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mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months ago

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Google reneged on the monopolistic bargain

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and TOMORROW in SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

A funny thing happened on the way to the enshittocene: Google – which astonished the world when it reinvented search, blowing Altavista and Yahoo out of the water with a search tool that seemed magic – suddenly turned into a pile of shit.

Google's search results are terrible. The top of the page is dominated by spam, scams, and ads. A surprising number of those ads are scams. Sometimes, these are high-stakes scams played out by well-resourced adversaries who stand to make a fortune by tricking Google:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/phone-numbers-airlines-listed-google-directed-scammers-rcna94766

But often these scams are perpetrated by petty grifters who are making a couple bucks at this. These aren't hyper-resourced, sophisticated attackers. They're the SEO equivalent of script kiddies, and they're running circles around Google:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Google search is empirically worsening. The SEO industry spends every hour that god sends trying to figure out how to sleaze their way to the top of the search results, and even if Google defeats 99% of these attempts, the 1% that squeak through end up dominating the results page for any consequential query:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

Google insists that this isn't true, and if it is true, it's not their fault because the bad guys out there are so numerous, dedicated and inventive that Google can't help but be overwhelmed by them:

https://searchengineland.com/is-google-search-getting-worse-389658

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Google has long maintained that its scale is the only thing that keeps us safe from the scammers and spammers who would otherwise overwhelm any lesser-resourced defender. That's why it was so imperative that they pursue such aggressive growth, buying up hundreds of companies and integrating their products with search so that every mobile device, every ad, every video, every website, had one of Google's tendrils in it.

This is the argument that Google's defenders have put forward in their messaging on the long-overdue antitrust case against Google, where we learned that Google is spending $26b/year to make sure you never try another search engine:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-27/google-paid-26-3-billion-to-be-default-search-engine-in-2021

Google, we were told, had achieved such intense scale that the normal laws of commercial and technological physics no longer applied. Take security: it's an iron law that "there is no security in obscurity." A system that is only secure when its adversaries don't understand how it works is not a secure system. As Bruce Schneier says, "anyone can design a security system that they themselves can't break. That doesn't mean it works – just that it works for people stupider than them."

And yet, Google operates one of the world's most consequential security system – The Algorithm (TM) – in total secrecy. We're not allowed to know how Google's ranking system works, what its criteria are, or even when it changes: "If we told you that, the spammers would win."

Well, they kept it a secret, and the spammers won anyway.

A viral post by Housefresh – who review air purifiers – describes how Google's algorithmic failures, which send the worst sites to the top of the heap, have made it impossible for high-quality review sites to compete:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

You've doubtless encountered these bad review sites. Search for "Best ______ 2024" and the results are a series of near-identical lists, strewn with Amazon affiliate links. Google has endlessly tinkered with its guidelines and algorithmic weights for review sites, and none of it has made a difference. For example, when Google instituted a policy that reviewers should "discuss the benefits and drawbacks of something, based on your own original research," sites that had previously regurgitated the same lists of the same top ten Amazon bestsellers "peppered their pages with references to a ‘rigorous testing process,’ their ‘lab team,’ subject matter experts ‘they collaborated with,’ and complicated methodologies that seem impressive at a cursory look."

But these grandiose claims – like the 67 air purifiers supposedly tested in Better Homes and Gardens's Des Moines lab – result in zero in-depth reviews and no published data. Moreover, these claims to rigorous testing materialized within a few days of Google changing its search ranking and said that high rankings would be reserved for sites that did testing.

Most damning of all is how the Better Homes and Gardens top air purifiers perform in comparison to the – extensively documented – tests performed by Housefresh: "plagued by high-priced and underperforming units, Amazon bestsellers with dubious origins (that also underperform), and even subpar devices from companies that market their products with phrases like ‘the Tesla of air purifiers.’"

One of the top ranked items on BH&G comes from Molekule, a company that filed for bankruptcy after being sued for false advertising. The model BH&G chose was ranked "the worst air purifier tested" by Wirecutter and "not living up to the hype" by Consumer Reports. Either BH&G's rigorous testing process is a fiction that they infused their site with in response to a Google policy change, or BH&G absolutely sucks at rigorous testing.

BH&G's competitors commit the same sins – literally, the exact same sins. Real Simple's reviews list the same photographer and the photos seem to have been taken in the same place. They also list the same person as their "expert." Real Simple has the same corporate parent as BH&G: Dotdash Meredith. As Housefresh shows, there's a lot of Dotdash Meredith review photos that seem to have been taken in the same place, by the same person.

But the competitors of these magazines are no better. Buzzfeed lists 22 air purifiers, including that crapgadget from Molekule. Their "methodology" is to include screenshots of Amazon reviews.

A lot of the top ranked sites for air purifiers are once-great magazines that have been bought and enshittified by private equity giants, like Popular Science, which began as a magazine in 1872 and became a shambling zombie in 2023, after its PE owners North Equity LLC decided its googlejuice was worth more than its integrity and turned it into a metastatic chumbox of shitty affiliate-link SEO-bait. As Housefresh points out, the marketing team that runs PopSci makes a lot of hay out of the 150 years of trust that went into the magazine, but the actual reviews are thin anaecdotes, unbacked by even the pretense of empiricism (oh, and they loooove Molekule).

Some of the biggest, most powerful, most trusted publications in the world have a side-hustle in quietly producing SEO-friendly "10 Best ___________ of 2024" lists: Rolling Stone, Forbes, US News and Report, CNN, New York Magazine, CNN, CNET, Tom's Guide, and more.

Google literally has one job: to detect this kind of thing and crush it. The deal we made with Google was, "You monopolize search and use your monopoly rents to ensure that we never, ever try another search engine. In return, you will somehow distinguish between low-effort, useless nonsense and good information. You promised us that if you got to be the unelected, permanent overlord of all information access, you would 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.'"

They broke the deal.

Companies like CNET used to do real, rigorous product reviews. As Housefresh points out, CNET once bought an entire smart home and used it to test products. Then Red Ventures bought CNET and bet that they could sell the house, switch to vibes-based reviewing, and that Google wouldn't even notice. They were right.

https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/welcome-to-the-cnet-smart-home/

Google downranks sites that spend money and time on reviews like Housefresh and GearLab, and crams botshittened content mills like BH&G into our eyeballs instead.

In 1558, Thomas Gresham coined (ahem) Gresham's Law: "Bad money drives out good." When counterfeit money circulates in the economy, anyone who gets a dodgy coin spends it as quickly as they can, because the longer you hold it, the greater the likelihood that someone will detect the fraud and the coin will become worthless. Run this system long enough and all the money in circulation is funny money.

An internet run by Google has its own Gresham's Law: bad sites drive out good. It's not just that BH&G can "test" products at a fraction of the cost of Housefresh – through the simple expedient of doing inadequate tests or no tests at all – so they can put a lot more content up that Housefresh. But that alone wouldn't let them drive Housefresh off the front page of Google's search results. For that, BH&G has to mobilize some of their savings from the no test/bad test lab to do real rigorous science: science in defeating Google's security-through-obscurity system, which lets them command the front page despite publishing worse-than-useless nonsense.

Google has lost the spam wars. In response to the plague of botshit clogging Google search results, the company has invested in…making more botshit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Last year, Google did a $70b stock buyback. They also laid off 12,000 staffers (whose salaries could have been funded for 27 years by that stock buyback). They just laid off thousands more employees.

That wasn't the deal. The deal was that Google would get a monopoly, and they would spend their monopoly rents to be so good that you could just click "I'm feeling lucky" and be teleported to the very best response to your query. A company that can't figure out the difference between a scam like Better Homes and Gardens and a rigorous review site like Housefresh should be pouring every spare dime it brings in into fixing this problem. Not buying default search status on every platform so that we never try another search engine: they should be fixing their shit.

When Google admits that it's losing the war to these kack-handed spam-farmers, that's frustrating. When they light $26b/year on fire making sure you don't ever get to try anything else, that's very frustrating. When they vaporize seventy billion dollars on financial engineering and shoot one in ten engineers, that's outrageous.

Google's scale has transcended the laws of business physics: they can sell an ever-degrading product and command an ever-greater share of our economy, even as their incompetence dooms any decent, honest venture to obscurity while providing fertile ground – and endless temptation – for scammers.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

#pluralistic #monopoly #seo #dark seo #google #search #enshittification #platform decay #product reviews #spam #antitrust #trustbusting

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 8 months ago

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WIBTA if I reported my roommate for smoking weed?

🖍 for identification

Okay so I (19, F) live in the dorms on my university campus. Specifically, I'm in the normal, freshman-only dorms. This means that while weed is legal in my area, very few if any of of people in my building are legally allowed to use it, only the RAs would be old enough

My schools drug policy is basically "Don't, especially on campus or in a way where you can get caught on campus. It we smell it from your room there will be consequences, and if you're somewhere where it's happening but not doing it yourself you will still face consequences". A lot of people don't really care and will smoke it on campus, or return to their dorms still smelling of it anyway. In addition, the smell is a major sensory issue for me (as in, feel sick, break down crying if there too long, very much not okay level). I do what I can for dealing with this myself (walk a bit out of my way to avoid area I know tends to be a spot people will smoke, hold my breath if I can avoid the smell, etc). It's not my business what people do, I get that.

Recently, after my roommate (F, don't know age but about my age) returns to our room she, and consequentially, the room, smell strongly of weed. This is, to me at least, a different situation than the walkway outside the dorm building/dorm lobby/other areas where I have to deal with the smell of weed because, well, it's partially my room. It's where I sleep and work and typically am when I don't have class or show work. And because it's a smaller more confined space, the smell is even stronger, permeates everything, and doesn't just go away.

While I've had things my roommate did cause sensory issues before, I always went with a "just deal" route because 1. She's paying the same as I am to live there and 2. It was mostly things like strong smelling food or having the TV running late at higher volumes, which I didn't know how to bring up with her and aren't Go To The RA type problems.

However, this is a different level, and I've slept in my car last night and tonight and avoided the room all day except to grab things like a change of clothes, my toiletries bag, my purse, etc. which when I went to grab, the room still smelled like weed. Because this is 1. worse than other sensory issues I've run into with her and 2. Something that could potentially get me in trouble if I was in the room and someone came by to check and noticed the smell, I've considered going to the RA/housing staff and telling them about this, but since I've never actually talked to my roommate about any problems, including this, I'm worried it would be an asshole move. Plus, it's possible the campus police would end up involved and thats a whole other level of trouble I would feel bad putting her through. When I first escaped to my car last night I sent a vent text to my brother, which my mom ended up seeing, and she's pushing me to tell someone but I'm worried about it

So, wibta?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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marshmallow-phd · 8 months ago

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Genre: Regency Gothic AU

Pairing: EXO x Reader

Summary: A stormy night brought you to the manor in the middle of the woods. Nine strange men occupied its halls. They won't let you leave. A dangerous secret haunts this estate. Learning it might either be your saving grace or it could lead to the last breath you ever take.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5

Lightning lit up the thin curtains covering the two small windows on either side of the carriage. Thunder rumbled and you felt it deep within your chest. Tugging your silk cloak closer, you closed your eyes and prayed that the driver would get you through the storm. There was no one to comfort you, to reassure you that a little rain and noisy sky wouldn't delay your journey.

Your father had insisted you take your sister or even a friend, but the two day’s journey didn’t seem consequential enough to need a companion. Besides, what would they have done once you arrived? Your elderly aunt had only asked for you. From what you could decipher from her letter, she needed you to be a companion as she traveled to the southernmost coastal town. Apparently, it was now the ultimate fashion to travel to for the summer. Just the idea of rolling waves made your stomach churn. But what was worse was who else would be there–

The carriage jolted to the right. You spread out your arms, only barely catching yourself from falling to the floor. No sane person would have endured such dangerous weather. This storm had come from nowhere. Skies blue and cloudless as you had ever seen bid you farewell in the late morning. Most of the day's journey had been uneventful. Then the joyful light faded. Thunder shook the walls of the carriage. Rain pounded on the roof. When would you reach the inn? Bile rose up in your throat, burning the sensitive tissue as the carriage continued to rock violently. The horses neighed over the sounds of the storm.

The carriage shifted hard to the left. And kept falling. You slammed into the door, nearly opening it with the force. You didn't know what was happening. The floor was now the wall and the wall the floor. A downward momentum made it impossible to stand. Screams ripped at your throat.

Then it stopped.

The rain continued to pour and the thunder roared on but the carriage was still. Your legs wobbled as you slowly stood. With your palms, you pushed open the door. The thin wooden panel clapped against the outside of the carriage. Immediately you were pounded by the storm. Large drops pelted your face, obscuring your vision. It was dark. You could tell that much. And there were trees. In every direction.

You climbed out of the carriage, calling for the driver. Your feet slipped in the mud, but you managed to keep your balance–for now. The mud was thick and sticky as you trudged to the front of the carriage.

No. No, no, no. Both of the horses were gone. And so was the driver. Somehow, the carriage had fallen down a hill or ravine. With a storm this terrible, you needed to get to higher ground or risk possibly being carried away–or drowning. Clawing and digging your hands and feet into the soaked dirt, you climbed the hard incline back to the road.

Once you could make out the road, you called for the driver again. No answer. He was nowhere to be found. You needed to find shelter. The storm gave no promise of letting up. You wouldn't survive the night in this forest, even if you went back into the carriage. The only choice was to find sanctuary. You stared in the direction you believed you came from. Nothing but trees and darkness. You turned to the other choice. All the same–wait.

There was something... when lightning brightened up the sky. Your heart began banging in your ears. Spires, towers. Not trees. It was some distance away, but it was shelter nonetheless.

With near tears in your eyes, you picked up your skirts–your fingers numb from the cold–and hurried towards the castle that could be your saving grace.

*****

The manor was calm tonight. Odd, considering the amount of bodies roaming around these haunted halls. Only the beautiful storm outside and Chanyeol's sorrowful melody from the piano broke the silence. Jongin had draped himself over one of the arm chairs as he inspected the wine mixture within his goblet. The taste was… adequate. The cellar would need replenishing soon.

In the corner, a rather lax game of cards covered the small, round table. Minseok smirked at his winning hand. The faded wooden chips with bits of white painted around the edges were piling up in front of Yixing, who leaned back carelessly, sure of his next win. Little did either of them know that the youngest among them had a little... trick his sleeve. As the quickest, Sehun had perfected sleight of hand long ago. None had caught him yet.

A fire roared, coaling the usually gray and brown room in flickering orange. With how close he stood near the fireplace, Kyungsoo's silhouette was visible through his loose shirt. He leaned his palms on the mantel and let the warmth of the flames engulf him. Warmth was all they could feel after all these years. It could be an addiction so strong it was tempting to throw himself into the fire.

Junmyeon joined him at the fireplace, leaning his shoulders against the brick. The bite of the edge hardly registered in his mind. Pain of that measure... it was only a ghost that had nearly crossed over.

“Such strong thoughts for a night like this.”

Kyungsoo didn’t look from the fire, but raised a questioning eyebrow in response.

Junmyeon shrugged a single shoulder. “I can’t read minds, but it's obvious you're turning something over more times than a praying rock.”

“It's the same thoughts,” Kyungsoo murmured in his strange, monotone voice. “Always the same thoughts.”

“One day you will have to let it go,” Junmyeon sighed. “This is our existence now. And forever will be.”

“Acceptance of the present doesn’t erase the past.”

“But it does make the present more enjoyable.” The red liquid sloshed against the rim of the goblet as Jongin draped an arm over Kyungsoo’s shoulders. He wore a mischievous smile. A clear indicator of his true intention.

Junmyeon shook his head. “We’re not going out tonight. There’s nothing out and about in this storm.” Hunting in these conditions would wield no trophies. Tomorrow would be a better night.

“Jun’s no fun tonight,” Jongdae teased as he and Baekhyun emerged from the hallway.

“If you want to go out in this mess,” Junmyeon waved towards the front door. “Be my guest. Just don’t you dare get mud on the rug–”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Help! Please! Help!”

Nine pairs of eyes snapped to the echoing sound. None moved.

Bang! Bang!

BANG!

One of the double doors burst open and a figure fell to the floor, landing on its knees and palms. It looked up. A flash of lightning illuminated the face.

The face of a beautiful young girl.

*****

Your knees vibrated when they hit the wooden floor. Water fell from your loose hair that clung to your cheeks. The chances of the door opening when you pushed on the handle had been low–yet the barrier that kept you victim to the storm fell open and you crashed downward with it.

Greeting you in this strange hall were several men, their jaws hanging open in a mirror of your own surprise. More men appeared from a side parlor, curious as to who dared intrude on their evening. One, two, three–you counted nine total. Nine men. This was not ideal–a bit terrifying, really–but you didn't have a choice. The storm raged outside.

"P-please," you stammered past chattering teeth "The st-storm overturn-overturned the carriage.”

The men stayed silent as they exchanged unreadable glances. One raised a questionable brow.

"Jongdae, go run a bath," ordered the man closest to you. One of the shorter residents nodded and disappeared into the darkness that led into the rest of the manor.

That's what this place was. A grand old manor, not a castle. Isolated. When you'd first run through the rusted iron gate, you'd feared it abandoned. A long dormant instinct whispered that you might have been better off if it had been.

The first man approached, each motion slow, deliberate, and hauntingly graceful. He crouched down in front of you and captured your frightened stare. The fear in you began to melt away. He was… beautiful. Obsidian fell over his forehead in gentle waves. His tunic was of a fashion your grandfather would have worn. There was something strange about this man–all of these men. Something... different.

"Let's get you warmed up." He held his hand out and you were up on your feet before you even realized your fingers were resting on his. "Don't worry," he murmured. "You're safe here. My name is Junmyeon."

You nodded, somehow believing him, but unsure if you should. Through your violent chattering, you managed to stammer out your name in response.

Bang!

You jumped at the sudden noise. One of the other men had somehow appeared behind you to shut the door you'd fallen through.

"Thank you, Yixing," the man beside you said. The one named Yixing nodded and then shifted his eyes to you. “Come.” A hand pressed into the space between your shoulder blades and guided you down the hall, leaving a trail of mud in your wake.

The man led you down several halls until you reached an unoccupied bedroom. Red blankets draped the oversized bed. Matching curtains hung limply from the canopy. All of the wood was a dark sort, rich in color but not quite welcoming like other, brighter woods.

Jongdae emerged from another door on the other side of the bedroom. Steam rolled out after him as if it were following him for its next set of orders. “Anything else?” he asked drily.

“No, thank you.”

Jongdae strolled the from the room without a glance either of you and closed the door behind him. Your breath hitched in your throat. The two of you were… alone. It wasn’t appropriate. It was…

You looked to the man still with you, fear causing your heart to pound painful against your chest. You tugged your cloak closer to you, but it was soaked from the rain. Shivers violently raced down your arms and spine. The man didn’t seem to notice as he walked over to the dresser and opened the top drawer. He pulled out a long white cloth.

“These should suffice for tonight.” He held up the cloth for you to see. A nightgown. An old one by the cut of it, though thankfully it hadn’t been devoured by moths or mice. “If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to ask.”

You nodded. “Thank you.”

He visibly suppressed a laugh at your small voice and waved you into the adjoining bathroom. Taking the nightgown, you tried your best to avoid his gaze. You scurried inside and shut the door.

*****

Junmyeon smirked at your mousy state. It was understandable why you were so frightened. The women of this period were warned of being alone with a man. And now you were alone with nine.

Nine very dangerous men.

The proper action for him to take was to leave your room now that you were safe inside the bathroom, but his feet didn’t move. Somehow, the storm had stranded you in their forest. What had happened to the driver, he wondered. Surely a gentlewoman such as yourself was not controlling the carriage. And yet, you were all alone. Circumstances were… ideal.

A small hiss echoed in the bathroom. It stretched out, along with the sound of sloshing water. Junmyeon frowned.

Hm.

He stood there for a few minutes more, listening to you sigh as your skin grew used to the scalding water. The sound of soap scraping against skin reached his ears, followed by more sloshing water. Soon, you would be getting out of the tub. Time to leave.

He emerged from the bedroom, careful to close the door as quietly as possible. Everyone had gathered out in the hallway since they were too curious about their visitor to go about their night. Junmyeon found Jongdae blending in with the cluster. He glared at him as he hissed, "The water was too hot."

Jongdae merely shrugged. Why would he care about water possibly being too hot? It would never hurt him.

On the opposite end of the group, Yixing cleared his throat. "What are we going to do with her?"

Junmyeon glanced at the door behind him. There was only one best option, for all their sakes. "Tomorrow morning, we will send her on her way."

The eruption was instant.

“Enough!”

In an instant, the hissing ceased.

Baekhyun huffed and folded his arms against his chest, collapsing against the wall. Jongin scoffed. "Such a waste."

“A waste that will keep this household from tearing itself apart,” Junmyeoun countered. It was an outcome none of them wanted. No one wanted to cause a fight, but resisting was difficult. The temptation was great. The quicker you left, the better off they would all be.

"Do you really think it’ll end so well?" Minseok’s mocking comment hung in the air. Silent agreements rippled through the air.

Junmyeon looked to Kyungsoo, whose answer was to look away. "No one touches her," he ordered. They all would try, he knew. But their strength would only get them so far. He stared down a few of them especially, so they knew he meant it.

Sehun pushed off the wall with a roll of his eyes. "Just get her out of here so I can get some peace."

Junmyeon started to call after him but was interrupted by a soft thud from the room behind him. Confused, he opened the door to find you lying on the floor.

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jam3sacaster · 6 days ago

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“I will never forget your touch. It will linger on me.”

(Rivals) Rupert Campbell-Black x Reader

Suggestion by a sweet anon 🫶🏽 / You’re incredibly nervous to pop your cherry, but Rupert comforts you throughout it all.

18+ FANFIC / SMUT from the offset and soft Rupert! 🥰 Reader character aged 21. My ask box is open again, so please request anything you wanna see 💋

Approaching the two week anniversary since you and Rupert Campbell-Black had made your budding relationship official, he had started to send subtle signs that we wanted you to be more intimate. A soft sweep of his palm across your bare thighs, a solemn whisper in your ear at night, a tight cuddle in bed, the imprint of his cock against your leg. Tonight, however, you were both curled up in bed. Rupert fixated on a monotonous documentary pictured on the screen of his ginormous 27” television, and you were flicking breezily through the women’s section of The Scorpion — uncaring of the numerous recipes, stories readers husbands infidelity and which colour palette you should choose based on your tan this coming season.

Rupert chuckled heartily at a spiritless joke on the telly and passed his right hand under the heavenly duck-feather duvet, stroking his fingertips over your thigh. He pulled back the covers gently to reveal your bed time outfit — a delicate white silk slip dress with intricate lace lining across the neckline. Your bare skin was bronzed and velveted, and hid made him groan in desire. “You have no idea how badly I want to be inside of you.” He muttered breathlessly, locking cerulean orbs with you. Raising your arched eyebrows, you bite your lip and kick the covers away from your feet. “I think I know. I want you too. I’ve just never…” You stutter, eyes clamping shut in embarrassment. For a man of such Lothario stature, you couldn’t believe he had fallen for you — autonomously virginal at twenty one years old. “I thought as such. I wish you’d have told me.” He replies, sensualised eyes softening.

“I’m just nervous. I wanted to save it for someone special, and that person is you but… I’m just nervous, Rupert.” You whisper, placing your palm over his on your thigh. He propped himself up on an elbow and watched as he moved his hand — fingers tracing complex patterns across the length of your leg. “We’ll take it step by step, I promise.” He reassures you, and you nod in consent. Steadily, he inched closer to kiss you — lips crashing in symphonic yearning, a collision of passion between two souls. Rupert pulled his tight white boxer shorts from his person and lay back on the bed, allowing you to marvel at his picturesque body, and marvel you did. Your mind could barely comprehend the magnificent structure that lay beside you. Pulling your own slip dress off with one swift move, Rupert took his turn to gawp at you. Taking a moment to consume the sight of your sizeable, bouncing breasts, your rounded hourglass figure, your shapely atheistic legs — truly the personification of Aphrodite. “Wow, angel. You look spectacular.” Rupert passionately breathed, fighting furiously the urge to take you there and then.

Crawling down to the foot of the bed, you lay between his legs, taking the length of his monumentally erect cock in your hands, stroking it softly and keeping your eyes fixed on his handsome groans. “What are you going to do with it, princess?” He teased, and you wasted no time in taking his tip into your mouth, swirling your tongue and allowing yourself to take him deeper into your throat. His pleasurable groans spurred you on evermore to increase your tempo, feeling yourself gag as you spit onto his cock, promptly rubbing it across his girth with your right hand. Rupert watched in absolute disbelief as his angel’s eyes darkened — signification that tonight would be a consequential change in your behaviour. Taking him into your throat again, hands by your side, you bob your head up and down violently, saliva escaping the sides your mouth desperately. Rupert’s abdominals tensed in ecstasy, but he cautiously backed away and brought himself to his knees.

“Bend over for me, angel.” He instructs, and you instantaneously do as your food, arching your back and presenting him with your bare arse, wet pussy glinting in the amber glow of the lamp and soft skin tantalisingly close to him. Teasing your glistening entrance with the swollen head of his cock, he slowly entered himself inside you — carnal lust overtaking his body as your vice gripped across his girth. You breathlessly, an intoxicating mixture of both pleasure and pain. “Please be gentle, Rupert.”

“Oh, don’t worry, angel. I’ll be gentle.” He reassures you, thrusting inside of you and alleviating his stress inside the primal heat of your cunt. Taking a firm hold on the voluptuous curves of your hips, he cannot help but land a firm smack on your arse, lips biting together at the sight of the reverberation of his brutish hand. “Fuck, Rupert.” You whisper, eyes ablaze with sexual gratification. Flipping you over onto your back, Rupert pins your legs over his shoulder, grabbing a firm handful of your tits as he continues his sexual barrage upon you. “You feel so good. Where do you want my cum?” He asks, and you take a careful moment to consider. “On my face.” You reply, a devilish smirk tugging at the corners of your lips.

Rupert cannot help but replicate your lustful grin. The inebriating aroma of his mannish aftershave filled your lungs as you curved your lips in relaxation, feeling every single passionate stroke inside you. “Get ready, angel. I’m gonna cum.” He warns you, thrusts become sloppy as he nears his release. Using his hand to guide his cock out of you, he leans over you, jerking himself with one hand as you look up at him with an expectant gaze. You moan alongside him and beg him for his sweet cum. “Please, Rupert, give it to me.”

Grunting accompanying every rope of hot cum, Rupert shot his load over your face — you giggling as you feel your eyelashes becoming heavy under the splashes. “Fucking hell, angel. You look incredible with my cum all over your face.” He grins, admiring the mess he had made over you. “I will never forget your touch. It will linger on me.” Rupert collapses beside you breathlessly as you scoop a glob of his cum from your chin, sucking at your finger greedily and rather pleased with your first performance.

#rivals #rivals fanfic #rivals fanfiction #rupert campbell black fanfic #rupert campbell black x reader #rupert campbell black #rupert campbell-black #requests <3

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sky-kiss · 11 months ago

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Doll

A/N: I don’t know how to tag this one. It’s not technically dubcon or noncon. I’d describe it a “fuck around and find out.” Loving doll ending, basically. We’ve had so much soft-Raphael lately.

I wanted some horrible fiends.

Raphael x Haarlep x GN! Tav/Reader: Tonight is Consequential 18+

Ah, but what an ignominious end to the tale. The hero finds neither hellfire nor glory, no salvation or damnation; there's nothing at all in the end. Raphael returns to his House of Hope to see the threads of his tapestry severed and the story cut short. The brief wash of pleasure he'd experienced earlier is buried beneath immediate delight and then secondary repulsion.

You're waiting for him, you see. Pretty as a picture, stretched out amidst a sea of dark silks, sweat-slick and spent. You stare at him, through him. Motionless as Haarlep tracks their fingers across your shoulders, down your sternum, over the soft skin of your belly.

"We had a visitor, Raphael," Haarlep says, laughing, gesturing with their free arm, fingers spit-slick. They press two into your open mouth, delighting at the way you instinctively move to suck, so pliant to their wishes. "Less…spirited than before, pity, pity. But just as useful!" They hum, pretty features turning downward. Haarlep pulls their fingers free, wiping the saliva across your neck. "Perhaps more, considering their prior showing."

"What have you done?"

Haarlep frowns, features turning in genuine confusion. They sit up against the headboard, letting you roll away. "Only what they asked, princeling! I am nothing if not a good sport. 'Body and soul,' requested, and 'body and soul' they gave. And for such a low price." They chuckle, "Mmm. Raphael. Raw and undiluted."

Raphael stares at you: eternally bound to him, to the House, a prize fit for a king, a hero's soul. He sees fool's gold sullying his sheets.

Haarlep's arms weave around him, nails scratching over his cock. They fold around this human force, nosing his cheek, licking to the corner of his mouth. "Don't you like your gift? Call me generous, little brat."

Raphael sneers. The comment will cost them later, but it will only satisfy Haarlep, carnal pleasure paling in the face of the inconveniences they've caused. The incubus smiles, eyes hooded and dark. They push, breathing in the words in his ear, plastering themselves against his back. The hard line of their cock presses against him. An artlessness in the little jerks of their hips, betraying genuine pleasure rather than their usual disinterest.

"So silent. Are we displeased?"

"No," Raphael flicks his fingers. He is himself again: cambion and king. "A moment of surprise." You've not moved at all—a lump of flesh, a still-warm corpse: all for their pleasure.

And you do please him. You've cost him a Crown, but he claws some of its price back. Foolish mouse, caught, batted too many times by too many paws. Raphael turns your face into the pillow, fucking you hard. Tight and wet and tedious.

He reflects on the latter point most frequently in the coming years. The devil sips his wine, watching Haarlep have their way with you. Your mouth slackened with pleasure, eyes glassy and vacant. He's hard, yes, a natural response to the pleasure licking through Haarlep and visual stimuli.

You are still lovely, mouse, and Haarlep moves with a liquid grace he will never tire of watching. The incubus tosses their head back, fangs barred, jerking you back against them. Splotches of purples and greens, yellows, paint your skin, a mottled canvas he'd admire under less reflective circumstances.

Raphael is hard but not aroused, and the disparity between those two states sticks like a splinter in his mind. He cannot fathom the…

(Haarlep flips you onto your back, takes and takes, and you are still as eager now as you were then).

…why of the matter.

(You manage a shout of dumb pleasure).

"Keep it quiet, won't you?" Raphael snaps, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. Haarlep laughs, one hand covering your mouth. The cambion's eyes drift over the bruises again, and it comes to him: understanding, clarified in Avernus' heat.

Oh, but you.

The ruin of you. So many words, so many languages, dozens upon dozens known to him, but Raphael can think of only one word for you. Not love or promise. Not hope or savior. No, darling, you are so simply summarized:

Disappointment.

#bg3 raphael #raphael bg3 #raphael x tav #raphael x reader #haarlep x tav #haarlep x raphael #bg3 smut #tw dubcon #my writing #needed some dark devil

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goodnightmemes · 1 year ago

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THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER SENTENCE STARTERS

❛ I'm sorry for your loss, your...your losses, rather. ❜

❛ Nobody gets away with anything. Not really. ❜

❛ Don't lecture me about family values. You're just as shit in that department as I am. ❜

❛ That day was the last day we were all in the same place. Alive. ❜

❛ They will love you because I love you, and the only thing stronger than love is how scared they are of getting cut out of the will. ❜

❛ And most people go their whole, wasted, stupid lives without one minute of true resolution. Not me though. ❜

❛ You know what a resolution is? It's a deal you make with the future. ❜

❛ The people in charge of making us healthy make us sick. We cheat the dying. We fleece the poor. Promote the racist. Let the demons run amok. This world needs changing. ❜

❛ You're supposed to be shadowing me. Shadows don't fucking talk. ❜

❛ This is beneath you. And you're going to kill it. But you're better than all of this. And the minute you figure that out, you're going to be unstoppable. ❜

❛ There's no such thing as a step back. You go forward. If you hit a brick wall, you don't go back, you go through. ❜

❛ Nearly realized is the sweetest. It's better, I promise, in the moment just before than in the moment after. ❜

❛ You are consequence. And tonight, you are consequential. ❜

❛ You are a pretty, pretty little thing. ❜

❛ You wonder why people hate us. This is why. ❜

❛ Everybody knows that edible arrangements are what you send to people you hate. ❜

❛ If you start thinking this is reality, you'll just slip into the abyss. ❜

❛ We can talk about it after because I've had a shit day and I really just wanna starfish and forget the world. ❜

❛ Don't talk to me until I've come at least twice. ❜

❛ I love how deliciously, pointlessly mean you lot can be. ❜

❛ You still didn't need to come here though. It could have happened quiet. Peaceful. In bed. But I guess it's got to happen like this. ❜

❛ It's amazing how far you can get on denial. You know why so many people use denial to get by? Because it really fucking works. ❜

❛ You can't enhance this image? You see it all the time on TV. They hit a button, it enhances it. ❜

❛ I don't even own anything funeral black. ❜

❛ Satin is silk for poor people, no one should wear it to a funeral, unless they died in it. ❜

❛ Nobody knows they're the fall guy until they're falling.❜

❛ Women are the natural leaders of the species. Ancient Egypt had it right. ❜

❛ Okay, just because the door's open doesn't necessarily guarantee you a seat at the table. ❜

❛ You're not who I thought you were. ❜

❛ I really didn't want to think it, but...you're all fucking monsters. ❜

❛ Watching you shit on your principles would have been worth every fucking penny. ❜

❛ The mind of guilt is full of scorpions. And I wouldn't wish their sting on anyone. ❜

❛ Don't have to be smart to be dangerous. I'm not scared of rattlesnakes 'cause they're so smart. ❜

❛ You're so out of touch with your human side...you can't even listen to anything outside your own head. ❜

❛ I haven't seen you sleep in like...I mean, it's been a fucking long time. Like, horror movie long. ❜

❛ Life is insane. It is madness. The sooner you understand that, the better off you'll be. ❜

❛ The world might not be safe but listen to me, and listen carefully. I won't let anything happen to you. ❜

❛ All these terrible things and I thought, that's when people come together. But we've never been further apart. ❜

❛ Tell me it's worth it. Tell me you know the risk and I'll be there with you. I'll back you up. Just tell me. ❜

❛ Shut your mouth, get your shit together. The fuck is wrong with you? ❜

❛ Men, when they think they're immortal, all they want to do is fuck. When they figure out they're going to die, all they want to do is fuck. ❜

❛ It just makes you think, you know, life is so fucking short. ❜

❛ You don't have to be a tyrant, but if you don't want to be consistently cruel, then you have to be sufficiently brutal at least once to establish authority. ❜

❛ I thought it was an act. I figured you just played the housewife so you could keep a roof over your head. Spread your legs or suck his dick twice a week and you're set. You never have to work a day in your life. And I thought, "Good for her, she found her angle," but...this is really you. Isn't it? ❜

❛ Words got us into this, words can get us out. ❜

❛ You're a collection of impeccable, elaborate masks in orbit of a stunted heart. ❜

❛ There are certain things one shouldn't have to face in life. Time enough for self-reflection after. ❜

❛ I don't normally like to get my hands this dirty, but honey, you earned it. ❜

❛ I see you now. I look at you and I see... You. The poverty of you. ❜

❛ The real world is Darwinian. Survival, chaos, power. Leverage. ❜

❛ You feel it. In the air. We're sitting outside of time and space. ❜

❛ This is the moment luck meets opportunity. ❜

❛ In the ancient world, we'd seal this with blood, or spit. And then later, papyrus. But, a deal's a deal all over the world. ❜

❛ We're a... virus, I think. People, I mean. ❜

❛ But everyone loves something. And in that love there's collateral. ❜

❛ I say this with love. Let it go. Let it all go. ❜

❛ So I say, we stand tall and proud. Bill's come due. Let's not hide here in the basement like we've got something to be ashamed of. No. Not us. You and me against the world. ❜

❛ It may not have been perfect, but you can't say we didn't change the world. How many people can say that at the end? ❜

❛ I knew I would climb to the top of the tower on a pile of corpses. ❜

❛ It don't matter in the end why you did any of it. I don't fucking care why you did it. We don't want your confession, or your rationale, or your explanation. ❜

#a condensed version of the previous two #rp meme #rp prompt #sentence starters #sentence meme #roleplay prompts #roleplay meme #inbox memes #*tv #*tfothou

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fayes-fics · 2 years ago

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Reprimand

Double Bind Masterpost

PREV | NEXT

Pairing: Anthony Bridgerton x fem!reader

Summary: Follow on to Endeavour. Anthony suspects you may have been seduced by another and reprimands you.

Warnings: 18+smut, minors DNI, dom/sub relationships, mean dom, jealousy, consenting-non-consent (CNC) play, deepthroat breathplay, rope bondage, whipping with a riding crop, rough vaginal sex, orgasm control, emotions, confessions.

Word Count: 5.8k

Authors Note: Here is part 4 of the Double Bind series requested by @eleanor-bradstreet where our reader finds herself back with her original dom, Anthony. Please note, everything here is very consenting; they are just playing as if it's not. If that is at all triggering for you, please do not read this. Thank you to @colettebronte for the beta read, particularly around the CNC play. Enjoy! <3

The following night you see Anthony at a gathering—a very dull musical recital just a few doors down from Bridgerton House. He accompanies you as the respectable courting partner, your gloved wrist gently resting in the crook of his arm as you circuit the room before the show.

Once the decidedly mediocre entertainment begins, he leans close to your ear.

“You have about five more minutes, then we are leaving,” he drawls quietly.

“Where are we going, my lord?” you whisper back.

“Anywhere I can fuck you,” he states plainly as you struggle not to spit out the champagne you just sipped, a dribble still escaping down your chin that you attempt to dab away discreetly. He intentionally did that—waited to drop that line when you were taking a swig.

A warm finger catches the drip and pushes it back to your mouth, his pupils dilating. “Can’t quite swallow it all; that looks familiar,” he murmurs, intentionally being utterly filthy.

“Anthony!” you admonish quietly but fiercely.

“We both know being on your knees is your favourite place after being face down over my desk,” he mutters, knowing this sort of talk always gets you breathless.

And indeed, it does. “Are those five minutes up?” you ask archly.

Wordlessly, with a bemused huff, he grabs your hand and pulls you out into the aisle, briskly walking towards the rear of the room and out of the door. He keeps marching, out of the building, into the street, making a beeline for his home less than a hundred yards away.

“Your family…?” you check as you realise where he is headed.

“All at that dreaded recital. The house shall be empty except for staff. Not that it is consequential, for we are not going into the house,” he smirks back at you.

“Where are we going?” you ask as you realise he has veered into the mews running behind his property.

“Stables,” he answers as if that explains everything.

“Why?”

“You are asking an awful lot of questions tonight,” he comments, then pauses and crowds you into a cold brick wall in the narrow dark lane. “How about you trust me and just do as you are told, you wilful little thing?” his warm breath gusts over your cheek.

Oh. It's already playtime.

“Yes, sir,” you respond instantly, and he nods and beams at you.

“Good girl,” he compliments, grabbing your chin. “Now, you will do whatever I tell you from here on out. Do you understand me?

“Yes sir,” your breath speeding up, excitement flaring low in your belly.

“I do so love you obedient,” he sighs and kisses you bruisingly, trapping you forcefully between his body and the wall. “Take off your underwear,” he commands.

“I'm not wearing any,” you stumble honestly.

He growls, “I love when you do that, behaving like a wanton whore.” He knows how aroused you get when he calls you that in play. “Show me right now; pull up your dress.”

You scramble to obey, but he quickly stills your movement. “I see people in the window of our neighbour's house. We should move on,” he offers sagely, stepping out of character and retaking your hand.

Anthony has never been one to attempt play in public; his image as Viscount so very important to maintain. And so contrasting to his younger, bohemian brother, memories of Benedict’s sinful voice talking of you crawling naked to him in front of strangers suddenly haunt you. How can they be both so very alike and so very different simultaneously? They are an addictive cocktail.

You continue down the mews until a gate leads you into a rear courtyard—this must be the back of Bridgerton House.

“Wait here,” he says curtly, disappearing into a side building. “Alright, you may come in; the coast is clear,” he calls a few moments later, and you follow.

It's the tack room for the stables. It smells of leather and brass. It’s warm and dry; the mahogany wood-panelled walls give it a cosy air.

“What are we doing in here?”

“There is all sorts of equipment in here I want to use on you,” he crows, closing the heavy door shut and bolting it. The only light in the room is a faint glow from the oil lanterns flickering on the courtyard walls outside and a shaft of moonlight splicing across the room from a high window.

Something in your heart rate spikes as your eyes adjust and look around to see saddles, bridals, whips and ropes. And in the middle of the room, a padded leather bench likely used to change into riding boots.

“Now, do as you were told before we were rudely interrupted,” he prompts, leaning on the wall and crossing his arms casually, an expectant eyebrow raised.

You grab your dress and gather the layers over your forearms until you feel the air swirling around your intimate area. He growls at the sight and is on you a millisecond later, kissing bruisingly, just the way you like. There is nothing more arousing for you than Anthony, this powerful, titled man, so very desperate and out of control just for you. He spins you around, and you are pushed into the wood panels, his hands wrenching open your dress buttons as you breathe hard.

“Open your legs wider,” he gruffs, nudging your ankles with his shoe. You do so, widening your stance to shoulder width as your dress and chemise are yanked off your shoulders. “Wider,” he instructs as your clothing drops to a pool at your feet.

You obey, kicking away your dress, standing there now in stays and silk shoes only.

“Good girl,” he compliments, pulling your hips backwards roughly, your hands reaching out to grab the wall in front on instinct. “That's it, bend over, and hold on tight,” he orders.

Your insides dance with anticipation as he drops to his knees behind you. He is usually savage with his tongue when he eats you from behind like this—pushing his whole face into your slit, into the cleft of your cheeks, very thorough in his attentions. So you are somewhat surprised when he doesn't do that. In fact, he is silent behind you for so long you almost ask what is wrong.

“What… the… fuck….is that?” he spits angrily. But it's not his play angry; it sounds worryingly close to genuine.

‘What is what?” you ask, suddenly nervous, twisting to look over your shoulder.

He jumps up to his feet and yanks you roughly back upright against him by your hair, and you squeak in shock.

“Care to explain why there are teeth marks on your inner thigh, my girl?” his voice cutting and right at your ear.

Your stomach plummets as if you have fallen from a high branch of a tree or gone over a waterfall in a barrel. Everything inside you tumbles, and your vision swims slightly.

Benedict.

It could ONLY be him—last night. You vaguely recall feeling him bite your inner thigh as he teased you. But you were so deliriously aroused you barely felt anything. Washing this morning, you did not think to look there; you just quickly bathed and went about your day.

“It cannot be, sir,” you instantly obfuscate. “It must be a mark, from I do not know what…. from my saddle, perhaps?” you offer, taking inspiration from what is right around you.

His grip on your hair slackens. You are uncertain he believes you. Something feels tender at this moment. Precarious. Like he is vulnerable to what the marks could signify but cannot handle his response in any other way but brusquely—needing the upper hand.

“I have been foolish, perhaps, in not being clear with my boundaries. So here they are. If you are with a Bridgerton, you should only be laying with a Bridgerton, do you hear me?” he lectures, unwittingly giving you a very convenient loophole.

“Yes, sir,” you answer instantly. “I shall only lay with a Bridgerton,” you reply, almost gleeful.

“Why does that appear so entertaining?” he asks cuttingly.

“It is not, sir,” you attempt to school your expression and tone, “more that your order is very… arousing for me, sir,” your response coquettish, knowing the diversionary flattery will work on him.

“You want to be owned by me?” he gusts hot in your ear, a warm hand snaking around your belly, pulling you back forcefully into his muscular frame.

“Yes, of course, sir”, you answer. “I want to wear your name with pride,” you pant gently, slipping into your submissive role with practised ease.

“I will brand your bottom with the family crest,” he snarls, the possessive rhetoric notching up significantly.

You goad him with a challenging look over your shoulder and roll your hips, catching your bottom on the growing hardness in the front of his trousers, knowing it will spur some kind of response.

“You wanton little whore, rubbing yourself on me like some animal in heat just because I offer to brand you with my name,” he rumbles, enjoying your tactics, grabbing your chin and making you look at him as he leans forward over your shoulder. “I should tie you up and whip you to make you obey me,” he declares, staring into your eyes.

You suddenly know why he has brought you here, to this room—to try some more advanced punishment. The fact there is now the added dimension of his suspicion makes it feel even more charged, like the static before a storm. You can't seem to look away from his turbulent mien, knowing tonight will be something new and exciting. You can feel butterflies against your ribs as he speaks again.

“You would just hate that, wouldn't you?” he smirks, and you intuit what he wants.

This is a power play to make you remember who is in charge, a way to brand you as his symbolically, not physically. By making you pretend you don’t want this as much as you do. Achingly so.

“You want to play that game?” you check quietly, ensuring what you think is happening is true.

“You are so very observant, my smart girl,” he whispers flatteringly, and you know exactly what to do next.

“Sir, please don’t,” you play up, voice getting louder, twisting to catch his eye and winking, letting him know your reticence is all for the scene.

“Who said you have any say in what happens?” he chuckles darkly, his hold tightening as he roughly strips your stays from your body so you are completely naked.

This. You perhaps shouldn’t want this, but by god, you do—a little twisted role play. Elation ripples through your body. Somehow you know you both need this today. Anthony to process his suspicions about the bitemark. You, cathartic release of the guilt you carry about your tryst with Benedict. Perhaps it's a dangerous path to walk; you know you are likely playing with fire, but with Anthony, by god, it's nothing but excitement. Mutually assured destruction can seem so appealing behind glowing brown eyes and sharp cheekbones.

“Please, sir, no!” you ratchet up your theatrics, struggling slightly in his hold as he spins you around to face him.

“Shut up!” he grouses and pushes you down to your knees with a firm grip on your hair. “Now, if you don't keep quiet, I will find a way to silence you,” he warns, yanking your head back so you look up at him.

And you know what is coming, your thighs rubbing together almost gleefully at the prospect. Your insides roil excitedly at the idea of him using you, rough and rugged, as you pretend it is against your will. Trust Anthony to take you to the edge of your needs, push your envelope and make you crave him. This is why you can’t resist him. He knows how to give you things you never knew you needed but want so much your blood sings—makes you ache for him, addicted to him like no one else.

You stay on your knees, panting lightly with anticipation as he walks away briefly, his boots seeming to clatter much louder as he returns. He yanks your hands behind your back, and you feel a thin rope wrapping around your wrists.

“You know your safety word and action,” he leans over and mutters in your ear, and you nod, twisting to meet his eye. Confirming that today no won't mean stop; only that word or gesture will.

“No sir, please, no god, I’m sorry; please don't tie me up,” you act up.

He laughs menacingly and keeps looping the rope, tying it off with what feels like a bow. Then a hand grabs your jaw.

“Too late for that; open your mouth,” he commands gruffly.

You instantly obey as two fingers slide thickly over your tongue. They taste of ink, smokey cigars and the tang of money, all Anthony.

“Now I know a certain way to stop this little mouth from being so insolent,” he states, casually pinching your tongue before pulling out his fingers.

“No sir, please, please don’t,” you volley back, a flash in your eyes as you lick your lips, your gaze falling to the tented shape in his trousers as he roughly unbuttons them.

His cock springs free, and you feel a frisson over your skin as you drink in the sight of it, already rigid and leaking. Without preamble, he grabs the back of your head; you can barely take a steadying breath before he pushes into you, hot over your tongue, not gentle in using you, nudging towards the back of your mouth. His cock is always so surprising in size, especially when he does this, showing you no mercy. Gripping your hair and starting a rhythm that pushes deeper on every stroke until he holds your nose pressed up to his body, filling your throat. You want to cough, speak, do anything, but he holds steady, his scent so potent.

With your hands tied as they are, you have no control over how he uses you, but you are determined not to give you safety action, to take the punishment he wants to meter out. Your clit throbs as your lungs burn for air—heady and intoxicating. Still, he does not allow you reprieve.

“Look up at me.” You tilt your eyes up as water gathers at the corner of your lashes. His thumb swipes through them. “Finally, she is silent and obedient,” he chuckles richly, his cock vibrating in your throat, “and looking so pretty on her knees, taking all of me.”

He pulls halfway out, and you inhale sharply before he pushes back in with a groan, and you are again unable to breathe. You want this so much your thighs dampen, and you look back up at him with wide, pleading eyes, playing the part of the victim you most definitely are not.

“Take it,” he stutters gruffly as you feel your throat convulse slightly, wanting to gag. “Stay down,” he orders, crushing your face into his body, his balls against your chin. You feel a pulse in his cock and then a sour tang, that little salty bead of pre-cum sliding down your gullet.

Just as you begin to struggle for air and feel woozy light-headedness, he pulls out entirely, ropes of saliva webbing from your mouth to his glistening tip as you gasp deeply, your throat burning.

“Get on your hands and knees and crawl to that bench,” he grits out, and you do as told, taking a few crawled paces to the padded leather bench in the middle of the room as he loosely refastens his trousers. Your deep wracking breathing sounds so loud, even in the wood-panelled room, as he tells you to climb up and straddle it face down.

“If you move an inch or make a noise, this will be much worse for you,” he threatens.“You will be whipped, and then you will take my cock. Maybe then you will finally remember who you belong to.”

“Please, sir, no,” your protesting murmur is weak and raspy as your throat recovers, but you turn slightly to meet his gaze challengingly, eyes blazing. You had better fuck me so hard, you mouth silently at him.

He twists his face into a bemused pout. I will, you wilful little one, he mouths back.

“Now, do I need to tie you to the bench, too?” he warns, but you get no chance to challenge it as, almost instantly, more rope loops around your back and under the bench you lay on.

Fire flares in your belly; he has never tied you down so wholly. You cannot wiggle free of this; you are entirely at his mercy. The leather sticks slightly to your heated cheek as a hand spanks a glancing blow onto your left bottom cheek, and you groan and push your hips down into the padded leather. Everywhere between your legs tingles, aches even, and feels hot, getting off on the thrill of submitting to his will, the utter commanding way he handles you. You need him to put his mark on you. To make it bigger, better than his brother’s.

“Make it hurt,” you sigh, barely a breath. But you know he hears it from the sharp inhale he makes.

You look back at him pleadingly. It could be the look of a captive pleading for mercy from their captor; it could be the look of a willing participant in a provocative game, conveying just how much they want this. Indeed, it’s both, so many layers swirling in this erotically charged moment.

“My girl, you will feel it and remember tonight,” his voice a low forewarning.

You twist to watch Anthony walk away and snag a riding crop from the selection hanging on nearby hooks, heart speeding up as he walks near your head, brandishing the implement. The cool leather tongue brushes the nape of your neck. He traces it slowly, achingly so, down the length of your spine to where your bound hands lay. Your body shivers in response, and he chuckles, seemingly delighted at how he can elicit such reactions from you.

He leans low over your back, the crop raising from your skin. “Now you can't run and get help; no one is coming to rescue you from me,” he growls. Something in the tone suggests bitter experience.

There is a faint, almost whistling sound in the air then you feel a sting lashing across your left buttock. The strength of this first blow is sharp, taking you by surprise, and you yelp in response.

“Be quiet!” he orders roughly, grabbing your hair. “Or do I need to gag you as well?”

“Please, sir, don't,” your lips plead while your mind hopes he might. You enjoy it when he gags you, especially with his cravat, as he did just a few days ago during your last encounter at Aubrey Hall. That fateful night you physically bumped into his younger brother.

Anthony releases your hair as Benedict's voice and face fill your mind. A similar blow to your right bottom cheek brings you back into the room, and you groan loudly, grinding against the bench, feeling the rope around your waist resisting your movements. He is pacing around you in a circle, his footsteps echoing up the walls; you pant in anticipation, trying to crane your head to track his movements.

The crop tickles your open, bound hand, then traces up the inside of your arm, so ticklish you try to tamp down a giggle. Then you gasp as he flicks the crop on your upper arm across the flesh of your muscle there. The leather tongue drags back down to your hands, then swaps to the other, tracing up your arm in that prickly way until, again, there is a flick to the other bicep. You sense it's coming but still whimper slightly at the lick.

It's a guessing game about what he will do next. These flicks on your arms have been light, not like the force he used on your bottom, but enough to sting and keep you on your toes.

“I do so enjoy the slight of you bound,” he hums, almost absent-minded, as the crop trails back down your arm over your hands, your fingertips and onto your lower spine.

“Please, sir, don’t hurt me,” you play up, panting with anticipation about where he might strike next.

“What part of ‘be quiet’ are you not understanding?” he utters through clenched teeth; it’s all the warning you get before the crop reigns a sharp blow onto the back of your thigh, right below where it meets your bottom.

You hiss and writhe as the crop insinuates between your legs, encouraging them further apart.

“If you keep talking, I will crop you right here,” he cautions, running the smooth leather tab over your labia. You fold your lower lip into your mouth to censor any response you might have. “Good girl,” he intones, and the crop is gone.

You are almost relaxing into the soft bench when he strikes a lick onto your ribs, it's not hard, but it takes you by surprise; your yelp is instinctual. Then with an almost predatory gleam in his normally beguiling eyes, he rains little blows across your back. Short, sharp lashes that sting, not hurting but not pleasant. You flinch at every blow but feel a paradoxical sense of relief with each one, the discomfort as cleansing as it is arousing.

It's when the crop disappears between your thighs that you tense slightly. But he does not flick it against your pussy; he holds it over the spot you assume are the teeth marks, his breathing uneven. Then with a determined glint, he lashes the area hard, and you feel redness instantly bloom there as you cry out. He has done exactly what you wanted; he has covered up Benedict's mark on you with one of his own, bigger, better, bolder—so very Anthony. It almost feels akin to a twisted game of one-upmanship you will wear on your skin for a few days.

Then he flicks little marks on the back of your thighs and buttocks. Again each one feels like absolution and a step higher towards a blissful state where you float outside your body, utterly pliant to his demands and treatment.

“Stay with me,” he dictates.

He senses you slipping into a subspace but wants you alert and responsive to every move he makes.

“Who do you belong to?” his question is a bark.

“You.” It's a reflex.

“And only me, do you understand me? I will not share,” he grits out.

“Yes sir,” you slur as the crop makes one last resounding blow on your cheek, so forceful you scream.

There is a clatter as the crop falls to the ground, and he is tearing off his clothing as you watch covetously and panting with anticipation, your skin burning hot in the places he has cropped you.

“No sir, please don’t take me,” you fib with a small smile, catching sight of his delicious, engorged cock as he strips.

“Oh, but you are mine to take,” he laughs menacingly as he rounds behind you, kneeling on the floor where he lines up to enter you.

With a grunt from him and a cry from you, he plunges into your body; the stretching invasion always steals your breath. The artifice of the game you have been playing falls away as you sigh his name and murmur for him to please take you hard, wanting him to fuck all the guilt out of you.

And he does what you need. He shows no mercy as he grasps the rope around your back in his fist so it digs into the sensitive flesh of your sides and begins a punishing rhythm. Thrusting with such force, your whole body rolls, the bench squeaking in protest. You struggle to form thoughts and just quieten your mind, lean into the intensity of it—allowing your body to be used, taken, finding pleasure in your passivity.

His hand spanks a glancing blow over your left cheek that he has left flecked with crop marks, and you squeal at the layering of this sharp pang over the dull throb from his earlier discipline.

“Keep quiet,” he hisses, leaning over your back and biting the nape of your neck. His incisors grabbing flesh and pulling, a pinching searing pang you know will mean teeth marks and wearing scarves to cover up until they fade.

You are shocked at how fast your body is hurtling towards a climax, your clit squashed into the rounded end of the bench as he fucks into you. You start to pant little noises and writhe in your bindings, your wrists still in the small of your back, starting to feel pins and needles as your movement causes the rope to dig in harder.

“You are so very close,” he observes, suddenly holding still, buried deep inside you. “That will not do,” his tone almost disappointed, “do not come yet”.

You fight the urge, your pussy squeezed tight around him, fighting the little convulsions you feel, every inch of his cock engraving on your walls like he is leaving his imprint inside you.

“I mean it,” he warns, “you will not come until I permit it.”

“Yes sir,” you croak, gusting hot breaths into the bench and trying to calm your body. To stave off your orgasm until he allows it.

Then there are fingers resting on your clit, and you inhale sharply, twisting in your binding to look at him over your shoulder, something wild in his manner, his eyes glittering.

“No,” he says firmly as he teases your bud with expertise, edging you but refusing permission to let you break.

“This is not fair,” you groan, puffing hard as he begins to fuck you again, this time with an unhurried rhythm, withdrawing then surging in as his fingertips expertly hook under your hood to massage your engorged little nub.

“Fair is not my concern,” he dismisses, “what is my concern is demanding your utter obedience.”

Every ounce of your body is aflame, the tension of holding to a precipice as each welt on your body throbs in sympatico with your clit.

“Please,” you mumble, unsure you can stem the tide building; obey his rules.

His grip on your bum tightens as he spears into you roughly, making you grunt as your whole body rocks with the force. Boring into you now, unforgiving in his mounting of you, he once again wraps the rope that lashes you down around his knuckles, ensuring you gasp at the harsh binding, the rough fibres repeatedly rubbing until small welts appear.

He is setting an almost punishing pace, ploughing into your body repeatedly as you listen to his panting breaths, desperate for his consent to release all the tension, almost an unbearable weight.

He spanks your right cheek for good measure. You moan, and the pleasure-pain that blossoms makes your break impossible to fight anymore. Your eyes screw shut as his fingers slide over your sensitive bud, the grip of his spanking hand now banded around the crest of your hipbone, strong enough to leave more marks on your delicate flesh.

“You may,” he pants, perhaps sensing the inevitable.

You call his name and bury your nose into the bench, your teeth snarling and biting against the leather as your body, denied over and over, finally relents, your pussy palpitating around him so harshly you almost propel him from your body. Each synapse firing so hard your mind blanks out, a snapping of something inside that is your tether to reality. Then you are floating, somewhere far away, on a cloud of throbbing skin and pumping heartbeats, the pain transmogrifying into something beautiful, like amnesty, appeasement, peace.

You are barely cognisant as he rapidly withdraws from your body with a shout, spilling his seed onto your aching cheeks, the splash of it somehow both stinging and soothing the ache, bringing you back into the room as he slumps over your back, head between your shoulder blades.

For a few moments, there is nothing but the joint sound of your laboured breathing and the creek of the rope as you shift lightly under his weight.

“That was… truly something else,” he pants, drawing upright to untie your body and wrists delicately.

“It really was,” you agree, as he rubs the sore spots on your wrists from the chafe of the rope.

“Thank you. For giving me your trust like that,” Anthony says quietly, sincerely. “It is a rare thing to play like this…. Very rare indeed.”

He looks so thoughtful you don't know what to say in response. “Any time, Anthony. It was a very cathartic experience for me,” you admit honestly. “Something so freeing about playing that role for you,” you clarify before he asks what you mean, Benedict’s face flashing in your mind, guilt flooding your heart.

He jumps up, gathers a padded blanket from a hook, and lays it on the ground, pulling you into an embrace atop it. You settle into his arms, allowing your body to feel soothed by his idle, gentle strokes as he speaks again.

“I have come to realise that you are chasing challenging experiences. And my darling girl, I always want to be the one, the only one, worthy and able to do that, to challenge you in all the ways you may need,” he offers as he nuzzles your temple, dropping a light kiss there.

“That's so funny; Benedict was just saying the same last night,” you giggle lightly, your idle tongue running away from you in your post-orgasmic haze.

“You talk to my brother about such matters?” He freezes and sounds strange as he says it, and instantly you wince inside but try not to let it show.

“Sometimes he and I talk. Of you and I, our compatibility, our courtship,” you attempt breezy nonchalance, gesturing into the air. “We bumped into each other at the Trowbridge Ball, and perhaps I had too much champagne,” you offer, relieved that partial truths and alcohol may explain how you came to talk of such matters with his brother.

“But you said this was last night?” Anthony argues, slowly twisting and sitting up away from you. “And the Trowbridge Ball was two nights ago. I should know; I was not well that day.”

Bile rises in your throat. You try not to let your panic show on your face, but you suspect your acting skills may be somewhat lacking. “Oh, of course, I… I am mixing up my days. The season is such a whirl, is it not?” You overshoot, mugging a smile too large and too brittle, clutching at proverbial straws.

You sit up and instinctively grab your chemise to cover yourself up, feeling the need for a physical layer of protection, your skin registering a cold draft that breezes along the floor, making you shiver. There is a few moments of silence where you curl your lip under your teeth. Scared, you will slip up more, knowing Anthony is too smart not to see it.

“I thought I warned you to stay away from him,” he intones, his voice going low.

“Come on, Anthony. He is your family; why would I not talk to your family? To the outside world, at least, we are courting.” You try to appeal to his logical side.

“Do you converse with Colin? Do you talk such intimate things with him?” He bristles, and you stay silent. Knowing what he points out is true. You have barely spoken more than five words to Colin, all mundane. “Yes. As I thought,” he adds, more than a little bitter. “And I find it strange that I went to call on you yesterday afternoon to apologise for being unable to accompany you to the ball, only to be told you were not home. That you were, in fact, receiving art lessons from my brother. Indeed, your family valet seemed most perplexed that I was not aware, seeing as I had apparently arranged the whole thing.”

Oh god.

He knows.

He knows something is happening between you and Benedict. And he has kept it in until now. Again you are tumbling over that waterfall. Suddenly, so much of tonight takes on more nuance than you could possibly have imagined: the desperation, the possessiveness, the want to tie you down and punish you hard, the now-weighted phrase that no one is coming to rescue you. Part of you wants to run away, be sick to your stomach, but part of you wants to stay and fight.

“Anthony…” you appeal, not knowing what else to say.

“Don't,” he chides, and you feel him building up his walls, brick by brick, cutting you off. “But thank you for confirming what I didn't want to know. You may leave,” he adds bitterly, and you can see untold hurt in his eyes.

You can see that trying to reason with him is a lost cause at this moment. So silently, you pull your stays on loosely over your chemise and then your dress, the initial panic giving way to a melancholy sinking into your bones about how he is closing himself off. You slip out of the stable door and don't allow yourself the luxury of a glance back, or even a tear, as you walk the few hundred yards back to the recital venue and your awaiting carriage.

You suspect that were it any other man, Anthony would not be so very agitated—his younger brother very much his Achilles heel, right from that first warning at Aubrey Hall. Perhaps he sees something in you that is a kindred spirit to Benedict more than to himself and fears the choice you may make. Little does he know, you crave them equally and more than ever, even as you feel uncertain about where you stand with either brother now. Both knowing of your dalliance with the other, and neither happy about it—precisely what you didn't want. In hindsight, it was never going to be easy playing off both brothers. But you never expected Anthony’s reaction to be so emotional, the hidden depths he keeps so well concealed under the mask of responsibility.

And things are about to get even more complicated when Benedict sees what Anthony has done….

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