my consent.

[iamgonnagetyouback]

I'D MARRY YOU WITH PAPER RINGS.⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ ●ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ J. POTTER

SUMMARY ৎ୭ ever since you were kids, james has always given you paper rings—little promises of forever. but as you both grow up, things start to change. the rings stop, the treehouse burns, and suddenly, james is standing with lily, holding a paper ring meant for someone else… or so you think

WARNINGS ಇ. fluff overload, pining, a sprinkle of angst but resolved quickly, excessive paper rings INSPIRED BY ಇ. (a bit) ➺ paper rings by taylor swift A/N ಇ. childhood best friends to lovers is james potter’s ultimate trope. argue with the wall ‹𝟹

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ᡣ𐭩 words.ᐟ 3,438

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

James Potter was seven years old when he decided that he was going to marry you. He didn’t understand much about marriage—only that it meant you’d be together forever, which sounded like the best thing in the world. After all, you were his best friend, and if forever wasn’t you, then who else could it be for?

The Potters and your family were close friends, and most weekends, you were bundled into the fireplace to floo to their house. James would meet you on the other side, grinning wildly and already tugging your arm to drag you outside. The two of you were inseparable, whether you were building forts in the garden or chasing each other around with toy brooms.

“Sunny, you’re supposed to catch it!” James exclaimed one summer afternoon as he tossed a quaffle your way. His glasses slid down his nose, and he pushed them up impatiently.

“I’m trying!” you yelled back, laughing as the ball sailed past your outstretched arms. You were too busy giggling to notice James running to retrieve it. He came back with dirt on his knees and his hair even messier than usual.

“We’ll practice until you’re as good as me,” he declared, puffing out his chest in mock importance.

You scrunched up your nose, sticking your tongue out at him. “What if I don’t want to be good at Quidditch? What if I want to be the best cake-eater in the world?”

James grinned, his own cheeks turning pink. “Then I’ll be the second-best. We can do it together.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

By the time you were eight, James had discovered the fine art of crafting paper rings. It started when he saw his mum making origami flowers for a party. Naturally, he wasn’t allowed near the good parchment—but his dad handed him some scraps, and the rest was history.

The first paper ring James gave you was lopsided, crumpled at the edges, and had a faint ink smudge from where he’d tried to draw a flower on it. You’d accepted it with wide, delighted eyes, slipping it onto your finger like it was made of gold.

“What’s this for?” you’d asked, holding it up to inspect the crooked folds.

“It’s…” James hesitated, suddenly bashful. “It’s a promise. You’re my best friend, and I’ll always be there for you.”

You grinned so brightly he thought his chest might burst. “I’ll always be there for you too, Jamie!” you chirped, and the name stuck, much to his parents’ amusement.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

At nine, you and James built a treehouse. Or at least, you started to. James had insisted on using magic, and after much begging and wheedling, his mum had charmed a few planks of wood into place.

“It’ll be our secret hideout,” James said as you hammered nails into the rickety ladder.

“For what?” you asked, holding the ladder steady. Your hair was sticking to your forehead, and there was a streak of mud on your cheek, but you couldn’t have been happier.

“For… secret plans,” James decided. “Like how we’ll sneak extra pudding without anyone noticing.”

You beamed. “And maybe we can put all the paper rings here too. Like a treasure chest!”

He thought that was the best idea ever.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

By ten, James had made you more paper rings than either of you could count. Some were decorated with little doodles, others with clumsy attempts at flowers or hearts. You kept them all in a shoebox under your bed, treasuring them like the precious artifacts they were.

One rainy afternoon, you and James sat cross-legged on the rug in his room, watching the droplets streak down the window.

“Sunny,” James said, breaking the comfortable silence. “Do you know what love is?”

You tilted your head, considering. “Not really. I think it’s when someone makes you really happy. Like my mum when she bakes my favorite cookies.”

James nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. I think it’s when someone does things for you. Like… like when you gave me the bigger half of your pie last week.”

You grinned, your toothy smile making his cheeks heat up. “Then I think love is when you gave me your scarf when I was cold.”

He grinned back, lopsided and bright. “Maybe love is when we’re best friends forever.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

When you turned eleven, everything began to change. A letter arrived, delivered by an official-looking owl, and James practically dragged you across the room to celebrate.

“We’re going to Hogwarts together!” he exclaimed, lifting you off the ground in his excitement. “This is going to be the best year ever!”

You squealed, clutching onto him as he spun you around. “Jamie, I’m so excited!”

Later that day, he gave you another paper ring. It was neater this time, folded carefully with gold-trimmed parchment he’d begged off his mum.

“This one’s special,” James said solemnly as you slipped it onto your finger.

“Why?” you asked, tilting your head.

“Because it’s the last one before Hogwarts,” he said. “But I’ll make you loads more when we’re there.”

You beamed, clutching the ring to your chest. “Best friends forever?”

“Forever,” he promised.

And that was the thing about James Potter. Even when he didn’t fully understand what love was, he knew one thing: it was always going to be you.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

At Hogwarts, you quickly became part of the infamous Marauders. James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and you. Whether it was sneaking into the kitchens for late-night snacks or plotting pranks on the Slytherins, the five of you were inseparable.

James had a knack for getting the group into trouble, and you had a knack for talking your way out of it.

“It’s not my fault Snape looks so funny when his robes turn pink,” James argued one day, as you all hid in an empty classroom after a particularly successful prank.

“You used an entire bottle of dye,” Remus pointed out dryly, though he was biting back a smile.

“Totally worth it,” Sirius said, high-fiving James.

Peter chuckled nervously. “Do you think he’ll ever figure out it was us?”

“Who cares?” you said, laughing. “Jamie, you’re brilliant.”

James beamed at your praise, his grin so wide it threatened to split his face.

But while James was fearless in most things, there was one subject that turned him into a bumbling mess: Lily Evans, although you understood the feeling, cause she was gorgeous.

“Merlin’s beard, just look at her,” James sighed dreamily one afternoon as the five of you sat under a tree by the Black Lake. Lily was a few yards away, reading a book and flipping her hair over her shoulder.

“You’re staring again,” you teased, nudging him with your shoulder.

James turned red. “I am not!”

“You absolutely are,” Sirius chimed in, smirking. “If you’re going to pine, at least do it with some dignity, Prongs.”

“I’m not pining!” James protested, though his voice cracked slightly.

Remus raised an eyebrow. “You drew a heart with her initials in your Transfiguration notes yesterday.”

“I did not!” James said, horrified.

Peter nodded enthusiastically. “You did. I saw it too.”

You burst out laughing, leaning into James as he groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Jamie, it’s okay to have a crush. Especially if it's on Evans. I do too but the difference is you’re terrible at hiding it.”

“You lot are the worst,” he muttered, though he couldn’t hide the small smile creeping onto his face.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Despite the relentless teasing, you were always James’ biggest supporter. When he finally worked up the courage to ask Lily out in your fifth year, you were the one who gave him the pep talk beforehand.

“You’re James Potter,” you said firmly, gripping his shoulders. “You’re charming, funny, and completely brilliant. If she doesn’t say yes, it’s her loss.”

James smiled nervously. “You really think so?”

“I know so,” you said confidently.

And even though a small part of you felt a twinge of something you couldn’t quite name, you pushed it aside. Because James was your best friend, and you’d always be there for him—just like he’d always be there for you.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

It happened gradually, so slowly that you didn’t notice at first. The paper rings, once a constant in your life, became fewer and fewer. By sixth year, they stopped altogether. You told yourself it didn’t matter—after all, you and James were still thick as thieves. He was busy with Quidditch, the Marauders, and his relentless pursuit of Lily Evans.

But deep down, you missed them.

Then one day, an owl from your parents arrived during breakfast in the Great Hall. You tore open the envelope eagerly, only to feel your stomach drop as you read the letter.

The treehouse at the Potters burned down.

Your chest ached as you reread the words. The treehouse, your secret hideout, the place where you’d kept all the paper rings James had ever given you—gone. Reduced to ashes.

You left the Great Hall in a daze, clutching the letter as tears blurred your vision. It wasn’t just a treehouse. It was years of memories, laughter, and promises that now felt lost forever. You needed to tell James. He would understand.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

You found him in the courtyard, a broad grin on his face as he spoke animatedly to Lily. She was laughing, her green eyes sparkling in the sunlight, and for a moment, you hesitated.

Then you saw it: a paper ring in his hand. Your heart clenched painfully as he turned it over in his fingers, showing it to Lily with the same excitement he’d once reserved for you.

You felt a lump form in your throat. It was silly, really. You’d known for years that James fancied Lily. You’d encouraged him, teased him, supported him. And yet, seeing him with a paper ring—your paper ring—meant for her…

It felt like losing a part of yourself.

You turned on your heel and walked away before he could see you, the letter crumpled in your hand. As you hurried back to the common room, you tried to push the image from your mind, but it clung stubbornly.

You told yourself it didn’t matter. Maybe Lily had finally agreed to a date. Maybe the ring wasn’t even for her. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

But the ache in your chest told a different story.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

You didn’t sleep much that night. The weight of the treehouse’s destruction—and the memories it held—pressed heavily on your chest. When morning came, you dragged yourself to breakfast, your usual bubbly demeanor dimmed.

James was already there, sitting with Sirius, Remus, and Peter, recounting some Quidditch play. He caught sight of you as you approached, and his grin faltered.

“Morning, sunny,” he greeted, nudging the bench beside him. “You look like you didn’t sleep a wink.”

You plopped down next to him, twisting the edge of your sleeve. “James… the..the treehouse, it burned down.”

His face froze, confusion quickly giving way to shock. “What?” His voice was soft, barely above a whisper.

You handed him the crumpled letter. He read it, his expression shifting to heartbreak. “Our treehouse? The one we built with my mum’s old cushions and all the fairy lights?”

You nodded, your throat tight. “All the paper rings… they were in there, James.”

For a moment, he just stared at the letter. Then, without warning, he pulled you into a tight hug. His arms wrapped around you like they used to when you were kids, and you buried your face in his shoulder, letting the familiar scent of parchment and pine comfort you.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “I didn’t think—I didn’t realize—”

You missed the way his breath hitched, his soft oh of realization. Missed the quick glance he threw across the table to Lily, whose knowing gaze met his. Her lips curled into the faintest smile, as if she understood something neither of you had quite pieced together yet.

But you were too caught up in the hug, too lost in your own heartbreak to notice anything else.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

James Potter was not one to do things halfway. The moment he realized how much those paper rings had meant to you, he made it his mission to bring them back into your life in abundance. It started small—a single paper ring folded neatly and tucked into your Potions book during class.

“James,” you whispered, holding it up with an amused smile. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

“Trouble’s my middle name,” he whispered back, grinning mischievously before turning back to Slughorn’s lecture like he hadn’t just slid a tiny masterpiece of folded parchment into your life.

But James Potter didn’t stop at small. Soon, the paper rings started appearing everywhere. One in your bag during Transfiguration. Another tucked into your scarf at breakfast. A stack of them slid under your pillow one night. He even charmed one to float down from the owlery like a paper snowflake as you walked past.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

The grandest moment came during Transfiguration. James, thinking he was being discreet, crept over to your desk mid-lecture to slip a particularly colorful ring onto your parchment. Just as he leaned down, a shadow loomed over both of you.

“Ahem,” Professor McGonagall’s sharp voice cut through the room like a knife. The class went silent, every head swiveling to witness James Potter caught red-handed.

James straightened, a sheepish grin spreading across his face. “Just delivering a very important piece of classwork, Professor,” he said smoothly, holding up the paper ring as if it were a prized essay.

McGonagall’s lips twitched, though she worked hard to suppress a smile. “Very well, Mr. Potter. But if I catch you again, you’ll be writing lines until your quill runs out of ink.”

“Yes, Professor,” James said solemnly, though his wink to Sirius betrayed him.

As McGonagall turned back to the blackboard, you swore you saw her glance over her shoulder and wink—wink—at you. For a moment, you questioned your sanity.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

By the end of the week, you had more paper rings than you knew what to do with. You didn’t have the heart to throw them away—not after all the effort James had gone to—so you started collecting them in an old chocolate box you found in your dorm.

Every night, you added the day’s rings to the collection, tracing your fingers over the creases and folds as you smiled to yourself. It was ridiculous, really. They were just bits of paper, after all. But each one felt like a tiny promise—a reminder of a boy who made the world brighter simply by being in it.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

It was another morning at the Gryffindor table, and James was unusually quiet. Normally, he’d be drumming his fingers on the table, bantering with Sirius, or laughing at something Peter said. But today, he was poking at his eggs, lost in thought.

Remus noticed first. Of course, he did. “You haven’t mentioned Lily in a while,” he remarked, raising an eyebrow. “What happened? Did she finally hex you into silence?”

Sirius barked a laugh, and Peter snorted into his pumpkin juice. But James just shrugged, looking nonchalant.

“Oh, yeah, about that,” he said casually, as if he weren’t about to drop a bombshell. “Well… that’s not happening.”

Your fork clattered onto your plate. “Really?” you blurted, a little too loudly. You immediately ducked your head, heat rushing to your cheeks.

James smirked, but it wasn’t his usual mischievous one—it was softer, more thoughtful. “Yeah, she kind of pointed out that I might have feelings for someone else.”

The table went silent. Even Sirius, who rarely let anything keep him quiet for long, was staring at James in surprise.

“And?” Remus prompted, leaning forward like he already knew the answer.

“And I realized… she was right,” James admitted, his voice quieter now.

“Oh,” you said softly, trying to ignore the way your heart was racing. “That’s… interesting.”

“Yeah,” James said, turning to look at you with a curious expression. “It is.”

For a moment, his hazel eyes seemed to search yours, like he was trying to figure out if you knew what he meant—if you felt the same.

But before he could say anything else, Sirius, who clearly couldn’t handle the suspense, interrupted with a loud, “So, who’s the lucky person, Prongs? Don’t leave us hanging!”

James flushed, the tips of his ears turning pink as he grabbed a piece of toast and stuffed it into his mouth, muttering something unintelligible.

“Oh, come on,” Sirius teased, elbowing him. “Out with it, mate!”

But James just shook his head, laughing nervously. “Not telling,” he mumbled through a mouthful of toast.

The conversation shifted after that, Sirius dragging Peter into a heated debate about whether or not owls secretly judged their owners, and you found yourself staring at your plate, your thoughts spinning.

You didn’t know what to make of James’ words. Who was he talking about? Was it someone you knew? Was it… you?

You glanced at James out of the corner of your eye. He was laughing now, teasing Peter about his messy handwriting, but there was something different about him—something softer.

You pushed the thought away. It couldn’t be you. Could it?

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ౨ৎㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

The Owlery was quiet, save for the soft hoots of the owls roosting in their perches. You had just tied your letter to your parents onto a barn owl’s leg, stroking its feathers as it took off into the morning light. Beside you, James was doing the same, his handwriting as messy as ever but filled with his usual warmth and charm.

As his owl soared into the sky, you lingered by the ledge, watching the horizon. James leaned beside you, his shoulder brushing against yours.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. The silence was comfortable, the kind that came with years of friendship. But you couldn’t stop thinking about breakfast, about what he’d said, and about the way he’d looked at you.

“So,” you started, your voice soft, “this… someone else you might have feelings for.”

James froze, his hands gripping the stone ledge. “Oh,” he said, his voice an octave higher than usual. “That.”

You turned to face him, your heart thudding in your chest. “Yeah, that.”

James rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding your gaze. “Right. Well…” He hesitated, his usual confidence faltering. “It’s… complicated.”

“Complicated how?” you asked, taking a step closer.

He glanced at you then, his hazel eyes searching yours. “Because, well because it’s you,” he said quietly.

The words hung in the air, delicate and trembling. You stared at him, your mouth slightly open in surprise. “Me?”

“Yeah,” James said, his cheeks flushing pink. “It’s always been you, I think. I just… didn’t realize it until Lily pointed it out. And then when I thought about it—about us—it just made sense, you know? You’ve always been there. You’ve always been you.”

Your heart was pounding so loudly you were sure he could hear it. “James…”

“I know it might be weird,” he said quickly, misinterpreting your silence. “And if you don’t feel the same, that’s okay. I just thought you should know, because I—”

“I feel the same,” you blurted out, cutting him off.

He blinked at you, his mouth hanging open. “You do?”

You nodded, a shy smile spreading across your face. “I do.”

For a moment, James just stared at you, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Then, slowly, his lips curled into the biggest, brightest grin you’d ever seen.

“Brilliant,” he said softly, almost to himself.

You laughed, the sound light and bubbly, and he joined in, his joy infectious. Before you knew it, he was stepping closer, his hand reaching for yours.

“I, uh, don’t have a proper ring,” he said, his voice nervous but warm. “But…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar folded strip of parchment.

Your breath hitched as he gently slipped the paper ring onto your finger, his touch lingering. “There,” he said, his smile soft and a little shy. “Perfect.”

You looked down at the ring, your chest swelling with warmth. It was so James—simple, sweet, and utterly wonderful.

“Perfect,” you echoed, your voice barely above a whisper.

When you looked up, he was already watching you, his hazel eyes filled with something so soft and tender it made your knees weak.

“Does this mean you’re stuck with me?” you teased, your cheeks aching from how hard you were smiling.

“Forever, if you’ll have me,” James said, grinning.

And as the owls cooed above and the sunlight bathed the two of you in gold, you knew you would. Forever and always.

©iamgonnagetyouback౨ৎ please refrain from copying, translating, or reposting any of my work

[ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm]

art inspired by first watch of night by @tackytigerfic

“Rosie!” Harry shouted joyfully from somewhere over their heads, and then they heard a “woah” and the creak of something old and wooden, and looked up just in time to see Harry, holding one of the fencing swords from the training room, balanced on the upper bannister of the mezzanine stairs, his body twisting lithely away from a flashing flurry of something.

hello! this is the first time i’ve done something in my… actual style on here in forever, but what better cause for it than tacky’s new incredible, epic fic. this piece is a gift from @sweet-s0rr0w and @maesterchill!

like the characters of this story, i’m blessed with good friends in every universe i inhabit, especially this one. i was completely swept up by what it must have felt like to be in that library - a heavy, hard-won, sudden happiness, the kind that often appears in tacky’s work. i felt the need to do something that would visually translate the immense detail, whimsy and familiarity of that moment.

the chapter title comes from a wilfred owen poem, and i continued to borrow from him for the piece - the big sigil made by malfoy and rosie, as well as the small ones helping harry and draco duel, are all coded from lines from two of his poems.

from training day:

harry - none else may meet me till I wear my crown

draco - my renown be the clean beauty of speed and pride of style

the big sigil malfoy and rosie are casting comes from owen’s poem the end and it spells out: all death annul, all tears assuage.

i hope you all go and read this incredible story (and tacky's entire back catalog) and i hope you're all happy and safe forever.

[kyri45]

Not me abusing the asks to both share my love for the bioparents AU AND rant about the panels because none of my friends are in the LMK fandom and I'm suffering here so TAKE MY LOVE AND APPRECIATION ABOUT YOUR ART I guess x)

So first of all

I am a SUCKER for that kind of leaning in frames I'm going to print that and plaster it on my wall THEY ARE EVERYTHING /hj

I almost jumped of my chair when this one popped up YOU FED US GOOD its so worth the angst train incoming. Of course the panels before and after were equally as amazing but if I start going about every single panel we're still here in three days AT THE VERY LEAST LOL

Of course this one made me laugh like please their little faces

Using that to point out how much I love ALLLLLLL the silly faces you put in your comics I'm munching on them every single time they're crushy like chips or something just. Nom nom. Yummy.

Poor Nesha (Nesha? Nezha? Neja? I have no idea on how to write his name I already forgor LMAO) needs to be payed more. He tries to save MK and ends up dealing with two lovesick teenagers demons who have no concept of time/place/occasion apparently. Poor him. He gets a pat on the head for his troubles

And of course just the "NOPE I'M KEEPING HIM" mode and honestly we should have seen it coming- Red son was planning to courtnap him and didn't sleep in the past 5 days so he's not having any bullshit YOU'RE NOT TAKING HIS NOODLE BOY AWAY-

Could bet he spent so long thinking about the cournapping in the 5 past days his brain just cannot process that yeah maybe you need to let him down you're just going to drag him in more troubles- Either that or he's just going full protective mode. Both options are good anyways sooooo :)

We stan a protective boyfriend in this house.

---

And finally I'm SOOOOO hyped about whatever is coming next like I know that technically we're supposed to suffer but please I climbed up the angst train so many times now I'm just enjoying it by that point lol. It'll just make the following fluff even more worth it

Also I cannot wait to see MK's plan about the contract I'm so curious I'm dying I love you boys but I really want the plot to progress you can go back to kissing later lol

Finally, thank you for creating this AU. It's stumbling randomly upon it on my tik tok fyp that dragged me into watching Lego Monkie Kid and really THANK YOU FOR THAT. It's such an amazing show I CANNOT BELIEVE I didn't discovered it sooner so really thank for having created this comic because else I could have missed LMK and that would be just saaaad

Fun fact: since I had never interacted with LMK the first time I read your comic, I for some reason thought Macaque was a female (and I probably would have thought the same of Wukong if he wasn't called... well, Wukong because I randomly stumbled upon the myth's Wikipedia page at some point in my life XD). The shock I felt when I heard Macaque for the first time in the show because his voice was soooooo not what I expected x) I'm still laughing at myself to this day

So yeah, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, and I can't wait to see what you're going to pull next :D Wish you allllll the best <3

(I can totally wait, of course, it's just a figure of speech. Take your time, I could wait forever for the next chapter)

ahaha thank you for such a lovely comment!! Glad the scene gived "MINE" vibes as I was planning ahah.

Youu're welcome! It's an honor to serve this fandom. *bows*

[parkerluvsu]

need some virgin! art x touch starved! reader who really fucking needs some action and he just DOESN’T KNOW HOW so it’s a lot of laughter but both of them kiss so desperately…

I'D WANNA BE NEXT TO YOU..

(virgin art donaldson x touch starved! fem reader)

art has been your best friend since forever.. from sharing ice cream cones as kids to sharing homework answers in high school. you didn't want to lose him when he went all the way to stanford for college, so you went with him, stating that you already wanted to go to school there, it was just a coincidence that they had a tennis program for art. it was no secret that you two liked each other, it was obvious since you were young, and once you decided to follow art to college it was clear to him that he wanted to do something about it.

it was a normal sunny day at school, you made your way down the winding paths to the tennis courts like you usually do after class, knowing art is probably there practicing. he greets you with his usual smile and wave, walking over to say hi, spitting out his gum on the way. "hey, you're here earlier than usual" he says, "not that im complaining" you look away to hide the light blush forming on your face. "yeah well my lecture ended early, i thought i'd come surprise you" you smile, admiring the thin sheen of sweat on arts face, the moisture turning his hair curlier than usual. art says that his practice isn't over yet, but he'll come hang out at your dorm after. you nod, leaving and heading to your room to prepare. you know it's not normal to feel this pressure to be perfect for your friend, but you can't help but take a quick shower, slathering your body and hair in sweet smelling soap and spraying some perfume around the room.

you feel your stomach jump when art knocks on your door (you should really just give him a key), walking over and looking back at your room to make sure everything looked good, before opening the door. art immediately notices the sweet smell of you, his eyes fluttering shut as he greets you. "hi.. you smell nice" he says shyly, a big change from his demeanor earlier. you smile, waving him into your room and sitting cross legged on the bed. art sits next to you, on the edge of the bed, which you find strange, usually he gets comfortable right away. "are you okay art? you don't seem like yourself.." tilting your head to the side you try to meet arts eyes, but he doesn't look at you. "you know you can talk to me art, we've been friends since forever, you know?" he nods slowly, taking a deep breath before turning and facing you, sitting cross legged like you are. "okay.. ill tell you, but promise not to laugh at me okay?" you nod, urging him to speak more. "well.. patrick has been making fun of me a lot lately, you know how he is.. when he found out i was a virgin in college he couldn't believe it.. and- and i know we've been friends forever so i was wondering if you could help" he blurts it out so fast you have to take as second to actually understand what he means. "art.. are you sure? i mean wouldn't you want your first time to be with someone you like?" you ask, hoping you'll get the answer you're looking for. "i- it would be, if it was with you" he says, hanging his head down. he knows it's putting you in an awkward situation but it's now or never. you don't know why it happens, but you start to giggle, your heart filling with happiness after art confessed. "listen, art you know i'd do anything for you yeah? i just wanna make sure you actually want this.. with me, i don't want you to regret it" art looks toward you, finally meeting your eyes with his watery blue ones. "i could never regret anything i do with you" he says, leaning closer and pressing his lips to yours, sighing happily when you take control of the kiss, deepening it as you climb into his lap. pulling away and cupping his flushed face with your hands you press your forehead against his. "tell me if you want to stop okay art? ill take care of you i promise" he nods slowly, only looking at your lips and wishing they were on his again. you kiss him, more aggressively than before as you let your fingers wander down his chest, gently tugging at the hem of his shirt, feeling his flushed skin underneath. art gets the message, pulling off his shirt as he lets you do what you want to him, shifting from kissing him to sucking down his neck, leaving blooming purple marks in your wake that are sure to get art in trouble. he welcomes it though, he needs a reminder that you were actually here with him, that he wasn't imagining it. when you make your way back to arts mouth he whines softly, pulling at your shirt, "wanna see more of you.." you laugh softly, leaning back and pulling off your shirt, happy to press your own heated skin against arts. his head is reeling, the first girl he ever liked is kissing him, not just that but she's gonna take his virginity, art almost can't believe it, but feeling of you in his lap pulls him into reality.

after a few minutes you lean up on your elbows, telling art to take his finger out. "did i do something wrong?" he immediately asks, scared that he hurt you. "no no it's okay, i just think that im ready to have you inside of me okay?" he nods quickly and makes his way back up the bed, his hips hanging over yours. you fumble around on your nightstand to find a condom, taking it and handing it to art (who only knows how to put one on due to his embarrassing sex ed classes in high school) and spreading your legs wider to accommodate his frame. art looks quite anxious for someone who's about to lose his virginity with a girl he's liked his whole life, so you take his mind off of it by kissing him softly, not aggressively like before. when he starts to slowly enter you have to close your eyes at the stretch, he's not uncomfortably thick but he's definitely the longest you've taken. opening your eyes you're faced with art in the same situation, fully inside of you but not moving, his eyes scrunched closed. finding his hand white-knuckling the sheets next to your head, you replace the sheets with your own hand, lacing your fingers together. "art are you okay?" he nods, taking a deep breath. "yeah im fine it's just.. you're so warm and tight.. feels like i can't move" he almost whines, slowly dragging his hips out before pressing balls deep inside of you again. "fuck.." art swears he's in heaven when you clench around him, his forehead dropping to touch yours as he starts a steady pace, keeping in mind he could cum pretty much anytime. he can tell he's too nervous to get closer to you, so, making the move first you wrap your arms and legs loosely around him, feeling him actually relax and stop tensing his body. the closeness spurs him on as art sets a faster pace with his hips, now not even pulling out all the way, mostly just humping his hips into you. you weren't expecting him to perform as well as he is, feeling yourself clenching around him as you get closer. "art.. art im close.." you whine out to him and he nods, his eyes still closed as he squeezes your hand. as he gets closer you notice he also gets much louder, whines and moans escaping his lips with no sign of stopping, mostly utterings of "fuck you're so warm" and "please keep squeezing me like that" and though you love hearing him you know your neighbors will complain, so you kiss him yet again, still soft like before, and you can tell that both of you are trying to convey feelings of fondness through it.

you aren't surprised that art cums before you, with a loud moan that you're glad you had the foresight to stifle. it almost sends him into complete overstimulation when you cum, clenching tight around him. after the adrenaline wears off from cumming, art completely rests his body weight on you, his warm body actually weirdly comforting in the moments after sex. you sit in a comfortable silence for a few minutes before art finally pulls out, taking off the condom and throwing it in the trash before laying back down with you. "i really can't thank you enough.. i mean i thought losing my virginity would be awesome but.. that was like next level.." you laugh at arts flattering but funny wording as you flip onto your side, looking up at him. "of course art.. we've been friends forever, there's nothing i wouldn't do for you" arts stomach drops at the mention of friends, immediately thinking the worst. "so.. after this we'll just go back to being friends?" he has the cutest pout on his face when he asks. you almost laugh again, stopping yourself when you see the serious look on his face. "i mean after this i would hope that we could be more than that" you say, sitting up slightly. art let's out a breath he didn't know he was holding when you say that, "thank god.. ive been waiting to ask you to be my girlfriend for like 8 years now.." he smiles genuinely at you, his pretty blue eyes gleaming in the beams from the sun peeking through your window. you lean in, pressing a soft kiss before pulling away, reaching over for his backpack. "what are you doing?" he asks, confused when you hand him his phone. "don't you want to tell patrick the good news?"

art doesn't have much experience with his own pleasure, only finding time to jerk off quickly in the shower or to help himself sleep before bed, so he can't explain it when his hips start to cant against yours, whines and little moans escaping his swollen lips. you smile when his hips start to move, knowing that since it's his first time he probably can't help it, but you can't stop yourself from teasing him. "excited art?" you smile against him. he immediately blushes, hiding his face in your neck. "i- im sorry i don't know why that's happening.." he says, panting into your mouth. you giggle, feeling a bulge against you as you stop kissing art and look at him. arts lips are shiny and slick with spit, his chest and face flushed and his hair curled with sweat. "do you.. want to go further?" you ask even though you know the answer. he nods quickly, "yes.. please i do" you smile, happy with his answer, leaning forward and kissing him. you tap his hips with your hands to signal him to lift them, pulling off his gym shorts and exposing his boxers underneath. he gasps at the pressure of your hand on his bulge, the warmness of your hand feeling different (and much better) than his own. you look up at him, silently asking if you can go further and he nods, lifting his hips again to let you pull off his boxers, groaning when his drooling dick slaps against his tummy, smearing precum where it rests. art is so sensitive that even the air touching him makes him twitch. he looks away, embarrassed of his sensitivity and the fact that he's the only one naked. sensing his nervousness you say softly, "it's okay art, i knew you'd be sensitive, it's your first time after all, i was sensitive too" he smiles and nods, biting the inside of his cheek at the thought of you being the sensitive one.. but he'll save that thought for another day. he's brought rudely back into reality when you touch his dick softly, running your fingers gently from his flushed pink tip to his base, tightening your grip until art pretty much slaps your hand away. "i- im sorry i was too close, i don't wanna cum yet.." he says, trying to avoid the embarrassing truth that he just wants this experience to last longer. you nod, deciding to pull off your shorts and panties as well, for the first time feeling a bit embarrassed as art can't pull his gaze away from you. "you can touch me if you want to art.. i can help you" he nods wordlessly as you switch positions, now you lay back against your pillows as art hovers over you, desperate for the next step. "okay art, so before we do anything you have to prep me okay? it's best to use your fingers.." it's awkward to talk about it to him, but knowing it's his first time helps spur you along. "okay and.. and where do i put them?" art asks, looking up at you for guidance. you move him down the bed, so that he can be face to face with your pussy. the urge to squirm away or cover yourself up is hard to resist, and art is able to tell that, gently placing a warm hand on your inner thigh, the pressure calming you down. you take his other hand in yours, slowly guiding him down to your slit but letting him push a finger in on his own. he looks up at you constantly for validation that what he's doing is right, and feels good to you, his eyes widening when you clench around his finger, his dick twitching against the bed when he imagines how nice you'll feel against him. finally relaxing, you let art do his thing, blissfully rocking your hips against his hand. you're thankful that you're able to do most of the work, letting art just experience things for the first time.

[majorblinks]

DOWNRIGHT ICONIC (aespa karina)

(smut, male reader, screenwriter you, stranger karina, public sex, rough sex [choking/slapping/biting/spanking/hair-pulling etc], oral, anal, facefucking, titfucking, facial, bondage, degradation, name-calling, other weird stuff, 26k words, it's been 1 million years..., BUT WE'RE SO BACK BABY <3)

Hey, turns out the critics really are onto something:

You’re going to win an Oscar for this.

You aren’t surprised when the nominations are announced. It’s all anyone’s been talking about. You’re this up-and-coming screenwriter, this newly-minted visionary, and - cue the applause - you’ve just made the movie of the year. Clips go viral everywhere; the reviews are calling it extraordinary. They all want to know how you - a relative nobody - managed to pull it off. What’s your secret? What’s your inspiration? Where’d you get this billion-dollar box office idea? 

And here’s one version of the truth:

“Well,” you’re quoted saying in every single interview: “honestly, it’s about a girl.”

Everyone eats this up, of course. It’s so fucking romantic.

You’ll tell an abridged version of this story for the rest of your life. A blip in time in early January - a certified slow-motion movie moment. You’ll say things like she was the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen. You’ll say things like, I know it sounds lame, but that’s how it went. She took my breath away. She fascinated me. I saw her and I don’t think my life has ever been the same. 

You’ll never once say her name. 

“It’s weird, actually,” you’ll say in an interview after the news of the nominations drops. “Making this movie about her. She’ll last forever there, you know? She’ll always exist in this film, in this one moment in time. She’s in all of it, basically - every scene, every line. It’s all her.”

“You make it sound like she’s dead,” the interviewer will say, all open-mouthed melodrama.

You’ll laugh. “Oh, God, no,” you’ll say. “She’s alive and well.” As if it hasn’t been years since you last saw her face, watching you from down the corridor, looking lost and torn apart and very, very small. “She’s okay. I mean - I think - yeah, she’s okay.”

As if you’d know. 

Because here’s another version of the truth:

You’re going to win an Oscar for this. You’re going to stand up on that stage and thank your family and your friends. You’re going to stare at all those faces until they swim together into one golden, glittering blur, and then all you’ll see is her - her dark eyes, her glossy hair, her wrist in your grip, her throat between your fingers - her in your sheets, her smiling in your doorway, her shivering in your shower, her sobbing into her hands, her bleeding in your bed, her walking away. Her, her, her. Immortalized forever in this perfect thing you made, winning awards off the reconstruction of a memory. Art imitating life; reality warped into something magnificent, and beautiful, and better. 

And the only thing you’ll feel like doing is throwing up. 

Sure, you’ll bask for decades in the thrill of it: the fame, the fortune, the glory; the adoration, the worship, the attention; the eternal, endless love. You’ll be able to look back on your life when you’re decrepit on your deathbed and know that you - brilliant you, utterly superior you - were divinely blessed with earth-shattering success, and no one will ever be able to take that away from you. You made your mark. You meant something. You were the best, for fuck’s sake, and you have the accolades to prove it - you really, really were. 

So here’s the full truth - the final bottom line:

You’re going to win an Oscar for this. You’ll live the kind of life people beg God for. You’ll get everything you ever wanted. 

It won’t be worth it at all. 

-

First, though, there’s this. 

-

Disturbingly enough, you’re in the romance section of a bookstore when everything starts. 

This is really not your genre - that’s the funniest part. Historically, you’re bored to death by the cartoonish pastel covers; you don’t get your kicks from seeing the same delightfully quirky heroines fall for brooding bad boys, or whatever the fuck goes on in those books. You have your standards. You prefer your art a little gritty, a little fucked up, a little more interesting - the kind of thing that can leave you shellshocked in a movie theater, overcome with the sort of full-body, lightning-struck epiphany only truly good work can manage. It’s not a judgment call - you’re not trying to be pretentious. It’s just that you prefer something with some fucking bite.

The second funniest part is this: 

You’re pressed against the shelves, surrounded by the cutest, chastest love stories ever told-

“Are you serious?” 

-and Karina’s on her knees, about to take your cock down her throat. 

Maybe this is what your contemporaries call cinematic irony.

That’s gotta be the only phrase for it, really. The scene itself dripping with classless, crude, erotic filth - the way she ducks her chin to spit on her hand, the slow pump of her fist around you, the rough hum in her mouth at how achingly hard you are - nasty and irredeemable, too fast and too loud. The gross lack of subtlety in her sex appeal: all pale thighs and porn-star tits, the wet pink flash of tongue. Seductive in a way that screams at you. It’d be so easy to write this off as some deliberately controversial opening scene, gory shock value, horror-film suspense - starring you and the slut you’re about to ravage and ruin and potentially leave for dead. 

“Baby - are you sure?” 

It’d be so easy, if Karina didn’t look like an angel incarnate.

“I mean, you-” You’re stammering. You’ve got both hands in her hair, fingers sliding through the glossy black in petting, soothing motions - your clumsy attempt at reassurance. “You don’t have to, if you don’t - we’re in public - I’m not expecting you to - I don’t need it-” 

Karina’s fine, sculpted eyebrows twitch upwards. Her lips are a twist of scarlet, distinct and amused. She doesn’t quite smirk, doesn’t give a voice to the sarcasm, but the sentiment is the same - yeah, right. 

And then she lowers her mouth to lick. 

“Jesus fucking Christ-” 

Scratch that, then. This is the funniest part. The most inhumanly beautiful girl you’ve ever seen, debasing herself in public like some sort of desperate common whore - come on, bring in the laugh track. 

Not that anyone’s laughing now. 

You’re no poet - they’re a few sections over, Plath and Yeats and Dickinson - but Karina’s the kind of thing that makes you understand the motivation completely: only capable of being captured in metaphor, without context, painstakingly interpreted hundreds of years from now by people who will never get this right. All carved-out cheekbones, fluttering lashes; tight fuckable body clad in a little low-cut dress, feet tucked neatly behind her like she’s simulating worship. Dirty and religiously devoted in how she stretches her full glossed lips around your cock and lets your grip tangle in her hair and- 

“Karina,” you get out, but her only response is to blink sweetly up at you and suck. 

Well, who gives a shit about the poets, anyway? You doubt any of them ever got to fuck a mouth like this. 

There’s an unfamiliar caution to the rut of your hips, a wincing fascination every time she gags - and she gags loud, choking and heaving, saliva dripping slick around you and down her chin - that seems to both entertain and confuse Karina. A skeptical crease in her forehead, saying everything she can’t: you don’t wanna fuck me up? Ruin me? Cloudy spit falling in strands to her tits, seeping into the crimson fabric of her dress; she’s wearing a worn black sweatshirt that’s slipping off one shoulder, exposing the clean line of her collarbone. The hollow of her cheeks, the obscene painful sound of your cock clogging her throat - it’s subtext, explicit suggestion. A preternatural understanding. I know what this is. I know what you want from me. 

Which - she couldn’t possibly. 

“Baby.” You sound so wretched that it’s humiliating. Karina’s sharply lined eyes seem to flash with humor, smug and lazily self-satisfied. “You’re gonna make me fucking cum.” 

The thick, sloppy, choked noise she makes is the closest she’s gonna get to a laugh. 

Oh, sure, whatever, it’s not like you’re not thinking about it: digging your fingertips into her scalp and really fucking her face, relishing in the way those eyes would go wide and glassy with unshed tears; refusing to let her have control, to let her lick and lap and breathe. You’re scripting it in your head already. You’d strip her bare and make her sob. You’d wreck her throat and cum all over her face and force her to walk out like that: coated in the sticky, filthy evidence of everything you’ve made her - look at this, you’d say, look at what I have. Look at what I did - all this, all me. 

“God.” Your thumb braces against Karina’s temple, like the gentle stroke of a brush, like you’re painting her right into existence. “You’re just-” A harsh gag; a fall of dirty, drooling spit. “You’re really enjoying this, huh? Getting on your knees in public for a fucking stranger?” 

That’s why the fantasy of fucking her into brutal submission is actually so understandable. You don’t know her. You don’t owe her shit. You could destroy her and it’s not like she could do anything to fight back - not when she’s already below you, looking up. When she asked for this. 

Except-

“Karina.” You can’t stop saying her name. “You’re - fucking perfect.” 

And it’s true.

So you cum. 

Karina swallows it all with the same amount of sultry grace she seems to do everything - how she laughs and walks and talks and takes your cock like a fucking professional - languishing in the practiced bob of her throat, the preening flicker of her eyelids, her face shiny and pale. It tugs the same feeling out of you as a flawless shot in a film, a well-timed bit of dialogue: watching an expert at work, pulling out all their stops. One hand through her hair. Her nails the same rich color as her mouth and her dress. Nasty, slutty, impressive attention to detail - Christ, get this girl in front of a camera, get the moon to be her limelight - you’re breathless, you’re enthralled, you’re so fucking far gone. 

Then: the sticky retreating glide of her pouty mouth, lipstick smeared badly down her chin, stark and arresting as blood. 

“In my experience,” Karina says, finally, “being perfect’s never gotten me anywhere good.” 

She pulls the sleeve of her sweatshirt up and wipes her face with her wrist. 

“You’re unbelievable,” you say, dizzy.

“Thank you,” Karina says, sweet like she means it, and sits back on her heels. 

You can’t help yourself; you’re petting back her hair again, cupping her face softly in your hand, caught on the dark glint of her irises. Angel was an understatement. She looks more than that - looks like something holy and all-powerful, something omniscient and blindingly beautiful, something who knows exactly what you need and knows exactly how to follow through. Something worthy of mythology. Something like a god.

And any sort of rough, ruthless, fucked-up fantasy - it’s never going to happen. 

You just can’t ruin a girl like her. 

“So?” Karina’s voice is a smoky bombshell lilt, like she’s just stepped out of some film noir from the 1950s. Hands folded primly in her lap, fingers interlocked like a lady. She could be a pop culture icon, an eternal sex symbol - a Marilyn, a Bond girl, a timeless universal beauty. “What now?” 

You think your brain actually short-circuits. “Sorry?” 

Head tilted, lids dropped low. Smirk still sharp and scarlet. “Are you gonna take me home?” 

You open your mouth to respond, but then a customer walks by the aisle. 

You’re a panicked flurry of motion - zipping up your pants, turning away, frantically patting down your clothes - but Karina just stays kneeling on the floor, little chin on an incline, utterly incriminating. It doesn’t matter. The customer passes you by. The world returns to the way it should be: just the two of you.

“Karina,” you say, flabbergasted by her composure. 

Karina’s lips quirk. “What?” 

You shake your head and offer your hand to help her up, but Karina laughs instead - actually laughs. It’s peculiar, beautiful: raspy like a chronic chainsmoker, as though there’s something foreign she’s trying to dislodge. The raw, gravelly aftermath of a skinned knee, a grisly scrape over skin. 

“Wow,” she says, and stands all on her own, tugs the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her fingers. “That’s a yes to taking me home, then?” 

“What are you doing?” You’re laughing too - you can’t help it - reaching for Karina’s tiny waist to pull her in. “What are you - what do you want?” 

When Karina smiles, it seems to set her eyes aflame. Bright and dancing, lashes like a shroud of smoke. “What do you mean?” 

“You just met me.” It sounds feeble, somehow: a thin, useless excuse. Nothing against the way her body slots between your hands, a smooth effortless fit; nothing compared to how she kisses you between sentences, so quick and easy it already feels like a habit. “You don’t - you don’t know me.” 

Karina’s mouth puckers, coy. “No?” 

“No,” you shoot back, grinning, but it doesn’t sound convincing at all. “Come on, baby, seriously. What do you want?” 

There’s gotta be some motive, you’re thinking. There’s gotta be a reason. Karina is so still, so soft and pliant under your hands, all the carved porcelain perfection of a marble sculpture but with none of the cold stiffness. Spine curving under your fingertips, jaw tilting into your touch. 

A complete stranger, maybe - but every part of her body is begging to be known. 

“Don’t you get it?” Karina says. “I want whatever you want.” 

It’s so simple and earnest it takes your breath away. 

“I - Jesus.” You’re biting on the inside of your cheek, drinking her in. “What if I told you I don’t know what I want?”

Another rasp of a laugh, sound like the serrated edge of a blade. “I’d say fine, okay.” Karina’s voice is low, conspiratorial. “But I’d think you’re lying.” 

And here’s the thing you know for sure:

The very second you saw Karina you swear you saw the next hundred pages of a manuscript unfurling in front of you, lines and themes and gorgeous dark-eyed heroines, tragically beautiful endings and stunning cinematography - infinite narratives in the glossy sweep of her hair, in the seductive stretch of her legs, in the way she looked at you in a crowded room and smiled a lovely, secret smile and told you she’d follow you anywhere. She’s worth making art about. She’s worth devoting lifetimes to. The most honest thing you could say to her right now is baby, I’m writing a movie about this one day, and I think you’re really gonna like it.

Karina couldn’t possibly know any of this, but it still feels like she does - impractical knowledge in how she loops one arm around your neck and kisses you again, no hesitation. Like she actually knows you. 

“I want to fuck you,” you murmur against her mouth, because it’s the next most honest thing. “Is that enough for you?”

You’re a screenwriter. You know your horror movies. A small part of you recognizes that this is precisely how they start: fanged vampires, wicked succubi, femme fatales out for blood. Karina’s so gorgeous she can’t be human - teeth so sharp there’s no way her intentions are pure.

“Sure,” Karina says, smirk glimmering like starlight. “Then I want that, too.” 

It’s a murder plot waiting to happen. 

You take her home anyway. 

-

(Oh, and about your Oscar-winning script-

In theory, this is how it begins.

It’s classic. There’s a stranger and there’s a beautiful girl and they’re both sitting at a bar, talking for the very first time. The girl has a rose tucked behind her ear; it matches the crimson color of her lipstick perfectly. The stranger had asked her what the deal with it was, but she’d said something vague and nonsensical about it being a gift, so now they’re talking about normal, average things. Jobs, names, flirtatious pickup lines. It’s obvious because it’s meant to be, like a set-up to some predictable porn - everyone watching knows they’re going to fuck. 

She keeps getting closer to him. At one point he thinks she’s going in for a kiss.

Instead, all she does is pluck the rose from behind her ear, and hand it to him. 

It’s okay, she says. No thorns. 

He stares at the rich furled petals and the whittled-down stem. 

Thanks, he says, amused, charmed. He thinks there’s something odd about her. He likes it, though; if she were as beautiful as she is - which is very beautiful, exquisitely fucking beautiful - and she behaved like most people do, he’d find her terribly boring. 

He takes it from her. Turns over the rose in his hands absentmindedly as she keeps talking. She’s got all this hair: wild and glossy black, pouring over her thin shoulders, her ribs, her tiny waist. After a moment he feels the sharp prick of a thorn against his fingertip and releases the rose in surprise. 

You said there weren’t thorns, he tells her, laughing. Ow. 

Whoops, she says. Then: Did it get me too? 

She turns her head, pulls her hair out of the way. There’s a scarlet bead of blood trickling down the side of her perfect pale neck. He can’t quite tell where the point of entry was, where the thorn had dug in and broken skin. It’s bleeding a bit too heavily. Covering its tracks. 

She swivels, slightly. She sees the look on his face. Is it bad? she asks.

No, he says, though he can’t really tell. But - couldn’t you feel it, though? The thorn? 

The girl presses her hand to the side of her throat. It comes back bloodstained, a neat smear of red along the lifeline of her palm. 

No, she echoes, though this can’t possibly be true. Hey, you wanna get out of here or something? 

Alright, he says, smiling. They both stand. They leave the rose where it is. Let’s go. 

He cups her cheek instead of her neck when he kisses her for the first time, so he doesn’t have her blood on his hands.

It starts simple like that.) 

-

Karina’s so out of place in your apartment that it’s almost laughable - or it would be, if you were capable of thinking about anything but her mouth and her hands and her tits crushed up against your chest as you pin her to the doorframe. She keeps making these little sounds into your mouth: low and throaty, almost agonized. You swallow all her moans off her lips - oh, baby, you’re okay - and you only kiss her harder. She doesn’t belong, among your carpet worn-down from pacing and your laptop still open and idling and the mess of incoherent colorful post-it notes pasted to your fridge. She doesn’t fit here. Here kissing your mouth, here in your arms, here on fucking earth with the rest of you heathens-

“You wanna fuck me so bad,” murmurs Karina, chin on an incline, staring up at you, “then do it already.” 

She doesn’t squirm or fidget; she doesn’t get needy or start begging. She stays pinned down by your body, lips parted, and stands completely still. 

It’s like she’s telling you to make your move. Waiting for something inevitable. 

“What happened to patience?” you say, anyway. 

Karina’s mouth curls. She palms your cock through your pants. “What the fuck is that?”

You try to laugh, breathless and turned on, but all she does is kiss you again.

You’re a creative - you’re ready to attribute meaning to every movement - but there’s nothing so profound about it when you get Karina on your bed, all that thick black hair fanned out on your sheets, her hands grasping to get your shirt off - off, she murmurs, off. Even that comes out measured. She never shakes. She’s so sure. You kiss her everywhere you can reach, her face and her neck and her collarbone and her tits, drunk on the soft, humming sounds she makes when you do. You’re so fucking gorgeous, you can’t stop saying, and Karina keeps laughing that same raspy laugh, like it’s the most hilarious thing she’s ever heard. 

“You told me you already know that, right?” You’ve got her face cupped in one of your hands and your other one at the neckline of her scarlet dress. “So what’s so funny?” 

“Everything.” Her teeth glint the way fangs would, a deliberate trick of the light. She’d be villainous if she weren’t so content to be trapped underneath you. “All of it.” She presses her palm to the side of your neck. “You’re too nice.” 

“Fuck.” Your thumb accidentally digs too hard into her cheek. She doesn’t wince, but you feel it - the stomach-turning thrill, the possibility of leaving a bruise. Your hand drops low - lower, down her throat and her tits and her flat midriff - and slips between her thighs, up her dress. It feels safer, somehow. “How do you manage to make the word nice sound like an insult?” 

“It’s not,” she says, simply, and spreads her legs. 

And it must not be - because Karina’s so wet. 

She makes another low velvety sound when you first touch her, seems to melt into the stretch of your finger in her cunt - just one finger, and her back arches faintly, prettily, hips lifting to take more. “Jesus,” you mutter, but Karina’s not looking at you: her eyes are shut tight, lashes fluttering black, tits heaving in her dress with each draw of breath. You’ve fucked girls who’ve seemed unsure of themselves - embarrassed by their own wantonness, how wet they are, how bad they want it - but all Karina does is wrap her hand around your wrist and tug, once: a clear soundless plea for more.

For a second you’re actually, positively certain that you’ve lost it. 

It’s abject fantasy. It can’t be real. You in your apartment with the dream girl - the personal Aphrodite - the muse; God, if anyone was ever made to be a fucking muse, it’s her - underneath you with her ridiculous tits and her tight little pussy, face like a Hollywood dream. Ludicrous. Impossible. Bucking as she tries to fuck herself deeper on your fingers, all the way to the knuckle - slowing down only to say you wanna fuck my cunt open with your big fat cock or what? 

“I,” you try to say, strangled - her mouth’s so fucking filthy. “I was - I mean - we could take it slow-”

“How romantic,” says Karina - and this, too, sounds like a heinous insult coming from her - but she drags your wrist to her lips and sucks her own slick off your hand anyway. 

You choke on your next breath. “Karina-” 

She looks up at you, unflinching, tits half out of her dress and cunt dripping down her thighs. Lipstick worn-down, kissed-off. All over your mouth, or your throat, or your shirt. Mouth chapped from the cold and stained marvelously pink. There’s something in the way her smile forms slight and crooked every time you say her name, as if there’s some private joke you’re not in on. 

“You’re such a gentleman,” Karina purrs, all syrupy-sweet condescension. Then: “You really don’t have to be.” 

She licks the pad of your finger. She’s so completely shameless. You feel monstrous on top of her, in this sick, superior way, like she’s just too small to be so sopping wet and slutty and fuckable - too beautiful to be anything but treated just right. 

“If you want me to fuck you like a whore, baby,” you tell her, half-joking, “then just say that.” 

It’s a mistake the moment it leaves your mouth - a line crossed. Because all Karina does is cock her head, your wrist gripped delicately in her hand, her legs parted underneath you, and stares. Almost droll, bemused. Like you’re so goddamn predictable.  

“Didn’t you hear me?” That perfect face sears right through you. You’d nearly fucked that face. Not quite. Not yet. “I want whatever you want.” 

She’s even tinier than you originally thought she was. You only realize this now, tracing her stomach under your fingertips, feeling the sharp relief of each rib straining beneath her skin. You don’t know it until you touch her, but you can span the width of her thigh under one hand. It sends a strange shiver through you: mapping every jut of bone, every startling edge. She’s tiny. Breakable, practically. Men meaner than you have probably thrown her around, fucked her up against walls, used her like a toy. 

“So,” says Karina. “What do you want?” 

Your fist clenches tight in her grasp, right in front of her face, knuckles going horrifically white.

Like you - like you’re going to-

An accident. A primal sort of gesture, like you’re less than human, turned under her touch into some feral hot-blooded animal who can’t control itself: carnivorous, predatory. You stare at your own hand and then the sharp scythelike curve of her mouth and feel revolted embarrassment crawl straight up your spine. 

It’s abhorrent. 

It also doesn’t even seem to matter.

Karina doesn’t go wide-eyed and nervous; she doesn’t look at your wound fist like she’s scared of what it could do to her. She clicks her tongue, once. Like this, too, is something she already saw coming.

“I thought so,” she says, anyway. Maybe this is it, what does it for her; looking the devil full in the face and begging to be burned. “Then do it.” 

“I can’t do that to you,” you mutter, but you tug her dress up, and you fuck her anyway. 

-

She’s a stranger. This is the point of fucking strangers. To do things to them that you’d never do to anyone else - to take out your worst impulses and tell your best lies and know that none of it matters, in the end. Because they’re nobody, and because you’ll never see them again. 

But you just can’t. 

She’s too indulgent and stunning and soft, with her low moans and the addicting drenched heat of her cunt, hand gentle and careful on the nape of your neck so she can keep pulling you into a kiss. She’s made up of curves, delicate edges - those hips and those tits you can’t keep your hands off of and her lips in a dreamy smile - and you find yourself stroking her hair back from her face so you can drink it all in: the blush in her cheeks, the almost serene way she lets her eyes slip shut and her mouth drop open, slack and enticingly wet. So good, baby, you keep telling her, because she is, her entire body warm and wanting and so easily fucked open, little pussy swallowing your cock right up. She doesn’t fidget or plead. She’s so sweet, such a perfect fit, humming into your mouth as your cock eases her open; so wet you can hear it, the sloppy squelch of her cunt when you bottom out. Your voice comes out coaxing. You like that? That feel good? Taking my cock so nicely, huh?

“Mmm,” Karina breathes, in an exhilarating moan, right into your mouth, against your tongue. “Mm, mm-”

She never quite manages full sentences. Never finds it in herself to make any more obscene demands. Just gets all small and soaking underneath you, licks messily at your bottom lip, and lets you do all the talking - lets you draw a careful hand through her hair and drop your other one between her thighs, clenches tight around your cock when you rub at her clit, keens low in her throat and listens. To the good girl, to the I got you, baby, to the that’s it, there you go, this is what you wanted - I know, honey, I know, you just needed to get this cunt fucked right, you just needed to cum real bad. I know what this is. I know what you need. 

“Fuck.” She’s flushed pink to her chest, delightfully ineloquent. “Yes-” 

Well - good thing you’re decent with your words, when it counts. Let Karina blush and drool and slick up your cock with every stroke. That’ll work just fine with you.

It’s the kind of juxtaposition you’d really lean into - the kind of thing you’d write just to get so self-indulgent with, a personalized note to the director, a wink and a nudge to every audience member. Look at that. Look at her eyes like something straight out of poetry. Look at her body like a pornographic fantasy. Look at how she gets so tamed and docile and compliant when she gets her tiny pussy stuffed full, creaming all over that cock, huge tits bouncing - look, that’s art, isn’t it? What else would you call it? What else could it be?

“You gonna cum, baby?” She’s so fragile underneath you. Color staining her cheeks apple-red; lips swollen and begging to be kissed. Fictive little fairy tale. “You gonna cum for me?”

“Yeah.” It’s breathy and barely-there. Her chin trembles, jerks in a weak nod. “I’m - I - fuck-” 

See: you just can’t rough her up. It’d be blasphemous. Sacrilege. Taking one single look at the stained-glass windows of a church and tearing it all to the ground.

Still, you’re mesmerized by how utterly vulnerable she looks: the glossy shine to her irises; the way she inhales all slow and shaky, body slipping from some sort of precipice. Not just like she’s near-tears, but like she’s stunned - struck dumb from a violent blow, mouth wide open in the aftermath. And it’s just sex - and, fuck, you’ve said it, you see things the way every obsessive artist does; sex is never just sex. Every one thing means something more. A metaphor. An allegory. You get nasty and debauched and dirty because you know exactly what you can spin it into. Put the entire scene in a silent film and everyone can swoon about the things you might be saying to her, this impossibly captivating stranger in your bed with her graceful name, her dizzying moans, her shuddering frame in her orgasm. Don’t you get it? you could be telling her, hand brushing gently over her sweat-damp hairline. Don’t you feel that? You’re a stranger to me, baby, but you don’t have to be. There’s a reason we met. There’s a meant-to-be here, somewhere. I’m not a believer, sweetheart, but you could make one out of me - I swear you could, I promise-

But that’s the reason why these things are best left to the imagination, anyway. 

A million scripted sweet nothings - and none of them manage to make it out of your mouth. 

“Karina.” Your hips jerk hard. You sound half-possessed. “So pretty, cumming all over my cock like that. Such a perfect little cunt, baby - so fucking good-”

Her eyes suddenly shut tight; her body arcs into your touch, lips parted in a silent gasp. And for a second it seems like such a snapshot of innocence, like she’s brand-new to getting fucked quick and rough and dirty - though you know this can’t possibly be the truth, not with the way she flirts and whines and drips for more like she’s made for it - but she’s trembling under your fingertips, and you can dream. She’s your beautiful stranger, your pristine muse; you can pretend she’s whatever the fuck you want. 

“God,” Karina murmurs, so soft and weak it makes your head spin. 

Before you know what you’re doing - before you can even think twice about it - you’re pulling out, and cumming all over her stomach. 

You can’t help it. You shouldn’t have had that thought about innocence. Jesus. This is what you mean, about you and your own painful humanity; you’ve got all the same vile desires. When you see a pure thing - all that porcelain skin, all that thick glossy black hair, all those gleaming white teeth in her open mouth - your very first instinct is to fuck it up bad.

You’d do worse, if you were worse - you’d make a real fucking disaster out of her. 

“Baby,” you say, breathlessly. “Are you…”

And Karina, then, does something truly evil: 

Sighs luxuriously, stretches her arms above her head, eases those gorgeous eyes open, and smiles. 

As if she’s reveling in it. The scent of sex - the defiled tautness of her tummy - the way you’re not sure where her little red dress or her shoes or her panties are, how her cunt’s dripping wet onto your sheets, her hair a glorious mess. Grinning in the face of utter filth. 

“You,” you exhale, running your palm down her side. “You’re so…” 

Karina’s mouth pulls up at a corner, like she’s daring you to finish the sentence, but you never do. 

You can’t stop staring at the stretch of cum-covered skin before you. Coating her belly, pooling into her navel. You realize with a start that there’s a new bruise blooming on her chest, a vicious sort of bite mark. You can’t remember when you did that. You’d been kissing her - of course you kissed her - her mouth and her neck and her tits, but you’d been so gentle, sucking light and soothing her skin with your tongue after-

“You didn’t want to cum inside me?” Karina asks, hoarsely. 

You blink so hard your vision blurs. “What?” 

“Right.” Her eyeshadow’s smudged dark underneath her eyes, making her look deliciously used up. “You did want to cum inside me.” 

“Karina,” you warn - or, at least, you mean to make it sound like a warning - but her name comes out too faint. It’s horrific. Your hand traces her hipbone so reverently. You’re no match for her. 

Karina arches a brow in unhurried challenge, ghosts her hand across her tummy. Takes two fingers and drags them through the cum you spilled, pulls back with it clinging thickly to her skin. Drifts down, down, down. 

“Karina,” you try to say again, even more pathetic than last time. “Jesus-” 

But you saying her name holds no weight here; she’s made that more than obvious. Nothing to stop her as she smears her cum-slick fingers across her glistening pussy, gaze locked amusedly on your face, tracking your reaction. She’s still so fucking wet - she rubs your cum in circles across her clit - tossing her head back a little, chest heaving and falling, fingertips just barely dipping inside her cunt-

“I can’t.” Karina lifts her hand to pop her fingers in her mouth, sucks them clean. Pointedly flashes her too-sharp nails at you like she’s unsheathing claws. “If you want it, you’re gonna have to do it yourself.”

“You,” you say, though your hand’s already pressing hard into her ribs, “are fucking cruel, baby.” 

“And you,” replies Karina, head tilting, “just want to see my cunt all filled up and leaking your cum.” 

Oh, she hasn’t been wrong about you all night. She certainly won’t start now. 

“What?” A sly, languid smirk tugs at her lips. “Afraid you’re gonna knock me up or something?” 

Your breath halts right in your lungs.

You’d been right about her too, it seems. Succubus. Vampire. She must be; she’s bloodthirsty. Tits gleaming with sweat, the scarlet stain of that bite mark you can’t remember leaving, cunt all dripping wet and desperately empty - body like a fatal fucking blow. 

Karina’s eyes glint. I want what you want, she’d said. 

With the way she spreads her legs, she’s gotta be ready to prove it.

So you never stood a chance. You give in and scoop up cum with one finger and sink it deep inside her aching cunt, feeling as she clenches down, as she takes it so well; like a good girl, you tell her, letting me do whatever I want with this needy little cunt; that’s my good girl. Karina lifts her hips - goes so still and so obedient - and lets you repeat it over and over again, fucking into her with your fingers until the plane of her stomach is bare and sticky and her cunt’s dribbling your cum onto your sheets. It’s completely nasty. It’s hot. It’s Karina craning her neck back and shutting her eyes as you bury three fingers inside of her and fill her with your cum, every part of her in utter surrender, entirely at your mercy, breathing out hard through her nose until your thumb rubs at her clit and she’s cumming again, all over your hand. She gets this look on her face, afterwards - exhausted, every line of her face gentle and lax - staring up at you like you’re the only person still left on this planet. Adoring, almost. As if you’re something out of another world. 

It’s an expression too sweet for a scene like this - and it’s exactly what men like you make art about. 

“There,” you say, soft and mesmerized, wiping your hand across her chest. “Satisfied?” 

Karina laughs her strange, gravelly, gorgeous laugh. 

“No,” she says, shamelessly. “But that’s not your fault.” 

Your fingers curl around the curve of her jaw. “No?”

She barely looks like she belongs in your bed - she must be something divine, lit from within, god-blessedly gorgeous. She’s a fucking fever dream: stunning eyes and the bob of her throat and her tits and her curves and all that hair. Stay, you think of telling her. Let me see what I can make of you. I don’t know you yet but I could, baby, I really could. 

“Nope.” Karina smiles, and somewhere, soliloquies are writing themselves. “I always want more.”

“Okay,” you say, mouth hovering over hers. “Then stay.” 

-

So she stays.

-

(An update on your script:

The stranger and the girl are back at his place. They’re sitting on his couch. Nobody has cleaned off her neck. He’s been too busy pawing at her: at her face, between her legs, at her tits in her tight dress. I need you, he’s been murmuring to her, and it feels like he really means it: like he’ll die if he doesn’t get her desperate and whining underneath him, his cock stretching her tight little cunt wide open. He doesn’t feel too bad about it. She’s a dirty slut. She’s said as much. She’s got her own needs, too. 

What happened to your window? she asks, suddenly.

He pulls back from her chest, his spit clinging shiny to her skin. 

She isn’t looking at him. He has the sudden, unnerving feeling that she hasn’t been looking at him the whole time. Not like she’s had her eyes closed in blinding, overwhelming pleasure - but like she’s deliberately been trying to look at anything else. 

But his hand falls between her thighs, and he realizes she’s already wet. 

A bird flew into it, probably, he says. That happens, sometimes. 

They’re talking about the stain on the once-clean glass of his window. The backdrop of the night sky behind means it’s barely visible, but the suggestion of it is enough. Implicit gore. Tiny little black feathers, caked in blood from the impact, dark and dried. It’ll be scrubbed off soon enough, he knows. It’ll be all gone eventually. 

Oh, she says. She doesn’t apologize for potentially killing the mood. She hasn’t, anyway, not really. She’s still wet and small underneath him, begging for it. Poor thing. 

Yeah, he says. 

She turns back to him. Her hair’s everywhere, all over the arm of his couch, wayward strands beneath his fingers. She’s clearly expecting something - to be kissed, to be fucked hard, to be called baby and angel and good girl. It doesn’t really matter either way. Those are the only things he can give her. 

He stares at the blood on her neck. 

Let me clean that off for you, actually, he says, and goes to the kitchen to get a washcloth.)

-

Much, much later:

“I admire you,” Karina says, all tucked up in your bed, underneath your sheets, half-buried into your side. Moonlight bleeds into the room. Her eyes gleam like galaxies. “For showing some self-control.” 

“What?” 

Karina’s hair pours over your pillowcase. She takes your hand and brings it close to her face, working your fingers into a tight fist. 

“Fucking bitch,” you mutter, and then regret it immediately. It lands too harshly, too strange and serious. “Sorry. I didn’t - that came out weird. I don’t think you’re a bitch.” 

Karina’s lips brush your knuckles. “Not the meanest thing I’ve been called.” Her voice twists with humor. She shouldn’t be so comfortable curled up with a man she doesn’t know in the middle of the night. You think of kissing her hard, of scraping her neck with your teeth, of warning her about self-preservation - sweetheart, you could tell her, this is how people end up dead. “Not the meanest thing I’ll be called, either.” 

You shift. Your fist, unconsciously, goes tense in her hand. “What’s your deal?” 

Her mouth tilts. “What’s yours?” 

You huff out a laugh. “You’re unbearable,” you say softly, which feels much kinder than calling her a bitch. “What are you - what do you mean?” 

I’m not hard to figure out, you want to tell her. I’ll let you in if you ask me to. But you - you, you imagine saying, cupping Karina’s face in your hands and saying her name like you’re praying to her, drafting scenes in your head with each whispered syllable - you. Look at you. I’d fill a thousand pages trying to find a way to understand you. 

“If you want to hurt me,” Karina says, “then hurt me.” 

Your throat dries up. Your fist falls open. “What?” 

“I wouldn’t blame you.” Her voice is matter-of-fact. You see her tongue dart over her bottom lip, the slick glimmer of spit. “If that’s what you wanted.” 

You stare at her, hard. 

It’s not difficult to make out her silhouette in the dark; she’s illuminated so distinctly by the moon, like it’s her own on-set spotlight, professionally arranged - she’s got the cosmos calling her shots. You think about how careful you’d been with her: doing what she wanted and making her cum and kissing her like you have history and maybe fucking her like you love her, just a little.

You think about that bruise you left on her chest, her skin between your teeth, the feeling of biting down. 

“It’s not,” you say, and the lie tastes acrid in your mouth. “It’s - it’s not, Karina.” 

“You fucked my face in public within like an hour of meeting me. And fucked me and came on my stomach. And fingered your cum inside of me.” It’s far past midnight. She sounds more alert than she should. “You’re gonna start being polite now?”

It sends an odd knot to your gut, the way she puts it. Equating all of that to hurting her. Laughing in the face of your clenched fist - not because she thinks you won’t do it, but because she knows how bad you want it. 

Hurt me. She says it like it’s so easy. Fuck me. Let me stay the night. Hurt me; you’ve earned it. 

“I’m not polite.” The truth doesn’t taste much better. “I just have, you know, common fucking decency.” 

“Hm,” Karina says, a nonchalant little noise, and nothing else.

You brush her hair off her neck and your fingertips graze the hollow of her throat. You feel her swallow under your touch. You open your mouth, though you’re not sure what you’re about to say - Karina, like a chant, like she’s consumed you in a matter of moments, Karina - but she shuts her eyes delicately, and curls close to you, and just like that the moment is over. 

I have common decency, you’d said. I won’t hurt you. I promise. I can control myself.

So maybe you weren’t right about everything. You’re not the devil. That’d be a delusion of grandeur - the idea that you’d ever have that kind of power over a girl like her. 

Not for long, she’d replied, in the knowing tilt of her smile. Not if I can help it.

-

In the morning, it’s a picture of crime-scene proportions. It takes a little work to piece it all together.

Karina’s not in bed when you wake up, but there are traces of her everywhere - telltale, incriminating bits of evidence. Strands of her hair on the pillow. Blood-red lipstick stains on the fabric. Her crimson dress crumpled on your bedroom floor, sporting a tiny tear in the hem that you don’t remember leaving; you can still smell her perfume all over your sheets, like a calling card. If this was a TV drama - a clichéd police procedural - she’d probably be dead in your living room right now, blank-eyed and beyond saving, rigor mortis deforming her perfect body into something grotesque. 

This is also probably not a thought you should ever relay to Karina, but you do anyway.

“Sorry to disappoint,” she replies. She’s perched on your kitchen counter, dressed in one of your t-shirts, bare legs swinging. “I’m very much alive.”

“I was being dramatic,” you try to say, gesturing with your hands to set the scene - the lighting, the fake blood and the special effects, the potential pallor of her face. “I’m - I’m a screenwriter. It’s in my nature. I didn’t mean I wanted to find your fucking corpse out here-”

“It’s okay if you did.”

You choke. “What?”

“I’m right with you, babe.” Karina leans forward conspiratorially. There’s a sharpness to the dark glint in her eyes that kind of makes you think she really does understand: that she has the same tendency to jump to the worst possible conclusions. A kindred, morbid spirit. “I get it. I’m pretty devastated that I’m still breathing, too.”

She says this all in a scratchy, sultry voice, hoarse as though she’s been sleeping for years instead of hours. Lashes fluttering like she’s just told you something very adorable and sweet.

“God,” you say, desperately charmed, and laugh until you feel light-headed. “You’re sick.”

Karina’s mouth curls. “Right.”

“I’m serious.” It’s surreal: her wearing your clothes and sitting on your counter like this is an everyday occurrence, indulging every fucked-up thing you say to her. Maybe you’re still caught somewhere in a dream, just waiting to wake up. “You’re, like - not normal.” 

“Hey.” A light, careless shrug; her palm rests over the back of her neck. “No arguments here.”

You rub a hand over your eyes, smiling like an idiot, and take a breath. 

It’s late January, and cool sunlight drips into the room, over your furniture and your floors and the angel right in the middle of your kitchen. It should wash her out, blur her at the edges; it doesn’t even come close. Turns her to a freeze frame instead, carefully color-graded, every hue just a bit too intense: skin ghost-pale, lips pouty and pink, hair jet-black and tangled to her waist. Your shirt hangs off of her slender frame like it aims to swallow her up. You thought you’d been stunned by Karina before, lulled by the late night, the electric rush of touching her - you’d assumed you could blame it on the alcohol, the slutty dress and the sultry makeup and the long-held habit of artistic romanticization-

But it’s nothing compared to seeing her now. 

Karina crosses one leg over the other, and waits as though expecting a rating: to be starred out of five like a film. 

Face scrubbed clean. Bone structure a study of faultless symmetry, delicate in a way that feels both inhuman and invulnerable. She’s so classically breathtaking - a miraculous second coming of a tragic, iconic movie star, a phenomenon back from the grave; jaw and nose and mouth all clean lines, aesthetically precise art - but God, those eyes. Enormous without the thick liner, suggestive only of impossible innocence. Like some darling baby animal, some long-lashed lamb to the slaughter - something pristine and completely untouched. 

The morning after, the direct light, the exposed behind-the-scenes - she’s still beyond beautiful. 

And somehow she’s still here with you. 

“That’s insane, by the way,” you say, unable to stop yourself. “That you stayed.” 

There’s a loud cracking sound. 

You squint, disoriented. “What-” 

Karina blinks at you, wide-eyed; her jaw shifts. The sound echoes again, startling and sudden. “What?” 

“Are-” You step closer. “Are you chewing on fucking glass or something?” 

“Or something,” Karina replies, smile’s tiny and closed-off. She gestures to the cup next to her. “It’s just ice.” 

She’s so calm watching you approach her. You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the freakout, for the breakdown - or, at the very least, the scrambling excuses before the walk of shame. Here’s the truth: she doesn’t know you. Here’s an even worse truth: judging by her hickey that looks like you might’ve tried to rip her throat out earlier, she’d have every right to take one look at you and run. 

Karina doesn’t do any of it. Just raises her cup to her lips and tips it back, the arc of her neck so inviting. 

“That’s so fucking bad for your enamel.” You’re laughing again. You’re in front of her now, settled between her legs. “You’re gonna break a tooth.” 

Karina sets her glass down. Wipes the corner of her mouth with her wrist, eyes locked amusedly on yours - heavy-lidded enough to seem lazy, but pupils blown enough to be a siren call, a deliberate suggestion.

“Oh, no,” she says, all smoky sarcasm. “Who’d ever want me then?” 

She parts her thighs the second you touch them; her body’s so obedient under your fingertips, like a doll’s, something to be dressed up and posed and played with. Daring you to do everything you’re already thinking about doing. 

“You’re ridiculous,” you murmur, and give in completely.

So:

Look, you know exactly how the movies would frame this. Pandering to the wide-eyed teenagers and hopeless romantics; adding the swell of strings every time your eyes or hands or lips meet, each motion accompanied with unsubtle cues - there’s the meet-cute, there’s the moment, there’s the love-at-first-sight. It’s ridiculous to drag any of that into your real life, of course. It’d be like believing in God. Giving up logic to put your faith in something silly and mythic and implausible - to follow true love like a religion, expecting it to save your soul; to pray to the one like a healing property, a benevolent higher power. 

You can’t believe in that. You can’t. 

But-

Karina pulls back the barest amount, eyelids fluttering open like a new day dawning, and smiles when she sees the look on your face. So sweet and gorgeous; so struck and adoring. So comfortable wrapped up in your arms.

“Hi,” she murmurs. 

And - as though it’s some bone-deep instinct, saturating your bloodstream - you just have to kiss her again. 

Don’t you feel that? you think of telling her again, your hand slipping to cup her cheek - the sentiment always seems to come back around. You swear you can see scenes flashing behind your eyelids, the beginnings of a creative epiphany; it must be seeping through your fingers, staining her skin with ink, every possible action depicted neatly between brackets. A laugh, a look, a touch. A version of Karina projected across the silver screen to a wild, wanting audience. Don’t you see what you could do for me? What you’re capable of becoming? 

You can’t believe in any of this, but it’s gotta be something close. 

The feeling doesn’t end when the kiss does: only intensifies, made tangible somehow. Sculpted into the spit-slick curve of her lips, the flinty gleam in her eye. Like she feels it too. Like she knows. 

“And it’s not insane that I stayed,” Karina says, belatedly. “You asked me to.” 

For a moment you just stare at her, seconds from her mouth and speechless. 

It’s the truth without difficulty. It’s a confession with no strings attached. It’s the fucking dangerous way she says it - as if whatever you want extends to a lot more than sex. 

“And you don’t-” Your throat closes over a swallow; you find your eyes darting between hers, searching for anything but honesty. “You don’t think that’s insane? Doing whatever a stranger tells you to?”

Karina only laughs her strange laugh, gritty the way good music is, demanding to be heard.

“Nope,” she says, like this is all so simple. “That’s just what I do.”

It’s unbearably filthy in its implication - and it’s exactly what you need. 

The room seems to fill with potential, fantasies pouring in from the ceiling, enough to bloat any manuscript to its breaking point. You let out a breathless laugh, loud and unabashed. You think of pushing for even more, pressing your nails in and digging deeper - why me, why this, why now - but Karina leans in close before you can and slots her mouth to yours, and you’re no fool: there’s no line of questioning worth giving that up. 

Seems like you’ll have to come up with this character motivation all on your own. 

-

“Look at us,” she murmurs against your lips - meaning this very minute, the chemistry, how every glittering star must’ve conspired to get you here. “Kinda feels like this was meant to be, huh?” 

She’s clearly kidding, because it’s too soon and too fucking crazy, but-

Well, the way you kiss her then is absolutely your version of a yes. 

-

Here’s something people should probably know about artists like you:

You’re rather enamored with the idea of a magnum opus. 

It’s a natural thing to reach for, to visualize - the concept of your one great masterpiece. Something you can pour years and years into, water into roaring reckless oceans; time transforming the things you make into something worth remembering forever. Everyone you know - your sculptors, your songwriters - has their own version of this, somewhere. When I finally create this one perfect thing I’ll be - go on, fill in the blank. Fulfilled. Gratified. Happy. When I finally do this, I’ll feel whole. 

It’s strangely fantastical. A lifelong dream a kid would have - a childlike, storybook aspiration. 

Yours - as far as you’ve figured out - looks a little like this:

“It’s not as romantic as it should be,” you admit, now. “I’m not really into that as a theme. True love, I mean. Or optimism. Or hope. I want something more…” Something rougher, you mean. Something with pain. Something with blood and bruises. “Nuanced, you know? Complicated, messy.” 

“I get it,” replies Karina. She has her hands twisted in her lap, watching you very closely. You’re obsessed with the way she looks at you - like she’s drinking every word in with those smoldering dark eyes, greedy for more. For you. “All the best art is about pain, huh?” 

You snap your fingers, pleased to be understood. “Exactly.” 

Karina smiles, small and knowing, and gestures you on. 

In your vision, your magnum opus is always about a girl. Like you said, it’s the way it goes with all the best films ever made: not about love, but the futility of it lasting. Think of all the famed examples - think of the filmmakers and their obsessions, sneaking the great loves of their lives between each line: there’s something she said, there’s a dress she wore, there’s a conversation they had in the middle of the night, tangled up in sheets and whispering against skin. Your future muse will be just like that. A reincarnation of the infamous women who haunt all the greatest artists - an amalgamation of their bodies contorted into narratives and replicated in loving, graphic detail. Someone with skin like marble, a statue you could take a sledgehammer to. Someone who looks unfathomably pretty when she cries. 

Someone like-

“Uh-huh,” says Karina. She must’ve just gotten out of the shower before you found her, because her hair’s damp enough to have left wet patches on your t-shirt. She licks her bottom lip, once. “Sure.” 

Someone to be what you’ve always wanted: a flawless girl to fall from the sky into your lap. To fulfill your promise to yourself: when I meet her, I’ll know. I’ll be able to make this movie. When I meet her, everything will slip exactly into place. 

Karina cracks another ice cube between her teeth.

“So,” she says, low with insinuation. “When you told me last night that you found me inspiring…”

She doesn’t need to finish the question. She knows exactly what you want.

“You’re…” You shake your head. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I saw you and I just - I felt like I knew. I knew. I wanted you.” You shrug helplessly, smiling. “Do you think I’m nuts?” 

She should, probably. You’re a total stranger, a practical lunatic, an artist talking of your visions like you’re possessed. You don’t know her - that’s the reality of the situation. You don’t know her. 

But then there’s everything else.

The unbelievable sex, the staying the night; the way she lets you touch her, blinking slow and subservient, like you already have a claim to her body. You think muse and you think in abstract concepts, glittering stars, guiding lights; you think of skin cut up and sewn together, of creators and their finest monsters, of the implicit poetry in the undoing. You think muse and you think of the way Karina smiles at you now, full lips and frail bones, a painter’s portrait reference. Unmoving, unafraid. Too otherworldly for your day-to-day but just right when she’s in your arms, like a trial-run demonstration: this is what we’re capable of. You could make it happen. You could make me fit.

You swear you’ve been dreaming of someone like her your whole fucking life. 

You think muse, and now you can only think of her. 

It’s a sign. It must be. And this, the next one:

“No,” Karina says, easily. “I think you’re just like everyone else.” But she raises an eyebrow, so you know it’s a joke. “I think you’re all the same.” 

You laugh, delighted; Karina’s smile widens, shows her teeth. “Shut up.” 

Karina acquiesces immediately - claps a hand over her mouth like it’ll keep any other words from escaping. It’s so adorable that you can’t keep yourself from pouncing, suddenly all over her like an animal: wrenching her thin wrist down, fingers threading through her hair, tugging her lips to yours as if you’ve been starved and she’s something to devour. She’s so cold, ice still melting on her tongue; even her body feels glacial, more porcelain than real. It drives you wild - the stunning impossibility of her. The desire to see it all reworked, unwound, shattered. 

“So,” you breathe over her mouth. “I can write about you?” 

“Babe.” Karina’s dark eyes sparkle, frozen-over streets in the mid-winter sun. “You can do anything you want with me.” 

That’s the whole point of having a muse, after all. Everything they are becomes yours. 

-

“But,” you can’t help saying right after: “you don’t have to be, like - concerned. About what I said. About art and pain. I mean…” You falter. You’re standing in between her spread legs now, thumbing the sharp curve of her jaw. “It’s fiction. I’m not that kind of guy in real life - I’m not going to hurt you.” 

Karina just stares at you, sentiment clear and unspoken. 

“Not like - not seriously.” You roll your eyes, laughing it off. “Not like that.” 

“Not like that,” Karina echoes. The hickey on her neck seems to flush redder every time you look at it - a photograph in a darkroom, developing. “But in other ways.”

Your mouth opens, but whatever defense you might’ve had gets traitorously stuck in your throat.

Karina laughs hoarsely, lets you trace her bottom lip with a finger. She seems to get the picture - that you’d love to see it bitten and bloody, but only ever in the name of art. There’s a kind of sick, sadistic beauty in destruction, battles waged and lost. She leans into your touch like she’s seen all the war films and knows precisely why they’re so well-loved. 

“For the record,” she tells you, arms looped loosely around your neck: “I look very pretty when I cry.” 

“Jesus Christ.” You’re smiling. She couldn’t be more perfect if you’d dreamt her up yourself. “Then I guess I’ll have to make it happen.” 

-

It’s like fate, probably. 

-

(Up next in your script:

The girl is standing in the stranger’s bathroom. She’s turning a little glass perfume bottle over in her hands when he stops in the doorway. He’s perfectly content to watch her; she’s the kind of beautiful that deserves to be observed, like some exotic wild animal caged between four walls in an elaborate exhibit, mildly unaware of all the attention. Her hair is messy; her head is tilted down. Unseeing. 

Oh, he says. That was my-

Except he doesn’t even get the rest of the sentence out before the girl whirls around, and the bottle slips from her hand and shatters on the floor. 

Jesus. The stranger jolts back. Jumpy. He’s not too concerned about the broken bottle; it’s not his, anyway. Why the fuck did you do that? 

Sorry, the girl says. She’s leaning rather casually against the counter, observing the glass covering the ground, the sickly-sweet smell of the perfume sticking to the tile. Honeysuckle and the sharp note of alcohol, rendered unrecognizable. You scared me. 

He looks down. A crystalline stretch of tiny little shards - if she tried to move she’d slice her foot open. 

No worries, he says. Hold on. 

He ducks into the kitchen to get a broom and when he comes back he stops in his tracks. There’s something slightly off about the picture in front of him. She’s small against the background counter, frozen, barely blinking. Everything about her looks suddenly frail, fair skin ghostly underneath shitty bathroom lighting, cheekbones gaunt and sunken-in, hair pouring ink-black in endless waves. A vengeful spirit. An incorporeal haunting. 

Did you…? he starts to say, thrown. 

She blinks, finally. Did I what? 

He pauses, reassesses. She’s gorgeous. She’s art. She’s vibrantly alive. 

Never mind, he says. 

It seems kind of like she’d moved, but he can’t tell. He forgets about it. She’s still beautiful and she seems okay and so he steps forward and clears the worst of the glass out of the way. 

It’s silly, she says, watching him. I used to know someone who wore that perfume. 

It was my ex-girlfriend’s, he says. She left it here a while back. I think it’s a common brand or whatever. Hey, let me help you. 

He’s very chivalrous about it, sweeping her off her feet, cradling her bridal-style across the possible remnants of glass. She laughs all the while, playing into it - a princess out of a fairy tale, being carried to safety by some gallant knight. But then he sets her down and cups her ass and says, You gonna pay me back for the property damage or what? and she laughs harder, because there’s nothing funnier than that: sweet moments turned filthy, a startling hairpin turn in intention. 

Or - conversely - a revelation of the absolute truth. Because what else could he ever want from her?

So she says, Yeah, sure, take everything, and leans in to kiss him.

It’s a normal kiss, mostly. It’s just that it begins pointedly erotic but seems to turn strange after a second, like he might be gripping her hair too hard, like she might be corpse-limp in his arms, like at any moment he could unhinge his jaw and sprout fangs and swallow her whole, cannibalistic, viperous. There’s too much spit and sound. There’s too much teeth and selfishness. It stretches on too long and lingers where it shouldn’t and overstays its welcome terribly - the score seems to fall off-beat, the lighting seems to shift dark and discolored-

But then the kiss breaks, and it’s over. 

When he pulls off of her she looks like the perfect picture of flushed contentment. Eyes half-lidded and lashes fluttering, her pouty lips swollen and rosy. Smiling like she wants more, like she wants it so, so bad. 

It didn’t get you? he asks finally, looking at her neck, thinking of thorns and pinprick pain and the rivulet of crimson that’d decorated her throat. The glass? 

No, she says. Don’t you wanna fuck me now? 

Oh, God, he says, grinning, and every other thought melts away into nothing. He likes how she doesn’t play coy. He likes how she’s smaller and has to tilt her chin up to look at him. He wants to fuck her, so he does. 

It’s excellent sex. The blood on the tile doesn’t really matter.)

-

Before you really start writing, there’s just one singular problem: you don’t know anything about her. 

“That’s not true,” Karina replies, right away. 

You open your mouth, then close it, because - okay, she’s not completely wrong. 

For about an hour now you just haven’t been able to stop talking to her. About anything, everything: your start into screenwriting, your favorite novels, your greatest inspirations, your neverending passion for eerie, erotic art. You can’t seem to shut up. And it would be bad - would be making you feel self-conscious right now, if it were anyone else - but it’s just not. Because it’s, well-

It’s you, you told her, thoughtfully, watching as the sun climbed higher into the sky, golden light grazing each scalpel-sharp edge of Karina’s body. You’re easy to talk to. Has anyone ever told you that?

Karina blinked at you. Tucked a strand of silky hair behind her ear and looked away, considering it. 

She has this way about her: this serene openness to her big eyes, her body language. Leaning back on her hands, humming and nodding and saying I get it, I feel that way too, I understand with such sweet sincerity that you can’t help but believe her. Like a Catholic confessional, a pristinely blank page - something you could pour hours and hours of words into that would never, ever complain. 

Yeah, Karina said, finally. She pulled one leg up to her chest; you could see the lacy black of her panties. I get that all the time. 

Just one of those people, huh? Her character was taking shape already. A vault for everyone else’s thoughts and ideas, cradling them between her fingers like something infinitely precious. A listener. Such a lovely trait; a perfect protagonist characteristic. An observer. 

Yeah. Her cheek rested gently against a knobby knee. Exactly. 

It’s something of an art study. You’ve been filing away these details about Karina since the moment you met her, unraveling her bit by bit.

She always seems to think deeply before she speaks, a sort of charming self-scripting, like she wants to make sure she gets every sentence just right. She makes silence seem like the most natural thing in the world. She doesn’t laugh nervously or blush or get embarrassed, ever. She’d mentioned offhand during one of your tangents about your most beloved movies that she tends to like films about gorgeous, dangerous, scarily self-possessed girls: Thirteen and Black Swan and Girl, Interrupted. She seems both intensely present and consistently lost in thought, there one moment and gone the next, her long-lashed gaze falling in and out of focus like a camera lens. A contradiction, you think to yourself. An enigma, even. Profoundly complicated. Not just a girl but something more. 

Art in and of itself, displayed deliberately on your kitchen counter, waiting to be understood. 

“No, you’re right.” Your fingers have strayed to your open laptop; you’re seconds from typing Karina’s name like a title, something you’ve created all on your own. “I know…”

You’re trying to think of something nonchalant to say and failing. I know you - the first instinct, somehow. I know you’re something brilliant and remarkable and new. I know I’ve never felt this way before about anyone. I know there’s something here, I know what I feel, I know what I want - you, you, you. 

Karina stares at the ice melting in her glass. 

Then she says, mouth tripping up at a corner: “You know I’m a world-class fuck.” 

“Jesus.” You laugh out loud, surprised. “Okay, yeah. That.” A pause. “And, obviously-” 

“Obviously,” Karina echoes, like she knows where this is going. 

“I know that you’re, like - outrageously fucking beautiful.” 

Karina hums once, letting the compliment wash over her, and turns to look out the window. 

You bite down on your lip - bite back all the other too-soon things you could say about her, threatening to claw their way out of your mouth - and go in on your script instead. 

It’s shockingly easy to write with her in the room. The details seem to stitch themselves together on-page, the restorative aftermath of an autopsy: sealing the slit chest cavity back up, prepping a corpse for an open casket, making something disconnected whole and beautiful again. You’d pulled these specifics from her like pulsing, throbbing organs - her tits, her tone, her tiny waist - and now all you’re doing is repurposing them. You know her body now. You turn stretches of pale, bruised-pink skin into prose, the curl of her little fingers around her thigh into dialogue. You imagine taking that perfect frame and picking it apart again, bit by bit; not just undressing her but peeling back layers of flesh, familiarizing yourself with the stark scarlet of her bloodstream. Until there’s nothing to hide and you can finally say it - I know you - and it’ll feel earned, and real, and honest. 

All very melodramatic, of course. It’s just the process: the natural consequence of being a writer. 

Your eyes trace the jutting protrusion of muscle in Karina’s throat, and you think about fucking her again. 

“Also,” you say, as though your earlier conversation isn’t long over. “I want to know-”

Karina makes a huffy, half-impatient noise.

You grin, gaze flicking back to her face. “What?” 

“You want to know more?” Her brows furrow in exaggerated confusion; her smile is absurdly self-deprecating. As if there’s anything she could possibly be insecure about. “You already got the two most interesting things about me, babe.” 

“Stop.” Your mouth twitches. “No way.” 

Karina’s smile stills in place, expectant. “No?”

“Come on.” Your hand slips from the keyboard to trace her knee. “I’m sure there’s all kinds of interesting things about you I haven’t learned yet.” 

The laugh she lets out is quiet and nearly secretive, legs parting to let you touch her. You’re already half in some faraway daydream, wondering if you can bottle the color of her eyes and turn it loose on the page.

“Okay,” Karina says, easily. She nudges your laptop away, scoots closer to you, her sharp chin pointed down at you. “Come and learn them, then.” 

“God.” As if that’s what you’re doing. Memorizing her body as some private education; taking her apart in a classroom dissection. “Can I - I’m trying to write, Karina. I’m being productive. I…” You’re shaking your head as though you’re not already giving in, fingers slipping up her thighs - she’s smirking at you like she knows it. “You’re fucking insatiable, you know that?”

“Then satiate me.” Karina’s head tilts, lids heavy. “Fuck me. Use me.” She leans down like she’s telling you a filthy, sordid secret. “Cum in me like I know you want to.” 

There’s something surreal about how certain she is: never tripping over her words or waffling over intentions, the most practiced actress you’ve ever seen. Every move - her tongue wetting her bottom lip, her hand sliding gracefully through her hair, her mouth forming a sweet little pout - all clean, choreographed precision. 

I know you, she says - like it’s earned, real, honest. Inexplicable, but there anyway. I know you want to. 

“Karina.” Her name comes out embarrassingly strangled. You’re pulling her thighs further apart, toying with the edge of her underwear. “You’re such a fucking - you’re so needy.” 

Her smirk sharpens even as you tug her panties roughly to the side. “I’m what?” 

“Needy.” 

“No.” She’s so wet - she’s probably seconds from dissolving into a whimpering breathless thing, begging to be underneath you, begging for more. That damn smirk is probably seconds from shattering completely. “What were you going to call me?” 

“Nothing.” You drag a finger down the slick drenched heat of her cunt.

“A slut.” Her voice is a purr, gravelly and sensual. “You think I’m just this fucking slut who needs your cock all the time, huh?” 

But it’s the kind of question that you already both know the answer to. Karina takes your finger-fucking so well, hips raised and rutting, hair cutting across her cheekbones - seems to give herself over to desire so fucking easily, with her whole body, back arching and neck craned and hot little cunt a sloppy mess. Never puts up a fight, never demures or acts shy; never says wait or don’t or stop. Only spreads her legs, and drips down your hand, and waits to be fucked good and hard.

And - hey, there’s one dirty word for a girl like that. 

“Well.” You raise your eyebrows at her: a challenge. “Are you?”

It’s dangerous. This is all dangerous. Stumbling down a treacherous path, asking a stranger something like this. Are you what I think you are? Do I know you? Do I really? 

Karina makes a low, luxurious noise at the stretch of your fingers in her cunt, buried to the knuckle. 

“Sure,” she says - and the gleam in her eye tells you she knows exactly what she’s getting herself into. “I’m whatever you want me to be.” 

-

So, it’s possible this is really the most interesting thing about her: she’s the kind of girl who never says no. 

-

That scene goes down how all scenes should:

“Fuck, fuck, fuck-” 

Karina’s choking out curses like she can’t recall any other words, head lolling back to expose the pretty bob of her throat. You thrust deep right then and she lets out a sound like an aching gasp, like you’ve doubled down with a fist to her gut, like you’re knocking the the air right out of her; you might as well be - oh, she moans, like she could be in shock or awe or pain - with the way you’ve got one of her thighs pulled up so you can fuck deep into her tight dripping cunt. It’s not nice, not really. Her back keeps hitting your counter. You keep staring at her neck and her hair and her face: the faint flush of her cheeks, the flawless construction of her bones underneath - there’s so much unmarked skin - God, she’s so clean, it’s like she’s never been fucking touched-

“You gonna cum for me?” you murmur, voice coming out thick and half-animalistic. 

She has one hand curled around the back of your neck. She’s got those ridiculous clawed nails on her but she never presses down. Her pussy can’t stop clenching around your cock but she takes it so well, lets you make room inside her little cunt, shuts her eyes and trips over her own breath as you force her spine hard against your counter over and over again. 

“Karina.” 

“Yeah,” she exhales, raspy and strained, as your cock stretches her out. “Fuck, yeah-” 

“Cum for me, honey. Cum all over my cock - oh, there you go, good girl-” 

It’s hypnotic. The tiny bitten-off sounds spilling from her ice-cold mouth - that small pristine face and all that hair tangled to her waist, just available to be knotted and tugged and fucked all the way up - Karina clings to you when she cums, and you feel so much bigger than her when she does, like you’ve got her sloppy and open around your cock and you could do anything to her, that’s what she told you, and even if she hadn’t, it’s not like she could stop you - she’s gorgeous but she doesn’t have it in her - she’s just too fucking delicate-

It happens too fast to process. 

One minute you’re buried inside her pussy and the next Karina’s on her knees, on the ground, and you’re jerking your cock until you’re cumming all over her. 

It’s obscene. It’s fucking inevitable. Thick ropes of creamy cum coating her forehead, her cheekbone, her nose and mouth and getting all in that hair-

Her hair. You don’t realize how hard you’re gripping her hair with one hand - balled in a brutal fist at the back of her head - until you disentangle your fingers from it and Karina sinks to the floor like she’s just been cut loose from marionette strings, breathing fast and hard. She doesn’t even say anything: doesn’t comment on the fact that you’d just shoved her straight to the ground or complain when the head of your cock smears cum across her jaw. Doesn’t even flinch when your cock slaps heavy across her cheek, at the indecent sound of the impact. 

You’re staring at her, open-mouthed. At her gorgeous, breathtaking, defiled face. 

Karina’s not looking at you. Instead, she’s preening in the most lewd, pornographic way possible: swiping her thumb through the cum streaking across her forehead, popping it into her mouth to suck. Halfway through she seems to remember you’re still in the room - seems to recall the value of a performance - and she redirects her gaze up at you, lids heavy, and smirks. 

“Did I…” you start, without knowing how the sentence will end. “Did I - was I-”

Karina lifts a cum-covered eyebrow. Her mouth’s an arresting pink, puckering around her thumb like it puckered around the cubes of ice, how her lips formed a ring around your cock back in the bookstore yesterday. She lets it slip free, shiny with spit. 

“No,” she says. “You’re good.” 

You can’t stop looking at the cum caught in her hairline. She’d been so fucking clean. 

You glance down and realize there are strands of black hair broken off in your clenched fist. 

Karina’s looking at her hair in your hand too, now, but with a sort of amused detachment. She stands shakily, using the counter for support. There’s cum all over her. Her knees are red from how hard she’d been pushed down.

“You’re so cute,” she tells you, grazing the side of your neck with her fingertips. “There’s no shame in being rough with me, babe.” 

“Right.” There’s an unnamed pressure coiling in your chest. “But - but you-” 

“Hey.” The word comes out in a rasp, and then Karina laughs, pushing the low hoarse lilt of her voice to its limits. She steps closer, angles her little cum-stained chin up at you. “Are you really gonna tell me you don’t like seeing me covered in your cum?” She’s tonguing the corner of her mouth. “Turning me into a-” her smirk pulls wicked; your next breath hitches so badly- “messy fucking whore for your cock?” 

“God,” you get out, because she’s winding an arm around your neck, and her pretty face is still sticky with your cum. “I-” 

“It’s what you wanted.” Karina blinks, in a show of such doe-eyed naïveté that saliva begins pooling hot in your mouth - like you’re feral, like you’re rabid. “Isn’t it?” 

You’re looking down again. Her knees are going to bruise. Black and blue, as if someone’s bullied her in the schoolyard, pulled her pigtails and knocked her to the asphalt. An echo of something teachers could’ve told her years ago: oh, look, he’s mean to you because he’s got a crush. It’s okay, really - he only hurts you because he likes you.  

“You like me like this,” Karina murmurs, dangerously low. “All sloppy and slutty for you.” Her gaze is trained on your mouth. “Marking me up.” Her hair slips from your hand. “Owning me.” 

Her name clogs your throat, cloying and candy-sweet. “Karina-”

Karina’s head tilts. “Yes or no?” 

She’s too close to you. She’s so filthily beautiful she seems somewhat alien, some kind of foreign invention. Her jaw is smeared with your cum and her flawless teeth shine like jewels and she’s like every creative vision you’ve ever had cut in clips and playing back in a movie theater, made to be scrutinized. 

“Yes,” you tell her, winded. “You’re fucking - you’re unreal, you know that?”

You’re smiling like it’s flattery, like it’s an exaggeration. Like she’s not living, breathing, visionary art. 

She smiles back, like she knows just how much you really mean it.

“So I’ve been told,” Karina says, and taps your neck, lightly. “Go make breakfast.” She shakes her hair out; some of it gets stuck to the cum on her cheekbone. “I���m taking another shower.” 

“Right.” You bite into your bottom lip, hand skimming down her side. “Go get clean.” 

“Clean?” She steps back and flashes a disbelieving grin, gestures pointedly at herself - her creamy thighs, her porn star tits in your t-shirt, her body like sex itself. Dirty by design. “Never happening.”

Some cynical part of you keeps waiting for a slip-up, some mistake in a masterfully crafted script - no one can be that gorgeous and still be here with you. But Karina moves and your eyes are hopelessly drawn to the disheveled curtain of her hair spiraling down her back, the sharp distinct lines of her calves, the flex of muscle in her thighs. Her hands, balled into little fists. She’s alluring as if manufactured that way: engineered to be perfectly bruisable, ruinable. It defies logic. It’s movie magic.

“Well.” You snort with laughter, swat at Karina’s ass as she turns to go. “At least you can try.”

You don’t even think she can help it - that’s the thing. It’s just what she was made for. 

-

“What would you have done if I said no, though?” you ask after a moment, as she wavers in the doorway. “Like - what if I told you I didn’t like you like this?” 

Karina shrugs.

“I would’ve been something else,” she says, and closes the bathroom door behind her. 

-

(Next:

The stranger and the girl fuck and afterwards he promises her breakfast and then he realizes his cabinets are bare, his fridge painfully unstocked. Sorry, he says, as she pokes around his kitchen. I don’t know how that happened. I usually have something to eat here, I swear. 

I don’t mind, she says. Her fingertips sweep his shelves. She seems fascinated by the emptiness, admiring the vacancy. Oh, wait, look. 

She finds a half-eaten jar of honey that she ends up scooping up crudely with her fingers, dripping sticky amber down her hand. He’d tell her that’s disgusting but she makes it - as she seems to make everything - into a pointed seduction, her tongue pink and wetly visible, her skin gleaming as she licks it off. It’s funny. He’d never thought it possible to turn eating into some sort of sexual performance but she manages it anyway: meets his eyes, sucks loud and lewd, smacks her lips and wipes her mouth with her thumb, ill-mannered and stunning. 

I can’t imagine that’s very filling, he says, delighted by her commitment. 

Yeah, well, she says. It’s a good thing I hate feeling full. 

But it seems like a moment of hilarious irony when ten minutes later he’s got her bent over his kitchen counter, tits pressed punishingly to the flat surface, honey stuck to her neck and collarbone as she’s fucked hard again and again, stuffed with his cock, his fingers everywhere, like her own body barely even belongs to her - all mine, he keeps saying, and means it; you’re all mine. All filled up. Overfed. Bursting. 

Sex is a manner of consuming, it seems. He might as well be eating her alive.)

-

“Do you do this a lot?”

Eventually, it turns into one of those lazy Saturdays. An afternoon of sitcom plot points. 

It’s just so easy to fill the time, the space, the page - you tell Karina some inane story from your college years and she reacts in all the right places like your own built-in studio audience; she says something off-handed and enticingly vague and suddenly you have a new thread of dialogue to explore. You’re both sprawled out over your couch, Karina’s got her thighs tucked over your legs, wearing another one of your t-shirts, a fresh hickey bruising over her throat. There’s something delightfully domestic about it - like you’ve been doing it for a lot longer than you have, or like you could do it eternally if given the chance, holding all the silken comfort of an old routine. When you’d mentioned it - I kind of feel like I could do this forever - she’d laughed her scratchy laugh and said forever’s nowhere near as long as you think it is, babe. A perfectly cinematic line. You stared at her, leaned over, and added it immediately to your draft. 

“This whole…” You’re trying to elaborate now, staring at the blinking cursor on your laptop screen. Your knuckles skim her bare, bony knees. “You know.” 

“Eloquent.” 

“Shut up.” 

“I thought you were a writer.” 

“Karina.” You’re charmed by the drawl of her voice, the raspy roll of sarcasm. “I’m just wondering.”

Karina shifts in your lap. You’ve got one hand sneaking up the hem of her shirt - your shirt - skating up her tummy, her ribs. You’re probably about five minutes from snapping your laptop shut and pulling her on top of you and saying something crass about her tits and passing it off as a character study. 

“What do you mean?” She’s as close to clean as she can be. You made sure of it - licked the hollow of her collarbone earlier after she got out of the shower, tasted nothing but soap and skin. “Do I have a lot of sex with strangers? Or do I stay the night a lot after I have sex with strangers?”

“Both.” You think of taking her hair down, sifting your hand through it, wrapping the strands around your fingers. “All of the above.” 

Karina shoots you a look, fluttered lashes, suggestive understanding. You hear it without her having to say it. You want me to tell you that you’re special. 

“I’ve kind of been going through a phase,” she says instead, nonchalantly. 

Your eyebrows fly up. “A phase?” 

“I’ve been, you know.” She gives an airy sigh. “Trying to find myself in the big city. Running wild. Terrified of monogamy but being very brave and quirky about it. Sordid past with love and romance and general human connection. Doing the whole manic pixie dream girl thing.” Her eyes flick to your open laptop, abruptly too wide and innocent. “That sound about right?” 

“Fuck off.” It’s a complete non-answer. You run a hand past her stomach, laughing. “You’re fucking with me.”

“What?” Karina inches closer. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Your textbook rom-com love interest?”

You make a rather disparaging sound in the back of your throat. “Ugh.” 

“Oh, my bad.” Her mouth curls, contradictory. There’s nothing apologetic about her. “I forgot. You don’t believe in art about love. You wanna see broken people and broken people only.” 

“See?” You’re obsessed with her tone; all flirtation, some distorted version of come-hither charm. Talking of suffering like it’s a seduction tactic. “You get it.” 

Karina rakes a hand through her hair; her fingers fall to the back of her neck and linger there. She pulls herself out of your lap and turns, hooks one bare long leg over you until she’s straddling you. Your hands find her hips. You’re disarmed by her strange weightlessness, like she’s seconds from either shattering or taking flight.  

Then she asks, “Is that what you’re doing with me?”

It’s gotta be a very roundabout request to fuck her stupid, because she follows it up torturously: ducks her chin, parts her lips, rocks her hips down until you groan. You watch her throat, the way muscle works over bone, picturing unspeakable things: taking her by that pretty neck and pinning her to the wall, ripping your shirt right off of her with your fingertips leaving bruises - bending her over to fuck her fast and cruel until her cunt’s raw and aching and leaking your cum - until she’s begging pathetically, saying please, God, please - and you’re triumphant, victorious. Telling her you asked for this, didn’t you? You said anything. You said anything I want. 

“Depends,” you reply, when you can breathe again. “Are you a broken person?” 

Karina stops, moments from your mouth. 

“Depends,” she echoes. “Is that what you want from me?”

It actually takes a beat for the question to sink in. Then two, then-

“No,” you say, loudly. “Obviously not, Karina, Jesus. Why would I…”

You falter. 

Karina only looks back at you, patient, tolerant. Like if right now you said that’s exactly it: I want you broken, I want you ruined, I want you decaying and dead and buried, she’d smile and say do your worst. Flashing those white, white teeth, perfect like pearls, ready to be knocked right out and strung together. 

You blink the bloody vision away. “Why would I ever want that?”

Karina studies you for a second longer, expression indecipherable. 

“Okay,” she agrees, breezily. “Then I’m not broken. I’m just going through a phase, like I said. I don’t like being tied down.” Her shirt rides tantalizingly high up her thighs; her hand slips down to palm your cock. There’s a twist to her lips, a dirty sort of smirk. “You understand that, right?”

You stare at her.

“Right?” Karina prods, again, low and sultry. 

“Right,” you say, unable to fight your sudden smile. 

The pout of her mouth’s an inevitability; her little body in your lap’s a seductive form of foreshadowing. You dig your fingers into her protruding ribs, playful, and you don’t quite get the squeal of laughter you were expecting - all Karina does is curl closer, expecting more, expecting harder. She knows what you’re capable of. You’re both just biding your time until you cross the same line you’ve been crossing and you fall back into bed again.

“A phase,” you add, considering. It intrigues you, anyway - the casualness, the connotation. “So - I’m not special, then. That’s the moral of this story.” 

Karina’s fingers sift gently through your hair. “You wanna be special?”

“I mean, yeah.” Your palm falls to her neck, presses down. She doesn’t seem to mind. “Doesn’t everyone?” 

Her eyebrows rise in vague, unconvinced amusement. It makes sense: she’s the most special of all, a cosmic glitch, an angelic fluke. Someone like Karina wouldn’t understand the aching, clawing, consuming desire to be extraordinary. She’s already there. 

Your hand on her throat looks even bigger now, tendons straining from underneath skin.

“I think we all want to feel important,” you mumble, thumb grazing gently across her jaw. “Don’t you?” 

You’re pretty sure the wry, glittering smile that sits at Karina’s mouth is an answer in itself. 

-

Alright, forget your television metaphors - you’re not sure there’s any sitcom out there that goes quite like this.

“By the way,” you say, grinning against her hair as you pull her to the bedroom. “Did you say you don’t like being tied down?” 

Karina turns in your arms and doesn’t even flinch when you force her too hard against the doorframe and its edge smacks into her shoulder blade, digging in hard. You should apologize but you don’t; the possibility of her in pain seems laughable, a distant fantasy. This is how it goes, fucking a girl who looks like a god - your brain is convinced she’s wholly immune to hurt. The universe wouldn’t actually let someone so pretty bleed. 

“Oh, sorry,” she says, voice raspy with insinuation. “Let me rephrase.” 

“Karina,” you say, not really like a warning - more like you’ve got something to prove. This is real. You’re really here. You’re really this perfect, gorgeous, greedy thing. You’re really made for me. 

Karina only lets her lips tilt in a smirk, devilish and knowing.

“I meant that I don’t like commitment,” she says. “I love being tied down.”

She’s still smiling when you shove her through the doorway, across the threshold - across that same old fucking line.

-

Not that it makes a difference now, but one of the reasons you and your most recent ex-girlfriend broke up was because of what you’d both referred to as sexual incompatibility. Actually, there were about fourteen other things, too - she was a trainwreck and a textbook attention whore; you spent all your time writing and she took offense to the fact that you found your scripts more interesting than her - but the crux of the sex problem between the two of you was that she thought you wanted too much power over her. She seemed to assume that was the point of potentially tying her up and shit like that: to exert power. To put you and only you in control. To make her into this helpless little toy - and I hate that, she’d said, working herself into a fit, I hate feeling helpless. 

You hadn’t pushed her. You’d also tried to justify it in a number of ways. It isn’t about that. It’s not about control. I’m not trying to make you feel bad. But it hadn’t made a difference and she hadn’t believed you and you’d come to the reluctant, inevitable conclusion that that particular dream would never actually get fulfilled. 

Until-

“Look at you, baby.” 

Until now, when you’ve got Karina stripped bare and tied to your bed, thighs parted as you kneel over her, pretty little cunt glistening wet and tits heaving with every breath as she waits, and waits, and waits. 

Eyes half-lidded. Utterly fuckable. A curated collection of every salacious desire you’ve ever had. 

“You’ve been looking at me forever,” murmurs Karina, her tone still humorous, like the reason her voice is run so ragged is because she’s holding back a fit of giggles. “You gonna fuck me anytime soon?” 

To Karina’s credit, the idea of tying her up didn’t seem to bother her one bit. She’d let you knot her wrists to your bedframe and only grinned sharply when you asked her if it was too much. She didn’t seem to care about feeling helpless or feeling bad. Actually - judging from the wetness that collects on your fingers as you rub two of them over her cunt - it all seemed to turn her on either way. 

“You’re so fucking mouthy.” You lift your hand only to ghost it over her stomach, leaving a lewd shiny streak across her skin. “It’s like you want to be punished.” 

“Well, you put in all this work.” Karina yanks at the ropes tethering her wrists to the bedframe until they bite so severely into her skin that it turns white. “I’d hate to see it go to waste.” 

“Not a waste.” 

“No?” She’s got that seductive little smirk on, legs spread shamelessly, head back and throat bared. 

“Nope.” Your eyes rove down her body. “It’s a great view, actually.”

You’re shocked by the sound Karina makes, then: harsh and derisive, scratchy and painful, like she’s choking badly around some injury in her throat. You’re half-expecting her to turn her face and spit blood onto your sheets - all murder-scene evidence, horrifically vibrant gore. Coughing up her own vocal chords. 

It’s so awful it actually takes you a minute to realize that she’s laughing. 

“Karina?” you say, perturbed.

“Oh, please.” Karina hacks out one more horrid laugh. “Cut the shit.” 

You draw your hand back uncertainly. “What are you-”

“Come on, man.” There’s a glint to Karina’s gaze as she looks up at you: bored, mocking, infuriating. Irises flashing like the darkest corners of haunted houses, set-ups for a summoning; lashes like cobwebs, self-spun and delicate. “Fuck me or leave me alone.”

For a second you just stare at her, unmoving, something caustic and furious threading up your spine. 

And then-

Look, none of this next part is on you. You can’t blame yourself. It’s her - her tiny hands in tight clenched fists, tummy so flat it seems caved-in, hollowed-out; her own glimmer of slick smeared on her belly, physical proof of how desperately slutty she really is. The bruise on her chest; the one on her throat. Her goddamn eyes. Her lazy, lilting drawl, the exact matter-of-fact casualness she’d had last night when she’d told you to hurt her - fuck me or leave me alone. 

It’s so obvious what she’s trying to do - provoke a reaction out of you. It’s gotta be the only reason she’s talking to you like that. Like, what else are we here for? Like, what else could I possibly want from you? 

So - no, God, it’s not your fault. 

But-

It’s over before you can even think about it. Before you’ve even rationalized doing it, before you recognize the sound ricocheting through the room as the perfect violent land of a blow, the hot whiplash of skin on skin, your palm connecting with its target. Before you blink, and recalibrate, and you take in the rapid reddening of her cheek, and her angled jaw, and her hair falling starkly past her chin - it’s too late. It’s already done. 

Because you’ve just slapped Karina clean across the face - hard. 

“Oh.” You’re babbling as if on autopilot, all your nerves on shutdown. “Oh. Oh, God. Karina-” 

Karina licks the corner of her lip, like she can taste the impact. 

“Jesus Christ,” you’re saying, panicking; you can’t shut up. You don’t know what to do with your hands; you find yourself kneeling carefully in front of her, cupping her face, stroking her temples with your thumbs like it’ll soothe the sting. You can’t believe you hit her. All the things you could do to a girl like that, and you - “I’m sorry. I didn’t - fuck, baby. I’m sorry.”

Karina blinks up at you, expression placid and blank, porcelain-doll cool. 

“For what?” she asks. 

You freeze, her face still between your palms. “For-”

But the serene tilt of her mouth makes the words die in your throat. 

“Seriously.” Karina’s voice is softer now, a kind twist of mirth. “Isn’t that what you wanted to do with me this whole time?” 

Her features seem to fall out of alignment, occurring to you in cut, edited fragments - the baby-animal eyes, the bone-white glint of teeth, the pretty blooming flush of her cheek, blood rising underneath skin but never breaking through. No evidence of a limit breached; she doesn’t wince or wail or cry. She wears the hit so well. She’s smiling. A you-don’t-need-to-be-sorry smile, a you’re-forgiven smile: I’m strong, I’m good, I can take it. Whatever you need. Whatever you have to give. 

You blink and Karina reassembles, stitched up at the seams, beautiful and uninjured and intact.

“You want this,” you exhale, a wondrous revelation.

“Of course.” Karina’s shoulders rise as much as they can with her arms so tightly tied back. “You do, don’t you?” 

The panic recedes, and something else - something electric and brutal, visceral, intoxicating - takes its place instead. 

It’s the way she says it: rhetorical, all-knowing. As if she’s seen exactly what’s in your mind - what repulsive daydreams have settled right behind your ribcage, clawing to be set free - and she’s offering her own body in sacrifice. Saying here, put them here. 

So you do. 

She doesn’t even look surprised when you slap her again. 

“See?” Karina’s chin tips upwards in delicious, submissive invitation: eyes darkly pleased, pale skin a burning wildfire, curled mouth a beckoning. Like it’s been what she’s waiting for, all along. “There you are.” 

And when you’re finally able to catch your breath:

Oh, you think, in some exhilarating epiphany. Here I am. 

Every single reservation falls out the window. Karina’s smirk slants viciously and then you’ve got your hands all over her, on her shoulders and her tits and her hips and her throat and her face, thumb digging hard into her cheekbone. Any sort of gentle caution is gone when you’re getting on top of her and burying your cock deep inside the suffocating vice of her aching little cunt, half-drunk on the high mewling moans you’re forcing out of her, head swimming at the drenched audible sound of her pussy every time you fuck into her - at how tight she clenches down around your cock. Fuck it all, then, it’s not like it means anything - hurt me, she’d said, running through your head on loop; I want it so bad, I need it, hurt me - and so you do, wrapping a hand around her delicate neck and pressing down, slapping hard against her heaving tits, salivating over the marks that you leave. She doesn’t even struggle. Takes it like a good girl, an obedient girl: something meant to be hit and torn up and pulled apart. A hands-on art piece. A disassembling, made purely for audience consumption; a sign hung around her neck that says leave your mark, that’s the point. You’d been so naïve, thinking of being careful with her - like she’d ever even fucking want that-

“You like it like this.” Your voice sounds raw, almost unrecognizable; your fingers press into the base of her throat. “This is all you needed, huh? You just needed to be roughed up real hard.” Your hand trails up to grip a fistful of her hair, merciless. Karina shuts her eyes. “Like you’re just a slutty fucktoy-” 

Karina chokes out a small, wet gasp.

“Oh, baby.” You yank harder at her hair. “It’s okay to admit it.”

But in a way, she already is. Doesn’t fight against the restraints tying her wrists, doesn’t flinch at how rough you’re fucking her, doesn’t whine or blink back tears at the harsh graze of your thumbnail against her nipple. Like she’s a plaything, here in your bed for your pleasure alone. Like-

“Like you were just fucking made for this, yeah?” She comes undone so easily: cunt a wet sticky mess when you reach down to rub her clit, teeth pearly-white where they’re caught on her bottom lip - though nothing can hold back the anguished noise Karina lets out at your pace, the thick stretch of your cock, your palm smacking at her tits over and over. “Look at you. That face, these tits, this little fucking cunt-”

Like it’s her one and only purpose - to have all her fair skin turned searing red and bruised under someone else’s hands. Her cunt just begging to be split open and stuffed full, railed so hard she could break. It’s gotta be what she was created for. She’s more than mortal, so above the concept of imperfection; a nasty little fuckdoll of a girl, meant to be used hard and licked clean. She looks too irresistible all fucked-out and ruined. It has to be in her nature. Made for this, you keep telling her: to be fucked until she can’t walk. To be treated forever how you’re treating her now. 

Your ex-girlfriend couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s not about power or control at all.

“You’d really just let me do anything to you, huh?” you murmur, awed, but you’re holding her throat too hard for her to reply. 

You fuck her, and fuck her, and fuck her. Rub at her clit until she clamps down and cums around you, until you can really get on top of her, force her to hold those huge tits together so you can fuck them. You can’t handle how tiny she is underneath you, her face and her mouth slack with lust, eyes glazed over entirely. She squeezes her tits around your cock. She’s hardly even human. It’s the best thing about her. 

“That’s how I know you’re a fucking whore.” Your grin feels wide and manic on your face. You’re gonna cum all over her - again. “None of this even matters.” 

And it’s only after - after you’ve painted her collarbone and chest creamy white and let up on her throat so she can fight for air; after you’ve groped her tits and grabbed her face after just to see your cum glistening all over her perfect slap-marred cheeks; after you’ve rolled off of her and you finally leave her alone - that Karina gives you a response. 

“No,” she says, hoarsely, staring up at the ceiling. “It really, really doesn’t.” 

-

Power just isn’t the right word for it. It’s something much more beautiful than that. 

Desire. You’re dozing off, halfway in a sleepy fantasy. You imagine rolling the word around in your mouth, using it in speeches, citing it as an obvious central theme. It’s about desire, you’d say, in interviews, at film festivals, patiently explaining your motivations to the masses. That irrational animal instinct. That innate human greediness. You’ll maybe even throw in some fun anecdote about how people in past relationships never agreed with you. It’s never been about power, though, you’d explain: how foolish, how crude. It’s about the ache of truly wanting something. Isn’t that so much more romantic?

So you’ll make a movie about this one day. So you tied Karina to the bed and slapped her hard and fucked her senseless. Actually, you picture yourself explaining, foggy and on verge of falling asleep: actually, it’s about hunger. Irrepressible, all-consuming hunger. That’s why I did this. That’s why I’ll keep doing it. You’re all like me; you get it. That makes sense, doesn’t it? 

And it will, to raucous, riotous applause.

Good. You’ll laugh so hard. You’re dreaming, now; you can’t tell if you’re talking about the sex or the hypothetical future movie. I’m glad you understand. Anyone would’ve done what I did. 

Because - honestly - what’s the point of starving yourself of something that’s right in front of you?

-

(Let’s pull back from your script for a second. Here’s a real story:

A few months back you were visiting a museum with one of your friends when you got into this conversation about performance art. He’d told you about a woman back in the seventies who walked into a gallery and laid out various objects and let the audience do whatever they wanted to her for six whole hours. Her as the artist, in title only; herself as the art. A free, untethered canvas. 

And what happened? you asked, morbidly curious. 

Your friend grimaced. What do you think happened? 

It was a rhetorical question. The performance had been a test of what the general public was capable of - a reflection of their moral compass, of what they’d do if left unchecked. The setup spoke for itself. You didn’t have to get all the gory details in order to understand. 

Seriously, though, your friend said, about the artist: I don’t know what’d compel someone to do something like that to themselves. He’d shaken his head, baffled. Like - I think it takes a deeply fucked up person to just give up their body like that. Like it doesn’t even matter to them. 

It’s strange. It’s an almost universally accepted fact that, at least on some level, artists are inclined to put pieces of themselves into the things they create. A memory; a feeling. Condensing twenty different emotions into a single acrylic painting, or a lyrical reenactment of heartbreak into a song - something personal and unique and lovely. Often inspired, sure, but yours. 

I think that’s what’s funny about it, you told your friend, before you realized that funny was a fucked up word to use here. There’s nothing personal about that. It’s so detached. It’s about the rest of the world, whatever they might make of her - it’s not about her at all. 

You were both quiet, thinking. Visualizing what it might’ve been like. To be there, one of many in the audience, watching this woman who had thrown herself to the wolves and asked to be ripped apart. 

She’s just - material for them to use, I guess, you said, after a moment. A blank page. 

Removing her own identity; becoming nothing, no one. A ghost. An empty vessel. A slab of clay, taking on the impression of everyone who’s ever touched her: the ridges of fingerprints, the half-moon cuts of nails, molding her into something new. Even if it took some force. Even if it hurt. 

Still, it’s what she’d asked for. 

You can’t imagine she’d ever expected anything else.)

-

There’s this fascinating complaint people have about films these days, you’ve found. It’s actually quite the phenomenon. You talk to your colleagues and scroll through social media and read comments on movie trailers trying to get a grasp on it all: market research. This isn’t realistic, people gripe. It’d never sound like that. She’d never look like that. This would never, ever happen - God, are you kidding? Who are they trying to fool? As if they’ve somehow missed the point of fiction - of a sweet, escapist fantasy. As if they’ve convinced themselves that the real world is better. 

Which is moronic, obviously. 

“So what’s the solution?” Karina asks.

Well, you’re no expert; it’s been a while since you’d finished your last movie.

“But you have an idea,” Karina interpets. She’s perched on the edge of your coffee table, nursing a new glass of ice. She’s watching you with her head at an angle, eyes shrewd. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be telling me this.” 

As with most of her guesses about you, she’s right. 

“It’s all about the details,” you say, after a moment. “It humanizes a person. Having little bits and pieces about who they are - it makes them alive. Their likes, their dislikes. Embarrassing stories. Things that make them laugh. Diary entries, favorite foods - first loves, first heartbreaks. So on and so forth.” You’ve got one of Karina’s ankles between your hands; your thumb brushes against the bulbous protrusion of bone. “It’s what makes people real.” 

Karina’s mouth twists, sharp and strange; it takes a second for you to realize that she’s grinning. 

“Oh, right,” she says. “You want me to spill my guts to you.” She pushes her ankle further into your grip. Her legs are just like the rest of her: thin and pale, waifish. Like a nineties catwalk model. “That’s how you’re gonna make me real. In your movie.” 

You pull a face, letting her ankle slip from your hands. Spill her guts; what an ugly figure of speech. As if you’re doing something much more invasive and violent than just writing about her. 

“Basically,” you agree, anyway. “I mean, it helps that you’re already, you know - a real, whole, living person.” 

“Ugh,” says Karina, dry and amused. “Barely.” 

You wonder if she’s also thinking about this morning; you, stunned and staring at her cum-streaked hair, calling her unreal.

She’s got a point, in a way. There’s something slightly uncanny about her sitting in front of you, as if she’s been taken straight out of some wildly different scene - some spotlit stage, some movie set, some glossy high-budget existence - and haphazardly edited into your life. You reach out and press two fingers to the side of her neck, like they do on television if they think someone’s bleeding out. 

Karina tips her head to allow you access. Her pulse throbs hotly under your touch. 

“I don’t know,” you say, smiling at the swanlike line of her throat. “You seem pretty alive to me.” 

“Sure.” Her hair tickles your wrist. “But you want more.”

She says it like it’s this given - as if she’s always faced with people wanting more from her. You wouldn’t doubt it, little tease she is. You can picture her in motion so easily. Always running. Letting people pine and plead for more. 

“Yeah,” you say. It seems pointless to lie to her. “I want more.” 

Karina leans in closer. She reaches up and touches one of your knuckles with the pad of her thumb. Without makeup, you can see the shadows of dark circles underneath her eyes, but even those look painted-on, pre-planned; a study on the aesthetic allure of bruises. She lets her gaze drop to your mouth, then bites down on her bottom lip. Impish.

“Karina,” you say, grinning wider now. 

It’s one of those unspoken things: the translation of body language, the transcription of the tilt of her mouth. Then have me, she’s saying, almost certainly - like a swooning melodramatic heroine, throwing herself into your lap, wanting to be saved. You want more? You want me? I’m right here. I’m yours.

“Fine,” Karina purrs, and kisses you again, like sealing a contract. “Take it all.” 

-

You don’t fuck her again - not at first. There’s more than one way to take someone apart. 

Karina says she’s got a story for you and then she pulls out her phone. 

“This was back in high school,” she explains, scrolling back through her photo gallery. There don’t seem to be a lot of recent additions to it; you’d expected selfies, pictures of her with friends. There are more photos of food than anything: plates of pasta and donuts and burgers and pastries piled with whipped cream. It’s cute. It makes you laugh. “When I won prom queen.” 

You splutter. “When you what?” 

“What?” Karina gives you a bemused, sideways look. “Does that surprise you?” 

It floors you, actually. At first you can’t quite put your finger on why, but then you look at Karina again - at her intense dark eyes and pouty fuckdoll lips and the exaggerated pinup proportions of her body - and you realize you’re making that mistake writers often do: buying into archetypes. It just makes sense that she’d be some kind of brooding bad girl. Mysterious, promiscuous; in your creative vision she’s probably cutting classes and chainsmoking in the girls’ bathroom. A favorite of the rumor mill. A pretty little delinquent.

“Wow.” Karina makes a funny noise in the back of her throat when you tell her this. “No. I was - I did fine in school. Perfect attendance, almost. And I can’t stand the smell of cigarettes.” But she doesn’t look offended, either; you imagine people make these assumptions about her all the time. “The prom queen thing - it wasn’t my idea, though. My best friend did all the campaigning for me.” 

“That’s sweet.” You watch as she reaches the year she’s looking for. Flashes of her in a sparkly dress with her arms thrown around another girl - a tiny doe-eyed brunette - slide by. In one of them, Karina’s got her head tipped back, clearly mid-laugh; in another, she and the girl have their heads bent close together as if they’re trading secrets, unaware that they’re being photographed. “Well - I think it’s sweet.” 

Karina’s fingers stall. “Why wouldn’t it be?” 

“I’m just saying-” You shrug. “It’s a nice gesture if it’s something you wanted, I guess. Seems like a lot of attention, otherwise.” 

“Oh.” There’s a pause. “Yeah. It was - I didn’t get to go to junior prom, so it was kind of - this was - senior year. Senior prom.” Another pause. “Yeah. She did it to make me happy.”

“And did it?” She passes by pictures that fill up with more people: friends with big grins who stick close to her side, wrapping her up in an embrace. “Make you happy?” 

“Of course.” Karina’s thumb pauses on a video, the preview dark and unfocused. She says it like she doesn’t even have to think about it. “She was my best friend. She always knew what I wanted. Hey, look at this.” 

The video’s of her in the back of someone’s car, prom queen tiara askew on her head, satiny sash falling off one shoulder. She’s yelling, laughing; the sound isn’t on, but her mouth’s wide open and her dark eyes are crinkled to half-moons, creased underneath heavy false lashes and glittery makeup that’s begun to smudge and fade. It makes her whole face look very soft. Young, too - cheeks full and flushed pink with excitement, hair blown-out and everywhere, glossed black. As if she’s having the time of her life. 

“How old were you here?” you ask, in awe. 

“Eighteen. Just turned, I think.” 

“You look-” Like a baby, you almost want to say. It’s true, though. Big brown eyes, scrunched little nose - grinning like the rest of the world hasn’t quite dug its claws into her yet. Skin unmarred and infant-smooth. “You look pretty.” 

Karina doesn’t look at you, but you can see the slight, entertained upturn of her lips. All the nasty things you’ve called her - all the irredeemable ways you’ve touched her - and now, inexplicably, you’re going for pretty. 

“Thanks,” she says, and clicks the volume up.

“Shut the fuck up,” baby Karina is saying, delightedly. Her voice sounds high, childish and carefree. “You’re so dumb. It wasn’t - it wasn’t even like that, I swear!” She flaps one hand in the air, her nails all short and painted the same rich deep maroon as her dress. “No - you’re just saying that because you’re jealous, you idiot, I know you - you just-”

The person behind the camera says something that you can’t quite make out. 

Baby Karina presses one hand to her sternum, pearl-clutching, and gasps. 

“I would never,” she admonishes - over-the-top like an actress from a movie - before she throws her head back and laughs. 

It’s a startling, wonderful laugh. A little-kid laugh. A mess of wild, unabashed giggles, hiccupy and sweet, so loud and infectious you can hear the other people in the car start cracking up with her; out of frame, someone reaches out to interlace their fingers with Karina’s, waving their joined hands until they smack against the car window and Karina only laughs harder. With her whole body, shoulders shaking and all. Streetlights flashing across her face, making her look sort of blurry and surreal, like something out of a painting. 

“Your laugh,” you find yourself saying, stunned. 

Karina’s touching the back of her neck, completely engrossed in the video. “My what?” 

You don’t laugh like that anymore. That’s what you mean to say. That scratchy, almost painful laugh that she’s been gracing you with since the moment you met her - there’s no trace of that in how baby Karina wriggles with laughter in the backseat of the car until her happy, breathless blush spreads to her neck and her chest. Head tipping back against the seat, like she’s all tuckered out. 

“Um,” you say, voice caught in your throat. 

On the screen, her eyes fall shut, lashes fluttering so delicately. 

You can’t do anything but stare. Brilliant, past-life, prom-queen Karina - grinning at nothing, and sleepy from a perfect night, and laughing as if she’ll exist as this version of herself forever. As if she just doesn’t know any better, yet. 

“You,” you start to say, again-

Karina shuts her phone off, and turns.

And you’re about to say something - something about the gnawing, uncertain feeling you get when you watch this former self of hers. It’s on the tip of your tongue. You don’t laugh like that. Something happened to you. For a moment the whole image just seems off - like the way people make posthumous holograms of pop stars, superimpose faces of long-dead actors on stunt doubles. A kind of intense wrongness. A murmured, uncomfortable: that’s not really you, is it? It can’t be. I barely recognize her. 

“What?” Karina asks. Her smile reveals her teeth. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

Then reality hits you, all at once. 

“Sorry.” Your hand finds her thigh. You laugh because you’re being ridiculous - how would you know who she really is, anyway? “I was just thinking - I don’t know. Never mind.”

She seems to take that at face value. You like that about her. How she seems to trust so easily - going home with you, winding up in your bed, staying when you ask her to stay. Giving you whatever you want: her body, her story.

“So,” you say, eventually. “I can put in my movie that you totally peaked in high school, huh?” 

Karina snorts. “Yeah,” she says, playing along, and taps her dark phone screen with a clawed nail. “Say it was the last time I was happy.” She pulls a face, like the thought of it is just unspeakably pathetic. “That’s a tragedy if I’ve ever heard one.” 

“Shakespearean,” you agree, and let her clamber into your lap. “It’s perfect.” 

But you know she’s kidding. You’d like to think that you understand girls like her. They live in a different world than the rest of you - the kind of world where every person on earth looks at them and falls to their feet, falls madly in love. You’ll write about it one day; you’ll feel out the narrative for her, a curious exploration. That rose-tinted life she must flourish in, closed-off and flawless like a snow globe, her spinning and protected in the glass.

“Perfect,” echoes Karina, and kisses you - like she’s proving she really means it. 

That’s the reality, here. That’s it. This is all there is. 

-

Well, almost.

-

Karina lets you scroll through the rest of her photo gallery, front to back. You take the opportunity, because you’re greedy for as much as you can get. 

There’s a lot of photos that are just her, funnily enough - selfies posed in front of the same full-length mirror, over and over again, clad in unholy outfits. Swimsuits, sports bras and little running shorts, lingerie: shit that makes your mouth water, eyes lingering, groaning out loud as she laughs at you. But it’s also her in faded old t-shirts, holding the hem up to expose her stomach. Body angled to the side in girlish sundresses. Hair pulled up, showing off her neck, her gorgeously sharp collarbone - in makeup or out of it, stare intensely focused and sultry. 

“That’s hot,” you comment. “Self-obsessed as fuck, but hot.” 

Karina smiles - her tiny private-joke smile - and doesn’t say anything at all. 

There’s one video in particular that catches your eye. It’s recent, relatively - the date reads late December, last year. Less than a month ago. Christmastime. You click on it, curious. 

Karina’s immediately recognizable in it, black hair winding past her shoulders, drowning in a large black sweatshirt. She’s smiling, but it looks sort of tense and tired - bags under her eyes, like she hasn’t slept in a while. She’s got both hands balled up into fists, held close and protective to her chest; her sharp chin rests on her pale knuckles. There’s a tiny smear of red across her mouth, lower lip bitten bloody. 

“You just got here,” she says. She’s looking at something behind the camera. “The first thing you wanna do is hear me sing?” She laughs once, scratchy and hoarse. “Why are you even filming this?” 

The answering strum of guitar strings, a pretty, perfect chord. An invitation, or a demand.

“You’re kidding.” Karina’s voice is flat.

Another chord - evidently not. 

“Wow,” says Karina. Her smile, out of nowhere, goes very soft at the edges. “You just do this because you know I can’t say no to you.”

“What?” you ask Karina now, laughing. “Is this - what is this? Do you - are you really going to sing?” 

And then - crazily enough - she does. 

“Oh,” you say out loud, adoring, and Karina turns her face into your shoulder. 

Her voice in the video is breathy, sweet. Shyly unpracticed, raspy from disuse, completely and utterly gorgeous; lids slipping shut and open again, laugh leaking into her melody line in lyrics about black eyes and kisses and wanting someone who’s just so, so bad for you. But what surprises you more than anything is the look that dawns on her blurry on-screen face - irises sparkling and smile bashful, hiding her mouth behind the sleeve of her sweatshirt, curled up with her knees to her chest. You see now that she’s wearing pajama pants, fuzzy and patterned with snowflakes. 

She looks radiantly pretty. She looks vulnerable. And not even in a sweaty, satiated, filthy post-fuck kind of way - actually, genuinely vulnerable. Soft and wide-eyed and tender.

Suddenly, you just can’t tear your gaze away. 

“Stop.” 

The song’s over. On-screen Karina’s fully grinning now. Porcelain-fragile, but undeniably happy, too. 

“I hate you,” she says. “Baby, I really do.” 

“You love me,” says the person behind the camera. “You’ll love me for the rest of your life and you know it.” 

And in the video - in vivid, fluid motion - Karina laughs. 

Whole-hearted, lovely. Familiar. For a moment, you swear she’s still that girl sitting in the backseat of a car with her prom queen tiara on, giggling free and uninhibited, unhurt, untouched. A month ago - less than that, even - looking like she’s coming back to life. 

That’s where the clip ends. 

It doesn’t change anything, if you actually think about it. It’s just another version of reality. A Karina from a whole other universe, laughing like a child, and so, so far away from whoever she is now. 

-

(Back between the lines of your script-

The stranger and the girl drink to get drunk and that’s about it. She reads the label of his wine; he makes fun of her for being a snob. She doesn’t really drink, she says at first, but he laughs like this is a challenge, and pours her a glass anyway. She flushes pink and fidgets around. She seems to shed hair like a cat and he thinks this is the most hilarious thing he’s ever seen, picking up thin black strands off of the arm of his couch, teasing her about girls and how they really like to leave their mark, huh?

Leave their mark, she repeats. There’s some trick of the lens here, some sort of strategic camera work - he’s in the forefront and she’s in the background, and she looks so much smaller than him. Why do you say that? 

He still had his ex-girlfriend’s perfume in his cabinet. He probably still has some of her clothes in his closet. Not out of any particular emotional attachment, but sometimes this is just the way things are: when you spend years intertwining your whole existence with someone else’s, it’s hard to rid yourself of that connection. You’ve grown into each other’s spaces, tangling limbs and heart lines, putting down roots. It’s gonna take a little force to get them out. 

They’re just so much, he says, gesticulating with his hands. And they affect everything in your life, like a fucking infection. And then it doesn’t work out, and you - he makes a wide, sweeping motion here, attempting to encompass the wreckage. You have to fix everything they broke. Purge them from your system and all that. It’s so fucked up. 

It’s like this, he means to say - you love someone and then they leave you behind and you’re left staring at the blown-up decimated crater that used to be your life together. You love someone and they don’t love you back and all you have now is the debris.

They’re both drunk. There should be music here and there isn’t. It’s only eerie, too-still silence, suffocating the both of them with every passing second. 

Well, she says, laughing, and takes another sip. You and I can agree on that, at least.)

-

It happens like this:

There’s a monologue you want to write. 

You tell Karina this after you’re finally fucking her again, when she’s balanced on the edge of your glass coffee table with her legs spread and your mouth slick with her cum. Well - not after, technically. She’s between orgasms and you have your thumb on her clit, tracking the expression on her face, the split-second moment where she comes apart. It’s then when you realize so badly that you want to write some great speech for your heroine - something about the sweat beading on Karina’s midriff and her tits that you can’t stop touching and the jerky movements of her hips, trying to get your tongue back on her clit, panting and delightfully desperate. Something about desire. 

“Desire,” repeats Karina, voice halfway into a raspy, worked-up moan. 

“Yeah.” You’ve replaced your mouth with your fingers, fucking up into the obscene tight heat of her cunt. She’s trembling, dripping everywhere; she’s the very picture of what it means to want, probably. “But I just can’t figure it out.” 

Karina laughs roughly, and then she cums. 

“Is that funny?” you ask her, after, when you’re wiping your wet mouth with your wrist and she’s sucking on your glistening fingers, licking the taste of her own cunt off your skin. Her eyes big, lips all full and pink - slutty angel on her pedestal, perched above you. “Me writing about desire?” 

Karina lets your fingers free with a loud pop. She’s still clutching your hand close to her mouth, thumb dragging through the sticky gleam of her spit. “No,” she says, eyes distant. “It just reminded me of something. There’s this Anne Carson quote, about men and desire…” She shakes her head. Presses her lips once to your fingertips in a small, startlingly sweet kiss. “It doesn’t matter. Tell me more.” 

There isn’t much to tell, truthfully. Except that you’ve got this love for movie lines that are just so utterly quotable - things that make their way into the pop culture consciousness. That’s the kind of work you want to be doing: creating something that has an impact, something that’ll exist long after you’re gone. Everlasting. If you had to pull for an example, you’d say-

“You ever seen Closer?” 

“Yeah.” Karina drops your elbow into her lap. “Oh, I get it. He tastes like you but sweeter. Lying’s the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off - et cetera.” She hums the melody line. “So you want an early 2000s pop-punk band to make a song about your movie? Ambitious.” 

“More or less,” you say as she shimmies her shirt back down, hem falling back over her midriff. “But like I said, I’m kind of stuck.”

Karina rolls her neck. Her hair is everywhere, sweet-smelling; snapped-off strands decorate your table, looking like cracks in the glass. 

“Any suggestions?” you ask, thumb skimming along the pale bruised inside of her thigh. 

She smiles, mischievous. “Maybe.” 

That’s how you both end up curled on your couch together with your laptop in front of you, Karina’s eyes glued to the movie playing on the screen, watching as the four main characters fuck and flirt and cheat on each other and scream at the top of their lungs. Melodramatic dialogue. How do you feel about him using your life? You’re lying; I’ve been you. This will hurt, which Karina laughs at - as if announcing the pain will make it better, playacting at exoneration. 

It’s also - predictably - how you end up fucking again. You barely make it an hour in, and then-

“Hey.” Karina’s breath tickles your ear. She’s already seconds from climbing in your lap already; her thigh is hooked over yours, bare and inviting. “Are you inspired?” 

You’re swallowing back a grin. “Sure.” 

“Oh. Great.” She’s no actress herself, clearly. She couldn’t be subtle if she tried. “Do you wanna be more inspired?” 

And - whatever. It’s a movie about sex. If anything, at least you’re sticking to the theme. 

The dialogue plays in the background as Karina rocks her hips down on your lap - you can feel how wet she is again, like she never stops wanting to be fucked. You’re telling her something about how she’s the most insatiable girl you’ve ever met; the sound of the film saturates the room, setting the tone like it knows its purpose. How? How does it work? How do you do this to someone? This big, infidelity-ridden confrontation. Did you phone her? Beg her to come back? Asking him why he falls for another girl, getting this ridiculous answer - it’s because she doesn’t need me.

“Huh.” You smile into the curve of Karina’s neck, already palming her ass. “That one’s funny.”

“Is it funny?” Karina’s sharp jaw brushes against your cheekbone. Her eyes are so dark, shadowed by her long lashes. “I think it’s pretty realistic. People don’t like needy girls. It’s a burden to be loved so hard.” Her tongue darts across her teeth; her smile’s somewhat caustic. “Too much to handle, I guess.” 

“What are you talking about?” This strikes you as fairly fucking ridiculous, too. “What men have you met who don’t like needy girls?” 

Karina just laughs and leans in for another kiss. 

It’s easy to let the rest of the film float away in the background, the lines coming disjointed, unconnected. A spoken-word soundtrack, tone perfuming the air: the angst and pain and eroticism seeping into your clothing. Once in a while you’ll pull back from kissing Karina’s neck or tits or mouth and see a thoughtful little quirk to her mouth. Like she’s genuinely listening, even as you’re taking off her shirt, slipping a hand back between her legs. Where will you go? Disappear. I can’t still see you - if I see you, I’ll never leave you. I amuse you, but I bore you. 

“I bet you’ve never felt that,” you say, half into the silk of her hair. 

Karina pauses. Her shirt’s on the floor; she’s gloriously naked on top of you. “Felt what?” 

“I amuse you, but I bore you,” you recite. You already sound sort of fuck-drunk, far gone. “You’re the farthest thing from boring.”

Back in the movie, the female lead sobs into her fists. Karina studies you, fingertips grazing the nape of your neck. You try to imagine it - her as one of those heartsick heroines, crying herself to pieces, begging a man not to leave her - but you draw an utter blank. Some people just aren’t breakable in that way. 

“You’d be surprised,” Karina says, after a moment. “People get bored of me all the time.”

“Oh, please.” Even when she’s the one top of you, you can’t help feeling so completely in control. It’s gotta be the look in her eyes, dying to be obedient. “I bet you have lots of ways of keeping guys interested in you.” You smack her ass hard just to make a mark. “I bet you let them fuck you however they want.” 

“Exactly,” Karina agrees, without missing a beat. She moves in close until your noses bump together. Lets her voice go all smoky and suggestive. “Wherever they want, too.” 

You open your mouth - probably about to say something very rude about what a dirty whore she is and how you should’ve realized it the second you saw her; I knew it, I know you - but then your hands slip lower and Karina presses her lips to yours and licks into your mouth, over your teeth, making you swallow your words. Filling you up until there’s nothing but her and the movie, playing on.

I think I’ll be happier with her. 

You won’t. You’ll miss me. No one will ever love you as much as I do. Why isn’t love enough? 

“Romantic, right?” murmurs Karina, sweet against your tongue. 

“Shut up,” you say, and grab her by the hair, tugging her off your lap as you stand. “Bedroom. Now.” 

Later, you’ll take the time to consider the different ways filmmakers illustrate a power dynamic - it’s playing on your laptop screen right now. The heroine’s sitting on the arm of the couch, clutching desperately at the hero’s jacket. Gorgeously emotional and pleading for another chance, her tiny chin tilted up, eyes so large and watery. Made fragile and fearful by everyone: the protagonist, the narrative, the director, the audience beyond. By herself, even. It’s a stylistic choice - she wants to look that pathetic.

And you-

Well, you’ve got Karina’s long hair wrapped up in your fist, tits bouncing as she stumbles to her feet, ankle knocking hard and horribly loud against the leg of your table. Cute little ass all red from your hand. Thighs shimmering from how drenched she is, cunt dripping from how you’ve treated her. She hasn’t managed to work her mouth into a trademark smirk fast enough: when she looks at you over her shoulder, her eyes are abyss-dark and bottomless, crease between her brows, lips parted in pained surprise. 

The definition of pathetic, too - but that’s exactly the point. She’s just so much more fuckable like that. 

“Ouch,” you say, touching her hurt ankle with the side of your foot. 

“It’s fine.” Karina’s skin feels clammy and cold. Her smirk’s intact now, camera-ready. “I’ve been through worse.” 

Her ankle throbs under the pressure of your touch; you still haven’t let up on her hair. You’ll go through worse, too, you think of telling her: a sly comment about how rough you’re about to fuck her, what vicious marks you’re about to leave. How you’re gonna hurt her exactly like she asked you to. 

You don’t say a thing.

She must already know all of that, anyway.

-

So, Karina’s not breakable like the helpless, weepy, soft-hearted girls in the movies - but that’s alright. She’s breakable in much more enticing ways.

Case in point:

“Oh, get real, baby. Don’t pretend you don’t love it.”

Well, breaking someone down doesn’t really get better than this.

It’s all a scene of your own making, a perfect pre-arrangement. You on your bed, Karina limp and bent belly-down over your lap - you in control and Karina as the most impressive toy you’ve ever gotten your hands on, creamy ass and needy cunt and skin that turns bruises to artwork. You’re goading her and failing - trying to get her to just admit to what she is, what a filthy slut, what a nasty eager fuckdoll - but it’s hard to get a response when even breathing seems to be a chore for her right now. Every noise out of her mouth is nothing but a gasping, choked-out whimper. Her face is buried in her forearm, hidden. And through the shine of lube dribbling down your hand and her ass and into the sticky wetness of her cunt, you’ve got two fingers stretching out her little asshole - and you’re just getting started.

“I know you fucking need this.” Your other hand slides up her back, slips to tangle in her hair. “You’re just too good at it.” You pull hard, wrenching her head from the crook of her elbow. “Too good at being an obedient fucking whore for me, huh?”

Karina’s whole body stiffens when you fuck your fingers deeper, as if tugged taut on a string: the flex of her feet in the air, shoulder blades straining, neck craned back almost painfully. You pull harder. It’s a buzz at the base of your skull, live-wire thrilling: the knowledge that you can yank her into whatever position you want - fuck her anywhere, work her ass open with your cock, fill her up with cum - and she’s just going to have to take it. Like she’s this pliant, powerless thing. Like she’s yours. 

Your self-satisfaction seeps right into your voice. “Answer me.” 

You hear Karina gulp down a breath. “I,” Karina mumbles, but she can’t do anything but babble. “I - fuck-” All teeth-clenching nonsense; she shoots a baleful glance over her shoulder, desperation clawing its way into every word. “Please-”

Your fingers pause. “You want more?” 

Her cheeks are splotchy and pink; you swear there are tears wobbling in those big dark eyes. The heavy arousal in your stomach turns to violent hunger, as though your mouth could start watering at any second. You can’t help it. The thought of seeing her cry is fucking exhilirating. “You - oh-” 

“Answer me. You want my cock?” You’re waiting for the breaking point. “You want me to really fuck your ass?” 

“Fuck-” 

But that’s not a proper reply and Karina knows it, so she doesn’t protest when you pull your glistening fingers out of her and smack your palm hard across her ass. Once, then twice, and then you just don’t stop. She yelps like a hurt animal - trembles uncontrollably, her thighs and her shoulders and her quivering bottom lip - and makes a sound in the back of her throat that might be a sob, but she still lets you hit her: gives into the harsh crack of skin on skin, over and over again. Listens as you tell her that she deserves this, that she wanted this, that you’re making her into a good girl and this is what good girls get when they’re too cock-hungry to follow orders or answer a fucking question, you know that - you know I’m this rough for a reason. It should hurt. It’s so much more fun that way.  

“I’ve been too fucking nice to you,” you mutter, teeth gritted in an effort to hide your grin - as if you even need to. It’s obvious how much you enjoy this. It’s the point. “That’s the problem with girls like you - you never learned your fucking place, huh? Never really been punished for anything?”

Karina mumbles out something unintelligible, slurring from her drooling mouth to the sheets.

“Yeah.” Your hand comes down again - she flinches just before her body goes slack. “That’s what I thought.” 

And after you’ve spanked her so hard that her fair skin is ravaged and raised with goosebumps along the slope of her back - her whole body in revolt - you finally, finally stop. 

Karina doesn’t budge except to breathe, and even that releases shallow, unsteady. You read it all in the shaky lift and fall of her thin shoulders, her hands in white-knuckled fists, her face pressed to your sheets and hidden - her hair coats everything, all ink, all words written but left unsaid. She shivers beneath your fingers. Her cunt’s dripping all over your lap. She’s a masterpiece. She’s a wreck. 

You’re filled up with thick, swollen pride. “Karina.” 

Karina. Your own personal creation, transformed under your touch. Might as well have your name carved into her, too. A brand right across her back, slicing through tissue, scarring to seal her fate - this is who you fucking belong to. 

“Poor baby.” You follow the sharp ridges of her spine, tracking notches, keeping a tally: counting how many times you’ll hit her, how many days she’ll stay in your bed. How many movies she’ll let you make out of her, being your brilliant muse for decades. “It’s painful when you don’t listen to me, huh?”

But then - inexplicably - you think of her bruising ankle. Her twist of a smirk, detached and humorless. I’ve been through worse. 

You’re abruptly glad you can’t see the look on her face. 

“Come on, sweet girl.” You dig the heel of your palm into her lower back, half a warning. “Pull it together.” 

Between the strands of glossy hair tumbling over Karina’s skin and your sheets, you spot a reddish mark on the back of her neck. Like the impression of a thumbprint, small and round. Blurry enough in the dim light that your brain starts conjuring up strange theories; an old wound, maybe. A birthmark or a burn, a childhood injury.

You graze her shoulder blades with your fingertips, exploratory. She feels so small draped over you like this, a tiny wet wisp of a girl. A doll. 

She still hasn’t moved.

“Karina.”

Nothing.

“Karina,” you say again, suddenly uneasy. Your hand stops. “Are you-”

For a few terrible seconds, you can’t even hear her breathing. 

But then Karina shifts. Slow, sensual, deliberate. Pushing herself up off your lap, arching her back, the slick pucker of her asshole obscene from where you fucked it open with your fingers. Her bruised knees dig into your mattress as she straightens up, and her gorgeous pale face seems to glow in the midday light - heavy dark eyes, bitten-pink mouth, black hair curtaining her cheeks like a frame to a portrait.

“You,” you start to say, feeling suddenly like you’re looking at her for the first time. 

“I’m really sorry,” Karina murmurs.

She doesn’t look close to tears at all. She’s so unfazed, as if having her ass spanked punishingly raw is something that happens to a girl like her on the daily. A run-of-the-mill occurrence - a consequence of having a body like that, made to be brutalized. She’s already reaching towards the nightstand for the lube. 

“I just wanted it so bad I couldn’t think straight,” Karina tells you, with erotic-film certainty - reciting all the lines that’ll make her seem the most insatiably slutty. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Her lips form a pout; she leans down to press them to the tip of your cock, all sweet and demure, like she thinks she needs to convince you. Eyes flicking up at you through her thick lashes, molten-hot. “I should’ve listened.” It’s only a breath, warm and torturous. “I deserved that, I know.” 

Your hand winds tight in her hair. You want to force your cock down her pretty throat, make her gag and choke over her simpering apologies, spitting up your cum until it trickles down her chin, her tits, her tummy. Both a game and a power play: prove how sorry you are. 

Karina pulls back before you can, and holds up the lube. 

“Babe,” she says, the term of endearment almost a singsong - a lilting reminder. “I thought you wanted to really fuck me now.” 

“Uh-huh.” Her tits heave as she moves, crawling closer, offering herself up. “And I always get what I want, right?” 

You feel drunk with power. You forget that this isn’t supposed to be about power. You watch as Karina coats her palm with lube and pumps your cock, her fingers slick and hot, her veins starkly blue at her delicate wrists. Expression delighted at how hard you are, pink little tongue poking out between her teeth - seduction down to an art form, meticulously calculated. 

“With me?” Her smile burns. “Obviously.” 

You pull her in by the neck to kiss the smirk off her mouth. 

It’s interesting. There’s this other thing regular critics and moviegoers have been saying about films these days: sex scenes need to have a purpose. Some sort of coherent motivation. Strip your lead actress down to nothing and get her keening and moaning and you’ve got to explain it away somehow. It forwards the plot, you could insist, pitching it to producers and directors. It does something for the character dynamics. It’ll draw in just the right audience, the ones dying to see their favorite celebrity debauched and getting dirty on-screen - they’ll see it over and over just to get a taste. Isn’t that enough? To satisfy the masses? Isn’t that why we’re all here?

Because otherwise all people are staring at is a play at pornography: useless half-convincing make-believe. The heroine can writhe and whine and arch her back all she wants. Everyone knows she doesn’t feel anything. 

“Tell me the truth.” 

Oh, if you two were a movie - you don’t know how anyone could justify a sex scene quite like this. 

It doesn’t matter what artsy angle you take. It all comes down to the same unforgivable details: Karina face-down ass-up on your bed, the perfect bowed curve of her spine, the depraved wide stretch of her asshole around your cock - the sweat shining along her shoulder blades, the hard smack of your palm against the red raw skin of her ass, your other hand at the crown of her skull with your fingers wrapped entirely in her tangled hair - her cunt fucking ruining your sheets, wet all the way down her thighs, each brutal shift of your hips sending her little body into full-blown shudders-

“Tell me that you fucking love it.” Your hand slips lower until you’ve got her pinned down by the back of the neck, fingers pushing down: a grip she couldn’t escape even if she wanted to. “Whoring out your slutty little ass like this for a stranger. Getting on your hands and knees for me just because you’re so fucking needy for cock, baby - don’t even try to deny it, you’re so wet, nasty fucking girl-”

You just can’t stop yourself. It’s so easy. She really is so fucking pathetic. Too fragile to get free - too easily manipulated and manhandled. Trembling and drenched and giving way as you make room inside her, forcing space. She’s just so tight - it’s godless, how you make your cock fit in her lube-slicked asshole, how she moans like a bona fide bitch in heat over it: needing faster, needing harder, needing more. Cheek pink and pressed hard to your mattress, sharp nails digging into the sheets rough enough to tear through the fabric. Giving herself up to be fucked cruelly and stupid and senseless. 

Like she’s a real-

“Natural fucking cockslut, huh?” 

Look, seriously - you can’t be held accountable for the things you say to her here. 

Because when you say shit like you’d just let me do anything - like you’d let me fucking tie you up and keep you here forever, be an eager fucking cumdump for me whenever I want you, I know it, I know you - that’s just the moment talking. The circumstances. The pretty arch of her back and the drooling wetness of her cunt and the indecent tightness of her ass, conspiring to make you lose your mind mid-fuck - that’s the whole reason you even tell her any of it. You think you’re good for anything else? Right at her ear, your body covering hers, your cock buried deep. You’re not. Just made to get this slutty ass fucked open, and your mouth, and your cunt - this is all anyone’s ever gonna want from you and you know it - better get used to it now, baby. This is all you got. This is all you are. 

It’s Karina’s fault, really. She just takes it - all of it. She doesn’t even try to fight it. 

“But that’s okay,” you murmur, as she gasps and squirms and cries out like you’re killing her. “I’m still gonna make you cum.” 

And with your cock filling her ass and your hand between her legs, slapping hard at her sopping cunt until she can’t do anything but collapse - shaking, shattered - her whimpers fucked-out and drool-soaked and bleeding into one big nonsensical mess, everything about her used and ruined-

“You’re mine,” you tell her, laughing as she falls apart. “You get that? You’re mine.” 

-then, you do.

When it’s all over, Karina rolls over to face the wall, breathing hard. She’s slick everywhere, sweat and saliva and lube, your creamy cum dripping out of her well-fucked asshole and trickling down her thigh. You trace her lower back and grin at the way her skin seems to give into you, turning pink with a press of your fingertips. You’ve come to realize you adore her like this, the fugue state after you fuck her: utterly dead to the world. 

Like she could become a permanent fixture in your bed. Too tired to move. Too tired to ever leave. 

“Mine,” you say again, softer.

Karina doesn’t argue. 

It’s basically all the confirmation you need. 

-

So, really, if you two were a movie-

It goes like this: life can imitate art, too. It happens all the time. The line between fiction and reality blurs together until it’s indistinguishable - until you can’t tell where the fantasy ends, or if it ever did at all. 

-

(It goes like this: the heroine smiles sleepily and tells the hero he’s the best she’s ever had. You’ve seen this film before. The movie stars with their fake on-screen fucks might not feel a damn thing, but at least it’s still fun to pretend.)

-

Also, the mark you saw on the back of her neck isn’t actually what you thought it was. 

“It’s a tattoo,” you realize out loud, drowsily awed, brushing her hair away so you can get a better look. You’re both tuckered out, an inevitability when you fuck like you do; you’re seconds from dozing off. Karina’s looking away from you, on her side to escape the soreness of her ass, sheets loose across her chest. She lets you touch her wherever. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice that before.” 

“You don’t know me,” mumbles Karina, half into your pillow. “It’s not your job to notice anything about me.” 

The tattoo’s crimson-red, all delicate linework. It really does look like it hurts: like someone painstakingly cut the shape into her skin. It’s of a heart, rendered in anatomical detail - valves and ventricles and arteries. It’s beautiful, you realize belatedly. Bright instead of faded, and obviously cared for. Lovely. 

The only permanent stain on her perfect body. You press your thumb against the ink, fascinated. 

“What does it mean?” you ask, but Karina’s already fallen asleep. 

-

(In your script, the girl and the stranger watch some gory crime show, except they don’t pay very close attention and he tugs her into his lap and makes her ride his thigh. The episode they’ve got on is about a serial killer who murders so-called sinners - liars, adulterers, the like. Slaughters them like sacrifices, cutting their throats with vicious efficiency. Fake blood drenches the screen with every crime scene: a form of fucked-up baptism, a psuedo-religious cleansing. 

The girl’s putting on an equally decent show on top of the stranger: head thrown back, eyelids fluttering, high-pitched little moans. He sinks his teeth into her shoulder and keeps watching the TV.

Hey, he says, a murmur against her skin, a close-up on his mouth. You’re a sinner, right?

She’s got her hands on his shoulders, hips rolling. Sure am. 

How do you think this guy would kill you? 

He thinks this’ll shock her, but she doesn’t even pause. Like he kills all the rest, she says. Like an animal.

I think he’d be more careful with you, the stranger muses. You’re too gorgeous. He’d have to use, like - a scalpel, or something. Something cleaner. Something that’d keep you intact. 

It’s no use. Nothing he says seems to scare her. Her eyes are far-off, almost glazed in recollection. Like she’s thought about it too - her own untimely end. Her own vivisection, skin flayed and organs visible, viscera and bone. There, hold the shot: now the audience can consider it with her, ponder all the ways she could be torn apart, all the repulsive things they could do with her desiccated body. All the ways flesh can warp under a human touch: the blue-black yellow-green purpling of bruises, a whole palette on one tiny girl. There’s value in that, isn’t there? There’s something intimately, incomparably beautiful in suffering. There’s art. 

Isn’t that why everyone’s watching? 

I get it, the girl says, still soaking his thigh, smiling as if it’s an inside joke between them. You want me dead. That’s been obvious since the moment you met me. 

I don’t want you dead, he says, and grabs her by the jaw. I just want to fuck you. 

Okay, she says, uncaring, like there’s barely a difference. Fine. Whatever you want. 

They don’t turn the TV off. They let the characters scream and bleed out in the background; he fucks her like she’s got a death wish. It’s funny - he expects her to get louder the harder he fucks her, ruthlessly working over the tight clench of her cunt - but she keeps getting less and less responsive, as if he’s pushing her little body into some sort of trance: expression vacant and blank, body limp and lifeless, mouth open and speechless. It makes him angry. Give me something, he’s saying, frustrated, clawing at her hair: baby, it’s not fair, it’s no fun like this. The on-screen shrieks aren’t enough - he wants it from her. Actually, he keeps saying he needs it - as if fulfilling desire is on the same level as food or air, as if he’ll drop dead in seconds if he doesn’t get her sobbing. He gets his overlarge hands on her face and starts contorting it, pushing her mouth open, her eyes wider, his fingers down her throat until she spits and gags and chokes. Oh, the audience will love this one: it’s reminiscent of those filthy exploitation films with their cult followings, so cleverly referential. Look at her pathetic and pinned down. Look at her helpless and struggling. Think of your favorite on-screen murder scenes, and then think of this.

Anything I want, the stranger reminds her, yanking back her hair as she drools down his wrist. You asked for this, didn’t you? You said anything I want. 

Except now the girl can’t say anything at all. 

This moment will start rumors, invite horrified scandal the same way some purposefully marketed horror movies are passed off as snuff films - that really went down, they really died like that. This scene’ll get a similar response. Did he actually fuck her? Did he actually hurt her? Did everyone - the writer, the director, the crew, the captive audience - actually just stand by and let that happen? 

Sure. Or she might just be a really, really good actress.

There. The stranger’s murmuring to her now, watching her manufactured expression, watching the tears fill her eyes. There you go. There’s my girl. And she is his, she really is - transformed into something all beautiful and new under his clumsy fingertips, molded right into art. The camera will zoom in close on her gorgeous, cadaverous face, a perverse little gift for the audience: here, have this, take a look. She’s all yours now. 

There’s something to be said here about the manmade link between sex and violence - inescapable, brutal, primeval; bodies in all shades of red - but he forgets it the second he touches her, and she’s being fucked too hard to remember.

Maybe they’ll get to it next time.) 

-

AND WE'RE BACK!!!!!!!!!!! <33333

all my luv ever to @capslocked @worldsover @passingnotions @braaan for beta reading my dumbass shenanigans and also for being the best ever I LOVE U!!!!!! AND ANYONE WHO IS READING THIS I LOVE YALL TOO.................. PART 2 COMING SOON!!!!!!!!!!!

[certaimromance]

𝜗𝜚 The Boy Next Door.

Spencer Reid x Neighbor!reader

next chapter | series mastelist | main masterlist

Summary: Making friends with your neighbor is one of the best things that ever happened to you, but falling in love with him? not so much.

Words: 4,1k.

Warnings & Tags: this is part of a series, check the masterlist to make sure you are in the correct chapter. painter!reader. lack of communication. the reader has a cat. two idiots so in love. bittersweet. english isn't my first language (sorry for my mistakes, be kind please).

Note: I am very excited about this, long live friends to lovers and being Spencer's neighbor (my dream).

Being a neighbor to someone like Spencer Reid had been a blessing since the first day you packed boxes of your stuff into the apartment next to his. He was kind and handsome, very much so, if you were honest. Smart but reserved, even a little shy if you looked at him too much. But most importantly, he was the kind of neighbor who would never complain about your cat, who seemed to have a particular fondness for his balcony. Whether it was knocking over his potted plants or staring curiously at his fish tank, your feline’s antics never elicited more than a gentle laugh or a patient shrug. He would simply return your wayward pet with a soft knock at your door, holding it in his arms like it was the most precious thing in the world, while you apologized profusely, your cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

What started as brief exchanges, usually you stammering out apologies while he reassured you it was no trouble, gradually became longer conversations. The simple, polite “Hi, this is my cat, I’m so sorry” turned into casual talks about your day or his work, which he always spoke about in vague terms. And you, feeling so guilty for the inconvenience your cat had caused, decided to bake him cookies as a peace offering. They didn’t turn out quite as you’d hoped, slightly burnt around the edges, but Spencer didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he complimented their colorful sprinkles and icing, likening them to a painting by a famous artist. His sincerity disarmed you, and before you knew it, you were chatting about your love for art while he stroked your cat, his expression soft and attentive as though he’d known you forever.

So you didn't question anything and started to think of him as a friend. His nice actions with you were enough, and it was always good to have new friends, especially when they lived so close to your home.

It turned out that being Spencer's friend was a thousand times better than just being his messy neighbor, and it gave you some new things. Like a copy of the key to his apartment so you could water his plants and feed his fish when he was away at work. Plus, full access to his library, full of books with names you could barely pronounce, whenever you wanted, along with his coffee maker, which was so much better than yours, and was the perfect complement to a lecture in his comfortable sofa.

Books on philosophy, complex sciences, and psychological theories you had never heard of in your life. Each one had a colored heart-shaped post-it that Spencer had borrowed from your collection: pink for the ones you would love, yellow for the ones that might entertain you for a few minutes, red for the ones you wouldn't like at all, and purple for the ones that were in other languages, but he could translate for you if you just mentioned it. His dedication to introducing you to the world of reading was so great that he even convinced you to paint some bookmarks for him. And you took him so seriously that you made one for each of his favorite books, with paintings inspired by their contents.

Being Spencer's neighbor and friend meant having a shoulder to lean on while he helped you pay your bills and tried to fit your tight budget to cover your expenses. It always ended with two empty coffee cups on your kitchen table, your big fake smile as you tried to hold back the urge to scream because your art wasn't giving you enough to survive, his hands caressing your back and reassuring you that everything was going to be okay, that you could count on his help and his wallet if you needed it. And somehow, the next day, one of your paintings would mysteriously sell, and a bag of food would appear for your cat, as if by magic. You never had to ask, he always seemed to know when you needed a little extra help, always appearing with a gentle smile and a quiet offer.

It was one of those days when you opened the door, your hands still covered in paint, when you saw him standing there, holding a small bag of groceries. “I know what you’re doing, and I appreciate it, but it’s really not necessary,” you said, embarrassed. You couldn’t hide the blush creeping up your neck as you set the paintbrush down and gestured to the cluttered table full of half-finished canvases. You knew what he was up to—he’d done it before, slipping in to make sure you had enough to eat and that your cat had food.

Spencer’s cheeks flushed slightly, and he shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, as though trying to figure out how to explain himself without embarrassing you. “I…I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable,” he started, looking anywhere but directly at you, “but I bought a bunch of food, and honestly, I won’t be able to eat it all. I have to work late all week, and it’ll go bad before I have a chance to use it. I thought…maybe you could use it?” He gave a half-smile, hoping it would soften the situation.

You blinked, surprised at how considerate he was being. Spencer wasn’t the type to try and make you feel bad, and you knew he was trying to help without overstepping. It wasn’t about charity, it was simply his way of offering support because he cared. You couldn’t help but smile at his sincerity, even if you felt a bit embarrassed about the situation.

“You don’t have to do that,” you said gently, trying to ward off the guilt that crept up on you. But he was already shaking his head, that familiar, apologetic look in his eyes.

“I know, I know,” he said quickly. “It’s just…I hate wasting food.” He paused for a moment, as if considering something. “And if you want, I can help organize everything in your fridge. You’re probably running low on space with all the art supplies and other things. I can make room for the stuff so it doesn’t go to waste.”

You glanced over at the chaotic state of your kitchen and couldn’t help but laugh softly, the sound both self-deprecating and amused. It was so true. Still, the thought of Spencer Reid—neat, meticulous Spencer—navigating your messy kitchen was both endearing and mildly mortifying.

“Okay,” you relented, wiping your hands on a towel. “That would actually be helpful. But don’t judge me for the mess, okay? It’s been…a lot lately.”

His face lit up with a small, genuine smile, his love for organization clear in the way his posture straightened. “I promise,” he said, his tone almost teasing, “no judgment.”

As he carefully unpacked the groceries, you found yourself talking without meaning to, your words spilling out like the colors on your canvas. “It’s just been hard,” you admitted, your voice faltering slightly. “I’ve been applying for jobs left and right, but nothing’s coming through. And art…well, it’s not exactly paying the bills right now. I’m barely getting by again.”

Spencer paused, a container of strawberries in his hands, and turned to look at you. His brown eyes were soft with concern and something else, something that felt like quiet reassurance. He placed your favorite fruit on the counter with care before speaking.

“You know,” he began, his voice soft but steady, “the last time we talked, you mentioned you used to babysit.” His words caught your attention, making you pause as you glanced over at him, unsure of where he was going with this. “Well, JJ—my friend at work—was just saying that she’s looking for a babysitter. She’s been trying to find someone reliable for a while, and I thought…well, maybe you’d be interested.”

You blinked, unsure whether you’d heard him right. Babysitting? It seemed like a lifetime ago since you’d done anything like that. You hesitated for a moment, running a hand through your hair. “I used to be a nanny when I was fifteen,” you said, feeling the weight of those words. “But, I’m not sure…I mean, I’m not exactly the same person I was back then, and I haven't interacted with kids in a while.”

Spencer’s lips curved into a reassuring smile, the kind that made you feel like you could take on the world if he believed in you. “I think you’d be great at it,” he said, his tone steady and confident. “And it wouldn’t have to be full-time. Just a few hours here and there, whenever you have the time. Besides,” he added, his smile turning a little playful, “I’m their godfather, so I’d be around if you ever need help.”

The idea of him being there, silently supporting you as he always did, made the idea seem less daunting and even a little tender, almost familiar. You nodded before you realized what you were agreeing to.

“Okay,” you said finally, your voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll think about it.”

His hand rested lightly on your shoulder then, his touch warm and grounding. When you looked up at him, his eyes were filled with a quiet intensity that made your breath hitch.

The possibility of refusing anything he asked you to do, with that perfect face that often reminded you of a tender deer, was impossible, and you had learned that over time. Just like the fact that it was completely forbidden to say out loud all the things you thought when you saw him. No extra sweet words, no overly long hugs, no thinking about the kiss you wanted to give him when he started to babble. And certainly no telling him how much you loved him, not when his gentle presence in your life was already more than you could have ever hoped for.

Being in love with someone like Spencer Reid was no blessing. Especially when his door was right next to yours and it almost seemed like you lived in the same apartment. Eating breakfast together when he wasn't out on a case for work, watching him make your favorite pancakes, and putting up pink candles to pretend it was your birthday when you were feeling too sad, and even a funny tuna cake for your cat's birthday. It was all too detailed, intimate, and personal to feel absolutely nothing for so long. Watching him slowly fall asleep on the couch while you watched a ridiculously romantic movie that you chose and he accepted because he was too tired to discuss it. He looked so relaxed, every one of his features softened, forcing you to run and get your notebook to sketch him, because he was a complete work of art. The same situation happened a thousand times; you almost had a whole notebook dedicated to him. But obviously he didn't know that, because he didn't know a lot of things.

And you were okay with that, even though it felt terrible to have to deprive a genius like him of so much information his brain wasn't even expecting.

Anything was better than watching him avoid you in the hallway, or worse, with you having to move somewhere else.

You could stand the love and desire building up inside you, and you did your best not to let it go. Maybe it wasn't the best or what you expected when you imagined what it would be like to actually fall in love with someone for the first time. But at least you had moments that gave you the energy to go on living. The hug and kiss on the cheek that he gave you every time he left for work as a promise to come back, the tender good morning messages in which he wished you good luck for the rest of the day, especially when you had a lot of things to do and he was not in a state to accompany you, or waiting for you after dinner with your friends so that you could tell him in detail what had happened, every gossip and new comment that unfortunately you now had to do over the phone. Especially this time, maybe it could not be like that.

One suggestion, coming from one of your closest friends, caught you completely off guard. “You should sleep with him,” she had said so casually, as if it were the simplest solution to an incredibly complex situation.

The words hung in the air like a joke that wasn’t really a joke. You looked at her, eyes wide, unable to comprehend what she had just said. “What?” you managed, voice a little too sharp, as you quickly wiped your mouth with the back of your hand.

She didn’t seem to notice your shock, leaning forward with a grin that could only be described as mischievous. “I said,” she repeated, “you should sleep with him.”

You nearly choked on your juice, coughing and sputtering as the words rang in your ears. “Are you serious?” you asked, feeling your face flush a deep shade of red. The words felt out of place, especially when the one person you were most careful about was the subject of this absurd suggestion. “I can’t just…sleep with him.”

“Oh, come on,” she insisted, not giving up. “You’ve been in love with him forever. You need to get it out of your system. It’ll help you move on, I promise.”

The words swirled around you, heavy and suffocating, pressing down on your chest like a tidal wave. Sleep with Spencer? Spencer? The man who had become such an intricate part of your life, the one who made every day brighter simply by being in it? You couldn’t even begin to picture it. It felt…wrong. It wasn’t just about the simmering desire or the longing that built up every time you looked at him. Spencer was more than that. He was a friend, a confidant, a constant in a world that had often felt uncertain. The thought of crossing that line, of turning everything you had into something fleeting, something physical, it made your stomach churn. It wasn’t just infatuation anymore. It was something deeper, something that had taken root and blossomed into something far more fragile. The idea of destroying that with a single reckless and hormonal decision? You couldn’t do it.

“No,” you said firmly, setting your glass down and crossing your arms as if physically rejecting the thought. “I can’t do that. It’s not like that with him.”

For a fleeting moment, your friend’s expression softened, but then the mischievous glint returned to her eyes. She leaned back, crossing her own arms in a show of exaggerated disbelief. “You’re seriously going to sit here and tell me you don’t think about him like that?” she challenged, arching a brow. “That you don’t fantasize about him? Please. You’re practically playing house at this point. Living next door, eating breakfast together, taking care of his godchildren, you’re practically married without the fun part.”

Her words were sharp, and they stung in ways you hadn’t expected. She wasn’t wrong, not entirely. You had thought about Spencer in ways that made your pulse race and your heart ache. You couldn’t deny that you fantasized about him, about what it would feel like to hold him, kiss him, love him in ways you hadn’t allowed yourself to imagine until now. But it was more than that. It was the tenderness in his eyes when he spoke of things that mattered most and the way he held you when things felt heavy.

You sighed, running a hand through your hair in frustration, your fingers threading through the strands with a kind of restless energy. “It’s complicated,” you murmured, feeling a lump form in your throat. “He is different, okay? He’s not just some random guy I’m trying to get over. He’s Spencer.”

“Then tell him how you feel,” she shot back, her tone laced with exasperation. “You’re not doing yourself any favors by keeping it all bottled up.”

You flinched, the words hitting you harder than you’d anticipated. “I can’t do that either,” you admitted, the confession falling from your lips like a stone sinking in water. “It would ruin everything.”

Your friend’s playful demeanor faltered for a moment, her teasing grin softening into something almost compassionate. But it didn’t last long. She leaned back in her chair, tossing her hands up in mock surrender. “Fine. Don’t sleep with him. Don’t tell him how you feel. Just keep sitting around, pining, and writing bad poetry in your head. But don’t come crying to me when you’re still hopelessly in love with him a year from now.”

Her words stung, even though you knew she was right in her own blunt, infuriating way. You opened your mouth to respond but stopped when your phone buzzed on the table. The screen lit up with a message from Spencer: Hope you have a good day. Something’s come up. I’ll be back late today.

You stared at the words, your heart sinking a little. He had a way of being so thoughtful in the simplest ways, even when his job pulled him away. It was one of the many things about him that made your feelings all the more complicated.

Your friend smirked, noticing the soft expression on your face as you read his text. “See? There it is,” she said, her tone equal parts teasing and affectionate. “If you’re not going to do anything about it, at least admit that you’re completely in love with him.”

Don’t come crying to me when you’re still hopelessly in love with him a year from now.

The words echoed in your mind even after you and your friend had parted ways, and even after several hours had passed, lingering in your brain like a buzzing that wouldn't go away even though everything inside you was screaming to make more noise and ignore it. It was as if he had opened a Pandora's box that you had been hiding for a long time, and it was something that made you feel small and foolish, lost in your own indecision. You tried to shake it all off, but his words kept echoing in your head, getting louder and louder. You couldn't confess. You couldn't risk ruining everything.

When you arrived at your building, your feet carrying you to his almost by inertia, you tried to distract yourself and do something nice: set the table, light some candles, and order dinner for two at a nearby restaurant you both liked. That had been your plan: a quiet evening together, the kind where you could pretend that everything was normal and there were no complexes on your mind. You knew Spencer would be home late, but at least he'd be there. You'd share a meal, talk about his crazy case, laugh, get so tired you'd fall asleep on the couch so he could carry you to his bed, sleep there barely touching, and then move on as usual. At least that's how you imagined it.

But as the hours passed, you realized something you didn't want to admit: He wasn't coming home anytime soon. At least not tonight.

The food was there, untouched. The candles flickered in the darkness, taunting you with their warm glow. The emptiness of the apartment reflected the feeling of emptiness gnawing at you. You sat on the couch and tried to distract yourself with your cell phone and grabbed a few books you didn't know from the shelf, but everything seemed strange. The clock on the wall was chiming louder than usual, each second getting longer and longer. Around two in the morning, you couldn't stay awake a second longer. Your eyes were heavy, and your mind was tired from the endless cycle of thoughts you had been wrestling with all day. Eventually, you drifted off to sleep, exhausted from the emotional toll of the day, the weight of your own feelings too much to bear when you didn't have Spencer or a canvas nearby to distract you.

You didn’t even hear him when he came through the door.

It wasn't until almost four in the morning that you awoke slightly, your body responding to the warmth and the soft sound of his footsteps approaching you. You found yourself curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, your head resting on the pillows and your neck aching. The dinner you had bought was still on the table, untouched, and the candles had long since been extinguished, taking away the warm, familiar atmosphere. The air smelled faintly of reheated food and something else, something familiar, something that smelled like him.

“Spencer…” Your voice was thick with sleep, the words barely leaving your mouth.

He smiled down at you, a gentle smile that seemed to reach all the way into your chest. “Sorry I’m so late…I didn't think you would wait for me,” he murmured, his voice low and soothing. “Work ran later than I expected.”

You nodded, still half-dazed, barely able to focus on his words. But then you felt the warmth of his hand on your shoulder, gentle but grounding, and everything seemed to fall into place.

“Why don’t you go to bed?” he suggested softly, his fingers brushing a strand of hair from your face. “You’ve fallen asleep here.”

Before you could react, he picked you up and gently led you into his bedroom. The action was tender, so natural because it had happened more times than you could count. You didn't protest or move. Maybe it was tiredness, or maybe it was the way he made you feel so safe that you always wanted to fall asleep on his couch so he could hold you more, but you let him continue. You let him take care of you as he always did, even when you didn't ask him to.

As he tucked you into his bed, the soft sheets wrapped around your body like a comforting embrace, you murmured something tender and incoherent about him in your sleep, too far away to remember. The words poured out meaninglessly, fragments of meaningless thoughts: feelings, confusions, desires you had buried too deep to think you would ever say out loud. Spencer's hand brushed across your forehead, his thumb gently pushing away the strands of hair that clung to your skin and made you uncomfortable.

“Pretty boy,” you whispered, the words slipping out in your sleepy haze, a fragment of something you couldn’t quite capture.

Spencer’s soft laugh filled the space between you, the sound warm and comforting.

“I remember you said someone used to call you that; is that true?” you asked gently, a playful teasing tone in your voice. “You’re a pretty boy.”

“And you’re a sleepy girl,” he replied with a quiet smile, watching you drift in and out of consciousness.

“Pretty…” you murmured again, your voice barely audible, like a dream that was fading too quickly for you to hold onto.

“Yeah, pretty too,” he whispered, his voice low and rich with tenderness. His thumb traced your forehead one last time, lingering for just a moment before the weight of sleep claimed you entirely.

The bed shifted slightly as Spencer took off his shoes and climbed in beside you, his body warmth a comforting presence next to yours. He paused, just for a moment, to look at you with an expression so full of affection.

“Thanks for making this place a home, my pretty girl,” he whispered, his voice filled with a warmth that seemed to wrap around you like the sheets, even when you can’t listen.

Because he wouldn't have told you that if you were awake and aware, watching him with your bright eyes wide open. Not yet. Not if telling you meant facing the possibility that one day you might avoid him in the hallway or, worse, decide to move somewhere else. He couldn't bear the thought of losing you because he felt things he shouldn't have. Not you. Not his home.

Being in love with you, his neighbor and only friend outside of work, was one of the best and worst things that ever happened to him. To have someone who would wait for him with dinner even when you didn't know what time he'd be home, someone who would compliment him even in between dreams and manage to make him laugh, who would listen to him even when no one else would, and who would accidentally smear paint all over his clothes as a little reminder that you were real and not an impossible dream. He knew you were truly a miracle to someone as unlucky as he was.

Having you, even as a friend, was fantastic.

Sadly, what Spencer didn’t know, what neither of you could have known, was that this moment, this quiet tenderness and time sleeping in the same bed, would be the last time he would see you for what would feel like an eternity. At least for three more agonizing months.

[norrissm]

⌗ the art of latte hearts — ln4

barista!lando. fluff. lando makes latte art hearts on your drinks — upon confrontation, he stumbles over an awkward confession. you and i by tom speight. ★ LIBRARY

you were a regular at the cafe. lando had noticed the first time you walked in. “a vanilla latte please,” you’d said.

the ding of the overhead bell of the door at exactly 9 o'clock in the morning, the exasperated look in your eyes before the coffee would kick in, ordering the same drink - sometimes swapping in an americano too - he knew it all too well.

the moment when you’d leave, muttering a “thanks lando” turning around to leave with a smile, he felt like he’d do this forever if that meant hearing his name from your lips.

and when it starts happening, lando doesn't know either. hands carefully, almost absentmindedly, drew a heart on your coffee, passing it to you as a confession spoken in the quiet, unknown to you.

max had noticed it nonetheless. wiping the mugs one day he’d said “mate she either has no clue or is waiting for you to up your game.” lando had feigned innocence calling it a ‘baseless allegation’ before chucking a cloth at him.

it got him thinking that night. did you see it simply as latte art?

it took your friend nothing to ruin lando’s day a few days later. pointing out the heart to you. “how’s it he makes hearts for you and this,” she motioned at her coffee. “this rather amazing tulip on mine?”

you’d never paid attention to this before, choosing to peacefully live with the fact that your barista crush made hearts on your coffee and not ruin your mood by being nosy enough to see if he did with others.

“i’m sure that’s a procedure for them. y’know latte art.”

“no, latte hearts,” she emphasised beckoning over to the other cups littered across the cafe. flowers, smiles and even some swirls but no hearts in sight.

“it’s textbook barista flirting.” she said. “and i know you fancy the curly-haired too. might as well do something about it y’know.” eyes wide over the rim of the coffee mug.

which is why you found yourself at the counter again. having finished the latte waiting for lando to be done with an order. max had excused himself from the register to take over, ushering him away from the matcha he was working with.

lando straightened up seeing you again. “another latte?” he asked. a charming smile adorning his face.

oh, how you loved this smile. the reason you kept coming back to this cafe, a solid 20-minute walk from your dorm. worth it you’d think.

“another latte heart?” you teased. lando blinks. “what?”

“you seem to be enjoying practising latte hearts on my coffee.” you gesture to your coffee. lando laughs, a little too quickly. “pfft, no, it’s just, uh—just muscle memory, y’know? been making a lot of hearts lately.”

“only on my drinks, though,” you counter, raising an eyebrow. “seems like a very specific muscle memory.”

“okay, yeah, um… so, funny thing…” he scratches the back of his neck, cheeks dusted pink. “it’s kind of a—i don’t know—stupid barista crush thing? i started doing it without thinking, and then i thought maybe you’d notice, but then you didn’t, and i just… kept doing it?” he exhales sharply, shaking his head. “wow, that sounds weird out loud.”

the words hang between you, and he looks like he wants to crawl under the counter. you bite back a smile. “oh? and what if i like you too?” lando blinks. “wait—really?”

you tap the mug with a finger. “yeah. maybe you could’ve tried, i don’t know, using words instead of milk foam?”

he grins, boyish and bright. “okay. how about this—can i take you out sometime?”

you pretend to think for a second, just to see him squirm. then, with a sip of your coffee, you smile.

“i’d like that.”

reblog and follow 3 all rights reserved ©️norrissm please do not copy, save, or translate my stories.

[oh-no-its-bird]

Celebrating my 21'st birthday by posting an obnoxious amount of

Warring States Hatake OC things !

Continuing the warring states era Hatake oc train as I try to fill up all 21 slots for the clan !!! I honestly don't know if I'll make all 21, but I'd like to at least give them all names, just to make the world feel lived in. I might ask someone else to donate an oc or two in the future to guest star in the cast, idk

But anyways !!!! In a clan who loves to adopt, it stands to reason that they ofc have people among them who weren't born Hatake.

With that said: Pyromaniac explosion enthusiast Hatake who was a failed bloodline theft anyone ???

Both Sora and Tsuki are pretty fucking horrendous towards Tetsuo, but in large part it's Tsuki leading the charge. Sora follows his lead, as he's the first friend she made in the clan. They're honestly pretty close

Meanwhile: Sora remains the biggest Haruka fan ever. Being saved from the bloodline thief camp by the woman really cemented her in her mind as her hero.

After Sora lost her arm at 12 when playing with an explosion seal she'd explicitly been told not to play with, Tsuki proposed they learn to do hand signs together.

Sora would eventually be able to figure out how to do pull off a jutsu with only one hand, but it takes a long time to get there— and even when she is there, it still takes longer than if she had 2 hands. Working with Tsuki, they can both pull off just about any jutsu as fast as any one person can. Faster, even

Top ten images taken 5 seconds before disaster...

I was gonna draw 2 more pages for this, of the actual drowning attempt, but I got tired and wanted to post this today so you get a summary of what comes next instead. (Maybe I'll finish drawing it and post it separately another day)

Tsuki and Sora bullied Tetsuo pretty relentlessly till the boys were about 13, when Tsuki took things a step too far and basically tried to drown Tetsuo. Tetsuo fought back, beating both Tsuki and Sora's asses pretty soundly— and catching Haruka's attention in the process.

Seeing Tetsuo fend off the other two made up Haruka's mind, and she declared he'd be her new heir. Which he... didn't actually want to be. Oops!

Sora was pretty effectively scared out of bullying Tetsuo any further, and Tsuki mellowed out a good amount— though he remained mischievous, but that was pretty standard for him.

The blue tint of Tetsuo's skin would fade only some months later as he grew out of his Hoshigaki traits and into his Hatake blood. This also helped to lessen teasing from the other kids, along with the whole "he's the new clan heir now" thing.

Good for him.

The next day Tetsuo is super pissy and sleep deprived while Tsuki is suspiciously smug and well rested. On the bright side, Tetsuo has officially learned his lesson and will now refuse to let Tsuki ever give anyone anything he's drawn ominous spirals on.

As adults, Tetsuo and Tsuki are... fine, honestly. They're friends, in a way. Might even be counted as close— or as close as you can be, with Tsuki.

The fact that Tsuki got himself permanantly posessed by an Uzu spiral demon on that mission gone wrong in Wave doesn't make things as complicated than you'd think. Tetsuo seems to often land himself in the position of acting as Tsuki (and often times Sora's) handler.

I had a few more things I wanted to draw, but ran out of time. I'll probably just try and draw and post it later. No Sora piercing lore, Daisuke introduction post or full Tetsuo drowning comic for you!!! (Yet)

Umm final thoughts:

Tetsuo is doomed to forever be surrounded by maniacs

Early Konoha oc art pt. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]