#and we couldn’t afford artificial ones

[selfconsciousfangirl]

I don’t remember being much of a Christmas person before. Life always got in the way, like the time I had to sit a university entrance exam on December 23rd. I was either busy working retail or wrapping up the school year and/or being deeply, clinically depressed. I rarely had the time or energy to put up Christmas decorations. Eventually I stopped doing a Christmas tree and focused on my nativity scene instead, which felt more meaningful to me for a variety of reasons. And then my dad died the week before Christmas and I gave up on the whole thing altogether. It took me a while to feel like doing even that much again, and sometimes I don’t end up doing it until December 24th.

Can’t even remember what was the point I was trying to make. I feel a touch disconnected from the seasonal mood, I guess. My dad was fun to buy presents for and got me truly special things. It’s just not the same without him, that’s just all there is to it. We adapt and choose what makes the most sense

[01zfan]

vice | p. wb

stylist!wonbin x actress!reader | 5.7k words

why was this so fun to write LMFAOOO maybe i’m insane for real you guys. this was a request kinda but i went off on my own. needy lil freak wonbin we love you.

contains: metaphors and allusion to drugs, power imbalance (wonbin works for the reader)

at first to wonbin you were like dessert. a sweet treat for the end of the night to take the edge off of his long days.

he first met you after a long bout of unemployment, something that was common in his line of work. stylists were in an abundance these days, and each time wonbin thought he had a gig it fell through. because of his desperation for work, he ended up agreeing to take a job offered to him by his friend. the pay was shit, the photoshoot was in a studio that would take an hour to get to on public transportation, and wonbin was taking a professional step backwards by joining the team as an assistant stylist. he knew he couldn’t afford to say no so he agreed, not even bothering to ask who the subject of the photoshoot was.

when wonbin arrived the next day, he was greeted by the friend that got him the job. like always, wonbin got the rundown of the day and heard that several things had already gone terribly wrong. he nodded and followed closely behind shotaro, trying to understand what the concept of the photoshoot was and what brands they were allotted to use.

wonbin saw you for the first time when shotaro guided him behind the wall where he saw flashing lights and heard camera shutters. he barely got a glance at you, his view obstructed by a photographers and the makeup team that swarmed you between each camera click. wonbin was amazed at the amount of people, nothing like the low-brow photoshoot he was expecting. when he finally weaved through the crowd of people he caught up to shotaro and asked him who you were.

shotaro was taken aback by his question. wonbin saw his friend stop going through the clothing rack to turn towards him with his eyes wide. wonbin was informed through a tight-lipped whisper that you were an up and coming actress, one of the biggest new names on the scene. shotaro told wonbin that he was lucky to land such a good gig and if he was able to get a permanent role on the team he would be more than well off. wonbin looked back to you as he got a fast explanation and rundown of all the things you were featured in. he could see your side profile, how your hair blew in the artificial wind of the fans. 

“you know i don’t watch movies.” wonbin said, still looking towards you. 

“i suggest you at the very least watch hers.” shotaro looked back to the clothing rack, pulling the next outfit off its hangers to have it ready. “she’s pretty talented.” shotaro says.

wonbin found himself more interested you the longer he looked. you knew your angles, working them well for the camera as the raw photos appeared on the prompter. wonbin watched each one come out flawless, how you took the photographers pointers and acted on them immediately. he had seen too many actors in his time know nothing about posing for a camera, treating every photoshoot like it was a movie. but you did it well, maybe a little too well.

wonbin was only pulled away from you when he heard the director of photography call for the next outfit. wonbin turned to shotaro quickly, recalling all of his prior experience as the assistant stylist. shotaro carefully laid the clothes across wonbin’s outstretched arms and wonbin made his way over to you. 

when you looked up at wonbin from the white block you posed on, he was taken aback. he could admit he wasn’t the best judge of character but something about you just seemed to pull him in. you tilted your head and thanked him for the clothes, motioning for him to lay them beside you. wonbin complied immediately, letting the clothes rest in the free space before bowing away back to shotaro. 

the rest of the day was spent like that. wonbin running around like he was a newbie again, doing everything shotaro needed. the only relief he felt was when he would steal your attention for a moment and when he would be your only focus for a second. each time you thanked wonbin he could feel the heat across his cheeks. he didn’t know what it was, everyone else seemed to be fine around you. you had even built up a rapport with shotaro and the rest of the crew. but when it came to wonbin he was a mess, reduced to deep bows and nods of acknowledgment anytime he got your attention.

wonbin pat himself on the back when the work day was over. he came to the conclusion that being in your presence was inherently embarrassing, that he would never be able to overcome his reddening cheeks or hesitant movement when it came to you. wonbin was excited to go, but when shotaro asked him to come in the next day per your request, something in his mind shifted. he suddenly remembered your lingering looks, the way you grazed his hand and said a shy sorry afterwards. wonbin agreed faster than he should’ve, reasoning that he was just grateful to have a job for another day.

when wonbin first saw you outside of work he was experiencing another late night scouring job listings and watching youtube videos to play in the background. you came on his television due to autoplay, something only slightly related to what he was watching prior. regardless, you came on his screen bright eyed with a wide smile, and a bubbly lift to your voice as you introduced yourself to the camera. 

wonbin tried to ignore you at first, to banish your voice to the backburner of his mind as he focused on more important things. you were meant to purely be white noise to occupy his overactive brain but he kept hearing you. the sentences wonbin typed into his job applications turned into whatever you were saying on his television. so he took a break, closing his laptop as he turned his attention to you. he watched a full thirty minute video of you breaking down scenes of a movie you were in. wonbin watched the whole thing intently with zero prior knowledge of the film. the way you spoke was sweet and expressive, the complete opposite of how you treated him. 

he reasoned with himself that he pulled out his phone to figure out more about you. shotaro’s advice to watch a movie of yours played in his mind as he saw the prices to rent your most recent film. he spent twenty dollars he didn’t have to rent it, and he watched the whole thing curled up on his loveseat.

he was becoming obsessed and before he knew it, wonbin’s whole day started revolving around you. the next day wonbin came to work early with a new appreciation for you. he found himself desperately wanting to make a good second impression, to show you that he was really grateful for the opportunity to work under you. wonbin didn’t know why he wanted to show the good side of himself to you so badly, but he arrived to the studio long before your team came. he found himself lingering outside of the studio waiting for shotaro to park his car, but his friend was forgotten when your sleek black car pulled up to the curb. 

wonbin watched you hop out of the car in an outfit to match. he watched you walk through the parking lot with your entourage huddled around you like fans. you were unbothered with your black shades that you only lifted when you made it past the entryway of the studio. you casted a glance to wonbin at the last second, and he continued to turn his head to follow you. he understood in that moment why you were up and coming, you had something that could only be described as it. wonbin realized the second day how refined you were, how much you advocated for yourself. you could wear anything, from the all black street style to the colorful designer brands they had you dressed in for the photoshoot. 

when he got home after working for you he would scour the internet looking for things about you. in an effort to figure you out wonbin had seen your entire filmography within the month and he could recite almost all of your interviews. it had gotten to the point that you were getting in the way of the work he was trying to do and he was almost alarmed that he didn’t care in the slightest. he was lucky that he had been offered a position as your permanent assistant stylist after shotaro put in a good word for him.

as time went on, whatever wonbin had with you had gotten out of hand. he was able to convince himself that he was just learning about you, but he found that he needed more and more. niche interviews didn’t cut it anymore, he was searching the internet high and low for deep cuts of you. that’s when wonbin began to admit to himself he never had much of a sweet tooth. something as sugary as icecream sated his need after a bite or two. if he had to compare his relationship with you now he would compare you to the bottles of liquor or the powdery white substances that he always saw at the parties you steered clear from. you were something he got hooked on and by the time he realized it was too late.

he couldn’t blame you for being addicting, you were simply existing the same way all vices did. if anything it was wonbin’s fault. he wasn’t diligent enough, he didn’t administer you in small doses. drugs weren’t necessarily was bad if you did it in moderation. but your personality and proximity to wonbin made that impossible. he was all in, up to his neck in you and he was only sinking lower and lower.

you were just so much like him and you didn’t even know it. wonbin blamed it on the fact that he couldn’t wear the clothes he actually wanted to wear at work. he had to make sure that he was comfortable, that he could move the way he needed to when gathering clothes or running around on set. what wonbin really wanted to wear to work was the clothes he had in his closet that you also happened to own. he was able to convince himself that it was always completely by coincidence that the clothes you would wear would appear in his closet in his size. like there was someone else blowing his paychecks to have your exact wardrobe. but wonbin wore it well, and he believed that you would agree with him. 

you were mysterious just like him, a little off-putting but alluring nonetheless. you were his carbon copy—if only he could get the words out to tell you that. wonbin was only able to confess to you in his moments of solitude, when your face would flash through his mind like a bolt of lightning. he got used to whispering your name over and over again at night, just to take the edge off. you were all consuming and you didn’t even know it, the same way all vices were. wonbin believed that if he didn’t have you it would only be something worse. 

as wonbin stayed on your team as a stylist, you eventually took off. you booked important movies projected to be blockbuster hits, you were constantly booked for photoshoots and interviews. he was able to stave off his addiction to you by working for you. he was forced to be the most respectful version of himself to be in your good graces. he was lucky you had taken a liking to him to the point that he became your personal assistant. this meant wonbin got the privilege to follow you around all day like a lost puppy, doing your chores and walking your dog when it visited you on set. he fetched your food when you didn’t feel like getting up. wonbin had become your servant, and he didn’t want anything else. 

being your servant meant he got to see the most intimate aspects of your life. he knew who was in your phone, what you wore and where you ate. he was able to see the things you shared in common and the things he suddenly felt himself taking a liking to. 

the best perk was that he was able to sit in your trailer with you while you napped. after everyone else on the stylist and makeup team was shooed out of your trailer for lunch he had the unspoken permission to stay. truthfully it was because you needed someone to be there to wake you up in time. but you were nice enough to let wonbin take a nap on your tiny couch. you retreated to your bed in the back of the trailer while your manager reminded wonbin what time he needed to be back on set. wonbin nodded gently, settling deeper into the couch as his phone vibrated in his hand. 

right as the door closed wonbin slid down his notifications bar to see what it was. a new interview of yours had just dropped, a picture of you in thumbnail smiling wide with your things spread out in front of you. wonbin looked into your area of the trailer over his shoulder. he saw your feet gliding across the mattress as you laid in bed. he wondered if you were on your phone watching videos like he was. whatever you were doing, he just hoped you were distracted enough.

wonbin knew better than to watch your videos while you were in the other room. he had picked up the nasty habit of losing himself when you appeared on the flat dimensions of his phone. it was like you were in the palm of his hands, the adrenaline of feeling you talk right to him made him lose all self control. he would’ve been able to talk himself out of doing something so bold especially when you were less than a yell away. but that’s what happens when people have addictions—they do stupid things because enough is never enough. that’s why even when wonbin was on the job where you were the topic of every sentence you weren’t talked about enough. in the moments when he would literally on his knees fixing your garment he wasn’t worshipping you enough. he needed his fix and he couldn’t wait another moment. so while wonbin chewed on the nail bed of his index finger he clicked on the video with his thumb.

the orientation lock was already off from the night before and automatically went to landscape mode. the intro music crackled through his speakers in the split second it took him to turn it all the way down. wonbin looked behind him quickly to see that your motions had ceased on top of the bed. he sunk further into the mattress and spread his legs trying to keep up appearances for the invisible audience in front of him. wonbin was solely just doing his job, looking closely at your eyes to make sure the makeup came out well on camera and that your hair was styled right. he cursed himself for letting his bluetooth earbuds die, he needed to hear your voice even though he had been hearing it all day. he was forced to settle for the subtitles and reading your lips. glossy and plush, drawing into a smile each time you sheepishly explained another item in your bag. wonbin felt the urge to look over his shoulder again but he didn’t want to miss a moment. 

he abused the rewind ten seconds button while he pushed down on the tent that always formed in his pants like muscle memory. he brought his leg over the other when he saw you pull out the same sunscreen he owned.

wonbin was always in a negative feedback loop when it came to your videos. he would find a part he liked the most, a little moment of you looked at the camera with big eyes when you were asked a question or a small reaction where you would chew on your lip while in deep thought. no matter how short it was wonbin became obsessed, he would rewind it again and again. he saw you look up to the staff behind the camera for approval a million times, rewinding the video just to have it seared into his eyelids. he watched your delicate hands fiddle with each item as you pulled it out of your bag, how you took the time to sincerely explain each one.

he was too distracted by you that he didn’t know you were right behind him, watching him rewind the same part over and over again. as soon as he felt like something was behind him he heard your voice right next to his ear.

“you really are obsessed with me, huh?” you said.

wonbin instantly let his phone drop to the ground and yelled. it was the loudest he had ever been, the sound bounced off of the walls of your trailer and even made you jump. wonbin stood up from your tiny sofa quickly, rubbing his sweaty hands down his pants as he tried to think of an explaination.

“i was just making sure…” wonbin stammered.

all the excuses he had made up in his head for this exact moment were leaving him. he couldn’t think of anything when you cocked your head to the side with that knowing smirk.

“just making sure what?” you mocked.

wonbin felt red hot shame bloom over his entire body. his eyesight felt like it was blurry even though he wore his glasses and he felt short of breath. he was sure you saw the tips of his ears turn red and his hands instinctually clenching. 

you only watched him, not saying anything else as wonbin pathetically tried to think about anything else other than the churning feeling in his stomach. being underneath your scrutinizing gaze only made everything worse. when wonbin tried adjusting his pants your eyes immediately flickered down to what he was so desperately trying to hide.

he didn’t have the time to decipher the look in your eye. he just knew he had to get out of there as soon as possible. wonbin got up from the couch and headed to the door, pulling down his sweater as low as it would go.

“wait.” you said calmly.

wonbin turned around to see that you held his phone in your hand. he could see your video still playing on his screen, your demeanor on the screen completely opposite of your expressionless face. you held out wonbin’s phone slightly, moving it back and forth for emphasis.

“don’t forget this.” you said casually.

when he reached for his phone you let it fall from your hand. wonbin watched his phone fall to the floor, making a dull thud when it made contact with your carpet. he looked up to you, trying to figure out what you wanted from him. the shame coursing through his veins turned to fire as he watched you settle into the same spot wonbin was in on your couch. his phone was right by your foot, a silent dare for him to come closer.

wonbin wasn’t sure if he was still reeling off of you causing his mind to make up things. was your hand that moved to rest on your knee beckoning to him? were your eyes staring at him with intent or disgust? he didn’t know what to do anymore. he felt himself getting weak, getting closer and closer to the ground until he was on his knees in front of you.

he couldn’t mistake the smile that spread across your face as your eyes followed him all the way to the floor. wonbin remembered seeing that exact smile in the first interview he ever watched of you. it was even more intoxicating in person, the different intent in your curled lips made the churning in his stomach worsen. you looked down quickly to his phone that was by your foot and back to his widened eyes.

“come here wonbin.” you moved your foot to lightly hit the edge of his phone where the video of you still played. “come get your phone.” you said.

your words were innocent and you had genuine curiosity across your face when wonbin stayed in place. you’re one hell of an actress wonbin thought to himself. you played the role of someone who was as non-assuming and confused. he tried to figure out what his role in all of this was, who you needed him to be in your movie. he remembered that he was your loyal servant who heeded your every request. so wonbin slowly started closing the space between his body and his phone, crawling on his hands and knees slowly.

when wonbin was close enough to reach his phone he was beside your leg. he kept an eye on you the whole time, now afraid to move an inch underneath your gaze. when you leaned back on the couch wonbin drew in a breath. you opened your mouth and his body straightened and his eyes widened. 

“what do you want to do to me?” you ask.

when wonbin didn’t have the words you tilted your head to the side and batted your eyelashes. you looked so perfect from down here. pure and unsullied like snow. wonbin wanted to lean forward and take you in deep through his nose.

“i want to smell you.” wonbin sniffled.

when you spread your legs further wonbin couldn’t stop himself from shuffling forward on his knees, almost falling to his hands in desperation. before he could touch you, you put up a hand. wonbin stopped instantly, his shaky gaze going up to you.

“you have to be quiet.” you said, holding up a single finger to show that was your one rule.

when wonbin went back on his haunches to nod eagerly. you waited a beat before nodding to wonbin, hands creeping up your legs until they rested on your waist.

instantly wonbin closed the space between your legs and his body. he attached himself to one of them, kissing your jean clad knee before breathing you in deeply. he couldn’t stop himself from groaning, knowing exactly which perfume you had over your body.

“you smell like me.” wonbin murmurs.

“no.” you lift wonbin’s chin so he looks up at you. you see the blush across his cheeks when you shake your head. “you smell like me.”

you lean back on the sofa and wonbin lets his head drop, cheek resting on your knee. you can hear the whimpers bubble from his mouth, how they turn into whiny little groans when his crotch makes contact with your leg. 

“i can’t tell if you wanna fuck me or be me.” you scoff.

wonbin knew he was told to be quiet but he couldn’t help himself. not when he could feel the patchwork of your jeans rub against the most sensitive part of him. he remembers scouring the internet high and low for your pants only to find out they were custom made, one of a kind. something that was previously so unattainable was in the palm of his sweaty shaking hand. 

wonbin pressed his fingers deep into your leg as he shuffled forward to straddle your foot. he felt your skin dimple underneath his grip and you hissed before jolting your leg. the sudden movement made wonbin cry out pitifully, the pleasure of your leg moving against his crotch was so intense it was nearly painful. he moved his head to hang between your two knees as he stilled to catch his breath. he panted while pressing his forehead into the cushion of your sofa, trying his best to regain his composure. you only watched him and laughed, reaching down to manually loosen the white knuckle grip his fingers had on you.

“don’t leave a mark.” wonbin instantly loosened his fingers at your order. “i have a photoshoot tomorrow.” you said.

wonbin nodded because he knew. vogue italia. you were going to be on the cover, you and your costar were going on the spread. they were dressing you in missoni. the direction was were going for was young and fresh, marking a new generation of actresses and you were the leader. he knew and here he was, holding onto you so tight you could break.

“sorry.” your hand wedged between wonbin’s chin and the couch cushion to lift his gaze again. he looked into your dark eyes, having to swallow to try and mend his meek voice. “sorry.” he repeated.

wonbin didn’t move his hips against your leg again as a way to punish himself. he wanted to show you he had some semblance of control, that he was able to follow orders. he didn’t mind acting becoming your dog—by the way he was panting and whining he was already half way there.

“it’s okay.” you said after a beat. 

he was positive you liked torturing him. the glint in your eye never went away, and your lips were stuck in a permanent smirk at his state. wonbin was sure you tsked at him just to see the dejection across his face, that you responded only after short silences to see his pupils shake. he was sure that you unbuttoned your shirt just to watch the color drain from his face and to see his adam’s apple bob as he swallowed nothing. you took the underside of your chest in your hands, pushing them upwards for wonbin to see. 

you were making a show of it just to see him become even more pathetic. you started slowly raising and lowering your leg and pressed your shin into wonbin’s crotch. he looked down at your moving leg, resisting the urge to move his hips by biting his lip.

“keep going.” you said after planting your feet into the ground.

you leg went back to not moving, but wonbin didn’t mind. he made up for it three times back, dragging his crotch on the bottom of your foot and then against your shin. 

it wasn’t long before wonbin was unraveling again, humping your leg like the dog you were turning him into. he didn’t remember what he was like before this, if he was always this desperate. he didn’t remember ever needing something as bad as he needed you. even though he would eventually get off he could tell that he would need more. you opened wonbin’s world simply by sitting in a chair, he knew that he would leave your trailer he’d be thinking about his next high.

the thought of you declining something like this happening again made wonbin want to savor it. he listened well this time, one of his hands clutched the armrest of the couch and the other gripped the cushion between your two knees. he looked away from your chest, afraid that too much of you would lead to an overdose. with his cheek pressed into your knee again wonbin started rutting his hips against your leg, trying to find any stimulation possible. 

“look at me wonbin.”

he brought his chin to rest on your knee, eyes closed as the even tone in your voice made him feel even more pathetic. it was as exhilarating as it was embarrassing, wonbin switched from rutting is hips back to the slow circular motion he started out with. the pain in his pants made him shudder, his straining dick had at some point made it out of the fly of his boxers and pressed into the cold metal of his zipper. he needed to keep his eyes closed, atleast long enough to focus on only one sensation so he didn’t start crying.

“i said look at me, bin.” you ordered.

wonbin opened his eyes, he could tell they were watery by the stinging feeling of tears threatening to break past his waterline.

his face must’ve been pitiful, because he saw the smirk go away as you tilted your head affectionately. you even looked at wonbin like he was a helpless dog. your hands went to his face, and wonbin preened his head off your knee towards your hands to feel your touch faster.

“i bet you would’ve fucking killed anyone who got the job if it wasn’t you.” you cooed.

wonbin closed his eyes to remember the feeling of your fingers holding his face then opened them just as fast. he was nodding at your statement even though your question was fuzzy in his mind.

“that’s what you wanna hear?” wonbin nodded again, not sure what he was agreeing to—he just needed you to keep talking “you probably shouldn’t even be near me.” you say.

for the first time wonbin found himself disagreeing with you. he didn’t know where he was meant to be, he lived day to day and paycheck to paycheck as a freelancer in a highly competitive profession. but he had no doubt in his mind that he was where he was meant to be, desperately humping your leg in your hotel room biting his lip to stay quiet. he just wished he could’ve articulated this to you—or at the very least shook his head. but wonbin was so caught up in that familiar tightening in his stomach that he continued nodded as he started rubbing against your leg faster.

wonbin nestled into your soft hands. he could smell the shae butter and the minty smell of the medicated ointment your coated on your nail beds. he took in another shaky deep breath that he let out when you tucked a piece of hair behind his ear.

“i can’t deny that you’re cute though.” you said.

you pulled your hands away from wonbin and propped your elbows on your thighs. you looked down at him, how he was so close to tears. you could see his large eyes begging you for more, not even bothering to hide it. there was no way this was the same quiet, elusive, and mysterious wonbin shotaro talked about constantly.

wonbin watched you lean forward until chin rested in your hands. his breathy pants got louder and he dug so hard into the cushion he felt his nails starting to bend. as you leaned closer wonbin strained his neck to get closer to your face before letting it fall back to your knee. you were testing him by bringing your face so close. wonbin could see the blemishes in your skin and the eyebags that were beginning to set it from lack of sleep. wonbin wanted to reach out and caress the apples of your cheeks that glowed in front of him.

“you’re beautiful.” your voice is sweet, and wonbin’s eyes look like they are shimmering for you. “you’re the prettiest thing i’ve ever seen actually.” you coo.

wonbin kissed your knee and you can see the drool seeping past his lips in between his heavy moans. you can tell he’s close, his desperate hips move even faster than before and you can see his knuckles turn white from the way he grips the cushion. you rack your mind for the final blow, trying to think of the thing wonbin needs to hear to get him to make a mess in his pants. he parts his swollen lips, a tiny exhale slipping past before he strings his declaration together.

“i’m close.” he whimpers.

“mhm.” you lean close to wonbin, adjusting yourself off the couch so you can whisper directly into his ear. “we’d make a pretty cute couple, don’t ya think?” you smirk.

almost instantly, a prolonged whine erupts from wonbin’s throat. it’s high-pitched and bounces off the walls of your trailer. you feel his hips still against your leg, and wonbin pulls away from you to press his face into your leg. he muffles out the rest of his whines in your denim, and you can feel the drool filtering through the thick fabric to wet your leg. you would tell wonbin that they’re custom made and he needs to be careful, but your sure he already knows that. you only pull away and lean back into the couch to watch the man get lost in pleasure. he gives your leg a few final thrusts, and then he slumps completely against you. 

when wonbin pulls away from your leg to look back up at you, his eyes are still blown out and glassy. his chest rises and falls quickly, but he doesn’t move himself from against your leg. you start buttoning up your shirt and you can tell so clearly that wonbin wants to help you. when you let your hands rest at your sides wonbin gets the hint quickly. he stands up from his spot on the ground with shaking legs, and puts his fidgeting hands to your blouse. he focuses on the fabric as he buttons up your shirt, and you laugh at wonbin finally showing you a shred of shame. when you look up to him you purposefully bat your eyelashes and bring your hands to gently hold his bicep. he freezes against your hand and bites on his bottom lip quickly. when his unsteady hands successfully button your blouse he pulls his hands away quickly and stands in front of you. you can see the small dark splotch in the front of his pants. you motion towards the spot and wonbin looks too, awkwardly shifting on his feet when he notices.

“do you want me to send you home early?” you ask.

wonbin shakes his head no and adjusts his pants but pulling at the material gathered at his upper thigh.

“i’m okay.” wonbin says.

“you know.” you cross your legs and look wonbin up and down. you’re sure you could eat him whole and you’re positive he would let you. but you’re better at hiding your desperation behind smirks and shoulder shrugs. “maybe if you’re good we can do a little more next time.” you say nonchalantly.

wonbin adjusts his pants again when there’s a knock at your door. a moment later your shotaro comes in, takes a look at the both of you and checks the time on his phone.

“lunch is over, are you ready?” he says.

you get up quickly, shaking yourself off and casting one more look to wonbin before looking to shotaro.

“i’m ready.” you say, grinning ear to ear.

[copperbadge]

Every time, you guys. Every time I look into alternatives to Lulu.com for self-publishing I come up with “Wow Lulu really is the best of a bad set of options, huh?” 

Recently, Draft2Digital bought Smashwords in order to bring a print book company under their aegis; they’d formerly only done ebooks. I thought I might investigate them as an alternative to Lulu, which I’ve used for about twelve years now. For ebooks I would venture D2D is probably top of the line. For print books they are....not. 

I’m writing this out half so other folks can see it but half so that in the future I can look this up and remind myself of why I’m still with Lulu. 

TLDR: Not only does Draft2Digital want 60% of my print book royalties where Lulu takes 0%, and $30 for a proof that costs me $11 at Lulu, but I also appear to have solved the problem of why Lulu was making me price my books so goddamn artificially high. Which is like. Honestly the best anti-anxiety drug I’ve experienced this week. 

Basically there are a number of elements that go into self-publishing with a print-on-demand service. For some publishers, there’s a “setup fee” which doesn’t really set anything up, it’s just there to be a fee, everything is done by computer on the back end. Traditionally, Lulu has not charged a setup fee. Smashwords used to charge $50, but Draft2Digital currently waives it. I was heartened by that because the setup fee was keeping me from migrating, since I can afford $50 but I balk at knowing I’m paying them $50 for nothing. 

Next is the cost of printing -- what it costs the company in paper, ink, machinery, labor, etc, to just make a book with no profit. Lulu’s price calculus isn’t super clear and I’ve never bothered looking at what the breakdown is, because they’re pretty up-front -- they tell you in the process of setting the book up how much it’ll cost. In this case, a 140-page 6x9 trade paperback, no frills, which is how all my books are printed, is $5. Draft2Digital doesn’t tell you the flat price anywhere but they do offer the breakdown information; it costs $1.22 flat plus $0.0133 per page. So, for a 140 page book, the at-cost is $3.08. So far so good. 

Now, if you’re going to sell through Lulu, the “at cost” is the minimum price. You won’t make any money but you CAN charge just $5 for a $5 book. Any pricing above that is your cut. So -- let’s price this 140 page trade paperback at $13-$15. That’s a bit high to be honest but let’s just see. At Lulu, your take is roughly $6-$8 based on those prices, because you’re just dropping out the cost of printing from the retail price. 

At Draft2Digital, the same 140-page trade paperback, which remember is quoted as costing roughly $1.20 less to print than Lulu charges, gets you $2.75-$3.50 in royalties per book.

....wait, what? 

So now we need to sidetrack a little but I promise it’s for a reason. One of the motivations for looking into a change to Draft2Digital is that I didn’t like that Lulu was setting higher “minimum prices” than I was accustomed to -- they would tell me the book only cost $5 to print but require me to sell it for $12 or similar, and I couldn’t work out why. I’m an idiot but the penny did finally drop: it’s because when you distribute them outside of Lulu (say, on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or similar) your royalties drop like a stone. $7 in royalties purchased through Lulu comes out to like twenty-five cents purchased through Amazon. So Lulu forces you to price the book at a point where you even GET royalties and don’t end up weirdly owing Amazon money. The “global distribution” is what’s driving that minimum up. 

So in price-quoting a competitor I actually solved the problem with Lulu. 

Which is good, because the fun doesn’t stop there. If you want a proof copy of a book from Lulu, it’s the at-cost of the book, plus tax, plus postage. Buying a proof copy of this book from Lulu would cost me $11. Lulu makes you order a new proof copy every time you make a change, which is shady, but usually I only need to make 1-2 changes across the life of a book, so at most the cost will probably be $35 and for that I’ll get three copies of the book. Draft2Digital doesn’t give you an option. If you want a proof pre-publication, it’s $30 flat. If you want to publish and then buy a copy you can, but you can only make one change to the book every 90 days once it’s published. If you want to make more than one change, it’s $25 every time you upload a new version of the manuscript within that 90 day period.

So Draft2Digital’s books cost less to print but they take a massive cut of your royalties out of the retail cost of the book. If the book costs $3 to print, and I price it at $15, that’s $12 in profit on the book. Of that $12, however, I only receive $4. Draft2Digital literally wants 2/3 of my royalties per book. They want $20 more than Lulu to send me a proof copy. If I need to correct the proof, the correction is free, but I’m assuming the second proof will also cost me $30. Any changes after that, within 90 days, will cost $25 plus $30 for a new proof.

Which means my upfront costs at Lulu are about $35 per published book; to do the same thing at Draft2Digital is between $60 and $105 depending on whether I need to make changes after the second proof copy. And even after that, my royalties at Lulu are just about twice what they would be at Draft2Digital per purchase. 

So, well, Lulu it is. And the problem I was having with Lulu is solved if I decide to just retail through Lulu rather than selling globally. Which...selling globally has done two things that I’m aware of:

1. Fucked up my author page so badly on Amazon that one of my books is still attributed to Kathleen Starbuck, and one of her books is for sale on my author page. 

2. Raised the minimum price I’m allowed to set my books at by like, 40%. 

So I think probably what’s going to happen is going forward my books will be for sale only on Lulu. I can still assign them ISBNs and they still will ship worldwide, and the prices will fall significantly. My deepest apologies to those of you who have paid an artificially inflated price for the last few books; I’m going to fix that going forward, I’m going to go in and try to fix it retroactively in the books that are already on Lulu, and if it’s any consolation at least the cash came to me, and TWO THIRDS OF IT didn’t go to Lulu. 

It’s gonna take me a little time, untangling Lulu’s relationship to other retailers is tricky, but eventually the Shivadh Omnibus and Twelve Points should come down significantly in price, and there ought to be a dollar or two drop for the older books as well. 

This is why it always pays to do the math, even if like me you are dreadful at it. 

[embossross]

From His Mind to Yours

Chapter 5 >> Chapter 6 >> masterlist

✣ Pairing: Hanma x AFAB fem!Reader

✣ Warning: 18+, minors DNI; unhealthy relationships & dark content

✣ Chapter CW: Exhibitionism (Hanma), Voyeurism (reader), oral (m receiving – not with reader), conversations about drugs (meth)

✣ Story CWs: patient/doctor relationships; smut (oral, ptv, pta, etc.), degradation, stalking, torture (not of y/n), murder, discussions of trauma and abuse, drug use, and more

✣ Synopsis: Forced into therapy, Hanma expects to waste his time and yours, but you’re not about to let the chance of a high-profile and higher paying patient slip through your grasp. The fact that you’re both attracted to each other doesn’t hurt either.

✣ Word Count: 7.5k+

Diners line up outside the door of the ikazya, only to be turned away. You were lucky to secure a low table for two with tatami mat seating. On a Tuesday at seven in the evening, the bar hums with office workers sharing an obligatory after-work drink. The dim lights force a strange kind of intimacy among colleagues that could not survive under the artificial LED lights of the office. You hoped some of that intimacy would possess you and your companion, but you are disappointed.

Half-empty dishes of gomae-ae, kushiyaki, and hiyyayako litter the table. Sake and beer sweat through glass cups to leave wet rings on the wood. There is a bunched-up napkin from where you spilled soy sauce earlier.

The meal is ending, but you have yet to bridge any of the distance between you and your companion: Miyasato Rie.

A senior of just one year at university, Miyasato has existed at the periphery of your existence for over a decade. In school, your classmates considered her a conscientious senior if a little disingenuous. She purposefully sought out all the first-year psych students, offering study tips, the best spots for a cheap beer, a sympathetic ear for the homesick. She helped you find your first apartment. With her advice, you survived the first few years of university. You are pretty sure she detests you.

“You didn’t finish your dinner,” Miyasato chastises, gesturing at the dishes you picked at earlier.

“I don’t have much of an appetite,” you say.

“Hmm, I suppose that was always true. Remember in school? You would never accept invitations to go out with everyone to dinner,” Miyasato says.

“I couldn’t afford it,” you say.

It was true then, when every yen you earned was shuffled straight into tuition or rent payments. With a full bank account, it’s no excuse now. You lost your appetite ten days ago along with your dignity in the back of a town car. You can’t eat. Coffee and chocolate parfaits are all you can manage. Like your stomach will only accept the very sweet or the very bitter.

“Well, I was surprised when you called me, but we should do this more often. We live so near each other, and it’s lovely to talk to another therapist. My husband tries, but he just can’t understand what it’s like to listen to patients’ problems all day! I don’t want to come home and listen to his next,” Miyasato laughs.

Angular cheekbones and premature sunspots age Miyasato by at least ten years, and you think the lovely young woman who would bully you into attending social get-togethers is gone. You feel sorry for forcing your company on an old acquaintance, not sure what you hoped to get out of this encounter.

Following your brush with death, the emptiness in your life echoes. The unlived in apartment, the cold office, the uncelebrated weekends. You want to regain some connection with the outside world. During university, at Miyasato’s prodding, you were almost a person in the world with acquaintances that bordered on friends.

Now, when you reflect on your life, you feel like you are at an airport, helpless as everyone whisks by you on a moving walkway. No matter how you hurry to catch up and join them, they glide further out of reach. Some people were born on the moving walkway, but you were born on the cold, hard ground. No father, a mother who refused to love you, no money to survive. How could you hope to ever join the moving walkway and its inhabitants, loved from the moment they were born?

The bill paid, you exit onto a quiet street. The red paper lantern above the shop casts Miyasato in a flushed glow.

“Remember what I told you,” Miyasato says. “About Dr. Kasai. If he doesn’t immediately have any openings, tell him that it’s at my referral. He’ll definitely book you then.”

Dinner was not a complete failure, and you thank Miyasato sincerely for sharing Dr. Kasai’s contact info. He is a therapist specializing in the treatment of other therapists. With no appetite and insomnia that stretches the night into little eternities, you recognize that you need help.

A car door slams, loud enough on the quiet street that you glance up and freeze. There is Hanma. You look away and back, but he is still there, looking at you. No illusion. No coincidence.

You make your excuses to Miyasato, who blinks in offense at the abrupt dismissal before heading in the direction of the subway station. Then, you hurry across the street to where Hanma waits for you.

He is dressed down for the heat in a white t-shirt that highlights the easy flex of his arm muscles and black jeans. The tail of a tattoo peaks from the collar, curling at the base of his throat. He isn’t wearing glasses either, and you wonder whether he is currently blind or wearing contacts that so eerily resemble his own natural shade. One side of his lip is red, too full, a little bruised.

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” you demand.

“You cancelled our appointment,” Hanma says, eyes trailing your figure. Dressed up in a little black dress that ends a few scant centimeters above your knees, you are exposed.

“I did,” you agree.

Hanma sighs. “Look, I wanted to give you something.”

His head and torso disappear into the backseat of his car, and then he returns with a bouquet of flowers tucked into a tall porcelain vase painted with red and gold flowers. Your face must show your skepticism because Hanma forcefully places the offering between your palms. It is heavy.

You aren’t well-versed in flowers or their meanings, preferring to grow herbs and vegetables on your balcony garden, but you can pick out several in the overflowing bouquet. There are sprigs of deep purple lavender, blushing hydrangeas, and most of all, there are rich blue morning glories that look clipped straight from the garden.

“You got me flowers?”

“I’ve been taking the lithium as prescribed for eight days now, and I’ve been filling out your little app, and I’ve even made plans with Hakkai for later this week,” Hanma says.

“So, what is this supposed to be? An apology? A peace offering?” Your nose grazes a petal, seeking a sniff of morning glory, but you rear back at the feeling of plastic. “These are fake. They aren’t even real?”

“Exactly. They’ll last longer,” Hanma says.

The dead thing – no, not dead, because dead implies they were ever alive – weighs heavily in your hands. You don’t trust Hanma’s act of contrition. Every piece of this act is calculated to some purpose, most likely to convince you to resume your sessions.

When you reach for a kernel of the rage that drove you before, you can’t find the spark of it. All your anger towards Hanma was used up when you fucked him like a thing possessed, lapping at his blood like milk. You thought of him in the days since, wondered at your next step, but mostly you moped about your unfulfilled life, not much energy spared for Hanma’s place in it.

“This is not appropriate. I cancelled our session for a reason. Now, please call my office during business hours, and my receptionist will help you reschedule,” you say.

“But we’re both here now,” Hanma says, and he smiles in a way that is likely meant to charm, but only makes your stomach twist. You remember he smiled when he pulled the trigger, too.

“I cancelled because I have plans, Hanma-san. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

You move to step off the sidewalk and cross the street, but a bike hurtles past and stops your progress. That one moment of pause is enough for Hanma to try again.

“What plans do you have now?” Hanma argues. “Your only plan was to get dinner with your friend. If you leave now, you’ll have hours with nothing to do but sit in your empty apartment and wait for the sun to rise. Why not come with me instead? At least that way you won’t be lonely.”

There are no pedestrians on the secluded street, but you can hear the low rumble of conversation and laughter slipping through the cracked door of the bar. You live on the tenth floor of your apartment building. The only sounds that reach you there are car horns, sirens, and the roar of an airplane drifting overhead.

You know that you and Hanma are not alike. Not really. The differences stack up like used plates at a sushi bar. He is mercurial, dangerous, uncaring. He feels strongly and acts just as strongly in turn. But, beneath those differences lies a camaraderie, a shared emptiness. You are both life’s window shoppers, looking in through dirty glass at the lives you can’t afford to lead.

Nothing waits for you at home.

“Besides, I have questions about the lithium. Surely, you don’t want me to get lithium toxicity. It sounds dangerous,” Hanma goads.

“You want to discuss your medication?” you say slowly.

Hanma bends at the waist until his face is level with yours. “Yes.”

“I suppose I could accommodate you this once.” Seeing Hanma’s smile tilt too close to satisfaction, you rush to add. “But you’ll need to pay me double for this session. Out of your pocket, not Kisaki-san’s, as it’s your fault I cancelled the session.”

Hanma thumbs a stack of bills, so crisp and pretty you salivate, from his wallet. “This should do it.”

“And I have conditions,” you add, though you wait to pocket the money before continuing. “First, you will never again so much as indicate, no insinuate, that you have a gun while you are with me. If I see it, we’re done. If you gesture to it, we’re done. And I mean completely. Failure to meet these conditions, and I will call Kisaki-san myself to terminate our arrangement for good.”

“A gun? How would I even get a gun in Japan?” Hanma jokes, a tacit acceptance.

“Second, I have a safe word. And get that look off your face. A safe word for our sessions. If I say…Anpanman the session is immediately over. No discussion, no debate. You leave, and I call you to reschedule not the other way around.” You wait for Hanma’s solemn nod before continuing. “Third, no following me around like a stalker. I don’t know how you knew I’d be here today, but that’s the last of it. We meet at my office or a previously agreed upon spot. No finding me on the streets like a creep.”

“It’s really just a coincidence,” Hanma argues.

You shift the vase onto your hip so that you can point a finger at him. “And finally, and most importantly, you do not touch me.”

“Without your permission, yeah, yeah.”

“No. You do not touch me. Period. Ever. Do we understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” Hanma agrees.

He opens the passenger door with a chivalrous flourish, and you worry that he accepted your deal far too easily. Today he drives neither the Bentley from Hell or the town car from Hell…and actually, why do you keep getting in cars with this man when nothing good ever seems to come from it? You wonder if he isn’t running a chop shop with the number of vehicles he flaunts.

Hand on the top of the door, you pause. “Wait. Are you wearing contacts? Or are you blind right now?”

Hanma smiles widely. “Just get in the car, Doc.”

Against your better judgment, you do.

--

There are two Tokyos. During the day, one hides beneath the other, but at night they converge. The intersection where Hanma belongs squarely to the seedy underbelly when the sun goes down, the Tokyo of nightmares. Touts throng among the crowd, waving flyers and promises of pussy. Every face is underlit in neon, a sinister glow to their features.

Hanma leads you towards a storefront with blacked out windows. Hanging on each is a poster of women in bathing suits, posing with their tongues out or eyes crossed. This is the pleasure district.

“Absolutely not,” you say, stalling to a halt outside the entrance. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I refuse.”

“Oh, come on, Doc. I don’t mean anything by it. I just have business with the owner. We will be in and out,” Hanma says.

“In and out,” you warn.

Hanma slips away to speak to the owner, leaving you seated at the bar. You have never been in a strip club before, and the interior provides a feast for your eyes. Arranged in the western style, there is a single stage at the center of the room and table seating for patrons around it. The only other place to sit is the bar, where rows of liquor hang in glass cabinets. Panels of mirrors surround the stage, so that as a woman toys with the hem of her slip, drawing the fabric higher and higher, the mirror reflects her image out in every direction.

You should have refused Hanma at the door. Already, you are slipping back into the pattern of conceding too much to this man. Despite his claim that he needs therapy today, you barely spoke on the car ride over, merely discussing his recently improved sleeping schedule. Now, he has left you to fend for yourself at a strip club.

The woman on stage shimmies out of her slip entirely, revealing a lithe body and two impossibly large breasts. You don’t consider yourself a prude, but you find yourself staring hard at the bar, anything to avoid looking at her bullseye-shaped nipples.

A shadow appears at your side, tall and lean. You glance up expecting Hanma, but this is a stranger. Dressed in an impeccably tailored suit and towering over you at well over 180 centimeters, he looks like a model. How else to explain the hair-dyed violet?

“Can I buy you a drink?” the man asks. There is a special mortification in being propositioned at a titty bar.

“I can’t. I’m working,” you say, and then cringe when you realize what that implies. “I mean, I don’t work here…I’m a…never mind. I just can’t drink right now.”

The stranger motions to the bartender, who drops the customer he is actively serving to hurry over.

“A bottle of water for the lady,” he orders.

The gesture of respect is ingratiating enough that you shift on your bar stool to open up your space a bit. He slots into the opening without hesitation. It is the subtle language of flirtation, and you can tell he is fluent.

“I saw you come in with a man. Who would leave a woman like you all alone in a place like this?”

“An asshole,” you mutter under your breath, and then louder for this man’s benefit. “We’re not together, and we’re not staying. He has business with someone here. He’s going to be in and out.”

“What kind of business would a respectable man have at a strip club?” he laughs.

You shrug. The intricacies of Hanma’s work are interesting, but you make it a point to know as little as possible about the incriminating details.

“Is this your first time here? You seem…uncomfortable,” the man says.

“You can tell?” you ask dryly. Your fingers dance up and down the side of the water bottle, painting patterns in the condensation. “This isn’t much of a place for a woman. I feel sorry for the girls who work here.”

The man turns around, so that his elbows lean against the bar and casts a surveying eye around the club and the stage where a woman is now griding her panty-covered crotch into the hardwood. Sweat and glitter cover her body in a filthy sheen. Her eyes are closed, and you can only imagine what she thinks in moments like this.

“It’s true that many of the women here are exploited. But there’s something raw, something free about their work, isn’t there? To strip away all of society’s pretenses and reveal the base animal underneath? She knows the truth about men, about people after working here. She knows who the devoted family man truly is, who the buttoned-up businessman hides beneath his tie. And that knowledge equals a kind of freedom, a kind of power. It’s up to her how she wants to use it. That’s freedom.”

“Maybe for some women, but not for me,” you say coldly. This stranger is a honeyed devil in your ear, promising that at the other end of abandoning self-control and dignity lies paradise. It is a convenient myth, and he makes it sound dangerously convincing.

He smiles at you, eyes hooded and attentive, no different than when he trained on the stripper’s naked body, but then he nods. “Well, it was nice to meet you. Maybe you’ll let me buy you a drink next time.”

The man leaves, and you watch him walk right through the front door and out of sight. Very charming, you think, but off somehow. He reminds you of someone, but you can’t quite place it.

No one else approaches you in the five minutes you wait for Hanma to conclude his business. You polish off the water bottle in four, grateful to the stranger as you gulp down the final drops.

When Hanma returns, he doesn’t even meet you at the bar, beckoning with his head for you to join him at a table near the stage. The silent nod, disrespectful, arrogant, sets your teeth on edge. He is so confident that you will participate in your own shame, let him make a mockery of your work, that you won’t ever pull the trigger on him, the way he will on you. You don’ want to go home to your apartment, but you know you can’t stay here any longer.

“This is not in and out, Hanma-san,” you say through gritted teeth as you approach him.

“The owner is getting something for me,” Hanma says. “We just have to wait. Sit down and enjoy the show.”

A new woman saunters on stage to jeers of appreciation from the crowd. Hanma grins wickedly at her legs as they strut by.

“Anpanman,” you blurt out.

The club doesn’t quiet at your invocation of your safe word, but the turmoil in your chest does. You have the power to set your own boundaries. Like a child, Hanma may hurtle himself bodily at each one to test for weakness, but you can reinforce yourself like a castle and stay tall.

“Fair enough,” Hanma says, and the easy submission sends your mind reeling. You thought he would kick and scream and break your conditions. “Do you want a ride home? Or can you make it to the subway alright?”

“I can make it to the station,” you say slowly.

“Alright, I’ll wait for your call to reschedule,” Hanma says.

Already, his eyes return to the dancer on stage. Without his glasses, his scrutinous eyes are twice as intense. You can see the stage reflected in the black pupils; there is no reflection of your own face.

“Why…why do you want to stay so badly?”

“Like I said, I have to wait for the owner. Plus, believe it or not, but this place serves good food. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.”

Once you watched a documentary that compared pre-modern and modern hunting styles. The trick of trap hunting, it explained, is to camouflage the trap so well that the animal stumbles straight into its death with a smile. Your stomach rumbles from days of fasting. You see the trap, yet you still edge closer.

“I’ll stay but only if we sit over there,” you say, gesturing to the empty table furthest from the stage and its performer. “You need to face away from the stage, too…and you’re buying dinner.”

Hanma snorts, genuinely snorts, a puff of sound from his chest expelled from his nose and says, “Have you considered a career change, Doc? Because you would make a hell of a negotiator. I’ll even put in a good word for you.”

“You can’t afford me,” you sniff.

Stuffed into the corner, you can almost pretend you aren’t at a strip club. The flashing lights are no different than any club you would find in Roppongi, and if you fix your neck in place and focus on Hanma, you can’t see the stage. The music breaks your immersion somewhat, a low, griding bass that settles in your stomach, but the little table where you sit is innocuous.

Hanma orders a plate of chicken wings to share, a beer, and steamed vegetables. He is right that the food here is delicious. Fried and greasy, so that flavor drips onto your tongue. Your hunger must finally be getting the better of you because you find it simple to eat your half of the wings.

“So, you said you wanted to discuss how you’re feeling on lithium,” you prompt as you pick a piece of meat from bone.

“Yeah, or rather, how I don’t feel on lithium.”

“Is it numbing you out?” you ask.

“No, I don’t feel any difference. It’s like you gave me sugar pills or something. I’m going to the damn lab and getting stuck like a pig for bloodwork, and all the while, I don’t feel a damn change,” Hanma says.

“I know you’re used to popping a pill and feeling the effects within the hour, but lithium isn’t like that,” you say. “It takes a month for it to take effect for most people. We want to monitor in the meantime because the difference in dosage between what’s prescribed and lithium toxicity is so narrow, but I don’t expect you to have any real benefits to report for a few weeks yet.”

“And when it does kick in, what should I expect? Because I read through the side effects, and they’re a doozy, Doc. These things better make my dick rock hard and help me grow wings, or I’m going to be disappointed,” Hanma says.

There is a spot of sauce staining his upper lip, which he seems unaware of. He chews on without a care, smearing it further with each bite. You wonder if you should tell him. Decide it’s not your place. Discretely, you wipe your own lips with a napkin.

“The point is to moderate the wild swings up and down that you have in any given day. I looked at your log, and you are all over the place. My hope is that they will help you achieve a more manageable average. Most people remain at a steady baseline from day to day without all these big variations.”

You assigned Hanma the daily log before he threatened both your lives, so you had not expected him to actually follow through. For the past ten days, however, he has steadily logged his moods with little notes to indicate the source of the shift. Favorites include an eight on Friday with the note, ‘pussy,’ and a ten on Sunday with the note, ‘good pussy.’ Other sources that trigger a high or manic episode appear to be hearing a song he likes on the radio, seeing a middle schooler trip on a curb and eat asphalt, and evading a speeding ticket. There are just as many dramatic valleys in his log. Causes range from something as simple as running out of beer or missing a boxing match on TV. What concerns you is how often a peak of ten is followed mere hours later by a craterous one.

“Most people, huh? In my line of work, you don’t see a lot of steady. We must have gathered up all the neurotics in Tokyo,” Hanma says. “What about you though, Doc? Are you most people here?”

“I would say so. I spend most of my day at a steady five with some minor dips up to a six or down to a four. Unless there’s a big exception, I’m not going to leave that zone,” you explain.

A half lie hides in your answer. If you were honest, your baseline dropped to a four recently with a mere papercut pushing you down to a three. Good exceptions are few and far between to the point that you can’t quite remember the last time you were as happy as a six.

Time with Hanma breaks the scale entirely. You can’t say that you are happy or enjoying yourself in his company, but neither can you say that you sustain a bland four like you do throughout the rest of your day. You find your time with him exists in a completely different universe, one with reverse gravity where up is down and north is south.

“Sounds pretty fucking miserable if you ask me,” Hanma says. “Yeah, I sometimes hope a truck takes me out, but I also get to feel the opposite, like the world was made for me. Don’t you wish you spent more time at a ten? Or even just a seven?”

“I guess you’re kind of edging up against that age old question: what is the meaning of life? You actually sound like the Cyrenaics.”

You explain that the Cyrenaics were a Socratic school of thinking in ancient Greece that believed the meaning of life was to maximize the pleasure of every single moment. They argued that because the future was not guaranteed – you could die tomorrow, the unpredictable could tear your best laid plans asunder – it made no sense to do anything but live in the moment.

“It makes sense on paper,” you continue. “If I die tomorrow, don’t I wish I enjoyed every moment of today? But…my mom kind of lived that way, and it ultimately ended with her dying in poverty and agony. The future makes me too anxious. I need to prepare for it, even if that means denying myself something in the moment. Otherwise, I’ll get too worked up to enjoy anything in the present. So, sure I would like to be at a ten more often, but I can’t get there if I’m risking a future one. My brain just doesn’t work that way.”

“I think you just haven’t experienced true pleasure,” Hanma purrs.

“You might want to think that through,” you tease and then remember that you don’t want to remind this man of the pleasure and terror he inflicted upon you.

“I mean it. Real pleasure…it’s addictive. Pain and pleasure have a lot in common. They’re the only two forces in this world that make you exist fully in the present. And I’m talking about true pleasure here, not just a little jolly here or there. True pleasure wipes out everything else. If you have any room in your brain to worry about the future, then you’re feeling something different,” Hanma says.

Once upon a time, you would have dismissed these pretty, seducing words altogether, but you know what he means now after the mind and body games of your last session. There was no moment but the present when you rode his cock, no fear of what came next as you bit through skin to return a fraction of the hurt you felt to him. Thinking back to that time, you don’t remember it being pleasurable in any sense of how you would normally describe the term. Rather, it was transcendent. Not all good, but all-encompassing instead.

“If you never mitigate risk, you will find yourself in a situation where you can’t experience pleasure anymore. Say tomorrow, I quit my job and blow all my money on a shopping spree, that will feel good for a day, and then I’ll be living on the street when rent comes due.” Another example of this philosophy crosses your mind. A necessary reminder that despite the multiple men who have urged you to throw your inhibitions to the wind tonight, there would be consequences to dropping your professional mask. “I think the Epicureans had the right idea of things. They were another school of thought, said that one should maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Though even that I struggle with. No human being could ever get that equation right. Only an omniscient god could aspire to that.”

“You have a tiny, and truly, Doc, I mean miniscule, point there. Delayed gratification is only worth it if the prize is big enough. If I did what I wanted most right now because I might take a bullet tomorrow, that would stop me from getting something one hundred times better in the days to come. Sometimes we have to work for our meal,” Hanma says.

You catch a glimpse of the stripper on stage as she lifts one of her breasts to her mouth and suckles on the nipple. A cacophony of hoots rises up at the lewd act. Heat blossoms in your chest. Hanma’s mouth looks wet from where his beer lingers on his lips, sauce licked away.

“And I plan to eat well,” you toast him, tipping your can of grape soda in his direction. Sometimes you look at Hanma, and all you see is zeroes in your bank account.

“Is that your meaning of life then, Doc? Enriching yourself? And then one day you finally relax and enjoy it?”

“Maybe. I’m more interested in what your meaning of life is,” you counter.

Hanma picks around the bone of a chicken wing, teeth precise as they tear through flesh. A man of endless appetites, he reaches for another.

“I haven’t studied any fancy ideas like you. I don’t know the Epicureans or the whatevers. I don’t know the meaning of life. What I know is what gets me out of bed in the morning. And that’s that there is no alternative. I can’t stay in bed all day, or I’ll die. I can’t stay in bed all day, or I’ll die of boredom. Even if getting out of bed offers nothing better, I have no choice. I don’t think there is a meaning. People just are. We live because we have no choice but to live unless something kills us. And then, we’ll be dead with no choice but to remain dead, same as living.”

You are less studied in “fancy ideas” than Hanma imagines, only taking one elective philosophy course in university. One of your professors suggested you dabble in that side of the human condition as patients often require a grounding purpose to guide their recovery. Still, you recognize in Hanma’s musings the shadow of a real philosophical framework.

“That sounds like pessimistic naturalism. Some nihilist thought considers boredom the inevitable foundation of life. They say nothing humans do is ever meaningful enough to matter, so we suffer from boredom as a result. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s definitely not helpful. So many things already bring you joy, so isn’t it better to recognize that those things are inherently meaningful because they matter to you? That goes back to the mood stabilizers. I want to get you to the point where you can suffer a low period because you know that a high – which is the whole meaning of your life – is around the corner,” you explain.

Inconsiderate of everyone around him, Hanma lights a cigarette. He nods along as he puffs a plume of smoke that dances erotically overhead before disappearing into the neon lights. There is no ashtray at the table, so he dabs the stub into a table napkin.

“Sounds good to me. I know good things are coming,” Hanma says with a nerve-inducing smile.

“What is your goal exactly?”

“Oh no, Doc. That’s classified information,” Hanma tuts. More seriously, he adds, “I’m not sure what I’m going to do after I finally…get what I want. If I still have years of life ahead of me, I can’t picture myself old. I look around at other people and how they define their lives around money or success or family. I already have money and success, have had it since I was young. Nothing left to do there. And, I never had a loving family. Once I’ve done everything there is to do…I don’t know what’s next.”

Sharp pain slices through you, and you realize you were picking the skin of your cuticles raw. A bead of blood wells on your ring finger, and you pop the wound into your mouth. The bleeding stops, but the wound sits open and red. Pointedly, you fold your hands in your lap.

Without a family as a template for how to interact in the world, you often feel formless. There is a very clear schedule that women are expected to follow: it’s okay to worry about your career in your twenties, but your primary responsibility is to become a wife. Then, your thirties and forties are defined by the role of mother. Maybe a short break in your fifties to focus on yourself as a person, but then you’re hurtled back into the role of grandmother to wait for death. Even more career-minded women, like Miyasato, capitulate to the template and tell you their families come first.

Every choice you make is dedicated not to family but the accumulation of a fat nest egg that will keep you secure in your advanced years. Never mind that you don’t know what you will actually do with yourself once you retire and money is no longer the motivator.

Would you find a hobby? You love to cook, already dedicating two hours every evening to the preparation of multi-course meals, researching new recipes, and shopping around for rare ingredients. In retirement, you could embark on some kind of cooking challenge, like learning a dish from every country in the world. And then, you could set those scrumptiously prepared dishes out to a table of one, eat a few bites, and watch the garbage consume the rest.

You are aware that you are feeling sorry for yourself, but it is hard not to when even the bartender at the titty club is laughing and bantering with customers who know him by name.

“Well, I think you’re in no danger of doing everything life has to offer,” you say after too much time passes. “Focus everything you have on your goal for now, and then, if you achieve it, you’ll find something else to look forward to.”

The conversation draws naturally to a close. Good timing, as you see a man moving in your direction. He is dressed in a white button-down and gold jewelry, limp black hair combed to conceal a receding hairline. A waitress smiles solicitously as he passes, and you know he must be the owner.

“Hanma-san,” the man greets with a blow. To you, he gives a half nod, like he is unsure what courtesy you merit. “I spoke to my colleague about the situation, and we are in agreement. Thank you for trusting us with this. As a token of our appreciation, please enjoy your time here to the fullest. On the house, of course.”

He passes Hanma a folded-up napkin. Inside is a baggie filled with white crystals, almost pretty in the light. You have never seen drugs in person, but you can recognize crystal meth from your textbooks.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Hanma says.

“Um, I mind,” you say immediately. The owner starts like he’s heard a gunshot. “You absolutely cannot take that while on lithium. You are going to overdose and die, and then where will you be?”

Hanma rolls his eyes. “Ten feet under, I suspect.”

“We just had an entire conversation about how you have to live to achieve your goals,” you snap, and then turning to the owner. “Thank you for your…generosity but take it back.” The owner is so pale his black eyes stand out like bugs on his face. He does not move to confiscate the meth.

“You have a point. How about a quid pro quo? If I can’t have my fun now, you need to help me have my fun some other way,” Hanma suggests.

“Not just tonight. All the time. You absolutely cannot take any drugs while you’re on lithium. I shouldn’t have let you even drink that beer, but I allowed it because it was just one. You need to be careful,” you snap.

“Let me…” Hanma rolls the words around on his tongue consideringly.

“Let you,” you restate firmly.

“Well, then, if my life means so much to you. I’m sure you’ll agree to a little something in return.”

Disastrously, you do.

--

There are nine beautiful women working the club tonight. Every one of them is paraded before Hanma for his selection. Each woman is as beautiful as the last, one for every imaginable type: curvy, lithe, glamorous, oxymoronically demure. Hanma picks a woman with long dark hair, dressed more like an idol than a stripper in a frilly multi-colored dress, who calls herself Naomi.

Officially, the club offers lap dances in a row of cubicles partitioned by black curtains that are mere bolts of fabric. Naomi confidently leads you past these seedy receptacles to a private backroom.

The room is dark, lit up by the same pink and purple lighting as the rest of the club. There is a small stage at the front – presumably for private shows, but you suspect is really covers for the illegal activities conducted here – and a three-cushion couch opposite it, where Hanma immediately seats himself. You demure from joining him, choosing instead to sit on the stage. The platform is raised, so your feet dangle off the floor.

“How should we start, Doc? What would you like to see first?” Hanma asks, voice battling the loud EDM music blaring from a TV in the corner.

“I want no part in this. I’m here per our agreement. That’s it,” you say.

“Why did I figure you’d say that?” Hanma laughs.

“Pretend I’m not even here.”

“Does that mean I shouldn’t even look at you?”

“Yes.”

Hanma agrees easily, which surprises you, makes you wary. You wrap your arms around your body protectively to ward off the cold. A fan winds listlessly above your head and an HVAC blows cool air directly onto your skin. Dancing must be sweaty work.

With no regard to the cold, Naomi shimmies out of her garish dress, revealing a pair of panties and no bra. You try not to look but instinctively catalogue the curves of her exposed body and judge it against your own.

You look up, anything to avoid leering at the two of them. But, above their heads, is a mirror mounted to the ceiling that reflects the action back to you. From this angle, you can’t see the expression on Hanma’s face, but you have an unfettered view of his dick, hard and wet.

Naomi lowers to her knees in front of the couch, so that you are presented with her back. She unbuttons Hanma’s pants. This is the first time you’ve see the cock that was inside you. Hanma’s cock sits tall and curved against his stomach. Black hair, the same color as what trails down his stomach thatches at the base.

The head of Hanma’s cock is red and angry, more inflamed than Naomi’s pink tongue as it strokes along the underside.

Long, wet brushes of tongue. Barely started and strands of thick saliva already cling to Naomi’s chin as she slobbers all over the shaft. The impressive length of him becomes glaringly obvious when Naomi holds his cock against her cheek. The tip extends beyond her forehead, the cock taller than her entire head. And that fat, angry, red cock, had been inside you.

As Hanma receives a professional grade blow job, he leans back like nothing is happening. He lights yet another cigarette. The smell of smoke is eaten up by the air freshener that pumps away from an outlet near the stage.

Even as Hanma’s cock is worshipped, you are undeniably aroused.

Naomi moves to suck on Hanma’s balls, face tilted upward, so that you can make out her features through the ceiling mirror. Now that you look closely, there are some surface-level similarities between the two of you. Something in the line of her jaw, similar age. Glancing down, you think the way her ass sits, dimpled as it rests on her high heels is similar as well, the shape of it.

The similarities are enough that if you squint, you can almost imagine that is you on your knees. That you are seated before Hanma like a supplicant.

Naomi abruptly swallows half of Hanma’s cock, making space for something that should not possibly fit.

You touch the base of your neck carefully. Feel the hard cartilage beneath the flesh.

Hanma is different than you might have imagined. Not that you did. Somewhere instinctually, you simply envisioned that he would be rougher with a lover, forcing a woman’s head down and ignoring the choking. The kind of thing you see in porn. Instead, he dominates Naomi’s movements with a casual certitude that doesn’t require roughness. He makes little corrections to her technique with a tug of her hair or a push on her head. Never enough to make her gag, just a signal to adjust.

Your earlier conversation about the pursuit of pleasure returns to you. Perhaps it’s his confidence in the value of pleasure that grants him this effortless ability to pursue it now. You remember nights in the dark, when a lover missed your clit over and over, mashing uselessly at your labia, and you simply let him. Too detached to correct his form.

The intensity of the blow job increases by degrees. First, Naomi’s throat opens up, more of Hanma’s length caressed and sucked with each bob of her head. Then, her hands join in a sticky rhythm to massage the base of him. A line of spit dangles off his shaft every time Naomi returns to the head and is then swallowed up again on the downward descent.

Throughout, Hanma never glances in your direction. His eyes stare to the side and the door, or they study the woman on her knees. He follows your instructions to pretend you’re not there to the letter, and you desperately wish he would stop.

For the first time since you saw him on the street tonight, you feel a yawning distance, like there’s a glass wall, between you both. He is having an experience completely separate from you that you can’t hope to touch. You can’t reach him. You hate it. No different than if you were alone in your living room, scanning through cable TV for lack of anything better to do.

Because he is not looking, you don’t think too carefully as you uncross your arms, and let your fingers trail down the exposed skin of your arms. It tickles a little, a tease that chills your body and heats the spark in your stomach. You shouldn’t do this, vowed that you would not let him touch you again, but you deserve pleasure, too. Don’t you?

Again, you rub tenderly at the flesh of your neck, the shell of your own ear. You watch Naomi as you do. No matter how bored he looks, Hanma must feel good with Naomi laboring over his cock, and now you do too. You feel the distance between you shrink a little, a crack in the glass that separates you from him.

The look on Naomi’s face galvanizes you. Shimmering in her eyes are unshed tears, a furrow to her brow as she forces past her gag to satisfy him. Hanma’s cock must be a battering ram in her throat. You wonder if she is soaked through at having such a big cock inside her. If you were in her place, you would be.

You can’t resist escalating when such simple touches light your blood from within. You rub your bare thighs together to put pressure on your cunt. You pinch your nipples through the fabric of your dress. They are painfully hard, and you bite your lip to contain a gasp at the excruciating contrast.

If Hanma looks at you now, honest and shameless in your feelings, you will combust.

He doesn’t look. Emboldened by his continued obedience, you ruck your dress up over your hips, revealing your panties. They are damp, hardly a barrier as the fabric presses into your folds. You search for your clit and find it peeking (and peaking) through your clitoral hood. Sparks fly in your stomach at the barest graze of your fingertips over the fabric. Greedy, you rub it firmly.

Already, you are close to an edge and desperate to tip over. You imagine Hanma might be as well. You imagine that you are on your knees with that hard cock battering the inside of your throat. He was piercing in your cunt, and he would be in your throat, too, no matter how gently he treated you. He wouldn’t pull out. He would blow his load down your throat, and you would swallow him down with a smile. He would return the favor, drinking from the source of you, eating your pussy with no mercy until you cried.

You couldn’t stop your orgasm now if you wanted to. It approaches with terrible certainty. Your thighs quake before the crest and you close your eyes against the demand it makes of your body. Heat flares, and you whimper pathetically. When you cum, it will damn you.

Your eyes flutter open at the height of the peak and find Hanma’s staring you down. Not through the mirror. Direct eye contact as he strokes his own cock while Naomi mouths at his balls. You cum on the spot.

Your whole body seizes up with it, pussy begging as it flutters around nothing. Waves of euphoria wash from your stomach to your cunt to your fingertips as you buck and moan and continue to rub your aching clit through it. Just as you think the waves are weakening, Hanma grunts and cums on Naomi’s face. The sound incites you, and two more waves of pleasure burst unnaturally from your clit.

Later, you will castigate yourself for your choices today. If only you showed more self-control. If only you remembered your responsibilities as a therapist. Using your body has worked to a degree in capturing his interest and maintaining his focus, but it is not sustainable. You can’t sell your body and pleasure to Hanma in exchange for cooperation.

But, for now, as you slump backwards on the stage, back cold and chest heaving, you can only think that you are doing a damn good job at maximizing your pleasure.

And a damn bad one at minimizing your pain.

[bennydwight]

TGAMM Oneshot (Spoilers: S2E3 A Soda to Remember)

Summary: Practically every visit to the Ghost World in the past year had been a result of the Council dragging Scratch under, kicking and screaming the whole way. And now, here he was, seeking them out.

All because of a STUPID soda.

(A oneshot born from a headcanon. As always, ao3 format here)

Scratch hovered, staring at the swirling black portal, and wondered if he might be crazy.

He avoided the Ghost World on principle, too many people he couldn’t just disappear from if he didn’t want to be seen, too many eyes on him, especially now that he wore The Cloak. The food was serviceable at best and the company worse. Plus, practically every visit to the Ghost World in the past year had been a result of the Council dragging him under, kicking and screaming the whole way, so obvious negative connotations there.

And now, here he was, seeking them out.

All because of a stupid old soda.

Most of him was grateful to Molly, and Libby, and Darryl, for risking their safety on their dumb little heist. It showed (in their own obsessive, pushy, annoying way) that they cared for him, and he could appreciate that. But a smaller part regretted the whole ordeal, a pain in the neck that had opened too many doors.

Like this one. To the Ghost World.

Scratch turned away, the portal swirling closed behind him. This was stupid! He shouldn’t even bother making the trip to the Council, all they’d do was stuff him into the robe again and demand he make decisions that weren’t ‘where to hide the caramel ribbon ice cream so Sharon wouldn’t find it’. Lame, unimportant things, and a two minute trip would take two hours, and he had a nap scheduled that he couldn’t afford to miss, and—

A vehicle pulled away outside, the sound drifting in with a breeze that rustled the curtains, and Scratch was slammed into the Memory without warning: curly brown hair, a sunny smile that matched a yellow shirt, artificial strawberry on his tongue. “Every time we drink this soda, we’ll think of each other—”

And just as suddenly, the world crashed down again, leaving him disoriented and annoyed and shaken. He gripped his head in his hands and growled at the dark sensation of loss clawing open his gut, riding out the displaced emotion like a wave of nausea. Why? Why this memory? Why couldn’t he remember something nicer, like a family pet, or a nice meal, or even his own name?

The next portal opened, inches from his nose. Well that was embarrassing, he was making them involuntarily now.

Way too many open doors lately. In his head, in the ether, downstairs whenever Ollie came over. What he wouldn’t give for some closure.

Yeah right. Like he was ever that lucky.

Scratch paced in angry circles, fists flexing at his sides, all the while eyeing the new portal. He moved towards it, backed away. Advance, retreat. He turned his back on the twisting abyss, form tight with stress. No, he wouldn’t go, he’d call it off—

“That way, I’ll never forget you. And you’ll never forget me.”

Spirits below, fine!

He launched himself through the portal before he could change his mind. The Ghost World hit like a smelly, dour slap to the face. Or maybe that was just the vibe of the Council chamber. His four ‘advisors’ sat hunched over their massive curved desk, quill pens in hand, and not a single one of them looked up at his presence. Almost out of habit, Scratch flinched at the empty slot between them, the silhouette of the (former) Chairman looming in negative space before Scratch blinked and the illusion disappeared.

Not foreboding at all.

He waited, hovering over the spot where he was normally summoned. Nada. “A-hem.”

Alistair gestured over his shoulder to that huge, vacuous with his quill. “You know where to be, Scratch.”

Curse these chuckleheads and their rules. “Yeah, no, I’m not ‘Chairmanning’ today,” he fingerquoted. “Taking my two weeks vacation. All year.”

“Then you’re dismissed.”

Oooh no, no one could just dismiss Scratch anymore. “Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to be as far away from you guys as possible, but I got a quick question.”

“Is it about competency,” Bartholomew grinned nastily, “because then it won’t be quick.” The others sniggered loudly at the quip. It wasn’t even that funny! Pete could do better! Fury spiked down Scratch’s arms and back in a ripple of agitated ectoplasm, size swelling briefly as he fought down the urge to adopt a scare form. They’d probably just make some kind of dumb comment about how he could catch up on his scare quota.

There was really no one else in the Ghost World for these questions?

Through gritted teeth, Scratch bit out, “it’s about memories.”

Quills stilled and the Council glanced at each other in that secretive, in-jokey way that made his form bubble. Alistair set down his quill to rest his chin on the bridge of his hands, looking an equal mix of suspicious and smug. “What about memories?”

How to get them back? How to get rid of them forever? Suppression? Answers? All those felt too… personal. “Why do ghosts come here with out memories of their past life?”

Another infuriating round of glances, and Scratch was tempted to put The Cloak on just to yell at them in Scary Chairman Voice when Grimbella said, “All ghosts have memories.”

The world tilted, the metaphorical rug whipped out from his metaphorical feet, and the world dimmed as Scratch’s opacity flickered the slightest bit. All ghosts. A fact. So why didn’t he? “They remember everything?”

“Not exactly,” Lucretia set her quill down in its pot. Had none of them ever heard of pens? “The amount of retained memories change with the ghost, but generally important memories regarding personal identity remain intact.”

He’d intended to come into this conversation casually, but to his humiliation, Scratch burst like a dam. “But why only some memories?” He demanded, floating up to their desk and pacing again. “Why are some more important than others? Who decides? What makes a memory important enough to bring to the afterlife?”

Grimbella answered easily, not one iota of attention paid to his turmoil. “A ghost keeps them based on what they knew in life.”

Oh, if they’d been keeping this from him, he was going to sic the frightmares on them so fast. “What do you mean?”

“The exact details are still being researched,” Alistair admitted with a snooty shrug. “But patterns suggest that a ghost’s memories are most strongly linked to the interpersonal connections that they held in high regard during life.”

“Like you,” Scratch turned on Grimbella, and her cool disinterest brought up another surge of annoyance. “Grunhilda, or whatever. You know your name!” And he got it wrong on purpose out of spite.

A shimmer of satisfaction lit his core as her unflappable brow finally furrowed. “Grimbella,” she corrected icily, and Scratch made a mental note to get her name wrong at every possible opportunity. “It’s true, my family name was very important in my upbringing. Most of my strongest memories are of the pride my parents showed when teaching family history.” She trailed off, wistfully staring into the middle distance with a dreamy look. Gross.

“But names are a low bar,” Bartholomew cut in, casting Grimbella a side-eye. “An interpersonal relationship doesn’t have to be strong for a ghost to remember their name. As long as there was someone to give voice to a name during life, a ghost could remember it after death.”

“Not that you’d know much about that, Scratch,” Alistair pointed out greasily, and the next round of barely contained snickers nearly popped Scratch’s eyes out.

“At least I didn’t get stuck with a name that sounds like it crawled right out of a medieval toilet,” he snapped back.

Up went the quills again, their interest in him noticeably waning. “Don’t get waspish about it,” Alistair’s face hardened. “Some ghosts would kill to be in your position. Not all memories are warm and fuzzy.”

He’d mentioned something about his dad once, hadn’t he? On the list of ‘Things Scratch Cared About’, Alistair’s past was somewhere below ‘amount of carbohydrates in a loaf of garlic bread’, but recent events pulled a twinge of guilt from him.

He’d said he didn’t want to know. That was still true. And it wasn’t. Would he be better or worse if he’d remembered every second of being a lonely, bitter, jaded man in life? He’d still be Scratch either way, right? Except he wouldn’t be, he’d have a human name.

He’d absolutely been Scratch this morning. Now he wasn’t sure. Was anything about him real?

“Scratch?” His head whipped around to Lucretia, half from being torn out of his thoughts and half because he’d never heard her sound so gentle. Almost sympathetic. She still hunched over her book, but pinned him under an unreadable stare. “If it’s any consolation, there have been numerous cases of ghosts discovering more of their memories as their time here lengthens.”

Scratch’s colour shuddered, and he refused to believe it was hopeful. “How?”

“Through intense meditation and unparalleled self-discipline, of course.”

Scratch gagged. “Hard pass.”

Lucretia’s expression clouded back to it’s normal stormy gray. “Then I hope you enjoy your afterlife as a nobody.”

He knew a final dismissal when he heard it (those jerks, still finding a way to snub him even after he became their boss). He wasted no time building a portal back to Molly’s room, and the moment it closed behind him a huge weight lifted from above his head. Hello, Damocles. Ugh, every second he spent in the Ghost World was a second too long.

Something pulled insistently at his mind, and the ripples of his ectoplasm went still. The confusion and uncertainty and sorrow tearing at him as he faced the Council had… just flown away with that weight. He wasn’t a ‘nobody’ in this room, in this house.

He was Scratch McGee.

He had a best friend, and two (three?) good friends. He liked bread and ice cream and comedy, and thought the Crazy Carl movies were overrated, and got into arguments about it. He’d had a sleepover, and ridden a motorcycle, and hadn’t done pottery yet but still kind of wanted to try. He had a family that loved him, and a house, and a town.

Maybe he’d been someone before Scratch. But Scratch had a life too, and it was pretty darn good. A forgotten past didn’t make his present any less real. He had experiences and fun and wants and dreams, like any living person.

Like now, in fact. After dealing with the headache that was the Council, he dreamed of leftover meatloaf and a nap on the couch.

Maybe his past would come up again. Maybe not. But in the meantime, he’d enjoy being Scratch McGee.

 END

[adamwatchesmovies]

Bad Genius (2017)

No matter how difficult your studies might’ve been, they’ll seem like a walk in the park after Bad Genius. The cultural pressures imposed on the young protagonist make you understand why this story about an important test turns into a heist.

Brilliant Lynn (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying) is accepted into a prestigious school. She doesn’t realize that her scholarship covered only the initial application fees, leaving her father to struggle to afford a number of additional payments that weren’t disclosed intially. Out of guilt, Lynn agrees to help some of her friends cheat during their exams, which turns into a highly profitable endeavor. As her clientele grows, so do the stakes, culminating in an elaborate scheme to steal the answers for the STIC.

The culture Bad Genius is based in makes this more than a generic heist film. While there is pressure on everyone to get good grades, the school Lynn attends takes it to another level. After Lynn and Bank (Chanon Santinatornkul) perform well in a TV competition that pits schools against each other, a gigantic banner with their portraits and achievements is hung on the side of the skyscraper-like learning institution for all to see. Talk about pressure. With the corrupt academic officials basically coercing her father into giving them more money, you can see why she succumbs to temptation and decides to help Grace (Eisaya Hosuwan). That leads to Lynn helping Grace and her boyfriend Pat (Teeradon Supapunpinyo) cheat, which leads to loads of people wanting her "help" too. There could’ve been a slight problem with this story. You might care about Lynn but all of her friends are spoiled rich idiots who couldn’t answer a multiple-choice exam if their gift of a brand new car depended on it, so where are the stakes? Thankfully, writers Tanida Hantaweewatana, Vasudhorn Piyaromna and Nattawut Poonpiriya (who also directs) are aware of this potential issue. They team Lynn up with Bank (Chanon Santinatornkul), who also desperately needs the money. He's also from a lower caste, in a country that would never give him or Lynn the chance to move up if it wasn't for this scheme.

Another element that makes Bad Genius unique is that it isn’t all about stealing the STIC answers. At first, the movie is just about Lynn figuring out how she’ll pass her messages to her classmates without the teachers figuring out what’s going on. To anyone who ever read Naruto - or watched the animated series - it’ll remind you of one of the very first chapters, where all of these wild techniques are used to do what is really just a mundane task. The thing is, the tests feel big because of what it means to the people involved.

That's great and the performances are strong. You wouldn’t even know most of the young actors are relatively inexperienced. Then, there’s the direction by Poonpiriya. The film begins with Lynn as she's being confronted about cheating on the STIC. You think the movie is spoiling itself but actually, it’s pulling a fast one on you and when we get to the reveal, it's so good I kind of want any aspiring screenwriters to see this movie just so they can add a new trick to their arsenal.

One aspect of the film that doesn’t quite match the rest is the conclusion. There’s one particular character whose allegiance changes drastically towards the end and while it isn’t completely out of nowhere, it sort of makes you wish the whole film had been done from their point of view. At the very least, you wish they had gotten more screentime so we'd seen more of their journey. There are also a few moments where the tension feels like it’s being ramped up artificially. A cell phone vibrates. Its owner is afraid to pick up because they know the message they've received is incriminating… but the person looking at them doesn’t know that. If they just looked at the phone and casually turned the screen off after two seconds, no one would be the wiser. Their reaction makes you frustrated.

Bad Genius does a terrific job making what should be a no-stakes, boring scene - students taking an exam - into a compelling drama. That alone makes it delightful. While this movie or the true events that inspired it might not get directly remade by Hollywood, it's only a matter of time before someone takes inspiration from it. I say check out Bad Genius before it’s the cool thing to do. (Original Thai with English subtitles, February 4, 2022)

[realcatalina]

Anne Boleyn’s French hood

There are many versions of Anne Boleyn’s portrait with black french hood, lined by two rows pearls. It’s always same exact french hood. There is no change in design. Except in one case:

The one which is part of The Moseley Miniature set, has different French hood. The entire set is assumed to be 19th century made. However, I seriously doubt the Anne Boleyn’s miniature is of such date.

 It actually is in full colours but I couldn’t find close up in colour.

But even in black and white version, the details are astonishing. 

It is only one which has row of big pearls at back and small ones at front, and also the shape of french hood’s at back is in historically accurate way, which I don’t think any of the copies show:

(Although being black on black it might be hard to spot and without knowing it’s supposed to be there, it could have been altered long ago)

You might think this little detail is not accurate, but on bright enough paintings, it is obviously there! 

Though sometimes styled bit differently. I believe there were variations on how woman could wear it. Holbein’s paintings and sketches have this detail:

But do recreations have this? Do copies? Rarely. Because they don’t know that much how the real thing was constructed. 

And the most shocking thing about this, is this is not 1520s french hood:

Its design fits perfectly between fashion of mid 1520s and late 1530s/early 1540s. So this is most likely her as Queen! Not as single lady!

Each detail, each component of French hood-perfect fit for those times, flawless.

I am going to make very bold statement here. 

Imo, there isn’t any depiction of Anne Boleyn’s French hood as accurate as this miniature! 

It could be exceptionally well-made copy. True, few  artists indeed could make such great copy. But we have to consider all the options. Because there might be another detail, which is not something you’d expect from copy, or at least not late copy.

In coloured version, you can see the vividness of blue in background:

Allow me to explain, why that is  very significant.

Ultramarine pigment was once the most expensive blue pigment in the world. 

There were substitues-but they never got the shade just right. Even the artificial ultramarine is slightly different from natural ultramarine pigment. Their particles slightly vary and when light hits natural ultramarine, it looks different. Only slightly, but different. It’s very subtle difference.

But to me, this one looks to me like done from natural ultramarine pigment and that was very expensive. Some famous painters could never afford it!

So whomever had this miniature made paid big money to have it done.

Which makes me believe that this is either original from life, or posthumous copy done during reign of Elizabeth I. Because her daughter could certainly pay for it, or somebody might have intended it as gift to Elizabeth.

After Elizabeth’s reign, it is highly unlikely anybody would bother using such expensive pigment. So imo it’s 16th century miniature.

Either way, there are many other surviving portraits and miniature portraits by Tudor court painters of this period. So for experts, after close exhaminiation, it shouldn’t be that hard to determine who created it! And that could then hint to when it was made and if it is indeed original or copy. 

Just please don’t dismiss it as copy because it doesn’t look as the paintings of her you think you know and she doesn’t look pretty enough!

Miniature paintings are notoriously unflattering. If you compare full scale paintings and miniatures of anybody, almost always miniature makes person look horrible.

I hope you enjoyed it.

[spoekelse]

Great news everybody! New evil weeaboo tech guy just dropped! And my favourite image is applicable once again!

So, November 6th was a sort of holiday for the Sword Art Online community. Like with Blade Runner, which took place in the distant future of 2019, Sword Art Online began on November 6th, 2022.

(Sword Art Online is a science fiction isekai novel series that was adapted into anime, manga, movies, and games.)

On this fabled day, gamers put on their NerveGear VR headsets, devices that connected to the brain to provide a “full dive” virtual reality experience. But once they logged on, they found out that they couldn’t log out. The creator’s avatar announced to them that if they tried to take the headset off, they would die, and that if they died in the game, they’d die in real life too. The headset would use microwaves to fry the player’s brain.

So what did our guy do?

“The good news is that we are halfway to making a true NerveGear. The bad news is that so far, I have only figured out the half that kills you,” Luckey said.

THE FOOL COULD ONLY FIGURE OUT THE KILLING HALF

You will never be Akihiko Kayaba, you slimy nerd

And as is par for the course, he completely missed the point of Sword Art Online.

Aside from his predictably anarcho-capitalist political views, he is co-founder of defence contractor Anduril Industries

Any defence contractor is naturally disgusting, but this one is deliciously ironic, too! Because what do they specialise in? According to LinkedIn, "national security, defense technology, and artificial intelligence". They use AI in drones for border security. And the villains of Sword Art Online's 4th arc are American defence contractors who want to steal the AI technology developed by fictional company Rath to use to pilot drones.

Anyway, he’s the one who made the deal with Facebook “Meta”, to sell Oculus to them while retaining a huge stake in the company. Before he sold it to Facebook, the Oculus Quest 2 was the affordable VR headset, as it included the necessary computing power, so you didn’t need to connect it to your own device. However, then he made the Facebook deal, to help Zuckerberg’s Metaverse take off. The Oculus Quest 2 is now the Meta Quest 2, and if you buy it, Facebook gets access to all of your data and will surveil you while you use it. You can still buy a version not connected to Meta- rebranded as being “for business use”, and it’s functionally the same- but it costs double. This move was to force the Metaverse onto people.

Basically, he's saying "one day you will be able to die in the Metaverse <3".

I hope he puts on his headset and it kills him.

[bradleymarshall]

I’m in a deep state of mind

Like under the water

Existential

Not depressed

After that movie

38 million civilian deaths and 15 million military deaths in ww2 alone

And every one of them was afraid to die like you and me

Imagine the guilt surviving while all your friends are dead

Life has little worth on the battlefield

Almost redundant to say

Does our pain compare today

For the man who killed himself on the train tracks in Mordialloc where I was born

Maybe he couldn’t afford to eat in our economic crises and couldn’t Bare being hungry or being responsible for his kids

Of course it doesn’t compare to ww2

But it’s still a death

Imagine 10 million military and 10 million civilian deaths in ww1

2000,000 people who were all afraid of the emptiness and blackness after you stop breathing and you’re heart stops beating

It feels fake this fake world we live in where everyone is artificially safe

One catastrophe

And we’re all back to being barbarians again

Raping and murdering each other

[jcmarchi]

Unlocking new science with devices that control electric power - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/unlocking-new-science-with-devices-that-control-electric-power-technology-org/

Unlocking new science with devices that control electric power - Technology Org

Mo Mirvakili PhD ’17 was in the middle of an experiment as a postdoc at MIT when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Grappling with restricted access to laboratory facilities, he transformed his bathroom into a makeshift lab. Arranging a piece of plywood over the bathtub to support power sources and measurement devices, he conducted a study that was later published in Science Robotics, one of the top journals in the field.

The adversity made for a good story, but the truth is that it didn’t take a global pandemic to force Mirvakili to build the equipment he needed to run his experiments. Even when working in some of the most well-funded labs in the world, he needed to piece together tools to bring his experiments to life.

“My journey reflects a broader truth: With determination and resourcefulness, many of us can achieve remarkable things,” he says. “So many people don’t have access to labs yet have great ideas. We need to make it easier for them to bring their experiments to life.”

That’s the idea behind Seron Electronics, a company Mirvakili founded to democratize scientific experimentation. Seron develops scientific equipment that precisely sources and measures power, characterizes materials, and integrates data into a customizable software platform.

By making sophisticated experiments more accessible, Seron aims to spur a new wave of innovation across fields as diverse as microelectronics, clean energy, optics, and biomedicine.

“Our goal is to become one of the leaders in providing accurate and affordable solutions for researchers,” Mirvakili says. “This vision extends beyond academia to include companies, governments, nonprofits, and even high school students. With Seron’s devices, anyone can conduct high-quality experiments, regardless of their background or resources.”

Feeling the need for constant power

Mirvakili earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, followed by a PhD in mechanical engineering under MIT Professor Ian Hunter, which involved developing a class of high-performance thermal artificial muscles, including nylon artificial muscles. During that time, Mirvakili needed to precisely control the amount of energy that flowed through his experimental setups, but he couldn’t find anything online that would solve his problem.

“I had access to all sorts of high-end equipment in our lab and the department,” Mirvakili recalls. “It’s all the latest, state-of-the-art stuff. But I had to bundle all these outside tools together for my work.”

After completing his PhD, Mirvakili joined Institute Professor Bob Langer’s lab as a postdoc, where he worked directly with Langer on a totally different problem in biomedical engineering. In Langer’s famously prolific lab, he saw researchers struggling to control temperatures at the microscale for a device that was encapsulating drugs.

Mirvakili realized the researchers were ultimately struggling with the same set of problems: the need to precisely control electric current, voltage, and power. Those are also problems Mirvakili has seen in his more recent research into energy storage and solar cells. After speaking with researchers at conferences from around the world to confirm the need was widespread, he started Seron Electronics.

Seron calls the first version of its products the SE Programmable Power Platforms. The platforms allow users to source and measure precisely defined quantities of electrical voltage, current, power, and charge through a desktop application with minimal signal interference, or noise.

The equipment can be used to study things like semiconductor devices, actuators, and energy storage devices, or to precisely charge batteries without damaging their performance.

The equipment can also be used to study material performance because it can measure how materials react to precise electrical stimulation at a high resolution, and for quality control because it can test chips and flag problems.

The use cases are varied, but Seron’s overarching goal is to enable more innovation faster.

“Because our system is so intuitive, you reduce the time to get results,” Mirvakili says. “You can set it up in less than five minutes. It’s plug-and-play. Researchers tell us it speeds things up a lot.”

New frontiers

In a recent paper Mirvakili coauthored with MIT research affiliate Ehsan Haghighat, Seron’s equipment provided constant power to a thermal artificial muscle that integrated machine learning to give it a sort of muscle memory. In another study Mirvakili was not involved in, a nonprofit research organization used Seron’s equipment to identify a new, sustainable sensor material they are in the process of commercializing.

Many uses of the machines have come as a surprise to Seron’s team, and they expect to see a new wave of applications when they release a cheaper, portable version of Seron’s machines this summer. That could include the development of new bedside monitors for patients that can detect diseases, or remote sensors for field work.

Mirvakili thinks part of the beauty of Seron’s devices is that people in the company don’t have to dream up the experiments themselves. Instead, they can focus on providing powerful scientific tools and let the research community decide on the best ways to use them.

“Because of the size and the cost of this new device, it will really open up the possibilities for researchers,” Mirvakili says. “Anyone who has a good idea should be able to turn that idea into reality with our equipment and solutions. In my mind, the applications are really unimaginable and endless.”

Written by Zach Winn

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[sunaleisocial]

Unlocking new science with devices that control electric power

New Post has been published on https://sunalei.org/news/unlocking-new-science-with-devices-that-control-electric-power/

Unlocking new science with devices that control electric power

Mo Mirvakili PhD ’17 was in the middle of an experiment as a postdoc at MIT when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Grappling with restricted access to laboratory facilities, he decided to transform his bathroom into a makeshift lab. Arranging a piece of plywood over the bathtub to support power sources and measurement devices, he conducted a study that was later published in Science Robotics, one of the top journals in the field.

The adversity made for a good story, but the truth is that it didn’t take a global pandemic to force Mirvakili to build the equipment he needed to run his experiments. Even when working in some of the most well-funded labs in the world, he needed to piece together tools to bring his experiments to life.

“My journey reflects a broader truth: With determination and resourcefulness, many of us can achieve remarkable things,” he says. “There are so many people who don’t have access to labs yet have great ideas. We need to make it easier for them to bring their experiments to life.”

That’s the idea behind Seron Electronics, a company Mirvakili founded to democratize scientific experimentation. Seron develops scientific equipment that precisely sources and measures power, characterizes materials, and integrates data into a customizable software platform.

By making sophisticated experiments more accessible, Seron aims to spur a new wave of innovation across fields as diverse as microelectronics, clean energy, optics, and biomedicine.

“Our goal is to become one of the leaders in providing accurate and affordable solutions for researchers,” Mirvakili says. “This vision extends beyond academia to include companies, governments, nonprofits, and even high school students. With Seron’s devices, anyone can conduct high-quality experiments, regardless of their background or resources.”

Feeling the need for constant power

Mirvakili earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, followed by a PhD in mechanical engineering under MIT Professor Ian Hunter, which involved developing a class of high-performance thermal artificial muscles, including nylon artificial muscles. During that time, Mirvakili needed to precisely control the amount of energy that flowed through his experimental setups, but he couldn’t find anything online that would solve his problem.

“I had access to all sorts of high-end equipment in our lab and the department,” Mirvakili recalls. “It’s all the latest, state-of-the-art stuff. But I had to bundle all these outside tools together for my work.”

After completing his PhD, Mirvakili joined Institute Professor Bob Langer’s lab as a postdoc, where he worked directly with Langer on a totally different problem in biomedical engineering. In Langer’s famously prolific lab, he saw researchers struggling to control temperatures at the microscale for a device that was encapsulating drugs.

Mirvakili realized the researchers were ultimately struggling with the same set of problems: the need to precisely control electric current, voltage, and power. Those are also problems Mirvakili has seen in his more recent research into energy storage and solar cells. After speaking with researchers at conferences from around the world to confirm the need was widespread, he started Seron Electronics.

Seron calls the first version of its products the SE Programmable Power Platforms. The platforms allow users to source and measure precisely defined quantities of electrical voltage, current, power, and charge through a desktop application with minimal signal interference, or noise.

The equipment can be used to study things like semiconductor devices, actuators, and energy storage devices, or to precisely charge batteries without damaging their performance.

The equipment can also be used to study material performance because it can measure how materials react to precise electrical stimulation at a high resolution, and for quality control because it can test chips and flag problems.

The use cases are varied, but Seron’s overarching goal is to enable more innovation faster.

“Because our system is so intuitive, you reduce the time to get results,” Mirvakili says. “You can set it up in less than five minutes. It’s plug-and-play. Researchers tell us it speeds things up a lot.”

New frontiers

In a recent paper Mirvakili coauthored with MIT research affiliate Ehsan Haghighat, Seron’s equipment provided constant power to a thermal artificial muscle that integrated machine learning to give it a sort of muscle memory. In another study Mirvakili was not involved in, a nonprofit research organization used Seron’s equipment to identify a new, sustainable sensor material they are in the process of commercializing.

Many uses of the machines have come as a surprise to Seron’s team, and they expect to see a new wave of applications when they release a cheaper, portable version of Seron’s machines this summer. That could include the development of new bedside monitors for patients that can detect diseases, or remote sensors for field work.

Mirvakili thinks part of the beauty of Seron’s devices is that people in the company don’t have to dream up the experiments themselves. Instead, they can focus on providing powerful scientific tools and let the research community decide on the best ways to use them.

“Because of the size and the cost of this new device, it will really open up the possibilities for researchers,” Mirvakili says. “Anyone who has a good idea should be able to turn that idea into reality with our equipment and solutions. In my mind, the applications are really unimaginable and endless.”

[nicklloydnow]

“As Erik Loomis retells the story, mission commander Jerry Carr, science pilot Ed Gibson and pilot William Pogue were in the midst of what would become a record 84-day mission, the last before the spacecraft was to be decommissioned, when they rebelled against NASA’s remorseless work schedule.

They knew before going up that the pace would be punishing -- 84 days of 16 hours each without a break, filled with minute-by-minute scheduling for observations of the sun and Comet Kohoutek, medical tests, photographing of the Earth below, and four spacewalks.

Other astronauts on the ground team, including the commanders of the previous two Skylab missions, advised NASA that the plans were unreasonable. None of the three astronauts on the Skylab 4 mission had been in space before, but NASA hadn’t factored in any time for them to become acclimated to conditions aloft. They were plainly overscheduled. In fact, Pogue almost immediately came down with debilitating nausea.

(…)

Almost instantly the crew fell behind schedule, and with no give in the workload, couldn’t catch up. After a month, Gibson was grousing that the mission resembled “a 33-day fire drill.” Carr informed ground control, “We would never work 16 hours a day for 84 straight days on the ground, and we should not be expected to do it here in space.”

The crew gained the reputation of “complainers,” and their exchanges with Houston lost their civility. Finally, a couple of days after Christmas, Carr wired a manifesto earthward: “We need more time to rest. We need a schedule that is not so packed. We don’t want to exercise after a meal. We need to get things under control.”

Houston’s response was chilly: The crew had to meet its schedule. On Dec. 28, the crew staged its strike. (In some accounts, it’s called a “mutiny,” which is surely too harsh.) Carr turned off the radio link with the ground and crew members spent a full day relaxing, taking things at their own pace and pursuing projects of their own.

The ground crew, stuck at the far end of a dead radio hookup, had no choice but to fume impotently. When Skylab came back online, NASA was much more amenable to discussion. Houston agreed to afford the crew full rest and meal breaks, and replace its minute-by-minute schedules with a list of tasks to be completed, leaving it to the crew to manage its own time.

(…)

But the one-day strike did force a lasting reconsideration of crew management upon NASA, contends Samir Chopra of Brooklyn College. NASA treated the crew as expendable instruments of its schedule, but Skylab 4 showed that when push came to shove the astronauts had all the control in their own hands.

Once in space, they were no longer replaceable robots and had to be treated as responsible partners if the mission was to be completed successfully. “Highly trained military types and scientists fully convinced of the value of their work are likely to push back when placed in an artificially controlled, too-tightly-regulated environment,” Chopra observed. “The lessons here are not just for manned space flight, but for any workplace environment that approximates its conditions, whether in space or on Earth.”

Loomis concludes, however, that the lessons of Skylab 4 have limited application. It’s not common for employees to have the control over management that the crew could exercise merely by turning off their radio, threatening work valued a millions of dollars a day. There wasn’t much to be learned even by 1970s labor activists from the strike in space.

“It’s hard to make new demands of employers when those employers are just going to move the jobs to Mexico, as was happening throughout the 1970s,” Loomis writes. Union organizing was heading into a dark age then, the Skylab strike notwithstanding, thanks to “the rise of conservatism and the growth of the powerful corporate lobby with the open intent of crushing the American labor movement,” he adds. We’re still living with the consequences.”

[pacific-silkscapes]

Using Artificial Plants, Trees, and Silk Floral Arrangements during Home Renovation

silk orchid arrangement in a residential home Home renovation is all about revamping the space according to your taste and aesthetics while still maintaining functionality. One of the significant aspects when it comes to revamping is decorating, and it transforms the visuals of a place with ease. Plants and flowers serve as a refreshing, lively element in any decoration, however, keeping live plants can be quite demanding at times, especially for those who have little to no experience in gardening, and they require a lot of maintenance. With the help of the latest technological advancements, we have managed to create artificial plants and trees, silk floral arrangements, and faux succulents that are as good as the real ones. Nowadays, artificial plants and flowers have become increasingly popular, allowing people the opportunity to add greenery to their homes without worrying about the hassles and expenses of live plants. Incorporating artificial plants during residential remodeling will guarantee that your home is full of life and vibrancy. Here are some reasons why artificial plants might be a good fit for your home renovation project: - Maintenance-free: Artificial trees, silk floral arrangements, and faux succulents don't require any maintenance or care, making sure they stay vibrant and full of life all year round. This makes them a perfect fit for people who may be too busy to look after live plants or those who have pets that like to chew on plants. - Versatility: Artificial plants can be used in any part of the house, whether it be the living room, bedroom, bathroom, or kitchen. They can be used for various purposes, including adding some greenery to indoor spaces, hiding unsightly corners, or decorating empty walls. - Realistic Looks: Modern-day Artificial plants and custom trees display almost realistic and lifelike features, from the texture and quality of leaves to the petals, allowing you to bring nature inside without any inconvenience. The guest couldn't even tell the difference! - Affordability: Artificial plants and trees are affordable and readily available compared to live plants, which can be quite expensive or hard to come by. - Sustainable: Artificial plants are an ideal solution for those who care about the environment but don't want to compromise on home aesthetics. Incorporating artificial plants into your home's interior design means that you can contribute to the environment's preservation. In conclusion, artificial plants and trees, silk floral arrangements, and faux succulents can provide the same aesthetic experience as real plants, without any of the worries or hassles associated with live plants. They offer unique solutions to the challenges of living with and caring for plants in our homes. With their portability, realistic looks, versatility, and hassle-free maintenance, artificial plants indeed are an excellent addition to any residential renovation project. For more information regarding remodeling, contact RL Remodeling. For help with artificial plants, trees, and green walls, feel free to contact Pacific Silkscapes. Read the full article

[embossross]

From His Mind to Yours

Chapter 5 >> Chapter 6 >> masterlist

✣ REPOSTING because it got eaten in the tags

✣ Pairing: Hanma x AFAB fem!Reader

✣ Warning: 18+, minors DNI; unhealthy relationships & dark content

✣ Chapter CW: Exhibitionism (Hanma), Voyeurism (reader), oral (m receiving – not with reader), conversations about drugs (meth)

✣ Story CWs: patient/doctor relationships; smut (oral, ptv, pta, etc.), degradation, stalking, torture (not of y/n), murder, discussions of trauma and abuse, drug use, and more

✣ Synopsis: Forced into therapy, Hanma expects to waste his time and yours, but you’re not about to let the chance of a high-profile and higher paying patient slip through your grasp. The fact that you’re both attracted to each other doesn’t hurt either.

✣ Word Count: 7.5k+

Diners line up outside the door of the ikazya, only to be turned away. You were lucky to secure a low table for two with tatami mat seating. On a Tuesday at seven in the evening, the bar hums with office workers sharing an obligatory after-work drink. The dim lights force a strange kind of intimacy among colleagues that could not survive under the artificial LED lights of the office. You hoped some of that intimacy would possess you and your companion, but you are disappointed.

Half-empty dishes of gomae-ae, kushiyaki, and hiyyayako litter the table. Sake and beer sweat through glass cups to leave wet rings on the wood. There is a bunched-up napkin from where you spilled soy sauce earlier.

The meal is ending, but you have yet to bridge any of the distance between you and your companion: Miyasato Rie.

A senior of just one year at university, Miyasato has existed at the periphery of your existence for over a decade. In school, your classmates considered her a conscientious senior if a little disingenuous. She purposefully sought out all the first-year psych students, offering study tips, the best spots for a cheap beer, a sympathetic ear for the homesick. She helped you find your first apartment. With her advice, you survived the first few years of university. You are pretty sure she detests you.

“You didn’t finish your dinner,” Miyasato chastises, gesturing at the dishes you picked at earlier.

“I don’t have much of an appetite,” you say.

“Hmm, I suppose that was always true. Remember in school? You would never accept invitations to go out with everyone to dinner,” Miyasato says.

“I couldn’t afford it,” you say.

It was true then, when every yen you earned was shuffled straight into tuition or rent payments. With a full bank account, it’s no excuse now. You lost your appetite ten days ago along with your dignity in the back of a town car. You can’t eat. Coffee and chocolate parfaits are all you can manage. Like your stomach will only accept the very sweet or the very bitter.

“Well, I was surprised when you called me, but we should do this more often. We live so near each other, and it’s lovely to talk to another therapist. My husband tries, but he just can’t understand what it’s like to listen to patients’ problems all day! I don’t want to come home and listen to his next,” Miyasato laughs.

Angular cheekbones and premature sunspots age Miyasato by at least ten years, and you think the lovely young woman who would bully you into attending social get-togethers is gone. You feel sorry for forcing your company on an old acquaintance, not sure what you hoped to get out of this encounter.

Following your brush with death, the emptiness in your life echoes. The unlived in apartment, the cold office, the uncelebrated weekends. You want to regain some connection with the outside world. During university, at Miyasato’s prodding, you were almost a person in the world with acquaintances that bordered on friends.

Now, when you reflect on your life, you feel like you are at an airport, helpless as everyone whisks by you on a moving walkway. No matter how you hurry to catch up and join them, they glide further out of reach. Some people were born on the moving walkway, but you were born on the cold, hard ground. No father, a mother who refused to love you, no money to survive. How could you hope to ever join the moving walkway and its inhabitants, loved from the moment they were born?

The bill paid, you exit onto a quiet street. The red paper lantern above the shop casts Miyasato in a flushed glow.

“Remember what I told you,” Miyasato says. “About Dr. Kasai. If he doesn’t immediately have any openings, tell him that it’s at my referral. He’ll definitely book you then.”

Dinner was not a complete failure, and you thank Miyasato sincerely for sharing Dr. Kasai’s contact info. He is a therapist specializing in the treatment of other therapists. With no appetite and insomnia that stretches the night into little eternities, you recognize that you need help.

A car door slams, loud enough on the quiet street that you glance up and freeze. There is Hanma. You look away and back, but he is still there, looking at you. No illusion. No coincidence.

You make your excuses to Miyasato, who blinks in offense at the abrupt dismissal before heading in the direction of the subway station. Then, you hurry across the street to where Hanma waits for you.

He is dressed down for the heat in a white t-shirt that highlights the easy flex of his arm muscles and black jeans. The tail of a tattoo peaks from the collar, curling at the base of his throat. He isn’t wearing glasses either, and you wonder whether he is currently blind or wearing contacts that so eerily resemble his own natural shade. One side of his lip is red, too full, a little bruised.

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” you demand.

“You cancelled our appointment,” Hanma says, eyes trailing your figure. Dressed up in a little black dress that ends a few scant centimeters above your knees, you are exposed.

“I did,” you agree.

Hanma sighs. “Look, I wanted to give you something.”

His head and torso disappear into the backseat of his car, and then he returns with a bouquet of flowers tucked into a tall porcelain vase painted with red and gold flowers. Your face must show your skepticism because Hanma forcefully places the offering between your palms. It is heavy.

You aren’t well-versed in flowers or their meanings, preferring to grow herbs and vegetables on your balcony garden, but you can pick out several in the overflowing bouquet. There are sprigs of deep purple lavender, blushing hydrangeas, and most of all, there are rich blue morning glories that look clipped straight from the garden.

“You got me flowers?”

“I’ve been taking the lithium as prescribed for eight days now, and I’ve been filling out your little app, and I’ve even made plans with Hakkai for later this week,” Hanma says.

“So, what is this supposed to be? An apology? A peace offering?” Your nose grazes a petal, seeking a sniff of morning glory, but you rear back at the feeling of plastic. “These are fake. They aren’t even real?”

“Exactly. They’ll last longer,” Hanma says.

The dead thing – no, not dead, because dead implies they were ever alive – weighs heavily in your hands. You don’t trust Hanma’s act of contrition. Every piece of this act is calculated to some purpose, most likely to convince you to resume your sessions.

When you reach for a kernel of the rage that drove you before, you can’t find the spark of it. All your anger towards Hanma was used up when you fucked him like a thing possessed, lapping at his blood like milk. You thought of him in the days since, wondered at your next step, but mostly you moped about your unfulfilled life, not much energy spared for Hanma’s place in it.

“This is not appropriate. I cancelled our session for a reason. Now, please call my office during business hours, and my receptionist will help you reschedule,” you say.

“But we’re both here now,” Hanma says, and he smiles in a way that is likely meant to charm, but only makes your stomach twist. You remember he smiled when he pulled the trigger, too.

“I cancelled because I have plans, Hanma-san. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

You move to step off the sidewalk and cross the street, but a bike hurtles past and stops your progress. That one moment of pause is enough for Hanma to try again.

“What plans do you have now?” Hanma argues. “Your only plan was to get dinner with your friend. If you leave now, you’ll have hours with nothing to do but sit in your empty apartment and wait for the sun to rise. Why not come with me instead? At least that way you won’t be lonely.”

There are no pedestrians on the secluded street, but you can hear the low rumble of conversation and laughter slipping through the cracked door of the bar. You live on the tenth floor of your apartment building. The only sounds that reach you there are car horns, sirens, and the roar of an airplane drifting overhead.

You know that you and Hanma are not alike. Not really. The differences stack up like used plates at a sushi bar. He is mercurial, dangerous, uncaring. He feels strongly and acts just as strongly in turn. But, beneath those differences lies a camaraderie, a shared emptiness. You are both life’s window shoppers, looking in through dirty glass at the lives you can’t afford to lead.

Nothing waits for you at home.

“Besides, I have questions about the lithium. Surely, you don’t want me to get lithium toxicity. It sounds dangerous,” Hanma goads.

“You want to discuss your medication?” you say slowly.

Hanma bends at the waist until his face is level with yours. “Yes.”

“I suppose I could accommodate you this once.” Seeing Hanma’s smile tilt too close to satisfaction, you rush to add. “But you’ll need to pay me double for this session. Out of your pocket, not Kisaki-san’s, as it’s your fault I cancelled the session.”

Hanma thumbs a stack of bills, so crisp and pretty you salivate, from his wallet. “This should do it.”

“And I have conditions,” you add, though you wait to pocket the money before continuing. “First, you will never again so much as indicate, no insinuate, that you have a gun while you are with me. If I see it, we’re done. If you gesture to it, we’re done. And I mean completely. Failure to meet these conditions, and I will call Kisaki-san myself to terminate our arrangement for good.”

“A gun? How would I even get a gun in Japan?” Hanma jokes, a tacit acceptance.

“Second, I have a safe word. And get that look off your face. A safe word for our sessions. If I say…Anpanman the session is immediately over. No discussion, no debate. You leave, and I call you to reschedule not the other way around.” You wait for Hanma’s solemn nod before continuing. “Third, no following me around like a stalker. I don’t know how you knew I’d be here today, but that’s the last of it. We meet at my office or a previously agreed upon spot. No finding me on the streets like a creep.”

“It’s really just a coincidence,” Hanma argues.

You shift the vase onto your hip so that you can point a finger at him. “And finally, and most importantly, you do not touch me.”

“Without your permission, yeah, yeah.”

“No. You do not touch me. Period. Ever. Do we understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” Hanma agrees.

He opens the passenger door with a chivalrous flourish, and you worry that he accepted your deal far too easily. Today he drives neither the Bentley from Hell or the town car from Hell…and actually, why do you keep getting in cars with this man when nothing good ever seems to come from it? You wonder if he isn’t running a chop shop with the number of vehicles he flaunts.

Hand on the top of the door, you pause. “Wait. Are you wearing contacts? Or are you blind right now?”

Hanma smiles widely. “Just get in the car, Doc.”

Against your better judgment, you do.

--

There are two Tokyos. During the day, one hides beneath the other, but at night they converge. The intersection where Hanma belongs squarely to the seedy underbelly when the sun goes down, the Tokyo of nightmares. Touts throng among the crowd, waving flyers and promises of pussy. Every face is underlit in neon, a sinister glow to their features.

Hanma leads you towards a storefront with blacked out windows. Hanging on each is a poster of women in bathing suits, posing with their tongues out or eyes crossed. This is the pleasure district.

“Absolutely not,” you say, stalling to a halt outside the entrance. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I refuse.”

“Oh, come on, Doc. I don’t mean anything by it. I just have business with the owner. We will be in and out,” Hanma says.

“In and out,” you warn.

Hanma slips away to speak to the owner, leaving you seated at the bar. You have never been in a strip club before, and the interior provides a feast for your eyes. Arranged in the western style, there is a single stage at the center of the room and table seating for patrons around it. The only other place to sit is the bar, where rows of liquor hang in glass cabinets. Panels of mirrors surround the stage, so that as a woman toys with the hem of her slip, drawing the fabric higher and higher, the mirror reflects her image out in every direction.

You should have refused Hanma at the door. Already, you are slipping back into the pattern of conceding too much to this man. Despite his claim that he needs therapy today, you barely spoke on the car ride over, merely discussing his recently improved sleeping schedule. Now, he has left you to fend for yourself at a strip club.

The woman on stage shimmies out of her slip entirely, revealing a lithe body and two impossibly large breasts. You don’t consider yourself a prude, but you find yourself staring hard at the bar, anything to avoid looking at her bullseye-shaped nipples.

A shadow appears at your side, tall and lean. You glance up expecting Hanma, but this is a stranger. Dressed in an impeccably tailored suit and towering over you at well over 180 centimeters, he looks like a model. How else to explain the hair-dyed violet?

“Can I buy you a drink?” the man asks. There is a special mortification in being propositioned at a titty bar.

“I can’t. I’m working,” you say, and then cringe when you realize what that implies. “I mean, I don’t work here…I’m a…never mind. I just can’t drink right now.”

The stranger motions to the bartender, who drops the customer he is actively serving to hurry over.

“A bottle of water for the lady,” he orders.

The gesture of respect is ingratiating enough that you shift on your bar stool to open up your space a bit. He slots into the opening without hesitation. It is the subtle language of flirtation, and you can tell he is fluent.

“I saw you come in with a man. Who would leave a woman like you all alone in a place like this?”

“An asshole,” you mutter under your breath, and then louder for this man’s benefit. “We’re not together, and we’re not staying. He has business with someone here. He’s going to be in and out.”

“What kind of business would a respectable man have at a strip club?” he laughs.

You shrug. The intricacies of Hanma’s work are interesting, but you make it a point to know as little as possible about the incriminating details.

“Is this your first time here? You seem…uncomfortable,” the man says.

“You can tell?” you ask dryly. Your fingers dance up and down the side of the water bottle, painting patterns in the condensation. “This isn’t much of a place for a woman. I feel sorry for the girls who work here.”

The man turns around, so that his elbows lean against the bar and casts a surveying eye around the club and the stage where a woman is now griding her panty-covered crotch into the hardwood. Sweat and glitter cover her body in a filthy sheen. Her eyes are closed, and you can only imagine what she thinks in moments like this.

“It’s true that many of the women here are exploited. But there’s something raw, something free about their work, isn’t there? To strip away all of society’s pretenses and reveal the base animal underneath? She knows the truth about men, about people after working here. She knows who the devoted family man truly is, who the buttoned-up businessman hides beneath his tie. And that knowledge equals a kind of freedom, a kind of power. It’s up to her how she wants to use it. That’s freedom.”

“Maybe for some women, but not for me,” you say coldly. This stranger is a honeyed devil in your ear, promising that at the other end of abandoning self-control and dignity lies paradise. It is a convenient myth, and he makes it sound dangerously convincing.

He smiles at you, eyes hooded and attentive, no different than when he trained on the stripper’s naked body, but then he nods. “Well, it was nice to meet you. Maybe you’ll let me buy you a drink next time.”

The man leaves, and you watch him walk right through the front door and out of sight. Very charming, you think, but off somehow. He reminds you of someone, but you can’t quite place it.

No one else approaches you in the five minutes you wait for Hanma to conclude his business. You polish off the water bottle in four, grateful to the stranger as you gulp down the final drops.

When Hanma returns, he doesn’t even meet you at the bar, beckoning with his head for you to join him at a table near the stage. The silent nod, disrespectful, arrogant, sets your teeth on edge. He is so confident that you will participate in your own shame, let him make a mockery of your work, that you won’t ever pull the trigger on him, the way he will on you. You don’ want to go home to your apartment, but you know you can’t stay here any longer.

“This is not in and out, Hanma-san,” you say through gritted teeth as you approach him.

“The owner is getting something for me,” Hanma says. “We just have to wait. Sit down and enjoy the show.”

A new woman saunters on stage to jeers of appreciation from the crowd. Hanma grins wickedly at her legs as they strut by.

“Anpanman,” you blurt out.

The club doesn’t quiet at your invocation of your safe word, but the turmoil in your chest does. You have the power to set your own boundaries. Like a child, Hanma may hurtle himself bodily at each one to test for weakness, but you can reinforce yourself like a castle and stay tall.

“Fair enough,” Hanma says, and the easy submission sends your mind reeling. You thought he would kick and scream and break your conditions. “Do you want a ride home? Or can you make it to the subway alright?”

“I can make it to the station,” you say slowly.

“Alright, I’ll wait for your call to reschedule,” Hanma says.

Already, his eyes return to the dancer on stage. Without his glasses, his scrutinous eyes are twice as intense. You can see the stage reflected in the black pupils; there is no reflection of your own face.

“Why…why do you want to stay so badly?”

“Like I said, I have to wait for the owner. Plus, believe it or not, but this place serves good food. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.”

Once you watched a documentary that compared pre-modern and modern hunting styles. The trick of trap hunting, it explained, is to camouflage the trap so well that the animal stumbles straight into its death with a smile. Your stomach rumbles from days of fasting. You see the trap, yet you still edge closer.

“I’ll stay but only if we sit over there,” you say, gesturing to the empty table furthest from the stage and its performer. “You need to face away from the stage, too…and you’re buying dinner.”

Hanma snorts, genuinely snorts, a puff of sound from his chest expelled from his nose and says, “Have you considered a career change, Doc? Because you would make a hell of a negotiator. I’ll even put in a good word for you.”

“You can’t afford me,” you sniff.

Stuffed into the corner, you can almost pretend you aren’t at a strip club. The flashing lights are no different than any club you would find in Roppongi, and if you fix your neck in place and focus on Hanma, you can’t see the stage. The music breaks your immersion somewhat, a low, griding bass that settles in your stomach, but the little table where you sit is innocuous.

Hanma orders a plate of chicken wings to share, a beer, and steamed vegetables. He is right that the food here is delicious. Fried and greasy, so that flavor drips onto your tongue. Your hunger must finally be getting the better of you because you find it simple to eat your half of the wings.

“So, you said you wanted to discuss how you’re feeling on lithium,” you prompt as you pick a piece of meat from bone.

“Yeah, or rather, how I don’t feel on lithium.”

“Is it numbing you out?” you ask.

“No, I don’t feel any difference. It’s like you gave me sugar pills or something. I’m going to the damn lab and getting stuck like a pig for bloodwork, and all the while, I don’t feel a damn change,” Hanma says.

“I know you’re used to popping a pill and feeling the effects within the hour, but lithium isn’t like that,” you say. “It takes a month for it to take effect for most people. We want to monitor in the meantime because the difference in dosage between what’s prescribed and lithium toxicity is so narrow, but I don’t expect you to have any real benefits to report for a few weeks yet.”

“And when it does kick in, what should I expect? Because I read through the side effects, and they’re a doozy, Doc. These things better make my dick rock hard and help me grow wings, or I’m going to be disappointed,” Hanma says.

There is a spot of sauce staining his upper lip, which he seems unaware of. He chews on without a care, smearing it further with each bite. You wonder if you should tell him. Decide it’s not your place. Discretely, you wipe your own lips with a napkin.

“The point is to moderate the wild swings up and down that you have in any given day. I looked at your log, and you are all over the place. My hope is that they will help you achieve a more manageable average. Most people remain at a steady baseline from day to day without all these big variations.”

You assigned Hanma the daily log before he threatened both your lives, so you had not expected him to actually follow through. For the past ten days, however, he has steadily logged his moods with little notes to indicate the source of the shift. Favorites include an eight on Friday with the note, ‘pussy,’ and a ten on Sunday with the note, ‘good pussy.’ Other sources that trigger a high or manic episode appear to be hearing a song he likes on the radio, seeing a middle schooler trip on a curb and eat asphalt, and evading a speeding ticket. There are just as many dramatic valleys in his log. Causes range from something as simple as running out of beer or missing a boxing match on TV. What concerns you is how often a peak of ten is followed mere hours later by a craterous one.

“Most people, huh? In my line of work, you don’t see a lot of steady. We must have gathered up all the neurotics in Tokyo,” Hanma says. “What about you though, Doc? Are you most people here?”

“I would say so. I spend most of my day at a steady five with some minor dips up to a six or down to a four. Unless there’s a big exception, I’m not going to leave that zone,” you explain.

A half lie hides in your answer. If you were honest, your baseline dropped to a four recently with a mere papercut pushing you down to a three. Good exceptions are few and far between to the point that you can’t quite remember the last time you were as happy as a six.

Time with Hanma breaks the scale entirely. You can’t say that you are happy or enjoying yourself in his company, but neither can you say that you sustain a bland four like you do throughout the rest of your day. You find your time with him exists in a completely different universe, one with reverse gravity where up is down and north is south.

“Sounds pretty fucking miserable if you ask me,” Hanma says. “Yeah, I sometimes hope a truck takes me out, but I also get to feel the opposite, like the world was made for me. Don’t you wish you spent more time at a ten? Or even just a seven?”

“I guess you’re kind of edging up against that age old question: what is the meaning of life? You actually sound like the Cyrenaics.”

You explain that the Cyrenaics were a Socratic school of thinking in ancient Greece that believed the meaning of life was to maximize the pleasure of every single moment. They argued that because the future was not guaranteed – you could die tomorrow, the unpredictable could tear your best laid plans asunder – it made no sense to do anything but live in the moment.

“It makes sense on paper,” you continue. “If I die tomorrow, don’t I wish I enjoyed every moment of today? But…my mom kind of lived that way, and it ultimately ended with her dying in poverty and agony. The future makes me too anxious. I need to prepare for it, even if that means denying myself something in the moment. Otherwise, I’ll get too worked up to enjoy anything in the present. So, sure I would like to be at a ten more often, but I can’t get there if I’m risking a future one. My brain just doesn’t work that way.”

“I think you just haven’t experienced true pleasure,” Hanma purrs.

“You might want to think that through,” you tease and then remember that you don’t want to remind this man of the pleasure and terror he inflicted upon you.

“I mean it. Real pleasure…it’s addictive. Pain and pleasure have a lot in common. They’re the only two forces in this world that make you exist fully in the present. And I’m talking about true pleasure here, not just a little jolly here or there. True pleasure wipes out everything else. If you have any room in your brain to worry about the future, then you’re feeling something different,” Hanma says.

Once upon a time, you would have dismissed these pretty, seducing words altogether, but you know what he means now after the mind and body games of your last session. There was no moment but the present when you rode his cock, no fear of what came next as you bit through skin to return a fraction of the hurt you felt to him. Thinking back to that time, you don’t remember it being pleasurable in any sense of how you would normally describe the term. Rather, it was transcendent. Not all good, but all-encompassing instead.

“If you never mitigate risk, you will find yourself in a situation where you can’t experience pleasure anymore. Say tomorrow, I quit my job and blow all my money on a shopping spree, that will feel good for a day, and then I’ll be living on the street when rent comes due.” Another example of this philosophy crosses your mind. A necessary reminder that despite the multiple men who have urged you to throw your inhibitions to the wind tonight, there would be consequences to dropping your professional mask. “I think the Epicureans had the right idea of things. They were another school of thought, said that one should maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Though even that I struggle with. No human being could ever get that equation right. Only an omniscient god could aspire to that.”

“You have a tiny, and truly, Doc, I mean miniscule, point there. Delayed gratification is only worth it if the prize is big enough. If I did what I wanted most right now because I might take a bullet tomorrow, that would stop me from getting something one hundred times better in the days to come. Sometimes we have to work for our meal,” Hanma says.

You catch a glimpse of the stripper on stage as she lifts one of her breasts to her mouth and suckles on the nipple. A cacophony of hoots rises up at the lewd act. Heat blossoms in your chest. Hanma’s mouth looks wet from where his beer lingers on his lips, sauce licked away.

“And I plan to eat well,” you toast him, tipping your can of grape soda in his direction. Sometimes you look at Hanma, and all you see is zeroes in your bank account.

“Is that your meaning of life then, Doc? Enriching yourself? And then one day you finally relax and enjoy it?”

“Maybe. I’m more interested in what your meaning of life is,” you counter.

Hanma picks around the bone of a chicken wing, teeth precise as they tear through flesh. A man of endless appetites, he reaches for another.

“I haven’t studied any fancy ideas like you. I don’t know the Epicureans or the whatevers. I don’t know the meaning of life. What I know is what gets me out of bed in the morning. And that’s that there is no alternative. I can’t stay in bed all day, or I’ll die. I can’t stay in bed all day, or I’ll die of boredom. Even if getting out of bed offers nothing better, I have no choice. I don’t think there is a meaning. People just are. We live because we have no choice but to live unless something kills us. And then, we’ll be dead with no choice but to remain dead, same as living.”

You are less studied in “fancy ideas” than Hanma imagines, only taking one elective philosophy course in university. One of your professors suggested you dabble in that side of the human condition as patients often require a grounding purpose to guide their recovery. Still, you recognize in Hanma’s musings the shadow of a real philosophical framework.

“That sounds like pessimistic naturalism. Some nihilist thought considers boredom the inevitable foundation of life. They say nothing humans do is ever meaningful enough to matter, so we suffer from boredom as a result. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s definitely not helpful. So many things already bring you joy, so isn’t it better to recognize that those things are inherently meaningful because they matter to you? That goes back to the mood stabilizers. I want to get you to the point where you can suffer a low period because you know that a high – which is the whole meaning of your life – is around the corner,” you explain.

Inconsiderate of everyone around him, Hanma lights a cigarette. He nods along as he puffs a plume of smoke that dances erotically overhead before disappearing into the neon lights. There is no ashtray at the table, so he dabs the stub into a table napkin.

“Sounds good to me. I know good things are coming,” Hanma says with a nerve-inducing smile.

“What is your goal exactly?”

“Oh no, Doc. That’s classified information,” Hanma tuts. More seriously, he adds, “I’m not sure what I’m going to do after I finally…get what I want. If I still have years of life ahead of me, I can’t picture myself old. I look around at other people and how they define their lives around money or success or family. I already have money and success, have had it since I was young. Nothing left to do there. And, I never had a loving family. Once I’ve done everything there is to do…I don’t know what’s next.”

Sharp pain slices through you, and you realize you were picking the skin of your cuticles raw. A bead of blood wells on your ring finger, and you pop the wound into your mouth. The bleeding stops, but the wound sits open and red. Pointedly, you fold your hands in your lap.

Without a family as a template for how to interact in the world, you often feel formless. There is a very clear schedule that women are expected to follow: it’s okay to worry about your career in your twenties, but your primary responsibility is to become a wife. Then, your thirties and forties are defined by the role of mother. Maybe a short break in your fifties to focus on yourself as a person, but then you’re hurtled back into the role of grandmother to wait for death. Even more career-minded women, like Miyasato, capitulate to the template and tell you their families come first.

Every choice you make is dedicated not to family but the accumulation of a fat nest egg that will keep you secure in your advanced years. Never mind that you don’t know what you will actually do with yourself once you retire and money is no longer the motivator.

Would you find a hobby? You love to cook, already dedicating two hours every evening to the preparation of multi-course meals, researching new recipes, and shopping around for rare ingredients. In retirement, you could embark on some kind of cooking challenge, like learning a dish from every country in the world. And then, you could set those scrumptiously prepared dishes out to a table of one, eat a few bites, and watch the garbage consume the rest.

You are aware that you are feeling sorry for yourself, but it is hard not to when even the bartender at the titty club is laughing and bantering with customers who know him by name.

“Well, I think you’re in no danger of doing everything life has to offer,” you say after too much time passes. “Focus everything you have on your goal for now, and then, if you achieve it, you’ll find something else to look forward to.”

The conversation draws naturally to a close. Good timing, as you see a man moving in your direction. He is dressed in a white button-down and gold jewelry, limp black hair combed to conceal a receding hairline. A waitress smiles solicitously as he passes, and you know he must be the owner.

“Hanma-san,” the man greets with a blow. To you, he gives a half nod, like he is unsure what courtesy you merit. “I spoke to my colleague about the situation, and we are in agreement. Thank you for trusting us with this. As a token of our appreciation, please enjoy your time here to the fullest. On the house, of course.”

He passes Hanma a folded-up napkin. Inside is a baggie filled with white crystals, almost pretty in the light. You have never seen drugs in person, but you can recognize crystal meth from your textbooks.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Hanma says.

“Um, I mind,” you say immediately. The owner starts like he’s heard a gunshot. “You absolutely cannot take that while on lithium. You are going to overdose and die, and then where will you be?”

Hanma rolls his eyes. “Ten feet under, I suspect.”

“We just had an entire conversation about how you have to live to achieve your goals,” you snap, and then turning to the owner. “Thank you for your…generosity but take it back.” The owner is so pale his black eyes stand out like bugs on his face. He does not move to confiscate the meth.

“You have a point. How about a quid pro quo? If I can’t have my fun now, you need to help me have my fun some other way,” Hanma suggests.

“Not just tonight. All the time. You absolutely cannot take any drugs while you’re on lithium. I shouldn’t have let you even drink that beer, but I allowed it because it was just one. You need to be careful,” you snap.

“Let me…” Hanma rolls the words around on his tongue consideringly.

“Let you,” you restate firmly.

“Well, then, if my life means so much to you. I’m sure you’ll agree to a little something in return.”

Disastrously, you do.

--

There are nine beautiful women working the club tonight. Every one of them is paraded before Hanma for his selection. Each woman is as beautiful as the last, one for every imaginable type: curvy, lithe, glamorous, oxymoronically demure. Hanma picks a woman with long dark hair, dressed more like an idol than a stripper in a frilly multi-colored dress, who calls herself Naomi.

Officially, the club offers lap dances in a row of cubicles partitioned by black curtains that are mere bolts of fabric. Naomi confidently leads you past these seedy receptacles to a private backroom.

The room is dark, lit up by the same pink and purple lighting as the rest of the club. There is a small stage at the front – presumably for private shows, but you suspect is really covers for the illegal activities conducted here – and a three-cushion couch opposite it, where Hanma immediately seats himself. You demure from joining him, choosing instead to sit on the stage. The platform is raised, so your feet dangle off the floor.

“How should we start, Doc? What would you like to see first?” Hanma asks, voice battling the loud EDM music blaring from a TV in the corner.

“I want no part in this. I’m here per our agreement. That’s it,” you say.

“Why did I figure you’d say that?” Hanma laughs.

“Pretend I’m not even here.”

“Does that mean I shouldn’t even look at you?”

“Yes.”

Hanma agrees easily, which surprises you, makes you wary. You wrap your arms around your body protectively to ward off the cold. A fan winds listlessly above your head and an HVAC blows cool air directly onto your skin. Dancing must be sweaty work.

With no regard to the cold, Naomi shimmies out of her garish dress, revealing a pair of panties and no bra. You try not to look but instinctively catalogue the curves of her exposed body and judge it against your own.

You look up, anything to avoid leering at the two of them. But, above their heads, is a mirror mounted to the ceiling that reflects the action back to you. From this angle, you can’t see the expression on Hanma’s face, but you have an unfettered view of his dick, hard and wet.

Naomi lowers to her knees in front of the couch, so that you are presented with her back. She unbuttons Hanma’s pants. This is the first time you’ve see the cock that was inside you. Hanma’s cock sits tall and curved against his stomach. Black hair, the same color as what trails down his stomach thatches at the base.

The head of Hanma’s cock is red and angry, more inflamed than Naomi’s pink tongue as it strokes along the underside.

Long, wet brushes of tongue. Barely started and strands of thick saliva already cling to Naomi’s chin as she slobbers all over the shaft. The impressive length of him becomes glaringly obvious when Naomi holds his cock against her cheek. The tip extends beyond her forehead, the cock taller than her entire head. And that fat, angry, red cock, had been inside you.

As Hanma receives a professional grade blow job, he leans back like nothing is happening. He lights yet another cigarette. The smell of smoke is eaten up by the air freshener that pumps away from an outlet near the stage.

Even as Hanma’s cock is worshipped, you are undeniably aroused.

Naomi moves to suck on Hanma’s balls, face tilted upward, so that you can make out her features through the ceiling mirror. Now that you look closely, there are some surface-level similarities between the two of you. Something in the line of her jaw, similar age. Glancing down, you think the way her ass sits, dimpled as it rests on her high heels is similar as well, the shape of it.

The similarities are enough that if you squint, you can almost imagine that is you on your knees. That you are seated before Hanma like a supplicant.

Naomi abruptly swallows half of Hanma’s cock, making space for something that should not possibly fit.

You touch the base of your neck carefully. Feel the hard cartilage beneath the flesh.

Hanma is different than you might have imagined. Not that you did. Somewhere instinctually, you simply envisioned that he would be rougher with a lover, forcing a woman’s head down and ignoring the choking. The kind of thing you see in porn. Instead, he dominates Naomi’s movements with a casual certitude that doesn’t require roughness. He makes little corrections to her technique with a tug of her hair or a push on her head. Never enough to make her gag, just a signal to adjust.

Your earlier conversation about the pursuit of pleasure returns to you. Perhaps it’s his confidence in the value of pleasure that grants him this effortless ability to pursue it now. You remember nights in the dark, when a lover missed your clit over and over, mashing uselessly at your labia, and you simply let him. Too detached to correct his form.

The intensity of the blow job increases by degrees. First, Naomi’s throat opens up, more of Hanma’s length caressed and sucked with each bob of her head. Then, her hands join in a sticky rhythm to massage the base of him. A line of spit dangles off his shaft every time Naomi returns to the head and is then swallowed up again on the downward descent.

Throughout, Hanma never glances in your direction. His eyes stare to the side and the door, or they study the woman on her knees. He follows your instructions to pretend you’re not there to the letter, and you desperately wish he would stop.

For the first time since you saw him on the street tonight, you feel a yawning distance, like there’s a glass wall, between you both. He is having an experience completely separate from you that you can’t hope to touch. You can’t reach him. You hate it. No different than if you were alone in your living room, scanning through cable TV for lack of anything better to do.

Because he is not looking, you don’t think too carefully as you uncross your arms, and let your fingers trail down the exposed skin of your arms. It tickles a little, a tease that chills your body and heats the spark in your stomach. You shouldn’t do this, vowed that you would not let him touch you again, but you deserve pleasure, too. Don’t you?

Again, you rub tenderly at the flesh of your neck, the shell of your own ear. You watch Naomi as you do. No matter how bored he looks, Hanma must feel good with Naomi laboring over his cock, and now you do too. You feel the distance between you shrink a little, a crack in the glass that separates you from him.

The look on Naomi’s face galvanizes you. Shimmering in her eyes are unshed tears, a furrow to her brow as she forces past her gag to satisfy him. Hanma’s cock must be a battering ram in her throat. You wonder if she is soaked through at having such a big cock inside her. If you were in her place, you would be.

You can’t resist escalating when such simple touches light your blood from within. You rub your bare thighs together to put pressure on your cunt. You pinch your nipples through the fabric of your dress. They are painfully hard, and you bite your lip to contain a gasp at the excruciating contrast.

If Hanma looks at you now, honest and shameless in your feelings, you will combust.

He doesn’t look. Emboldened by his continued obedience, you ruck your dress up over your hips, revealing your panties. They are damp, hardly a barrier as the fabric presses into your folds. You search for your clit and find it peeking (and peaking) through your clitoral hood. Sparks fly in your stomach at the barest graze of your fingertips over the fabric. Greedy, you rub it firmly.

Already, you are close to an edge and desperate to tip over. You imagine Hanma might be as well. You imagine that you are on your knees with that hard cock battering the inside of your throat. He was piercing in your cunt, and he would be in your throat, too, no matter how gently he treated you. He wouldn’t pull out. He would blow his load down your throat, and you would swallow him down with a smile. He would return the favor, drinking from the source of you, eating your pussy with no mercy until you cried.

You couldn’t stop your orgasm now if you wanted to. It approaches with terrible certainty. Your thighs quake before the crest and you close your eyes against the demand it makes of your body. Heat flares, and you whimper pathetically. When you cum, it will damn you.

Your eyes flutter open at the height of the peak and find Hanma’s staring you down. Not through the mirror. Direct eye contact as he strokes his own cock while Naomi mouths at his balls. You cum on the spot.

Your whole body seizes up with it, pussy begging as it flutters around nothing. Waves of euphoria wash from your stomach to your cunt to your fingertips as you buck and moan and continue to rub your aching clit through it. Just as you think the waves are weakening, Hanma grunts and cums on Naomi’s face. The sound incites you, and two more waves of pleasure burst unnaturally from your clit.

Later, you will castigate yourself for your choices today. If only you showed more self-control. If only you remembered your responsibilities as a therapist. Using your body has worked to a degree in capturing his interest and maintaining his focus, but it is not sustainable. You can’t sell your body and pleasure to Hanma in exchange for cooperation.

But, for now, as you slump backwards on the stage, back cold and chest heaving, you can only think that you are doing a damn good job at maximizing your pleasure.

And a damn bad one at minimizing your pain.

[luckystorein22]

Is all real maple syrup the same?

When it comes to maple syrup, many people assume that all products are created equal. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The quality and taste of real maple syrup can vary widely based on factors such as grade, production method, and source. But is it possible to find real maple syrup that’s high-quality and affordable? Lucky for you, the answer is yes!

First, it’s important to understand what sets real maple syrup apart from the artificial varieties commonly found in grocery stores. Real maple syrup is made from the sap of maple trees, which is boiled down to create a thick, sweet liquid. The flavor and color of the syrup depending on the grade, which is determined by factors such as the time of year the sap is harvested and the processing methods used.

At Lucky Store, we offer a variety of real maple syrups that are both delicious and affordable. One of our best-sellers is the Golden Delicate Maple Syrup, which has a light, sweet flavor that’s perfect for drizzling over pancakes, waffles, or oatmeal. This syrup is made from 100% pure maple sap and has a Grade A rating, which means it’s the highest quality available.

If you prefer a darker, more robust maple flavor, our Amber Rich Maple Syrup may be more your style. This syrup has a more pronounced flavor than the Golden Delicate but still maintains a smooth, velvety texture. It’s also made from 100% pure maple sap and has a Grade A rating.

For those looking for a budget-friendly option, our Grade B Maple Syrup is a great choice. While it’s not as refined as the Grade A options, it still has a rich, full flavor that’s perfect for baking or cooking. And because it’s a lower grade, it’s available at a lower price point, making it an excellent choice for those looking to save some money.

So, is all real maple syrup the same? Definitely not! But with Lucky Store’s selection of high-quality, affordable options, you can enjoy the delicious taste of real maple syrup without breaking the bank. Try our Golden Delicate, Amber Rich, or Grade B Maple Syrups today and taste the difference for yourself!

[ammg-old2]

Recently, while seeing a patient in an intensive-care unit at my hospital, I stopped to talk with the critical-care physician on duty, someone I’d known since college. “I’m running a warehouse for the dying,” she said bleakly. Out of the ten patients in her unit, she said, only two were likely to leave the hospital for any length of time. More typical was an almost eighty-year-old woman at the end of her life, with irreversible congestive heart failure, who was in the I.C.U. for the second time in three weeks, drugged to oblivion and tubed in most natural orifices and a few artificial ones. Or the seventy-year-old with a cancer that had metastasized to her lungs and bone, and a fungal pneumonia that arises only in the final phase of the illness. She had chosen to forgo treatment, but her oncologist pushed her to change her mind, and she was put on a ventilator and antibiotics. Another woman, in her eighties, with end-stage respiratory and kidney failure, had been in the unit for two weeks. Her husband had died after a long illness, with a feeding tube and a tracheotomy, and she had mentioned that she didn’t want to die that way. But her children couldn’t let her go, and asked to proceed with the placement of various devices: a permanent tracheotomy, a feeding tube, and a dialysis catheter. So now she just lay there tethered to her pumps, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Almost all these patients had known, for some time, that they had a terminal condition. Yet they—along with their families and doctors—were unprepared for the final stage. “We are having more conversation now about what patients want for the end of their life, by far, than they have had in all their lives to this point,” my friend said. “The problem is that’s way too late.” In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one’s final days in an I.C.U. because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie on a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said goodbye or “It’s O.K.” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.”

People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system’s expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what’s most important to them at the end of their lives.